Well, I don't know if he really
enjoys having me all that much, but I really enjoy coming here.
I do, I've got some old friends here, some new friends here,
and I just love coming here. There's a good spirit here. If you have your Bibles with
you tonight, I invite you to turn back with me to 2 Timothy
chapter one. And what I hope to do tonight
is to answer this question in these four short verses in 2
Timothy 1, 9 through 12. And the question is, how does
God save sinners? How does God save sinners? Well, you say, everybody knows
that. Oh, I beg your pardon. No, they don't. No, they don't. Just before I was old enough
to start school, I'm guessing six years old, about the time
when one's memory begins to develop, you know, you can remember back
so far and then the rest of it, I think, is not your memory.
It's just you've been told so many times that you think you
remember. But I was about six years old
and one Sunday, my dad gets me up early, that was the day we
all slept in. And they got me ready and we
went to church. And I had no idea, when they
said we were going to church, I had no idea what in the world
they were talking about. I'd never been to church. And
so we got up, they dressed me and I went off to church with
my dad and we drove 10 miles to the adjoining
town up in northern Ohio and went to a little place called
the Church of the Nazarene. And from that day until I was
old enough to leave home, I was made to go to that church and
sit down in the meetings, just like the little kids here are,
and listen to that man preach. Three, four times a week, sometimes
we'd go over to the mission church and sit on a feed bag and listen
to that man preach to the drunks. and we'd go down to the state
meetings and go to their rallies and all these things and revival
meetings and everything that was there, I had to go. And for the next 10 or 12 years,
I listened to several different pastors, several different men
telling us what God demanded from us, most of which was a very strict
moral code And the keeping of days, oh my
soul, we had to keep all the days, especially the Sabbath
day. If they saw you doing something
on the Sabbath day, boy, the committee would be at your house
and wanting some answers. What were you doing on that day? And most of the preaching I heard
was either geared to frighten you into making a profession
of faith, or to feel sorry for Jesus because after all he did,
it was just gonna be a waste without your decision, without
your will, without your joining the church and doing your part.
It was just all gonna be a waste. He died for nothing. He died
for nothing. The preaching was about moral
lessons concerning Abraham Jacob and Esau and David and Samson
and on and on it went. They'd read those stories and
then they had a moral teaching concerning those things and they'd
stand up and teach us. And that's all I knew about Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob and any of those Old Testament patriarchs. All I knew about them was the
moral stories that I'd been told in church. And the proof text,
when they got up to preach, the things that they quoted, they
very seldom ever said, turn in your Bible to this. They just
quote it. They just say it. And most of
the proof text that they quoted were just bits and pieces taken
out of context. And I know, I bet you, you've
heard these same things. If you haven't, you will. You
will. God's not willing for any to
perish. I heard that since I was this
big. God's not willing for anybody. Let me tell you, if God wasn't
willing for you to perish, you'd never perish. He does all his will. My will
is questionable, but his will is not. My will is resistible,
his will is not. He does all he pleases. Always,
and at all times. It's that way in heaven, and
it's that way on earth, and it's that way in hell. You're gonna reap what you sow.
You know that has to do with offerings. It has nothing to
do with your works. It has to do with your offerings.
And what Paul's telling you there is if you sow to your creature
comforts, you buy your big easy chair, well, you're gonna reap
the benefits of it. You can sit in it, you can rest
in it, you watch TV in it, you'll reap the benefits. If you sow
to your spiritual good, you're gonna reap the benefits. You're
gonna reap what you sow. My soul, if we're gonna reap
what we sow according to our works, where is grace? Where's
salvation? Where's any peace or assurance
or comfort? We're goners if we're gonna reap
what we sow. And then I love this one. This
one came from the Old Testament. They said, choose you this day
whom you will serve. And they used that as a argument
for free will. You know what that says over
there? It says if God be God, serve him. But if God's not God,
then choose you this day whom you'll serve. It really don't
matter if it's Baal or who it is. One of these God, just go
ahead and choose you one because none of them can do you any good.
