Fifth Psalm, Psalm 35. I'll read the first three verses.
Psalm 35. Flee my cause, O Lord, We must have someone who will
plead our cause. That's what it means there in
the book of Timothy, the first book of Timothy, where it says
that we have one God and one mediator between God and man,
the man, Christ Jesus. The only way we can approach
God is through a mediator. through one who understands us
and one that understands God. He's a daisman. He can lay his
one hand on us and the other hand on God and plead our cause,
our case. And it says that he ever lives,
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, our Savior, He died in our stead
and place and room, was buried, exercised power over himself,
rose from the dead, ascended into the heavens on God's right
hand, the throne of God, and ever lives to plead our cause
and our case to represent us before God. We're in Him, vitally
joined with the Lord Jesus Christ, vitally joined, inseparably joined
to Him, one with Him. We're with Him. Where He is,
that's where we are. In Christ, the right hand of
God, He pleads our case. interprets our prayers. We know
not how to pray or what to pray for, but He does, and He undertakes for us. He
undertook for us on the tree concerning the question of our
sin, and He ever lives to undertake for our cause. Plead my cause,
O Lord, That ought to be our cry all the time. Lord, remember
me. Remember me. Have mercy on me. Lead my cause, O Lord, with them
that strive against me. Fight against them that fight
against me. Well, I know this is the psalm
of David, And David had a lot of enemies. I'm sure that a lot of them were
of his own making. But a lot of them were his enemies
out of maliciousness of their own hearts, jealousy, and so
forth, because the crown was on his head. And a lot of that we can't identify
with. If we make the cause of Christ
known, if we tell the truth in regard
to who God is, and tell the truth in regard to who we are in light
of the Scriptures, then there will be people that will strive
against us, and there will be people that will fight against
us and speak evil of us. But we have one who will plead
our cause. We have Him. David said, Plead
my cause, those who strive against me, fight against me, and so
forth. Fight against them. Fight against me. Take hold of
shield and buckler. Stand up for mine help. Lord's
my shepherd, I shall not walk. Draw out also the spear. and stop the way against them
that persecute me. Describe David, please. And this is what I want to talk
to you about this morning. Say unto my soul, say unto my
soul, I am thy salvation. Now, we stand Although we're
all sitting here this morning, except for me, I'm standing.
But in a figurative sense, we're all standing on the verge of
an eternal world. Time has about passed some of
us by, and will eventually pass us all. Time will expire. In due time, the angel of death
will come where we are and snuff out our lives. So we can say,
you know, one day is as a thousand years with the Lord. No such
thing as time with the Lord. It's eternity. He deals in eternity. We live in time. And we all stand on the verge,
on the brink of eternity to go out into the unseen world, a
world that we've heard about. We know nothing about it other
than what we've heard from the Spirit of God in God's book. We've heard about His salvation,
His deliverance. We stand on the verge of an eternal
world unless, now listen to me, and unless God himself says to my soul and
says to your soul, I am thy salvation, unless that takes place we shall
perish, every one of us. We're all in the same boat. We're all guilty before God. The jury is out. The jury came back. The judge
says, what do you find? Read. the finding. And the juror stands up and says,
guilty of all charges. That's where we are, guilty.
