So just in case you thought that
I was going to skip it. I didn't skip it. I got it. So
keep your distance. And Lord, be gracious. Keep my
voice. You take your Bibles and turn.
Oh, I do. We ought to go to Lord in prayer
again. Kathy just mentioned that Oh my goodness, Nancy's daughter
is sick. Cindy. Her brain just went, like
the air conditioning units before we got here, it just went out.
Breakers flipped. I didn't remember. Well, pray
for Cindy, if you will. I know some of you don't know
who she is. Nancy White is a faithful member
here, until the Lord took her home several years ago, and her
daughter has gotten cancer. ask for prayer. So, pray for
her. Yeah, Joanne's sister, Nancy
was Joanne's sister, so. What a... I did receive a call from Teresa,
too, so. She, which is Nancy's other daughter,
so she may be listening. I told her how to get on there,
I hope she is. But pray for her and pray for these. Continue
to pray for God's grace, Our sister is constantly going to
be suffering for a very long time, missing her husband. And
I've not received a call from her in a couple of days, so I
just pray for her and ask God's mercy upon that and God's grace. Any other requests need to be
mentioned before we go to the Lord? Anything? Grandson's coming. soon right
next month or is it a certain time early part of march okay
so in a couple weeks week or two week or two uh so uh pray
for them as they travel i asked for your prayers tonight
i had planned on preaching from romans but this uh this came
up this week and uh i felt the need that i should preach this
message so uh i think the lord laid it on my heart and ask God's
grace to be with me. Let's go to him in prayer. My
father, again, we thank you. We thank you for the time that
you've given us to worship. We plead for mercy in this, Father,
that you would send your spirit into this place, and not just
this place, Father, but into every heart. Oh, what a joy if
you would be gracious and show mercy. and give faith to those
who have none, to the lost. I pray that you would do this
for your own glory and not the glory of the preacher and no
glory to the hearer, but that they should, through
faith, should believe and glorify Christ. Father, I pray for these that
we have mentioned who are sick, these who are suffering in the
body and the mind, Father, you know, you are infinitely aware
of our frailty. And Father, I do ask, I beg you
to be gracious and heal. I pray, Father, you restore those
in our congregation who are not able to be here, that you would
be gracious to bring them again and we could fellowship and rejoice
in the gospel together. I pray for all those who are
able to hear the message that are not in this building, Father.
But I pray this, that you would not only save the lost, but take
the same message and comfort the saved. Give encouragement
and strength as we view your word together. And I pray you'd
forgive us our sins, lead us Give me liberty and unction of
thy spirit, and I pray this in Christ's name and for his glory. Amen. Now I take your Bibles,
turn back to Mark chapter 16. I've entitled this message, A serious message concerning
faith. A serious message concerning
faith. Mark 16 and verse 15, Our Lord,
after He had appeared to His disciples, remember He saw those
disciples on the road to Emmaus and He saw them at the tomb and
they came back and they didn't believe Him. And the Lord was
amazed, astonished at their unbelief. But this was his message to them.
And this is a message to the church, to everyone. Listen to
this. And he said unto them, go you into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. And this is the declaration that
he makes when we preach the gospel. there's always going to be a
verdict. When the gospel is preached,
there's always going to be a verdict. You will either believe or you
will not. It's always going to be a verdict.
And this is what he said, He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. This is not a doubt. This is
conclusive. And just as conclusive, here's
the converse statement, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Someone came to me recently and
asked, how would he know what true faith is? How can one know
that he believes? How can one know if they believe? It is a vital thing, isn't it?
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. I cannot think of a better verse
than this one. There is no better, clearer message
that should occupy the minds of the church, of God's people,
that He commands to preach. This is a verse that should be,
it is plain, it is simple. You'd have to really try to make
this confusing. I pray that I don't do that.
I want to make it as simple as it is. He that believeth and
is baptized, shall be saved, without a doubt. There's no doubt
in that. There's no You have a contract,
right, those big contracts you sign, and it's got 20,000 subsections
in it. There's no subsection here. It
doesn't say he shall be saved if that, and plus this, and minus
this. No. He shall be saved. Who? Everyone that believeth and is
baptized. And he says this, everyone that
doth not believe. What? What's the conclusion?
Shall be damned. There's no Question. Our Lord
is very clear. And so now I want to give you
five reasons why this is serious. Now these aren't my points. It's
just a way of introduction. I'm going to go through them
quickly. First of all, these are the words of Jesus Christ.
