that which we love. All of us
do. Even when we have that which
is the object of our pursuit at hand, we continue to seek
that which we love. I've had my wife now as my wife
for nearly 30 years. I still court her. I still seek
her. I still seek more and more of
her affection, more and more of her care, more and more of
her time, because I love her. Indeed, we will sacrifice most
anything for that which we love most. Those who love money will
sacrifice their time, their families, even their character to get it.
Those who love fame will sacrifice honesty and principle in the
pursuit of it. Those who love pleasure Will
sacrifice their very health and physical well-being for one more
thrill. Just keep pushing closer and
closer to the age, you get one more thrill. Willing to sacrifice
everything just to get a little elation. What sacrifices men
and women make, pursuing the bubbles of this world. And when
they've got them, all they've got is just a fistful of air. Nothing else. What vanity, what
vanity. But our text this morning talks
about some folks who love something so dearly, who value something
so highly, that they are willing to sacrifice anything and everything
in the pursuit of it. Turn with me, if you will, to
Psalm 70 and verse 4. I was reading something else
this week and the first part of the week and came across this
text, must have been Tuesday or Wednesday, and I thought immediately
that's going to be what I'll preach on Sunday. I figured I'd
be preaching down in Madisonville, but I said that's the message
for today. And I'm convinced that it is
the message for today and for this hour and for you. May God
the Holy Spirit be pleased to speak through these lips of clay,
through his word to your heart. I want to talk to you this morning
about such as love thy salvation. Look here in Psalm 70, verse
4. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, Let God be magnified. Now hold your hands here and
turn back to Psalm 40, the passage we read just a little you will see that this fourth
verse of Psalm 70 is almost exactly the same as the 16th verse of
Psalm 40. Now this, Psalm 40, is the intercessory
prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ as he suffered as our substitute.
The scriptures make that abundantly clear, where he says, sacrifice
an offering thou hast not desired. He says, my ears have you opened?
He said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. All of those things
are quoted in Hebrews chapter 10 by the Apostle Paul, and he
tells us this is Christ speaking. So our Lord Jesus, as he was
dying as our substitute, as he was bearing our sins in his body
on the cursed tree. Here makes intercession as our
great high priest. He's speaking to God, his Father,
and our Father. And he says, now Father, on the
basis of what I am here doing, on the basis of my blood atonement,
on the basis of justice satisfied, on the basis of sin put away
by me for these my people, I pray for them. I'm praying for them.
Now he doesn't pray for everybody. You read the two preceding verses
and you'll see he calls down divine judgment upon those who
are his enemies. But he prays for his people.
And this is what he prays. Let those that seek thee rejoice
and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, the Lord be magnified. Now, with this prayer
in Psalm 40, and again in Psalm 70, our Lord Jesus describes
God's people, those who are truly born of his spirit, those who
are called by his grace with these two things. First, he says,
they are those that seek thee. And then secondly, he says, they
are those that love thy salvation. Let all those that seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee. Believers are a people who, by
the grace of God, have been taught to know their need of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Believers are men and women who
have learned by the effectual teaching of grace, I must have
him, so that in their souls they cry to God, give me Christ or
else I die. And because they know their need
of him, believers seek him. Listen to what the Prophet says
in Lamentations 3, verse 25. The Lord is good to them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. The Lord is good
to those who seek him. This religious generation acts
like, and they've been convinced they've got God in their pockets,
you know, everything's all sewed up, everything's fine. We took
care of that 20 years ago when we said the sinner's prayer.
We took care of that this morning when we got in the waters of
baptism. Mama and daddy took care of that when I was a baby
and they dedicated me to Jesus. That's a bunch of nonsense. Believers
are not men and women who think or behave as though they've got
God in their hip pocket. They're men and women who recognize
their constant great need of God and His grace in Christ Jesus. And so they seek Him. They seek
Him. So, well, you mean they used
to seek Him? No, they seek Him. Those who seek him know their
need of him, and they believe him. Believing him, they seek
him. Not what he has, not what he
gives, but him. They seek him. And believers
seek him sincerely and earnestly. Not many folks know anything
about that. Not many. Most folks take religious fits
by spasm, you know. I've got folks in my family,
when they take a notion, they get a little religion, they start
going to church, and then everything gets better, you know. The kids
start to behave, or they get grown enough. They're not carousing
around in the middle of the night anymore. At least Mama and Daddy
don't have them under the roof and have to worry about them, so everything's all
right now. Well, we don't need to go to church too much anymore.