We don't have to. The trial has already been held,
and the judge of all the earth has said they're all guilty,
all guilty. every single solitary one of
them, every mother and every child and every father, all guilty
before God. The verdicts end, they are all
guilty. And unless God Himself says to
my soul and says to your soul, I am thy salvation, we shall
perish. God's nature binds him to cast
us into outer darkness and everlasting punishment. Now, in light of
that, most of the great body of professors of religion are
quite satisfied in talking about or hearing of a salvation. And they tell us of what a great
salvation God has accomplished for us, if we will do our part. All the efforts of nature will
leave a man to perish in his sins, there is not enough strength
in an angel to save him. As a matter of fact, if all the
angels united together and worked for one common end to save one
poor lost sinner, that sinner would be eternally
lost if that's all the help they had. These religionists of our day,
they all cry out in one voice, a great salvation that God has
accomplished for us if we do our part. But I read to you where the psalmist said, O Lord,
plead my cause with them that strive with me. Fight against
them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler. Stand up for mine help. Draw out thy spear. Stop the
way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy
salvation." We must have a salvation which none but the Lord Himself
is, and none but He can make known. That's the salvation we
must have, the salvation of God. Do your part. What part can you
do? What part can I do? If they tell
me, God has accomplished salvation, a great and glorious salvation,
but you must do your part. The condition of His salvation
is conditioned upon you doing your part. What part can I do? What part is it that I can do? Where is it that I fit in? this
great scheme of God's salvation. The only thing that I can do
is sin and lie and cheat and steal and go to hell when I die. That's the only part I have in
me. I can supply the sin, but God must supply the salvation
and the deliverance. We're talking about God's salvation. There's no ifs or ands or buts
or conditions or propositions in regard to God's salvation. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. And when that takes place, when
that transpires, then you'll know that you're saved when God
says to your soul, am thy salvation." If we're ever
brought to see and to feel the need of such a salvation, if we're ever brought to that
place, if we're ever brought to see and feel the need of such
a salvation, we'll Find out then, real quick like, that our religion,
our religion, that religion that they tell us that we must have
a part of, that that religion, if we ever see and feel our need
of God's salvation, then our religion won't be worth a thank
you. It won't even be worth saying,
I thank you. If we ever come to the place
where we see ourselves as we are, hopeless, helpless, undone,
guilty, vile, corrupt, polluted, Not a single spot in our makeup
that has any credibility about it. Nothing in us, nothing, not
a single solitary thing, not a thought, not a word, not an
action in us, about us, pertaining to us, that would cause God to
look upon us in pity and in favor. Hopeless and helpless, when we
come to that stage, we'll say, the religion that I have, or
I thought I had, is not worth a thank you, because it's of
no help to me. I'm in such a desperate, desperate
condition and state. We need a salvation that is extensive
as the requirements of God's holy law. We need a salvation
as extensive as the demands of God's infinite, inflexible justice. We need a salvation that's as
extensive as the sinner's awful depth of depravity. Depraved! Not just depraved,
but totally, totally, 100% depraved. cannot think a good thought concerning
God. The Bible says if we're not for
God, we're against God. The Bible says if we do not love
God, we hate God. There is no middle ground. It's
either you do or you don't. It's either you are or you are
not. It's either you're in or you're
out. There's no straddling here. There's
no one part goes this way and one part goes another. It all
goes in one way, and that is hostility towards the God who
made us. We lost everything. in the first atom, lost every
single solitary thing by way of God-consciousness in atom,
lost it all, and can't regain it. We're barred from the tree
of life. We cannot force our way back
in. There are sermons there with
flaming souls to forbid us We don't want to come in. There's
no need of God barring us out. Our nature is such that we do
not want to come back. We're satisfied the way we are. We need God's salvation, a salvation. And I speak this morning with
reverence Reverence to a loving, holy, merciful God Almighty that
I know very little of. And I want to be reverent. I don't want to besmirch His
name. I don't want to offend this holy
God. So I speak here with reverence
this morning. The salvation that I need and
the salvation that you need, the salvation of every person
here, under the sound of my voice this morning, needs is a salvation,
a righteousness that the Lord himself cannot mend. or Satan cannot fall, a spotless,
pure, holy righteousness. A salvation short of this will
not reach the core of your heart, will not reach that place where
you really are. Oh, it may cover the outside
of the womb. This preaching that you hear
sometimes on the radio and television, sometimes it affects you. And
you try to mend yourself. You say, well, that is or appears
to me to be right concerning myself. that that is an awful
sin in God's sight. So therefore, I'm going to try
to mend that. I'm going to try to do something
about that. You can sometimes cover the outside
of the gash, the wound, maybe make an attempt to stop the bleeding. But it's just the wound that
you're dealing with, the core, the center of it all has never
been reached as of yet. And God, if we're ever to know
His salvation, must reach down to the core of our heart and
affect our conscience and make us to see the helplessness and
hopelessness of our condition. Listen. You say, well, I have
never committed adultery or fornication. Well, I say, neither have I,
practically. Neither have I, practically. But God, when He deals with the
core of your heart, He looks at your thoughts and
your intents and count them as done. You say, I've never done
these things. Not practically, but down in
the depths of your heart. When God visits a man in this
business of salvation and deals with him, he lays his heart open
and he sees the seeds, the seeds of evil and wickedness and pollution
in his heart. And if he ever sees that, he'll
quit trying to mend the wounds. He'll quit trying to shore up
the law. He'll quit saying, well, I'm
doing the best that I can do. The law of God says, he that
offends in one point is guilty of all. Have you ever offended
in any One point. Any one point. Every jot and
every tittle of that law. Have you offended in one of the
jots and one of the tittles of it? Oh, listen. This law condemns every evil
principle. Every filthy thought condemns
it all. Guilty, guilty, guilty. You're
guilty. Where are you going to go for
help? Where are you going to go? To some church, some preacher? Where can you go? They're as
helpless as you are. They come from the same tree.
and the tree's rotten. Every stick of that tree's rotten.