Doesn't that make this serious? The Lord of glory came in the
flesh, died for the sins of his people, rose again, and these
are his words to his church. They're vital words. They're
the words of the Son of God. And these words are not just
to be considered. We don't just sit this in a room
and consider these things. Our Lord didn't say, take these
words and go in your room and start studying about them. That's
not all there is, is there? He said, go you into all the
world and preach them. That is our mission as a church. The only reason we remain in
this world, the reason why the Lord does not come and take us
home to be with Him is this. He still has a people that have
not yet come in. And the business of the church
is simply to preach Christ. That's it. If the church has any other business,
they're mistaken. These words are clear what we're
supposed to do. Preach, listen, the gospel. We don't preach another
gospel. We don't get to make up a gospel.
We preach the gospel. Second of all, this is serious
because these are the last words of Christ. I mean, we just, our
brother went home to glory this last week, couple weeks, His
last words were very comforting to me. I preach the message on the last
words of David, and they're very comforting. But listen, these
were the last words before God lifted Christ up and set Him
down on the throne. They're very crucial words. They're serious. And thirdly,
these words tell us concerning the greatest issue facing man. Eternal life or eternal death. Now you got a lot of issues going
on in your life and mine and there's trouble and there's difficulty. But friends, there is no greater
issue than salvation through Christ and damnation to those
who will not believe. There's no greater issue. If you can think of one greater
than this, I'd like to hear it. There's no greater issue than
eternal life and eternal death. It is appointed unto men once
to die, and what? After that, the judgment. God's Word is never ambiguous. It's never iffy. This is what's
going to happen when you die. I don't believe that. I don't
care. It doesn't matter what you think or what you feel. God
said it is appointed to you to die. And when you die, after
that, immediately, judgment. There's no greater issue. This
is serious, friends. This is very serious. And fourthly, We should consider
this and be serious about this because in this message, in this
little sentence, in this little verse 16, is God's terms for
peace. These are God's terms. These
are not my terms. These are God's terms for peace.
Men talk about peace a lot, don't they? They love to talk about
peace. Peace in the nation, peace with other countries, peace in
themselves. They'll talk about that all the
time. You want to have peace within yourself. There's no greater subject than
this matter of peace with God. And God lays out His terms. Listen
to this. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. There's the terms. And listen,
here's another term, he that believeth not shall be damned. That's the other term. These
are God's terms. These are not our terms, very
serious terms. And fourthly, we ought to be considering these
solemn words because this, they apply to everybody. Who's not included in this? Those
that believe and those that don't. They're all included. Everyone
is included in this. You will fit into one of these
categories. There are not 15,000 categories.
There are only two. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Those are two categories. This is serious because it applies
to everybody. It applies to everyone. And so
we see the seriousness of it, but I want you to see that these
words or the absolute unquestionableness
of this, of faith. The necessity of faith permeates this whole text. The
necessity of faith. There is no eternal life. There is no salvation without
faith in Jesus Christ. None. None. No salvation with He that believeth. That's the only person that's
going to be saved. He that believeth. So faith in Christ is essential,
isn't it? The text demands it. It demands
you believe in Christ to be saved. And if you don't, you'll be damned.
So it's essential. All the other graces are built
on faith. You know that? You can have all the love in
the world, but if you don't have faith, your love is meaningless.
You can be gracious, you can be kind, you can be temperate,
all of those other fruits, but without faith, none of it matters. Faith in Christ is essential. I'm going to give you a couple
of verses, you can look at them later, but in John chapter 3
and verse 14, he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness. Listen, even so must the Son
of Man be lifted up. That serpent, remember, they
were bitten by those serpents. Picture of sin. We've all been
bitten. And yet, He said lift up a brazen
serpent on a pole. That's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He Himself must be made sin for us who knew no
sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And listen to this, whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish. That narrows it down, doesn't
it? Who's not going to perish? Who's going to have everlasting
life? Only those who believe in Him, in His offering, in His
sacrifice. That's it. Just like those in
the wilderness. Only those that looked lived.
