By Grace Ye Have Been Saved

Introduction: The Compendium of Salvation by Grace

0:02 I would encourage you to turn in your own Bible to Ephesians chapter 2 as we continue our very careful analysis of this portion of the word of God. Our Lord said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And there are portions of scripture in which that statement finds a very literal expression as every single word is pregnant with significance and meaning and therefore demands the kind of minute scrutiny that we are giving to this passage. Basically, in the second chapter of the Ephesians, as you've been told, week after week we have a set of contrasts. The first contrast being bounded by verses 1 to 10 and the last verses 11 to the end of the chapter. We are presently studying that first contrast in which the Apostle gives to us in verses 1 to 3 a description of what men are by nature and in verses 4 to 10 what they become by the grace of God. And thus far in our study of this contrast, having gone through the graphic description of man's condition by nature, dead, bound, and condemned,

1:29 we are now concerned, with understanding the various elements in this wonderful transformation which grace effects in the lives of sinners. We have seen, according to verse 4, that God himself is the author of the transformation, but God and all that follows is an extended commentary and description not of the activity of the sinner in helping himself, but of the activity of God in rescuing, that sinner. Then we studied together the motive which prompted God to effect so great a transformation. According to verse 4, that motive is described as rich mercy and great love. And then we looked in some detail at the method God used. What method did he use to effect this great transformation? And verses 5 and 6 tell us, he quickened us together with Christ.

2:29 He raised us up. He raised us up together with Christ and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. Well, what then was his goal in all of this? Verse 7, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

2:51 And so we are told that God is the author of the transformation. It was love and mercy that motivated him. His method was to bring us into unity, union with his Son. And his goal was to make us showcases of his grace.

3:07 Having then told us that, the apostle then in verses 8 to 10 gives us a further summary, commentary and expansion upon everything that is gone before. And I have called these verses a compendium of salvation by grace. And my youngest last week said, Daddy, I know what a compendium is. Because I said, your parents ought to ask you kids.

3:33 And she was so proud of herself, she didn't wait for me to ask. She told me. But a compendium is a summary of the essential information in brief form. It is a concise but comprehensive statement.

3:47 And if you would understand what is taught from Genesis to Revelation, and I mean this sincerely, if you want to understand the basic truths from Genesis to Revelation with reference to salvation, salvation by grace, you will have such an understanding if you grasp the meaning of the words in verses 8 to 10 of Ephesians 2. You understand the relationship of the meaning of the words to each other and to the entire passage. This is a compendium of everything taught in Scripture on salvation by grace. And if you understand that, you are in your own right a theologian of grace.

4:29 And if you experience that, experience from the heart what is taught here, you are a saint by the operations of grace. And all we did last week in our introductory study to these three verses was to ask and answer one fundamental question. And the question was this. Why was the apostle so concerned to describe the grace of God in such plain terms, to qualify it, to hedge it up from abuse, to give us what he gives us in the first seven verses?

The Apostle's Purpose: Protecting the Purity of Grace

5:06 A display of the work of grace so evident, so obvious that no one would ever say that salvation was of man. Why does he give us verses 8 to 10? Recapitulating, reemphasizing, expanding, underscoring this great concept of salvation by grace. Well, the answer to that question is because of the constant, the constant tendency of the human heart to pervert the grace of God.

5:35 The stream of grace comes from God as a pure, crystal clear stream. And as it comes to sinners with saving benefits, it comes as a stream of pure grace. But man is constantly polluting it at the inlet as grace touches him, and he's polluting it at the outlet as grace goes out from him. In its intended effect and influence.

6:05 And so this passage is calculated to create a sentry who stands and protects the inlet, verses 8 and 9, and a sentry who stands to protect the outlet at verse 10. And therefore the grace of God is preserved in these verses from any mixture of human merit and human effort in verses 8 and 9. By grace, you say, and through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works that no man should glory. That's keeping grace pure at the inlet.