Listen, when God lays your heart open and He lays my heart open
to the eye of God's infinite, inflexible justice and the strictest
scrutiny of God's divine law, where then Will you and I look
for help? Do the best you can. Do the best. Is that going to be your plea?
I'm doing the best I can. My dear brethren and sisters,
that's not it. Doing the best you can will send
you to hell. God's holy, holy justice binds
him and demands of him that the whole world perish, unless you've
got something that you can bring to God, that even God himself
can't find a flaw in it. You've got to have that. I'd say, where will you look
for help? Well, most of them say, we all need salvation. Now listen to me. This is what this world, and in particular
the United States of America, has been saturated with this kind of theology, with
these thoughts. They say we all need salvation. As far as they go, they're right. We all lost everything in Adam,
every man, every woman, President Reagan, President Kennedy, President
Clinton, everybody from the highest to the lowest, they're all the
same, we're on the same level, we're all lost. No good in any
of us. We need salvation, and they tell
us we need salvation. But listen to what they say.
They say we all that need salvation, we have it in our power. We have it in our power to save
our souls if we meet the conditions. I've already said, what conditions
can you meet? What can you do? What can you
do? You're alienated from God by
your wicked works and your wicked nature. What can you do? others
come along, I know what I'm talking about. I may not know much, but
I know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about God's
salvation. I know that. I may not know anything
about the computers or anything about psychology or anything
about this or about that, but I do know something about this
because God's taught it to me. And I take I do not take the
responsibility lightly of preaching and teaching the Word of God.
I preach and teach what God has taught me. God taught me this. So help me God, He's taught me
this. I didn't get it from my mother.
I didn't get it from my daddy. And I didn't get it from another
preacher. God taught me this. Others say that salvation is
full and salvation is free without any conditions. Simply believe
in Jesus Christ, and we have no cause to be concerned about
the wretchedness of our corrupt nature. Well, some say work. Others say simply believe. Both of these act from their
selfish nature. None of them has said anything
about God's salvation. They're saying something about
what you do and what you don't do. But when the Lord brings man
to experimentally know that he can neither, listen to me now,
when God penetrates our souls, our intelligence, our mind, and
our heart, and makes us to know the truth about ourselves, and
about his salvation, he'll make us to know, now listen, that
we can neither work or believe. We can't work and we can't believe
unless God instigates it. You say, well, tell people to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They can't believe. unless God,
in His mercy and in His kindness, invades their little playhouse,
their little religion, and smashes their little God to pieces, and
makes them to see how hopeless they are in themselves. Oh, when He comes, and we experimentally
know that we can neither work or believe, and that we are brought
to feel before a heart-searching God that we need a great salvation
that comes from the hand of God Himself, rather than the almighty
God's a sinner at the expense of his justice, it'll never be. God will not save a sinner at
the expense of his justice. What I'm saying is this, God
will not show mercy at the expense of his justice. A fellow told
me one time about a wicked man who had just died. He said, I
hope that God will show mercy. I said, He won't. I say it now,
He won't show mercy, not at the expense of His justice. His nature
binds Him to send a man to hell who does not have a perfect righteousness,
a perfect covering, a perfect Savior and representative and
substitute to stand in His place. If you don't have Him, God's
nature binds him to send that man to everlasting punishment. Doom, if it was not for the Lord
Jesus Christ, I'll tell you, God would have bound to doom
and to eternal misery. Yeah, remember. of Adam's fallen
race. You can depend on this. You must either bring a holiness
and righteousness that the Lord God Himself cannot find fault
with, or His nature finds Him to send you on your mad way to
destruction. His nature. God's holiness is
the chief attribute of God. He has other attributes. His
chief attribute is His holiness. Holy, holy Lord God Almighty. It's hard for me to conceive
it, the holiness of God. I can't look upon the scene. knows nothing about sin. That is pertaining to himself. His nature binds him. Sin men to hell. But let me tell you about his
salvation, God's salvation. God's salvation is in the Trinity
of His persons. The Father chosen, the Son undertook to discharge every liability
against those that the Father chose. And God the Holy Spirit
said, I'll quicken everyone that the Father chose and everyone
that the Son died for. I'll quicken them and give them
life. and bring him to the Savior. His salvation takes a poor man
from the dust, a beggar from the dunghill, and sets him among
princes. That's what God's salvation does. It makes him inherit the throne
of glory. takes him from the lost state
of degradation. That thief, that thief. The lowest thing that a man can
be is to be a child abuser, a molester,
a thief. When you're a molester, child
abuser, You're a thief. You take something that's not
yours. And God more than frowns upon that. God hated the workers
