Mr. Hart, who wrote that hymn
we just sang, he had a very God-given gift to state things in such
a way that gets right at the root of the matter in a few words. And he said here, oh, beware
of fondly thinking. God accepts thee for thy tears. or the shipwrecked saved by sinking,
can the ruined rise by fears. Oh, beware of trust ill-grounded,
tis but fancied faith at most, to be cured and not be wounded,
to be saved before you're lost. Now, it is a true thing that the Lord saves men and He works
not simply on the mind but on the heart and causes men to feel
the working of the Lord not simply in them but in their behalf.
It's one thing for a man to be emotionally stirred up One of
the hymn writers penned these words. He said, true religion's
more than notion. Something must be seen and felt. But what Mr. Hart gets at here
is that feelings is not salvation. And there are, we live in an
age when that's the thing that's appealed to greatly, the emotions
of men. And certainly, I believe the
gospel does appeal to the emotions of men. I think that the gospel,
when the Spirit of God is pleased to take it to a man's heart,
it can bring him to tears. It can cause him to laugh with
great joy. All of these things can be felt,
but we must never mistake those feelings with true salvation. Now, I believe they accompany
salvation, but they in themselves are simply the working of flesh. I mean, that's the way that our
emotions come out is in all these things. So he said these words,
to be cured and not be wounded, to be saved before you're lost. And I know I have shared this
story with you about my brother Barnard who went to a, was in
a town having some gospel meetings and he went in the store and
a lady, a young lady, young woman, was in the store and he got talking
with her and she asked him what he was doing and he said that
he was conducting some gospel meetings and invited her to come
and she said, well, she says, I've always been saved. And he
looked at her in the eye and he said, honey, he said, that's
too long. A person must be lost. before they can be saved. And
until the Lord is pleased to bring a man to the end of himself
and to show him that he is a sinner without one thread of hope and
nothing to help him but the Lord, when he's brought there and he's
brought to a lost condition, like I believe it was Hard or
Cowper, one of them, wrote that a sinner is a sacred thing The
Holy Ghost hath made him so. The Spirit of God first works
in a man to teach him what he is. And until a man knows what
he is, then he'll never call upon the Lord in truth. You can
make a decision, you can be stirred up by great singing and gospel
messages and people whooping and hollering and carrying on
all these things, but until the Spirit of God slays you and brings
you down to the end of yourself, you'll never be saved. But by
His grace, He does that. He teaches us what we are by
nature. And that's a glorious thing.
There's nothing more glorious than when the Lord is pleased
to teach us of who He is and who we are. And when you learn
those two things, that's a glorious thing. We're looking in 1 John. Or not first John, we're looking
in second John. Second epistle of John. Second John. We read this book last week and
I'll read a few verses of it this week and we'll look at some
that we looked at last week. And this is addressed as he addresses
this letter to the elect lady, the elder, meaning John, unto
the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and
not I only, but also they that have known the truth. For the
truth's sake which dwelleth in us and shall be with us forever,
Grace be with you, mercy and peace from God the Father, and
from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and
love. I rejoice greatly that I found
of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment
from the Father. And now I beseech thee, lady,
not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we
had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this
is love, that we walk after his commandments. And this is the
commandment, that as ye have heard from the beginning, ye
should walk in it. For many deceivers are entered
into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Now I'm gonna stop right there,
and we may go further than that. Last week we looked at the fact
that this letter's addressed to the elect lady, and of course
there is some controversy as to exactly who that is that he's
writing to. As we said, some feel that he's
writing to a particular lady that was a prominent believer
among the churches there. much of his ministry, and he, some believe that that's the
one he's writing to. My own personal feeling is that
he's writing to a specific church, which is the elect lady, and
then he mentions about her children. That would be the ones who are,
who were propagated out of the work that that church did as
they went about preaching the gospel. and establishing other
churches. We can't be certain which way
that is. It doesn't really matter because
the truth that he speaks in here is the same. Now, I did receive
a note this week from a gentleman who was sharing his thought that
the elect lady was simply the elect Church of Christ, the people
of God. And that certainly you could
understand that, but I think specifically there's the difficulty
in holding that view, that that's the elect lady, is then what
do you do with the elect lady's children? You know, if the elect
lady is the church, who are the the children of the elect lady. But there's no controversy about
that because we're not interested in disputing about such things
as this which we cannot determine. But we can determine these things.
