My sheep hear my voice. And I know them. And they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life. And they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my Father's hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all." Are you His sheep? Do you have blessed assurance? There's only one way to have
blessed assurance. And that is to be rooted and
grounded in the gospel of God's grace. Outside of knowing and
being assured that you're saved by grace, there is no assurance. Because you're not good enough
to be saved. And you're not big enough to
keep yourself saved. If it's not by grace alone, if
it's not by the power of God alone, you rest in a false foundation. When it comes, I think, to blessed
assurance, you enjoy it and experience it the way we should as God's
sheep. because of that lack of depth
in the gospel. There are many who have assurance
built on sinking sands. I can't tell you in 50 years
of ministry how many times I have heard, I'm going to heaven. I
have worked and am working hard to get myself there. I feel quite
sure that my good works will end out in the balance over my
bad works. Now, first of all, you are a
hypocrite if you say that. Because you know you've done
enough this morning. You've thought enough this morning.
Your flesh has been wild enough this morning. That there is no
hope at all in your will or your works. Then there are those with no
assurance who say, I'm not at all sure that I will go to heaven
because my good just doesn't measure up, doesn't outbalance
my bad. I love these people who say this
because I know the Spirit of God has already done something
in them. You can't doubt what you don't have. Let me say it again, you can't
doubt what you don't have. Then there's a third group of
fools who say, I don't believe in God and therefore do not believe
in a heaven or a hell. And then there's a fourth group,
I think. With which I can identify, we
believe that heaven is a sure thing for us, we have blessed
assurance And have foundational truth on which to base this faith. Truth which is the pillow and
ground of our faith. We embrace the truth of grace. Undeserved favor. Believing that
God takes the initiative in saving the sinner. That salvation is not something
you do, but something God does. That there is objective truth.
And then because of that objective truth, that God is the author
of our salvation. That in the beginning God chose. You may not like it, but it's
true. A number that no man could number. unto salvation, that
Christ redeem them. And in time, the Spirit of God
calls them out of their lodibar and out of the hood and out of
the darkness into the glorious light and liberty of Jesus Christ
and declares them not guilty on the basis of the work and
life of Jesus Christ our Lord. There are some of us that believe
this. Jesus paid it off. And I say
to you, without doubt and base my salvation on this, that it
was not my free will. It was His free grace. That I
was born a wild ass is cold. could not be tamed. And only
the power of the Holy Spirit could work on my warner. All
we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. Aren't you glad he outrun you? How many of you in here have
been apprehended? I was going the wrong way when
he caught up with me. And still in my flesh, as the
old song goes, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. Jesus said it's finished. It's
accomplished. It's done. Jesus did something
on the tree of the cross. It was not a prescription for
salvation. It was a finished work. He paid
the debt and set the captive free. Subjectively, you didn't find
out about it until you were 8 or 20 or 50 or 45. But the work was done for you
a long time ago. And so I go through life with
blessed assurance, having no confidence in my flesh at all. but looking to Him who is Alpha
and Omega. In order for you to have blessed
assurance, I must not hesitate to preach to you the deeper doctrines
of the gospel, though you are somewhat of a mixed audience
here. I tried to say that nice. Gee, listen to me real close
now. You got your Bible open, I trust,
to John 10. You're either going to have to
go one way or the other here. I'm going to put you on the spot.
But only because if you are the Lord's, I want you to have blessed
assurance. Jesus was an admired preacher
until he preached the doctrine of election. That's what it says in John 10.
They had a bone to pick with him when he said, I know my sheep. I lay down my life for my sheep. And they got so mad they would
have destroyed him. John 10 says they pick up stones
to stone him. They would have killed him. Of
course, it was all right for these Pharisees to be Abraham's
seed and never in bondage to any man. It was all right for
them to believe salvation by pedigree. But when the Lord said,
I'm the one that chose, who wouldn't? Who wouldn't? Now, right now,
I know some of you are having a little problem with this. I
know you are. But that's all right. Let the
Spirit of God speak to you. Believe the Bible or don't believe
the Bible. I mean, the Bible is not vague
about this truth. And Jesus was very clear about
it. Election seems to heat the blood
and fire the wrath of those who would trust in themselves, their
lineage, their pedigree, their will, their works, their baptism,
their church. I'm glad salvation didn't began
with me. I'm glad this is true. He who
has begun a good work in you will complete it. My question
is, who started the work in you? If he started it, he's finishing
it. I'm going to get happy here by
myself. I'm a little excited about this. You see, election is not something
to fight over. It's something to hold up your
hand and say, thank God. Thank God you chose me. I didn't
deserve to be chose. Thank God you didn't give me
what I deserved you to send me to the lowest hell. Jesus says. And so I don't, by the way, so I
don't hesitate. I don't look over the audience
and see who's here and who's not here. Just about two months
ago, there was a very nice gentleman sat right over here to my right.