of iniquity. Those that dishonor father and
mother, God frowns. that he takes from the lost state
of degradation, that molester, that sinner, that thief out of
hell, that blasphemer, that adult and adulterer, that fornicator. God takes him from that lost
state, that poor, miserable sinner, in the dust and exalt Him high
above the angels. He does more for the sinner than
He's done for all the angels in heaven. He's done more for
the sinner than He's done for all the angels put together in
heaven. These angels, these angels, who knows the count, the number
of God's angels? In all probability, there's angels
somewhere near us this morning. There! There are gods! messengers, not to deliver the
message. They are the protectors of God's
people. God sends them on errands of
mercy and other errands. Well, listen,
these angels, heaven's full of angels, but God's done more for
the sinner, more for one poor sinner. a degraded center, a
center to the core. God's done more for him than
he's done for all the angels put together in heaven. Now listen,
these angels, they were predestinated to a holy state by God and confirmed
in that state, but they never were redeemed. They know nothing
about redemption themselves. But here is a poor sinner, ungodly,
unholy, unprofitable sinner, who's cursed God from his very
first breath, who's never had a good word to say for God. Poor sinner, a hell-deserving
sinner, a pauper, a beggar, a lawbreaker, here he is, redeemed, quickened,
consecrated, removed from the lost state to the high state
of glory. What a salvation is this that
accomplishes all of that! Say to my soul, I am your salvation. God's blessed salvation, it saves
from the guilt of sin. It saves from the damning power
of sin. It saves from the curse connected
with the damning power of sin. Oh, it saves from the reigning
power of it, from the love of it, and at death, the in-being
of it. That's what God's salvation does,
a salvation completely from sin. That's God's salvation. Salvation completely from sin. Sin, that monster. Sin's a monster. S-I-N, three little O letters,
comprise a monster. We're not talking about Godzilla,
which we can't even spell. We're talking about this monster,
sin. It's a monster. There's not a man or a woman
or a child under God's heaven, under God's Son, who has not
in some way given their hearts and their affections any embrace,
sin. The front row, the babies, the little
children, the grown children, the old people, Not one of us
under the sun. We embraced it. It's a monster. A monster. Sin. Sin killed us all. Sin's going
to send us to hell. The wages of sin's death. Thanks
be unto God. Thanks be unto God. Let God's salvation even delivers
us from death. Listen, all under the sun, given their
hearts and affections, they've embraced it, and they would,
that includes you and I, would be eternally lost before we'd
part with it. That's a monster, isn't it? That's
a monster. They talk about habits. Habits
got you bound. By God, the biggest habit that
any man has is sin has him bound. If he can break that habit, he'll
be all right. It's got him bound. Bound, tooth
and nail. Got him tied up. Now, he loves
it. Loves it. And if the Lord God
himself did not quicken our souls and give us divine light, where
would we be this morning? We wouldn't be here. Such is
the violence of human nature, and such is that great love of
sin that Adam's fallen race has. that monster. But this salvation not only raises the beggar from
the dunghill and inherits the throne of glory, but it's also a salvation from
death and all its bearings. Everything pertains to death. The wages of sin is death. This
is a salvation from death. That's what I'm saying. Wages
of sin is death. Will not his people die? You
ask me. Shall we not all die? Wages of
sin is death. Well, I'll tell you how it is
in God's salvation. God's people go to sleep. God's
people go to sleep. They sleep in Jesus. You've read
that in the Bible, haven't you? They sleep in Jesus. Death to one of God's children
who is saved by the grace of God through the substitutionary
work of God's Son whom He sent, who made an end of sin, who paid
the penalty due sin. against us, clothed us in His
righteousness, took us by the hand through time and through
space, and made us accepted before God in all of His acceptability. Death to that man, to that woman,
to that boy, to that girl is no worse than a loving mother,
a gentle loving mother rocking to sleep a stressful child. They're rocked to sleep in the
cradle of love, rocked to sleep in the cradle of the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says, they that
sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him. When He comes, they
can't And Christ shall rise. Those that sleep in Jesus, God
will break them. They're going to awake from that
sleep. They're sleeping in Jesus' name. And there'll come a time
that they'll be eventually raised from their sleep. This is the
salvation from every appearance of death. Every one of them. God in himself, in the trinity
of his person, is this salvation. The Bible says, let me read this
to you before I forget it. And, well, I hope I know where
it's at. Book of Timothy, I think. I'll read it. I think it's in the 2nd Epistle. Yeah, 2nd Epistle, chapter 1,
verse 9. Listen to this. He says to old Timothy, he says,
Timothy, God hath not given us the spirit of fear. Spirit of
fear? Afraid of dying? You're sleeping
in Jesus. Don't be afraid of dying. Huh? Oh, I know we don't understand
everything about it. He hadn't given the spirit of
fear. Oh, I'm so afraid I'm going to get sick. Oh, I'm afraid to
go to the doctor. He's going to tell me I've got
cancer. Cancer of the blood. Cancer of this. Cancer of that.
