To the Praise of His Glory

Introduction: The Hymn of Praise to the Triune God

0:02 Our study this morning is in the first chapter of Ephesians, continuing our consideration of this great hymn of praise to God. Now, the hymnal from which we have sung this morning contains many wonderful hymns of praise to God, but there is no hymn penned by human authors that can touch the hymn of praise penned by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul and found in verses 3 through 14 of this first chapter of Ephesians. The first stanza of that hymn is particularly addressed to God the Father. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. The second stanza of the hymn, beginning with verse 7 and going, going down through verse 12, is addressed particularly to the Son, in whom, that is, in Christ, we have our redemption through His blood. Then that stanza opens up some lines of thought concerning our salvation as it relates particularly to the activity of the Son.

1:22 And then in verses 13 and 14, the third stanza of the hymn has distinct reference, to God the Holy Spirit, in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And so you have a great hymn to the triune God. Praise to the Father, praise to the Son, praise to the Holy Ghost. Now, as the Apostle contemplated, the salvation, which had come to him from this triune God, his heart and mind were so ablaze with the reality of that salvation, that he could not do anything other than pen this hymn, beginning with those words, Blessed be God. Now, our present study is focusing upon the first stanza of that hymn, namely the praise that is attributed to God the Father, for His, distinct part in our salvation. The first thing for which the Apostle praises Him is that general thing, in verse 3, that this God and Father of the Lord Jesus has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

The Basis, Goal, and Meritorious Cause of the Father's Work

2:48 Then in verses 4 and 5, as we have noted week by week, he brings into focus the two specific parts of our salvation, which are in a special way attributed to the Father, namely, election unto holiness, verse 4, and predestination unto sonship, verse 5. Now, after attributing election and foreordination to the Father, and blessing Him for those two great works of the Father, as they relate to our salvation, he concludes this first stanza of praise, by laying out three very basic concepts, with relationship to what the Father has done in our salvation. And he says in verse, the last part of verse 5, that the basis of these works of the Father was this, according to the good pleasure of His will. So then the basis of election and foreordination is God's will, the cause. Then secondly, in verse 6, he gives us two other lines of truth, to the praise of the glory of His grace, that's the ultimate goal for which the Father elected and foreordained, His praise.

4:14 And then the third line of thought, the meritorious cause is His Son, which He bestowed upon us in the Beloved. So you have those three thoughts, God's will, that's the reason, God's praise, that's the goal, and God's Son, He is the meritorious cause. Last week we looked at the first of those three things, namely, the good pleasure of His will, and we saw that behind the great blessings of being chosen in Christ, and foreordained to adoption as sons, was the activity of God's own sovereign will, but an activity of His will which caused Him delight. When He chose to have a people who would be holy, and when He chose to have sons unto Himself, it filled His heart with delight, and so it was according to the happy choice of His own sovereign will. Now, what is God's ultimate goal in all of this? Why should God, who never needed us in the first place, for He existed from eternity, not frustrated, not empty, but a God who I may say I trust reverently,

God's Ultimate Goal: The Praise of the Glory of His Grace

5:37 perfectly self-satisfied in Himself, in the adoring relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, there was no incompleteness, there was no frustration, there was no lack, well, why should this God who never needed us in the first place, after having created us and endowed us with such blessing, and we turned away from Him, why should He do anything other than just blot us all out, send us back into non-existence? Why should He elect that out of that mass of fallen humanity there would be people who would be restored to holiness? He never needed us in the first place. Why should He restore us to that condition?

6:21 He was perfectly satisfied when He had no sons but His own, eternal sons. Why should He predestine some unto adoption as sons? What's the ultimate end that He has in view in all of this? Well, verse 6 answers that question.

6:37 Notice. He did these things according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace. And the word to, translated to, is that Greek word which has the idea of purpose. Everything that the Father has done, recorded in verses 4 and 5, choosing us or ordaining us, has as its goal the praise of the glory of His grace.

