Humanity is inexcusable before God due to multiple layers of revelation, beginning with creation and conscience, progressing through the law and prophets for some, and culminating in the gospel of grace. The examples emphasize that regardless of background—heathen, civilized, or religious—all have been exposed to sufficient truth to be held accountable. The core lesson is that God's abundant grace, demonstrated through Christ's sacrifice, provides salvation for those who believe, yet this very grace underscores the inexcusable state of those who reject it. The message concludes with an exhortation to present one's body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, as the reasonable and intelligent response to His mercies.
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Someone's getting tired even before I start preaching. I see them yawning back there. Romans chapter two and verse one. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judges. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judges doest the same thing. now chapter five and verse one therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ chapter eight and verse one There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Now the last one is Chapter Twelve. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your body the living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now this is a very well-known division of the whole book of Romans. I suppose the majority of those who have done any studying at all on the book of Romans are familiar with this whole whole division.
and each one of these sections can more or less be summarized or terminated with these words or this word therefore. In other words, this word therefore, you want a number of synonyms to go along with it, therefore or wherefore or accordingly because of saying such is the case or for that reason or on this ground on that account and growing out of that fact, or you might say expressing a direct conclusion of a chain of reasoning, therefore, it's a very forceful word.
And the first one, as we have in chapter two and one, therefore thou art inexcusable, O man. In other words, because of what has been taken up, the subject at hand, he says, therefore, having presented these facts because of this ground. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man. You'll notice in looking over those chapters, chapters one and two, you have the whole human race brought into the courtroom. Not in the courtroom yet to come. There is a judgment coming, but God has already brought the human race into court.
And already God has condemned the human race. That's quite clear. He that believeth not is condemned already, you read in John three, thirty-six. But he that believeth not is condemned. He that believeth not is condemned already. But he that believeth not is not condemned. If you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are condemned already. You are condemned right now. You don't have to wait for judgment day. God has already condemned you at the cross. All that waits is the time for that sentence to be put into execution.
Man stands condemned right here and now. And if you are not born again, if you haven't passed from death into life, you are condemned already. Right now. So he says, Thou art inexcusable. O man, and here is man in the courtroom, and God is the judge. The world is on trial, and in those chapters, one and two of Romans, you have three classes brought before you. The world divided into three classes. You have more or less the heathen, the ungodly sinner, the civilized or cultural world. There's a model sinner, and then you have the religious world, or the religious.
But remember that culture isn't Christ and religion is not the Redeemer. Man was created in God's likeness, as we all know. But because of sin, man sinned against God. He disobeyed God. Man became degenerate, depraved, and doomed. Man degenerate! You know, when you... stop to think of the subject of evolution, man improving, it's ridiculous. For man is constantly, and has been ever since sin entered, is constantly on the declutter.
He's degenerating. He's diluting and not evolution. And it's a strange thing if the human race sprang from monkeys that you can come across some signs of progress in the human race. Man has supposed to have come from a little bit of protoplasm, a little bit of slime on a lake or a pond, and out of that why we've come to the monkey stage and on up to our present status. In other words, they try and teach us evolution. Man's improving. He's making progress all the time. Well, I don't see it. Man is not making progress.
He's just going backwards. He's going away from God instead of toward God. Instead of getting better, he's getting worse. That's what the Bible says. He's going down, he's not going up. And you see that right in your Bible. So the Bible presents a picture absolutely opposite to evolution. Now he says the heathen are without excuse. Why are the heathen without excuse? So many people are interested in the heathen. What about the heathen? Never you mind about the heathen. You think about one heathen, and that's the one you see when you look in the mirror. Never mind about any mirrors or any heathen over in Africa.
If you're not born again, you're the heathen that God's interested in. Never mind about these others, unbelievers. The heathen will be judged on two counts, and that is original revelation. God's mind was revealed to Adam and Eve. Then it was revealed to Abel, for he brought the right sacrifice, and so on. And if the human race had passed on that original revelation, they would have known the mind of God. But that original revelation was not passed on. The result was that man went off into idolatry and into all the sins known today to heathen them.
