I want you to turn in your Bibles
to John chapter 10. John chapter 10. Let's talk a little bit today
about eternal life. They shall never perish. Blessed assurance. Blessed assurance. Do you have
that blessed assurance today? Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine. Blessed assurance. Steaks out on the grill in the
warm summertime. I always tell Ms. Pam something
like this, I need to go out and get a little foretaste. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine. To live down here without assurance
is a horrible thing. You have assurance today. I am
heaven bound. Let's read in John 10, beginning
with verse 26, But ye believe not, that is, you Pharisees,
you church people, you tithers, you legalistic folks, But you
believe not because you're not of My sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear My voice and I know them. Every one of them I know. We have a personal relationship. I love them. I know them. I love
them intimately. And My sheep, they follow Me. And I give unto them, my sheep
which hear my voice and follow me, I give unto them eternal
life. And they, my sheep which hear
my voice and follow me, shall never perish. Live forever. Neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. Now, why is it they shall never
perish? Because my Father, my Daddy,
is bigger than your Daddy. My Daddy can whip your Daddy. My Father which gave them me,
gave them to me as a love gift before the foundation of the
world. God the Father gave to His Son a people called the elect,
the chosen, the peculiar people. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, all power, sovereign, mighty God. And no
man, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. The Bible teaches, beyond any
shadow of a doubt, when God saves the sinner, He saves the sinner
eternally. Often I hear people misquoting
this passage of Scripture. Restore unto me the joy of my
salvation. But that's not what the Bible
says. David prayed this prayer. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. Because salvation is not something
you do. It's something God does. That's
right. It's not anything you do. It's
something God does. Salvation is of the Lord. He's the Alpha. He's the Omega. He's the beginning. He's the
ending of salvation. And those of us who stand on
that, believe that, have blessed assurance. What a farce it is, the mass
of religion, which teaches salvation by self-effort. There's only
two, actually, religions in the world, if we would call Christianity
religion. One is salvation by grace alone,
and the other is salvation by works. Whether you're Methodist,
or Presbyterian, or whether you're Buddhist, or you're a Mohammedan,
you take either the position that salvation is by grace alone,
or you take the position that salvation is through self-effort. Which do you choose? Which do
you choose? Salvation through the sacrament.
What a farce that is. That you get Christ in you by
digesting Him with gastric juices. That you actually are not accountable,
but a cannibal. That you are a flesh eater. And the way you get Christ in
you is by eating a piece of bread and His blood cleanses you by
drinking some of the wine. What a farce that is. Foreign
to the Word of God. Salvation by good works? Every
one of you in here who are honest with yourself before God, know
if it is by good works. I don't care how church-going
you are, how religious you are, whether you've been dunked, sprinkled
or poured. You know that the goodies do
not outweigh the baddies. You know your secret life. You
know your thoughts, your patterns. You know your habitual sins.
And if you're counting on good works for assurance, you have
to become a liar. You have to put on a mask. You
have to pretend. You have to convince yourself.
You have to not think about it. This salvation by works thing. Keeping the commandments. And
I've said this probably in 25 years, 25,000 times. You don't even know the Ten Commandments.
Most of you in here can't quote them. And yet, you are in your
confession saying, Doing the best I can. I'm keeping five. I'm keeping six. You know, five
out of ten ain't bad, preacher. Some of you are counting on emotions. Religious emotions. Some of you
think we don't have church here because we're not running the
aisles and jumping over seats. Some of you think that really
this is not a full gospel place because we don't speak in tongues.
There's not signs and wonders and miracles and healings. But
there really is. They're just not the kind you're
looking for. Some of you are counting on that. Your emotions. You know, our emotions are up
and down. I can be happy one minute and
very sad the next. How crazy that is. I mean, if
you don't know anything about the Bible, let's say you've gone
to church all your life, but you don't know anything about
the Bible. This is kind of a weird place, you coming over here.
