In the sermon titled 'Of the Gospel and the Extent of Grace Thereof - The 1689 SLBC 20', Paul Carrington explores the profound peace offered by Jesus Christ, contrasting it with the elusive peace the world offers. He delves into the 20th chapter of the Second London Baptist Confession, emphasizing its unique focus on the gospel, adapted from the Savoy Declaration. Carrington highlights the essential relationship between the law and the gospel, as articulated by Spurgeon, who states that understanding the law is necessary to appreciate the gospel's grace. The sermon underscores humanity's fallen state and the inability of self-righteousness to reconcile with God, pointing to the need for divine intervention through the gospel. Carrington emphasizes the role of Jesus Christ as the central figure of the gospel, whose sacrifice offers eternal life. He warns against becoming overly familiar with the gospel, urging a renewed appreciation for its depth and beauty. The sermon also discusses the sovereign nature of God's revelation of the gospel, which is not dependent on human merit but is a result of divine will. Finally, Carrington explains the necessity of the Holy Spirit's work in regeneration, as the gospel alone cannot convert souls without this divine activation. The sermon concludes with a call for repentance and a reminder of the eternal implications of accepting or rejecting the gospel.

I couldn't help but thinking as we were singing that song, be still my soul. What a thing it is to have peace with God. You know, the most elusive thing in this world, if you think about it, for the roving masses of humanity, is just that, the fact that they don't have any peace and yet the Lord Jesus Christ he says my peace I leave you with my peace I give you not as the world gives but he's given us a peace in him and you have to ask the question Is that even possible in our world? And of course, we know the answer. In the subject that we're gonna be addressing tonight is, yay and amen.

In the power of the gospel, we have peace with God. And so tonight, we're gonna be looking at this 20th chapter of the Second London Baptist Confession, the title of which is Of the Gospel and the Extent of the Grace Therein. And a couple of weeks ago, a couple of us were up in Pennsylvania, we were at the Banner of Truth Conference and while we were there, an old Welsh pastor, he got up and he preached some some very powerful powerful message messages and he made a particular statement that has stuck with me since then till now and it's almost it's impacted how I look at people when I'm walking down the street or on a plane or wherever I am and he made this this amazing statement this is what he said he says and you can think of ourselves even in this room here tonight forget the back doors and you think about these two exit doors, he said this, that every person on the planet lives in a room of which there are only two exits. One will exit into eternal damnation and the other will exit into life eternal and all of that hinges on what we do with this subject that we're going to be looking at tonight of the gospel and its extent and in a sense everything where you will spend eternity, where I will spend eternity, will hinge on how we respond to this gospel call.

And so that's what we're going to be looking at tonight. And just a couple comments on this chapter about why it's unique. It's really interesting that this chapter is the only chapter in the Second London Baptist Confession that doesn't Correspond with another chapter in the Westminster. There's simply no chapter on the gospel in the Westminster Catechism But this particular chapter was taken from the Puritan congregationalists from their Savoy Declaration of 1658. So you get the Westminster Confession in 1647 and then the Savoy Declaration was in 1658, about 11 years.

And what this chapter really seeks to do is concentrate a lot of the doctrines we've already covered, things like justification, things like God's decree. It seeks to deal with things like the fall and effectual calling. And so it also was put together Because between that time, perhaps 1647 and 1648, people have speculated that a lot of new things had started cropping up, or getting more ahead of steam, things like deism was making its way onto the scene in a much greater way, where people had this view that, yes, God created, but he's completely hands off, right? He set things in motion, but he's not involved in anything going forward as well as free will this idea that well if I want to choose God I can choose him for myself versus the idea that salvation is monergistic it's It's one way with God doing all the work, Him doing all the calling, Him bringing us to life from death. And you'll notice one of the other things that's really amazing is that this chapter follows, if you recall the last chapter, not what we dealt with last week, but chapter 19 in the confession is of the law of God.

And so on the back of the law of God, he goes right, or they go right into the gospel. And this is what Spurgeon says, It's really quite a statement. He says that I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel Who does not preach the law? The law is the needle and you cannot draw the silken thread of the gospel through a man's heart unless you first send the needle of the law to make way for it. It's perfect symmetry.

You have the law of God that punches into the heart and causes a man to say, what must I do to be saved? And then the gospel, the good news, repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sin. It's great, great news on the back of the bleak state of who man is by nature. And so what the law does, as we talked about last time, was that it exposes sin. It reveals the greatness of sin, but it doesn't have any remedy.