6:40 Salvation is all of grace, not of human effort, human merit, human works, and even my faith is not a work, but is an expression of the grace of God working in me. Ah, but someone says, if I'm saved wholly by the work of another, then what I do makes no difference. Paul says, no. For, verse 10, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

7:10 So if grace has come into my life in its purity, it will flow out of my life in its sanctifying influences. And so the grace of God is preserved from these two great abuses of legalism and works righteousness and antinomianism and antinomianism and antinomianism and indifference to holiness. So much then for what we covered in about 50 minutes last week, in about three and a half minutes, now we come to consider the verses themselves. Having convinced you, I trust, of the tremendous importance of these verses, their significance in the whole scope of revelation, what do they set before us?

Overview of Ephesians 2:8-10's Structure

7:55 Well, let me give you a broad overview and then we'll attack the first two things that I will mention. We have, first of all, this transformation described as to its essential nature. Everything that Paul has described in verses 4 to 7, what can you call it as to its essential nature? Well, Paul says you call it having been saved.

8:19 For by grace ye have been saved. So then, the essential nature of this transformation is that of being saved. Then he tells us something about the transformation described as to its principal cause. By grace ye have been saved.

8:40 The essential nature of the transformation, being saved. The principal cause, by grace. What then is the instrumental means? Look at the text.

8:51 Through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. The essence of the means, faith. The source of that means, the gift of God. Then, we have the transformation cleared of a false cause and a false end.

9:07 Not of works, that's a false cause, that no man should glory. That's a false end. So what he gives us positively at the beginning, he now gives us negatively. Then he tells us that the transformation is to be traced in its ultimate source to what?

9:23 God's work. For we are His workmanship, and then the transformation is described in its immediate effects, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. So basically, there are those six lines of truth that will follow out as we seek to understand this passage, and will take as much time as is necessary to do justice to these words of the Holy Spirit. First of all, then, the transformation described as to its essential nature.

The Essential Nature of Transformation: Being Saved

9:54 You'll remember way up in verse 5, many weeks, maybe even several months ago, when the apostles, when the Apostle Paul began to describe the divine method in rescuing sinners, he did it in a very strange way. He said, even when we were dead through our trespasses, and now he touches the first aspect of the application of salvation, made us alive together with Christ, and before he progresses to bring in the other aspects, he pauses and puts in this parenthetical statement, for by grace have ye been saved. In other words, the moment he begins to describe the transformation, he stops and tells us what his main point is. His main point is to emphasize that the transformation is essentially that of being saved by grace. It is a being saved. It is a being saved by grace.

11:00 And now when he comes to, this more formal and more expanded thesis concerning salvation by grace, he repeats the very phrase of verse 5, for by grace have ye been saved. And so the transformation that was involved in being quickened, raised, and seated with Christ, Paul says, put it all together, and one word describes it, saved. Now what is the meaning of the word? Saved.

11:34 This word that is mocked by the worldly and the sophisticated is part of dirty-nose, baggy-trouser religion. You say to the average so-called sophisticated worldly man, saved, and he immediately thinks of, I don't know what else to call it, but dirty-nose, baggy-trousered religion. This word that is scoffed at by the religious liberal who spurns the biblical concepts of guilt, and of wrath, and of judgment. Saved?

12:06 That's a word that's not needed in our vocabulary, they say. And sad to say, it's a word abused so often by the wild-eyed fanatic who brandishes his Bible and says, Jesus saves.

The 'Snowball' Word: Tracing 'Saved' Through Scripture

12:23 Well, though it's scoffed at, and mocked at, and sneered at, and abused, it is one of the most precious words in all of Holy Scripture. And you ought to have a biblical understanding of what the Bible means when it says, by grace ye have been saved. And like most biblical words, it's one of those snowman words. You know, I'm not going to be able to use this illustration much more if we don't have a decent winter one of these years.