You've really never been in any kind of church like this, but
you've been religious most of your life. I would dare say 98%
of the people in here today have been religious. You have a religious
past. But if you will just sit down
and be still for a few moments, you know what you've been taught
all your life can't be true or you can't be saved. If it is
true, you're going to hell. That's right. If you just think
about it for a little bit, if you're counting on being good
enough to go to heaven, you're in deep trouble. You're in deep
trouble. Most people go to church and
do not practice what that church preaches. It's all hypocrisy. What a farce it is not only to
say I am saved by works, but I must keep myself saved. All
of you who are not grace people are legalistic people. You believe
in going to heaven by keeping rules. By keeping the laws of
the church. by being religious. So, you not
only have to get yourself saved, then you have to keep yourself
saved. That's a real struggle. You deny the fact of flesh works
in my flesh. Well, it's no good thing. The
truth is, even after a man is converted, his flesh is still
wicked. Here you sit in a place of worship
and you think you've been convinced by some priest, preacher, or
rabbi that you're going to heaven by doing certain things, by keeping
certain ordinances, by not doing certain things. When in your
innermost being you know it's all a farce. You know it's a farce. There
are some churches that are still preaching that once you get saved,
you live without sin. Those are the biggest liars of
all. What lies, what pretense, what a facade, what hypocrisy. Most of my crowd in here today,
if I were to preach that, you would leave. Because there would be no hope
for us in here. And then thirdly, what mischief, what ignorance of Scripture,
what satanic influence, what shame, what reproach the doctrine
of losing salvation brings to the Christ of Calvary. What a
shame it brings to the Christ of Calvary to proclaim a message
that you can be saved and then lost. Nowhere in the Bible does
it say you must be born again and again and again and again. The Bible says you must be born
again. That's what the Bible says. Now,
I know some of you are maybe scholars out there, Bible scholars,
and you've got a couple of verses you'd like to throw at me, so
I'm going to throw them back at you before you throw them
at me. Let's go to the book of Galatians chapter 5. And then
we're going to go to Hebrews chapter 6. These are the favorite
verses. And when I get on Ask the Pastor,
often these verses are quoted to some poor soul. This past
week, some poor soul wrote, you know, I am doing the things I
don't want to do. And what I want to do I'm not
doing. And I want to ask the preachers
The pastor's there. Do you think I've ever been saved
or have I lost it?" And what a shame the answers
were. I had the answer, but I didn't
get to answer. What a shame to tell a person,
what if I tell you, you know what? No hope for you. No, you've
just done too many things. No, you have lost it. Here's
one of the verses that folks use. First of all, in the book
of Galatians, let's begin with verse 5. A great book to study
with regard to the recovery of the gospel is the book of Galatians.
How many of you heard the radio broadcast today? Well, we were
doing our best. to get some response. I think
we might, from what Darren said, we might get some response to
that radio broadcast today. Because we were talking about
the recovery of the Gospel. That's our theme here. And here's
what Paul was talking about to the Galatian folks. He said,
if a man comes preaching any other Gospel other than the Gospel
I preached unto you, let him be accursed. Do you realize that
there are other Gospels being proclaimed. There's only one
true Gospel. It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so Paul talks about this in the book of Galatians chapter
5 beginning with verse 1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty. The legalist always wants to
bring you back into captivity and bondage. The law never says
thank you. The legalist never says, thank
you. Legalism always goes like this, more. That's not enough.
More. Perfection. You haven't done
enough. Condemnation. Judgment. Legalism never brings blessed
assurance. No one who is a legalist has
any blessed assurance. They do not. Stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. And be not
entangled." Entangled. Some of you don't have any insurance
because you're entangled. You go to a church. That's why
it's important to hear the gospel. Every Lord's Day, the gospel
sets you free. The legalists are out there trying
to entangle you again. How much good works do you have
to do to go to heaven? How many bad things do you have
to do to lose your salvation? A lot of entanglement there.
Entangled. Be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. Entangled. A yoke. Christians
shouldn't walk like this. Christians should walk like this.