Now why'd they look? Because they believed it. When
Moses said, look and live. Why do they look? Well, they
look because they believed it. They believed what God said about
that, and they lived. So it is with faith. I tell you
that Christ is alone the only Savior. Look to Him. And those
who believe, what do they do? They look. What does God say
about it? They're saved. Nothing else? Is anything else
needed? Any other works needed? Any other deeds mentioned? Nope. Faith in Christ alone. What did he tell that Philippian
jailer when Paul was in that jail? What did he tell the Philippian
jailer? He said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and what's
going to happen? Thou shalt be saved. He didn't
say believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and do your best and try
to obey the law. No, he just said believe on Christ
and this is always the result. You shall be saved. Isn't that
our text? He that believeth and is baptized,
shall be saved, without question. John says this in 1 John 5 verse
13, he said, These things have I written unto you that believe
on the name of the Son of God. Now he's writing to the church,
isn't he? He said, You already believe on the Son of God, and
I wrote these things to you. Now notice why. That you may
know you have eternal life. That's what I want to know. I
believe, but you know what? Sometimes I doubt. I fear. And
so what? God gave me his word here that
I might know. How do I know? Do you believe?
Well, yeah. Then you know. And he said this,
that you may know you have eternal life and that you might believe. In other words, not only that
you believed, that you right now believe, but listen, that
you're going to continue to believe. That's the mark of true faith.
We believed, we right now believe, and we're going to believe. That's
what true faith does. And so in our text, he that believeth,
listen, is going to be saved, shall be saved. But notice the
lack of faith. What does that lead? The absence
of faith. What is that? He that believeth not shall be
damned, without exception. Just as true as those who believe
are going to be saved. Just as true. Those who do not
believe shall be damned. That's what he said. These were
his last words before he took off into glory. Never to be,
to speak to, I haven't heard his audible voice yet. But this is what he said. And
we deal with this text by asking three serious questions. This is my points now. This is
my points. I showed you the necessity of
faith. Is it this clear? Has anybody messed up on that?
You have to believe. Otherwise, you will not be saved.
Faith is necessary. So the questions I have tonight
are three very simple ones. What is it to believe on Christ?
If you must believe on Christ, you've got to know what it is.
You cannot have faith if you don't know what faith is. Secondly,
what is the object of faith? Everybody that believes something
has an object. What is it? What is the object
of true faith? And thirdly, how does faith come? Because not everybody believes.
Some do, some don't. How does it come to the ones
who now believe? How did it come to you? And so
let's deal with these very serious questions. First of all, we see
the necessity of faith, but what is faith? I think this one's
good. Go to 2 Timothy. Go to 2 Timothy, and I believe
Paul gives us a very clear outline of what faith is. 2 Timothy chapter 2, look at verse
12. Paul says this, For the witch
cause I also suffer these things. Now why is he suffering? He's
preaching the gospel. He's doing what Christ commanded
him to do. He preaches the gospel. Listen,
when we preach the truth of the gospel, we're not going to be
popular. We're not going to be popular. He said, I am suffering, listen,
because I won't consent to their false gospel. They hate me for
it. If I just consented, if I just
said, well, you know, you might have some point. Paul never said
that. He never consented to a false
gospel, and he suffered for it. Now, what I'm telling you tonight,
man, people, they're going to hate it. They're going to hate
it. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed.
Listen, I don't care what people think about this gospel. As a young, yeah, you know, when
we're growing in Gracie, we do. I would care what people thought
about me or what they thought about the, and so I'd just kind
of cower over. I don't do that anymore. No.
I am not ashamed to preach the absolute, complete depravity
of man. Not ashamed. Not ashamed at all. I'm not ashamed
to preach that God chose a people in eternity. I am not ashamed
of that. I'm not ashamed to preach the
victory of Jesus Christ, His success, that He actually saved
everyone He intended to save. I'm not afraid to preach that
salvation in this matter of faith, we're going to see, is a product
of the power of God, the grace of God, and the Spirit of God.
And if you believe, you're going to be kept by the power that
gave you that faith. I'm not ashamed of that. And
listen, anybody who doesn't preach that should be ashamed. Anyone
who believes free will works religion should be ashamed of
themselves. They should put their head below
their knees and be ashamed. Why, it's not the gospel. Paul
said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, no matter what it costs
me. And so, believer, we should never
be ashamed of this gospel. We should declare this gospel,
not in anger or hurt. We should declare it with boldness
and pity. Why? Because I believed what
they believed. I was lost. I was without God. I was undone.