12:54 Kids are growing up and never, never made a snowman. That's a shame. I mean, no one's lived unless you've made a snowman. But back in the old, in the old days, when I was a kid, and we had real snowfalls, you started your snowman by packing a ball of snow and it had to be nice, wet snow, or it was just frustrating when you tried it with that dry, fluffy stuff.

13:15 But with nice, wet snow and you packed yourself a nice, hard snowball, nice and round, you put it down and then you started to roll it. And each time you rolled it, it picked up snow, picked up more, picked up more, and then you'd turn it the other way because it was beginning to get lopsided and you'd roll it that way, right? And then you'd turn it the other way and then it would break. And then you'd stick it back together again until you were done and you had your big, big thing of snow.

13:39 Now, how did you get that big ball of snow out of which you made your snowman? Well, you started with the same stuff with which you ended up. It wasn't qualitatively different. You started with the same shape.

13:52 It was the same stuff, snow, same shape, round. But what you did is, as you rolled it through the snow, it picked up size. It increased in dimension. But it was not a, it wasn't a qualitative difference.

14:05 It was a quantitative difference. So, in a sense, the whole bottom half of that snowman and the whole top half and then his head, if you made a three-piece snowman as we used to make, was simply an extension of what you started with with your first little wet snowball. Now, that's the way many words are in the Bible. They come to us as a little compact snowball way at the beginning of Genesis.

14:30 And then as they roll through the scriptures, they pick up more snow. You see? Until when they come deposited in the epistles of the New Testament, they are not qualitatively different from what we found them in Genesis. They are simply quantitatively richer.

14:48 They are fuller. They do not contradict. It's not as though you had a square thing here and a round thing here or triangular. No, no.

14:56 It is essentially the same thing but fleshed out in all the fullness that has now come with the full revelation of God. In Jesus Christ. And that's what we find with reference to the word saved. The snowball is initially packed by the hands of God in Genesis chapter 3.

15:17 When in that setting of Adam and Eve's deflection from his own holy law, God himself takes the initiative and says, I, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, and God says that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. There is the first appearance of the snowball. And now God begins to roll it. And as it rolls through the Old Testament revelation, it picks up tremendous significance at the time of the Exodus.

15:55 When God came to his people in the midst of Egyptian bondage and by power and by blood brought them out through the Red Sea, that was celebrated as the salvation of God. Then through the period of the judges and on into the kings, when God would raise up competent leaders through whose leadership and sword the enemies of the nation of Israel were defeated and the inheritance of the people of God was secured. You know what that was called again and again? God's saving activity.

16:29 And the judges and the kings were called the saviors of Israel. And then the thing gathers more momentum when the prophets begin to speak under the time of the kings and they talk about a deliverer who will come, who will turn away reproach and sin and bondage from Israel and wonder of wonders, who will even bring deliverance to the isles and to the Gentiles. And so the snowball gathers momentum and gathers size. And as it does, the concepts of deliverance from ill, deliverance from ill, deliverance from ill, unto blessing, deliverance from the effects of sin to the gracious designs of redemption, that concept begins to come through with ever increasing clarity until the time arrives, the time the scripture calls the fullness of times. And when the angel announces that a little humble peasant virgin is going to be the human instrument through which the Savior shall come, notice how this note stands prominent, thou shalt come, thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save. Now you see, you must not look at the appearance of the word save on the first page of the New Testament as the beginning of the snowball. No, no.

17:47 It's already gathered tremendous dimensions. And Mary as a believing Jew, she saw not this, but this. He shall save. He shall deliver his people from their greatest enemy.

18:04 Not Rome in rule. Not Rome in oppression. Not the influence of the heathen. He shall deliver his people from their sins.

18:17 That note was again enunciated at the hour of his birth when the heavenly host sang and announced to the angels, unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, a Deliverer, who is Christ the Lord. From his own lips the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost in the apostolic preaching. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved until we come to the final period of the unfolding of God's mind through the inspired apostles.