Don't get entangled. Otherwise, you're going to get
under the yoke of bondage. Jesus said, I have a yoke, but
my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Behold, I, Paul, say
unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
What the legalists were doing, they had come to the Galatian
churches and corrupted them from the simplicity that was in Christ
Jesus, a single-mindedness toward Christ. Christ alone. And the legalist came down and
said, yes, you must trust Christ, but you also must be circumcised
and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved. And Paul said,
if you are circumcised in order to be saved, Christ profits you
nothing. You'll go to hell. I want to
tell you this. If you have been baptized, sprinkled,
dunked or poured, In order to be saved, you will perish. In
other words, if you are trusting holy water, holy cow, you shall
perish. Some guy in a robe sprinkling
water on your head and giving you a certificate when you're
six months old is not going to take you to heaven. You say, well, I got it. Mama gave
it to me. Mama knows better now. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised that he's a debtor to do the whole
law. Have you ever noticed how religious people pick and choose? You know, in the Baptist church
that I was a member of, we had some rules. Roller skating was kind of iffy
because if you were you know, roller skating with somebody
of the opposite sex, it could look a lot like dancing. So no
roller skating, no dancing. Yeah, look at all you good Catholics.
You're looking at me, no dancing? We used to have dancing at the
church, dances at the church. No pool. I haven't got that one figured
out. Pinball machine. I could not go and play pinball
machines. I don't know whether you all
remember or not. Of course, no drinking of any kind. So we had some rules. But then
other religious churches, they had rules too. And what happens
is churches begin to look at one another's rules. And you've
heard my illustration of our list of rules. One list is cow manure. The other
is horse manure. Just a difference in kind. We
judge each other according to our list. And the Apostle Paul said, oh,
you're going to choose circumcision. But if you pick one, you are
a debtor to do all of the law. Not just five of the ten commandments. If you're going to try to be
saved and go to heaven by being morally pure as far as sexuality
is concerned, you've still got a long way to go. So the Apostle said this, verse
4, Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are
justified by the law. Ye have fallen from grace. Aha! Aha! Some of you want to stand
and shout right now. I gotcha! If you will read in some of the
other versions of the Bible, besides the King James Version,
it says, you have fallen away. You have left grace. You have
left grace. You've fallen away from grace.
And so instead of the grace of God, for by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. You've fallen away from
that message. You have left that message. That's
all that means. Throughout the book of Galatians,
Paul is saying things like this, but God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross. That's what he said. That's grace. He said in the book of Galatians,
I do not frustrate the grace of God. I don't frustrate it. If it be by works, he said in
the book of Romans, it is no more grace. If it's by works,
it's no more grace. Once you turn the corner and
start talking about how you're saved by baptism, by good works,
by your own merit, by your own will, you have left grace. I'm
talking about pure grace. How many people talk about grace
but preach law? It's true. Fallen from grace. Now I want you to go to the book
of Hebrews. Chapter 6. Now I want to tell all of you
who say that you have been saved and then lost, listen to me real
close now. If you're in here and you say,
I was saved once, but I have lost it, you might be a little
confused. Because it's not your salvation
to lose, it's God's salvation. And the salvation of the Lord,
He's a keeper, not a loser. He's a winner, not a failure. Listen to Hebrews 6. For it is
impossible, impossible for those who were once enlightened, who have tasted of the heavenly
gift, who were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, who have tasted
the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
if, now watch this, hypothetical if, if they shall fall away, if they shall fall away, here's
what has to happen. To renew them again unto repentance,
they have to crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put
him to an open shame." In other words, in order for
you to be saved, if you fall away, Christ has to come again,
die again because he didn't get the job done the first time,
and shame on him. Christ becomes a failure. Because
He came down here to do something for somebody. He came down here to seek and
to save that which was lost. The Bible says His name shall
be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.
Is that what the Bible says? That's my blessed assurance.
My blessed assurance is that when I transgress in word or
deed, in sins of omission or commission, when I do not do
things I should do, when I don't even think about what I should
do, and I fail in that area, my salvation does not depend
on me and my works. It depends on the person of Jesus
Christ and His work at Calvary. I want you to consider this.