We don't need to be too concerned about religion. All the believers,
need him. They need him. They need him.
They've got to have him. And so they seek him. Sincerely
and earnestly, in his word, in his house, among his people,
by prayer, by supplication, they seek him. And they're dead earnest
about that. I don't do it much anymore because
I'm supposedly watching things, you know, but sometimes in the
middle of the night I get up hungry. You're a little not hungry. And my wife can have more stuff
in the house to eat, has it best hid. I mean, she can stick stuff
in the back of that pantry that you couldn't find in six months.
But if I'm hungry enough, I start pulling it out. Now, if I just
got a little hunch for some munchies and I open the door, close it
back and go to bed. But if I'm hungry, I open the
door and I start pulling it. If I have kids today, I'll empty
it because I'm hungry. And I'm telling you, if you ever
come to need God and His grace in Christ, you're going to seek
Him. You're going to seek Him. Believers
seek Him continually. The Apostle Paul, when he was
about to be executed for his confession and preaching of the
gospel, said in Philippians 3, I seek Him. Oh, I pursue Him. I want to know Him. And believers
seeking him find him. They find him. I recall years
ago, you've heard me tell the story before, Sandy Parks, like
most folks raised in religion, shortly after she and Moose were
married, I was preaching for Moose's dad down in Western Salem,
and they were going somewhere out of town. And they got out
of the driveway about 10 minutes later before anybody got going
from church, they turned around and drove back in. And Moose
said, Sandy wants to talk to you. So I said, fine. I went
back and we chatted a little bit. And she said, Brother Don,
I'm lost. What am I to do? I said, seek
the Lord. Seek the Lord. And she looked
at me for a few seconds, kind of like, you know, that all you
got to say? I said, seek the Lord. Moose
told me later, he said, I left and I thought, well, he ought
to have said something besides that. But I'm telling you, you
seek it. And if you seek it, you'll find
it. Listen to what it says in Jeremiah 29. Turn over there.
Jeremiah 29, verse 11. Now you play games with God,
and he'll ignore you. You play games with God, he'll
send you to hell. You play games with God, and pretend with God,
and fake with God, and you say, I want to do this, I want to
do that, and you have no sincerity, not a sincere bone about you,
I'm telling you, you're playing with eternal damnation. But if
you're concerned about your soul, if you seek Christ, you'll find
it. Look here in Jeremiah 29, verse 11. The Lord God says,
for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the
Lord. Thoughts of peace, not of evil. To give you an expected
end. Then shall you call upon me and
you shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you.
And you shall seek me and find me. Look at it now. When you
shall search for me with all your heart. That's the difference
between religious folks and folks who need Christ. That's the difference
between folks who are satisfied with the husk that the swine
eat and those who've got to have the bread of life. He was talking
about earlier. They seek Him with all their heart. And when
you seek me with all your heart, you'll find me. He says in verse
14, and I will be found of you, saith the Lord. Believers then
are men and women who seek the Lord. Now look at this next sentence. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, The Lord be magnified. Salvation is God's. This generation
needs to find that out. Salvation is not something that
God owes you. Salvation is not something you
have in your hands. Salvation is not something that
God offers you if you're pretty pleased to take it. Salvation
is God's prerogative. He gives it to whom He will.
Salvation is God's property. It's His possession. And He gives
it as He sees fit. Salvation is God's gift. Salvation
is God's work. Only His. That such as love,
look at it, thy salvation. Thy salvation. Now we all need
it. It's God's gift. It's his work.
It's his property. It's his prerogative. But we
need it. The wages of sin is death. We've
earned that. But the gift of God is eternal
life. The gift of God, dear brother,
is God's salvation. And we need that gift. But most
people neglect and despise it. Most do. I preach the gospel
in numerous countries. I preach the gospel 35, 40, 45
different places every year. I've been preaching for 30 years,
a little more than 30 years. And most of the people I preach
to despise what I preach. I preach on radio every day.