And God had mercy on me. He had grace upon me. So when
I preach the gospel, I don't do it out of... You can't get
mad at a blind man because he can't see. But I'm not ashamed of this gospel.
I am not ashamed. People come in off the street
and see here that there are very few people. I'm not ashamed of
that. I'm not ashamed that this church has not got 200,000 people. I'm not ashamed of that. Why? Because I am not ashamed of Christ.
I am not ashamed of his gospel. Why are you not ashamed? Listen. Here's the first aspect of true
faith. Four, I know whom I have believed. There's the first aspect of faith.
When someone believes, they know whom they believe. Second of
all, this, and am persuaded that he is able. I am convinced of
something. When I know whom I believe, I
am convinced of this. He's able. And thirdly, He is
able to keep that which I have committed. True faith commits
everything to Him. So let's see these things. First
of all, faith is based on knowledge. I know whom I have believed.
Now, that's very important to understand this. He didn't say,
I know what I believe. He said something very personal.
I know whom I have believed. Now there may be one with such
great knowledge about the Word of God, they may know a lot about
Jesus Christ. I confess that there are people
who know more about Jesus Christ than I do. I would dare say that,
yes. I'm probably the least of the
people that I know concerning the things about Jesus Christ. Yet you can know all about Jesus
Christ and not have faith. You can have knowledge without
faith, but listen, you can't have faith without knowledge.
You've got to know who. It's not what we're learning,
it's who. Why do you think I spend so much
time preaching Jesus Christ? Why? I know whom I have believed. I'm not going to preach someone
I don't know. Someone distant, some historical
figure that lived in ancient times. I know him. That's why I preach him. You're not going to believe on
someone you have not heard of, that you don't know. How can
you believe on somebody you don't know? It's impossible, isn't
it? You don't know him. How can you
believe him? Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. This is why we are commanded to preach the gospel. Because men by nature cannot
know him. They cannot know him. I could not know him. I knew
a lot about him, but I really didn't know him until someone
preached him to me. Paul said that in Hebrews 10,
didn't he? Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, what?
Shall be saved. There's another emphatic word.
Call upon Him, which is believing in Him. But how are you going
to believe on Him in whom you have not heard? There's a lot
of people preaching about Jesus who have no clue who Jesus is.
They know a lot about Him doctrinally. They personally don't know Him.
When I pray, I'm talking to him. I'm speaking
with somebody I know. I'm speaking to him because I
know who he is. He said, how shall you believe
on him in whom you have not heard and how shall you hear without
a preacher? Faith then cometh what? By hearing. Not by plays and musical programs
and spectacular events and fireworks and and and pizza parties. And no, the church has one function. Preach the word. That's it. Preach Christ. And we preach
Christ and crucified because that's who we know. And so we preach the gospel,
the word. By God's word, we know who God
is. You can't know who God is without
God's word, can you? What does God say about you? You don't even know yourself.
You can't even know yourself without God telling you. What
does God say about you? Listen, what God says about you.
There is none righteous, no, not one. How many is righteous? Zero. There's none that understand
it. Now how many understand? None. There's none that understand
it. There's none that seeketh after
God. How many people seek after God?
None. They are all together become
unprofitable. So there's none that doeth good.
How many people do good? No, not one. That's what God
says about you. What does God say about himself?
God says this. He said, I will by no means clear
the guilty. I will have mercy. There's God. He said he's going to have mercy.
That's good. But he also says, I will by no means clear the
guilty. Now, that's a conundrum, friends, that no religion can
really answer. How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? He's got to punish sin. He must
punish sin. How can He justify a really guilty
person? Well, you don't know that. When
Christ is preached, He's the answer to that, isn't He? When
I preach Christ, I preach a successful Savior. I don't preach a gambling
Savior. I don't preach a Savior who's
who's trying to do stuff, begging you to do stuff. Would you please? Jesus loves you and He really
wants you to be saved. But you've got to do this. I don't know who that is. Do
you? I don't have any clue who that
is. That's not who He is in this book. That's not who He is. Our Lord Jesus, He came and He
saved His people. Any Jesus is trying to save is
not Jesus. You just mark it down, because
I know whom I believe, and that's not Him. That's not Him. Hebrews 10, 14 says, He hath
perfected forever. Who? Them that were sanctified,
them that were chosen of God, them whom He died for. They're
redeemed forever. They're perfected. And we know this through the
Word of God, that the Holy Spirit is the one that regenerates men,
gives life. I know this, men are dead. And
I know this, only the Spirit can give them life. Only the
Spirit can give them faith in Christ. And so all true faith
is grounded in knowledge, knowledge of God, knowledge of Christ and
His work. I know whom I believe. Do you?