18:57 And we see a passage such as we have in Ephesians 5 wherein the intimacy of the married relation, marriage relationship, Jesus Christ is called the Savior of his body. The Savior of his body. Now do you catch something of the thrust of this biblical word? Do you catch something of the biblical emphases bound up in this word?

The Richness of 'Saved': Deliverance From and Unto

19:28 If I were to try to summarize them I would summarize them this way. To be saved is to be delivered from sin and all of its consequences unto all of the blessings grace provides both now and in the world to come. So you find three tenses used with reference to save. Sometimes the people of God are conceived of as having been saved, past, as being saved, present, as those who shall be saved, future.

20:02 Why? Because, because salvation involves deliverance from sin and all of its consequences both now and in the world to come.

20:16 Let me illustrate again from a winter situation. Here's a young boy. He's at home in his living room with his mom and dad and they have a warm fire going and he's told that he must go down to the local store. They're out in a rural situation and pick up a loaf of bread for sandwiches for school the next morning.

20:37 And it's cold and blustery out and mother knows that Johnny loves the little pond that freezes over that's right in a direct line between their house and Jake's corner store and so as she bundles him up and says, now you get the loaf of bread. She says, now listen son, you must not go over the pond. It's only been cold for a couple of days. It's not heavy enough to hold you.

21:00 Now you must go around the pond on your way to Jake's store. Yes, mommy. So he does that on his way to the store. But he happens to look at it and it looks so nice.

21:10 The ice is just freshly frozen. No one's thrown sticks on it yet and popped holes in it with rocks and the rest and it looked very tempting. But he resisted the temptation on the way to the store but with his loaf of bread tucked under his arm on the way back he began to weaken. And he just reached out and touched it with his foot and it seemed to be firm enough and then he put two feet on it and he begins to walk across and lo and behold he gets halfway across the ice breaks down he goes.

21:37 And he begins to flounder around and he begins to get scared. And the ice breaks off as he tries to claw his way back up and he begins to holler. And just as he's beginning to despair of life itself Jake hears him. And Jake comes out and Jake sticks out a long pole and the boy grabs hold of it and he pulls him to the shore.

21:57 What has he done? He has saved him. But he's not yet saved. You see he's rescued him from the impending danger of the icy waters.

22:10 But he's still standing on the shore shivering to death and scared to death that his mother's going to lay it on his backside as soon as she can get him thawed out so he can feel it.

22:23 You see? So what happens? He's taken back home. He's duly disciplined.

22:31 And the same mother that disciplines him clothes him or makes the clothes available to him. And he snuggles up to the warmth of his mother or father's arms. And to the warmth of his home. Now he's really saved.

22:45 He's not only delivered from the danger of the water but he's been delivered unto the restored warmth and communion and fellowship of his father and his mother. Now that's a poor picture. But at least I hope it's in some measure accurate in pointing the direction of the richness of the biblical word saved. It means something more than that.

23:11 God comes and rescues us when we're floundering in the water of our sin and about to be submerged and merely sets us on the shore. No, no. What we read in the previous verses and studied he's quickened us with Christ raised us and seated us with Christ. The concept of union and communion with Christ now and into the ages of eternity that's what it means to be saved to be delivered from and unto all of the consummate blessings of redemption.

Grammatical Nuances: Passive and Perfect Tense of 'Saved'

23:45 And so the essential nature of the transformation of grace is that of being saved. And that's the essential meaning of the word in Holy Scripture rescued delivered from and unto. But now I must pause to show that the particular form of the word that Paul uses in verse 5 and verse 8 sets before us even a more defined understanding of what it means to be saved. He uses for some of you budding Greek students a perfect passive participle coupled with a present to be verb.

24:25 Now it's a passive participle. Now you know what passive verbs are you kids are, don't you? Suppose you said to me Pastor Martin you know what happened last week? What's that?

24:34 I went to the dentist. That's an active verb. You under your own steam and apparently under your own volition or maybe a threat or two from your mom or dad nonetheless you went. But if you said to me I was taken to the dentist I can conjure up all kinds of pictures of you hollering and screaming not wanting to go and being carried there bodily.