But if God be God, serve him. And then I love this one. This
come out of a little piece out of Timothy. He said, God wants
everybody to be saved. God wants everybody to be saved.
I'm gonna tell you something. He didn't want Esau to be saved.
He didn't want this world to be saved because as the high
priest, he refused to pray for him. What that particular verse is
talking about is all kinds of people, not all people, but all
kinds of people. But they take these bits and
pieces and they throw them at me and they quote them and they
fit it into whatever they were teaching. And then, of course,
this one, God loves everyone. Now if you quote scriptures this
way, you can make the Bible say anything you want it to. Listen to these two verses. Judas
went out and hanged himself. Go ye and do likewise. You can
make the Bible say anything you want to if you're just gonna
get bits and pieces. But that's what they did to me.
That's exactly what they did to me. And my point is this,
these bits and pieces of scripture and their moral fables and my
father's example constituted everything that I knew about
God and knew about the salvation of sinners. I thought I knew something. I've
been to church for 12 years, every time the door was open.
I should have been qualified to preach the gospel. And I knew
nothing. I knew nothing. Everything I
knew was a lie. Everything I knew was just bits
and pieces saying this and saying that. And this is exactly what our
Lord was describing over in Matthew chapter six, verse 23. And this
is what he said. He said, if thine eye You know
this body just has one source of light? These eyes. These eyes. You don't get any light in your
ears. You get light through here. You just got one source. And
he said, if thine eye, the only source of light that you have,
if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If your only source of light
is evil, if it's wrong, if it's a lie, then only thing coming
into there is darkness. And that's what our Lord said. If thine eye be evil, thy whole
body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that be
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. If all these
things that you think you know about God, all these things that
you think are so true, all these things that you stake your soul
on are a lie, how great is that darkness? How great is it? I'm gonna tell you something. Nobody's gonna be saved believing
a lie. Nobody's gonna be saved believing
a lie. When God saves a sinner, the
Bible said, he calls him out of darkness into his marvelous
light. That's what he does. He delivers
us from the power of darkness. We have light. All we've had
up to that point is darkness. It's all we had. Had a little
bit of light in the conscience, but no saving knowledge of God. It's all been darkness, darkness,
darkness, darkness. If God's gonna save you, he's
gonna give you light. He's gonna call you out of that
darkness. You can't climb out of it. You
can't work your way out of it. You can't swim out of it. God
has to call you out of it. He has to call you out of it.
Our Lord said in John 8, verses 31 and 32, he said, if you continue
in my word, he said, my teaching, my doctrine, my preaching, my
gospel, if you continue in my word, Then are you my disciples,
now listen, and you shall know the truth. And the truth will
set you free. It'll set you free. Most religions
nothing but emotionalism and mysticism and decisionism and
legalism and every other kind of ism. And after 12 years, I still,
ignorant of God, and ignorant of God's word, and ignorant of
how God saves sinners, invited this young fella to come to the
revival. We were having a revival, whatever
that is. And I invited him to come, and he said, why? You know, all the years I was in
religion, nobody ever asked me why when I invited him to church,
he did. He said, why? And I said, well, we're having
a revival. He said, I don't know what that is. And I said, well,
we have an evangelist, and he's preaching for us. He said, what's
he preaching about? I said, he's preaching the gospel. That man
looked at me, and he said, you wouldn't know the gospel if you
met it in the middle of the road. Now, this man's in cutoff jeans
drinking a blue ribbon beer, and he's sitting there telling
me this. And I'm all dressed up like I am tonight, talking
to him, thought I knew something. I said, what do you mean I don't
know the gospel? And he said, well, if you know the gospel,
what is it? What is it? And for the first time in my
life, I realized I didn't know the gospel. And I said, well,
it made me mad. I said, I'll tell you what. I
said, you kind of got me off guard tonight. I said, I'm gonna
go home and read my Bible. Oh, he said, you're a good Christian.
