I would remind you of the matter that is before us by reading again from verse 30 to verse 33 in the 9th chapter of the epistle to the Romans. What shall we say then, that the gentiles which followed not after righteousness, have attained two righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteous, hath not attained to the law of righteousness, wherefore, because they sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone, as it is written, behold, I lay in Zion a chief. I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense. And whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Now this is the conclusion, as we saw last Friday night, to the argument of the whole of this great chapter. The apostle says, well, now then, what is the position? And in verses 30 and 31 he just puts the fact before us. And the fact is a remarkable and an astonishing one, that looking at the christian church, this is what was to be seen, that the Gentiles, who never gave a thought to being right with God and were not concerned about righteousness, have eagerly grasped the offer of righteousness in Christ, which was made to them by the preaching of the gospel, and are to be found in the christian church. Whereas Israel, whose main concern in life, in many respects, was to attain unto this righteousness, and who thought that they could do so by giving an obedience to the law given through Moses, have not attained unto it, have not arrived at it, and are outside the christian church. Now, that is the position, the conclusion, the deduction, the statement of the fact is precisely what he'd said at the beginning. That's why he's had this whole argument in chapter nine, because of this whole position of the Jews. That's why he had a great heaviness in his heart and continual sorrow, because he could see his kinsmen according to the flesh, the Jews outside the church. Well, that is the fact. Now then, having stated the fact again, he now comes to deal with the reason for it, the explanation of it. And that is what he gives in verses 30 and 32, which we are now considering. Wherefore he says, why is this the case especially, why is it the case that Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness? That's what he's really dealing with in the explanation. He's not dealing with the Gentiles any longer. He's dealing now in particular with why it is that the Jews are outside he's speaking generally, they were individual Jews, like Paul himself, were in there was the remnant, according to the election of grace. But speaking generally, it is true to say that the bulk of Israel, the nation as such, is outside. And he says, why? And here's his answer. Because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law. Now then, I pointed out last week how many people find a great difficulty here, for it seems to them that the apostle here is blankly contradicting what he's been saying in the whole of the previous part of the chapter. There his great statement has been that it is God's election who determines who is saved and nothing else at all. He's taken every possibility out of men. He says it is entirely God, the purpose of God, according to election, and he's demonstrated it, proved it scripturally, given instances of it in the life story of Israel, all to prove this great fundamental contingent that they're not all Israel were of Israel, that God has this special seed which he brings into being in order to carry out his purpose. But here he looks as if he's saying that, after all, what saves a man is that he seeks salvation in the right way, seems to bring it back entirely to men. Well, now then, we considered that last week in general, showing how the apostle is not contradicting himself at all, but that what he is rarely doing is this. You see, he'd got two things to deal with. One, how did the Gentiles ever get in? Secondly, why are the Jews out? Now, in the main part of the chapter he's been showing how it is the Gentiles ever got in, or however anybody else got in. Here he is dealing only with what it is that keeps a man outside. And I summed it up at the end in these words that we can put it like this, that man himself is responsible for his damnation, but his salvation is entirely of God. We are responsible beings, and we are responsible for our rejection and refusal of the gospel. But all of us who are saved ascribe our salvation entirely and only and utterly unto God. Now that's the point at which we left off. Well, now I want to come back to this in order again to draw out the inevitability of that conclusion. The apostle is saying the two things. Here. It is God who puts anybody into salvation and God alone. And if a man isn't saved, it is because he has deliberately refused and rejected. Those are the two positions. Now the important matter before us is this. Why must we say that and hold on to both of those statements. Why must we in particular reject the suggestion that it is our belief or our faith that saves us? That is what many have deduced from this. Why haven't they obtained salvation? Well, the answer is, because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law. They stumbled. Very well. It looks as if then the thing that saves is our belief, our faith, our acceptance of the offer. Now that's the great question, is that the determining factor is our salvation, ultimately something that depends not upon the election of God, but upon our belief, our faith, our acceptance. Now I want to try