24:53 I was taken. You see? You were not active. Somebody else was acting upon you and getting you to the dentist.

25:00 Well, this verb is not by grace you have saved yourselves but by grace you have been saved. If I may say my B-E-E-N like my British friends by grace you have been saved in a passive verb I am acted upon in an active I am the actor. Now, if I'm passive if I'm acted upon who's the actor? Who's the agent?

25:32 And of course the text in its context tells us who the agent is. If the purpose of God is to make us showcases of His grace then we are not God. It is the God of grace who has done the rescuing and all of the process of rescue from beginning to end is attributed to Him.

25:57 So to be saved is not simply to be rescued from and unto in any way but to be rescued from and unto in a way that sees the activity of God as central.

26:13 He quickened. He raised. He seated. He has done the saving.

26:18 And it's also significant that He uses a perfect. And the concept of the perfect in the Greek the best way I know to convey it is to have you look here while I try to illustrate with my hands. Picture an arrow coming from this direction to a point. The arrow stops and you see a dot and from that dot you see another arrow heading out in this direction indefinitely.

26:44 An arrow coming this way to a dot and this side of the dot another arrow going out that way into infinity. That's the best way to visually conceptualize the effect the impress the thought of this perfect passage. By grace you have been saved. In other words God began something that brought you to the state where it is proper to call you saved people but there's still more to come.

27:17 You are saved with the salvation that still has more to be unfolded more to be applied more to be experienced and so by using this particular form of the word Paul is saying to these Ephesians you are rescued with a rescuing that has been valid and has come to termination in your life but a rescue that has more to come. Now notice he does not say by grace you may be saved. By grace you have grounds to hope you shall be saved. He says by grace you have been saved.

28:00 There is a blessed certainty a thrilling finality a settled actuality a holy infallibility about this salvation. You have been saved. A deliverance has already been wrought. You have been quickened you have been raised you have been seated as such.

28:19 You are alive accepted in the beloved sealed with the spirit and all the blessings enumerated in chapters one and two and yet Paul says the future blessings are certain. They are not up for grabs they are not indefinite those blessings are certain because the salvation has come and included in it are all these future benefits as well. Well then trying to summarize what we have considered what is the essential nature of this transformation its essential nature is that of being saved rescued by God from sin and its consequences unto all of the blessings grace has designed both now and in the world to come and it's being rescued with a rescuing that has present reality and future certainty and it's being rescued by God and by God alone. Now very quickly let me direct your attention to the other part of the phrase the transformation traced to its principal cause by grace you have been saved. What is the cause of this great deliverance? What has been at work?

The Principal Cause: By Grace Alone

29:38 Well Christ the Savior the spirit who has been operative the word of the gospel but the text does not say by Christ you have been saved or by the gospel you have been saved which would be true but he says by grace you have been saved. Why? Because grace is the principal cause of this great transformation and the emphasis again in the original is strong. It's strong in two ways.

30:05 He puts in the article for by the grace you have been saved pointing to the very grace he mentioned in verse 7 God's purpose is that in the ages to come he might display his grace and he says for by the grace the very grace he's determined to display so the emphasis is strong by the inclusion of the article it's also strong by the placement in the verse. It would have been good Greek and good grammar to say you have been saved by grace but he didn't use that word order he says for by the grace you have been saved and he puts the grace the instrumental an emphasis in the fundamental and principal cause at the beginning of the sentence and that's the way Paul could give emphasis in the language with which he was working. So then the principal cause is to be understood as nothing in us but wholly in the grace of God. Well then what is the basic meaning of this word grace? What is the biblical connotation of the word grace?

31:15 Well let me quickly try to just run through various ways of trying to describe it. It is the free favor of God to us in Christ Jesus. It is his sovereign disposition to bestow saving mercies upon hell deserving rebels. It is his kind intention to raise sinners from the dung heap and to set them among princes.