Most people in here despise it. Most of them despise it. They
neglect it because it's of no value to them. It's useless to
them. Many of you sit where you are
and you neglect it. God gives you warning. How shall
we escape if we neglect so great salvation? You shall not escape
if you neglect and despise God's salvation. But most do. And here's
the reason why. Most of us don't need it. Most
of us don't need it. You're doing all right. You're
okay. You've never been lost. You don't
need anybody else's righteousness. You don't need somebody else
to make you righteous before God. You don't need atonement
for sin because you don't have any. So you sit smugly where
you are, and you listen, and you speak politely as you go
out the door, but you think to yourself, shoot, I don't need
Him. I don't need God. I don't need
God's salvation. Now, if I get in trouble, I'll
call on him, but salvation, righteousness, grace, Christ, substitution,
no, I don't need that. And when the gospel is preached
and we point you to the crucified Lamb of God and say, look yonder
to Christ the Lamb, look to Him and be saved, all you ends of
the earth, you think to yourself, well, that's all right for those
bad folks, but, you know, I'm not so bad God sent me to hell.
I'm not so bad God would judge me for my sin. Now I'm not perfect
mind you, but I'm not that bad. I'm not that bad. And presuming
that you can make yourself acceptable to God. by the whim of your will,
by a decision of your mind, by a prayer you say, by a work you
do, presuming that you can, you stumble over the stumbling stone,
Jesus Christ crucified right into hell, and God takes the
gospel away from you. That's what Paul teaches in Romans
chapter 9, the latter verses of that chapter, and the first
verses of chapter 10. He said the Jews They were ignorant about
God's righteousness. They thought they could do it.
They presumed they had God in their hand. They presumed they
could save themselves. But the Gentiles, who did not
have the law, but sought righteousness by faith, when the gospel was
preached to them, they said, that's what we need. And they
believed on Christ. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believes. But blessed be
his name, there are some people in this world who are here described
as those who love God's salvation. Do you? And well, I've mulled
this thing over all week long. And I'm here to tell you that
God's people love his salvation. They love it. They love it. The
Puritan Thomas Goodwin made this statement about this verse of
Scripture. He said they love it. because it's his, thy salvation. It is the character, he said,
of a holy saint to love salvation itself, not only as his own salvation,
but as God's, as God's that saves him. Now let me show you why. We love God's salvation. I'll
make several statements, and I'll give them to you very briefly.
You can jot them down as we move along. We love God's salvation
because of the sheer pleasure of it, because of its performance
in us by God himself. You see, salvation is not just
something that was decreed by God outside of us in eternity. Salvation was not something that
was purchased and accomplished for us at Calvary without any
experience of our own, though both of those things are true.
Salvation, in our first knowledge of it, is that which we have
experienced in our hearts and in our souls. It is the experience
of God's transforming, amazing grace, whereby he takes the lost
sheep and picks it up as it's slipping down the brink into
hell, lays it on his shoulders and carries it to glory, rejoicing. Salvation is that which God works
in you, according to Philippians 1.6. But God will perfect that
which he has performed in you, until the day of his glory in
Christ Jesus. Salvation as we've experienced
it, gives sheer pleasure to the believer. Turn to, I've got many
passages here, let's just turn to one, 2 Timothy chapter 1.
Have you ever been in prison? I mean sure enough in prison.
I recall when I was a boy, I got arrested. Fortunately, in God's
providence, the man who arrested me, his daughter kind of had
a shine toward me, and he was just wanting to scare me. He
took me downtown, locked me up. I mean, he locked me up. I was
sitting in the middle of the night in jail. And I knew if
I got out, somebody was going to have to come get me out. Because
I didn't have any money. I didn't have any claims. I didn't
have any means to escape. And there I sat, in jail. One day, my big God put me in
jail, under the curse of His law. And I sat there on death
row, condemned. waiting for God to execute me
with terror in my soul. And I knew if I got out, God
would have to get me out. And he did. He came and opened the prison
door and said to the lawful captor, you're free. And I walked out
of that place and I've been free ever since. And I'll tell you
something, I got no interest in going back. None at all. I've
been made free. And this is the experience of
God's grace. This is the pleasure of it. Look
in 2 Timothy 1. God has saved us, verse 9, and
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. Now that's God's purpose.