to show you, from what the apostle actually tells us here, that that is impossible, that we must show that he's not contradicting himself at all. And I do it like this. If it is our belief and faith and acceptance that, after all, determines our salvation, well, then I say in the first place that the apostle is specifically contradicting himself. He's going back on what he said in the whole of the previous part of the chapter. But more, he's not going back only on what he has said here. He's going back on what he had said in chapter eight, in verses 28 to 30, where we had we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born amongst many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. And we spent great time over that and worked it out in detail and considered all the possible objections and arguments. We did so with great thoroughness, and we came to this conclusion that the fact that we are told that we are already glorified is a guarantee that it is all the result of God's purpose and God's action. So we can't fall out of it. We can't finally be lost if we've ever been regenerate. Whom he justified, them he has also glorified. We are already glorified in Christ. Very well, so that it goes back on all that and makes the apostle contradict what is his basic and his central teaching. But it isn't confined to the epistle to the Romans. You've got exactly the same thing in the epistle to the Ephesians. That is the essence of his teaching. In chapter two. Of the epistle to the Ephesians, you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, and he keeps on repeating it. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by Gracie are saved. And on he goes, and then he says it still again in that same portion, for by Gracie are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Now you notice the apostle, in order to make it abundantly clear, not only puts it positively, but also negatively, not of works, lest any man should boast. And so you see, if you say that it is our believing and faith and reception that does it, well, you've turned believing into our works, and a man is entitled to glory and to burst in that. So it means that the apostle is contradicting what is his basic teaching everywhere. But let's go beyond that. Look at it like this. In the second place, the position he says by which we are confronted is this, that the Gentiles who didn't seek after righteousness are in the church. They are saved, but the Jews who did seek after righteousness are outside. Well, therefore, the only conclusion that you can draw, if you say that it is a man himself who decides it is this, that the Jews, that the Gentiles were better people than the Jews, that they've got greater spiritual understanding. Here is the same gospel preached to the jew and to the Gentile. The Jews reject it, the Gentiles receive it. There's only one conclusion to draw, that the Gentiles are a more spiritually minded people, and they've got better understanding than the Jews. It involves you in that position of necessity. And yet, when you remember what we are told about these Gentiles, for instance, what I read just now out of Ephesians four and other places, the thing, of course, becomes just plainly ridiculous. There's nothing else to say about it. But in any case, we are told about them, that they were dead in trespasses and sins, and that was their state and condition. You see, if you say that it's a men's belief and reception that does it, you automatically have got to say that the Gentiles had a greater understanding. The Jews refuse this, the Gentiles receive it. Which leads to my third point, which is this. That if that is so, well, then the giving of the law of God through Moses to the children of Israel was a bad thing. It was a hindrance to them rather than a help. In that case, the law mustn't be described, as Paul describes it to the Galatians, as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It's the thing that keeps them out. And the Gentiles were very fortunate that they'd never had the law at all, because if you are given the law, there is this danger of you're misusing it and misunderstanding it and thereby shutting yourself out of the kingdom. Better much never to have had the law. The Gentiles were in a superior position. But the apostle will never receive such a suggestion. He glories in the fact that he was a jew. What advantage then hath the Jew, he says in chapter three. Or what profit is there in circumcision? Much every way, because unto them were committed the oracles of God. He's proud of the fact that he belonged to the Jews. They were in a greatly superior position. It's his argument in all the first chapters and the fact that they'd heard the law and the scriptures and the oracles of God. Why, he's reminded us of all that in this very chapter, the 9th chapter in verse four. Who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises? Whose are the fathers? And so on. But you see, if you say that it is a man's belief and faith and reception that saves him, and that the Gentiles are saved and the Jews are not, and that the Jews are not because of their misunderstanding of the law. I see. There's only one conclusion to draw. That the Gentiles were in the advantageous position because they'd never had the law, it's an inevitable deduction. But it is one, of course, that one simply cannot accept for a moment because it contradicts the teaching of the whole Bible. Or let me put it like this