Now, the Lord Jesus Christ abolished
death. And He brought life and immortality
for somebody. And He brings it to light through
the Gospel. And therefore, He sent Paul. He called him, revealed
that he had abolished death to Paul, revealed to Paul that he
was Paul's life. revealed to Paul that he had
a mortality by what Christ had done. And then he sent Paul to
declare that good news. Paul says in 2 Timothy 1.12,
For the witch calls, I also suffer these things. Isn't the depravity
of the human heart an awful thing? God sent His Son. His Son came
to where we are. And by His own blood, He conquered
death for somebody, for sinners who couldn't conquer death. He
purged their sin, who couldn't put away their sin. He fulfilled
all righteousness for them. And then He sent forth somebody
to tell His children what He had done. And sinners in the
midst, hearing the message that it's all done by Christ and not
by the works of man's hand, they got mad. They got angry because Paul was
telling them this good news. The Gentiles hated him because
they had philosophy and they had a bunch of idols that they
worshipped, things that they put their confidence in. And
they hated the message he preached because the gospel of Christ
makes man's philosophy, man's ideas of who God is or how the
world was created and how things are going to end and all of that,
how things are kept in store. God's gospel makes men's ideas. exposes them for what they are.
It's just buffoonery. It's absolute ignorance. And
the gospel manifests that. Man don't like this gospel because
there's so much wisdom here when you hear what God has done, how
he's done it all from the beginning and brought it to pass. It offends
man because man can't do that. Man can't do, no, it makes him
to see he's not as God and he thinks he is. And then the Jews
were infuriated with him because they had all these works they'd
been doing whereby they thought they were righteous and they
were trying to self-justify themselves. And they had all these washings
and all these different things that had been given to them through
the law of Moses plus some things they added by tradition whereby
they thought they were making themselves holier and clean and
Paul's gospel was Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. That he is the sanctification
of his people whereby they are made new and purified in the
inward man and the new birth. And it took all their works out
of their hands and that made a man. But what Paul was saying
was he's abolished death. He's brought life and immortality. Are you not interested? And yet
he said for this, they called him an antinomian, a lawless
man. railed on him, they beat him,
they called him a madman, they locked him up, threw him in prison.
And he says there in verse 13, he says in verse 12, nevertheless,
I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed. Paul wasn't
ashamed that he had suffered for Christ and for his gospel.
He said, rather, I glory in that. Paul wasn't ashamed of the gospel
of Christ after suffering these things. He told Timothy there
in verse 8, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. And Paul didn't
expect in the future that he was going to be ashamed for trusting
Christ, for putting all his hope in Christ. He knew he wasn't
going to be ashamed. In Isaiah 50, it speaks of Christ. There's a word there that speaks
of Christ. And Paul had the mind of Christ. He's born of his spirit
as he gives to his children. And this is the mind of Christ,
the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore
have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be
ashamed, because the Lord will help me. That was his confidence.
How does a sinner have that kind of assurance? What makes somebody
have the boldness to be able to set forth the truth of God
when they know They know that there's going to be some that's
going to hate you and you're going to suffer affliction for
it. What a give a man the assurance to be able to say, no, this is
the truth. Well, it's called the full assurance of faith.
That's what it's called. Faith is the title of my message.
Faith, knowledge. I want you to remember these
three words. This is my title. Faith, knowledge, persuasion,
and commitment. Faith, knowledge, persuasion,
and commitment. Let's look here now in verse
13. There's going to be these three
aspects of faith. Wherever faith is found, these
three aspects are going to be there. Number one, there's going
to be a knowledge of Christ. Verse 12, Paul says, I'm not
ashamed because I know whom I have believed. I know whom I have
believed. Secondly, there's going to be
a persuasion, a confidence that Christ is able to keep us. Verse
12, he says, I'm not ashamed because I know whom I believe
and am persuaded that he is able. And thirdly, there's going to
be a committal to Christ. He says in verse 12, he's able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Now
we remember those three words we've got our outline. knowledge,
persuasion, and committal. Now, first of all, faith consists
of having a knowledge of Christ. You're going to believe God through
the truth. Verse 12 says, I know whom I
have believed. Look at Romans 10, 13. What would
you place there in 2 Timothy? It's impossible to believe on
Christ if you have not been taught the truth about Christ. If we were coming here, and I
was giving somebody directions here from Princeton Avenue, and
I said, now, when you get to Washington Street right there,
you want to take a left. Go that way. They wouldn't know
the way, would they? I didn't tell them the truth.
