Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 863 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: I'm just trusting God this morning that God has something in this, because the Devil has sure fought it. In my mind there's been a battle just getting here. He hates this truth. He knows that he's defeated. He knows what took place at the cross. But we need to know it.

( congregational amens ).

We need to know it in the depths of our soul and to a point where we are willing to commit ourselves wholeheartedly, a hundred percent, to follow Him and to turn our back upon this world knowing its destiny. You can't have one foot in both kingdoms and sort of somehow have a fire escape from hell and live your life. That's not what it's about.

"...the ruler of the kingdom of the air..." (NIV). People don't know what drives them. You look at the news and the terrible things that are happening day, by day, by day, by day. We don't have to wonder why those things happen. We understand that men are turning more and more to darkness. The power of Satan is growing by the hour as people yield themselves to that power. They don't know what's driving them to do the crazy terrible unspeakable things that they do. Praise God!

"...the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." Now Paul doesn't say well, now you and I weren't like that, of course. He says all of us. "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath." Now just think about that for a minute. Paul was speaking to Gentiles who had lived in heathen idolatry and there's all kinds of sinful practices that were actually built into their religion. Everything about their life was a horrible caricature of what God had originally intended. It just went the opposite direction.

But Paul includes himself. He did not say all of "you," he said all of "us." Paul was one of the most religious people upon the face of the earth. His life was devoted to the law of the Old Testament given under Moses and seeking to, by the righteousness of that law, to make himself acceptable to God and God help anybody who didn't agree with him. He was complicit in their murder in more than one case. But I'll tell you Paul includes himself as one who had lived under the power of darkness.

I'll tell you there's a lot of religion today that really operates under the power of darkness. God deliver us and cause us to so cry out to God that He will dwell here as He desires, as He is worthy to dwell.

( congregational amens ).

He alone is worthy to dwell in our midst. Oh may God help us to respect and to reverence Him and His presence, to hunger for it, to desire to be changed by the power of the resurrection and the life that came forth with Jesus. That's the power that He is giving to us to change us. First of all, you've got to get in the door. You've got to get in the kingdom. So listen to what God has done for us.

"But..." in spite of what he says in verses 1 through 3, "But because of his great love for us...." Now we human beings have what we call love. But we love somebody who strokes us the right way who does something for us emotionally some way. We're beneficiaries of whatever the object of our love is. This is a God who loved us when we were yet sinners. When we were going as hard the other direction as we could go, God loved us in spite of that. While we were yet sinners, Christ died.

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ...." There's the resurrection, folks. When Jesus came forth from the grave He did not come alone. You and I who have put our trust in Him were there.

How could such a thing be? First of all, we've got a God who knows the end from the beginning. He can do what He wants. He's not bound by time as we are. He knows. I'll tell you He's...we're safe in His hands because He knows the end from the beginning. But here's another thing. How are you in Adam? Think about that. You and I also were in Adam. Now we didn't show up until the twentieth century or twenty-first century for a few of the younger ones. But we were there.

Why? Because the life that was in Adam was capable of reproducing itself and bringing forth all that you see. But the life that was in Jesus was the beginning of another race of men. We had the first Adam, then we had the last Adam. I'll tell you I want to be a part of the last Adam, because His life is not like the life that was in the first Adam. And so God says that when He brought forth Jesus He didn't bring Him alone. He brought you too and me. Praise God!

That's how central this is to salvation. If all we...if all we did was to receive the punishment of our sins in Him, that would be the end of it. But it's not the end. All it does is lay the foundation. It removes the barrier that separated us from God. But now He gives us a new life that's uncorrupted by that sin.

Do you have that life this morning? That's the centrality of the resurrection for you. If you don't know God this morning, there's a life that's available. Being a Christian, as I say, is not going to church and believing certain doctrines, trying to live a certain kind of life. Those things will come but they will be a fruit of something--of a miracle, a divine miracle that God performs down here.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! And so "...God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages..." Now listen to this--a lot of folks, their religion is all focused upon life here. Let's just figure out ways to make life better here. Well God can deal with the issues of this life but this life is not what it's about.

Listen to what God's purpose is. "...in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches..." Riches that you cannot compare to anything else is what he's saying. "...incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." What is your life about? Is it about what God wants to do in you and through you, or is it about what you want to do. I'll tell you, your eternity hinges on a question like that.