And he said, I just first want you to know, I do not believe
the doctrines of grace. I said, you're in the wrong church.
And then I got up and preached salvation by grace. You can't
take you can't take that away from me. If you take that away
from me, I'm a goner because you see, I know me. And if it's
not by grace, if it's by works, there's no hope. And you've heard
me say this thousands of times. I just want God to give me what
I deserve. You don't have to worry about
that if that's all you want. I don't want what I deserve.
I want God to have mercy. Though many of my peers do not
believe that this doctrine should be preached to a general audience
on Sunday mornings. But Jesus begs to differ with
them. There is no truth that we should be ashamed of and there
is no truth that will do any harm. The doctrine of election will
do no harm. It'll make the self-righteous
Pharisee squirm, but it'll do no harm. Jesus says to these Pharisees,
listen to it now. And I know some of you probably
say, I thought he was going to preach on blessed assurance.
I am. I'm getting around to it. Jesus
said to these Pharisees, you believe not. So you're sitting here, you won't
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you hate the doctrines of
grace. Jesus would say to you, you believe
not because you're not of My sheep. Your unbelief is just
an evidence that you were not chosen. Uh-oh. It's going to get quiet in here
today. Well, wait a minute. God gives
us all a chance. But you don't want a chance.
We're not talking about rabbit's foot luck here. We're talking
about a God of purpose. We're talking about a big God
that saw you down in the hood, that brought you out, that delivered
you. Have you been called by the Spirit
of God? Oh, I wish that our churches would get back to this. Unless
God comes calling, you're never going to come. You didn't first
come to Him. He first came to you. I love
that old song. He came to me. Oh, He came to
me when I could not come to Him. He came to me. He found you. He's the shepherd
that left the 99 sheep in the fold and went out and found you,
you sorry rascal. Wandering in the paths of sin,
in your drug addiction, in your folly, in this world, in the
slums, living like an animal, He found you! You know, you ought to read about
your first parents, Grandma and Grandpa Adam and Eve. When they
sin, they didn't run to God and say, look what we did. They hid
in the bushes. Some of you are hiding in the
bushes, hiding from God. Some of you
are in church. Some of you are in places where
what I'm preaching is absolutely hated. And yet it is the glorious
truth of Scripture. You've got to do something with
Ephesians 1, 4, according as He has chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world. I pray not for the world, but
for them which Thou hast given me out of the world. Hallelujah.
Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me. That's my assurance. where he gets all of the glory
and all of the praise and all of the honor. Well, Pastor, are
you talking about a little handful? No, I'm talking about God's handful. How big is your God? You don't
know how many are going to be saved by how big your God is.
How big are his hands? What is it that our God cannot
do? He is a God who is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. Too big? The women and children's
shelter is too big? That's an insult to my God. Keep your money. And what religious pretense? Tell us if you're the Christ,
these Pharisees said. He had already told them. Read
the book of John. He had already told them he was
the Christ. But they ask him again. Tell
us if you're the Christ. So he really doesn't answer that
particular question here. He begins to tell them about
themselves instead of telling them about himself. He said,
let me tell you something about you. You are not of my sheep. I know that didn't make them
any happier. I'm going to tell you this. I want
you to have blessed assurance. But you'll never have it with
a deficiency of the knowledge of the gospel of God's grace.
Until you are rooted and grounded that salvation is something God
does by Himself, you cannot have assurance. Because you've got
your head stuck in your belly button. And when you get your
head stuck in your belly button, it's a scary thing in there. It's like going down into the
cellar. How many in here avoid the cellar? Even God's kids.
There's some of you. This doctrine is so far from
you. But you are the Lord's. But you
grew up where this was like the doctrine from hell. And you've
heard anything about predestination, anything about election. And
yet those passages stick out in the Scriptures like a sore
thumb. You have to do something with
this. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. You've got to do something with
that. You say, well, Pastor, I'm really
feeling shaky. Run to Jesus Christ and fall
in His arms. Lean on the Lord Jesus. Believe
on the Lord Jesus. Trust the Lord Jesus. Look to
God. He's the author and finisher
of our faith. You can't go to hell hanging
on to Him. Nobody's going to hell with their
hand in the air. To God be the glory! Thank You,
Lord, for saving my soul. Thank You, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank You, Lord, for giving to
me salvation so rich and free. I want to tell you why God has
blessed this place. Because we will not take any of the glory. You can say what you want to
say about us. This one thing you have to say. Those folks
want no glory. That preacher wants no praise.
