If you would, turn with me in
your Bible to 1 John chapter 5, please. 1 John chapter 5. I want us to consider three verses
here that are very familiar. 1 John chapter 5, beginning in
verse 10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him, that being God, a liar, because he believeth not the
record that God gave of His Son. And this is the record that God
hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. And he that hath the Son hath
life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now there's always been two kinds
of people in this world. Those that believe on the Son
of God and those who believe not, according to verse 10. Those
who have eternal life in God's Son and those who don't, verse
11. Those who had the Son of God
and those who don't have the Son of God, verse 12. Those who
have Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God the Son are referred
to as saints in the scripture. And those who don't have Jesus
Christ are referred to as sinners. Now, the thing about that is,
is that many of these sinners profess themselves to be saints,
but all of these saints profess themselves to be sinners. God
has shown them what they are. So it becomes pretty obvious,
pretty quickly, according to these three verses and all the
scriptures for that matter, that Jesus Christ is the difference
between the two groups of people. Matter of fact, he's the difference
between life and death. So my first point to you this
morning is very plain to see. There is no salvation, none whatsoever,
no life eternal, no glory of heaven apart from a living union
with Jesus Christ. None, no salvation, no life apart
from Christ. He that hath the Son hath life. Is there anything about that
you don't understand? He that hath not the Son hath not life. Now they may have religion and
they may have faith in something. They may have a church that they
attend, but they don't have life. There's no salvation apart from
Christ. Salvation's in a person and Christ
is salvation. And it's not a union with the
church that redeems sinners. And it's not the union with a
denomination that saves. It's not a union with doctrine
that gives life. It's a union with the person,
Jesus Christ. And it's not just to know some
things about him. It's not to be able to just to
quote some verses from this book. It's to know Him, to be personally
and affectionately involved with Him. It's to know and to trust
Him alone to put your sin away. That's the only way that you're
gonna be reconciled back to God. Secondly, there can be no union
with Christ except by faith. For by grace are you saved through
faith. You can only have, you can only
possess Christ by faith. In verse 10, Paul said, he that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. What
does that mean? Well, that means that the Spirit of God bears
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The
Spirit of God convinces us of our need of Christ. God's Spirit
shows us our impotence to do anything spiritually good. There's
none that doeth good. And Paul reiterates by saying,
no, not one. There's not one that does good.
There's none righteous, not a single one. So don't bring God your
righteousness and expect him to accept it, because he won't. Our righteousness is filthy rags
and God doesn't want any part of it. We see our complete inability
to come to Christ. Our inability to atone for our
sin in and of ourselves. We see our pathetic insufficiency
of righteousness to justify us. We see that nothing but the blood
of the Lord Jesus can wash, cleanse, and put away sin. Absolutely
nothing. We sing the song, nothing but
the blood of Jesus. That's true. We see the completeness
of his sacrifice. Christ provided every single
thing that we come short of. And that's a lot. We come short
of the glory of God and everything else that pertains to God. We
see that by substitution, Christ taking our place by keeping the
law of God perfectly for us. And it's gotta be kept perfectly.
And all of it has to be kept perfectly. If we offend in one
point, we're guilty of the whole law. Isn't that what the scripture
says? You know, I get tickled at folks sometimes and say, well,
you know, I can keep most of the commandments. You've got
to keep them all. And you've got to keep them perfectly.
That doesn't give me much hope. I don't think I've ever kept
one of them, to be honest with you. The satisfaction of God's
holy justice was fully satisfied in and by and through him. That's our message. Tell me something
new, preacher. I don't have anything new to
tell you. And if I did, you shouldn't listen. To not receive God's
testimony concerning His Son, to just say, I don't want any
part of that, is to charge God as a liar. That's what John said.
And even worse, it's to declare that God has made Himself a liar. You see, God is not a man that
He should lie. He's not the Son of Man that
He should repent or change His mind. Being that He is God, He
cannot lie. If He lies, He ceases to be God. So He cannot lie. It's impossible
that He could or should. and nothing is more contemptuous
and reproachable, and nothing can more fully expose our sin
of unbelief as to not believe the God of truth. Makes God a
liar. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but in addition, the wrath of God abideth on him. There's a subject you don't hear
much about today. Well, Jesus loves everybody,
red, yellow, black, and white. They're all precious in His sight.