Do you know whom you believe? Second of all, true faith is
persuaded. True faith is confident, rock-solid
sure about one thing. He is able to keep that which
I've committed to him. What if I... We're going to get
this in a minute. What did you commit to him? Everything. My
soul, my life, my salvation, my righteousness. my justification,
my sanctification, my wisdom. I've committed it all. And faith
holds this. He is able. Doesn't say anything
about me. Faith has nothing to say about
me except this. I'm the sinner. But he is able. Well, I know
who he is. I know he's able. I know whom and I am persuaded
that he is able. So true faith that is of the
Holy Spirit. I know that God, that He, the
God-man, the mediator, that He died and He was victorious. He redeemed us by His blood.
And I know that only by Him can I be justified. That's the only
way I can be justified. I've committed all my justification
to Him. And what does faith say? But He says He's able. He's able! And so all who know Christ, what
do they do? They're confident, listen, in Him. They're confident. Sometimes
we doubt. I know, you fear. Sin overwhelms
you. Circumstances are dark, they're
bleak. But in every dark season, faith is always brought back
to this. He is able. That's it. I have nothing. I
have no strength left. I have no, my faith is even,
I don't trust my faith. But what does true faith do?
True faith trusts he's able. Is he? Well, if you know him,
you know he's able. And thirdly, true faith is committed. He said, He is able to keep that
which I have committed unto Him. All true faith is totally 100%
sold out to Jesus Christ. We're just sold out. We don't have anything else to
stand on. I have no other foundation. I have no other righteousness.
I have no other justification before God. I have nothing to
offer except what He offered. We are committed to this. And
there's nothing that can move us from it. We've committed our whole self,
our body, our soul, our spirit to Him. And as Paul committed the keeping
of his soul to Christ, so do we. So to us who believe, we
are committed to Christ. And what's another way we're
committed? We're committed to obedience. Does anyone believe in Jesus
Christ that's not committed to obey Him? Listen, if you know who He is,
it's not grievous to obey Him, is it? If you know Him, if you
trust He is able to save you, then it's not remiss. We are
committed to following His law. We are not antinomians, we who
believe. We have a law. It's just not
the law of Moses. John tells us our law. Look over
at John again, 1 John. 1 John chapter 3. Look at verse 24. Let's go to
verse 22. And whatsoever we ask, we shall receive of him, because
we keep his commandments. and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight. Now some fool will go right there
and he'll turn you back to Moses and he'll try to prove that he's
talking about the Ten Commandments or the law in some measure. He just won't read the next verse.
If he'd do it, he'd have some understanding. Look at this.
And this is his commandment. It's like taking a test with
the answers. I mean, the answer's right there.
Don't try to make up an answer. This is his commandment, that
we should believe on the name of his son and love one another
as he gaveth us commandments. And he that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in him and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth
in us by the spirit which he hath given us. if we keep his
commandments. Now I'm totally sold out to keep
his commandments, and what are they? Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. Isn't that a simple thing that
he just said in our text? He said he that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved. Faith in Christ, is that a grievous
commandment? I know this, if you're a believer
in Christ, you desire more faith. What you have is not enough. You want more of it. And so it's not grievous for
us to believe. And second of all, love? Man,
is that grievous? Only grievous to the flesh, to
those that are rebellious. But to somebody who knows who
they were and what God's done for them, loving someone else
is easy. if you understand the love of
God for you. And so we are committed. His
commandments are not grievous to us. And right now I want to
deal with this matter. Go back to your text. I'm going
to deal with this. I don't want to spend a lot of time because
it's really simple. It's not complicated. This matter of baptism. Why did the Lord include this?