What does it mean for one to lose salvation? It means that
the purposes of Almighty God have failed. Do you know God
is a God of purpose? He saved you on purpose. Your salvation was not a perchance. Perhaps, maybe so, God was certainly
going to save you if you're saved. And we know, really do we? And we know, really do we? That
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are called according to His purpose. Do you mean to tell me that God's
purpose for you has failed? That your little, weak, fleshly
sins have overcome the grace of God? Why, the Bible says where
sin piled up, grace piled up higher. Some of you don't have blessed
assurance because your sins are greater than the grace of God,
you think. In fact, you think more about,
you know, Pastor, if you knew... Pastor, I'm telling you... Shut
up! Why don't you start talking like
this? Oh, the grace of God! Oh, the marvelous, wonderful,
matchless grace of God that is greater than all my sins! Grace
that brought Him down to earth! The purposes of God. And let
me tell you this, God's purpose for you is not just initial salvation. He has work for you to do. For
we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that you should walk in them.
God has not only purpose to save you, He has ordained that through
you certain works come out of you to His glory and honor. It's
true. The truth is, whether you know
it or not, you're going to make it. How can it be for our good to
lose salvation? God is working. His for love
would be powerless. Think about it. If God loses
you, His for love, His election, would mean nothing. Because before
there was a world, God chose you. God elected you. And before
there was a world, God predestinated you. God predetermined you. Are you telling me that God's
predestination fails? Somebody needs to read their
Bible. Why don't we just read Romans
8? And we know, 828, and we know. God's people ought
to know this. We shouldn't just sing blessed
assurance. We should have it. Jesus is mine. And we know that all things,
everything. I want to ask the pastor this week,
somebody said, does all things mean all things? Let me tell you, all things means
all things. Even your mess. The God of the
Bible can take your mess. Anybody in here messed up? Anybody
in here a real loser? I was thinking about the mountains
of mess. When you get 65, you think about
those things. mountains of mess that I have
made throughout my life. And how God took my mess and
just turned it around for my good in His glory. You know, I was a young, smart-aleck
preacher. I know y'all don't think that
could ever be, but I was. I was a smart-aleck preacher.
I really was. Some of you have heard me tell
this story. You know, Ms. Pam was in an accident 42 years
ago or so, 41, 40 years ago. I don't know how old would Stewart
be. 40. That's right. We've only been married 41 years.
I better get that right. But Ms. Pam was in a car accident. We lost our firstborn, Stewart
Ward Clark. She was eight months pregnant,
car wreck. I was at a Bible conference,
preaching at a Bible conference in Clarksville, Tennessee. But
the week before she had the wreck, a young mother called me to the
hospital to pray for her. She had a stillborn little girl. And I took my New Testament Bible
and walked in there in my black suit. And because I had things
to do, I was in a hurry. I went in there and said my little
prayer with not very much emotion, not knowing that one week later
I would stand in the morgue in Beckley, West Virginia, over
the body of my own son. All things work together for
good to them that love the Lord. You know, He took the death of
my boy and made me a more understanding, compassionate kind of guy. He
took the smart aleck out of me. He was chipping away, making
a pastor out of me, making a preacher out of me, causing me to know
how to hurt with people when they hurt and cry with people
when they cry. When a person loses a child now,
I don't care how old they are, I can cry with them. I know somewhat
of your feeling. Think about this. If you can
lose salvation, His predestination has failed. His calling would
not be effectual. Justification would be a farce.
And of course, there would be no glorification. And here's
what the Apostle Paul said, and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love the Lord, to them who are
called according to His purpose, for whom He did foreknow. He
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called, Whom He called,
they'll be also justified. Whom He justified, they'll be
also glorified." Didn't lose a one. Didn't lose a one. Everyone He foreloved, He glorified.
Everyone He predestinated, He glorified. Everyone He called,
He glorified. Everyone He justified, He glorified. And then Paul says, what are
we going to say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? If God is for me, Who's going
to stop me? Who can effectually be against
me? Who can keep me out of God's
heaven if God is for me? He that spared not His own Son.
If God is for me, which God? The One that spared not His own
Son. That's how much He's for me. He permitted His own Son
to take my place. He didn't spare His own Son.
You think I'm going to go to hell when God is so much for
me that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all? How shall He not with Him freely
give us all things? All things are mine. I'm in Jesus
Christ and all things are His. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who's going to charge me with
something? It is God that justified me.