If they're not in His Son, they're not. God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him,
have faith in Him, trust in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting
life. What about those who don't believe?
Does God love them? Well, that's what most preachers
would tell you. It's not true. What is faith? Faith's believing
God, isn't it? Some folks will give you a 25
page dissertation of what faith is. It's very simple. I can tell
you just real quick. It's believing God. It's not
believing there is a God. It's not believing in a God.
It's believing God. Believing what he says in this
book about himself and what he says about you. That Philippian
jailer asked this question to Paul. He asked, what must I do
to be saved? Did Paul say, raise your hand,
walk an aisle, join the church, get in the water, shake the preacher's
hand? No. He said, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Paul said, I know whom
I have believed and I'm persuaded that he, the one whom I believe
is able to keep that which I have committed unto him. Do you believe
God is able? Able to do what? Able to put
my sin away. able to do all that I commit
to Him. Do for me what I cannot do for
myself. Do for me what God requires me
to do that I cannot do. So we see that first of all,
faith is knowledge. Paul said, I know whom I had
believed. It's a knowledge of Christ. Paul
did not say, I know what I believed. And he didn't say, I know when
I believe. Now there's a lot of people that
do. Well, they can tell you right down to the minute when they
were saved. I can't. Matter of fact, I was
saved before the foundation of the world. I'm being saved. I'm
saved right now and I'm going to continue to be saved if I
belong to him. I can't tell you the hour or
the minute that I was saved. I can tell you when I first heard
the gospel preached, Paul said, I know whom I have believed.
And again, salvation is in a person. Salvation is of and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. So we clearly see, first of all,
there's no salvation apart from a union with Christ, and there
can be no union with Christ without faith. Thirdly, there can be
no faith in Christ without the preaching of the gospel. I didn't
make this up. This is what this book teaches.
How does faith come? Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. Romans 10, 17, it says that in
your Bible. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching, preaching the gospel of Christ, what the world calls
foolishness. It's not foolishness to me. It's
the power of God unto salvation is what it is to me. And it's
quite apparent that there can be no faith in Christ without
the preaching and the hearing of God's gospel. Paul said, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that, what? Believes. To the Jew first
and also to the Greek. When a sinner hears the gospel
of truth out of need, out of a broken heart, out of the misery
of sin. They call upon the name of the
Lord. I mean, if they really hear, they do. Oh, if you see
your need, you'll cry out. Men today, preachers, so they
are, so-called preachers, let me put it that way, will tell
you that God wants to save you and won't you just let him have
his way. But I'm gonna tell you something,
a drowning man will not have to be begged to grab a life raft. If he's drowning and he knows
he's drowning, you won't have to sing 14 verses of Just As
I Am to get him to grab it, will you? No, he'll grab hold of that
thing and hold on to it for dear life. When you hear the gospel
out of a need, you'll call upon Him. How shall they call on Him
in whom they have not believed? And how should they believe in
Him in whom they've not heard? See, that's the problem. We don't
have men today telling the truth about God, telling the truth
about how sinners are saved. I'm sorry, I'm not here to pick
on religion this morning. It's just the truth. I'm trying
to warn you. How shall they hear without a
preacher? Paul asked. And how shall they preach? Except
they be sent. And that's talking about God
sending them, not grandma or not mom and daddy sending them.
Well, you know, son, we put our money away to send you to seminary.
Might as well just go out and spend it. It'll do you no good.