He said, whom I love in the truth. And that is, we talked about
that last week. He didn't say I just love you
in truth. Pilate said, what is truth? A
lot of people go about, oh, well, we just want the truth. I mean,
if you go to a courtroom, they'll say, are you gonna tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? But you can tell
what the court says is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, and still not tell the truth. Because the only
way to tell the truth that John's speaking about here is to speak
of Jesus Christ because he is the way, the truth, and the life. And so that's what he's speaking
about here, whom I love in the truth. I'm just not interested
in just having some truth or somebody telling me true things.
You know, you can read the Bible and everything in here is true.
But I'm not interested in discussing everything that's in this book. I would neglect none of it. But there is a message in this
book that comprises the truth. It's what Paul said, he would
know nothing among those to whom he wrote. The Corinthians, in
this particular instance, he said, I determined to know nothing
among you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You see, because
that is the summation of the truth. And that's what John's
speaking about here. He loves her, this church, in
the truth. That is because that is the message
that she embraces. That is the one that she desires
to be found in. And not I only, but also all
they that have known the truth. See, when the Lord is pleased
to teach his people the truth, they have a common bond. And
that bond holds us together. And as we go on to read in this,
we love the brethren. We love those who hold the truth.
We don't despise them, but we embrace them, because we embrace
the truth that they embrace, and that truth is Jesus Christ. And so he is that one that holds
us together. And that's where our common bond
comes in. It doesn't come in because we
have certain hobbies and interests and things. You know, you got
all these different designer churches around here, the Motorcycle
Church, and the Cowboy Church, and the Indian Church, and I
don't know what all. I mean, they'll come up with
something new next week. We're not bound together by these
All these external things, they may give us some bond, but they're
not the bond that John's writing about here, because he's talking
about the bond we have in Christ. And that is the only bond I'm
interested in, in having with one another, and we do enjoy
that together. All they that have known the
truth. We're not the only ones that
know the truth. The Lord has his people scattered around the
world. He has people out of every kindred,
tribe, and tongue. Now that doesn't mean that everybody
that goes about talking about that they are worshiping Christ
are indeed worshiping Christ. Because a lot of people have
the wrong idea about who Christ is, and John's gonna address
that in this very epistle. You know, a lot of people believe
in, they say, oh, I believe in Jesus. And I would venture to
say that you'd be hard-pressed to find very many people right
around us that wouldn't, if you ask them, do you believe in Jesus,
they would say, oh, sure, I believe in him. It's like I heard a fellow
one time talking about having ministered
in Mexico. and he says if you go down there
and you ask somebody, do you know Jesus? Of course they would
say, Jesus. But he said, yeah, everybody
would say, oh yeah, oh yeah, he lives down there on the corner.
So you know, that's how some people consider who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. Oh, they believe in him. I mean,
they heard about him when they was a kid. They went to vacation
Bible school. And they might have even been
baptized and made a profession of faith, but that's not what
we're interested in. Do you know him? Are you acquainted
with him in truth? Has he applied the truth to your
heart so that you desire no other truth? No other thing that men
call the truth. You're not interested in the
ideas of men for the truth's sake. which he said dwelleth
in us and shall be with us forever. We can't escape the truth. See,
when the Lord Jesus Christ comes in to a man to dwell with him, he can't ever escape from that.
The Lord captures him. See, we're captives of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, to be captives of anybody
else would be a terrible thing, would it not? But I'm glad that
he has captured me. I'm glad that I can't get out.
I'm glad that he holds me. He said that he holds us in his
hand and no man could pluck us out of that. We belong to him.