Look at Romans, chapter 10, Romans, chapter 10. Now Paul was in the middle of about a three chapter discussion about the Israelites and what about them and their place in God's economy? His eyes had been opened and suddenly he saw who Jesus really was. But he was...his heart was broken because he saw the condition--the blindness of the people among who he had been and so he's really...he starts out questioning, oh God, I'd be willing to go to hell for my brothers and sisters if it would save them. What's going on? What's the problem?

And so God...then He begins to unravel it. So this is part of that. So he says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God...." Do you know of people today who are zealous? But they are zealous in a religious sense. They're busy. They're just constantly doing stuff.

Do you know that there's going to be a lot of people on the Day of Judgment who will say Lord, Lord? Have we not done all these wonderful things in your name, Lord? We've been busy all our lives. We have sacrificially served you and done all these great things? And He'll say, "...depart from me, ye that work iniquity..." (KJV). I didn't know you. I never knew you.

It didn't say I knew you and then I didn't know you. He said I never knew you. I'll tell you the devil has counterfeits. He has ways of diverting people from the real heart issue. You can motivate a lot of people to get busy and do, but we're not saved by doing, we're saved by faith. We need a heart transplant. That's what it gets down to. We need that miracle.

So Paul is testifying as a result of having grown up and lived among the people about whom he is speaking. He says, "I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." God has a way of making us righteous as if we had never sinned. God has a way of bringing us to such a place and it does not happen because of what you do. It happens because you repent of all of your doing. My God, we need to repent not only of our sins but of our attempts to be righteous.

( congregational amens ).

That was the very thing that kept these people who were zealous for God from ever coming to God. It was their prideful idea that "I can do something." Well, God help us. We can do nothing.

( congregational amens ).

Nothing. That's how corrupt Adam's life is. I don't care what we do, we're going have to come the same way--as penitent humble sinners who know that they have no hope if God does not show mercy.

( congregational amens ).

Don't you ever come and say, "I'm doing this and God, you owe me. I deserve your favor." I don't deserve His favor. The man in the temple didn't come on that basis, did he? He said, "God be merciful to me a sinner." He wouldn't lift up his eyes to heaven. Did God despise Him? No. That was the one that God's heart was drawn to because he was honest. He came to a place of honesty before God and said, I have no hope unless God shows me mercy. But, I want to tell you that there is mercy today.

( congregational amens ).

But it's only for those who come to that place and only God can bring you there. My words can not do that, but He can do that. Praise the Lord!

Alright, then he describes the law and how these people were trying to find God and down in verse 6 he says, "But the righteousness that is by faith says: Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down) or Who will descend into the deep? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)." You've got a spirit in man that wants the hero to go and somehow conquer the mountain and bring the benefits back. There's no...it's not like that. You don't have to be a hero. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be a whole lot of things. A little child can enter into what he's talking about here.

Oh, what kind of a God would it be who'd set his faith in such a way that...set out the hope of eternal life and only those who were very intellectual could find it? Only those who were very strong willed, only those...no. God has cancelled all of that out. That has no bearing on the situation. It's coming like a little child and saying, Father, I bow at your feet. So listen to what it is if it's not those other things. Not going on some grand spiritual quest, then I have done it. I have broken through.

"But what does it say? The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart..." Well how can that be? He says, "...that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming." That's the role of the preaching of God's Word is to so proclaim the message that God can take it and beget faith in the hearts of those that receive it.

You know, we know from the Word of God, we know from what Jesus said, that there's all kinds of people who hear the Word. And that's not my responsibility ultimately. That's not my responsibility to worry about the kind of soil that the Word falls...that the seed of the Word falls upon. But I'll tell you if we have the seed of the Word of God and there's life in it, it has the power to beget life and I believe God is manifested Himself, not because of what we are. We are nothing, but I believe as God is interested in people, He might be interested in somebody right here today who needs Christ.