You know, and the whole definition of sin is to miss the mark. And so proper preaching declares that man's problem of unrighteousness cannot be solved with self-righteousness by ourselves making ourselves right with God. And so one of the most amazing things about all of this is when you begin to understand the utter brokenness of man in his fallen state, his unrecoverable state, you begin to have a better and better and more beautiful view, a grander view of the glorious gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And you think about eternity, not only do we have peace in this life, but for all eternity we're secure. And if you think of that particular thing, just that alone, it makes the gospel so wonderful to think of what Christ has accomplished for us.

But it's easy, one of the things I think that's easy for us is to get familiar with the gospel to the point where it begins to lose some of its glamour, some of its grandeur in our eyes. You know, if I ask you, you know, what's on the back of a dime? How many people in this room could actually tell me what's on the back of a dime? Well, you've handled dimes, you've had them in your pocket, in your wall, but you've become, if you've seen them a thousand times, but you actually have never looked at it in a way that you've studied it and it's resonated. Or if I say, let's make our way up to 98 from here.

Do you know the street just half a mile up the road? Do you know the name of the street on the right before you reach 98? We drive past it, probably we've driven past it if you've been in the church any length of time, hundreds of times, but you maybe have no idea of what the name of that road is. And sometimes we can become accustomed to things without actually understanding the beauty, the intricacy, and all that's really compiled in the gospel. And so we wanna talk about that tonight.

Interestingly, this chapter doesn't actually say what the gospel is because it's a compilation of all the other things that have been said and it's put it together. It doesn't actually say, you know, it doesn't talk about the cross and the resurrection as much. It talks more about what it is in terms of how it's activated in the world around us and who actually governs the gospel and talks about God and exalts him. But what I really want to capture is this, that the gospel is summed up in a person. It's summed up in the person of Jesus Christ.

He's the theme of Moses and the prophets. He is the boast of the apostles, the song of the martyrs. And If you think of what he's done when I look I was just before we came I was looking at Revelation chapter 5 and I'm not gonna split read the whole chapter but To give us a sense of the uniqueness of Christ and how the gospel is summed up in a person. This is what John writes He says and I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back sealed with seven seals Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals. And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was found to open the scroll or to look at it.

And this is John's response. He sees that man is totally undone. And so it says this, so I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and to read the scroll or to look at it. It's a declaration of man's total fall in his inability, but then it says this, but one of the elders said to me, do not weep. Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David has prevailed to open the scrolls and to loose its seven seals and it goes on to talk about not only how the elders these these elders these 24 elders that are in heaven begin to bow down.

They cast their crowns and they say, worthy are you, O Lamb. And it talks about all these creatures, these four living creatures. And then it talks about all of these angels. And it says this, then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was 10, 000 times 10, 000 and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing and it goes on to just regale what God has done for us in Jesus Christ so may that be how our hearts when we think of the gospel not just something we pass by on the road or a coin in our pocket yeah I know about that but what has actually been done for us that's why you think about how many how many themes how many songs the Lord Jesus Christ has has been the theme for you know we we have those songs Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own or it talks about the fact of the one who died eternal life to bring and lives that death may die.

And so we get into paragraph one of the confession here and I'll just read part of it. I'll read the first part and this is really starting with the fall of man and then the means that God brought to redeem man. It says this, the covenant of works being broken by sin and made unprofitable unto life, God was pleased to give forth the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of calling the elect and be getting them in faith and repentance. And of course what this is dealing with is the fact that the covenant of works was broken. We talked about that before where man fell right?

This is the whole issue. Even another song you know, Come Ye Sinners, it talks about the idea lost and ruined by the fall. And so through sin death enters into the human family. Adam loses his original righteousness and ability to keep the covenant. And in this bleak state, this kind of black backdrop if you will, where everything looks like there's no hope at all.

What does God do? He shines forth with the promise of Genesis 3.15, this proto-evangelion, this gospel before the actual gospel. It's a wonderful thing. And so transgression enters. God's law, remember that, wasn't repealed because man fell.

God didn't say, well, okay, fine, you fell. I'm gonna lower my standards of righteousness to match where you're at. That did not happen to accommodate us in any way. And so Because of our fall, there was no means to get right with God. It just says this, it was made unprofitable unto life.