And so the heathen is guilty before God because of a failure of that original revelation to be passed on, and then because of creation. The heathen, all he's got to do is look up and see God's wonderful creation. This marvelous masterpiece we see all around us. And if he's got any sense at all, he knows that that heinous, hateful, horrid-looking idol is not the inventor and the creator of this wonderful creation. You see, with this marvelous creation, there must be a marvelous designer, architect, creator behind it all. And so God tells us in Psalm nineteen, the heavens declare the glory of God in the firm mature of his hand.
And so God will judge the heathen on the ground of creation. And on the ground of that original revelation that he gave to Adam and Eve and so on. Then what about the civilized world? God says, thou art inexcusable, O man, referring to the heathen. Now he turns to the cultural world, the civilized world so called, he says, and thou art inexcusable because I'm not only giving you creation, I've given you a conscience. Your conscience has been enlightened. Your conscience has been educated. You have received light that the heathen hasn't received.
You've got a conscience. The heathen, of course, have the conscience as well. But what a conscience they seem to have, so warped and so distorted. But the cultural world, the civilized world brags in its intelligence. Brags in the fact it's made such strides, such progress over the dark heathen. God says, yes, your conscience has been enlightened. You have learned much, but you have practiced little. Thou art inexcusable, O man, and so the cultural world is guilty before God. What about the Jew? The Jew is guilty before God because they have the law and the prophets sent to them.
God gave them the Ten Commandments, and he gave them his prophets. They rejected both. And God says, thou art inexcusable, O man, here you find the whole world up to the cross guilty before God. Without excuse, let me tell you, for the pheasant world, driven from the pheasant world, there are two counts added to the pheasant world, added to the light of creation, the light of conscience, the light of the law and the prophets. We have, furthermore, the light of the gospel. The gospel the heathen certainly never heard. And the cultural world did not hear the gospel as we have it today, the gospel of grace.
Nor did the Jews in the Old Testament. And so God drew his son. He gave us his son. The Lord Jesus. Could he give more? The one who came to reveal the Father, unveil the Father's heart. Make known the Father's mind. Nothing was kept back. And God revealed himself fully and completely in the person of his son. This world is without its doom. If living in the noonday blaze of a revelation of God at every aspect, there is the fourth count, the gospel of the grace of God. And then God has sent his spirit into the world.
came on the day of Pentecost and there is a fifth come. God will hold the whole world responsible at that coming day against a foreign come. They've rejected the light of creation. They've rejected the light of conscience. They've rejected the light of the law. They've rejected the light of the gospel. They've rejected the tithing to the Spirit of God for he came into the world to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment of God. Then people say God would be unjust to send a man or woman to head. When God can present all this evidence to substantiate his efforts to apply and win man to himself, is of any wonder we read, thou art inexcusable in the land.
Man today is without excuse. Someone was here a week ago this morning and heard the message we spoke on in different. I was aware that very little had sunk in. When he asked me, he said, Well, Mr. Wilson, what about those people who've been born? And when Jesus was here on earth up until now, well, that's no problem. Certainly they've had God's word. The story of the cross is a historical fact. God's word has been given to the world, and certainly that the ones who saw Jesus Christ on the cross, it was a wonderful privilege, but nevertheless those who hear the story of the cross are hearing God's wonderful message and can be saved as well as those who literally saw Jesus Christ.
In fact, the Lord Jesus said to Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Lest it are they which have not seen me yet have believed. And as these generations come into the world, born in sin, because of Adam's transgressions, they go up and they have all this evidence around them. No person's been saved. There's no possible way for me to be saved when you walk down with a twenty-five cent piece and you can buy a new testament and a five and ten cent there's God's revelation right there. You don't have to hear a preacher. You can get God sent this word, a New Testament, even the Gospel of John itself that you can buy for a nickel.
