It's good to be here. I'm very thankful for Norm and
Nancy and the saints here. We've come here to visit and
the Lord's so good. I was telling Norm this is the
first church that I ever preached at. outside of the church down in
Central Point. You guys are family. I love it
here. Love coming to see you guys and
being with you. I just gotta get my bearings here. I told Norm on the plane, one
of my ears clogged up. It's still clogged up. So I can't
hear, I'm hearing myself in a tunnel. So it's starting to pop though. So it's a likely excuse, right? Okay. Turn to John chapter 10, if you
would. John chapter 10. I've ran into a few folks back
home, people who say that they believe in Christ and they profess
to say that you can lose your salvation. And a lot of religious
systems are like that, a lot of places in religion are like
that. But the problem is with that is they got the focus on
the wrong place. They got the focus on themselves
rather than on Christ. And the name of the message is
absolute security. It's wonderful for the believer
in Christ. We're new creatures in Christ, we're born again,
but we have absolute security in Christ. And I think part of
it is there's a lack of understanding of who God is. He's sovereign,
he's majestic, he's gained, he's Lord over all. You know, often,
normally I used to talk and we'd meet people that say, well, sure,
God's sovereign over this and sovereign over that, but when
it comes to salvation, oh no, no, man has free will, it's all
up to man. But we all know, we who are born again, we know that
we had no ability to come to Christ. We lacked that ability,
we're dead spiritually, we come into this world dead spiritually,
so we lack the ability to come to Christ. And Christ even said,
with man it's impossible. We can't save ourselves. But
with God, all things are possible. And so the focus tonight I'd
like us to look at is our security in Christ, in Christ and him
alone. And once we're saved, we're eternally
saved. Because think of this too. Ephesians
1.4 tells us we were chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world. And that's God telling us that. That's the scriptures,
the Holy Spirit recording that for us. And we believe that,
that's truth. We believe it, God's given us
faith, we believe it. And it's not true because we
believe it, it's true because God said it. And the amazing
thing for us to think is that we had nothing to do with that.
We were chosen in Christ. And in 1 Thessalonians, I believe
it is five or four, it says that God has not appointed us to wrath,
but to obtain salvation. That's amazing in itself, because
as we were talking on the way here today, we're so deserving
of God's wrath. That's what we're deserving.
We earn that, right? The wages of sin is death. In
the Greek, the wages there is a payment for sin. It's like
what a soldier earned. And we earn condemnation, we
earn, but we don't get that. Instead, we get absolute security.
But God can't wink out our sin, can he? So God becomes a man,
becomes a man, lives and die, lives the perfect life. Remember
when John the Baptist said, I can't baptize you and the Lord says,
suffer it for righteousness sake. That's for us. That's for us,
beloved. He's doing that in our room and
place. And it's wonderful. And we will never come into condemnation
because we abide in Christ. Those outside of Christ will
receive condemnation. But if we're in Christ, we're
never received condemnation because the condemnation do us, the wrath
do us, fell upon our king. And he bore it all. I like what one fellow, a Scottish
guy I was listening to one time, he said, God extinguished the
wrath of God against us. So much so, remember when there's
fires? We get fires, when I lived here
we used to have fires. And you'd see smoke, wisp of
smoke, right? Coming up from the fires for sometimes for a
long time. There's no wisp of smoke. the wrath of God is extinguished
against us. With no, it's gone. It's absolutely
gone. Which is incredible. Incredible. So Christ bore that for us. And
now those in Christ, they're bare fruit, right? But the only
reason we bare fruit is because we're in the vine. We're just
branches. And all the nutrients come up through the vine. All,
everything comes through the Bible. You break a branch off,
I got apple trees at home, you break a branch off and it's dead. You guys have cherry trees around
here, right? You break a branch of cherry tree off, you put it
on the ground, it's gonna wither up and die. But the only reason
it produces fruit is because of the vine. And the scripture
says that the fruit that we produce is the fruit of the Spirit. It's
not the fruit of our doings. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
So those in Christ will produce fruit. And I think we don't even
know when we do it. We have no clue. Others can see
us growing in grace, but we see ourselves as becoming more and
more sinners, which is growing in grace, right? Growing in grace. So let us marvel at the fact,
though, that we were redeemed 2,000 years ago. We preach a
message of finished work. Brother Mike, when you get up,
you're talking about a work that's already done. It's already completed. And if it's completed, then there's
nothing for us to do. Scripture says, look to me and
live, right? Christ says, come unto me, all
ye that are weary and heavily laden, and I'll give you rest.