He loved us from before the foundation of the world. He chose us in
Christ from before the foundation of the world and that is for
the truth's sake which dwelleth in us. You see, he said that
he would come to dwell with us. What a glorious thought that
is. And shall be with us forever. How foolish when men speak about,
and I understand what they mean, because if you understand that
salvation is about a man doing something to a woman, get salvation,
then you could believe that he could do something or not do
something in order to lose that salvation. But if the salvation
that the scripture speaks about is a salvation wrought by Jesus
Christ for his people and it is an absolute salvation which
he has purchased with his own blood and he has bestowed it
upon his people, how on earth could they ever lose? Because
it didn't have anything to do with them, it had to do with
what He did. And what He does for them. And
so, what a glorious thing, shall be with us forever. Now, you
know, on the same token, you know, in every truth that there
is in the scripture, somebody has gone to seed on it. For every truth that's in the
scripture, somebody has perverted it. And so when we live in an
age, and of course this is natural, there's never been a time when
this hadn't been true, but it's so much prevalent today in preaching
that it's hard to even find the truth. It's about the matter
of a man being saved according to his free will. Now you hear
just about, I've heard preachers, I'm not trying to be critical,
but I'm just pointing out something here. I've heard men preach what
was basically a sound message in many ways, but then basically
negate everything they said when they get to the end and say now
it's all up to you. Well dear brethren, if it's ever
all up to you, you are in a dire situation. If any part of your
salvation is up to you, you will perish. I can tell you that from
personal experience. Now you will perish. And so it's
not up to men, it's up to him. And he is pleased to keep his
people and keep them from falling according to his good pleasure.
Now, I started off about the fact that there's perversions
of the truth. The idea that a man can, by his
free will, choose to follow Christ, and boy, once he gets his name
written in the book of life. See, that's where they make their
error, is that if you think that your name becomes written in
the book of life because of something you do, then Somebody might come
along and erase it. You might erase it. You might
decide later, well, I don't really want to do that. But see, there's
a perversion of the idea that the Lord saves his people that's
tied in their minds to what the man does. And they say, oh, well,
you know, once saved, always saved. Just come make your decision,
and buddy, you got it. You got your name written down
there now. You got your ticket punched, and that's it. But see,
once again, that's a salvation that depends on men. What we're talking about doesn't
depend on men. It doesn't depend on men when
it began, and it won't depend on men when it will end. It depends
on Christ, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. grace be with you
mercy and peace from god the father and from the lord jesus
christ the son of the father in truth and love and that is
what we preach grace be with you grace is unmerited favor,
as someone has said. It's even something greater than
that. It's not just simply unmerited favor, but it's favor shown to
somebody who absolutely didn't deserve it. You know, some people
get all up in arms when we talk about election. We talk about
that the Lord shows grace to some and not to others, and they
get up in arms about that. Well, that's not fair. But the
reality is, if you understand that God should, there's no compulsion
or there's no reason why God should show mercy to anybody.
See, no, you know, you see all these signs, God is love, and
the scripture says God is love. And then you see a sign that
says God loves everybody. But you don't find that in the
scripture. Scripture doesn't ever say that. It specifically
says these words, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. Now that's sobering words. You
know, I can tell you this, I grew up in a church that was supposedly
a gospel preaching church. I never even heard such a thing
as that. If you'd have told me that, or you'd have told anybody
that, they'd have probably run you out of town on a rail. What
do you mean Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated? God doesn't
hate anybody. Well, the scripture says he does.
He's angry with the wicked every day. See, the Lord makes a distinction
between those people who belong to him and those who do not. Those who belong to him, he calls
and he brings them out of darkness. Now he may leave them in the
darkness for a while. See, he left the thief on, one
of the thieves on the cross was left in darkness right up to
the point of his death. But the proof and the truth that
Christ is the Savior of sinners is seen there. Because he said to that one,
he said, today you shall be with me in paradise. Oh, what a glorious God he is.
How'd that guy come to that conclusion? You see, one minute he's cursing
the Lord and making mocking him, and the next minute he's saying,
Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. What happened
to him? I'll tell you what happened to him, exactly what he said
here, grace. God showed grace to him. He didn't
deserve it. He wasn't any different than
the other thief. There was no difference in him.
But God, who's rich in mercy, showed mercy that day. That woman
that Brother Al spoke about that was taken in adultery, And she, I mean, she didn't have a leg
to stand on, did she? I mean, if they had stoned her
to death, what could she have said? What could anybody have
said? I mean, she deserved it. But see, there was only one man
that was there that day who had the power to condemn that woman. Only one. All the others, see,
they had forfeited their right to condemn anybody because they
were sinners themselves. Perhaps even guilty of the same
sin that she was. They couldn't condemn her. They
thought they could. They brought her to the Lord
Jesus under the sentence of condemnation, did they not? And they thought
that they were righteous and that they could carry out this
sentence of death upon this woman with a clear conscience. And the Lord let him stand there
for a minute while he didn't say anything and then he got
up and he said, okay, get you some stones if you're without
sin. And one by one, they went away.