You take a right right there and then you take the first left.
They wouldn't know. They wouldn't have any idea.
So you can't know, you can't believe on Christ if you have
not been taught the truth about Christ. Verse 13, for whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then
shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent?" You see there, you see where I said, how shall
they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall
they hear without a preacher? Paul said, I was appointed to
go forth and declare the truth about Christ. That's what all
God's true pastors are. They're sent forth to feed his
children with knowledge and understanding of who Christ is. Now, God the
Father teaches us the truth of Christ. The Lord said, it's written
in the prophets, they shall be all taught of God. Every man
therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh
to me. So the Father, God the Father
gets the glory for teaching this knowledge of his Son in truth.
And the scripture says, the psalmist says, the word of the Lord's
right and all his works are done in truth. So he's gonna teach
his people in truth. And then God the Spirit teaches
the truth of Christ. Look at John 16, 13. John 16,
13. God the Father does this, and
God the Holy Spirit does this. Look at John 16, 13. Look at
what his name is. When the Spirit of truth is come. You see, that's the name of God
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. When the Spirit of Truth
has come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak
of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak,
and He shall show you things to come. And in God the Son,
teaches this truth. He said, I am the truth. No man
comes to the Father but by me. Paul said in Ephesians 4.20 that
you have learned Christ, if so be that you have heard him and
been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. You see, so God
the Father teaches this truth, God the Son teaches this truth,
and God the Holy Spirit teaches this truth. And he teaches all
his works are done in truth. Now here's the simple fact of
the matter. This is God who cannot lie, who teaches his children
the truth. This is a simple matter. If the word preached is not true
about who Christ is, about what he accomplished and why, about
where he is now, about what he's doing now, about what he shall
do, if it's not the truth about Christ, it simply is not the
truth. That's a brain twister, isn't
it? If it's not the truth, it's not the truth. Now, the gospel
of truth is necessary, absolutely necessary. James tells us in
James 1.18 that without the truth, there's no regeneration. For
it's by the word of truth that we're begotten again, we're born
again. And Peter said, and this is the
word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Without truth, there's
no faith. There's no faith. All the graces
of the spirit come forth in a living exercise through the truth. The very thing that distinguishes
faith from delusion is true faith believes God, and delusion credits
Satan's lies. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2, just a few pages back, 2 Thessalonians 2. The very thing that distinguishes
faith from delusion is truth. Faith believes in God's truth
and delusion credits Satan's lies. Look at verse 10. He says,
the middle part there, they received not the love of the truth that
they might be saved. And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had
pleasure in unrighteousness. You see, this faith is through
the truth. It's the reception of the truth.
And without truth, there's no salvation. Look down. It's right
there where you are. We're bound to give thanks all
the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. whereunto he called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ." Paul said, we preached it, he called you by our gospel,
but he did the calling, and he did it in truth, Paul said. Without
truth, there's no justification. Truth declares that our justification,
the justification of God's children, was accomplished by God, by the
blood of Christ. And faith lays hold of that truth,
gives assent to it, and believes God and trusts Him. And we're
justified by God, by Christ. But without that truth, you've
got no justification. Man might believe he's justified
by his faith so that he puts confidence in his faith and his
decision for Christ and what he's done for Christ and thinks,
that's how I've got to be justified. And therein, faith becomes just
another work, just like if you think you can be justified by
standing on one leg for a certain length of time. It ceases to
be truth. Without truth, there's no sanctification.