He said, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Now
some fool will cut that out, paste it up on the wall and say,
see, you got to be baptized to be saved. I want to deal with this very
simply. According to the scriptures, baptism can never remove sin. That's what they believe. If
you believe in Jesus, that's good. But you also have to be
dunked in some water in order to really be saved. It's astounding that people would
see that and they'll take this text and they'll use that, but
it's not what it's intended. Jesus said this, the apostles
said this, without the shedding of blood is no remission. So
what's important? Not water, blood. Blood. It was only by the obedience
in blood and not baptism that saves the sinner. So why did
the Lord put it here? Because baptism is an act of
submission. Isn't it? Doesn't baptism seem
silly to the flesh? If it don't really serve any
purpose in our salvation, why do it? See the logic? See the
human logic in it? Christ said, do away with your
logic. This thing has a purpose. Baptism
has a purpose. Go you into all the world, preach
the gospel. Listen, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and the Son. Well, we don't baptize anymore. You've lost it. Baptism is, but it's an act of
submission and obedience to Christ. And one who believes, one who
is committed, is it not a simple thing? Glenn, was it very difficult
for you when you were baptized? Was it really hard? You didn't
even really... I kind of held you... I kind
of helped you down and helped you up. I mean, it really wasn't
even a sit-up, was it? It's not difficult to do. Our baptism, listen, this is
the purpose of it. It is our only confession of
our faith. That's what it is. It is a confession.
Now, this idea of coming to the front, Baptist churches have
done it for a very long time. Come down to the front, shake
the preacher's hand, say the prayer, that's all made up. You
don't find that in the word of God at all. Other people say,
come to the altar. Christ is my altar. I just told
you, I've committed everything to him. He's my altar. Baptism
is the only confession in Scripture, and that's what we do. When we
stand in the water, I'm telling you, I identify with Him. I know
whom I have believed, and I believe He's able to save me. And you
know what? I'm standing here to confess
that to you. And when we're put into the water, I'm confessing
this. When He died, I died. That's
what I'm telling you. I don't have to say a word. I'm
just doing it. I'm showing it to you. It's a picture. When
I come up out of the water, I'm confessing that when he was risen,
I was risen in him. That's what it is. It is a public
confession. What's the requirement for baptism?
Remember the Ethiopian eunuch? He said, what does hinder me
from being baptized? If thou believest, you may. See how simple this is? It's
always going back to faith. And so, baptism. Baptism is a public confession. I want you to see this. You cannot
separate obedience and faith. You can't do it. If you separate
obedience and faith, listen, your faith is just words. You've
not really committed anything to Him. You've just said it. Isn't it easy to say? Can not
anybody say I believe in that? It's easy to say. But one who
truly believes commits everything to it. And so true faith always works.
But our motive is not law. But love. So when he tells me
that I should believe and be baptized, Love says yes. Love says yes. It's a very simple
confession of our faith. So if we profess to believe but
will not for any reason be baptized, something's wrong. If you profess
to believe but you have not been baptized, listen, something's
wrong with that. Can you not see that? Why would you not obey this simple
ordinance? It's a very simple ordinance. It makes a big statement. I cannot imagine anyone who knows
Christ and believes on him that would refuse to be baptized.
That's just a rebellious spirit. There's nothing more you can
say. It's just rebellion. Now you can be mad at me, but that's
just so. You're just rebelling. You don't
want to be in the water for some reason. I don't know. But how
can you say I've committed to everything? You know, like old
Naaman, the leopard, right? He came down to that water. And
that water's stinky. It was horrible. We were driven
with the Jordan water. It was nasty. He said, man, I
ain't going down in that water. That's nasty water. He said, ain't there a bunch
of better lakes over here? And he took off pouting. And you
know what his servant came and said, master, you know, if he
had asked you to do something really great, you'd have done
it. How hard is it to just go down in that water? Simple, right? But this baptism has no part
in our salvation, but it is an act of obedience. That's why
the Lord put it there. He that believes and is committed
to me, that is honoring to me, which is obedience. And we do
this out of love. Out of love. Now my second question
is, so what is faith? Here it is. I know whom I believe.
Secondly, faith is very confident in Him. And thirdly, faith is
totally sold out, committed to Christ. That's what it is to
believe. Now then, what is the object
of faith then? He that believeth, John 3 verse
36, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. The object of faith is one object.
It is Jesus Christ, nothing else. Faith has one object, not two.