And this woman, she never looked up. She was down, she was ready. I mean, she figured any minute
that that stone was gonna fall upon her. And there was one man
there who could have destroyed her rightly for her sin. But what did he say? He said,
woman, where are thine accusers? And she looked up and she looked
around and nobody was there. You see, that's the mercy of
Almighty God in dealing with a sinner. See, when a sinner's
brought down, he expects that he should be destroyed. He knows
he should be. And the Lord says, where are thine accusers? And
we look up. And we find out that there is
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Oh, what
a glorious thing. Neither do I condemn thee. Go
and sin no more. Oh, you know, do you think this
woman turned back to her old ways? I don't think so, because
you see the Lord transformed her in that moment. not by condemnation, but by mercy. Oh, the goodness of God leadeth
thee to repentance. See, I mean, you can stand up
and preach hell, fire, and damnation to people every day, and you
get people scared. I mean, when I was a kid, they'd
have some of these preachers come in, and they'd preach hell
hot and heaven high, and Buddy, like my dear friend Jay Wembley
would say, made my shirt tail run up and down my back like
a windshade. You know, I was scared. But I
didn't love the Lord. All I want to do, I just didn't
want to go to hell. Well, see, when a man comes to
the place where he knows he's worthy of hell, and yet God,
who's rich in mercy, says to him, neither do I condemn thee. Oh, what a glorious thing. What
a glorious Savior He is. That is grace, mercy, and peace
from God the Father. How can a man have peace with
God? He can't unless the Lord gives it to him. He said, my
peace give I unto you, not as the world give it. unto you,
but as I give it to you. And that's the peace that passeth
understanding. That's a peace which I can't
describe to you. It's a peace that you can't understand
apart from the application of it by the Spirit of God to your
heart and mind. That woman received that peace. The thief on the cross received
that peace because you see, can you imagine Hearing those words
directly from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ this day, you
shall be with me in paradise. All of his fear was taken away
because there was nothing left to fear. And those who are in
Christ Jesus are brought to the same place. We have nothing to
fear. Now we know what we are by nature. And we know what we'd be if the
Lord departed from us. But by his grace, we rejoice
that he's the savior of sinners and that we are indeed sinners
of the worst sort. As Paul said, I am the chief
of sinners. Grace be with you, mercy and
peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of the Father in truth and love. What a glorious Lord he is. He came into the world to save
sinners. It's amazing to me. It's not puzzling to me, but
it's amazing that men can speak about Jesus Christ being the
savior of sinners and then believing that sinners, some sinners are
gonna perish. Now there's not a sinner that's
gonna perish. Well, wait a minute, you say.
What are you talking about? All men are sinners. No, all
men are not sinners. See, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so.
Now, all have sinned, but not all men are sinners because all
men don't think they are. See, most men, I would say the
majority of men think they, well, they're not quite all that bad.
I mean, there's plenty of folks worse than me. I mean, can't you think of folks
that's worse than you? If you can, then maybe you're
not a sinner. But see, when you're brought
down to the end of yourself and you know that you're just as
guilty as anybody that ever lived and you're as worthy of damnation
as anybody that ever lived, at that point in time, if you really
believe that, the Lord is showing you something about yourself
that you need to know. And when he does, You're right on the verge. See,
knowing that you're a sinner is not salvation. But knowing
that you're a sinner is the precursor to salvation. It's right around
the corner. See, when this old thief that
was on the cross, when he came to himself, scripture says, and
he looked on the Lord and he recognized who he was, and he said, Lord, Remember me
when thou comest into thy kingdom. See, salvation came to his house,
did it not? The Lord applied his mercy and
his grace to him in that moment. And he believed. Now, did he gain salvation because
he believed? No. He was given salvation. and he believed. See, salvation
and belief go hand in hand, but the belief doesn't cause the
salvation. The salvation is what gives a
man faith, because the salvation that we have is in Christ. Oh,
what a glorious Savior he is. He'll lose none that the Father
gave him. He'll raise everyone up. Everyone
that belongs to Him, He'll raise up at the last day. Why? Because they belong to Him. He
bought them with His own blood. I mean, is He going to purchase a man, a woman, a boy, a girl? Is He going to purchase them
with His own blood and then abandon them? Depart from them? No, He's the Savior. and he saves
such as be of a broken and contrite heart. Oh, that the Lord might
give us such a mind to seek him because he will be found by those
that seek him.