to you, taking it in our modern situation, the Gentiles are in, the Jews are out. Why is this? Well, the trouble with the Jews is that this knowledge of the law which they had, that's the thing that stumbled them and trapped them. The Gentiles haven't got that well, very well. It was a sort of virgin mind and virgin soil. So when they heard the gospel, they believed it. All right. The conclusion to draw from that is this. It is a bad thing to teach children the Bible. It's a bad thing to bring them up in a religious manner. It is a bad thing to give people religious teaching or moral teaching or anything that encourages them to seek after God and after righteousness. It's the only conclusion you can draw. It's an advantage to be ignorant like the Gentiles and to know nothing at all about it. Or let me try and put it like this to you. Look at that position which is described by the apostle in the first epistle to the Corinthians in the first chapter and in that section which we read at the beginning, where the apostle really is making exactly the same point. He says, for after 20, verse 21. For after that, in the wisdom of God. The world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of the thing preached to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. We preach Christ crucified, and to the Jews a stumbling block. And unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called. Now then, here's the term called both Jews and Greeks. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because he says the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Now then, listen, for you see your calling, brethren, he says, you see the position that obtains in the church, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world, and things which are despised. Hath God chosen? Yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. Now then what do we deduce from all this? Well, if you say that it is a man himself who is responsible for his salvation, there is only one deduction to draw, and that is that it is a very serious disadvantage to be born with a good brain, to be born with intelligence, to be born with what he calls here wisdom. You see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. God hath chosen the foolish. Very well. You look at the christian church, says Paul, and what you find? Well, he says you actually find this, that the majority of people in the church are not the gifted people, are not the intelligent, the able and the wise people, but rather the people who are not very gifted and who are not learned, certainly who know nothing about learning and philosophy, the ignorant people, the things that are not. What conclusion do you draw? Well, I say there's only one conclusion to draw on that supposition, and that is that it's a very serious handicap to be born intelligent. It's a very great handicap to have a good brain. The man who has the advantage in the matter of salvation is a man who's, in the language of scripture, a fool. But says somebody, no, you're not being quite fair. What the apostle is saying is this, not so much that it was their possession of brains that kept them out, but the fact that they were proud of their brains. All right, I agree. That's perfectly right. But you see, it doesn't change the argument, because if you haven't got much brains, you have nothing to be proud of. So if the cause of the trouble is pride of intellect, well, then the man who hasn't got it is still in an advantageous position. He's not subject to pride of intellect. He is, again, a sort of blank. And that would mean that you're compelled to say that you have a real advantage in the matter of salvation. If you're more or less a blank without much brains, without much intellect, without much anything else. Now, this is very important, isn't it? This is very vital. All these things follow. If you say that it is a man's belief and faith and reception that determines the fact that he's in the kingdom, the Gentile, with all that that converts, is in an advantageous position over and against the jew. So I go on in the fourth case, to put it like this. To say that it is our belief and so on that saves us is completely to misunderstand. What the apostle is saying not only here, but also in that passage, in one corinthians one, he is not saying in one corinthians one that it is an advantageous thing not to be wise, not to be mighty, not to be noble. He isn't saying that. Well, what is he saying? Oh, what he is saying is this, that God has called that kind of person for a specific object and purpose, which is a very different thing. What the apostle is saying, you see, in one corinthians one is this, that from the standpoint of salvation, it doesn't matter whether you're wise or foolish. It doesn't matter whether you're mighty or weak. It doesn't matter what you are, because that is never what saves a man. The moment you say that this salvation is something that is determined by men, well, then, what is true of the men is the important thing. But according to the apostle, that's never the important thing at all. What saves is always the calling of God. Not many mighty, not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. That's why he's done it. God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the world, and things which are despised. Hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not. Hath God chosen to bring to naught things that are? Why, for this reason, that no flesh