In fact, we are careful and cautious here that we do not attempt in
any way to rob our God of His glory and His praise. Look what God has done for us.
We're meeting in a beer joint. Listen, you can't stay around
here very long, except you say something like this, that could
not have happened. Except there is a mighty God. Very, very true. I hope you're not ignorant of
your deep and terrible need. Really, that's the problem. You
really, if you haven't run to Christ, it's because you are
not conscious of your deep and terrible need. You don't understand
your wretchedness. You don't understand how vile
you are. If you've made a God out of free
will, you say, well, God didn't save me against my will. No,
God made you willing. There was a time when you were
not willing. Keep your hands off me. Don't touch me. I'm the captain of my own ship
and the master of my own soul. Aren't you glad he did something
about that? My people shall be willing in the day of my power.
You ever read that in the Bible? Look it up. It's in there. My
people shall be willing. Listen, you better get out of
the way of a man or woman that's made willing, because they'll
run smack dab over you getting to Christ. You don't have to
sing 30 stanzas as just as I am to get people up front. Look
out, here they come. I'm longing for the day here
when the Gospel is so powerful that those of you sitting way
back there in the back who've tried to get out of my sight
and out of the sound of my voice come running down this aisle
saying, He just did it! He saved me! That powerful voice! In our churches we used to talk
about Holy Spirit conviction for sin. Holy Spirit calling. Sovereign regeneration. The wind
blows where it lifts us. That's what Jesus said. The wind
blows where it pleases. So is everyone that's born of
the Spirit. In other words, regeneration
is a sovereign act of the Spirit of God where He came to you and
quickened you and said, live! And you lived. You were the babe
in the open field in Ezekiel's day. You were not swaddled. You were laying there in the
field in your own blood. But it was a time of love. And
the Savior came walking by and saw you there helpless and hopeless
and without strength and said, Live! What a picture of regeneration. You were the dry bones in the
valley. And suddenly, The wind began
to blow and the hip bone was connected to the... or something
like that. And the bones began to come together. That's a miracle, you know. So Jesus talked to them not so
much about himself, but about his people. My sheep hear my
voice. Oh, the call of the Savior. I
know He called me. We used to sing in the old church,
I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling.
I'll go with Him. I'll go with Him all the way. My sheep hear my voice. So that
you might have blessed assurance, let's take note of the description
given by Christ of His sheep. First of all, there is a specialty
of possession. He says they're My sheep. They're my sheep. Oh, I'm glad
I'm his sheep. He said, you are not of my sheep.
I know my sheep. Do you kind of like that, Saints?
If you're a child of God, you like that. My sheep. All men
are not sheep. You know, the Bible talks about
goats. The Bible talks about two legged dogs. The Bible talks
about foxes and ravening wolves. All Protestants are not sheep.
All Catholics are not sheep. Is that my sheep? That means
you can be a Protestant or Catholic or whatever you are and be sitting
here. You're not a sheep. You've heard this. Going to church
no more makes you a Christian than walking in your garage makes
you an automobile. My sheep. It's okay. You'll hit a little bump while
I'm speaking and your religious flesh will feel a little bit
of a prick here because you're getting this shot of grace. And
then your soul will say, that's my testimony. He saved me. And I did not save myself. My
sheep. Who are they? There are those
chosen of God, given to Christ by the Father, bought with His
blood, redeemed from among men, ransomed by His power, called
by His Spirit. They are His sheep. He's not
merely their keeper, but their possessor. He's the sole owner. Specialty of character about
them. They're dependent. These sheep are dependent. You
talk about codependency. This is a good codependency. Timid, trembling. Obedient. And yet the flesh is wild, they
are teachable because they're made sheep by the Spirit of God. Listen, what I'm preaching is
Bible. The Spirit of God wrote the Bible. And the Spirit of
God is here today saying to all of the sheep, that's true. He bears witness to the truth. The sheep have received a nature
which is not that of this dogish world. They are not Pharisees. They do not have the nature of
hogs or wolfish persecutors. They are indwelt of the Spirit
of God and therefore clean and gentle and loving and gracious. I will preach this more. I will
herald it more. I will blow the trumpet in Zion
more because I know God's anointing is on this place because we point
to Him and give Him praise. Some of you think I'm a lot sharper
than I am. There's nothing happening here
because of me. I think about it all the time.