And then he gives us rest. He gives us rest and peace for
our souls. He gives us rest, we cease from
our labors, right? We're not trying to gain merit
and favor with God, because now we know we can't. So look at this in verses 27
to 29 in John. Here's one of the strongest statements
to be found in scriptures, guaranteeing the security of every child of
God. I mean, everyone. Everyone for
whom Christ died is going to be saved. There's not gonna be
one of them missing. Not one. And look here as we
read this. Notice the words I, being God
in the flesh is speaking these things. The word of God, the
second person of the Trinity. Number one, he calls us my sheep.
That's possessive. We're his by choice and we're
his by purchase. My sheep hear my voice. Now, further up, he says, my
sheep don't hear the voice of another shepherd. That's why
when we hear religious sermons, there's nothing there. There's
nothing there for us. We don't hear the shepherd's
voice. And I like what Henry Mann said a long time ago, and
I tell the folks back home this, How do you measure a message
as being a priest? Who gets the glory? Who gets the glory? In religion,
it was all about us. If we came out of religion, it
was all about us. Now it's all about Christ. He gets the preeminence. He gets it all. Now look at this.
My sheep hear my voice and I know them. That's ginoska in the Greek.
That's an intimate knowledge. It's an intimate, I know them.
He knows us intimately. And they, look at this, it doesn't
say, well, they might follow me if they make a decision. It says, they follow me. That's
the irresistible grace of God in Christ. And I give unto them
eternal life. He gives it to us, it's a gift.
He's obtained it by his perfect sin atoning work. We receive
his righteousness, right? First of all, you have to be
born again. You must be born again. And then God gives us
faith to believe. Right? And we're clothed in his righteousness.
It's absolutely incredible. My oh my. Look at this. And I give unto them eternal
life. God is the one who gives eternal life. We don't seek it. We don't earn it. We don't merit
it. There's no way we can possess it on our own. None. And now we've been looking at
this little word several times over the last year or two. And
every time I get so excited, every time I see this little
word, the word shall. You start looking for that word
in the scripture, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Look at this.
and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
This is the Son of God saying this. This is God incarnated
in the flesh. This is the word of God. The second person of
the Trinity. They shall never perish. Isn't that security for us? That's
absolute security, isn't it, brother? Look at that. Neither shall, Any man plucked
them out of my hand. I know a fella, Norm's met him
a couple times, and he says, well, you can jump out. Well, he just called God a liar
then. That's a serious charge, right?
Well, number one, like you said before, why would anyone want
to jump out of God's hands if you're in it, right? And number
two, we would not desire that, and we can't. Because then, if
we could do that, and this is where it boils down to, it's
man-based salvation. It basically works. They would say, oh, no, no, I
don't believe it. Well, yeah, you do. You believe
that you're the final person to keep you in Christ. I can't
keep myself in Christ, he keeps me. I can't save myself, he saved
me. I didn't know he saved me until
he revealed it to me. And now we rejoice, don't we? It's wonderful. And look at this,
they shall never perish, never, never. He'll never let us go.
Neither shall, again, any man pluck them out of my hand. My
father, which gave them meat is greater than all, greater
than all men. Great, so basically when people
say that they can jump out or they can lose their salvation,
they've never had it. They've never had it. Look at this, he's greater than
all. And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
So no one can pluck us out of Christ's hand, and no one can
pluck us out of the Father's hands. We're under grip of the
Father and the Son, and I believe the Holy Spirit too. We're sealed
with the Holy Spirit of promise. It's wonderful. So let us marvel
here, this absolute security here. This is amazing. There's eight wonderful statements
here. We see in verse 27, the first statement, look at this,
my sheep, look at the personal possession. My sheep, they're
His. We're His. And how long have we been His
sheep for? From, yeah, from before the foundation of the world,
from eternity. And Norm and I were talking and we've been looking
at the everlasting love of God's been coming up a lot in the messages
back home. And I marvel now, the more that I'm starting to
learn about that, and it's just scratching the surface, of course,
but to know that God loved me even before I knew him, in the
way I was, and yet his love has been set upon us for eternity. And you know, his love never
changed, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins. His everlasting
love, has been upon us. And it was manifest, that love
was manifested to us and to the world for his people. I believe
it's the greatest manifestation of love when Christ went to the
cross and died for the sins of his people. He didn't die for
everyone, but he died for all his people, didn't he? My sheep.
My sheep. Brother Mike Loveless used to
sing that wonderful song, He Included Me. My, I remember the
first time I ever heard that, and we sing it back home now.
