I often think God has graciously
dealt with me much of my life in unique ways. The Lord graciously
brought three men into my life at crucial, decisive times over
the years. Three men whose influence had
a profound life-changing permanent effect upon me. When I was 19
years old, shortly after Shelby and I were married, I met Brother
Ron Rumberg. He was pastor of New Covenant
Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina. As a matter of
fact, they had just started the church there in Mount Airy. They
were still meeting in the basement of Tony Bowman's house. And I'd
often go preach for Brother Ron. He's only about 40 miles from
where we were living in Winston-Salem at the time, where I was in school.
And there'd just be not much more room than just for the pulpit
for me to stand in Tony's basement. But I learned from Brother Ron
the necessity for a preacher, if you're going to preach, It
was gonna be a posture. The necessity of diligent preparation. Study, study, study, study, study. Prepare. Don't ever step into
the pulpit unprepared. I learned the necessity of it
by his word and by his example, and I appreciate it. Later that
same year, perhaps the next, Shelby and I met Brother Harry
Graham and his wife Nola. Brother Harry was much older.
He and I became dear friends. His wife became dear friends
to Shelby and I. And we spent much time together.
As much as I could get his attention, I made it my business to get
it. And Harry Graham had to be one of the most bold, confident
men I ever met in my life. He pastored Sunlight Baptist
Church in Asheboro, North Carolina. And I learned from him that if
you're going to speak for God, if you're going to declare the
word of God with clarity, if you're going to teach people
the things of God, you must do so with boldness, with dogmatism,
with unyielding boldness. And by that, I mean confidence.
am God's ambassador, if I have a message from God to deliver,
I must not, I cannot, I will not bend or bow before any man. I cannot, I Fear any man's frown,
and I cannot court any man's favor. The word of God must be
preached with dogmatism and boldness. I know people often think preachers
ought to come to the people, to the pulpit, kind of immediately
mouth the way most preachers do and say, well, this is what
I think, maybe this is somehow what the passage might mean.
If I don't know what it means, I don't deal with it. I don't
come here to give you my opinion of things. I seek a message from
God and declare the message to you and demand that you bow to
the word of God. The business of preaching is
not coddling folks. It is not trying to warm up to
folks and get them to warm up to you. In preaching, the preacher
deals with God-hating rebels. And if I deal with rebels as
an ambassador of the king, it is my responsibility to confront
the rebel and demand that he bow. That's what we do in preaching
the gospel. We confront rebels against God
with the gospel of God and demand that sinners throw up the white
flag of surrender and bow to Christ the Lord. If you don't,
you'll go to hell. And then in 1976, God graciously
brought me into contact with Brother Henry Mahan. I first
met Brother Mahan back in the fall of 1969. He was preaching in my hometown
of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was preaching for the Rosemont
Baptist Church, where Brother Herbert Wilson pastored. Shelby
and I were members of another small congregation a few miles
from Rosemont, Hillcrest Baptist Church, where Dan Parks' father,
E.W. Parks, was our pastor. So I couldn't
attend services there on Wednesday night, but the other nights I
was able to go. I heard Brother Mahan preach
twice. It was shortly after his son
Robby had been killed in Vietnam. I don't think I'll ever forget
the messages or the outlines. He preached the first night on
Christ, our kinsman redeemer from the book of Ruth. And then the next time I heard
him, he preached on a picture of God's sovereign grace from
the first three chapters of Hosea. That was in 1969. And though
I frequently heard others mention his name, I did not see or hear
Brother Mahan again until six years later. Then in April 1976,
I was driving down here to Lexington, Kentucky with Bobby Smith. We
and I were coming to a Bible conference, and I had heard a
great deal about this fella named Mahan. I remembered meeting him. I remembered hearing those two
messages. But most of what I heard was
not very flattering. It came from folks who didn't
have any use for Brother Mahan and the message he preached.