The Lord said, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is
truth. Without truth, there's no growth
in grace. It's impossible to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ without
a true knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How
are you going to grow in grace and in the knowledge of somebody
if you don't have a true knowledge of them? He says, we speak the
truth in love that we might grow up into Him in all things, which
is the head, even Christ. That's how we grow, is by truth.
Without the truth, there's no entrance into heaven. Look at
Revelation 21. Look in verse 27. There shall in no wise enter
it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,
or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life. Look over at the next chapter, look at verse 15. For
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers,
and idolaters, and whosoever loveth, and maketh a lie. You
see that? You see why truth is vital? You
see why truth is so important? Now, Paul said, I know who I
have believed. So what is it? Now, what is it
to know the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, first of all, it's to know
who He is. Jesus Christ is God the Son. He's the second person in the
Trinity. He's co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and with the
Holy Spirit. And He's man. He's God come in
human flesh. John 1 says, In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And then in verse 10 he says, He was in the world, and the
world was made by Him. That's because He's God. He came
in the world, and that world He came into was the world He
made. And the world didn't know Him. He's God. He's Jesus Christ. He's God omnipotent. That means
He upholds all things by the Word of His power. He's God immutable,
that means He does not change. He's God who cannot lie. He's
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Through Matthew,
it said He shall bring forth a son. The Spirit told Mary this. He'll bring forth a son. She'll
bring forth a son and now shall call His name Jesus. for he shall
save his people from their sins. He shall save his people from
their sins. And it says, and all this was
done that it might be fulfilled which was written in the prophet
of Isaiah where he said, behold a virgin shall be with child
and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel
which being interpreted is God with us. God came in human flesh,
that's who he is. Knowing Christ is knowing what
He accomplished when He came and why He accomplished it. Before
anything was done, before anything was made that was made, God the
Father first trusted His Son. And He trusted His Son to declare
His name to a people He would create. To declare His name in
all His fullness and all His glory. To declare His holiness
to declare His mercy, to declare His grace, to declare His long-suffering,
to declare His goodness and His truth. God sent Him forth to
declare this. If you want to see who God is,
we've got to see Christ. If you want to believe, if you
want to believe, you will believe. If you want to believe Christ,
you will believe Christ. Because if you are known of Him,
you're going to have a willingness to want to know Him and quit
pretending like you're looking into this book to know Him. Men
look into this book to try to contradict Him. Men look into
this book to try to find something that doesn't line up to them
and try to find some reason they can use to throw the book away
and say, there, huh, see, I proved it. They're looking for something
like that. If you want to go to this book and find Christ
and go to this book and look for Christ and really seek Christ
in this book, that's how you're going to get liked on everything,
on who God is, and everything God's done. And if you have that
willingness, He's already, it's because He's known you, and you
will know Him. He will show you. Until then,
you won't know Him. You won't know Him. All light,
every light, is gonna come through the light of Christ. The Father,
it's knowing that the Father trusted Christ, not only to glorify
His name, but He trusts Him with the people. Now, in order to
glorify His name, to make Himself known, God, according to His
own purpose, determined, the way I'm going to do that is,
I'm going to save them from their sin. And so he gave this people
to his son. They're called the elect. They're
called those that are chosen and precious unto God. They're
called his holy nation. They're called a peculiar people.
They're called his sheep. They're called his chosen. You
can't read the book without seeing it everywhere. In all the letters
it starts out that it's written to the elect of God. It's used
more in the scriptures than any other word to describe those
for whom Christ died. He was trusted by the Father
to magnify God's law and to make it honorable because Adam broke
it. Adam sinned against God and he broke it. And he's the last
Adam, was sent to magnify that law, to honor it, to uphold it,
to fulfill it in complete righteousness for the glory of God and as the
representative of his people who could not do it. And he was
sent forth to lay down his life, to be made sin for them, to justify
them from the penalty of it. And in doing that, he's declaring
God's just. He will be merciful, but he won't
be merciful at the expense of his justice. He does love. God does love, but his love saves. His love is not this thing that
loves everybody but can't do a thing to save anybody and watches
while men perish in hell and can't save them. Real love. that has the power to save, saves.