The covenant, it could show you, or the covenant of works, the law could show you sin, but couldn't save you from it. And so they fell in every way, morally, spiritually, physically, mentally. Man fell away from God. There's no, like the semi-Pelagians would say, those who say that man has some good in him, just a little glimmer. There's no island of righteousness.

You cross the ocean of humanity, and you will not find a single island of righteousness anywhere. Man is is totally fallen. In chapter 6 of the confession it said this that man is utterly indisposed, disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to evil and what the Lord himself said that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil so they do not come to the light because they don't want their deeds to be manifest and you know the earlier this month we were at the abortion mill and we were preaching and just an amazing thing happened where as the preaching was going forth, a man and his girlfriend or whoever she was got out of the car and they heard the preaching of the word. They heard the preaching of the word and I don't know what went on in their heart, but he reached out to her and she reached out to him. They looked at each other, He gave her this kind of reassuring nod, and they walked into the abortion mill.

And as I looked at that, what I saw was this is exactly the state of man. He's more in love with his sin. He will look long, he'll look at it a reassuring glance at his sin. His sin will look back at him and you'll steal yourselves to continue. I would gather tonight that there are some people even here sitting that are in much the same way, not walking into an abortion clinic disappearing behind those white doors, but that you're going on in your sin.

You're holding hands with your sin, going on gathering courage from something that will slay you just like that abortion clinic will lead to death. All the while Christ holds out his hand, his mercy to us. And this is what it says, because of man's fallen state, God was pleased to give forth the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of calling the elect and begetting them in faith and repentance. God could have ended it right there at the fall, but he didn't. And so this whole idea, I will put enmity between you and the woman speaking to the serpent, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." And so Christ becomes that very means of calling people to faith and to repentance and so what the gospel is It's good news indeed that God is mighty to save the cancer of sin that is coursing through your veins It's coursing through my veins.

God has provided a remedy for us in Jesus Christ And if you think of the unimaginable toll that sin is costing and has cost and will cost in eternity. To think that God's mercy is extended so far down, to pluck us out of our state and to offer us life is one of the most just just baffling things. You know all of us have a filing cabinet or did at one point and you open a filing cabinet and it's full of papers, right? And that could be your record of sin spiritually speaking. The other day we were reading a biography of a family in the 1700s over in Europe and one by one they were coming to know the Lord but one of the parents didn't come to know the Lord and as she was getting older her sins were mounting more and more and you know how she dealt with her sins?

Biting her own arm. One day her husband walks into the room says, what are the bite marks? What are those marks on your arm? And she hung her head. She was trying to deal with her sins because of the immensity of the guilt, the filing cabinet, the written ordinances against her, but there was no relief.

There was no release whatsoever. There was another head physician, head of a psychiatric hospital, and this is a quote. He said, I could release 50% of my patients tomorrow if only they could be assured of forgiveness. Now they're not providing forgiveness, they medicate away, keep you in a state of just where you're not able to think, just kind of kept at a certain height. But Jesus Christ comes to get right to the root of it all.

Things committed in terms of your sins, things that you've omitted, all of it covered off in the great, great sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His very name, remember what his name says when the angel came to Mary and he says and you shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins the greatest problem that we have and so paragraph 2 we talked about what God did because of man's fall in the gospel. Well, paragraph two speaks of nature's inability to relieve or to reveal the gospel. This is what it says. This promise of Christ and salvation by him is revealed only by the word of God.

Neither do the works of creation or providence with the light of nature make discovery of Christ of grace by him. So much as in a general or obscure way, much less that men destitute of the revelation of him by the promise or gospel should be enabled thereby to attain saving faith or repentance. So that first statement it says this this promise of Christ and salvation by him is revealed only in the Word of God. The Word of God alone reveals the gospel. That's a very simple statement, but Paul makes this clear.

He says, for in it, that is in the gospel, in the Word of God, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. It's through the preaching of the Word and then it goes on to say this, that neither do the works of creation or providence with the light of nature make discovery of Christ or of grace by him, not so much as in a general or obscure way. And so if you look at the chapter of one of Romans, right, what does Romans 1 tell us? That man knows there is a God, but he doesn't know enough to be saved. Man knows enough only to be condemned.