Tears streaming down my face, you know? Why me? Well, because,
and you know, I used to ask myself that sometimes. Why me? I think
everybody's done it. Well, you know what? I found
the answer. Because it pleased God to do so. It pleased God to do so. Because
we're his sheep. And we're his sheep for maternity. We're a love gift, I think it
was, Horatio Bonar was reading today
and he said, we're a gift of love to the son from the father. It's amazing. And so look at
that, my sheep. And look at this, my sheep what?
Hear my voice. We hear him. We hear him with
spiritual ears now. We never heard him before. When
we were dead in trespasses and sins, we never heard him. We may have been religious and not knowing them. I was a Calvinist and lost. I
told somebody that, they go, how could you do that? Well,
I was. And they said, no, you weren't. I knew you, you were
saved. I said, am I the only one who
knows if I was saved or not? I was lost. Now I'm saved, praise
God. But I was religious and lost,
and there's so many like that. But there was a time when I heard
his voice through the preaching of the gospel. Faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the word of God, right? How shall they
hear without a preacher? I heard a preacher preach the
gospel. My, I'd never heard it before. Never had an understanding
of what it was. And look at this, after we hear
his voice, born again, And I know that, we find out he's knowing
us. He's loved us before we ever loved him. And you take that
all the way back to eternity. And here's something to look
at quick. John chapter 17. Here's something
I'll knock our socks off. How much does God love us? Oh, look at this. Look at John 17, 23. Just marvel
at this. Just marvel at this. I in them and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou has sent me and has loved them, look at this, as thou has
loved me. My goodness, you mean God the
Father loves us like he loves Christ? Yep, and only for Christ's
sake. Isn't that amazing? Only for
Christ's sake, it's wonderful. So the personal possession here,
used in this wonderful statement, made by he who is God in the
flesh, the word of God, and what's his mission? to save us from our sins. To
do that which we can never do. God himself becomes a man. The
wonder of the incarnation, the wonder of it. I think it was
Henry that said God became something he wasn't. He became a man. And he returned to heaven as
the God man. And there he is interceding for
us now. My, oh my. So let us marvel at this. This
is God himself who says we're his sheep, my sheep, my sheep. He owns us. We're his by creation,
but more importantly, we're his by purchase, by his precious
redeeming blood. My, oh my. And then, he's gonna
present us one day, faultless, before his throne. We're his
by choice. We're his by purchase. Our Lord
Jesus Christ called his people, my sheep. And those are the only
ones he died for. He says, I laid down my life
for the sheep. Remember he's talking to those
Jews and he says, other sheep I have, that's us Gentiles, which
are not of this fold, that we're one. were one in Christ, right?
All of us. We were talking today about every
tribe, tongue, kindred, and nation. God's people. In Colossians,
it says that some of the Scythians were saved. The Scythians were
the barbarians of the barbarians. They were the worst of the worst. They were, look them up and see
what they, it was, but Lord saved some of them. And we say, well, that's not
hard to believe, because we are the worst of the worst. Right? What Paul said, I'm the chief
of sinners, and we all say, yeah, I'm right there with you, Paul.
I'm right there with you. Now let's read verse 27 again.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them. I gnosk them. I know them
intimately. He's always known us. He's known
us from eternity. He's known us with an everlasting
love. Jeremiah 31.3 says, the Lord hath appeared of old unto
me saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.
Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. My, isn't that wonderful? The
unwilling are bought to Christ with loving cords because we're
his sheep. See, it ties up to the first
part, am I sheep? Am I, oh my, I know them. I know
every one of them. He knows us all by name. Every
one of us by name. And think of this too. I know
Norm and I experienced this in religion where we would sin,
which we all do all the time, We do more than we want to right
now. Now we know what sin is. I have a little bit of an understanding
of what it is. But I remember in religion, it
was very transactional. If I did this, then God would
be obligated to do that. Or he might choose to do that.
And do you know that all the religions of this world are transactional?
They're all transactional. the ancient gods of the Greeks
and the Romans, all transactional. And I was talking to my son about
this after we looked at Acts 17 this weekend. And I had made
a comment about, from what I understand in history, you cannot find a
place where a god became a man and gave his life for those who
served him. And I was pondering that. And
it struck me, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not
your thoughts. See, every man-made God is like man. Transactional. The one true living God says,
I'll die for you. And there's nothing you have
to give. Nothing, cost you nothing, but it cost him everything. And it's pretty amazing. My son
looked up a couple of things and he said, he's like, well,
this supposed Greek God did this. I said, but did he die for the
people? No. It was neat to see him actually
looking them up and actually going, no, you're right. Because God's way of salvation
is the true way of salvation, right? There's no other way. It's not man-made. We would not
even think of that. That's why you don't see any
religion in the world that's like that. Because it's the truth. Everything else is just man-made.