And he has that love and that power to save. And this is declared
through what he accomplished. Everything God the Father trusted
him with, Christ Jesus came and accomplished it to the full satisfaction
of God the Father. And he brought, by that he abolished
death and he brought life. and immortality to light. And
this gospel I'm declaring to you right now, I'm telling you,
He did this for somebody. I hope somebody's here for whom
He did this. Some of you are here for whom
He did this, and you cast all your hopes in Him. Some of you
here don't know yet. You're still on the fence about
this thing. I'm trying my best tonight. I can't do it, but I
hope God will just knock you slam off that fence. I hope He
will. But this is what He's... Knowing
Christ is knowing where He is now. It's knowing who He is,
it's knowing why He came, what He did when He came, and it's
knowing where He is now. He's not in a grave. He's at
the right hand of the Father. He's risen to the right hand
of the Father. We who believe, we who have been given grace
to come to God and confess our worthlessness in His worthiness
have an advocate with the Father. We have a lawyer, better than
any lawyer, We have a lawyer who is the lawgiver. And he's
defending us and saying, they're not guilty. They're righteous.
They've only done that which is right. He is the propitiation
for our sins. Complete and total atonement
for our sins. Sins have been put out of the
way. And he's there in heaven with
the Father. Look at Ephesians 1, 21. Galatians, Ephesians, Ephesians 1.21. This is where He is. The end
of verse 20 says, He is at His own right hand in heavenly places,
far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also
in that which is to come. And he had put all things under
his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
which is his body. The church is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all in all. And as the head of the church,
of his body, he's sending forth pastors after his own heart.
I don't know if he has the power to do that. Well, I do. He's
far above all principality and power and might and dominion
and every name that's named in this world and in the world to
come. I think he's got the ability to send forth his pastors after
his own heart, to feed his sheep with knowledge and understanding.
That's what he's doing. Otherwise, he doesn't get the
glory for filling all things. And he's the head of the church.
He's filling all things. all His children. And by this
truth of His gospel, through that Holy Spirit, He's calling
His sheep. And He's washing His sheep by His Word. And He's keeping
His children safe by His power and His grace, by His all-powerful
hand of love. He's keeping them. And Hebrew
says, look at it, Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4. What do we have? What's
the conclusion then to that? This is where you'll be brought
when you know Him, when you know Him. By faith, verse 14, seeing
then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession,
for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. That's who we have, so we come
boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. Now, that's not all we
know about Him. He's coming again. This is what
He shall do. He's coming again. When He's
called out every one of His elect children, He's coming again.
And the Scripture says, He shall present His church to Himself,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. I was preaching
on that, and I mentioned that verse last week when I was in
the pulpit, and I thought about the picture of that. We've seen
hundreds of times when a father comes down the aisle with his
daughter, and he presents her to her future husband. And she's all dressed in white,
you know, and there he's presented. The father presented her to that
husband. Well, the scripture says he will
present his bride to himself. He's the one that's washed her,
kept her, brought her, called her, delivered her, and he's
going to present her to himself without spot or wrinkle or blemish
or any such thing. And he's going to get all the
glory for that, every bit of it. He won't fail until He has
set judgment in the earth. He will not fail at anything
He's done. But there's even more to this faith than just knowing
these facts. These are all facts. This is
all true. There's more to faith than just knowing these facts.
Knowing God is to be known of God. It's to be known of Him. So that when He knows you, He
knows you intimately. So that you are made to know
the love of Christ. for you personally, that's what
you, and when he does that for his child, that's when we began
to understand that Christ's love for us passes knowledge. And
that's when we began to be filled with the fullness of God. So
that, you know, I've used this illustration before of my father.
There was a lot of things that my father did when I was growing
up that I just didn't know what he was doing. But we know in
part right now, we believe in part, we see in part of these
things, I just went over, we just know a little bit of them.
Not like we're going to know one day when we meet him in glory.
