1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 1. The title of the message this
morning is Assure Savior. Assure Savior. Paul says this in verse 1, Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, our Savior. and the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is our hope. God our Savior. Friends, if there is to be any
comfort, if there is to be any peace in a believer's heart, if there
is to be any joy to be found and rejoicing of heart, in this
life of pain and sorrow, if there is to be any salvation of sinners
and success of the gospel, it must be found in this one thing. God our Savior. Anything else, there is no assurance. There is no peace. There is no
comfort. And there is no joy. The only
joy, the only peace, the only comfort of every believer in
Christ is that God Himself has undertaken our salvation. He has Himself become our Savior. It is God alone who saves sinners. There is nobody else to save
sinners. I can't save you. You can't save me. I can't save
my children. And you can't save your children. There is no man on the face of
God's earth that can save the soul of a man but God. He is the only one. He is the
only one. It was God alone who purposed
planned, accomplished, applies, and keeps sinners saved. He is the only one. He alone keeps His people holy,
safe from the guilt of sin, the power of sin. And one day He
has promised to deliver all of His people from the very presence
of their sin. How can we be so sure that this
is our salvation? How can we be sure that we who
believed on Christ shall continue to believe on Christ and endure
all the afflictions of life? Because of this, our God is our
Savior and not ourselves. I am not my Savior. God is. There's great comfort
in that. There's great assurance in that.
Now, the first time this word, Savior, is used, it's not in
this present form here, but a past tense word, used in Exodus chapter
14. Hold your place here, but go
over to Exodus chapter 14. We're going to be spending some
time over here in Exodus to see what a Savior is. What a Savior
is. This word was mentioned first
in Exodus 14, verse 30. Look at this. Thus the Lord saved
Israel. Saved Israel. Saved Israel from what? bondage. Israel was in bondage. She was enslaved. The nation
was enslaved. And she had that hard taskmaster
of Pharaoh, who enslaved the people who knew not Joseph. If
you remember, Joseph was a savior of Egypt. And yet a Pharaoh rose
up that knew not Joseph. And this Pharaoh that knew not
Joseph, he knew not God either. Matter of fact, when God sent
Pharaoh, he said, who is God that I should obey him? He didn't
know God. And so he enslaved the people
of God, the promised people of God. Now, even so is every one
of God's elect people born in slavery. Born in bondage. This is a type and a shadow,
a picture of God's church. Israel is a type of God's church
in the Old Testament. They were a picture of all of
God's saints. And all of God's saints were
in bondage. In bondage to sin. We did not
have to learn to sin, did we? We did not have to learn. We
knew that from birth. And from birth, we were in bondage
to it. We were enslaved to it. We were
slaves to our lusts and desires and passions to have our way. And we didn't care who it hurt. Now that we grow older, we may
be a little wiser and kind of know how to sneak around a little
bit better. We may not throw temper tantrums
in the floor like we used to as a child. But I guarantee you, we still
do it in our hearts. We still do it in our hearts.
See, sin is bondage. It's enslaving. And we could
not do anything but sin. We were enslaved to the law of
God that was written on our hearts. You see, my son, before he could
read and my daughter, before they could even understand me.
They knew when they were in trouble. They knew it. They got caught
with something and they couldn't even speak and they go, oh, they
knew it. Why? How did they know that?
They can't even talk. How do they know it? Because
God wrote it on their hearts. God wrote it on your hearts.
And you're smiling because you know it because it happened to
you. It happened to me. That's why I wrote it. I can
even say it from experience. I know it. God wrote it on our
hearts. We knew the law. We knew what
was wrong. And yet, what did the law do?
Did it make us obedient? Did that law written on our heart,
did that stop us from sinning or desiring to sin? No. No. It only excites it. It only enrages
us to get it more. To have more. The scripture says
the strength of sin is the law. The law is the strength of sin?