Again, all transactional. And we live in a transactional
world, right? We go to work, we get paid. You go to the grocery
store, you buy something, you pay. It's all transactions all
around us. This is free. Truly free. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. And it's absolutely secure. The
believer's absolutely secure by someone else who's done all
the work perfectly in our room and place, as the great substitute,
and it's God himself who's done that. That's amazing. That's incredible. So he knows us, and then look
at the next statement here. They follow me. They won't follow
another. Gene Harmon told me one time,
once you hear the gospel, you're ruined for everything else. And
it's true. It's really true. Yeah. My oh my. So he knows us. We're his sheep. He knows us.
We will follow him because he makes us will in the day of his
power, Psalm 110.3. And they won't listen to another
shepherd. And that's by the grace of God too. And remember this too. When God
saves, he keeps. He keeps. When man has salvation,
they say God saves, but man loses it. Puts man as a sovereign, doesn't
it? No, we know now that God is sovereign and that the only
reason we're saved is because of his sovereign grace and mercy.
That's it. John 10 forward. It says, and
when he put forth his own sheep, he goeth before them. The sheep
follow him, for they know his voice. They know it. We've been given ears to hear
it now. We never heard those, now we do. It's wonderful, it's
absolutely wonderful. Look, the fourth point is in
verse 28. I give unto them eternal life,
I give them eternal life. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. So if Christ has obtained salvation
for us, and he has, and he says here it's eternal life, then
what is it? It's eternal life. And it's him who gives it to
us. Isn't that wonderful? It's a
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Not by
works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to
his mercy he saved us. My oh my, mercy. We don't get
what we deserve. We receive mercy. My, so he's
obtained it. How did he obtain it? By his
perfect sin atoning death on the cross as our substitute.
And he gives us his righteousness. That's amazing. And you know,
it's God who clothes us in that righteousness. You remember the
prodigal son? Remember the prodigal son, he
comes running, right? Comes back home and the dad runs
out to meet him. Take note of what the dad said,
and it's singular. Bring forth the best robe. It's
singular. That's a picture of the righteousness
of Christ. It's the best robe. It's the only way we're going
to be accepted by God. And he gives it to us. So when
he was obeying the law, And when he was living that perfect life,
he was doing that in our room and place. For his sheep, because
he knows us and he loves us with an everlasting love. And he had
to go to the cross. He had to. Remember he said to
the women in Jerusalem, weep not for me, weep for yourself.
Don't we? He's going on. Scripture says,
and I'm always amazed at this too, Scripture says, he set his
face like a flint to Jerusalem. The flint there in the Hebrew
is an immovable stone. He would not be swayed from the
mission that he was on. Because he must, right? Call
his name Jesus, for he, there's that little word, shall save
his people from their sins. Isn't that wonderful? Shall.
And he did. And he cried, what, it's finished,
right? I remember Tim James said in the Greek, it's perfect. You
can't add to perfection. If we add anything, we mess it
up. It's perfect. And that's where
people stumble over the simplicity of the gospel. I believe I did,
I know I did. Just the fact that it's not by
anything we do. We just look and live. And God
gives us the faith and the grace to look to Christ. And he draws
us, we saw lovingly, he lovingly draws us to himself. My, it's
just incredible. Verse 28, we see again, even
more of our absolute security. The fifth statement, they shall
never perish. Again, that little hinge word,
right? Big doors swing on little hinges, right? Right? Shall is a great hinge word in
the scripture. It's a great hinge word. They shall never perish. Never. Neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hand. How can one perish for whom Christ
died? It's impossible. He will get every one of his
sheep. See, we don't know, that's why we pray for our loved ones
who are lost and our friends, because we don't know if they're
sheep of God or not. Bruce Crabtree said, He said,
pray for them until they breathe their last breath. Because we
don't know. And that's why we say, come to
Christ, right? The Spirit of God say, come, flee to Christ.
He's the only hope for sinners. No other hope. No other hope. And I love what you said to me.
I've used it so much in my messages recently. Norm was in a study
that we do together, and he made mention that everybody in the
city of refuge didn't have to ask somebody else why they were
there. Right? We won't have to ask our brothers
in heaven, why are you here? Well, because I'm a sinner just
like you, say my praise. As a matter of fact, we're gonna
be saying worthy is the lamb, right, that was slain. So we
say glory, honor, and praise. So they'll never perish. So not
one for whom Christ will die will ever perish. Now that's
absolute security. And again, it's not based upon
us at all. It's not based upon our performance.
Now, it doesn't give us the license to go and live a reckless life.