You go to the judge and say, Kent did this and this and this
and this, and I'm thinking, yes, I did. But the judge justified
me. It's good to have a judge, if
you're going to stand before one, who's able to justify you. Justify you in a holy, righteous
way. You see, God doesn't go like
this. Basically, she's a good girl.
I'm just going to kind of sweep that under the rug a little bit.
Make it real nice. That would be an unholy God.
That would be an unjust God. But the God was so for me that
He sent His only begotten Son to be my substitute, to die in
my place, to die in my stead, to die in my room, to satisfy
the just demands of His law and to pay every sin and disobedience
that I had ever committed, to pay it in full, to drink my damnation
dry. And therefore, there is now no
condemnation, no judgment for me. Anybody messed up this week? Are you glad God's got you covered?
Now, I know that there's some of you good people sitting in
here. Is that guy saying that we can just live like hell
and still go to heaven? Is that what they're saying? Listen, let me tell you this.
If God borns you again, your great desire is to be holy. Your flesh is jumping up and
down as a wild ass is cold. It never gets any better. But
inside of you is a perfect nature that God gave to you when you
were born again, a nature that never sins. Never sins. You hate the flesh. Clark gives them a license over
there to sin. You don't need a license. I don't
need a license. Nobody buys a license. I don't
go out and say, now, I'm about to lust. I need to buy a license
here. I'm about to steal. I need to buy me a license. If one sinner, if one sinner
for whom God has chosen and Christ has died to lose salvation, His
redemptive work is a failure. If one sinner perishes, you read
in the book of Hebrews where Jesus is going to stand and say,
Lo, I and the children which Thou hast given Me, any missing? No, Father. All present and accounted
for. Jesus Christ is not a failure. I heard an old, old story how
a Savior came from glory. The truth is, He sought me, He
bought me, and He caught me, and He's going to take me all
the way to heaven. That's the truth of the Bible. The Bible says, He shall not
fail. He shall see His seed. The Lord
Jesus, hanging at Calvary, saw His seed. God saw the travail of his soul
as he went into the birth pains of hell to deliver me. God saw
the travail of his soul and was satisfied, and Jesus saw his
seed. The comparison there is to a
mother who is giving birth. And in great agony, they say,
the closest you can get to death and live is in giving birth.
Thank God men don't have babies. But you see that mother in the
pains of birth, screaming and crying out in travail
some most amazing thing. And that baby comes out of the
oven all slimy and bloody and that stringy thing hooked up.
They put that baby on that mother's breast. She goes, oh, precious
baby. Starts goo-gooing, wiping the
blood off that child. For the joy that was set before
Him, He endured the cross and He saw His babies. It's an amazing thing for a woman
who's had one baby to say, I want to have another. Lord, didn't
you get enough the first time? Think about the Lord Jesus Christ as He condescended in travail
of soul. He's the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. And you don't have to defend
a lion. You loose him and let him go, right? He travailed with
the Father. He prevailed with the Father.
He prevailed with the Father. Revelation says that. The Lion
of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed. He prevailed with God the Father
on my behalf. He prevailed over Satan. He gave him a good stomping. His head was crushed at Calvary. He prevailed over the demons.
There is no demon in hell or out of hell that can take heaven
away from you. Well, Pastor, people come to
me and say things like, well, you know, Pastor, I feel like
the demons are after me. They're going to take me away. There is no hope of that happening. There is no possibility of that
happening because Christ has prevailed. The demons are His
demons. He's King of demons. He is Lord
of hell. Satan is God's devil. That's
right. And one of these days he's going
to chain him up. That's what the Scripture says. He's prevailed
over your sin. Isn't that a good thing? He's
prevailed over death. That's a good thing. Some of
us are, you know, moving that way. It's a good thing to know
that on the third day, up from the grave He arose with a mighty,
triumvorious soul. He arose a victor from the dark
domains. Hallelujah! Christ arose. That's
the teaching of Scripture. One day the trump of God shall
sound and the dead in Christ shall rise. It's going to be
a glorious day. He prevailed over the grave.