7:17 That's why He did it. That He might be able to display and manifest His grace, and that having displayed it, men might see it and render praise unto Him. Now to think our way through, then, this concept of the ultimate goal of the Father's work of election and predestination, let's try to define these words. Praise of the glory of His grace.

Defining Praise, Glory, and Grace

7:49 For if that's the ultimate purpose, we better understand what those words mean. Now what does the word praise mean? The same word found in verse 12 of this same chapter. That we should be to the praise of His glory.

8:03 Same word found in verse 14. Unto the praise of His glory. Well, I think we could describe or define praise as favorable recognition or commendation with delight. Let me illustrate.

8:24 Here's a little league game going on. Saturday afternoon. It's the last of the seventh inning. Five, five innings.

8:31 How many of you play in little league? Five innings? Five? Seven.

8:35 Five. All right. So five innings. So it's the last of the fifth inning.

8:41 And so the team is behind three to two. There's a man on base. And Joey's standing up at the bat. The count's three and two.

8:51 And down comes a fastball right down the pipe. And he hits it right on the snoot. And out it goes over the fence. And everybody cheers.

8:58 He wins the game. The score is now four to three. And they've won the game. And when he comes over the plate and the crowd all breaks out in the field, there's the father of little Joey.

9:08 He's got his arm around him. Ah, boy, son, you really sucked it. You see, he's giving him what? He's giving him praise.

9:14 Favorable commendation with delight. But now on the other side of the field, Henry, the pitcher of the other team, his father's over there trying to console him. And he says to Henry, he says, boy, he says, that kid really sucked that ball, didn't he? Now, you see, he's making an acknowledgment of that good hit that Joe made.

9:36 But he's not praising him for it. It's a grudging acknowledgment of accomplishment. But it's not praise. Now, you see the difference?

9:45 Praise involves something of delight in the heart of the one who is making the commendation. It involves favor in the heart. In the heart and spirit of the one who is recognizing the virtue or the accomplishment of another. So, when we read that the father's ultimate purpose in electing and foreordaining men to salvation and all of its blessings is the praise of the glory of his grace, it has to do with this favorable recognition, this commendation with true delight.

10:26 Now, what does the word glory mean? It's a word used numerous ways in the scriptures, and I don't have time this morning to show you the many, many ways in which it is used. But in this particular, particular context, as in many others, it basically means the manifested excellence of something or someone. When something that has intrinsic beauty or excellence manifests that excellence, what is manifested is its glory.

11:01 You do not see or perceive the glory of the sun on a cloudy day. Now, there is glory in the sun. All you need to do is break up through the cloud cover in an airplane, and you are conscious that the sun always has an intrinsic excellence and beauty. But on a clear day like today, you and I can behold the glory of the sun.

11:27 We can perceive its manifested excellence. Now, that's what the word glory means here. So put the two thoughts together. Now, what do you have?

11:39 The Father elected and foreordained with this golden view that there should be favorable recognition with delight of the manifested, the displayed excellence of what? Of His grace. Grace. This word so dominant in this very epistle, this word that occurs in verse 7 of the first chapter, and then occurs again in chapter 2 verse 5, chapter 2 verse 7, chapter 2 verse 8.

12:17 Now, what does the word grace mean? Well, let me ask you, will you try to define God? You can't define grace. All you can do is sort of make a stab at trying to say what grace is not, perhaps, and how it's different from other attributes of God.

12:35 But grace is basically, and I like this definition that I've gotten from one of the commentators, God's spontaneous, unmerited favor in action. His freely bestowed loving kindness in operation, bestowing salvation upon guilt-laden sinners. Mercy is pity in action in the light of definite need, in the light of what we would call misery. Here's a beggar sitting by a wayside, and you walk by and you see him in his misery.

13:16 He has no claim upon you, but you are moved with pity. And in mercy, you give the man some money, or you take him into your home, and you clothe him, and you feed him. That's mercy. That's pity in the face of misery.