Some place is a penny. And in that you've got God's salvation. So are you excused, O men, if men want to be saved, they want to know the way to heaven. They can certainly find it. You'll find it inside the covers of this method, but there's the indictment. So are you in excused, O man, you have no excuse. I hope that those who come to the ordinary gospel chapel will certainly be without any possible excuse for what we seek to make the gospel plain every time we have a meeting. And if God has come into your family and saved some under your roof and in your family, you are doubly guilty.
The Bible teaches, the Bible actually teaches, that if a wife is changed, Her husband is sanctified, not in the sense that he's saved because she is, not in the sense that he's made holy, holy, no. It means this. He has been set apart in a special way to privilege because his wife's a Christian, a child of God, and he's united to her, and the Bible teaches in the sense that he's so kind to her. God speaks of him as being set apart for special favors and blessings. Yet short of Christ, what a judgment will be his if he misses the new birth.
But think, beside all these other evidences, he hath lived with a child of God. And what a day that will be when two shall be in a bed, and one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Thou art inexcusable. The same is true in the white living with the same husband, and she's not a prisoner. Children, the same parents, as that twerred teacher, they are panties and are set apart, specially privileged and favored and blessed, because God has come under their roof in his salvation, and we are in evidence of that before their eyes. Thou art inexcusable, O man, and so we say man is without excuse.
You'll notice in connection with those, God gave them up. Three times it says, God gave them up. God gave them up. God gave them up. But here's the point. They gave God up first. Every time they gave God up, then God gave them up. And that's the way it is today. When a man or woman finally says, I don't want something, I'm not going to get saved. I have to face the face with the fact. He gives God up, and God says, all right, I'll give you up. God gave a man a woman up. That's when his spirit seat was described as that man or that woman. That is the unpardonable sin.
Then he gave a God up, and then God gave them. Therefore, thou is an excusable old man. There's a therefore of condemnation. Then you come to chapter five. There's a therefore of justification. being justified, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that remarkable? After what we've been talking about, the therefore of condemnment, man is without excuse. Then we are brought into the gospel, a wonderful gospel story of God giving his son to die. There he is on the cross, and whoever receives Jesus Christ, what did he say?
Therefore we're justified, being justified by things. We have been, not we hope to have it, we have it right now. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not through anything I do or hope to do, but through what Jesus Christ did to me, I have righteous men, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, on the faces of our accordingly, on this ground, because of what Jesus did untold in my stead, and because God dealt with him because of my sin, because of all this, and my sinful faith in Jesus Christ, I have peace with God to all Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he comes at chapter eight in verse one. Here's the therefore of no condemnation, or the therefore of emancipation. The therefore of separation, we're emancipated, we're set free, we're separate from this godless world. That's the point. What does he say? Therefore there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation, no judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus. That's a wonderful thing. Are you in Christ? The wonderful thing to be in Christ is we said on the TV, to be in Christ means to have Christ in me.
It's like the sponge. The water is in the sponge, but the sponge is in the water. It's like the old poachers they used to have when they had the fireplace in some place they still do. If you put that poacher in the cold, And the first thing you know, the poker is all red, sometimes almost white. The poker's in the fire, but the fire's in the poker. I'm in Christ and Christ is in me. The bird is in the air, but the air is in the bird, the fish is in the sea, but the sea is in the fish. That's how closely united the Christian is, the Jesus Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation, no judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus.
Then we come to this wonderful text, Romans twelve, one, the therefore of poverty. And this, therefore, takes on emphasis. Each, therefore, takes on added emphasis. First, therefore thou art inexcusable, old man, one lawful place to the end. But now you have come to Jesus Christ, he says, therefore you are justified by this. And now you'll learn the secret of the old fallen nature, and you find that your victory is in the Holy Spirit and dwells within you, and you have all resorted for a victorious truth in life. Therefore there is no condemnation to them who are in you, Christ Jesus.
And because of all these wonderful things, and what has been said, he says, Therefore, I beseech you. Brethren, present your body when it is in fact. after all that's been done, after what you've been delivered from and brought to you, and all the resources that are pure disposal to live a happy Christian life, I receive this empty body and living such. And there's a lot of things in this that he considers here. What's been taken up in chapter nine, ten, eleven, that gives added emphasis to this prayer.