Folks who sought to do him injury. And so I decided that I would
go by and visit with the old man and impart to him some of
my great wisdom and knowledge. I was 26. And I had the world
by the tail on a downhill pull. There wasn't anything I didn't
know. And so we stopped by and visited a little while and I
talked to Brother Mahan about prophecy, and church discipline,
and church dogma, and I talked to him about the creeds, and
talked to him about the decrees of God, and whether he was superlapsarian,
inferlapsarian, or ultralapsarian, and he just kind of was cordial.
I would have thrown me out of my ear. But he was just very
nice and cordial, and listened to me. When we walked in, He
was at his desk studying, preparing to preach that night. He was
gonna preach his television broadcasters on Monday night, and he was going
to preach. We spent probably a good hour
and a half, two hours together. And when I started to leave,
Brother Mahan turned his Bible around, just like that, and he
said, I want you to read this right here. Colossians chapter
three, verse 11. And so I started to read it,
and he stopped me. He said, no, no, no, no, just these words
right here. And he underlined, Christ is
all. And so I read it, and I looked
up at him with a look that must have been shouting, so what?
Christ is all. And he said to me, young man, if you ever learn the meaning
of those three words, You will understand the message of this
book and God just might use you to preach it. I shrugged my shoulders and left.
We drove on to the Bible conference here and then went home. And
just a few weeks later, I was in the hospital. The doctors,
found out that I had cancer. It was already advanced to the
latter stages, and they didn't expect me to live very long.
I'd been preaching for more than eight years. I was about four
and a half years into my pastorate at lookout, and during those
earliest years of my ministry, I was a strict Calvinist. I was
a Baptist of first degree, just as I am today in both counts. My doctrine was precisely accurate
and orthodox. I believed and preached the same
doctrine then that I do now. Ask anybody who knew me, and
they'll tell you. My doctrine hasn't changed over
the years. I gave myself relentlessly to
the work of the ministry, but something was missing, and I
knew it. My preaching lacked heart. It
lacked fire. It lacked life. I had everything
except a message. A message burning in my soul.
A message burning in my bones. A message eternity bound sinners
must hear. I had everything else. Then the
Lord laid me flat on my back. The doctors didn't expect me
to survive. And I began to evaluate. I began to evaluate my ministry
before God, heart searching evaluation. After eight years trying to preach,
I couldn't see how my labor had been profitable for anyone. I was just spinning my wheels
in the sand, defending my doctrine, defending my faith, but my doctrinal
orthodoxy gave no comfort. My heart was crushed with conviction. I sunk in despair. But these
three words in Colossians 111 kept coming to my mind and coming
to my heart as God spoke to me. Christ is all. Christ is all. Christ is all. And they burned into my heart. Thank God he burned them into
my heart. Never before did I make a vow
to God of any kind after he saved me. I tried several times beforehand,
but since he saved me, never before had I made a vow to God.
I don't recommend that you do, but I made a vow. It wasn't an
attempt to try to get God to spare my life. I was comfortable
with dying, but I made a vow, and this is what it was. I said, my God, my Father, forgive me of the sin of my preaching. If you're pleased to ever put
me before eternity-bound men and women again, I make this
vow. I will never preach anything
except this. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else. Nothing else. Nothing else. And I've kept my
vow. Christ is all. That's the message
you must learn. That's the message you will learn.
either by God's grace now or at the bar of God's judgment
in eternity. You're going to discover that
Christ is all. The text specifically says Christ
is all and in all. And Paul's intention, the spirit
of God's intention in this text of scripture is that we should
understand that in Christ neither male nor female, neither Jew
nor Gentile, neither Greek nor barbarian, neither bond nor free
matters at all. Doesn't matter what you are physically. Doesn't matter where you came
from physically. Doesn't matter what advantages
or disadvantages you have physically, morally, ethnically, socially.