13:32 But grace has to do with favor, not in the face of misery, but in the face of guilt. It's the picture, not of a fellow citizen coming by a beggar and showing compassion, but the king coming by that same beggar who knows that this man has been reduced to that state, to that state of being a beggar, because he's rebelled against the laws of the land. He's an outcast and a fugitive, and when the king recognizes him, he sees him as a guilty subject whom he could consign to death. But instead, he takes him into his palace, he clothes him, he meets all of his needs, and then he legally adopts him and makes him a co-heir with his son. That's grace. You see, grace is always couched in the context, not of the misery that sin has produced, but the guilt. So grace is God's what?

14:33 His spontaneous, unmerited favor in action toward guilty sinners. Now will you put those three things together and catch the meaning of the Apostle's words? What is God's ultimate goal in electing men to holiness, in predestinating men unto sonship? It's that there should be the praise of the glory of His grace.

The Message: God's Glory in All Works, Especially Redemption

15:06 That is, that there should be amongst all intelligent creatures the adoring recognition of the manifested excellence of the kindness of God to guilty sinners. That's God's goal in these great blessings that He has conferred upon us. Now having looked at the meaning of the words, what is their message to us? Let me suggest three things.

15:42 First of all, these words are a reminder that the end of all God's work in general is the manifestation of His glory. The end of all of God's work in general is the manifestation of His glory. Two texts of Scripture. Romans 11.36 For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things to whom be what? Be glory. If you were to ask a man, what is the ultimate purpose of everything that is in the world as we know it? Here's the answer.

16:38 The end of all God's work in general is the manifestation of His glory. Of Him, through Him, and unto Him are all things to whom be glory. Revelation 4.11 underscores that same principle.

16:56 I read that text. Worthy art thou, O Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power. Why? For thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were and were created.

17:14 Here, these living creatures about the throne acknowledge that everything that has been created is to the ultimate end that God Himself will be glorified. And in a day in which our minds are bombarded by the grandiose claims and schemes of men and the sweeping declarations of what man is going to do and what man is going to accomplish, we need to remind ourselves that the end of all God's work in general is the manifestation of His glory. But now our text brings closer to home this second principle. It is a declaration that the end of all God's work in redemption is the manifestation of the glory of His grace. Just as surely as the end of all His works in general is the manifestation of His glory in general, so this text says that the end of His work in redemption is the manifestation of the glory of His grace. Now think through. Grace lay in the heart of God from all eternity since He is called in Scripture the God of all grace.

18:39 That disposition that would cause God to actively display loving kindness to guilty sinners, that's not something that was injected into the heart of God after man was conceived as a sinner. No, no. Grace was in the heart of God an essential part of His being from all eternity. But you see, it takes redemption to set the stage for the display of that grace.

19:16 And it's in redemption alone that this grace comes to its full manifestation. Think with me. Just as certainly as power and wisdom and holiness and justice are all bound up in the display of grace, there's a sense in which grace is bound up in the display of God's power and holiness and wisdom in other places. Certainly His power was manifested in creating worlds out of nothing.

19:46 I think the most vivid manifestation of the power of God outside of the resurrection is Genesis 1. And God said, Light. And there was a word light. I love the beautiful simplicity of that.

20:05 A display of power when galaxies and we're just beginning to discover how many there may be. And the head of the scientist and the astronomer swims when he talks about billions of light years when all of this spilled out of the womb of nothing when God said, Let it be. And it was. What a display of power.

20:26 What a display of wisdom. The intricate machinery of the universe. Whether you look out in the macroscopic vision of the 200 inch telescope or whether you turn the microscope down and look at the intricate workings of the tiniest forms of life. What is there?

20:50 Order. Intricate overlaying the wisdom of God. He's displayed it in creation. The power of God displayed in creation.

21:02 The holiness of God displayed in history. You wake up some morning you look out with Abraham and you see two cities going up like a furnace and you say, Hey, what's happened over there? You say, God's rained down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Why?

21:25 Well, they were a little ahead of their times. Just now we're beginning to be smart and sophisticated and talk about homosexuality being, quote, a valid lifestyle. Way back there, the very word used in our courts is what? Sodomy.