I'll read his Bible. They were just wearing me out.
I couldn't come up with anything. I said, we'll talk again. He said, that'd be good, that'd
be good. So I left, I went home, and I started reading my Bible.
And you know what? That Bible shed a lot of light
on religion. I started to read and find out
who God was. He wasn't anything like the God
that'd been preached to me. He ruleth in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? He declares the end
from the beginning. He's not ignorant about things.
Circumstances don't take him by surprise. I found out a little
bit of something about who God was, but I didn't know anything
about how God saves sinners. until one of the deacons at my
church, I was asking all these questions and nobody had any
answers. And finally this one old deacon
looked at me, he said, there's a man on there every Sunday morning.
He said, he deals with those things. And I said, there's nobody
on Sunday morning on television dealing with these things. Oh
yeah, his name's Henry Mahan. I stayed home that next Sunday
and listened to Henry preach. I told my wife, I said, we're
going to Ashland. And we went up there and that's where I stayed
until I went out to preach. The Bible calls the kind of religion
that's in the world that everybody approves of and everybody follows,
and most of your relatives probably go there in one place or another. I won't labor the point by naming
a bunch of names, but the Nazarenes I was familiar with, I grew up
in it. But what I found out was the Bible calls this kind of
religion Antichrist. He calls it Antichrist because
it's contrary to Christ. It is the opposite of Christ. A fellow asked me I work with,
he said, what do you believe? And I said, take everything that
you believe and take the opposite. That's exactly what I believe.
I don't even have to ask him what he believe. They all believe
the same thing. They're just two kinds of religion,
works and grace. That's all there is out there.
It's anti-Christ. There's no grace in it. There's
no glory of God in it. There's no Christ in it. It just, like I said, emotionalism
and mysticism. Our Lord's office, his eternal
appointments, his condescension, his representative obedience,
his substitutionary death, and his glorious resurrection is
foreign terms to them. Not to mention his glorious and
sovereign rule and glory. They know nothing about that. You know Christ is your Lord. Whether you're dead in trespasses
and sins or whether you know him, he's your Lord. He's Lord
of the dead and the living. He's not up in heaven, Brother
Mahan said, wringing his hands and looking down, hoping that
somebody's gonna do something he told him to do. He's not up
there anxiously worried about his purpose is gonna be fulfilled. He sat down when he went into
glory because the work was done. He sat down, and the Bible says,
expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. He's not
worried, he's just waiting. He's just waiting. And let's just say tonight, let's
just say for argument's sake that preaching what you're saying
is true. How then does God save sinners? Well, these four verses give
us five things, easy, very easy to understand language. And it
begins in verse nine with a bold but little acknowledged truth.
Paul said, God has saved us, Timothy. We don't have to talk
about the aisle we walked. I talked about that early in
my first profession faith, talked about it for years. I walked
down that aisle, I knelt at that bench, I prayed that prayer.
I did this, I joined the church, I paid my tithes. I kept the
Sabbath, I did this. You remember the rich young ruler
come to Christ? He said, what can I do to be
saved? The Lord said, well, you can
keep the law. Oh, wow, all those things have I done from my youth
up. Really? Really? Well, you won't have
no trouble with this. Sell everything you got, give
it to the poor, take up your cross, follow me. Bowed his head
and walked away. The disciples looked at each
other. They were impressed with that man. They were impressed
with that man. He was a good businessman. He's
honest. He mowed his grass, painted his house. I mean, he showed
up for all the meetings. He gave to the church. He was
a moral man. He was a man of reputation in
the community. They thought, man, if anybody's
going to be saved, it's going to be this man. And he walked
away, and they looked at each other and said, who then can
be saved? And here's what the Lord said.