All they teach you in seminary anymore is how to build numbers
and how to grow a church. It's the truth. I know people
that have gone to seminary. I know what they teach. The Lord
Jesus called up fishermen, plain old everyday fishermen, and said,
I'm going to make you fishers of men. And he did. How shall
they preach except they be sin? And if we're to ever call upon
the Lord, we're going to have to see, know, and believe who
he is. You can't believe unless you
hear the gospel preached and you'll never hear the gospel
preached unless God himself sends you a preacher or sends you to
a preacher. That's what he did to me. You
cannot trust an unrevealed Savior. You just can't. You cannot commit
your soul to one that you don't know. If we don't know who He
is, if we don't know what He did, if we don't know where He
is now, that's important. We can never be saved. Has God
done that for you? Has God shown you that? If not,
how are you gonna trust in Him? How can you trust in someone
you don't know? Teresa watches our grandchildren. Do you think
my daughter would just let anybody watch those kids? No, no. Do you know who Jesus Christ
is? He's God the Son. Yes, He's the
Son of God, but He's also God the Son. He's the substitute
and the sacrifice for chosen sinners. He's the only one who
can do for you what God requires of you. Now, I say that all the
time, but that's the heart of the gospel, Linda. God has a
very high standard. God requires perfection for me.
I can't provide that perfection. Christ can. But I have to know
that in order to put my trust in Him. And how do I know that?
From this book, by the foolishness of preaching. Do you know what
Jesus Christ did? Well, he died to just for the
unjust, the scripture says. He died to bring sinners that
he died for to God. He died to just for the unjust
to bring us to God. He kept God's law for the elect. He satisfied God's justice for
his sheep. He did perfectly for his people
what they could never do for themselves. And do you know where
Jesus Christ is now? He's seated at the right hand
of God. He's seated in that place of acceptance. That's what the
right hand of God is, a place of acceptance. I'm accepted in
the beloved. Do you know who the beloved is?
It's Jesus Christ. Oh, this is not hard to believe.
People just refuse to believe it. When Christ arose from the
dead, that proved that God accepted him, didn't it? You better believe
it did. God put all the sin of all the elect of all time on
him and he exhausted. God said, that's enough. It's
paid for. Death in the grave and hell can't
hold him. Let him go. And he rose from
the dead. What a proof of God's acceptance
of him. And if I'm in him, God accepts
me. It's called substitution. He sits at the right hand of
God right now, making intercession for his people. Right now, he
is pleading your cause, child of God. Jesus Christ is the only
one you can trust to put your sin away and make you perfectly
righteous and make you accepted and put you in right standing
with God. No wonder he said, learn of me.
Boy, it would do us good to learn of him, wouldn't it? Have you
learned of him? Do you know when Christ died
for you? Before the foundation of the world. He was a lamb slain
before the foundation of the world. And people look at you
like a dog looking at a new bowl when you tell them that. before
you had done any good or evil. God chose you. God predetermined
to save you. He predestinated to call you.
He justified you. He conformed you to the image
of His Son before you ever existed. That's not something I made up.
That's what this book says. That's what God says. Do we believe
what God says? riding in his chariot. There
was a eunuch of the Ethiopians. He was the treasurer of Candace,
the queen, a man with great authority. And he was reading the scripture.
And it seems that he was either born a Jew or proselyted to the
Jewish religion, for he had come to Jerusalem to worship at one
of the annual feasts that they had. And he was reading the book
of Isaiah there in his chariot. And the scripture says that the
Holy Spirit said to Philip, go near and join thyself to his
chariot. And it said, and Philip ran to
him. Man, we ought to run to do God's bidding, shouldn't we?
God tells us to do something, we ought to run to do it. Philip
ran and he heard that interested man reading from Isaiah. And
he asked him a very simple question. He said, do you understand what
you're reading? You remember what he said? He said, how can
I except some man should guide me? If you and I are ever going
to hear from God, we're going to have to hear through a man.
If you and I are ever gonna be given any faith in Christ, it'll
be through the preaching of a man. That's God's ordained means of
saving sinners, preaching. That's why we give it the preeminence
here. We're not about entertainment.
We're not about passion plays at Easter. We're not about special
music. I love music as much as anyone,
you know that. But that's not what it's about.
It's part of worship, yes. It prepares our heart for preaching. No salvation apart from Christ.