"...the Word of faith we are proclaiming..." This is a Word that can result in faith in your heart that can cause you to understand and to actually believe the message to the point of acting upon it, because that's what he's talking about. Now here's what he says, "That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and..." Now listen to this. "...and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Is the resurrection at the heart of things? Yes. Because if there is no resurrection, how can you have new life? How can you and I have anything if Jesus did not conquer everything for us, including death itself? Sin and death were obliterated in Jesus Christ. In Him a new family was born. I'll tell you, to enter that family something's got to happen. It's not just what you do externally. It's got to happen here. But when it happens here there's going to be an expression of that. It's gonna result. It's gonna spring up in your life. There's gonna be changes that happen. It's gonna cause you to confess with your mouth--now not just your mouth obviously. This is got to come from the heart.

But there is a confession that Jesus is Lord. Now that's not just simply an acknowledgement that Jesus, out there somewhere, is Lord...you know, some vague thing that doesn't affect your life. We started out by talking about 'how does the resurrection affect me.' Does it make a difference to me as an individual? Yes it does. The fact that a man came out of a tomb, the Son of God came out of a tomb bodily almost two thousand years ago, it makes all the difference to everyone sitting here this morning.

( congregational amens ).

Without that there is no hope. But, oh, I'll tell you it comes to a point where we've got to see that He...that God has made Him Lord. The fact that He came out of that tomb on that day and that God set Him on a throne and then poured out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost. That was the evidence that He was on the throne. It was the miracle of what God began to do and then how the power that began to be displayed before the people of Israel. That was proof. That was God's witness. I have set my Son in heaven. He is on the throne. Now the question is, not just, is He Lord in some vague general sense, is He your Lord?

( congregational amens ).

Is He your Lord? You've got a lot of folks preaching a gospel today...so called gospel...where people can somehow have Jesus as Saviour but not as Lord. There is no such gospel. That is a false gospel. We're saved by coming to a place where we surrender. It's not my life anymore. Jesus, you're not just Lord out there, you're Lord of me.

Does that mean that everything gets perfectly straightened out today? No. We know better than that. We who have served the Lord know that there's a process involved in coming under His Lordship. But, I'll tell you there is a change of heart from going the way of the world, from living under the dominion of sin, living under the dominion of the powers that rule in the darkness above and having our hearts turn around and say, you against whom I have been in rebellion, I now bow my knee. My life is not about me and what I want to do. And my life here, my life is about you, Lord. Show me. You have the right to tell me what to do. My life is not my own to live as I please anymore. Praise God! I'll tell you a lot of people that I believe God has brought to that place. Are you sorry?

-- Congregation: No.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Praise God! Praise God! Does that mean your life is always easy? No. But oh, I'd rather have Jesus with me in the fire than to be out there in a palace.

( congregational praise ).

He's preparing us for something that will never end and it's real and it'll become real. It'll become real when faith reaches that point and you're really born of His Spirit. Suddenly another world will open up to your eyes and to your understanding. These are just words until that happens. But, oh, this is what's got to happen. You've got to be brought to a place where you confess that Jesus is Lord.

But notice the connection here with the resurrection "...and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead...." I'll tell you, if you believe that then that puts the seal of faith upon everything that God has promised because if He didn't do that, you have no hope. But if He did--and He did--then there is a life there that has the power to change your life from the inside out. Praise God!

And so I just put that out there because there's other aspects of this, but I'll tell you what, it doesn't have to be a certain time or a certain place, but the moment that God convicts your heart of your lost condition and you come to a place where you're willing to surrender and you say, Yes Lord, You are my Lord. I believe in my heart. I'll tell you God will answer the cry of your heart that moment.

( congregational amens ).

He will respond. We've got people here who can testify. They weren't down at an altar necessarily. Nothing wrong with that. They might have been totally by themselves but God came. God met with you. God made Himself real to you. Didn't He, Jo? Some others that could testify to God becoming a reality in your life when you said, "Yes."

Oh, I urge you today. Do you not know the danger you're in if this hasn't happened in your life? Oh I pray that God will disturb you until you come to rest because otherwise you're living in a dream world and it's gonna end badly.

( congregational amens ).

I pray...I pray to God that you will...that He will just open your heart and we need to pray to that end. This is not a spirit of condemnation. This is a spirit of God's love reaching out to you. He doesn't do this to condemn. He does it because He loves you. Oh, He has such wondrous things for His people. They're wonderful enough here, but they're going to be so much more than we can ever imagine on the other side. Praise God! And so I urge you to enter into the reality of what happened when Jesus was raised from the dead.

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