31:39 It is his saving disposition which lies exclusively in his own heart and is expressed not because of what we are but in spite of what we are. Grace is not the king coming to subjects in poverty and lavishing upon them his wealth a wealth which they had no claim to. Grace is the king coming to rebel subjects who are determined to undermine his government and defy his laws and destroy his person and laying hold of such rebels and pardoning them and inviting them into the household and making them heirs with all the benefits of his kingdom. That's grace.

32:23 It is not mere kindness. It is not mere mercy. It is the favor of God shown to those who deserve just the opposite. And therefore grace is always set in the strictest opposition to works and to human merit.

32:41 And if you're thinking biblically you can no more think of grace joining hands with holding hands holding locked arms with courting such things as human merit or human effort or human performance then you can think of God and the devil sitting down and striking a compromise in the great issues of the conflict of the ages. Grace and human merit are set in the strictest strongest categories of opposition in the word of God. So the apostle uses language like this in Romans 4.4 It is the power of God that is the power of God.

33:18 It is the power of God. It is the power of God. It is the power of God. It is the power of God.

33:19 Since it is of grace it is no more of works. Since if it is of works it is no more of grace. He says the same in chapter 11 verses 5 and 6. He says it in this text.

33:32 By grace are you saved. And he says if you didn't get my message not of works not of yourselves. Why? Because the moment grace has any mixture of human endeavor merit or performance it ceases to be grace.

33:51 You see it is not as though you can still have milk if you put an ounce of water in a 16 ounce glass of milk you can still perhaps call it milk call it weak milk watered down milk but call it milk. Listen. When you take the glass of grace and you put one millionth of a drop of works it is no longer grace.

34:19 Grace is either pure undeserved favor or it is no more grace. That's the argument of the apostle.

34:30 And so man continually tries to pollute that pure stream like the Pharisee who says God what I am and what I've done merits my acceptance. Grace says nothing nothing not even my faith nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.

34:58 Therefore we are to understand this work of deliverance in its principle calls as being grace nothing but grace pure grace not grace with a plus sign waiting for an addition not grace with a dash leading to something more not grace with a parenthesis to explain it away but grace pure grace sovereign grace efficacious grace by grace you have been saved. Now do you see why the reformers had as one of their watchwords sola gratia grace alone.

Why Grace Alone? Man's Condition and God's Purpose

35:39 Now why must it be so? Well for two simple reasons. Because of what man is as described in verses 1 to 3 and because of what God has determined as expressed in verse 7. If you take verses 1 to 3 seriously man is dead man is born man is justly condemned and consigned to wrath for his sins pray tell what must be operative to rescue such a creature?

36:08 He loves his chains he loves his sin he hates God against whom he sinned where will his rescue come from?

36:20 And so if God in grace does not meet that sinner he'll never be met in his need and then the second reason God has determined in his salvation is that he will never be met in his need to display through all the coming ages the riches of his grace plus nothing else not the riches of his grace plus our wise use of common spiritual ability not grace plus grace dash grace parenthesis he's determined to display the riches of grace pure grace. And so I leave you this morning in the exposition with this simple little phrase for by grace by grace ye have been saved the essential nature of the transformation being saved the principal cause grace but now what's all this say to us where we live? And in the remaining time I wish to bring three pointed applications and I want to do so under the figure of a workshop I wasn't pleased with how I handled the application until earlier this morning I felt the Lord helped me to put it in a way that I hope will stick we're going to take what we've done that's been pretty heady concentration on the meaning of words and the rest I know it's been hard work for you think how much work it's been for me getting it all together trying to get it down but now listen let's take those raw materials and we want to do some building this morning and we are warranted from these raw materials