The law that's written on his heart condemns him. He's guilty, but he doesn't know enough. How now should I cleanse away my sins? What should I do? Like Micah said, shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Would the Lord be satisfied with ten thousand rivers of oil? Is that, can I do something to make it alright? Well, this is the problem that nature can't reveal man's remedy. And this is why it's not the eye of sense which discerns Christ, neither is the eye of reason, but it must be by revelation. That's really the thrust of this chapter.

If you've been born again, the gospel has been revealed to you. It's a wonderful thing. The best thing that can ever happen to somebody is to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so if you think of this, right, here was the Apostle Paul going through the most erudite, lofty, sophisticated city of his time, the city of Athens, and he was going through the city, and as he was there he was provoked because of all the idols that they had. It's been said that there it was easier to find a God in Athens than a man.

That's how many gods they had everywhere you would look. They even had one made to the unknown God. See man knows he's made for worship right? We know that. Men you will never find a man who's not a worshiper.

Even you who do not know Christ tonight, you're a worshiper. You're just a worshiper of idols or a worshiper of the devil or of your own flesh, but you are worshiping. If you're not worshipping Christ, there's no kind of middle ground. It's either Christ or the devil, the works of the devil that you will worship. And so these men boasted the greatest thinkers in all of that modern world, all that world, the historic world of Athens, and yet none of them had an inkling of how they could be saved and made right with God.

And so because of this ignorance men have woefully underestimated their their desperate case and condition. And again Romans goes on to this, it talks about this more. Romans is a beautiful book to go through. Men know there is a God. They may have even an inkling of his character.

But remember what it says here, it says this, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Man knows enough to to know he's a sinner a lot of the times.

He knows he's condemned, they'll medicate it away, they'll try to treat the externals, guilt, all these other things, but to make his way to God, there's no way. And this this particular paragraph is saying it must be by the revelation of the gospel, not by man attaining it by natural light, by study. And so this is why preaching is so important, why evangelism and the Great Commission are at the heart of the church's being, the outward ministry of the gospel to a dead and dying world, because there is nothing outside of the gospel that will save. And so this babbler as Paul was called and the setter forth of strange gods, he delivered the gospel plainly without any speculation and suggestion but with authority and then he says this truly these times of ignorance God overlooked but now commands all men everywhere to repent and to believe the gospel. And so it goes on to say this, much less that men destitute or lacking of the revelation of him by the promise of the God or gospel should be enabled thereby to attain saving faith or repentance and so what neither the law or natural light could do of course God is done and so if there's no gospel word there's no light Think about that when you think of the mass of humanity in this world, or think even when you go down the road how few people actually have heard or know the gospel.

There's no salvation, but this new day has emerged in Jesus Christ. And this is what it says of him that it quotes from the Old Testament Speaking of Christ that the people who sat in darkness Have seen a great light and upon those who sat in the region of the shadow of death the light has dawned aren't you glad? That God has caused the light to dawn when you think of where you could be and what you would be up to, what your life would be orbiting around right now had it not been for the goodness and the mercy of God. It's an amazing, almost terrifying in a way thing to think about. But thanks be to God for his great salvation.

Well, paragraph three goes on to talk about how the gospel is revealed. It's revealed through preaching, and it's revealed by a sovereign God who ordains the preaching of his word. And This would have been an attack, a direct attack on deism over 300 years ago. But now if you think of the world that we're living in, a common phrase you'll hear oftentimes equivalent to deism would be the big man upstairs. This view of kind of a standoffish God.

Yeah, I believe in God, but not a God who's actually Intimately involved people will talk of the fact that we need divine intervention And so this particular case is unique and God should get involved when he's involved in dictating and ordaining everything around us Well this chapter attacks the idea that God is standoffish in any way. It says this, the revelation of the gospel unto sinners made in diverse times and by sundry parts with the addition of promises and precepts for the obedience required therein as to the nations and persons to whom it is granted is merely of the sovereign will and good pleasure of God." I'll stop there and we'll go on to the next part in a little bit but the key point again is It's the revealing of the gospel and with it all that Christ commands that comes both to individuals Sinners and nations through a through a sovereign God And so really what it's saying is that God saves whom he will others are damned to eternal destruction and not only are the people ordained one way or the other but the timing is ordained one way or the other and the the reference that the confession makes here is to one in Acts 16 verse 7 it says this in Acts 16 verse 7 of Paul it says after they had come to Mycea they tried to go into Bithynia which was a Roman province of Asia Minor, but the Spirit of God did not permit them.