Now, I hope you hear me. If you don't hear anything else,
you hear this. With man, it is impossible. Impossible. You can't save yourself. And that's the first of my points
tonight. Only God can save sinners. I can preach. I believe God called
me to preach. He's opened all the doors. He's
tied all the knots. He's given proof of my ministry,
at least to me. I believe God called me. But I still can't save a sinner.
All I can do is tell you what God told me to tell you. That's
all I can do. I'm like that woman at the well.
When he got through with her, she ran back and she said, you
need to come see this man. He told me everything I ever
did. He knows all about me. You need to come hear him. And so many of us make that mistake.
We get a little bit of knowledge and we run over and butt and
hold people back by the back door and we start asking them
questions and firing things at them and throwing darts and everything
else. I told our folks, I said, please don't do that. I said,
you get two minutes, you make them mad and they go home. If
they come in and sit down, I got them for 45 minutes. Nobody else
is talking and they're not talking back or thinking about what they're
gonna say back. They have to listen. Let them
come in and listen. Maybe God'll do something for
them. Maybe he will. But I can tell you this, whether
he does or not, only God can save sinners. We're shut up to
God. That's just how it is. We're
shut up to God. It's not our will that everybody
talks about, starts fights about, argues about. It's his will. Here's what James said, of his
own will begat he us with the word of truth. Only God can save
sinners. Oh, with man it's impossible
in all how I need to hear this and be reminded of this often,
often. Only God can save sinners. Now let me say this. There are no sinners that he
cannot save. I thought I was one. I thought
God would never save me. He'll never save me. I'm down
in the dregs. I'm at the bottom of the, he'll
never do anything for me. He'll never speak to me. There are no sinners that God
can't save. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, now listen, of whom I am chief. Old self-righteous
Pharisee was at the bottom of the drum and God saved him. There are no sinners that God
cannot save, but there are some sinners that he will not save. That sinner who bows up his rebellion
and disregards God and disregards God's means of salvation and
rejects the way of salvation and rejects the Savior of sinners
and despises the free grace of God. God will not save that man. He won't do it. He won't do it. He that believeth not the Son,
now listen, shall not see life. but the wrath of God abideth
on him. You go into all the world, all
power in heaven and earth is given unto me. Now you go preach
my gospel. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not, what?
He might be saved and no one sees shall be damned. It's religion that has spread
so much lies and deceit in this world, making men think that
God is desperate to save sinners. The only one desperate is the
sinner. We're desperate. I wish I could see some desperation.
I see people, they'll listen and hear and think about it for
years. I don't see no desperation. Well, I believe that. You believe
in an eternal hell? You believe in an eternal judgment? You believe that God could wind
this thing up tonight? Open his book and judge you according
to your works and you're not desperate? You can just maul
that over and think about it? Oh my soul, I tell you, all these
people got saved in the scripture, they were all desperate, every
one of them. Bartimaeus, be quiet, you're
interrupting things. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. You reckon he was desperate?
The savior was about to leave him, about to leave Jericho.
He wasn't gonna let him go anywhere. Not if he could help it. He cried
out for mercy, he was desperate. That woman with the issue of
blood, was she desperate? If I could just touch the hem
of his garment. And the frightening thing about
all this is this. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. What are the things of the Spirit
of God? Preaching of the gospel, the revelation of Christ, Eternal
life. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. Why? Foolishness to him. Foolishness. Neither can he know them because
they're spiritually discerned. And this is why Paul was so thankful
to God for any convert because he said, God made us meet give
us the ability to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. He didn't leave us in darkness. He enabled, he made us willing
in the day of his power. We weren't willing. Do you have anything tonight? Do
you have any knowledge of God? You have any inward struggles
and heartaches and desires for Christ? Do you have anything?
Or what have you gotten that you haven't received? Huh? It's the gift of God, isn't it?
All these gifts, he said, comes down from the Father of lights
with whom there's no variable unless neither shadow or turn.