What does that mean? Well, the law is good, isn't
it? How can it be the strength of sin? The law is holy and perfect. There's nothing wrong with the
law. But friends, had we not had that
law written on our hearts, we would have no conscience of
sin. Have no conviction of sin. What
kind of world would this be if nobody felt guilt for sin? What kind of world of violence
and chaos? It is violence and chaos now,
but at least we have some form of judicial systems or some form
to punish evildoers. Why is that? Because God wrote
it in the hearts of men and they know, they know, And if God did not do that, every
one of us would be as wicked as we could be. We would all
just be as wild as we could be. You know it's wrong. You know
guilt. Because God wrote that on your
heart. This is why the natural man hates God, even because the
law of God exposes him. It does nothing to help him.
It only says, Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and love thy neighbor
as thyself. And if you don't do it, I'll
kill you. There's no comfort there. There's
no hope there. That law only makes us want to
do more wicked works. It only excites us to rebel against
it. And we say, like our taskmaster,
who is God, that we should obey him. You that are lost, listen
to me. This is your heart. Who is God
that I should reverence Him? Who is God that I should obey
His law? I'll do what I want to. That's
because you're lost and you're enslaved. You have no freedom.
Don't sinners that are lost think they have more freedom than those
people who are saved? Well, I can do what I want to!
Go ahead. Go ahead. See, I don't want to do that.
Because I'm free, I'm free. Not because I'm enslaved, we're
enslaved like these people in Israel, they were enslaved. Are
you in bondage? Are you enslaved to your sins?
So that you cannot. Love God. You cannot serve God. Then I tell you, behold, that
only God is Savior. Only God can save you. Only God can deliver your soul. Flee to God by Christ. Every sinner here, it is incumbent
upon you and me to flee It is incumbent upon us to flee
to Christ for refuge. It's incumbent upon us to seek
mercy from God. Because you cannot free yourself. Number two, God always is our
Savior by the same means. Only God could save Israel. Only
God could deliver Israel. And only God did deliver Israel. He said I would deliver you.
He said you would go out from the nation of Egypt. He said
I would take you from your taskmasters and bring you to Myself that
you may worship Me. But everyone that God has purposed
to save, He will save. He did save Israel. And He saves
Israel, His church, always by the same means of grace. There's no difference. If you're
saved in Christ, if God has saved you, He saved you the same way
He saved me. You see, there's no difference
in our salvation. There's no difference. There's
difference in levels of maturity in faith. There are different
levels of understanding that God gives in being a believer
in Christ. But I know this, the newest babe
in Christ is just as saved as the oldest and wisest of believers. They're just as saved. Why? They're
saved in the same way by the same means. The same means. When the message of God came,
how did the message of God come to Israel? It came by man. It came by man. Moses, and I'll tell you, he
is the most reluctant man that ever served God. He tried to
come up with every excuse in the world not to go. He tried
to come up with every excuse not to go. But God sent him. God sent him with a message.
And what was this message? Let my people go. That was the message of God's
man. And it's still the message of
God's men. Let my people go. And you know
when that word comes in power and demonstration of the Spirit,
you know what happens to the bondage of sin, the bondage of
the law? It lets us go! It lets us go. Let me go. I was enslaved to
it and God in power said, let my people go. And you know what? I was let go. And they could
do nothing to stop me from being let go. It's always the same
means. Pharaoh, when he heard that word,
what was his word? Whose God? That I should obey
him. And you know what's surprising about this? When God sent his
man to his people and he told Israel, they were first kind
of excited. They said, oh boy, we're going to get to go. And
the next thing you know, Pharaoh, when he rejected that, he put
more burdens on them. And what was their response?
What have you done to us? How in the world? I was better
off before you came and spoke this word to me. I was better
off. We were better off. Pharaoh is
going to kill us now. Is that not how we felt when
the Gospel came to us? As though it was going to kill
us. We felt more burden for sin than we had ever felt in our
life. We had felt more guilt and the taskmaster of the law
came down on us. And we knew, we knew we weren't
going anywhere on our own. There was no hope for us. Men are so enslaved and in love
with this world, they have no desire of being set free from
the only thing that causes them pain. Is that not something? That's the most amazing thing.