Oh, I dread to go. Listen, God has not given us
the spirit of fear. but of power, and of love, and
of sound mind. Timothy, be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me as prisoner? But he said, Be a partaker of
the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
According to the power of God. Then you pick up on that ninth
verse. Who hath saved us? Who hath saved us? Saved us. Who hath saved us? Who did He save? He saved the election of God. He wrote down in the Lamb's Book
of Life, He wrote their names down. And the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, He said, whatever
is against them, I'll discharge every liability
against them. God the Holy Spirit, in this covenant, when this transaction
was made before the world began, God the Father put their names
in the Lamb's Book of Life. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I'll save them. The Holy Spirit,
the Trinity of the Persons, 3 in 1, 1 in 3, they've seen all your
sin from the time you was born until the time you died. They've
seen everything that you've ever done and ever thought about doing,
whatever it was, every obscenity of your heart. Seen it all! And God, in the Trinity of His
persons, hates sin with a deadly passion. But God, in the Trinity of His
three persons, said, I see it all. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I'll
die and pay the penalty for all of them. Ask sinners, I'll pay
it all. I'll suffer. I'll suffer a million
hells for these that you've chosen. And the Holy Spirit said, I'll
quicken every one of them and bring them to Him who's the resurrection
and life. Give them life. I'll do it. Huh? Listen. "...who hath saved us,
and called us with a holy calling." You see that there? He saved
us before He called us. He saved His people before He
called them in He is eternal purpose and grace. See that? Who hath saved us, called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works? We didn't have
any. And what works we had were as
filthy rags, as God viewed them. But listen, not according to
our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, listen
now, which was given us. His own purpose and grace was
given us in Christ Jesus, when? Before the world began. Now, that's what God says about
it. That's what He says about His salvation. It says that they are sanctified
by God the Father. That is, set apart by God the
Father. And where God the Father put
them, you turn over to the book of Jude. I read this to you the
other night. The book of Jude, chapter 1, verse 1. Sanctified by God the Father.
That means He set them apart. That means He wrote their names
down. That means that He set them on this side. He put a mark on them, sanctified
by God the Father, set apart by God the Father. Where God
the Father put them, where did He put them? He put them in Christ
before the world began. Now, you see, James, the servant
of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them, to them that
are sanctified by God the Father, set apart by God the Father,
and what else? Preserved in Jesus Christ and
called. What's he talking about? All right, where God the Father
put them, they are preserved. in that state. Preserved. The nearest definition of that
that I can think of is when you preserve strawberry jam. Put it in a jar. You preserve it. Spoiler. Is
that right? It lasts for years, doesn't it?
Preserved. Preserved in that state. Now,
there Jesus Christ preserves them. They're preserved in Christ
Jesus. God the Father put them in Christ,
and Christ never lost them. He never lost them. All the power,
give it to me, shall come to me. All that you give me, I have
lost none, He said. Save Judas, the son of perdition.
He is the son of the devil to begin with. preserved in Christ Jesus, and
Christ never lost one of them. They were lost in the first Adam.
Remember, I told you that. Lost in the first Adam. He's
our representative. He was standing by himself, one
man, and he represented the whole human race. And the whole human race fell
in him. All fell in him. They were lost, you and I, who
are partakers of the grace of God and the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We was lost in the first Adam. But we was, now
listen, but we was never lost in or by the Lord Jesus Christ. We were secured. We were preserved. where the Father put them, and
where the Father put them, He preserved them in Jesus Christ. A great salvation! Say unto my soul, say unto my
soul, I am thy salvation. Anything short of that. Won't
get the job done. Anything short of that. Has God said to you, I am thy
salvage? I can't say it to you that it
would be effective. I can't do it. I can't say it
to myself. God's got to say it to me. And God said to me, says
to me now, and he says to me in days gone by, I'm your salvation. I'm your salvation. So I say, my hope is built in nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. This stand will be dismissed.