It has one. Not me and Christ, just Christ. Just Christ. He is the object
of our faith. We do believe God's Word, but
faith in God's Word is not what saves me. I believe in the mercy
and love of God, but it's not my belief in the mercy and love
of God that saves me. Now surely I do believe the Word
of God, and I do believe God is merciful, but that doesn't
That isn't the object of my faith. The object of my faith is only
Jesus Christ. He is the only object. Jesus
said this, listen to the very simplistic words, look unto me. And be ye saved. All the ends
of the earth. True faith has one object. It was the blood that Christ
shed that redeems me. That's it. I don't count anything
else to have redeemed me but His blood. I don't count anything
else to sanctify me but His offering. I don't count anything to make
my righteousness but the righteousness that He made for me. Faith has
one object, it is singular, and it is always Christ. He is the root of all our salvation. He is the subject and the theme
of this whole book. Now, man, take this book and
preach anything but Christ to you, he's missed the whole point.
God gave one object, one theme in this book, and that's Christ,
his son. I think somebody said to me,
man, that's all you preach. It's too simple for me. You need
to go move on. Okay, when God moves on, I'll
move on. God spent over 7,000 years pointing
men to His Son. This little time I got, that's
what I'm going to do. I'm going to point you to His
Son. He's the only object of faith. So I believe on Him. So everyone that calls on His
name, in my pages, right? I've skipped
through. So every sinner that calls on
His name, believes on Him. Listen, they believe that He
alone saves you. Is that what you believe tonight?
That He alone saves you? Wait, I know Him. I know who
He is. He's the Son of God and the Son of Man. I know what He
did. He came into this world to save
sinners, of whom this man is chief. And I believe this. He saved me. He saved me. He is the object of my faith.
And so what I don't want you to do is this. Your faith is
not the object of your faith. Someone asked me, so how do I
know if my faith is true faith? Well, see, you got it all wrong
right there. You're too focused on your faith.
The object of your faith then becomes what? Your faith. And
you begin to measure it, you begin to look at it, and you're
always, always down because it never measures up. It won't.
It won't. But true faith doesn't look at
itself. It looks to Christ. Because our true faith does this,
right? All true faith does it. It fluctuates. And true faith doesn't look to
anything else but Christ. Remember in the Church of Galatia
they looked to circumcision and Christ? They said, well we believe
in Christ, but... Now when people say that, you
just leave. Just walk off and leave them
there. But what? No, faith believes only in one
object, Christ. It doesn't have a but. They said,
but circumcision. You've got this one little law
they clipped out of their laws and they found one that they
thought they could do. What did Paul say? He said, Christ
shall profit you nothing. You add free will to Christ,
he'll profit you nothing. You add your righteousness to
Christ, he'll profit you nothing. You add your obedience to the
law, to Christ, and he'll profit you nothing. I didn't say that. I don't make this up. That's
what God said, Galatians chapter 5, verses 2 through 4. Paul said,
it's another gospel, which is not another. And Paul said, let
him go to hell. That's strong words, isn't it?
He said, anybody preach another gospel to you than what I preach,
let them go to hell. Wow. So he that believeth, what do
we believe? We believe on Christ alone. And
lastly, how then does faith come to sinners? Listen, it is only
by the grace of God that anyone believes. For by grace you are
saved through faith. that not of yourself. Your faith
is a product of yourself. It's not God-given faith. It's
not faith. Our faith is a product of God's grace. It is a gift
of God, not of works. Why? Because then we would have
something to brag about, Paul said. If you chose Christ and
that was your reason, right? You said, well, I believe because
I exercise my free will. Then what? You have something
to brag about, don't you? But we who believe, we don't
have anything to brag about. I don't have anything. That faith didn't
even come from me. It was a gift of God. Why, lest
any man should boast? A religious, natural man supposes
that faith may come from will, but the Word of God is opposed
to it. As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to
become the sons of God, which were born not of the flesh, nor
the will of man." Isn't that simple? You're not born of the
will of the flesh. Were you unwilling? You that believe, were you unwilling?
No, man, we ran. Once God gave us the ability
to see who we were, we ran to him. I willingly come to him. Of course. Why? He said that
we were made willing, Psalm 110. We were made willing in the day
of his power. OK, go to Ephesians. I'm trying
to move on, Ephesians. Look at chapter 1. See what Paul
says about the act of saving a sinner here. How did you know whom you have
believed? Look at that. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened. Isn't that how you know Him?
Your eyes were blind, but now you see who He is. Now you know
Him. That you may know what is the
hope of His calling. What is the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints? Look at this. And what is the
exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe? How do
you believe? The exceeding greatness of His
power. Faith is simple. It is. If you have life, it's
simple. If you're dead, it's impossible.