They all come down from him. They're gifts. They're gifts. Our gospel, Paul said in 1 Thessalonians
1, he said it came not in word only, but in power and in the
Holy Ghost. But the natural man wouldn't
receive it. He wouldn't receive it. He says over in John chapter
1, he said as many as received him. He came on his own, his
own wouldn't receive him. Came into the world and the world
was made by him and the world wouldn't receive him. But as
many as received him. Hadn't? Will you? To as many as received him, to
them gave he power to become the sons of God. They couldn't
do it. They're like that man. Here he
is, he's sitting up in front of the temple and his arms all
withered. It's been that way for years and years and years
and they would carry him up and there he'd sit and he'd beg for
alms when they'd come through the door. It all withered up
and one day old Peter looked at him
and he said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have,
I'm gonna give you something. He said, stretch forth thy hand.
He couldn't, but he did. He told that paralyzed man been
down there for 30-something years, layin' down there. Had to be
carried and laid there. He said, take up your bed and
walk. He couldn't, but he did. Lazarus, come out of that tomb.
He couldn't, but he did. Ain't that your story? That's
my story. I couldn't, but I did. And the
reason I did is because he made me meet. He gave me the ability
to believe. He gave me the ability to understand,
to read this book and understand what it, you know how valuable
that is? Thousands upon thousands tonight,
probably millions that open this book and read it and don't understand
a thing about what they're reading. But the believer does. Believer
does. Listen to this. I hath not seen
nor heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things
that God hath prepared for them that love him. Nobody out there,
but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. Only God can
save a sinner. And that's what Paul's telling
Timothy, this young preacher. He loved him. He knew his past
clear back to his grandmother, and he loved that boy, and he's
writing to him, and he wants to tell him something that's
gonna be valuable from now till he dies. All the way through
his ministry, it's gonna be the main thing. And here's the first
thing he tells him, God saved us. And then he called us. We get all flipped around, don't
we? God called us, and then he said, no, that ain't what it
says. It says he saved us. Then he called us. Only God can save a sinner. And
then secondly, how does God save sinners? Look down here in the
middle of verse nine. According to his own purpose
and grace. That's right. He ain't gonna
save anybody apart from that. He ain't gonna save anybody.
Salvation not a fluke. Turn with me for just a minute
over to Romans chapter eight. Let me show you something over
here. Romans chapter eight, very familiar
verse of scripture, verse 28. He's going down through here,
he's telling us the creation was a man. not made subject to
vanity willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the
same in hope." God created everything that you see, everything that
we live in, the environment, the heavens, all of it, he created
all these things. And he knew that he'd be exposed
to sin. He knew that. The fall of man,
all these things. But he did those things in hope. and hope, there's a purpose behind
it, behind it. And he just keeps working his
way down. He tells us that the Spirit of God's with us. He said,
we don't even know what to pray for. You ever get like, I just
don't, I don't even, what can you, God knows all things. I just sometimes don't know what
to pray for. And I pray for the wrong thing. I pray for the,
because I want it. I want it. And then he gets down
here to verse 28, and he said, and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them, now listen,
who are the called according to his purpose. God has a purpose
in the salvation of sinners. God saves men on purpose. He's
ordained it, he's fixed it in eternity. He chose a people in
Christ before the world began. He predestinated them, the scripture
said, to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. He said, I don't believe in predestination.
You need to throw that Bible away then. Because that's what
it teaches. That's what it declares. He goes
on, he says, he hath made us accepted in the blood, redeemed
us by his blood, gave us the forgiveness of sins, and revealed
unto us the mystery of his will. The mystery of his will. And
there's no chance, no circumstance, no luck involved in any of these
things. Nothing, it's fixed. It's fixed,
now watch this, Romans 8, 29. He's talking about those called
according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his son, that
we might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Well, what can you say to this?
Well, if God be for us, who can be against us? And God is for somebody, isn't
he? He's for somebody. I don't know
who they are, but I find out along the way when his gospel
comes in power and their elections reveal, If only God can save a sinner,
and God has purpose to save sinners, and has, is, and shall save all
that he's purpose to save, maybe he'll save me. Maybe he will. Wouldn't that
be something? But now I got some hope. I got
some hope. God ain't gonna curse everybody.