No union with Christ, but by faith in Him. No faith in Christ
without the preaching of the gospel. Then fourthly, God has
to grant us the faith and the knowledge to believe and trust
in Christ. It's a gift of God. God's got
to give us the ability to believe, the ability to trust or we never
will. All the gospel preaching in the
world will not save a man until God, the Holy Spirit, make that
message effectual, effective to the sinner's heart. God has
to reveal this message to you. It's called divine revelation.
We talk about it all the time. If God doesn't show it to you,
you'll never see it. Our Lord said, no man can come
to me except except the Father which sent me, draw him." If
you come to Christ, it's because God drew you. The Lord said,
you will not come to me that you might have life. Your will
is not to come. We're always talking about man's
free will. Listen, your will, you can call it free if you want
to, but it's in bondage to your nature. Ain't nothing free about
it. But you will not come to him that you might have life.
And you cannot come to him that you might have life because you're
dead and you don't have the ability to come. Does that upset you? Listen, friends, that's who God
gives life to. That shouldn't upset you. I don't
make you happy. It's a faithful saying and worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. Oh, if you're a sinner, that's
a wonderful thing. You won't hear that in many churches,
will you? It's true. We're saved sinners, redeemed
sinners. And we don't continue in sin
that grace may abound either. "'No man can come to me except
the Father "'which sent me draw him. "'They shall all be taught
of God. "'Everyone that hath learned
of the Father cometh unto me. "'Unless the Holy Spirit affectionately
anoints our preaching, "'I'm telling you it's nothing but
words.'" Isn't that right, Chris? And if he don't anoint your ears,
it's nothing but words. It's not by might, it's not by
power, it's by my spirit, saith the Lord. His spirit. Gimmicks won't save sinners.
Man's methods won't save sinners. I've already told you, entertainment
certainly won't save sinners. We gotta be born from above.
We've got to be born again. We've got to be made new creatures
in Christ. And when we are, old things are
passed away and behold, all things have become new. And everything's
all right between me and God. We all know the story of the
Samaritan woman. Our Lord said, I must need to
go through Samaria. You know what? He must need to
go through Madisonville, Kentucky. Why? Same reason he went through
Samaria. He's got some sheep there. He's
got some elect there that he must save. If he doesn't save
them, they won't be saved. Oh, I think about that story
of the Samaritan woman. You all know it well. We won't
turn there and read it. How he saved that woman is how
he saved sinners. First, our Lord crossed her path. Did he not? He did it on purpose. He did it sovereignly. He did
it because he wanted to. He went straight to that well,
because he knew she was coming that day for water. He knows
all things. She came at the hottest part of the day, because that's
when no other women came. And she was a notorious woman.
She had five husbands. And the one she lived with now
wasn't her husband. And I'm sure they whispered behind
her back. Don't you imagine? So she come
the heat of the day when no one else was there. But guess what?
God was there. The Lord Jesus was there waiting
on her. Oh, he first crossed her path.
Secondly, he confronted her. He encountered her and he confronted
her. If God saves a sinner, he's gonna
cross their path. They'll be confronted. You're
gonna be confronted with who he is. And you're gonna be confronted
with what and who you are. Thirdly, the Lord created an
interest in this woman. He told her, if you knew the
gift of God and who it is that gives that gift, or even who
it is that's speaking to you, you would ask of Him and He would
give you living water. Oh, that got her attention. Now
this woman knew tradition. She knew the Jews and the Samaritans
differed. She said, how is it that you
being a Jew asking me what? Or I'm a Samaritan, I'm a half-breed. Y'all don't have anything to
do with us. She knew something about that. She knew something
about the scripture. She knew something about Jacob's
well. She knew something about Abraham and about Moses. She
had plenty of religion. Listen, religion is not going
to make a difference. negatively, if any way at all.
This woman even worshipped. She talked about worshipping
in the mountains. She knew the Jews worshipped in Jerusalem.
The Lord said, you know not what you worship. She's talking all
about worship. We got a lot of folks today that
talk about worship. They have no idea what true worship
is. You don't know what you worship.
You don't know anything about it. He told She knew nothing
concerning the living water. Salvation is not something that
we do for God. I wish folks could understand
that. Salvation is what God does for chosen sinners. The Lord
said, if you knew the gift of God, salvation is a gift from
God. Well, you've already said that.