To say that one person can be lost after being saved is to
say Christ failed. God failed. And then the last
thing is this. If God's elect lose salvation,
the Spirit of God has failed. You've got the Trinity as a failure.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all
in this thing of salvation together. That's why I don't believe that
Christ died for every man alike. Because God obviously elected
a people. And Christ died for the people
that God elected. And the Spirit of God regenerates
and calls all of the elected and redeemed. That's sure salvation. Did you get that? Or did that
go over your head? Did you get that? God chose you, Christ died
for you, and the Spirit of God regenerates you. That's why you
don't lose salvation. Because it's not yours to lose.
It's His. It's His. He saved you. Have
you ever thought about this? Why in God's name are you still
alive? Why aren't you dead? Why aren't
you in jail, locked up somewhere? Why aren't you still down there
in the hood? How is it that you got where
you are? Oh, God elected me before there
was a world. Christ died for me. And then
one day, as David said to his servants, with regard to Mephibosheth,
the dead dog, fetch him out of Lodibar. God said to the Holy
Spirit, fetch him out of the hood. And you know, when you were in
the hood, you know when you were in the hood, there was a bird
dog on your trail. He was sniffing you out. He had
been sent from the throne room of God to fetch you. There you were in all your filth,
using, shooting up, smoking, drinking, cussing, fornicating,
all of that mess, all of that mess. Down there in the dumpsters,
all of that mess. You had no knowledge, no understanding
at all, dumb as an ox. And the Holy Spirit came sniffing. And He smelled a lot of mess.
And He passed a lot of people by. In fact, He came to one of your
cohorts down there And he said, tell them about Grace Centers
of Hope. He put it in their mind and in
their heart to tell you about Grace Centers of Hope. You didn't
know about Grace Centers of Hope. That person didn't even know
God Himself. I wonder why that person would
be so good to you to tell you about a rehab center. That person was born and predestinated
to do that, to tell you. I didn't say the person was predestinated
to salvation. I said they were predestinated
and God ordained that person to be at the hood at the time
to know about Grace Centers of Hope, to tell you who had been
chosen by God before the foundation of the world where to get some
bread. Some of you couldn't even get
on the bus. You didn't have any money to get on the bus. You
know, my God is a God who can get money out of a fish's mouth. Some of you haven't read your
Bibles, you know that story. And you ask a guy for a quarter.
That quarter had been predestinated by Almighty God, or whatever
it takes to ride the bus. And He gave it to you and didn't
even know you. Before there was a world, God planned and purposed
that that person Be right there. You be right there. Him have
50 cents in his pocket. Give it to you to catch a bus
to come up here because you were starving to death, dirty, filthy
and scuzzy, blistered lips and tongue eating out of a garbage
can. And all the time you had no knowledge that God was behind
it all. That's the God of the Bible. Got you up here and set you under
the gospel. God ordained that too. If you
all won't say amen, I've got an amener on the front row. Got you up here. Got you sitting
in this church. And you heard the best news for
the first time in your life you had ever heard. You were already
past having any hope You figure once a drug addict, always an
addict. I've been an addict for 25 years. No hope for me. And
then Jesus came. And then you heard the gospel. You say, well, Father, I've never
been in Lodi Bar. Oh, yes, you have. You just haven't
been in the hood in Detroit. You're out there in the Baptist
church, the Presbyterian church. That's Lodibar. Wherever you
are and you're not hearing the gospel of grace, it's Lodibar. You're just smoking that old
legalism. There's nobody in here that don't
have a stem. Well, he's talking about those
addicts over at the mission. No, I'm talking about you. You've
got your own pipe. The Holy Spirit came seeking
us. And then maybe sitting right
here in this place, sitting right here in the house of God, you
heard the sweetest message you've ever heard. And with fear and
trembling you said, And can it be that I should gain an interest
in the Savior's love? Died He for me who caused His
pain? Would He die for me? Oh, this
is too good to be true. I thought there was no hope.
And the Spirit of God kept working on you until finally, up out
of there you came, singing, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine! He not only regenerated you,
got you up here, but he sealed you. He sealed you. My grandmother used to, she called
them preserves. We had different kinds of preserves. Yeah. And you'd hear those cans
popping. I'd go, what are those cans doing?
