Turn with me, if you would, back
to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1, the Apostle
Paul is writing the Corinthians, He is trying to encourage them
in the truth and the gospel that he preached to them and he's
telling them that his intention was to come and preach to them
again. And he said in verse 15, 2 Corinthians
1 verse 15, he said, in this confidence, I was minded to come
unto you before that you might have a second benefit. I was
gonna, I wanted to come preach the gospel to you again. Verse
16, and to pass by you into Macedonia and to come again out of Macedonia
unto you and of you to be brought on my way toward Judea. When
I therefore was thus minded Did I use lightness? Was I flippant
about it in my thoughts? And well, I think I'll just go
do this or go do that. He said, when I therefore was
thus minded, did I use lightness or the things that I purpose?
Do I purpose according to the flesh that with me there should
be yay, yay, and nay, nay. But as God is true, Our word
toward you was not yay and nay for the son of God, Jesus Christ,
who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and
Timotheus. He said that message was not
yay and nay, but in him was yay. For all the promises of God in
Him are yea, and in Him, amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now I felt led to come to this
text and this message because of the last verse that we just
looked at in our Bible study. the very last verse there in
Matthew 5. Turn with me, if you would, back
over to Matthew 5. Matthew 5. This is where we ended and what
our Lord is saying here is, don't make empty promises. Verse 37,
He said, but let your communication be yay, yay, nay, nay. For whatsoever is more than these
cometh of evil. He said, don't make empty promises. And let's go ahead and read between
the lines. and think on Christ and think
on His Word and His salvation. This is what He said, don't make
empty promises. He said, it's a sin against God.
That's the glory of the message. Don't make empty promises. He said, let your yes be yes
and your no be no. Don't let your yes be no. and your no be yes. Don't make
empty promises. And he said, don't make promises
at all because you can't count on your ability to keep them.
You just can't. You don't know if your yes will
be yes. Verse 33, back up a few verses,
Matthew five, verse 33. He said, again, you have heard
that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear
thyself. Don't, don't say I swear to do
something, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But
I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven for it's
God's throne. nor by the earth for it's his
footstool, neither by Jerusalem for it's
the city of the great king, neither shalt thou swear by thy head."
Don't swear on yourself because you can't make one hair white
or black. read that and I think, well,
you know, ladies like to dye their hair. And yeah, you're
dying your hair, but you're not really changing that gray hair
to black again or whatever color it was. Just give it a little
bit of time and the truth will come out. We can't. We can't. And this is what we
all need to realize. There's only one God. There's
only one God and we are not him. And our works are not his and
we must bow to him. Verse 37. He said, let your communication
be yay. Yay. Nay. Nay. For whatsoever is more than these
cometh of evil. He said, God is the only one
who has the ability to make a promise and keep that promise. God is
the only one. Now, here's the good news. Here's
the good news for all of us. God has made a promise. Isn't
that glorious? God Almighty made a promise.
The only man who can say, I promise. Hebrews 6 says, because he could
swear by no greater, he swore by himself. He said, I swear
by myself. He made a promise. And because
God made that promise, He will keep that promise. He said, not
one word of mine shall fail. Isaiah 42, God the Father said,
behold my servant, Jesus Christ the Son, He said, He shall not
fail. Because He made it, because He
said it, it will be done. Have not I spoken it and shall
I not do it? Just because He said it, you
can count on it. It's going to be done. He will
keep it. All of His promises are amen. All of His yeas are amen. And this is what I want us to
get ahold of this morning. God cannot lie. That's what Titus
1 verse 2 says. It says, God cannot lie. Everything that he has said in
this book is a promise. We read these things and we're
constantly hearing the word shall. And in all of these definite
words, these are all promises. Everything he says, everything
that comes out of his mouth is a promise. ordered, and sure,
calculated. It's a promise. And every promise
will come to pass. Not one promise will be empty. Not one yay will be nay. Not one of them. Every word of
promise in this book will be amen. Now that's starting with
the promise of warning, the promise of judgment, the promise of condemnation. Our Lord has made promises concerning
these things. God told Adam, let's just see
the proof of it in this. God told Adam, he put Adam and
Eve in the garden and he told Adam in the day that you eat
of this fruit and sin against me, thou shalt surely die. That was a promise. And he did it. and he died. In that moment, he died spiritually. We can't see spiritual life. One day we'll know it as we've
been known, but all we can see and experience in the flesh is
physical life. Adam died spiritually. Proof
of that is eventually he died physically. Dying, he died. So God said, in the day you do
that, you'll die. And he did. God's promise held
true. In Genesis 6, the Lord looked
down on all men. And he saw that they were only
evil continually. Every thought of the imagination
of his heart was only evil continually. So the Lord said, I'm going to
destroy man with a flood. And he did. That was a promise. And he fulfilled his promise.
The Lord told Abraham, he said, your seed, that means your children. You know, Abraham had Isaac and
Isaac had Jacob, the children of Jacob, whose name was changed
to Israel, the children of Israel. He said to Abraham, your children
are going to be in bondage for 400 years. And they were to Egypt, just
like God said they'd be. That promise held true. Our Lord
said he hates sin. And he said that he will punish all
sin. And if we want to know if he
will hold true to that promise, all we have to do is look at
the cross of Calvary. That's all we have to do. Just
look at what God the Father did to His own Son. If a man on this earth wants
to know, will God punish me for my sin? Look at God's own precious
Son. Look at His own spotless Son.