Those things are nothing. In the church and kingdom of
God, all social, economic, racial barriers are demolished. They're
demolished. They're demolished. Christ is
in you all. Christ is in you all. In you
by God's almighty grace. God put you in His Son and God
put His Son in you. That's what salvation is. That's
what salvation is. God gave you life and faith in
His Son and that life and faith makes Christ all to you. all the hope you had before God,
all dependence, all acceptance with God, all the object of faith,
all the object of confidence, Christ is all. But the scripture,
as I've often told you, must never be limited. Whenever you
find something stated in scripture, stretch it in your mind as far
in every direction as you can possibly stretch it. What does
this mean? Christ is all. Understand this. In all the purpose, counsels,
decrees, and works of the triune God, Christ is all. Turn back to Proverbs 8. Proverbs
8. There was a time before time. What a contradiction. There was
a time before time. You see, when you start to talk
about infinite things, when you start to think about the things
of God, you're going to find there are lots of things that
are contradictory to human reason and human thinking. There was
a time before time when the triune God dwelt alone in his ineffable
glory as God. None existed but God, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. None existed but God. He alone is eternal. That means that anything that
comes into being, God brings it into being. Anything that
is created, God creates it. There was a time before time,
back in what we call eternity past, because we can't use better
language. when God dwelt alone. And where
was Christ then? Even then, before the world was,
here in Proverbs chapter eight, verse 22, the Lord Jesus Christ
says, the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way. Before
his works of old, I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning
or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I
was brought forth. when there were no fountains
abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before
the hills was I brought forth, while as yet he had not made
the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust
of the world. John puts it this way, in the
beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and God was
the word. In the beginning was the word,
expressed person of God, the revealed person of the triune
God. The Word, the Word by which God
would make himself known. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God because he was God. The Word was God. Christ stood forth in eternity
before time began. as the representative of his
people before the triune Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
I mean by that, not that Christ possessed his bodily frame from
eternity, he did not. Not that he possessed a human
soul from eternity, he did not. But he stood up and stood forth
as our covenant surety. and the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost had made a covenant amongst themselves to save a people,
to redeem a people. It's called a covenant of peace,
the everlasting covenant, a covenant of life, the new covenant. When
the triune God had made that covenant, the Son of God stood
forth, and he stepped forward as our sheriff did, and he said,
I will go. I will redeem my people. I will bring the chosen safely
to glory. I will become Jehovah's servant.
and I will bring back the reward with me, lo, I and the children
which thou hast given me. And the father and the son struck
hands and the work was done. And Christ is hence described
as the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world,
Revelation 13, eight. He is described as that one who
has a book. The names of which all of God's
elect were written. It's called the book of life
of the Lamb of God. And our names were written in
the book before the world began. So that from eternity, from eternity,
before ever the world was, God's people were accepted in the beloved. chosen in Christ, blessed of
God with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
accepted in Christ as one with Christ, as redeemed by Christ. And the Apostle Paul tells us
by divine inspiration that back then, before time was, before
time began, before ever God spoke anything into existence, God's
elect, were called and justified and sanctified and glorified
in Christ. Isn't that amazing? The works
were finished before anything was begun. And then in time,
God created the heavens and the earth, the sun, the moon, the
stars, the seas, the land, all the inhabitants of the world
were called into being and made out of that chaos and confusion
that's spoken of in Genesis 1-2. And what does the book of God
say? Look again at Proverbs chapter eight, verse 27. When he prepared
the heavens, I was there. When he set a compass upon the
face of the depth, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened
the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree
that the waters should not pass his commandment, when he appointed
the foundations of the earth, then was I by him, as one brought
up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always
before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth.
Now watch this. And even then, from the very
beginning, When I first said to the stars, shine into the
sun, give light. When I first created the heavens
and the earth, my delights were with the sons of men. My delights were with the sons
of men. All things were made by him.