So in Acts 16.7, Paul's trying to go into Bithynia, but then the Holy Spirit says no. But then when we fast forward into 1st Peter, Peter writes to the pilgrims of the dispersion and he includes those of Bithynia. In other words, the Lord at one point says Paul you're not going there and then later on he opened up a way it seems for the gospel to go into Bithynia so that Peter is now writing to the Saints that are in Bithynia. So God is ordaining the timing, he's ordaining who his people are and so man can plan but it's God who ultimately enables. That's really the key message here and it says this, not being annexed or that word is an old English word but not being added onto by virtue of any promise to the due improvement of men's natural abilities by virtue of common light received without it which none ever did make or can do so and all he's saying here is that his sovereign will God sovereign will is what guides and drives whom he chooses at what time he chooses.

And so it's not the person using their innate understanding to understand God better that somehow opens the way for the gospel. So we can grope and if we can just find our way we'll somehow uncover the gospel. But it's always going to be God revealing it to us. And he's not influenced either to bring the gospel to a person or to a people because of, hey you're, you've been improving there, you're kind of more moral upstanding than your neighbors, I think I'll save you. Or that nation over there seems to be doing quite a bit better.

Let me send the gospel light to them to help them improve a little bit more. That never happens, but his alone motivation is his eternal decree, what he's decided. And so it final, it ends with this, and therefore in all ages the preaching of the gospel has been granted unto persons and nations as to the extent or straightening of it in great variety according to the counsel of the will of God and so sometimes the Stream of people being saved is very very narrow even sometimes even a trickle At other times it's a it's a It's a river that's gushing over the rocks and jumping over the pews and touching people's hearts. This gospel, God determines what will happen and at what time. You'll think of a man like Noah who preached for decades and no one but his own family were saved.

And a man like Peter who preached for minutes and 3, 000 people were saved at one time. Sometimes there's an awakening, sometimes there's deadness. A brother and I were talking about this the other day when you think of the current stream, what is it like right now? It seems sometimes like you preach, you go out, you talk to people, you do what you can, but are people being saved well God knows maybe it won't be for for us to see but I think what this does encourages us that God is the one who's sovereign if the stream is is gushing over and saving or whether it's a trickle, be faithful. Preach the word instant in season, out of season, when men don't want to hear, when they do want to hear, but we just be faithful to bring forth the words of life.

Perchance God will grant repentance to those whom He will. And so this is really really critical for us to understand this. And then paragraph four is the last paragraph. And this is really a clarifying paragraph because you can preach and you can preach and you can preach but here we deal with the necessity of the inward work of the Holy Spirit it's not the word of God alone in the sense that we can speak it and it will save but it must be activated by the Holy Spirit himself. And so it says, although the gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and saving grace, and is as such abundantly sufficient thereunto, yet that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened, or regenerated, there is moreover necessary and effectual insuperable work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul for the producing in them a New spiritual life without which no other means will affect their conversion unto God.

And I think what this this paragraph is really doing is it's it's saying this that the gospel is not just a mere transmission of information through preaching that but that God must work supernaturally to grab hold of people's hearts to convert a soul. He opens the closed and softens the hardened heart. That's really his domain. It's not our ability in terms of our apologetics. It erases the idea of making emotional appeals.

It gets rid of the, what if we create the right atmosphere and as the sermon ends, get on the piano and get everyone into a frame of mind to come forward. It's saying none of that, but it's a moving of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of an individual to save. And so we have the preaching and yet it must be through the actual activation of the Holy Spirit to bring this about and regeneration is really what's being talked about here, this idea of amazing grace, The fact that you were wretched and yet now you've been brought into fellowship with God himself. And so yet that man, it goes on to say, that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, quickened and regenerated. There is moreover necessary and effectual insuperable work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul for the producing in them a new spiritual life.

And this is what Paul says when he writes to the church at Ephesus. He says this, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves and we're by nature the children of wrath just as others and this this word insuperable that's inserted here this insuperable work of the Holy Spirit simply means that it cannot be overcome or surmounted. That the work of the Spirit when when he decides to work, there's no resistance. It's all of his work, all of that. And a man who was hunted down by the Holy Spirit after recalling God's mercy and irresistible grace that same man said now he says this now to the King eternal immortal invisible to God who alone is wise be honor and glory forever and ever amen and this whole chapter it ends with this without which no other means will effect their conversion unto God it ties back this whole idea of effectual calling that we've been born again turned from darkness to light turned from the power of Satan to God, and then to do works befitting our repentance.