Bless God for that. I'll deal with that in just a
little bit, but that's not the experience of it. Salvation began
back in eternity, but insofar as I am concerned, in my pleasurable
enjoyment of it, in the experience of it, salvation came to me in
time. as Paul describes it here in
verse 10, but now, now, is made manifest by the appearing of
our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
And now, here I am. I've got the book of God, and
I read by faith that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to me and
declares that I'm forgiven of all sin forever and I shall never
come into condemnation. Did you hear what Jesus said
to me? You remember the chorus? They're
all taken away. Your sins are pardoned and you're
free. They're all taken away. Secondly,
we do rejoice in God's salvation and love it because of the plan
of it. Turn to Philippians chapter 4
for a second. We love God's salvation because of the beauty, symmetry,
and perfection of his plan and purpose of grace. I'm not going
to attempt to expound that statement. Let me simply declare this fact,
plainly revealed in Holy Scripture. Our great, glorious, sovereign
God, in absolute predestination by infinite wisdom, planned and
purposed to save us from eternity, laying up for us everything needed
for the honor of His name and the everlasting good of our souls
in the store and reservoir of His free grace in Jesus Christ
the Lord. And now He supplies all our needs
according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Look at this
in verse 19. 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 19. But my God shall,
he shall, supply all your needs, temporal, eternal, carnal, spiritual,
physical, and heavenly. My God shall supply all your
needs. Look at this now. According to. What a word. What a word. Let's see if I can illustrate
it. If I had some meat, real meat,
I was hungry. And Jay Rockefeller found out
about it. And he sent me a $100 check.
Now, I would appreciate the $100 check. I'd go buy some groceries
and see if I couldn't stretch it as far as I could. I'd appreciate
it. I'd sit down and write him a thank you note. I try to be
courteous. But if he gave me a $100 check, and the check was
good, and he sent it to me out of his kindness and his benevolence
toward me, he has supplied me a little bit his riches, because he's got
a bunch. He's got a bunch. He bought the
whole state of West Virginia. He's got a bunch. He's got a
bunch. But, now if I got a letter from him, and he said, Mr. Fortner, I know your plight and
your need, and I've decided that I'm going to take care of you
and your family for the rest of your life according to my
riches. Now that's another story. That's
another story indeed. That's not a hundred dollar check.
That's not a meal once in a while. Oh no, that's lifetime prosperity. Now you listen to me, children
of God. Our God supplies our needs. of forgiveness and salvation
and grace and eternal life and righteousness and atonement according
to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now that ought to sell
your little book. That's good enough. He supplies
all I need according to his riches in glory. We love God's salvation
also. because of the price of it. Look
in 1 Peter chapter 1. Now let's go to chapter 3, 1
Peter chapter 3. For Christ also, verse 18, had
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring
us to God. Not that he might possibly bring
us to God. That's not what the text means
at all. But he died the just for the unjust, Lindsay, to make
a way to bring us to God. He died the just for the unjust
in order that he might stay holy and just and righteous and still
bring us to God. The Lord Jesus Christ died under
the justice of God as our substitute, bearing our sins in his body
on the tree to the full satisfaction of divine justice to bring us
to God. Look at it now, being put to
death in the flesh and quickened by the Spirit. He bore our wrath. I sat down late last night and
tried to think how can I express this? Salvation's free to sinners. Oh, it's so free. It's so free,
it's all right to say it's cheap. It doesn't cost you anything.
It doesn't cost you anything. But it's not free. It costs the
Son of God everything. Ron, he was made sin, and he
bore the wrath of God. And now I won't. And this is
how I thought I'll express it. Once it was mine, the cup of
wrath, but Jesus drank it dry. When in my place he bore God's
wrath, and for my ransom died. No mortal knows the wrath he
bore, so justly due to me. But all the hell that I deserve,
Christ suffered there for me. Now, not one drop of wrath remains. It's finished was his cry, and
with one tremendous draft of love, he drank damnation dry. It's done. It's done. We love
God's salvation also, because of the perfection of it. The
Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 2 verse 9, in him dwells all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and then he makes this marvelous,
glorious statement in verse 10, and you are complete in him. Complete. What on earth does
that mean? Well, to make a long sermon short,
it means this, everything's done. There's nothing lacking. God
didn't leave, He didn't leave one little thread, one little
stitch in the garment of righteousness for you to thread with your hand
and fix it up. Nothing left for you to do. Nothing
left for you to make up. Nothing left for you to finish.
Jesus Christ is made of God unto us. Wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. We love God's salvation because
of the promise of it as well. He said, I give to them eternal
life and they shall never perish. This is not a gamble. This is
not something we're kind of betting on. This is not, this is not
something to say, well, we hope this will work out. Oh, no, no,
no, no. I cast my helpless, sinful soul
flat down on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and I cling to Him
with this confidence. No matter what hell does, I'll
never perish. Never perish. And this confidence
as well. Blessed be His name. No matter
what I do, I'll never perish. This is God's salvation. This
salvation is Him's. Christ is my salvation. Now because I've experienced
it, and I love it, I say continually, God be magnified. God be magnified. God be magnified. Amen.