21:42 It goes back to a people who accepted homosexuality as a lifestyle and justified it until God said, I'm sick of it. The heavens open. Fire and brimstone comes down and he consumes the nations of the plain. God says, I'll show you about your lifestyle.

22:01 I'll show you about your lifestyle. I made you a sexual creature and I made you heterosexual. I made the man to compliment the woman and when you defy me and say, I don't care how you made me, God, I'll use this body and its passions and faculties any way I see fit, God says, all right, then I'll destroy you and that body. What a display of God's holiness.

22:29 His power in creation. His wisdom in creation. His holiness. May I say his forbearance in bearing patiently with the nations of men when after the flood having destroyed the human race.

22:44 God says, I know they deserve it another time but I'll never do it again. And he puts the bow in the sky as a reminder. But let me ask you a question. Where was the full manifestation of his grace?

23:02 Ephesians 1 says this is where it comes to light. Blessed be God who chose us in Christ to be holy, who foreordained us unto adoption as sons to the praise of the glory of the Lord the Lord the glory of his grace. Grace is fully displayed in the blessings of redemption. That a holy God should take unholy sinners and choose them unto a life in which one day they will reflect his very moral image.

Exhortation to Praise the Magnitude of God's Grace

23:36 Blessed be God Paul says that he's displayed his grace in redemption in a way that he's not displayed it anywhere else. And so then that's the second principle that grows out of these words. They are not only a reminder that the end of all of his work in general is the manifestation of his glory, a declaration that the end of his work in redemption is the manifestation of the glory of his grace, but thirdly they are an exhortation to so perceive the magnitude of the glory of his grace as to be lost in praise. Notice he chose us he foreordained us not to the manifestation of the glory of his grace alone but to the praise of the glory of his grace. In other words God is not content simply to say look here's the display of my grace now acknowledge it. No, no. He said here's the display of my grace and the truth of it be so understood and so absorbed into your spirit and mind and heart until you're caught up in praise and you with Paul say blessed be God

25:04 for such grace. These words then contain an exhortation to so perceive the magnitude of the glory of grace as to be lost in praise. The glory of it be seen received and marveled at. Oh dear Christian may I press home a word of exhortation study the grace of God often.

25:34 God has revealed grace that you might praise the glory of grace and when you simply say oh yeah I'm saved by the grace of God but aren't thrilled by it or the glory of his grace. He doesn't want you to be like the pitcher's father and yeah well it's obvious it's all a grace so I've got to acknowledge it. Yeah he sure hit that no no he wants you to be like Joe's father. I'm going to give you a call so I'm going to send you an email from my home and you can go to the website where I can get you a are the two things by which we come to praise the glory of His grace. So the minute you begin to pare down the biblical teaching about the deep, pervasive depravity of man

27:03 and the sovereignty and the freeness of the purposes of salvation, you're whittling away at the magnitude of grace. And you can still retain the word grace on your lips, but there won't be the praise of the glory of grace in your heart unless that heart holds in itself some biblical concepts of how bad I am and how wonderful that God should ever have set His love upon the likes of me. Then praise the grace of God in your heart. Learn to praise His grace with your lips.

27:45 Learn to praise His grace in your witness. Men don't understand grace. I was having my ears lowered the other day. That may date me.

27:55 That's an old-timer's term, you young fellows, for getting a haircut is having your ears lowered, you see. And as I've often had the opportunity of bearing witness in my barber shop, I have a good relationship with these men, the Roman Catholics.

28:14 I thought I'd try to slip in a little witness by saying, I hope you don't believe what you've read about the so-called Holy War going over in Ireland. I said, I was over there a few weeks ago. And I said, when you get over there, you realize that it's not a Holy War. Well, what's behind it?

28:27 Well, it's just the fact that somebody was born a Catholic and somebody else born a Protestant, and they've been taught to hate one another, and that's it. Just like in some neighborhoods. My neighborhood where I grew up, the Irish kids used to fight with the Italian kids because they were taught, the Irish, that the Italians were no good, and the Italians were taught that the Irish kids were no good. And I said, there was no religious significance.