And without him was not anything made that was made. By Him were
all things created, all things in heaven and all things that
are in earth, visible and invisible. They were created by Him and
for Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the mediator, the medium, Did you hear me? He is the mediator. He is the medium by whom the
triune God does everything. Everything done by God is done
by God through Christ the Lord, our mediator. He created this
earth so that this world might be a platform. a stage, if you
will, in which he would display the unfolding drama of redemption. God created the world, Merle
Hart, because he saved you before the world was. He created the
world. so that he might show to all
angels and all creatures for the everlasting praise of his
own being, for the glory of his own name, to the satisfaction
of his own delight, the salvation of his people. Having created
the heavens and the earth, he purposed all things that come
to pass in them. I was reading, as I prepared
the message for Brother Coleman's funeral Tuesday night, I was
reading various things, various writings from men on Revelation
chapter 14, verses 12 and 13. I called Shelby in to read to
her a statement made by W.A. Criswell. Even for Criswell,
this was horrible. He was pastor of First Baptist
Church in Dallas, Texas for over 50 years. He was twice president
of Southern Baptist Convention. Fundamentalist extraordinaire. He was a brilliant man. This
is what he said. He said, God never planned for
death. It was not part of his purpose
and decree. Is that what he said? God never
planned for death. It was not part of his purpose
and decree. That's the devil's work. Hear me, of him and through him
and to him are all things. That clock back yonder, the second
hand doesn't move except according to God's eternal decree before
the world was. It doesn't move except by the
order of God's hand in providence, executing his decree from eternity. And the hand of God's providence
is ordered by Jesus Christ, the Lord, who sits on the throne
of heaven. He does everything according
to purpose. There came a time when sin entered
into the world. Satan deceived our first parents,
but that didn't take Christ by surprise. It was the Lord Jesus
who said to Adam, not to eat of the fruit of the tree. And
he said, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He didn't say, if you should
slip up and eat, you're gonna die. He said, in the day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He ordained the fall as
much as he ordained our recovery from the fall. He ordained the
fall that he might recover us from the fall for the praise
of his glory. And when sin entered into the
world, the Lord Jesus stepped in. And he gave a promise to
our fallen parents, Adam and Eve. You can read about it in
Genesis 3.15. He said, at God's appointed time, I'm
going to come. I'm going to come into the world.
I'm going to come as a man without the aid of a man. A man who is
the seed of a woman. I'm going to come as a man who's
the seed of a woman. God said to Adam and Eve. God, our Savior, said to Adam
and Eve, I will come the seed of the woman, God in human flesh,
and I will crush the serpent's head by giving that serpent power
to crush my heel. I will crush his head when I
am put to death as the God-man mediator. And then he said, now
before I drive you out of this place, the Garden of Eden, the
Garden of Plenty, the Garden of Peace, before I drive you
from this place, I want to show you what I mean by that. And
he killed an innocent victim, sacrificed it instead of the
fallen pair. and then he stripped the skins,
God did. Isn't that amazing? God did. He stripped the skins off of
that innocent victim and made by his own hands, made by his
own hands, coats for Adam and Eve. He said, sin is atoned by
the sacrifice of myself. and the only covering for your
souls by which you can come to God is my righteousness, me. These are the garments of salvation. Wherever you go in Holy Scripture,
as you read of the appearance of the angel of the Lord, or
you read about God speaking to a man, or God making himself
known to a man, wherever you go in the Scriptures, When you
read about the angel of the Lord, about God coming visiting man,
man being spoken to by God, man speaking to God, it's always
a pre-incarnate revelation of the God-man, our mediator, Jesus
Christ the Lord. Then, when it appeared that the
world was sunk in darkness and in sin, After 4,000 years of God revealing
himself, little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept,
prophet after prophet, priest after priest, after God revealing
himself through all the sacrifices and ceremonies and commandments
of the law, men were engulfed in darkness, superstition, blindness, idolatry. Our brilliant forefathers in
the Gentile world were so brilliant that they were
worshipers of multiple gods. They made them gods for everything.
Gods of thunder and gods of light and gods of peace and gods of
war made gods out of everything. Our brilliant forefathers. The
world was sunk in debauchery. So that fornication, adultery,
sodomy, were as common in the Roman world as breathing air. Sort of like today. Sort of like
today. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
due time, stepped in. In the fullness of time, God
sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law. and by His obedience unto death
as our substitute, the Son of God fully accomplished everything
the law and prophets said that Christ must accomplish everything. everything. So that when he cried,
it is finished, the work was fully done. Redemption was finished. Righteousness was finished. Holiness
was finished. Satisfaction was finished. Finished
for a specific people. All that he did, he did as your
representative. All that he did, he did as our
substitute in the accomplishment of redemption. That's the reason
the Apostle Paul says concerning him, Christ is the end, the period,
the stopping point, the finishing, the completion, the satisfaction,
the fulfillment. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. I remember the
first time I went to preach for Brother Ian Potts down in Huntington,
England. He had made arrangements for
us to take a train from, not Huntington, but close by town,
I forgot where it was, up to London. And Brother John Graham
and his wife Ann would meet us when we got off at Waterloo Station.