Chapter nine, ten, and eleven is prophetic. It's a preventive. He's taking up Israel in the past. Chapter nine, the Jewish nation in the past. Chapter ten, the Jewish nation in the past. Reject, set aside. Chapter eleven is the Jewish nation in the future that we were speaking about this morning. Revised and restored to our land. Israel once again brought back into favor and blessing. Because of this, therefore, because the end of the proof, in the eleventh hour, like the eleventh chapter, get at hand. Therefore, I the seeker, present your body, a living sight.
You'll notice he uses the word, the chief. He doesn't say, I command. I command. No, there's nothing legal here. Do you ever think of a husband and he demands his wife love him? He can answer to love him? That's the Lord. I'm not. He might just teach her to you. That really couldn't be necessary. The Lord says, I've just teach you. After all I've done for you, and after all you've received, I believe.
for your sake, for your sake, and for my glory, for the sake of those whose lives your life has been. I beseech you, present your body a living self. Think of this word, sacrifice. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ was both sacrifice and priest. In the Old Testament, the priest brought the animal to this altar. They offer this. There stands the priest, and here's the sacrifice on the altar. But the Lord Jesus Christ is bold. He is not only the sacrifice because he was our sacrifice. It was his body that was offered upon the cross. It was his body that was sacrificed on campus.
But he was also the priest who offered himself. That's an amazing. Christ offered himself without spot to God. Here he is not only sacrifice, he speaks the thrales, he offers himself. But, Christian, your body is a sacrifice. Your body, what God wants. And that body and its talent, its members, and your life associated with that body, is a sacrifice. But that body is for this life.
In that body you have contact and you live and move and have your being in you. That's the sacrifice. God wants your body. He wants your life. But you remember this. You are the priest. You can offer it or you can record it. Have you answered what saved you? Have you given back your life? God gave Abraham Isaac. That was a gift from God. Isaac was a gift to Abraham. But Abraham, according to the law of the naked, was impossible for Abraham and Pharaoh to have children.
So God gave them Isaac. It was a miracle. When Isaac was grown, God says, Abraham, give me back that life I gave you. Offer to Isaac, off to the fallen off. And when God saved your shalom, he gave you a life. A spiritual life, a new life. Your body became the symbol of the Holy Spirit. God said, I've given you that. Will you give it to me now? Will you give it to me now? Put down the altar. I must teach you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present, your body, a living respect, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable, your intelligence or what does your body mean?
It means your faculties, your eyes, your ears, your mouth, your hands, your feet, your heart. That's it. You know the old Jewish priest, he was an expert surgeon. They were trained him. They knew how to cut up a beast. They knew how to use the knife. They cut him in his pieces. They played it. If you read in the Old Testament how they did it, they were expert surgeons. They knew how to cut up an animal and place it in pieces and order upon the altar. Every Christian should be a surgeon, an expert surgeon, to be able to cut up the sacrifice and place it piece by piece upon the altar.
In other words, Lord, here are my eyes. I'm going to sting them out. I'm going to put them on the altar. I've used my eyes to look at things I shouldn't look. I've used my eyes to read literature I never should have read. And I haven't used my eyes to read the Bible the way I ought. Lord, I put my eyes on the altar. I want to read thy words. I want to read things that are proper. I want to look at things that are hampered. I don't want to feast my eyes upon things that are fleshly, lustful, degraded.
I put my eyes on the altar. Lord, I put my ears on the altar. You know, some people have got elephant ears, even though they're grown up. You know, the saying is that little pigs have big ears. parents around the house have to be careful how they talk because the youngin, you know, they kept what's being said. Or you can tell the youngin to go and do some work, it doesn't hear you. But you whisper to your husband that they've had a scrap next door and the kid, who got hurt? They hurt. Any gossip, any trouble like that, they get it.