But once God gives us life, we understand. Do you understand? Do you know who
you are? Do you know who He is? Do you
know what He did? That's not common knowledge that
you have running around. This idea of faith is not common,
friends. It's very rare. It is a work
of exceeding great power, Paul says. Why? It is a resurrection. That's what it is. He that hath
part in the first resurrection, over which the second death hath
no power. What's the first resurrection? Not like there's going to be
many resurrections. Like, there's going to be a resurrection
on this day and in 7,000 years there's going to be another resurrection.
No. He's talking about the first resurrection in here. It takes the power of God to
give faith. According to the working of His
mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead. You see, it's the same power.
The same power it took to raise Christ from the dead is the same
power it took to give you faith. And so then behold the very serious
condition of man. He is helpless to save himself. What does he need? He needs the
mighty power of God. And this power alone can produce
faith. And how is it produced? Through
the preaching of the gospel. You can't overstate this enough.
This is how God chose to be. If anyone's going to believe,
it's through the preaching of the gospel. I know that is against human
wisdom and religious learning today, that the gospel is so
outdated and we need to do something different. Well, you're doing
something different, but ain't nobody saved through that. God
uses the preaching, listen, of the gospel, not many gospels,
the gospel. And that he uses power. I'll
give you an illustration of the woman at the well, and I'll quit.
The woman at the well. Who met who? Who found who? That woman was just going out
to get water at noon because she was rejected by everybody
else. And all the women at that town hated her. She was a harlot.
She was a whore. She was a fornicator. She was
an outcast. She had to go out there in the
middle of the heat to get water. That's the only reason she went.
But our Lord said, I must needs go through Samaria. He said,
the Lord met her. When God meets a sinner, the
first thing he's going to do is give them an interest in the
gospel. He gave her an interest. Now,
he was talking about something, and she thought he was talking
about something totally different. It didn't matter. He's talking about spiritual
things. She didn't have any understanding of what that was. She's talking
about physical things. And everybody that has faith,
God exposes their guilt. Isn't that what he did to her?
He didn't leave her. He didn't give her nice words and happy,
you know, sayings. Didn't give her that little picture
with the cat hanging on, you know, a little meme. He didn't
give her anything like that. He told her the truth about herself.
He told her that she was a whore. I mean, this woman had five husbands.
In a small town, you'd figure that they'd figure out what kind
of woman this was and not marry her, but they had five suckers. And then he said, the woman,
the man you're with now, you're just committing fornication with
him. What'd she try to do? She tried to get religious. When
men start feeling guilt, what do they try to do? Try to get
religious. Try to get right with God. She still didn't have a
clue what he was talking about. But when God convinces a man
of sin, this is what he'll do. He'll always reveal himself.
That's what he said. She said, I know Christ is coming.
He said, no, that's me. That's me. And what'd she do? She believed. She threw down
her water and ran into the town and told them, this man, is he
not the Christ? She believed. She trusted him. With what little faith she had,
she trusted him. Why? She knew who he was. She
was sold out that that man's a Christ. And she committed everything
to him. That's faith. What was the object
of her faith? It was him. When she went to
the town, what'd she tell him? She told him that's a Christ.
What do we tell you? That's the Christ. Believe on
Him. He that believeth and is baptized,
listen, shall be saved without doubt, without any extra. Faith in Christ is the evidence
of spiritual life. But this is very serious too.
He that believeth not shall be damned. This virgin, I think, said this
once. There is written in hell this portion of the text, shall
be damned. And when ten million years roll
by, the same will be just as true, shall be damned. Is that not serious? Is that
not serious enough? We should have compassion on
men. We should be the most compassionate
people on the face of God's earth. Pleading with men, knowing the
terror of the Lord, we persuade men. To do what? To believe. Why? Because this saying is true in
heaven too. Shall never perish. Ten million
years roll by in glory. And what does that say? Shall
never perish. Who? He that believeth and is
baptized. Do you believe on the Son of
God? Is Paul's faith your faith? Then
you have a good hope, right? Shall be saved. If you believe not, may God give
you grace to believe. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. Father, dismiss us with your
own blessings and mercies, and I beg you to use the message
according to your grace. Remove the frailty of the preacher,
and Father, send thy spirit to give grace and power that all
should believe here in Christ alone. pray in his name. Amen.