should glory in his presence? The wise men mustn't glory in the presence of God, neither must the foolish men. The strong men mustn't glory in the presence of God, neither must the weak men, nobody must. By which he is saying that nothing in men matters at all. It is the choosing and the calling of God that alone matters. Surely this ought to be perfectly clear and quite inevitable. And actually, what God does, as he tells us, is to choose people of all types and of all kinds. He does call some jews as well as gentiles. He does call some wise. What the apostle says is not that there are no wise men in the church, not many, not many. Not many wise men after the flesh. Not many mighty, not many noble are called. But don't you turn that into saying that there are none, and that you put a premium on ignorance and absence of ability and intellect and power. That's equally wrong. God doesn't need your brains. He doesn't need your lack of brains either. He doesn't need your understanding. He doesn't need your lack of understanding. There is no advantage on either side at all. Very well. That is exactly. I say what the apostle says. So that nothing in us determines whether we are saved or whether we are not. Indeed, the Bible makes it very plain and clear to us that there is only one explanation as to how the gentiles ever got into the christian church. It wasn't their ignorance. God forbid that we should ever put ourselves into that terrible position of saying that. Look at the condition of these gentiles now. The apostle has given us a terrifying description of them in the first chapter. We mustn't go back over that again. But there it is. It's all there perfectly clearly before us. He says in verse 21, they when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Then he goes on to say things like this, wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves and the terrible things that follow. God gave them up to vile affections. Their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. Likewise, the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust. One to another, ends all. Here he sums it all up at the end, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents without understanding, covenant breakers without natural affection, implacable and merciful, who, knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but of pleasure in them that do it. Take another description of them. I want to ridicule this thing out of our minds once and forever. Take the description given of these gentiles in one corinthians six nine. And following, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. That's what they were like. That's what these gentiles were actually like. Take the description of them again in two Corinthian, in Ephesians two, one to three dead, in trespasses and sins, wherein he walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and whereby nature the children of wrath, even as others. And then Ephesians 417, and following the mind darkened, sunken in iniquity and vileness and evil and sin. Now, here's the question. How did such people ever believe the gospel? How is it that they ever came into the christian church? Ah, you say it is because when they heard the gospel, they believed it, and they accepted it, and they gave themselves to it. They had the spiritual understanding to do so, they were sufficiently enlightened, whereas the Jews were not. Can you say that about such people? They were without God in the world. They were absolutely blinded and darkened in their minds. And yet you are asking me to believe that they had the ability and the capacity to recognize the truth and to believe it and thereby to save themselves. My dear friends, the thing is a sure and an utter impossibility, and indeed it's a blank denial of the scriptures. This is what I'm told in acts 13. Here is Paul Preaching. You remember, at Antioch of in Pisidia, he preached first of all to a mixed company of Jews and Gentiles. Let me read from verse 44. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing that you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For soeth the Lord commended us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. That's the one and the only explanation. You can't postulate a spiritual understanding in these people who were dead in trespasses and sins and sunk to the very depths of iniquity with darkened, blinded minds. It's impossible. There's only one explanation. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed, and they were the only ones who believed. Nobody else believed at all. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves? It is the gift of God, not of works. Lest any man should boast, we are his workmanship, obviously, because we were dead. And it is God's ordination of us to eternal life that leads us and enables us to believe. Very well. There it seems to me the position is plain. It is the obvious thing that the apostle is saying. That is how the Gentiles have come in. But what keeps one out? We've also seen in that same passage in the 13th chapter of acts in verse 46, seeing, says the apostle, that you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles, it is the ordination of God that brings anybody in. It is a men's deliberately refusal and rejection that keeps him out. The Jews rejected it, judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life and put it from them. And so they did, of course, in other places that we can read about in