All you got to do is whisper. Yes, sir. You know, some Christians are like that. Oh, they've got elephant ears. Anything that's lustful. Anything that's gossip. Anything that someone has failed or fallen, have it. You know, I've seen signs outside some kind. You don't see them now. And there's a sign of dump garbage here. And that sign could be written over some people's ears. Somebody. All the faith. Nobody. What about your ear? Can you put that on the altar and say, Lord, I've got an ear for you.
I want to hear your voice every day. I want to hear the voice of the Spirit. I want to hear good things. Watch wherever things are pure. Watch wherever things are honest. Watch wherever things are of good report. Say, if the Apostle thinks on these things, listen. I'm going to put my ear on you all. Oh, yes, I can detect it a little more. What about my mouth? You can use your mouth for the Lord, but you can use it for the devil. If God's people have spent more time dissecting their own body and their own sacrifice and operating upon themselves instead of operating upon other people and do a whole lot This is presenting your body.
This is dissecting your body. This is operating on your body and putting it in order upon the other. Your mouth. My, what damage the mouth can do. It's any wonder God has put two barriers before your tongue, your teeth, and your lips. Try and control that little unruly member back in there. Yes, Lord, I put that on the altar. I want to speak to you. I want to speak well of you and well of your people. I want to use my tongue to written. I put my tongue in the altar. My hands, whatever I do, my words. Yes, I'm going to put that on the altar.
My feet, wherever I go, Lord, I'm going to put them on the altar. Wherever I go, I want to glorify your name. I want to walk a path of obedience. according to thy precious birth. My heart, yes, Lord, I want to put that there, please. Putting my heart on the altar, there are my affections, there are my devotions, and I put that on the altar, please. Yes, that is. Put it all on there, piece by piece, right on the altar. Finally, you've got the whole body there. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your body a living sacrifice. You know, in the Old Testament, God provided flesh hooks.
What were they for? When they put this on, and the flames started coming around that altar, around the sacrifice, the flesh hooks were to keep the pieces on, so they wouldn't fall off the altar. How do you use the flesh hook today? I know that we've had this experience. Maybe some of you right now are very reluctantly, imbecitatingly, putting your all upon the altar for the Lord. And it's quite easy to do in the service. It's quite easy when you're on your knees in your own bedroom, reading the Bible, having fellowship with the Lord, or when someone's ministering to you, you feel as though you're mean, you're low down, and you want to quit that way of living, you want to put all upon the altar, you want to live for the Lord, you want to be out and out for Christ, you want to make your life count, Lord, here I am, take it.
You do that many a time during the service. Maybe you're doing it now. time you'll need the flesh hooks is when this meeting's over and you get outside then watch some of those pieces will be getting off the office that's the time to use the flesh hook and keep them off when you get home you're allowed to turn on that thing i don't have to call it by name you begin looking at things and hearing things that absolutely contradict what I'm saying tonight. That's when you need the pleasure. Keep that sacrifice off. It's after a meeting you have to use the pleasure.
In all this business of presenting your body a living sacrifice. Oh yes, it's so easy to take the offering back after in a meeting like this or on your own knees in your own room you make a commitment. Take the offering back or take the sacrifice back. Remember this is an attitude more than an act. Paul says, I die daily. I make this offering every day. It's a process more than it is a crisis. It's not something you do tonight that lasts the rest of your life. You need to present yourself each day. Not that you get paid each day. You present your offering each day. It's a continual offering in the Bible says.
A living sacrifice, living because you've been regenerated. You're alive in Christ with a new nature, living because the Holy Spirit dwells within your heart. The unsaved are disqualified from this offering. No one safe person can make this offering. Only Christians can make this offering. It's a living family. You've got to be alive in Christ. The fruit of God's got to be in you before you can make this offering. you come to Jesus Christ if you're a sinner you take Christ as your Satan and after you're saved then he says son give me thy heart but you've got to become his son through the new birth before you accept your offer and this is for Christian present your body a living sacrifice my what we've got today instead of this kind of Christian living What a weak, wobbly, watered down, thin, pale, anemic object of Christianity we have today, even born against Christians, unfed, untaught, and unexercised about the lost going to hell.