28:49 And they said, well, well, you're a Protestant because you were born one, aren't you? I said, no. They said, what do you mean, young? I said, I'm not what I am today because I was born in a home where these things were taught.

29:01 And when I tried to explain to them that I am what I am by not hereditary influences, but by the grace of God, they couldn't understand it. They just couldn't understand it. I said, well, you mean something like this change came over, and now you've got to come gradually, doesn't it? I said, uh-oh.

29:19 The Bible says it's like a birth. I said, were you born gradually?

29:25 No, there's a day when you have a birthday. You were born. Now, granted, there may be that which is akin to conception when the truth first begins to take hold in the heart and the period of gestation when you're under conviction. But there comes a time when you pass from death unto life.

29:42 And you pass from death unto life not because of the influence of mom and dad in the church and genes in heredity, but by the grace and power of God. What are you talking about? Well, you know, I was glad they couldn't understand me. I was glad they couldn't understand what's happened to me.

30:01 Because the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness unto him. When you've given your testimony biblically, you ought to leave unsafe people standing there scratching their heads saying, what in the name of common sense are they talking about?

30:20 When you've been able to so explain it that they understand it while yet in their minds they're saying, well, you know, I was glad they couldn't understand me. Well, you know, I was glad they couldn't understand me. Well, you know, I was glad they couldn't understand me. In their sins you have not spoken of grace.

30:29 You've given the impression that you turned over a new leaf and you're living right and you've got religion. They can understand that. But when you talk about the glory of divine grace, God's unmerited favor to the guilty that transforms them not for anything in them but because He chose them and foreordained them, they stand there and they scratch their head. When's the last time anybody, scratched his head when you got done telling them why you are what you are?

31:00 You left anybody scratching his head?

31:04 Isn't that what the scripture says? Wherefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. That's what the scripture says. The world knoweth us not.

Grace: The Only Way to Heaven for Guilty Sinners

31:13 They can't understand it because they couldn't understand Him. Oh, child of God, study the grace of God. Praise the grace of God and listen to me, some of you here, strangers to God's grace. If you're ever to be made fit to dwell with God, God in holiness, if you're ever to be made fit to dwell with Him as a son, it must be in a way that will make the grace of God great and glorious in your eyes.

31:41 God's purposes of mercy are in no way rooted in what you are or in what you can do or have done. If some of you were transported to heaven today, you'd start walking up the streets of heaven and say, oh, what a delightful place. Isn't it wonderful that God took enough recognition of my good background to bring me to this delightful place?

32:04 Or some of you, if you were transported there, you'd say, oh, this is a most lovely place, a most delightful place. Isn't it nice that God took account of my religious sensitivity that I cultivated and nurtured by going to church on Easter or a couple other times during the year? Isn't it so nice that God's brought...

32:24 My friend, ain't nobody in heaven going to be talking that way.

32:28 Nobody's going to be talking about His heritage, about His trade, about His love, about His training, about His culture.

32:34 If your feet ever walk the streets of the New Jerusalem, my friend, they'll walk it because of the grace of God. And all who are there in His presence have one song, one song, one song, amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Nice.

33:07 I say to you unsaved people, young and old, visitors or those who frequent this place, if you're ever to be in God's heaven, sharing God's likeness as one of God's adopted sons, you better start praying that God would reveal His grace to you in Jesus Christ. Well, I must very quickly now move to the last phrase,

Grace Bestowed 'In the Beloved': Christ's Unique Role

33:38 which in a very real sense is the transition from stanza one into stanza two. And here it is. Grace which He bestowed upon us in the Beloved, I think is the way our version renders it.

33:58 Grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Now there's some problem with the actual text here, and I don't want to take you into all of that, but I'm satisfied in my own mind, and if you have questions, I'll be glad to tell you why I'm satisfied, that a accurate, accurate rendering of the sense of Paul's words is this.