But we do know something. But this is what we know. This
is what I knew about my father. Even though I didn't understand
everything about what my father was doing, I knew. that everything
he was doing was for my good, because I had some understanding
of his love for me. And when he calls you and makes
you to know him, he makes you to know that he has truly, everlastingly
loved that child he calls by his grace, so that you know,
even if I can't make all things of his gospel reconcile, it's
not because God's not able to do all of them, or because they
don't all make perfect sense, it's because I got a little peanut
brain And I can't get everything that God's doing. But this I
know. I rest right here. It's going to be for my good.
It's done. I know him. I know whom I have
believed. So Paul could say there, even
in the face of all this opposition and all this rejection that he
was in, I mean, Paul's in prison when he's writing this to Timothy.
And he's telling Timothy, Timothy, I know whom I have believed.
It's going to be good. However this turns out, it's
going to be fine because I know whom I have believed. Well, secondly,
faith is being persuaded that Christ is able. That's when we
know Him by faith. We're going to be persuaded He's
able to do everything He's promised. Verse 12, He said, I know whom
I have believed and have persuaded that He is able. Look over at
Romans 4. Romans 4, verse 20. Abraham is an example of this. It said, verse 19, let's read verse 19. Being not weak in faith, he considered
not his own body, now dead, when he was about a hundred years
old. The Lord told him he's going to have a son. William, this
man is a hundred years old. He never had a son. Told him
he's going to have a son. And his wife was past the age
of childbearing. Her womb was dead. You see, God
tells you he's going to do something in the face of what looks absolutely
unreasonable and illogical and something that looks like it
could never happen to show you that me and you ain't the one
doing it. God's the one doing it. God who promised is the one
who's saving. And it says, and he staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God and being fully persuaded. That's why,
that was where his faith rested. He was fully persuaded that what
God had promised, God was able also to perform. And then in
Hebrews 11, I'll just tell you this, but you know, after he
gave him that son, he said, now in this son, this is the son
in whom all your children are gonna be called. And he said,
now you take that boy, Isaac, and you take him up to the top
of Mount Moriah, and you sacrifice him there as a burnt offering
unto me. The very one through whom I trusted you, Lord, that
you gave me this, would give me this son, you gave him to
me. And now you're telling me to go offer him up on the mountain?
This one that you said is the one through whom all these children
are going to be born? But Scripture says that he went
up there and did it anyway. accounting that God was able
to raise him up from the dead from which also he received him
in a figure. That boy was a picture of Christ. He was a picture of
what God was going to do on that very mountain. That's where God
did it. And that's why Abraham called it said the Lord will
provide. It will be seen. It will be seen
in this mountain what God is showing us right here today,
my son. It will be seen. And it was seen.
Christ came forth. But Abraham believed he was able. Then you remember whenever the
Lord came to him, he was with his disciples. And he's preaching
the gospel. And he was telling them what
I'm telling you right now. Except you eat his body and drink
his blood, you have no life in you. You can't come to God any
other way. He is the food. He is the life. And except you feed upon Him
and drink of Him, what he's done for his children. You can't have
life. You can't come to the Father any other way. And folks heard
that and they said, we don't have anything to do with that.
We believe there's many other ways that people can be saved. That's too narrow to say that
it's got to be in truth by Christ according to his gospel. And
so they went away. They wouldn't walk with him anymore.
And he turned around to his disciples and he said, will you go away?
Will you go away also? And here was Peter's response.
He said, Lord, to whom shall we go? He said, thou hast the
words of eternal life. You see, Peter was feeding, he
was eating that flesh and drinking that blood through his words,
through the gospel Christ was preaching to him. And he said,
you have the words of eternal life, and we believe and are
sure. We're persuaded that thou art
that Christ, the Son of the living God. So through faith we're going
to know Christ. You won't know until you believe
Him. And that's true. You won't know. You can't know
Him without having truth presented to you. But you can't know that
truth until you believe Him. You know, that's just so. I mean,
without making it too complicated, when you believe something is
so, that's when you begin to, when it is so, if something's
really so, and you believe it, that's when you begin to enter
into the fact, this is really so. It's really so. And so, when
you believe Him, believe Him, that He continues forever, that
He has an unchangeable priesthood, you'll be persuaded that He's
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto Him. seeing he
ever liveth to make intercession. Paul said, I'm persuaded, I'm
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why? Why did he believe nobody else
would be able to separate him from them? Because he believed
him who is the head of all power and principality and dominion
in this world and in the world to come who said, I alone am
able. Paul said, I believe he's able
to keep me. I believe he's able to keep me.