the acts of the apostles. Well, now then, what the apostle I say is dealing with here is that that is why the Jews are outside. And of course he's saying nothing new. You see, the case of the Jews, after all, was nothing but a repetition of what he's already told us in the case of Pharaoh. You remember what we saw about the case of Pharaoh in the 17th verse of this chapter, the scripture, Seth, unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. And in the same way we've had it also in verse 22, what if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? And we saw that it meant this pharaoh was already a sinner, already an unbeliever, already amongst the lost. But God treats him with long suffering. And the more long suffering God showed towards him, the worse did Pharaoh become. That's the position of pharaoh, though God spares him and withholds his wrath. As we saw, far from melting pharaoh or improving him or making him more ready to listen, it had the opposite effect. He became harder and harder and harder. The grace of God hardened Pharaoh and thereby revealed his essential sinfulness. He deliberately opposed God. He deliberately disobeyed. He deliberately rejected. Very well, says Paul. That's precisely the position with the Jews. They have been disobeying God and rejecting him for centuries. The Old Testament gives us the story and the account, but God still spared them. And then when the fullness of the times had come, he sent forth his own son amongst them, made of a woman, made under the law. The everlasting God gave this great honor to Israel, as the apostles reminded us in verse five, of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is overall God, blessed forever. When God sent his only son from heaven into this world, he didn't send him to the Gentiles. He sent him amongst the Jews as a man. Our Lord was a jew. Verse four has already told us that of the seed of David according. Verse four of chapter one has told us that of the seed of David according to the flesh. What greater honor could ever have been paid to a nation. Very well. Here is God sends his own son and makes a jew of him, as it were. And he lived amongst them and taught amongst them was subject to their own law, the law of Moses, in which they gloried so much. Not only that, he preached grace to them. He told them that he'd come to die to save all his preaching, all his life, all his teaching, his death upon the cross. Yet what effect did it have upon the Jews? Did it soften them? Did it melt them? Did it fill them with joy and with thanksgiving and with praise? Well, the four gospels answered the question. It hardened them. No one ever infuriated the Jews as our Lord did. They never showed such hatred and malice and bitterness against anyone as they did against the son of God who'd come amongst them. You see what it means, the grace of God in his son. Even his death upon the cross hardened them, revealed their essential lost condition, their damned condition. They deliberately refused it. They deliberately rejected it. And they are responsible for their own damnation, exactly as pharaoh was. Now, that's all the apostle is saying here. You see in these last two verses, he's not dealing with what saves the men. He's dealing with what condemns the men. And there he says, it is a man's own responsibility. It is a man's own action. It is a man's own refusal and rejection of the preaching of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Very well. We therefore sum it up once more by putting it like this. That anyone at all should be saved, and especially people like the gentiles, is due to one thing only, and that is God's election. But those who are lust are lust because they deliberately refuse and reject with scorn and derision God's offer of salvation in Christ. And they are responsible to the very hilt. That is what they want to do. That is what they do. That is what they rejoice in doing. None deserve salvation. All deserve damnation, as the apostles already put it. Except the Lord of Sabioth had left us a seed. We had been as Sodom. We had been made like unto Gomorrah. What any man who is a true Christian says, therefore is this there but for the grace of God, go. I am what I am. By the grace of God. I am a Christian. Not because I've believed, not because I've got some understanding that other man hasn't got. No, I'm a Christian. I am what I am because God, in his inscrutable purpose, has ordained that I should have eternal life. And there's no other reason? The only alternative to that is to take credit to yourself for salvation. The only alternative is to say, oh, it was my belief that did it, I'm saved, and the other man isn't. Because I believed, I exercised faith, therefore I am saved. That means you've saved yourself. There's something in you that's not in the other men you have believed. He hasn't believed. Is that the thing that saves you? Well, I come back and ask you the question I've asked you once before. If you believe that, what is it that makes you believe and the other man not believe? What made you believe? Well, you say I understood the gospel and the other men didn't understand the gospel. But why did you understand the gospel and why didn't he? What is it about you that made you or enabled you to understand and not he? What is it in you? Must be something better in you than in him. Better brain, perhaps. More spiritually minded. Is it? Well, how are you like that, and why are you different? Well, you say, I don't know. I am like this very well, exactly. You don't determine it, do you? You were born like that. You see, in the end it comes back to this. You either believe in accident and chance, or else you believe in the election of God. You either have got to say, well, I don't know. I was just born like this. I find myself believing and the other man doesn't. But that's accident, that's chance. That's entirely fortuitous. It's either that it's either your natural constitution for which you are not responsible, or else it is the purpose of God according to election. And what the Bible teaches is that it is the purpose of God according to election. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. My dear friend, I'm not standing here to say that I understand all this. I don't. Don't ask me why does God ordain some and not others? I don't know. I'm not told in the Bible, and I know nothing except what I'm told here. I'll go further. I don't want to know his mystery. It's a great mystery. That is the inscrutable mind of God. Do you remember that hymn in which Charles Wesley puts this? It seems to me so perfectly. We sang it together last Friday night. But let me repeat the crucial verse which brings out this aspect of the matter so perfectly in Charles Wesley's great hymn, which begins with the words, and can it be that I should gain? But here's the verse. Listen to this. His mystery. All the immortal dies who can explore his strange design. In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine, his mercy all let earth adore. Let angel minds inquire no more. Now, that's the simple, literal truth. In vain the first born seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine. And yet you are trying to do it, are you? You want to understand. You say, I want to know this. I can't understand that. My dear friend, the brightest seraph in heaven doesn't understand it. It's too deep a mystery. We are here looking into the mind of the eternal God. We are not meant to understand. You see, that is exactly what the apostle is saying in one corinthians one. It is because some of us are so clever and want to understand even the mind of God and say, I'm not going to believe until I understand that God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. It isn't that your wisdom is a disadvantage, but it does mean this, that you've got to realize that your wisdom is just nothing when it tries to pit itself against the mind and the wisdom of God. And it is in order to humble men that God has chosen these who are not the foolish rather than the wise, and the weak rather than the strong. What for? Well, to let us all see together that we can do nothing, that no flesh should glory in his presence. Nobody must glory in the presence of God. Whether you're wise or foolish, it doesn't matter at all whether you're a jew or a gentile. Whatever your nationality, whatever your gifts and propensities, it makes not the slightest difference. I'll add to that whether you are the most moral person in London tonight or the most immoral. Thank God. It doesn't make any difference when you come to this question of salvation. Not a bit. Not the slightest difference. If you are glorying in anything, even your belief or your faith, you're trying to justify yourself by works, and you're not saved. Thou must save and thou alone, that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord exclusively. Only if you say or think that it is your believing that has saved you, you are glorying in your believing. You are saying that it is your faith that has saved you. It isn't. Thou must save and thou alone, and it is he alone who does save as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Your believing is a proof of the fact that you've been ordained. Your believing is the first sign of the new mind that is in you. To the natural men, these things are foolishness. He cannot receive them. The fact that you receive them means that you're not a natural man. You've become a spiritual man. You are a new man by grace, received through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, him that Gloria. Let him glory in the Lord. O Lord our God, we come unto thee. We do indeed glory in thee, and in thy name, and in thy power, and in thy glory. We do indeed rejoice before thee that we are what we are. By thy grace we ascribe unto thee all the praise and all the honor and all the glory, because we realize that we have nothing wherein to burst in any sense at all. Thine and thine alone is the glory. And now may the grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now, this night, throughout the remainder of this hour, short, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and until his glorious purpose shall finally be fulfilled in us, and we shall be fully conformed to the image of his son, and shall see him as he is and be like him in the glory everlasting. Amen. We do hope that you've been helped by the preaching of Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones. All of the sermons contained within the MLJ Trust audio library are now available for free download. You may share the sermons or broadcast them, however, because of international copyright please be advised that we are asking, first, that these sermons never be offered for sale by a third party and second, that these sermons will not be edited in any way for length or to use as audio clips. 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