I'm as much caught up in the wonder of this and often say,
To my Lord, why would you do that for me and others? I mean, look at us, what a motley
crew we are. Sorry for those of you visiting
with us, but we are a motley crew here. And as sheep, we look to our
shepherd, and that's what Jesus was saying. Judge yourself this
morning whether you are his sheep. Do we acknowledge ourselves as
belonging to Him? Spirit, soul and body? I know
this. Take me. Mold me. Make me. That's what I want. Are we in relation to Him as
our shepherd? Is He our leader? Do we say, not my will, but Thy
will be done? Some in here today would probably
make good respectable wolves, but you're not sheep. You would
make good dogs, but not sheep. You are critics of the Bible,
but you're not disciples of Jesus Christ. I'd fall on my face and
beg for mercy. What? Go where? The old clutch cargo building? Never! Lie down where you told me. You
know there are people who come here and are being drawn here
because we serve gospel food. Oh, the sheep will come for good
food. My sheep. When I go to church,
I don't want to hear about how good I am. I want to hear about
a great Savior. who is a greater Savior than
I am a sinner, who is able to save to the uttermost. Am I making
any sense to you? I can feel it. I can feel kind
of, uh-oh. Jesus has the attention of His
sheep, too. They hear because they've been
given spiritual ears. Do you have spiritual ears? Do
you like this? Maybe you don't know much about
the Bible, But you know this. And when you hear this, you go,
yeah, I never heard that before. But that chosen stuff sounds
good to me. You may not know Genesis from
Revolutions, but you do know this. That's got to be true. Because my heart tells me it's
true. They won't hear a stranger's
voice. They go, huh, that's off key. That's not middle C. Something wrong with that message. They distinguish his voice from
that of others. They listen with both ears. Some
of you are sitting on the edge of your seat and going like this.
Tell me more. Some of you are going like this. The sheep have ears to hear.
You know what? I'm not going to make a sheep
mad today. You're not going to leave here mad if you're one
of His sheep. You're going to say, Hathor, I wish you could
lift Him a little higher. I wish you could really tell
us about amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found. Was blind, but now I see. You can know you're a sheep by
the fact that you hear His voice. You have an earmark. If you're
not His sheep, why do you keep coming over here? Besides those
of you who are in the program who have to come. They have a sheep strain to hear. And I wonder today, now watch
this. I know he's calling somebody
today. I talked about the voice last Sunday. He's here. And you may be hunkered down
way back there somewhere. And you may have wallowed in
the stables of sin and be as black as all hell in outward
conduct, but you're hearing a still, small voice that's saying, what
can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Do you know this? When a child
of God does not know whether he's a child of God or not, His
Father knows. You know, when you don't know,
your Daddy knows. Isn't that a good thing? Somebody
says, well, you know, I've never had a doubt. Nah, you're lying.
You're either lying or haven't been born of the Spirit of God.
Because here's what Sloughfoot does. He'll remind you of your
past. Now, I'm talking to the children
of God who are sheep who know that in their flesh dwells no
good thing. And you know what you've done. You know what you've
thought. You know what you've said. So this grace is a sweet
sound to you. Isn't it amazing how the devil
can remember what you did 30 years ago and start talking to
you about it? And probably talking to some
of you now, you know, it doesn't make any difference whether that
choice, predestination, sheep stuff through or not. You're
not a sheep. You know what you did 30 years ago. Don't let that
preacher try to give you some kind of a... The devil doesn't
want you to have assurance. He doesn't want you assured.
He doesn't want you walking around here in the liberty with which
Christ sets us free from that captivity. He doesn't want you
thinking, if the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. He
doesn't want you thinking you'll never use crack again. He doesn't
want you thinking you'll never fall back again. You'll never
lust again. The devil doesn't want you thinking
that. The devil wants you thinking, I couldn't be his. I want to
tell you, so when Sloughfoot comes and talks to you, the very
fact that you're being accused is evidence that you're the Lord. I just worked that out. Jesus said, I know my sheep.
Jesus said, I lay down my life for the sheep. I know them. The word no means literally know
them intimately. For whom he did before, no, he
also did predestinate, that doesn't mean Oh, he knew Johnny and Bill
in a general way. No. Whom he did love intimately,
he predestinated. This is what the same word is.
I know them. I take delight in them. I know
their secret sighs. I know their mournings. I know
their groanings. I know their hurts. I know their
private prayers. I know their praises in the silence
of their heart. I know their aspirations after
perfect service. I know their longings. I know
how they delight in Me. I know how they trust My promises. I know how they're standing on
the promises. And get this, they follow Me.