You see, we glorify God when we believe he's able. We glorify
those who aren't really able when we think, oh, they're going
to separate me from God. We glorify them and not God. Abraham glorified God because
he believed God was able to keep him. Paul glorified God because
he believed God was able to keep him. Christ was able to keep
him. Agrippa said to Paul, he said, almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian. You almost persuaded me to be
a Christian. This persuasion, knowing the
terror of the Lord, I persuade you, I'm persuading you to believe
on Christ. But this persuasion is more than
always being persuaded to decide I'll be a Christian. It's more
than that. It's more than that. It's knowing
Christ so that you can't resist Him. You can't resist Him. You're
persuaded. Everything else becomes total
ignorance to trust Him. Everything else becomes total
hogwash and just foolishness when you see Him, when you're
persuaded by Him. Nothing else becomes worthy to
be trusted and gloried in but Him. That's what this persuasion
is. All right, this is the third
thing. When by faith we know Christ and we're persuaded he's
able to keep us, this is the third aspect of faith. Faith
commits all to Christ. Verse 12, 2 Timothy 12, he says,
this is why I'm not ashamed. I know whom I believed and I
persuaded that he's able to keep that which I have committed unto
him against that day. Now, it's impossible to resist
putting your trust in Him when the Spirit of God makes you to
know Him. Do you remember Psalm 9 in verse 10? It said, They
that know thy name will put their trust in thee. It's impossible
not to when you really know His name. By His grace, when you
know His name, it's impossible not to put your trust in Him.
And that's what this commitment is. It's putting all your trust
into the hands of Christ. What's it involve? It involves
two things. Two things. Commitment to Christ
involves a repentance. It involves renouncing all dependence
upon Everything else and any efforts of our own to save ourselves
is turning from those things. And it's a full surrender to
Christ to serve Him as the Lord's free man forever. It's not a,
okay, you persuaded me today to be a Christian, I'm going
to do it. Man, I'm going to be a Christian and I got that taken care of.
Now you go on the rest of your life living like hell. That ain't
it. It's renouncing everything else, and for the rest of your
life, being in total, complete surrender to Christ. I'm His. I'm no longer my own. I'm His.
And I'm His. It's to be turned from thinking
that we're righteous to trusting Christ our righteousness. It's
to be turned from looking back to something we did at some point
in our life in religion and defending that. twisting the Word of God,
making the Word of God to say things it don't say, to try to
defend something we did when we was in false religion. It's
turning from that, and it's trusting Christ only. It's being turned
from having one foot in the world and having another foot in the
church to being rooted and grounded with both feet in Christ on the
foundation. You know, I saw this special
a while back when all the tornadoes were coming through down there,
in the south and they got this new company that's making tornado
shelters. And they take this big old cannon
and they put all kinds of nails and two-by-fours and just all
the stuff to simulate what it's like in a tornado. They put all
this stuff in this cannon and they put that cannon right out
in front of that tornado shelter and they just blow everything
against that tornado shelter. And the man who built the thing,
said, I'll show you how much I trust this tornado shelter.
He went and got in the thing before they shot all that junk
at it. And when they got through, there
was nails sticking in it, in the sides of it, and two before
sticking in the sides of it, pieces of trash and tin and all
kinds of stuff sticking in the side of it. But he was safe in
the middle of it. He trusted that tornado shelter.