He's gonna save somebody. Why not me? Why not me? All right, thirdly, how does
God save sinners? He saves sinners through the
mediation of Jesus Christ, our Lord. 2 Timothy 1.9, it's according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Nobody's gonna be saved apart
from Christ. You're not gonna get saved because
you're religious. You're not gonna be saved because
you're good. That scripture that they read
tonight, I just love that scripture. Of him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. that according as it is written,
he that gloweth, let him glory in the Lord. He don't leave you
anything else to glory in, does he? He saved sinners through the
mediation of Jesus Christ. Everything God determined to
do concerning the salvation of sinners, he trusted into the
hands of his son. Election's not just a book that
God has and he said, well, I'm gonna put this name and that
name and he just starts maybe looking at a phone book and writing
names and he just, that's not election. God chose us in his
son. Don't you dare try to think that
there's some value to election apart from Christ. The value
of election is whom we were chosen in. He chose us in his son before
the foundation of the world. And he did that so we'd be holy.
And no other possibility that you could be holy except in Christ.
And without blame. Anybody here feel like this? Without blame, the only way you
can be that way is in Christ. before Him in love, and I'll
tell you how that reads. Before Him being loved. He chose us in Christ. Chose
us in Christ. Everything God intends for us
to know, He reveals to us through His Son. Everything required
of us, He does for us by His Son. In John 17 too, our Lord
said, I'm about to go to the cross, And Father, I'm here to glorify
you. My obedience, my death, the whole
reason I'm here is to glorify you. And he said, as thou hast
given him, that is his son, power over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Genesis chapter two, this, we
was doing a whole study, verse by verse, all the way through
Genesis. It's still online, I think, but anyway, you can, I kept looking
at this, and I kept looking at it. It says that having finished
the work of creation, God rested on the seventh day. He rested,
rested from all of his works. And I started thinking about
that. Didn't he know that Satan, when he cast him out of heaven,
was down here in the earth? When God rested, didn't he know
that? Didn't he know that Satan was
gonna tempt Eve and that Eve was gonna use her influence over
Adam to cause him to fall? Was God ignorant of that? When the altar was set up and
he taught them how to worship him, Right there in the garden,
he redeemed Adam and Eve and built an altar and all these
things and taught them how to worship him through the lamb,
blood of the lamb. Didn't he know Cain was gonna
bring a bunch of carrots and cabbage down there and throw
it down and call that salvation? Didn't he know that just in a
few generations that every thought of the imagination of men was
gonna be only evil continually? Did God not know that? Didn't
he know that there was gonna be a wholesale rejection of him
by Israel? That when his son came into this
world, the savior of sinners, that men were gonna turn thumbs
down on him, hate him, spit in his face, slap him, mock him,
tell lies on him. Didn't God know that? Then how
on earth could he rest? How could he rest? because he trusted all things
into the hands of his son. Listen to this. In whom also,
talking about Christ. This is talking about his eternal
stewardship of time and of the work God sent him to do, he's
the steward. And he's fulfilling all these
things. That's the mystery of God's will, what's going on,
what's going on. In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Now listen to this. That we should
be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. Who first trusted in him? God
did. God did. And you know what the
benefit of that was? He rested. He rested. And Paul said, in whom you, you
do the same thing now. Because you heard, you heard,
you understand what this is about. You understand that this is all
Christ. It's all Christ. God not only trusted him, but
he committed all things into his hands. Please God, that he
have all preeminence over all things. And then fourthly, how
does God save sinners? He saves sinners through the
preaching of the gospel. Now I'm not taking this out of
context. You read those verses. In 1 Timothy 111, after talking
about Christ and his appearance and his glory and all these things
and what he came to do, he turns right around and says this, whereunto
I'm appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the
Gentiles. And beloved, if God has not purpose to save, or is
not able to save, or has no one to mediate his will, then preaching
is just a useless exercise. It's just a man standing up spitting