They follow Me like a bunch of drunks. But they follow me. But they follow me. You know
that's your testimony. Sometimes you don't feel so saved. Amen. They're earmarked and their feet
are marked. Lastly, my goal this morning
was and is to show you from Scripture that Christ has secured the priceless
blessing of eternal security for the sheep in himself. Oh,
blessed assurance. Listen to him. And I give unto
them eternal life. I heard a preacher yesterday
Seems like I never learned to not listen. And his name was
Jimmy Swaggart. And he is looking right in the
camera and he said, you can lose salvation. You can fall from
grace. You can be saved today and lost
tomorrow because of your behavior. If that's true, I'm going to
hell. And I'm going to tell on you. If that's true, you're going
with me. Thank God, it's not my salvation,
it's his salvation. The Psalmist David did not say,
restore unto me the joy of my salvation. He said, restore unto
me the joy of thy salvation. Did you get that? He not only gives eternal life
to His sheep, but He sustains it. Do you know you have eternal
life and He sustains it? You know, all of us kind of in
a spiritual way are like the folks who quit smoking and they
go like this, I've quit six times. You never quit. The Lord gives
you eternal life and sustains you. He sustains that life. He sustains that life. How far
have you wandered? Every one of us in here can think
about days of wandering. The deal was, though, he had
a rope around her leg. Love with everlasting love, and
Jeremiah said, He draws those that He loves with an everlasting
love. It doesn't say, I gave them eternal
life. It says, I give. You need eternal
life today. He's given it. He's given it
eternal life. It's not He gave it to you when
you got born again. He's still sustaining you. He
began a work and He's still working. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Greater is He that is in you
than he that's in the world. You're a winner. You're victorious. You're more than a conqueror. No sheep of Christ shall ever
be lost. Eternal life. It has no end and cannot be closed. How can you have eternal life
and then lose it? What a contradiction. Well, I
had eternal life, but now I don't. Well, either you had eternal
life or you don't. Just think about that. Every
one of you who are God's kid here today are going to walk out of here, no
matter what happened this week, with eternal life. It's always being given. It's
always being given. I stood in that office this week. Or Friday, when they said we
didn't get the grant. And honestly, this I've been
thinking about this for a long time about preaching about the
blessed assurance. And I thought it was a. Have
eternal life. I mean, I wish we got it, but
obviously, We're going to get a million dollars instead of
five hundred thousand. Real quick, they shall never
perish. Blessed assurance. This rule has no exception. They're
all safe. No one's able to pluck them out
of my father's hand. First, they're in my you think
about first of all, they're in the hand of Christ. That's a
nail pierced hand. He died for us. He didn't die
for us to lose us. God didn't give His only begotten
Son to die on the tree of the cross for a chance. God didn't
take a gamble. This is not lottery luck. This
is sure salvation. We used to sing in the old church,
save, save, save, save to new heights sublime. That's me. That's you. I want this to be
a happy church. And the only way it can be happy
is for us to be rooted and grounded in this grace gospel. We're in
His hand. We're His possession. He grasps
us. If you could be plucked out of
the Father's hand, don't you think the devil would do it? Don't you think he would do it?
I mean, if you could be saved and lost, the Bible doesn't say
you have to be born again and again and again and again. Says
you must be born again. And I want to say, especially
to those sheep in here, you have really messed up. And the devil's
beating the hell out of you with it, not literally out of you,
but you can take that and use that on him. You're not going
to take it away, because you can't. Yeah, I used. Yeah, I fell. Yeah, I relapsed. I did it. And I hate it. Anybody in here that uses drugs
hates it. Amen. That's what I'm talking
about. I got some sheep in here. I got some sheep in here. Just think about this. Christ
has you and his father has you. That's a double whammy. Christ
has you and his father has you. In fact, the father gave you
to Christ. You know, Christ didn't die in order for God to love
you. Christ died because God did love you. That's right. God gave you the sheep as a love
gift to His Son. And Jesus said, I will go redeem
them. I will buy them. I will pay for
them. I will buy them off of the slave
market of sin. Let me come down here where I
can look at you. I will buy them off of the slave market of sin.
The Holy Spirit said, I will call. I will call them. You know, the hound of heaven
is here today and he's after somebody. He's sniffing you out. He's a golden retriever. I don't
want to go home. I'm trying to think of something
else to say. Okay, let's stand together and
praise our God. Sing it, Will!