34:19 He has chosen us and foreordained us to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He graced us in the Beloved. There's a play on words in the original. He uses a word to the praise of the glory of His grace, and He takes that same root word and brings it over into a verb form, with which He graced us in the Beloved. In other words, as the display of God's grace is the ultimate end of God's redemption, so the meritorious cause of that redemption and all of the grace that He shows is to be found in His own dear Son. So it can be properly rendered, grace which He graciously granted us, or grace with which He graced us in the Beloved. Now notice two things in this phrase. What Christ is called, and secondly, what Christ is constituted.

35:25 Christ is called the Beloved One. This is the term used of the people of God. Many places in Scripture they are called Beloved. In fact, when you hear preachers say Dearly Beloved or Beloved, it's because they're thinking Scripture.

35:42 It's a word used of the people of God as Beloved. Beloved of God. But Christ alone is called, now follow closely, the Beloved One. God has many Beloved Ones, but He has only one Beloved.

36:03 The Beloved One is the term used of our Lord showing that He is the special and peculiar object of the Father's love. You remember at His baptism the Father spoke from heaven and said, This is my Son, my Beloved. He spoke again in the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus in John 17.24 speaks, He said, That the love wherewith thou hast loved me before the world was may be the love that the people of God will know. And it would seem that that peculiar love has a distinct reference to the Lord Jesus and His willingness to accept the role of a mediator. Now I say that because the Father calls Him His Beloved in two distinct places in the Gospels. The first one at His baptism.

36:57 What was Jesus doing at His baptism?

37:00 He was officially and formally identifying Himself as the mediator of sinners. He's submitting to a sinner's ordinance. Saying in essence, Why have I come? I have come to identify myself with sinful man.

37:19 And it's in that context that the Father speaks out of Heaven. This is my Son, my Beloved One. Again, in Matthew 17. What is the subject of conversation in the Mount of Transfiguration with Elias and Moses?

37:36 It says, They spoke of His decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem. They were talking about the Lord Jesus going up to Jerusalem to die for sinners. And it's in that context of embracing the Father's purpose unto death that the Father says, This is my Son, my Beloved. Hear Him.

37:58 So I would suggest, and this is not original with me, had it confirmed in my reading of other portions, that when the Son is called the Beloved One, it is a peculiar love of the Father that has reference to Him as the One who was willing to assume the role of a mediator and not the one who was willing to assume the role of a mediator. He did not grudgingly but willingly lay down His life. Listen to Christ's words in John 10.17.

38:26 Therefore my Father loveth me because why? I lay down my life for the sheep. He said, My Father has a special love to me with reference to my willingness to lay down my life for my sheep. So when He's called by Paul, the Beloved One, I believe that squeezed into that word is all the richness of the biblical thought of the Father's special affection to the Son when He willingly embraced the place of a mediator willing to lay down His life on behalf of His people and because of what He is called He has therefore constituted something special to the people of God. So that's our second line of thought. We are accepted or grace is poured upon us in the Beloved. The one who is especially beloved of God is constituted the cause for which the people of God can also be beloved.

Union with Christ: The Source of All Blessing

39:39 All of this grace, notice the Apostle says, has been poured upon us in one place in the Beloved. The grace, the grace of election. What was it? Remember?

39:53 He chose us in Him. The grace of predestination to sonship. What was it? He foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.

40:10 So then the grace of election and predestination was in Him and through Him. Christ is beloved for His own sake. God can look upon His Son and say, My Beloved One. But listen, Christian.

40:26 You are beloved not for your sake but for His sake alone. In yourself you're detestable to God. You're obnoxious to God. There's everything in you to draw out His wrath and His judgment away with this sickening sentimental slosh about God-loving men apart from the Beloved.

40:53 It's not the God of the Bible. If angels who rebelled once were cast out and committed to chains of everlasting darkness awaiting the great day of judgment, what makes you think His anger burns any less to impenitent rebel sinners who carry out their foul rebellion day after day and week after week and month after month? It's ridiculous. It's unscriptural.