out words. That's all it is. But if God
himself is willing to attend these meetings, you reckon there's
anything in those fishes and loaves? five barley loaves and
two little fishes. You reckon there's anything in
that? Now here's 5,000 men plus the
women and children. And he just blesses those fishes
and loaves and starts passing it out. And everybody ate till
they couldn't hold another bite, and then he picked up 12 baskets
and remained. Was there anything in those fishes
and loaves to accomplish that? And ain't nothing in me and you
either. Paul talks about this over in
2 Corinthians 3 and he said in verse 5, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. Our sufficiency
is God. God, if God's ordained to save
sinners through the preaching of the gospel, I better skeed
out of there and find me somebody preaching the gospel and sit
down and listen to him. Let me ask you something. When you pray for preachers,
you pray for your pastor, do you ask God to give you a word
through him? Is that how you can sit? When
this man stands up to preach, I know there's a lot of things
involved, he's studied, he's prayed, written out notes, he's
drawn from his past experience, he's done all these things, but
I'm talking about the bottom line. When you pray for him,
do you really believe that if God speaks to you, he's gonna
speak to you through that man? Well, I'm telling you, if God
speaks to you, that's exactly how he's gonna do it. That's
exactly how he's gonna do it, through a man. Listen to this. How shall you hear without a
preacher? I didn't say that. Holy Ghost
said that. How shall you hear without a preacher? This talking
to me, and I'm a preacher. This talking to you, and you're
a preacher. How you gonna hear? We gotta hear. We have to hear. Listen to this, Paul said, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, it's the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth. We're ministers, Paul said, by
whom you believed, even as the Lord hath given to every man. God saves sinners through the
preaching of the gospel, and contrary to the testimonies of
men, this is the only way chosen sinners can know their election
of God. They hear the gospel and believe. All right, fifthly, I'm trying to
hurry. I skipped over this one too. God saves sinners by convincing
them that Jesus is the Christ. And he tells us that God has
saved us, called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And then he
tells us what? He appeared. He appeared. It's now made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death
and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Salvation is in a person, and
that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. The scripture says neither. I was talking to my Sunday school
class about this the other day. We were in the genealogies in
Luke chapter three, and I said, I'm not even gonna read through
here, because I can't pronounce all these names, and you can't
either, and you wouldn't know if I'm saying it right or not.
So when you get home, you read through the genealogies. I just
want to talk about it. Lessons from genealogies. And
here's one of the lessons. They're given to prove that Jesus
is the Christ. That's why they're given. That's
why God puts them in the scripture. It's to prove, to document for
all time that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. And you go back in the Old Testament
and you'll find out. You'll find out he's gonna be
the root of Jesse. Is Jesse in that genealogy? Yep,
there he is. He's the seed of Abraham. Is
Abraham in that genealogy? Yep, there he is. He's the root of David. David
in that genealogy? Yep. And do you know if you read
carefully in the book of Acts, when they begin to minister on
the day of Pentecost, the first thing he did is went back to
the genealogies to prove that Jesus is the Christ. And this
is that one that David was talking about. He used those genealogies. And you just follow through there.
What Philip did, used the genealogies. Neither is there salvation in
any other. There's none other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. We're justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus.
But if Jesus of Nazareth ain't to Christ, then we're still looking
for him. And if we believe on him, and
he's not the Christ, now we're all idolaters. His presence in this world is
the most well-established fact that's ever been given. His presence
in this world. My soul, he opened heaven up. The angels talked about him. Revealed him to the shepherds.
The shepherds talked about him. The prophets talked about him.
Everybody talked about him. And he came and he verified that
that's my son. And they still wouldn't believe
it. So he, through his son, he gave him power to raise the dead. He gave him power to cleanse
the lepers. He didn't cure headaches and
thump people on the head and they fell over in the floor.