But all of this, the Gospel really captures the love of God toward sinful men. And I was reading a book called A True Christian's Love to the Unseen Christ by Thomas Vincent and this is what he says and think about what has motivated Christ to do what he's done. Think about yourself and then think about this horizontal plane your fellow man and this is what he says there are many motives and attractions for your love to Christ he's wonderful he's beautiful he's the creator but Christ's love to you is most free There is nothing in yourselves to draw and engage his love, except your deformity and enmity to him, except filthiness which he loathes and wickedness which his soul hates. These are the only motives. There is no man in the world who loves you, but he finds or fancies some loveliness in you, something to be a motive to draw his love to you.

He's talking about man now. Wit is a motive to some. He's funny, he's a character, you know, people are drawn to that. Wealth to others. Beauty to some.

Strength to others. Near relation to some. I mean, it could be your wife or your children, you've got this near relation, your grandchild. Dear love to others, liberality or generosity to some, service to others, great to some, goodness to others, but Christ's first love to you is altogether free. Whatever motive induces Christ to love you, it was not drawn from yourselves, but it was drawn from his own affectionate heart.

And so we come back to where we began. Every single one of you and me included, we're living in a room. You might live 40 years, you might be 15 years old right now and say you know what, I'll give it some thought, let me do what I want to do right now. You might be older. God knows your days, but you are living in a room.

Look to your, in my case, my left and right, one of those two doors, one day I will exit into eternal destruction or into eternal life. All of it hinges on our response to the gospel. And here's something that I know. Here's something that we all want to consider. I've met, I've talked to one time a young man who was a crack addict and he told me he said Paul he said I said how did this begin how did this happen he says you know I thought I was stronger than it I was selling it to other people and I thought them weak he says one day I kind of had a hard time and said let me try this stuff and see what it is and I got it and I was hooked From that time onward in my life Basically went down the toilet You meet a man who further you go to a prison And you ask a man how did this happen?

How did you get here? No one wakes up and begins, I'm going to rob a bank. But it started one day. Maybe a little theft here, a little theft there, and it grew gradually more and more. In this life, you'll find people in a state of drunkenness and it started with that first drink, that first event, that first party.

Or you could find young people that are disobedient to parents and then you watch the narrative of their life. No one ever prospers who disobeyed and dishonored their parents. No one, mark it down, no one ever prospered who did that. And you get to the end of their life and their life becomes a parable and a byword. But where did it begin?

It began with little acts of disobedience. A man taking a little drink, lighting up the crack pipe for the first time, committing that first crime. And it led them to years and years of wasted life in service to the devil. But nobody ever, ever, ever said this. I regret the day I bowed my knee to the Lord Jesus Christ.

No one has ever said that. Other people said I regret the day. Oh, if I could only have the years back. If only I could fill in the blank. But nobody ever regretted the day they bowed their knee to Jesus Christ.

Nobody ever in the history of mankind has ever said that. I regret living for Christ. And so the question for you who are outside of Christ how long how long will you resist the gospel call before you bow the knee How long will you remain a resident of the open grave of dry bones that we read about in Ezekiel 37? And a question for you, what will it avail you? What is it availing you right now if you go Christless?

When you head out that door on the sunset of your life, what will it avail you? All the while what does the gospel say? Live. It says live. Christ has come to give us life not here only But he's come to give us eternal life Will you not turn will you not bend your knee now while the that while the the call is going out today If you would hear his voice Do not harden your heart.

We have a great and awesome God. May he give us an understanding of who he is. May he open our hearts. Don't let it become common just like we're driving back home up Averett up to 98. But look again at the gospel and see a great and awesome God.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you, unworthy, oh God, but thankful for Jesus Christ. Lord, I remember when you said that to me, when you in effect breathed upon those dry bones, Lord, you filled my nostrils with Life in Christ, and I pray that for every single one here who does not know you, who's still outside the bounds of Christ. Lord, we pray tonight that you would please set the captive free. You alone can save, O God.

May you Stir the heart and grant repentance. Oh Lord, would you elevate our Views of you may you change how we even look at the gospel to see Christ the fresh Lord and to to run to him To heed his call. Oh Lord, may you open up away tonight help us Lord to be changed in our hearts. We pray in Christ's name. Amen