41:23 But blessed be God, if we are found in Christ. We are beloved for His sake. So Paul says, this grace with which He graced us is found in the Beloved One. Therefore, the Christ who is called the Beloved One is constituted the source of all spiritual blessing that will come to the people of God.

A Plea to Unbelievers and a Call to Praise for Believers

42:02 Oh, I would speak this morning in conclusion to those of you who've got some kind of a vague notion that the man upstairs and the God out there is the great benevolent One who just loves all His creatures and everything will turn out all right. As Red Barber said in his interview with Barry Farber a few weeks ago, he said, well, Barry, you know, if you believe in a God, then you know everything's going to turn out all right for everybody. That's your philosophy. Everything's going to turn out all right.

42:36 My friend, you're living in a fool's paradise. Everything won't turn out all right for the Scripture says, the wrath of God abideth on him that believeth not. God is angry with the wicked every day. If you have some vague notion about a God who is some kind of vague, unprincipled love apart from His Son, Christ, I say again, the judgment will be a rude awakening for you.

43:02 Oh, I plead with you to ask yourself this question, am I in Christ this morning? Have I been graced with grace in Christ? Am I beloved in Christ? And for Christ's sake, are you joined to Him in a living faith?

43:19 Have you been made a new creature in Him? Do you have the marks of new life in Christ? If not, my friend, I wouldn't trade places with you for all the wealth of the world and whatever wealth may exist in the whole universe. For the canopy of divine wrath rests upon your head this morning and it's only a heartbeat that keeps that wrath from crushing down upon your head and pressing you to the deepest hell.

43:50 My friend, if you want to have biblical confidence of God's love, then you must be in the Beloved. The only way to be found in Christ is to repent and to believe the Gospel. Cast yourself upon Him. Entreat God.

44:08 Greet God for Christ's sake to have mercy upon you that you may be found in Him. And if you are in Him this morning, if you as a young person, an adult, a mother, a dad, if you can say, yes, I am in Christ, then may God grant that the end for which He has put you in Christ may be realized in you, that you may praise the glory of the grace of the Father, grace that placed you in Christ not only when you were converted, but grace, and I don't understand the mystery of it, that placed you in Christ in eternity, chosen in Him, foreordained unto adoption of sons through Him. And the Apostle says, the cause of all of this blessing was the Beloved in whom we found favor. Even in eternity. Don't grudgingly acknowledge the fact of election to holiness and predestination to sonship.

45:18 Rather, give to God the adoring recognition of these great blessings of His grace and of His mercy. May I close with a very simple question this morning? Has the end for which God has displayed His grace been realized in you? How long has it been since you've given to God adoring acknowledgement with sheer delight of that blazing display of His unmerited favor in Jesus Christ, favor which is terminated upon you as a guilty sinner?

45:59 How long has it been since you've been able to sing from the heart amazing grace? Or have you sung in half-asleep amazing grace how sweet? What an insult to God. What an insult to God.

46:17 Fallen angels will never sing amazing grace. They'll put their hands on their mouths and confess inflexible justice, consigned us to everlasting torment. And when they sink into hell, they'll do so vindicating the justice of God, but they'll never sing His praise, the praise of the glory of His grace. That's a privilege afforded only to one redeemed sinful man and woman.

46:52 What a terrible thing to rob God of the very end for which He revealed Himself in grace. I don't understand why He would conceive a plan in eternity that would have its ultimate goal, a great multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe and tongue and nation, singing the praises of His grace. But that's what He wanted, and that's what He's going to get. May God grant that we should be found in that number.

47:27 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him, in love having foreordained us unto adoption as sons unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. There's the basic cause of it, the good pleasure of His will. To the praise of the glory of His grace, that's the ultimate purpose which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. There's the meritorious cause. Is your salvation expressed in those concepts? Do you gladly acknowledge God's will? Lay at the root of it?

48:25 God's praise is at the end, and Christ and His merit and virtue as the Beloved, the One by whom alone such blessings could come. This is the salvation for which the Apostle blesses God. And if you bless Him for any other kind of salvation, it's not the salvation of Scripture. May God grant that we shall thus praise Him.