He cured things that nobody could touch. And he did it. And it
was instant. It was instant. And those things,
that's God verifying, that's my son. Jesus of Nazareth, that's
my son. What John the Baptist did, he
pointed to Jesus of Nazareth and said, behold, the Lamb of
God. The Lamb of God. First John 5, 20, it says, and
we know that the Son of God hath come. Do we? And given to us an understanding
that we may know him that's true, that we're in him that's true,
even in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. And then lastly, how does God
save sinners? He saves sinners through a godly
persuasion, convincing them of the sufficiency of Christ. That's
what he does. When he's done with you, you're
just gonna cling to Christ. Everything else is, I imagine
that dung heap that Paul talks about, where's that at, on Philippians
3, he's talking about all this, took it out, threw it on a dung
heap. I don't think he did all that in a day. I think he's talking
about his whole life. He'd been carrying stuff out,
throwing it on the donkey. He read something, he heard something.
Oh, this is just junk. Took it out, threw it on the
donkey. He just kept going out, throwing it on the donkey. When he's done with you, you're
gonna be persuaded that you don't need anything but Jesus Christ. You're gonna quit looking at
your behavior and your morality and your looks and your attendance
and your offerings and all these things that cause us trouble.
We're gonna quit looking at those things. We're just gonna look
to him. I already know I'm a transgressor of the law. That's the first
thing he revealed to me. I was a sinner. I'm not looking for righteousness
that way. He's my righteousness. He's the end of the law for righteousness.
To everyone that believe it. We're just clinging to him, and
that's what he does. Years ago up in West Virginia,
I don't even remember who gave this illustration, but it was
years ago, and it stuck with me. They had these old gravity
gas tanks, you know, that would be tall, and there's glass, They'd
sit there and pump that gasoline up in this thing and you could
see the gasoline going up. It was one gallon, two gallon,
three gallon, around what you wanted, they'd pump it up in
there and you could see it and then he'd put that handle in
there and you'd watch all that gas go down and went in your
tank. Now we just go up to the pump, stick it in there, I hope.
They charged me for 15 gallon, I don't know if the 15 gallon
went in there or not, but back in you could see it. And so while
the guy was filling up his old car, he went inside, little country
store of a thing, had a gas pump out front, and he went inside
and he looked around. He wanted to buy something, you
know, to remember that place by. And he looked over there
and there was carvings. And it just took his breath away. I mean, they were intricate carvings
all over the place. And he looked up there and here's
one of those old Jed Clampett hound dogs. Wow, that thing is
as real as it can be. When he come in, his old fella
out there on the porch had a piece of firewood and he was wiggling
it. No shirt, just bib overalls on, barefoot. He was out there
wiggling old Clem. And he asked that store owner,
he said, who did this, who carved this?
Oh, he said, old Clem did that. He's out there on the porch.
He said, you went right by him on your way in. He did this? He said he did all of it. Well,
he said, I want it. I told him what it was worth
and he paid him. He went up front and he went
over and introduced himself to old Clem. Clem chewing tobacco,
he spit and he whittled it. He said, you carved this? Yes, sir. Out of a piece of that
firewood? He said, yes, sir. How on earth? Did you take that and make this? He said, I just cut off everything
that wasn't a hound dog. That's what Christ does. He cuts
everything else off but himself, but himself. I want to read you
something and I'll close with this if I can remember where
it's at. It's in Ephesians chapter four. Our Lord ascended up into glory.
Before he left, I've already told you what he said in the
Great Commission. But as he left, he gave gifts to men and women,
gave gifts to his church, and he gave some apostles some prophets,
some evangelists, and some pastor teachers. And here's why, verse
12. For the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, now listen, unto a perfect man. A perfect man. Now that ain't
you, that's Christ. But it's you in Christ. A perfect
man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He
gonna cut everything off until that's what he sees.