And I wasn't accustomed to riding trains. I didn't pay any attention
much to what he said. I said, how will we know when
we get to Waterloo Station? He said, that's the end of the
line. I said, how will I know when I get there? I don't know.
He said, when the train bumps the wall, you get off. The train bumped the wall. The train of prophecy. The train
of law. The train of commandments. The
train of types and ceremonies. Bumped the wall at Calvary! Christ Jesus is the end of the
law. Christ sits now on heaven's throne,
the God-man mediator, and God reigns the world through him. God reigns the world through
him, everything fulfilling his will. His throne is called a
throne of grace. Now, if you will, turn to Acts
chapter 10, verse 43. Acts 10 and verse 43. I want you to see this and see
it clearly. To him give all the prophets
witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall
receive remission of sins. As I stated in the brief tribute
I wrote concerning Brother Mahan, Friday I wrote it, sent it out
yesterday. More than any man in history since the apostolic
era, God used Henry Mahan to teach his church and preachers
in this generation that Christ is the message of Holy Scripture. Did you read verse 43? To him,
give all the prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever
believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. All the prophets,
everything written from Genesis chapter one, verse one, to the
end of Malachi, to him give all the prophets witness. What is
written concerning the prophets of the Old Testament is true
of the new as well. The four Gospels record for us
the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ while He walked
on this earth. The Book of Acts is the preaching
of Christ. God sent His servants out into
the world, scattering His church into the four corners of the
earth, just as He said He would. By persecution, they were scattered,
and everywhere they went, they went everywhere preaching Jesus
and the resurrection. Book of Acts shows us how that
God performs His work in this world, in this gospel age. He
does it through the preaching of the gospel. The epistles are
the inspired revelation, giving us instruction as to what was
meant by our Lord's work and by His words while He walked
on the earth. The epistles are the fulfillment
of Christ's promise. I will send another comforter
to you. I've got many things to say,
you can't bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth
has come, He will guide you into all truth. For He will take the
things of mine and show them to you. He did it by the writings
of the inspired writers, giving us the epistles of the New Testament. So that all the book of God is
about Him. Brother Mahan, more than any
man I know of in history since the apostles, taught us that
with clarity, exactly as the scriptures teach it. You see,
most everybody in conservative religion, many of you were raised
in very conservative religion, fundamentalist religion. Most
everybody that's just slightly conservative, you've heard this
all your life. We believe the central message
of the Bible is Jesus Christ. Christ is the center of all.
And that sounds pretty good. But that's not what the book
teaches. The singular message of Holy Scripture is Christ crucified. This book, now listen to me. Oh, God help you to hear me.
God help you to hear me. Would to God I had the ear of
every preacher in the world this hour. This book was not designed,
are you listening to me? To teach you how to live a better
life. That was not the purpose of this book. You mean it doesn't
matter how we live? You didn't hear me say that.
I said, Mike, that's not the purpose of this book. This book
was not designed to teach you how to be a better husband or
a better wife, a better son or a better daughter. This book
was not designed to teach morality or ethics. This book was not
designed to be a book of religious denominationalism. It was not
designed to order this thing or that concerning this church
or that. This book was written. by divine design to show you
who Jesus Christ is, what he accomplished, and how sinners
may obtain his salvation. That's the purpose. Who is he? He's God in the flesh. What did
he accomplish? He accomplished full redemption
for sinners. Preacher, how could I get that?