You know, you put your hand on a stove, the first reaction of
the flesh is to get it off. Why? It hurts! But see, the inner man is not
so smart as the outer man. The inner man, it goes into sin
and it hurts! And it goes back in. And it hurts! And it goes back in. Never satisfied,
always desiring more sin. The only thing that causes us
pain is sin, and yet, that's what we do. You know, it's amazing
to me, in my family, to see broken homes
in my family. And I know the suffering that
my family members, their children went through. I know the suffering.
It was great. They missed their father or they missed their mother.
And they were with one and not the other. But you know, as they
grew up without Christ and without the gospel, they did exactly
what their parents did. Can you believe that? That's
just the way we are by nature. It's a bondage. It's enslavement. The law only produces hatred
in us. And it does not save us, it only
pours more bondage when we hear the gospel. You know, when I
witness, have you experienced this, when you witness the people,
they look sometimes like a rat in a cage trying to get out.
I mean, I swear, it's like I lit them on fire and they're trying
to find a water hose somewhere. Just anywhere but here! I don't
want to be anywhere but near this man. You can put me in any
doctor's office or dentist's office and pull out all my teeth,
but don't let me talk to this guy again." You see, they're
in bondage. They have no love for the gospel. Well, you know what? I understand.
You see, I'm not looking down at them because that's how I
was. That's how I was. I was just as enslaved as they
are. And I know this, they can't free
themselves just like I couldn't free myself. It's only then when the gospel
comes in power that men cry out to God. You know, only those
who need a Savior will come to God to be their Savior. If you
don't need a Savior, if you need somebody to help you, assist
you in salvation, you don't need God. You'll look for somebody
else. But when you're hopeless, that's
when you look to God to be your Savior, when you need one. Go to Exodus chapter 6. Flip
over a few pages in Exodus chapter 6. When God comes in power, this
message will be sweet to you right here. If God has come in
power, I know this is sweet to you because it's sweet to me.
We have the same salvation, don't we? And so the same thing is
sweet to my ears, is sweet to your ears. And listen to God's
Word concerning His salvation. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong
hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive
them out of his land. And God spake unto Moses and
said unto him, I am the Lord. I have appeared unto Abraham,
to Isaac and Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but now by the
name of Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have established
my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the
land of their pilgrimage wherein they were strangers. And I have
also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the
Egyptians kept in bondage. And I have redeemed. I have remembered, remembered
my covenant. The joy of the sure message of
God being our savior is this, that God has already made a covenant. You see, even before Egypt came
into bondage, God had already made a covenant by which they
should come out. You see, and so with us who are
believers, God has already made a covenant. A covenant with Himself. A covenant of grace, a covenant
of mercy, so that the God of all creation, the being of all
beings, the omnipotent, omniscient, almighty Savior God has made
this covenant. And He will remember to bring
out every one of His people. He said, I'll remember. I remembered.
I'll bring you out at the appointed time. And he did. And therefore
we have in this Exodus chapter 14, we have the result of this. It says, And God saved, the Lord
saved Israel, just as He had purposed to do. Now this word
saved is very interesting in Exodus 14 verse 30, because it
means both It has reference to both the Savior and the saved. It has reference to both of them.
It means self. In other words, God says the
Lord Himself saved. The Lord Himself saved. Now,
He sent a messenger. He sent a message. But it was only the Lord that
saved. You see, I'm giving you the message. You are hearing the message. Only God can save you. Only God
can bring you out of bondage. Only God. It is God alone Himself that
saved. And it also has reference not
only to the Savior, but to the objects that are being saved. God the Lord saved who? Who did He save? Israel. Was there ever an intention of
God to save Egypt? Was there ever in any purpose
or covenant of God a purpose plan to save Pharaoh? No. No. Matter of fact, the scriptures
tell us that Pharaoh was raised up so that God might show His
power in damning him. Isn't that great? Is that not
a great, powerful God to do with men as He pleases? The purpose
to save one and purpose to raise up the other for His own damnation? Yes. That's God. That's who God
is. And God alone can save and God
alone saves His people out of bondage. We who believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ We have been saved by the hand of Almighty
God Himself and no other. When I talk about the spirit
quickening a soul, I'm talking about the most powerful event,
the most powerful effect of all creation. I said it before, that tornado
that came through Henryville was nothing in comparison to
the power of God's salvation to a sinner. When that power
comes, change comes. Change of heart, change of life,
change of a soul, change of thoughts, change of affections. You see, man can reform the outside. He can start doing this and stop
doing that. But he can't reform the soul. That's something only God can
do for you. That's something that God changes
in a man. When God changes a man, he's
changed forever. And he's never the same. Never
the same. You see, God's men don't play
church. God's people don't play church.