Application 1: A Plumb Line for Religious Teaching

37:48 to do three things in the workshop this morning first of all to form a plumb line for all religious teaching now you know what a plumb line is? you take a piece of string and you take a piece of string and you take a heavy object a piece of weight better yet if you have a nice little pointed turned brass object that has a point on it you take your weight and your string and you tie the string to the center of that weight so it hangs straight down then if you want to know whether or not the shoemaker carpenters who renovated this place of whom I was one of them and a lot of the others are here did the thing right we'd hold the string up there and see if the plumb line came right down to the bottom and we'd see whether or not this is this way this way straight up and down because you see that plumb line will always be perfectly perpendicular the law of gravity will hold it in that position now with what we've studied this morning in these words by grace ye have been saved God would have us construct a plumb line taking as our string the concept by grace and as our weight the biblical concept ye have been saved and with that plumb line lay it next to all forms of religious teaching that claim to be the truth of God and if it doesn't measure plumb with that plumb line

39:16 it's out of line and it's to be rejected bring the plumb line to Romanism with the string by grace and the weight ye have been saved hold it up to official Roman Catholic theology and what do you find you find the concept of being saved isn't quite so bad as far as being rescued from sin unto the blessings of eternal life but oh they're way off on their tenses they have no salvation it says by grace you have been saved and can know that you're saved the official teaching of the Roman church expressed in the decrees of the council of Trent has never been rescinded by popes or councils of bishops in which they pronounce an anathema upon any man who dares to say that he knows here and now that he's saved Romanism faces that plumb line and shows itself to be what it is grace knows little of the salvation that is pure grace flowing from the heart of God apply that plumb line to liberalism salvation what is that not deliverance from sin and its consequences by the power of God it's some kind of self-help some Norman Vincent Peale juggling of your positive thoughts and getting good vibes

40:45 from yourself to help yourself that's no more Christianity than eggs or bananas there's nothing to do with Christianity nothing whatsoever apply it to the Jehovah's Witness who comes spitting verses like machine guns spit bullets by grace they don't have a clue of what the thought of grace is I've got to pedal some more weights and I've got to make some more converts to my heresy why so that I hope in the world to come I may make it in the new earth save they don't have a clue of what the biblical notion of save is apply it to Mormonism and dear people apply it to classic Arminianism by grace parenthesis well we mean by grace of course that there's a common grace given to all men neutralizing the effects of indwelling grace so that all men have some ability oh given by God but all men have it to repent and believe if they would that's maintaining the word grace and destroying the substance so when God says who maketh thee to differ classic Arminianism says I made myself to differ because we all had the same stock of grace common grace given to all men I use mine the sinner there didn't use his my friend that's not unkind

42:14 that's not overstating the case because you who come here with any frequency know that I constantly warn against overstating the case but that's classic Arminian theology they'll say verses 1 to 3 are true we're dead we're bound we're condemned but God has given to all men in grace this common ability to repent and believe if they would but you see my dear people that's just my problem it's my wooder that's just my problem for this passage says that they will to do the lust of the flesh and of the mind that's the problem my will is enslaved to my sin and if you get my will liberated you got me liberated and I'm saved the average Christian who understands this verse has got a plumb line by which to measure all religious teaching secondly these biblical words in their biblical meaning we can construct a mirror from them some amazing materials you can make plumb lines and mirrors out of the same stuff but you can't but they do they form a mirror for self-examination when you take the biblical concept you have been saved the divine rescuing God delivering us from sin and its consequences

Application 2: A Mirror for Self-Examination

43:43 and doing it all by his kind disposition to show favor to sinners in spite of what they are when you look into the mirror of those biblical concepts what answer do you find in your own heart?