That's it. So few are presenting their bodies, a living time. Go back in church history, what did they do? Millions of Christians gave their lives to the state. Presenting their bodies, what did Daniel do? give my body and he had a wonderful body. Those three Hebrew children, there were four handsome young men with wonderful physique. Read chapter one, it'll tell you. Four wonderful specimens of humanity. Daniel says, if I've got to choose between a den of lions and a guilty conscience, give me the den of lions.
I want my conscience clear before God. Please pray, ye for children. Why, you're fine, young man. Why don't you bow to that image? If you don't, you go into the fiery furnace. If it's a case of the fiery furnace or a guilty conscience, I'd rather have my body in the fire than the fire in my conscience, I'll take the fiery furnace. But what about those wonderful bodies of yours? Bodies nothing. I think more of my conscience before my God. I think more of my heart, my affection, than my body.
Present your body. We're living in a day of body worship. Body idolatry. Worshiping the body, but what about the soul? Present your body and God can certainly make a mess of your body and in a hurry. If He wants to. If He wants your body, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies. And think of those martyrs. They went to the state that a thousand young people laid down their lives for Christ. Sooner than repent and deny the Savior burned to the state.
Others were fed to the lions in the Roman amphitheaters. Susan and I, Jesus Christ, told me to the beasts. Whole families stood out there in the middle of that amphitheater, and they let loose their lions. They were broken in pieces of armor. That's their faith in Christ. They made a dead sacrifice for those people. A dead sacrifice. But let me tell you something. They were living sacrifices before they became dead sacrifices. That's it. Why those martyrs, the state and the apathy of them, didn't make a martyr.
It discovered a martyr. Those people were martyrs at heart. They were living for Christ, and that's why it was easy for them to die for Christ. And if the Christian was living for Christ, it finds it easy to die. If the Christians were in a cold, lukewarm, back-slidden condition, the dreaded death. But the Christian who's living for Christ is not afraid of that. It's the living sacrifice first and then the dead sacrifice. He said, I beseech you to invent your bodies and living life. I tell you, it pays off to be a Christian when you're healthy, but whatever there's a payoff, it's a death.
You're happier one then, and you're happier living for Christ. You're not afraid to die. You don't have a guilty conscience the way you've spent your life. You know that they, these states and apathy others, they disclosed, they discovered martyrs. They didn't make it. Those people were martyrs all during their life. of Jesus Christ, denying themselves it, denying themselves that. And when the supreme denial came, they denied their life. They laid it down. You know, baptism doesn't make a Christian. It marks a Christian.
A person doesn't become a Christian by being baptized. Baptism discovers a Christian. The Lord suffers. It doesn't make a Christian. It discovers a Christian. One who's really saved wants to obey the Lord in baptism. One who's really saved wants to obey the Lord and be at the Lord's table. Furthermore, giving doesn't make a Christian. But hearty, happy, free giving with a joy and a delight. That's the fruit of a Christian. That's the fruit. It redeems a Christian, discovers a Christian, discloses a Christian, one to go on witnessing for the Lord.
That's a negative thing. It discovers a Christian. You're a Christian at heart. Now here are some of the things that revealed it comes out. He says that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. This sacrifice is acceptable, wholly acceptable unto God. This is your reasonable... your intelligent service, the most intelligent thing you could do, and be not conformed to this world. What does it mean to be conformed to this world? Become like this world, a chameleon. It turns color to suit its circumstances. You know, some people can do that.