I'm not here to entertain. That's not my purpose. And if
you're gods, you're not here to be entertained, are you? You're here to worship and to
reverence God. That's the reason we come. God
has changed us. God has saved us. God has delivered
us. And he delivers us all in the
same way. Well, how then does God save
sinners? How is it that God in the same
way saves every sinner? The same way He saved Israel. How did God save Israel? Two things. Blood and water. By blood and by water. Why would God do that? How many plagues? Yet how many plagues delivered
Israel? One. It was only the last one
that moved Pharaoh to drive them out and let them go. It was the
Passover plague. It was the Passover. And God
said, take a spotless lamb and kill the lamb, drain his blood
and put it on the door and on the lentil. And that night when I pass through,
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. In other words,
judgment comes to everyone without blood. Isn't that right? Isn't
that simple to say? God is not complicating matters.
This is not very difficult. To see the picture? If you don't have blood, God
will judge you for your sins. But everyone that is saved is
saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. He was the spotless Lamb of God
and God sent Him to shed His blood. We sing that song sometimes and
it speaks of Christ spilling His blood. No. He didn't spill
it like it was some kind of accident. He shed it on purpose. On purpose. Why? so that we may be forgiven of
all our sins. You see, God cannot let us go
without payment of sin. And who's going to pay for sin?
You? If we spent 10 billion eternities
in hell, it would never pay for one sin. Yet Christ, when He bore our
sins in His own body, paid them on the cross. He bore the guilt
of our sins so that God could be just to let us go. Now, did Israel deserve to go?
He said, I've never found a more stiff-necked people in all my
life than Israel. God said that about them. He
said, nevertheless, I chose you. Not because you were good, I
chose you for My own sake. And so it is with us. God chose
us. God shed His own blood for us. Not because of who we are,
but because of His grace. And He made Him to be sin for
us. So that we could go free. And what did they do with that
lamb? After they killed it, They burn it with fire. And what they
do? They ate it. You see, it's not
enough to know about the blood unless you eat it. Jesus said, if any man does not
eat my flesh and drink my blood, he cannot be saved. What is that? It's simple. To believe, to eat His flesh and drink His
blood is simply to believe on Christ. And all who believe have the
blood applied. Isn't that simple? Believe. You must believe. No one is going to do it for
you. Scott, I'm not going to be able
to believe for you. You have to do it yourself. You
yourself will have to believe. And continue to believe. But
praise God. It's God that gives us the faith
to believe because I couldn't keep believing. I couldn't keep
doing it if God didn't give it number two. The second thing
is by water. And this is not baptism. I don't
want to go into a big thing about that. We know this is not speaking
of physical baptism. We know that God does not save
by dipping somebody in physical water. That's not salvation.
What this water is, it is the Spirit of God and the Word of
God. Never apart from the Spirit of
God and the Word of God is a sinner saved. You see, God saves. God
the Father purposed. God the Son died and shed His
blood for our sins. And God the Holy Spirit must
take the water of the Word and cleanse us from sin. Imagine the picture. Here's Israel.
They're going out. Oh, jumping up and down for joy.
They're leaving Egypt. They're done with their work.
And God leads them right into a big sea. They're standing on
a cliff looking out at the sea and saying, where did you take
us? What happened? Let's turn around and go back.