Well, good. Because it is, isn't it Sharon? That Samaritan woman
said, Lord, give me this water. Fourthly, it was then that the
Lord presented a problem to her. And you know what her problem
was? It was sin. That's what our problem is. We've
got a sin problem. Last week, we talked about heart
trouble. That's what we have. Our heart's deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked. Only God can know it. We've got
the sad condition of the malignancy of cancer. Sin has spread throughout
our body and it manifests itself outwardly because it's an inward
disease. The Lord presented a problem
to her. Her problem was sin. She said,
go call your husband. She said, I don't have a husband.
He said, well, you told the truth on that. You've had five husbands
and the man you live with now is not your husband. The Lord
revealed to her her sinful condition. Fifthly, the Lord exposed to
her true worship, not what she thought worship was. The Lord
said, God is a spirit and they that worship God must worship
Him in spirit and in truth. You can't worship a false God. What good's a false God gonna
do you? You gotta worship the true God. You gotta worship in
truth, in spirit and in truth. Her spirit was another spirit.
Her truth was not the truth, not the truth. And then lastly,
it was then that the Lord presented her the remedy. That's when the
woman said, I know that the Messiah is coming, which is called the
Christ. And when he has come, he will tell us all things. And
the Lord said, I'm he, I am, I am that I am. I'm the one that
has come to deal with your sin. There are two ways to view the
work that Christ came to earth to do. First, it was a work performed
toward God. Christ offered himself to God
as the sacrifice for his people's sin. It was God who was offended. It was God who must be appeased. just like the Old Testament lamb
that was offered and sacrificed unto God. Christ, the lamb of
God, slain before the foundation of the world, came to offer himself
to God as the sacrifice for the believer's sin. Christ came and
he satisfied the justice of God, honoring the holiness of God
by honoring and keeping God's law perfectly. And in that sense,
Christ died for God. He died to appease the holy God
of the Bible that you and I had offended. And then secondly,
Christ's work was performed for His people. He was wounded for
our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and by His strike, we were healed. He crossed our
path. He confronted us. He created
in us an interest. He presented us with our problem,
which is sin, and He provided us with a cure and a remedy.
Is that not how He saved you, Adel? He gives all the glory
for it, too, doesn't He? That's why salvation must be
of the Lord. That's why Christ must needs
go through Samaria. And that's why Christ must needs
go through Madisonville and everywhere that the gospel is preached.
And that's why I must have Christ. I must, I must. Let me give you
seven quick reasons why you must have Christ and I'll finish. First, there is a holy God in
whom I cannot please or appease. infinitely, eternally, unspeakably
holy is the Lord God of heaven and earth, and I can in no way,
shape, form, or fashion please him, because in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing, an old wretched man that I am. My only hope of
eternal life is to find a perfect man that can please this holy
and perfect God." I found him. He found me. That's the right
way to say it. He found me. I was the one lost. He wasn't lost. Secondly, there's
a holy law that I cannot keep. That's why Christ must say, I
can't keep God's law. Folks say, well, I never killed
anyone. Maybe not with a gun you hadn't, but with your heart
you have. The scripture says if you hate
someone in your heart, you've committed murder. Someone else
says, well, I've never stolen anything. Well, have you ever
coveted something? Ever wanted something you didn't have and
you've stolen in your heart? You see, this is a holy law that
reaches not just to the act, but also to the attitude, not
just to the deed, but to the thoughts and the intents of the
heart, as we saw in the first hour. My substitute and savior
kept that law perfectly. He didn't come to destroy it,
he came to fulfill it. And that he did perfectly for
his people. Thirdly, the reason I must have
Christ is that there is a righteousness that I cannot produce. Can't
do it. This is a perfect righteousness
that God requires. I heard Brother Mahan say one
time, he said, you know, I can jump over a barn if you let me
build the barn. I can be perfectly holy if you
let me determine what holiness is. I can be perfectly righteous
if you let me determine the standard of what righteousness is. When
God builds the barn, oh, it's too high, isn't it? I can't jump
over it. When holiness is God's holiness,
I'm a total failure. When God sets the standard of
righteousness, we're all failures. Fourthly, the reason I must have
Christ is there is a sin that I cannot put away. You say, well,
it's sins. You don't have just one sin,
do you? Well, all my sins are because of my sin. Sin is what
I am, not what I do. I commit sins because I'm a sinner. Our sins have hid his face from
us. Our sins have separated us from
our God. And I say with David, my sin
is ever before me. I can't put them away. But friends,
he can. And the good news is that he
did. For some, he didn't. Well, how do I know that he did
for me? Do you love him? Do you trust
him? That's a good sign. He that hath the son hath life.