They can turn color quick. On Sunday, you see them at church, and now you're looking for the wings to sprout out of their shoulders. They look for stanchimovius in the Bible on their eyes. I with a hint of it. You will think, my, a saint has come down from heaven to live among men. Look at them Monday. Listen to the things they say. And you see they change color. The chameleon. If it sits on a green leaf, it turns green. If it's on a brown stick or a log, it turns brown. you know there are some people who profess to be Christians and that they can conform to any society they can conform to any climate they can conform to any color while they're just as much at home amongst a bunch of sinners they are amongst a bunch of Christians that's not the evidence of a Christian who's got his all or her all from the altar be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
You know, I was going to speak on the perfect will of God, and here I'm at the end. The will of God, that's progress, but you'll never prove, let alone carry out the perfect will of God unless you place your all upon the altar. That's the only way to do it. You present your body... fully acceptable unto God. And don't think that that's an awful thing. You'll never know what true happiness and joy is until you have said, Lord, may God. He's not a hard master. And it's wonderful to have him in your life and be in command.
And here you have God's perfect will. There are three phases of it. We have in time to do in it God's potential will made possible with your cooperation, his permissive will, his perfect will. That means the very centered of his will, not deviating from one side to another. Like the Lord Jesus, there's one. Not my will but thine be done. I delight to do thy will, oh my God. Some people do God's will. I've been guilty of it time and time again myself. I do God's will grudgingly. For oh, the Christian has matured who delights to do God's will. It runs counter to what I want to do as a man, but oh, it's the will of God. I want to delight you as well.
Here is real progress. John fifteen fruit, more fruit, much fruit. Then you remember the yield of grain in Matthew thirteen, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold. You're making progress. good, acceptable, perfect will of God. Here's the third. When you're in the perfect will of God, you're bearing much fruit. When you're in the perfect will of God, it's a hundredfold year. And over in First John, you have children, young men, and fathers, and they're all Christians. He's not considering here physical age. He's considering spiritual growth. He said, here are the children. What are the children, though?
If you read that, you'll find out. These people know their sins forgiven. They know the Father. And that's what every babe in Christ knows. You just get saved tonight, and you'll know those two things. You won't know much more. You'll know your sins are forgiven. You'll know the Father. And that's what the vain is. Why they hadn't grown any, because they were just born. No knowledge, the Word of God, they just got saved. No experience in the things of God, they're babes. But then it says, you young men, you're strong. Ah, here's some growth, yes. There's some growth here and some learning, but there's still inexperience. Here's a Christian a little further along.
And there in the young man's stage, they're strong, old, strong Christians. They're growing, they're learning, but they don't have very much experience. Then he comes to the fathers. He says the same thing about the fathers on both references. You know him that is from the beginning, you fathers. He doesn't counsel them, he doesn't warn them. He says, you've known him that is from the beginning. You've reached that age of stability, maturity. You're grown up. You've known God. You're intelligent with God. You're mature. Here is progress. Those who are the fathers might be likened unto those who have discovered the perfect will of God.
Good, acceptable, Yes, much fruit, a hundredfold fathers. Wonderful to aim at being a mature, grown-up, adult in the things of God, instead of being like a bunch of kids playing with the rattles where there's a lot of noise and color. You know, some Christians are like that. The noisier the meeting, the happier they are. They want the toys of the kinder they got. Instead of growing up, wanting the deep things of God, they want the milk bottle all their life instead of getting from meat. That's it. Well, it all boils down to this. Am I presenting my body a living sacrifice?
If I'm withholding, then I'm not going to have God's benefits. God wants all. Jesus Christ gave his all at the cost. He held nothing back. He gave himself. He gave everything. He made us a free sacrifice for your sake. And now he says, will you give yourself to me? I'm not a hard master. I won't take your child from you. I won't put you on a bed of sickness. I won't take all the money you've got. If you present yourself to me, I'll get huge. Our nature happens. It can be the happiest life you've ever lived. You turn everything over to the Lord. God help us examine our hearts in the light of this and act like wise, wisely.
presenting all that we have to him as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable, your most intelligent service, shall we pray. Our Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we come to thee, we ask thy blessing upon thy word to all our hearts, because, Father, what thou hast done, therefore, because of the world in which we live, because of what is ahead, how thus saved. Therefore, present your body. God help us to do this. Let her be on the stage once in our audience.