They turn around. Pharaoh's coming. What did you
do? We're in worse shape now than
we've ever been before. Surrounded by enemies and circumstance. Isn't that always what surrounds
a believer? Enemies and circumstances? Hopelessness? Dead ends? Everything going down
the road is going to continue just dead's end. That's the most
frustrating thing in the world. They just ran right into a big
dead end. It was a dead end for them. It
wasn't a dead end for God, was it? And I'll tell you, when a
man sees Christ as his only hope and he goes to Christ, he's going
to come to a dead end. He's going to come to the dead
end of his own sins. And what's going to come behind
him is the law. Pursuing hot on his trail. But praise God that if God is
set out to be our Savior, that does not end there. What did God do? He opened the
sea and they walked through the midst of the water. What is this? This is God's power. This is
God's Spirit that moved the waters. And it's what God does in the
soul of us as He moves the water. And He cleanses us from all our
sins. Pastor, didn't you say that Jesus
had already died for our sins? Yes! Yes, He did. But I'll tell you what, we've
still got a conscience. Don't we? We still have this old man of
sin. It's like a rotting corpse attached
to our neck that drags us down constantly. You see, I have been forgiven
of my sins, but I'll tell you, even right now, I need to be
forgiven of my sins. Do you need that? Do you need daily to be washed
in the water and cleansed from the guilt of sin? It's only by the Word of God
that that's going to happen. The water of the word cleanses
us. I hope and pray that this is
not the only water during the week that you receive. I pray that you read God's word
for yourself. I know you love me. And I know
a lot of you just take my word and say, well, that's what pastor
said. Don't take my word. See for yourself. See for yourself. And the water of the Word cleanses
us from all sin. If we confess our sin. Now is our salvation based on
our confession? No. It's based on the blood. It's based on God our Savior. But I'll tell you what, I sure
have need of confession of my sins. But don't wait for me to
tell you. I'm not going to tell you. I
don't need to confess to you and you don't need to confess
to me. Confess to Him, and He will cleanse
your conscience of dead works. Is that not refreshing? The Gospel
is living, isn't it? It's not a dead book. This is
not a dead book, is it? The Scripture says that the Gospel
is living and powerful. Is that the pastors living and
powerful? I'm alive, but I'm sure not powerful. It's not my voice that gets to
your soul. It's the word of God that gets
to your soul. It's not how I present the gospel.
It's the gospel. That's the power of God and the
salvation to everyone that believe. It's not how I present it. It's how God gives it. And by that we are cleansed by
the water of the word. And believer in Christ, if God
is our savior. What do we have to fear? What do you fear the most? What you fear the most is what
you'll reverence the most. Somebody comes and takes a gun
and points it at you and says, give me your money or your life. Yes, sir. Here, here's my wallet. Take all you need. Matter of
fact, I'm going to sit over here and you could take all the money
out of my bank and just don't come at me. I'm going to reverence
that guy. He's going to take my life. But really, If even
if he shoots me, what can he do after that? Nothing. Can't do anything to me. God takes all that we have here
in this world. What is that? Nothing. We reverence God because he alone
can save and damn. Do you reverence God? Believer, God has destroyed all
our enemies. Sin, Satan, and the world are
defeated. You know what happened when Israel
reached the other side? God made the wind blow the water to the
shore where they were so that the dead bodies would sweep up
on the shore. What did that tell them? You don't have to look over your
shoulder anymore. They're dead. Believer, you don't have to look
over your shoulder anymore. Christ has paid all. What else
is there to do? but rejoice." And that's exactly
what Israel did, didn't they? They sang a song. They sang a
song. I serve a risen Savior. He's
in the world today. I know that He is leading whatever
men may say. I see His hand of mercy. I hear
His voice of cheer. And just the time I need Him,
He's always near. He lives. He lives. Christ Jesus lives today. He
walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way. He
lives. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart. God
is my Savior. Is God your Savior? If He is,
you have great cause and assurance to be. Thankful today you have
great cause and assurance to be joyful today. I Pray that God would bless this
to your heart. Let's stand will be dismissed in prayer. I