He said, your sins and iniquities, I will remember no more. You know why he don't remember
them? God doesn't forget. The reason God doesn't remember
them is we don't have any. He put them away. They're gone.
He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He separated our
sins from us as far as the east is from the west. In Christ,
we had no sin. Fifthly, there's a death that
I cannot escape. That's why I must have Christ.
The soul that sins, it shall surely die. But the good news
for the child of God is, he who knew no sin was made to be sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's the only
place we're gonna get the righteousness that we must have, and that's
in him. The curse of sin, the judgment of sin, the condemnation
of sin shall not fall on those for whom Christ died. It fell
on Christ, it can't fall on me too. That's what our Lord did
on the cross. He died under our sins and all
who believe on Him shall never ever die. Sixthly, the reason
I must have Christ, there's a judgment that I don't wanna face and neither
do you. The Christ people will never
be brought to judgment because our sins have already been judged
and punished and put upon Him, put away by Him. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God to justify. Who's
going to trump him? Who's going to overrule God?
Who's going to condemn us if God has forgiven us? Who is he
that condemned it? That's Christ that died. There's
no one that condemned someone that Christ has paid the wages
of sin for. And then lastly, there's an eternal
life and an eternal glory that I want, that I desire, and that
I desperately covet. How about you? Man, I tell you,
I want to be face-to-face with Him forever, don't you? Heaven
is heaven because He's there. He said, I go prepare a place
for you that where I am, you may be also. Ain't that the best
news you ever heard? If I have the Son of God, then
I have life. That's what John said. He that
hath the Son hath life. Paul wrote in Philippians, he
said, for our conversation, that word means citizenship. For our
citizenship is in heaven from whence also we look for the Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it
may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the
working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. One of these days when I lay
this body of flesh down, I'm gonna be raised incorruptible
without sin. Those whom He justified, He will
also glorify. That's what that's talking about.
Living forever with Christ without sin. Can you imagine? No, you
can't. You know why? Because your imagination
is full of sin. Are you in darkness? Christ is
light. Are you a sinner? Christ is the
friend of sinners. Are you hungry? He's the bread
from heaven. Are you thirsty? He's the water of life. Are you
poor? He's the riches of God's grace.
Are you weary? Come to Him and He'll give you
rest. Are you weak? He's our strength and our strong
tower. Are you guilty? He's your refuge. Are you dying? Yes, He's the
resurrection and the life. It's all in Christ. Now, the
question is, do you want Christ? Well, you can have him. Well,
what if I'm not one of God's elect? No, don't get the cart
before the horse. If you want Christ, you can have
him. And why wouldn't you want to? He that has Christ has life,
and he that hath not Christ hath not life. Our God said, why will
you die? God finds no pleasure in the
death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way
and live. God says, turn, turn you from
your ways. You know what that word turn
means? Repent, repent, turn from your way. Why will you die? Well,
I'm gonna tell you this, God will have to turn you if you
do. But if you ask him to, he will. Come to Christ and live. God will have to give you the
ability to come. But if you ask him, he will. May God be pleased to make it
so for his glory, for your good, And for Christ's sake, oh Lord,
please add your blessings to the preaching of your word. Bless
our ears that we may hear, our eyes that we may see, our hearts
that we may believe. If not, we won't be blessed.
Lord, will you do that? That's my prayer this minute.
Lord, please reveal yourself to us in the light of these things.