I've never heard a grace preacher say that. People accuse us of
that all the time. They say, well, if I preach like you, I
could go do whatever I want. And my answer to them is, why
do you want to do whatever you want? I don't want to do the things
I used to do. I know I'm a sinner still. And I confess my sins
still to Christ. But a friend of mine, one time,
a preacher friend of mine said, somebody had called him and they
had sinned grievously, I guess a young preacher. And said, oh
man, I messed up. And you know what he said? I
think these are some of the most wise words. He said, repent and
move on. Right? Confess it and move on. God already knows you did it. Just repent, confess it, okay.
And move on, right? Forgetting the things of the
past. We press on, right? My oh my. And what comfort this
can give us in the world that we live in too. We look at the world or people
around us freak out about the things going on, but we have
a joy and a peace as born-again, blood-washed believers, knowing
that God's in full control. Now, can we still get caught
up? Absolutely, we can. None of us,
no, we're nowhere near perfect. We're not even, one day we'll
be perfect, but it isn't now. Oh my. But one day, but we can
still live in the joy and the peace and the security that we
have in Christ. See, the one thing that I know
for me that robs me of my joy is when I get my eyes off Christ. Always remember this, John Claude
told me this when I first started preaching in Alma. He said, always
remember, Wayne, Christ gets the preeminence. Always remember
that. And that's for all of us, right?
That's for all of us. He gets the preeminence, no matter
what. And then in verse 10, or verse 28, again, we see the sixth
statement of absolute security. No man has the power to take
them out of my hands. And I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish. Neither shall, again, that little
word, shall any man. Now, that fellow I know, I took
him to this verse and I said, are you any man? Am I any man? That means any man, right? Any man, woman, any, any human
being. No one's gonna pluck us out of
Christ, including ourselves. Not that we would ever want that,
but isn't that wonderful? It's absolutely wonderful. What
security we have. We're in Christ's grip. We're in the grip of the
Son of God. He has us, beloved. He has us
in his hands. So let us rejoice. He saved us
from our sins. The work's done. The handwriting
of ordinance that was against us being blotted out below. He
took it, nailing it to his cross. It's wonderful. And then he can
take us home to heaven. My. And then in verse 29 of John
10, we see the seventh statement of the absolute security of the
believer. My father gave them. That's incredible. We can trace
that back to Ephesians 1.4, right? Chosen in Him before the foundation
of the world. God the Father chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. I like this statement,
I heard it recently. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. Right? Christ is a lamb slain
from before the foundation of the world. And think of this, that which
was planned and purposed by God had to take place now in time
and space, right? So he enters into time and space. He who is not constrained by
time and space at all. He who invented time and space,
enters into it to save us from our sins. It's amazing. What humiliation. What humiliation,
Archimedes, for us. for us to come to this earth.
My, we're gonna look at that this weekend, Lord willing. My Father gave them. So the sheep
of God are a love gift from the Father to the Son. He chose us
in Christ before the foundation of the world. And that's a marvel
in itself for us, isn't it? That God would choose us. Again,
I used to always say, well, why me? You know, again, the focus
was on me. Oh, it's because it pleased Him
to do so. And we say hallelujah, right?
Praise me to God. That's wonderful. My oh my. And then the last statement,
the eighth statement. No man is able to take them out
of my Father's hands or pluck them out of my Father's hands.
My Father which gave them me is greater than all and no man
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands. So the sheep
of God have a double security in Christ and in the Father.
And they're both God, co-equal. along with the Holy Spirit, right?
And then we're sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. And that's
sealing in Ephesians. Back in the old days, if we were
traders in Rome, and you had a bunch of merchandise, and Mike
had a bunch of merchandise, and I had a bunch of merchandise,
and we were gonna take them and we were gonna put them on a ship
and send them to, say, Crete from Rome. You would have a mark
of ownership. Mike would have a mark of ownership.
I would have a mark of ownership so that people can tell that
seal is a mark. It's an identification mark.
I always tell people, you know, people get all worked up marking
the pieces. I'm already marked, it don't matter. I'm sealed,
I'm marked. God owns me. Isn't that amazing? That's incredible. So we're in
the Father's hands, we're in Christ's hands. We were given
to Christ from eternity. Marvel at the absolute security
we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's wonderful. It'll give us
peace. It'll give us peace as we go
through this world. So to suggest that any of the
Lord's sheep could be lost is to blaspheme God. It's to call
God a liar. And we don't do that. So praise
the Lord, right? Praise God for the absolute security
we have in Christ. Hallelujah. I've learned recently that word
hallelujah, it just means praise ye the Lord in the Hebrew. We've
let other groups take that work. Let's say it again. Hallelujah.
It's wonderful. God saved my soul. Praise his mighty name. Well, thank you, brother Wayne.