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's
what this book is written to teach. That's what it's written
to teach. I'll show you one more thing. Turn to I Corinthians chapter
1. Very familiar text of Scripture. I Corinthians chapter 1. Christ is all in the saving of
our souls. Christ is all. Yes, we're Trinitarians. We believe in the triune God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But it pleased the holy triune
God that in all things Christ the Son had preeminence. He put
everything in the Son. Everything in the God-man mediator. And here in 1 Corinthians 1.30
we read, of him Are ye in Christ Jesus? That's
what it is to be saved. That's what it is to believe
on the Son of God. That's what it is to have life. You're in
Christ. God puts you there. Who is of
God? Christ Jesus, the God-man mediator,
is of God, made unto us. Wisdom. Wisdom. Wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. Christ is that wisdom. You believe
God and now you have a wise mediator. A wise mediator who spoke for
you before the world was. A wise mediator who will give
you the light of his word to order your steps and guide you
in his pathway. A wise one to intercede for you
before God. He's made of God and to us wisdom. So that being born again with
Christ in you, you have the mind of Christ. He's the wisdom of
God in you. And righteousness. Christ alone
is our righteousness by which we stand justified before God. And sanctification. And sanctification. Yes, this
too is His work. He's made of God unto you who
believe holiness. Holiness. I have often been told,
and I will be told again probably tomorrow by somebody who hears
this, maybe before I go to bed tonight, you aren't a very good
theologian. You confuse. righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. And if I think they might possibly
listen to what I say, I'll respond to them, otherwise I'll ignore
them. And my response will be, you are mistaken. You confuse righteousness, sanctification
and redemption by trying to separate them. You cannot separate righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. The same people have them all
by the work of the same God and Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. He established righteousness
for us and his righteousness is ours. He is our holiness,
our separating factor. He is the one who chose us from
eternity, redeemed us with blood and called us by his grace, putting
in us his holy nature in sanctification. He is made of God and to us redemption
Redemption You know what the redemption means? It's deliverance
by power and by blood It's delivered redemption Redemption is like
salvation. It takes in the whole thing everything
from eternity to eternity Everything before time began until time
ends. Redemption takes it all. By which
God delivers his elect from the ruins of the fall in the glorious
holiness of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. That's redemption.
Complete deliverance by blood and by power. I don't know how
to illustrate it as I should, except
in a very carnal way. When Shelby and I were engaged, I was confident that the Lord
had directed me to go to school at Springfield, Missouri. And
so I went to town, went to a pawn shop, and bought myself a suitcase,
first one I'd ever owned. Well, I guess I was 17 when I
bought it. And I bought me a nice leather suitcase, big thing,
paid 20 bucks for it. Somebody had gone in there and
hopped it and left it, and I bought it. And I took it with me to
Springfield, Missouri. And I came back to Winston-Salem
after the year's school there, and I took the suitcase back
down to the pawn store, and I hopped it. I hopped it. And I had 30 days, I think it
was at the time, I could go back anytime I wanted to, as long
as I had that stub. I didn't get $20 for it the second
time, I gave that for it. Whatever it was, as long as I
had that stub, all I had to do was go in there and pay that
little bit of money and the interest, give him the stub, and I'd go
get the suitcase. It was mine before it was his. And I would come in to redeem
it. And if you think, if you think, that this big old boy
would have gone into that little old man and given him the stub
and the 10, 20, 30 dollars, whatever it was, and walked out without
the suitcase, you don't know this man. I'd go in and give him the stub
and give him the money and I'd lay hold of the suitcase and
I'd take it out of the store and take it home. It's mine. That's what Christ is doing. He's come and paid the price
of ransom to the offended law and justice of God. And by the
power of his spirit, he comes in time and lays hold of his
redeemed and takes them out from the bondage and curse and guilt
and condemnation of the law and says, you're justified. And he's
carrying them home to glory. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption. And this is the reason it's that
way, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let
him glory in the Lord. It is God's purpose that no flesh
should glory in His presence. But he that glorieth, let him
glory in the Lord. Would you go home to heaven with
Christ? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and this salvation that is his. No, no, no, no, no. It's his. More than that, it's him. Jesus Christ, God's salvation
is yours in the hand of faith. Oh, God help you to believe Him. Amen.