And he committed himself, all his trust to it. That's what
it is to commit your trust to Christ. You take your jewels,
your diamonds, and your pearls, and whatever, and your money,
and whatever, and you put it in a safe, in a strong box. And you commit everything to
that. You put it in there and you shut it. And you're trusting
when you do that, you're committing those things that are most valuable
to you to that safe. To trust that if the house catches
on fire or thieves break in and try to rob, they can't break
in it. Or that whereas before you had it in a closet, moths
could get in it and eat it up. Whatever you trusted is going
to be safe in that safe. There's no safer safe than Christ.
That's is to put all the eternal welfare of your entire being,
right now, tomorrow, and forever, for all eternity, into the hands
of Christ and commit all to Him. That's what this commitment is.
It's saying, if He slay me, I'll trust Him. I'm committed to Him. How much do we trust Him? The
keeping of our faith is in the hands of Christ. The keeping
of our soul from apostasy is in the hands of Christ. The keeping
of our soul to save us from all deaths is in the hands of Christ. The keeping of our soul to be
all our righteousness in that great day of judgment is in the
hand of Christ. Everything is committed to him,
but where there's no genuine commitment to him, where our
life has not been turned from serving this world and lusting
after this world and going after this world to truly To be a follower
of Christ, there is no faith. There just is no faith. God produces
his faith, and this is true faith. Paul said one time, he said,
if anybody has confidence in the flesh, I got more. I got
more reason to trust in the flesh than anybody else. He had his
family tradition, Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, he
had all his religious works he had done, and his law keeping,
and he'd walked us straight and narrow. He was just like the
Pharisees. It says, concerning righteousness,
I was a Pharisee. Those that you looked at and
said, man, ain't nobody as righteous as them. He said, when it came
to zeal, doing things for the church, he said, you wouldn't
have found anybody more zealous. So much zealous, I went and got
letters to go to Damascus and find men who were worshiping
Christ, way contrary to our way, and I was going to bring them
back and scourge them into blaspheming God. That's how zealous I was
for this way. He said, but what things were
gained to me. This is when that renouncement
came, when that repentance came, and he renounced those things
and he committed all to Christ. He said, but what things were
gained to me, I count it lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and
I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord. the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of
all these things. But he said, but I ain't lost
anything. I don't count on anything but
dung that I might win Christ and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. And when he was given that faith and he committed
it all to Christ, he knew him. He was persuaded he was able,
and he committed everything to Him from then on. And when he
did that, all those that were his best friends, that he thought
were his best friends, that he thought knew the Lord and really
had a desire to know the Lord and trust the Lord, they partied
with him. And they slandered him. And they usually do. They usually
build the fire really hot and try to make it as hot as it can
be. They try to burn you as bad as they can. Do you know what
the thing is about faith? Faith's more precious than gold.
You know what that means? Faith is more pure than gold. Faith, you can burn gold and
burn gold and burn gold, and it won't be burnt. It won't be
burnt up. Faith's more precious than that. Faith cannot be destroyed,
not the faith God gives. It can't be destroyed. The hotter
the fire gets, the hotter the trial becomes. That faith that
God gives by his grace, it becomes more pure. Not that it was any
less pure, it just becomes more simply committed to Christ. You know what I'm talking about.
When you're brought to the point over and over, you know there's
nothing I can do. There's just nothing I can do.
I can't stop this. I can't free myself from it.
I can't reconcile this. I can't do anything about this. I can't do anything about it.
What do you do? You trust him. Lord, I trust
in you. That's what true faith does.
The hotter it gets, the more that dross is just consumed,
and it just gets more simple and more narrow. It's just, Lord,
I just trust you. I know you, I trust you're able,
and everything's committed into your hand, Father. That's the
faith he gives. Now, this is the word I give
to you. Commit to Christ. Commit to him. For the rest of your days, surrender
to him. for the rest of your days, believing
on Him, being persuaded that He's able to keep you. And for
the first time in your life, and for the rest of your days,
I can assure you of this, you will know what it is. In some
measure, you'll know what it is to have this assurance and
this peace of being kept by Christ, by His power. You see, the faith
is not the saving thing. The faith is laying hold of Him.
You notice that when you read that? I know whom I have believed,
and I'm persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him. The faith is just surrender. The one who's doing all the saving
is Him. Him. All right.