She had them in that big tannery thing, you know, screw the things
on the top. Those cans would be popping.
Pop. Pop. I said, Teddy, is those
things going to blow up? She said, no, sonny boy, they're
sealing. I said, well, what does that
mean? I said, you can open them any time you want, two years,
three years, four years from now. They've been sealed tight. They're kept. They'll be good. The Holy Spirit sealed us. You've
been sealed. You may not be popping yet, but
you've been sealed. And then he indwells us. Isn't
that something? He indwells us. So when you go into the crack
house or, you know, whether you are committing fornication or
you're doing something, your flesh is acting up. Wherever you go, he goes. And
this is what happens when the flesh is acting up with a child
of God. Wherever you take the Spirit of God, the flesh takes
the Spirit of God, that spirit will be saying, no, no. How many of you have told me
that you went to use and tried to use and couldn't even get
high? You know why? Because greater is He that's
in you than he that's in the world. I guarantee you this,
if you've been saved, the world will never attract you completely
again. It'll never be like it used to
be. No, it never will. It never will. Well, pastor,
are you saying we're still going to... Yep. We're mess-ups. But God perseveres us. He that hath begun a good work
in you, He that hath begun a good work in you. The question is,
has He begun a good work? If He has begun a work, He will
always complete it. Always complete it. He'll perform it. This is my assurance. I have
no other assurance than this. God loved me. God chose me. Christ died for me. The Spirit
of God regenerated me. And that is my total hope and
plead. That's it. I have no confidence
in the flesh. Yours or mine. I have no confidence
in the flesh. You need to learn this. You need
to learn this. To be born again really is to
be born again. Now you have this old flesh.
You know, I often think about this. What will it be like to
be free from the flesh? When nothing is left but a new
holy nature. Do you know there will be no
sadness? You will never get depressed
again. There will be no sin. Think about it. No more self-centeredness. Really, really and truly, your
biggest problem and mine is self-centeredness. It really is. Even the religion
of the gospel of legalism, that's all about self. If I just, you
know, if I just keep pumping you up about how good you are,
yeah, you're surely going to go to heaven. You are a saint. You are a saint. And you just
keep taking it in. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. Or usually we go like this. Oh,
no, don't say that. You're much too good to say that.
When all the time we're saying, bring it on. I'm really better
than that. Can't you do better than that?
Self-centeredness. Yeah, I have a blessed assurance
and I know this. And if you think you're going
to get holier as you get older, you have lost your mind. The desire will be there, but
not the ability. That's what happens when you
get old. Sin doesn't get weak. You just can't do what you used
to do. Now, I know you all are letting your minds run everywhere
here now. But the truth is, you're not
as sharp. Nope. But sin is still there. You even go in a nursing home
and watch some of those old folks that have totally lost their
mind, they've lost their senses. Still wicked. Still performing perverse things. Is that right? You ever thought
about this? What if you got Alzheimer's and
you were depending on your good works, but you lost your mind
and you got mean as hell? Would you still go to heaven?
I mean, have you ever thought about it? You're so big on this
salvation by works stuff. Have you ever thought about it?
What if you just lost your mind? And you were no longer nice?
And you could cover it no more? And it began to seep out what
was on the inside. You better have more than good
works. You better not be counting on that. You better have a Savior,
a Redeemer. There best be some blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I want to tell you, saints, We're
not crawling to heaven. We're marching to Zion. When
you enter into the Gospel, you start to march. Not, you know,
I don't know whether I'm going to make it or not. I just don't
know. God doesn't want you in that
state of mind. God has given us every reason
to have blessed assurance. There is no reason for a child
of God to be doubting. other than you get your head
stuck in your belly button. Now, I know right now, some of
you are saying this, you know, that was an alright message. I just don't feel too saved.
I don't know what everybody else is grinning about. I guarantee
you, if you will step into the gospel light, you will have a
smile on your face and assurance in your soul. It's only when
you live out here with your head stuck in your belly button, looking
at you, He's a bigger Savior than you are a sinner. Let's
stand together and sing His praises.