43:59 do you find an ability to say with no tongue in cheek I am what I am by the grace of God do you find your heart running out answering to the biblical concept if the biblical concept of being saved is the divine rescue that rescue moved or brought into being by no cause but pure grace do you find your heart flowing out in glad agreement to those biblical concepts can you sit there this morning and say Lord thank you for salvation thank you for salvation by grace you see if you despise the biblical concept of salvation it's because my friend you've never taken seriously verses 1 to 3 of Ephesians chapter 2 if you see yourself dead if you understand yourself to be bound and understand that in that condition you're condemned my friend one thing will matter how can I be rescued from this terrible plight you'll cry with the Philippian jailer what must I do to be what? not readjusted to my environment reintegrated to myself all this psychological rubbish that passes in the name of Christian truth

45:27 he cried what must I do to be rescued to be rescued to be rescued to be rescued to be saved the apostle said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved oh my friend what answer do you find to the biblical concept saved what about the concept by grace are you glad to say from the depths of your heart Lord I've given up looking for one gram of reason for my salvation arising out of myself or you're still arguing with God like some of us did for years we wanted to say well there was at least if not the wiggling of the finger at least the twitching of the fingernail that somehow contributed to the whole business no no man the moment anything of human effort and human merit is mixed with grace it has neutralized grace now what response does that find in your heart this morning does it find a glad response you see me now you see these concepts not only form a plumb line but a mirror and thirdly and thank God for this you know what we can build with these we can build a tower you know what we do when we get up on that tower

Application 3: A Tower for Proclamation

46:57 we say to the confused sin sick generation in which we live there is salvation by grace these biblical concepts not only form a plumb line for all religious teaching and a mirror for self examination but also a mirror for self examination but they form a tower for proclamation and that proclamation is that the God of grace is the living God and salvation by grace is still operative and God will continue to save by grace until the Savior comes and consummates the purposes of grace in all of his heart now you notice I didn't say you're to go out and make a club with these materials or a board of cards or a board of cards or a board of cards I said a tower for proclamation a tower upon which to stand and to say to men, women, boys and girls there is no hope in yourselves you're dead you're bound you're condemned but God but God rich in mercy who still bids the vilest of sinners to cast themselves upon him and his son

48:23 the only Savior of sinners what a blessed thing to stand in our day and to see the crumbling of structures and institutions some of which have been the fruit of the vision and prayers of godly men of the past and it's a tragic thing to see the fruit of godliness crumbling but oh my friend there's one thing that will never crumble salvation by grace it cannot for it's bound up in the god who changes not and I would stand upon that tower this morning and just as I have sought to speak as a watchman about the plumb line and false religions and it must be done my wife and I were just talking this week about this biblical principle God shows great compassion and tenderness all through the scriptures to poor blind sheep who follow false religions but you show me one passage in the word of God where God speaks with tenderness and compassion to false religious leaders show me one passage I hurl out the challenge from the old and through the new there is nothing but the most staving indictment of any man who will stand to lead others and will depart from the truth of the word of God

49:52 Jeremiah 23 the hurling of the curses of God upon the false shepherds of Israel Jeremiah's ministry again and again they've healed slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people the son of God who says to her let's neither do I forgive thee go sin no more calls them white while sepulchers blind leaders of the blind what a terrible indictment oh dear people we need to expose the error but how much more blessed to drive error from the field by standing on the ground and proclaiming salvation by grace pure grace sovereign mercy that meets and delivers the vilest of sinners and I say to you young men particularly who are at the same time our greatest joy and at times our greatest embarrassment don't make a club go build a tower build it at that place of work and buy your life show the fruit of grace and by your lips proclaim salvation by grace and in that school and in that university and in that college

51:16 and in compassion and tenderness proclaim salvation by grace the greatest polemic the greatest argument for the validity of what we say this morning is to have what Paul could write to there at Ephesus a people who by nature were idolaters heathen idolaters and worshipers and now they gather to read an epistle from the apostle they meet with no ornate temple to encourage them in their worship they have no visible icons or statues they have none of their old religious system enchanting they meet in the simplicity of New Testament worship to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to pray and to be exhorted from the scriptures that's what grace does and oh may God grant that we shall not be merely a place where the doctrine of salvation by grace is preached but where what we are as a congregation is the unanswerable monument to the reality of salvation by grace Father Lord willing we'll proceed next week to the instrumental means through faith that's its essence and then its source and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God

52:45 may the Lord write upon our hearts this portion of his word let us pray