Christ the Son who bore the sin of His people, had all of our
sin laid on Him as He stood before God. So every promise of God will
hold true. And what I want us to do now
is just look at a few of his promises and let's see and let's
establish the fact that they are not yay and nay. They are
yay and amen. What he has said, we can count
on it. We can truly count on. Now there
are promises on every page of this book. Again, everything
that he has said is a promise. We're gonna spend our lifetime
looking at promise after promise after promise. And I don't just
mean on this earth in glory too, not one word shall fail. We're
gonna spend our life looking at promise after promise after
promise. For this message though, let's
just look at three. All right, we'll just look at
three promises. We're going to dwell on three
of his promises and let's see if the Lord will convince us
of the fact that they are yay and amen. Here's the first one. Turn with me over to first Timothy
chapter one. First Timothy chapter one. Verse 15, it says, this is a faithful saying. That means this is the truth. You can count on this. This is
a promise from God. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. That means you can believe this, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. That is a promise
from God to us. That's a promise from God. This
is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. I'll tell you who will be able
to cling to that promise. A sinner will. A sinner will. You know, all
men and women are sinners, but they don't know it. They don't
realize it until God reveals it to them. But if God reveals
that to somebody, and they really know, I'm a sinner. I'm just
a sinner. That's the person who will cling
to that promise. Truly cling to that Word. If
you know that you're a sinner, then that's the most beautiful
thing your ears will ever hear. Christ came for sinners. He came
to save sinners. Now I'm just gonna, I'm just
gonna confess something to you. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I am. I know that I am. I would imagine
that's probably shocking to hear somebody stand up in a pulpit
and say, but I know that I'm a sinner. And those of you who
know me well at all, you know that I'm a sinner. You know that
I am. Because of that, honestly, every
time my heart hears 1 Timothy 1 15, I think, thank God. Every time I think that's the
greatest news I've ever heard. Thank God. That's the greatest
news I've ever heard. Greatest news I've ever been
told. Christ came to save sinners. Turn with me over to Luke chapter
5. Luke 5 verse 27. It says, and after these things
he went forth, our Lord went forth, and he saw a publican. Now if you don't know what a
publican is, they're bad. I mean even sinners would look
at publicans and say, yeah, they're bad. After these things he went
forth and saw a publican named Levi. sitting at the receipt
of custom. And he said unto him, follow
me. And he left all rose up and followed
him. And Levi made our Lord a great
feast in his own house. And there was a great company
of publicans. That one publican started calling
other publicans and said, you ought to come to my house. There was a great company of
publicans and of others that sat down with them, but their
scribes and Pharisees, the religious, the self-righteous ones, they
murmured against his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink
with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto
them, they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they
that are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance." You know, I wish that I was righteous
in my flesh like Christ is. Whenever we hear that He didn't
come to call the righteous, it's not that they're It's just that
they're sinners who think they're self-righteous. I wish I had
the righteousness of Christ. I wish I was righteous just like
He is, but me wishing that can't change the fact that I'm not.
A poor man could wish that he was rich, but that wouldn't change
the fact that he's poor. And I can't change the fact that
in my wretched flesh, I'm nothing but a sinner. In my flesh, I'll
never be righteous. But thank God, he said, I did
not come to save the righteous. I came to save you. I came to
save sinners like you. And that's glorious news to me
because that's what I am. And I know that's glorious news
to you because I know you like you know me. You're a sinner
too. Thank God. You know the poet
said, a sinner is a sacred thing. Somebody who knows something
of his sin. A sinner is a sacred thing. The
Holy Ghost has made him so. The Holy Ghost has revealed that
to him. Now you may hear men lie on our God by saying that
his promise that we read there in 1 Timothy 1 and here in Luke,
You may hear men say that it's yay and nay. Men say that all the time. They
stand up in pulpits and they tell people that Christ came
to save sinners. But if you want to be saved,
you better not be one. That's yay and nay. If you're going to be saved,
you better Get rid of your sin. You better. They'll say he didn't come to
call the righteous, but if you're going to be saved, you better
make yourself to be righteous. What? Is that both? Is that yay and
nay? God's promise on this is yay
and amen. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners. And the Apostle Paul said, I'm
so glad that he did because I'm the chief. So that's our first
promise. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. All right, here's the second
promise. Go with me to John 19. John 19, verse 30. When Jesus, therefore, had received
the vinegar, He said, It is finished. And He bowed His
head and gave up the ghost. Jesus Christ came into this world
to save sinners and it is finished. This is a promise from God that
is yes and yes. Yes and so be it, not yes and
no. Yay and amen. Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners and it is finished. The message of error with each
one, let me just point out the lie, okay, the error. He said,
do not let it be a yay and nay. And the error, the message of
lies that men will stand up in pulpits and say is this, they'll
say now Christ saved you, but you're going to have to save
yourself. Wait a minute. What? They say Christ died to put away
your sins. but now you're gonna have to
put away your sins too. You're gonna have to do something
about your sin. Christ died to do something about your sin,
but now you're gonna have to do something about your sin. Well, did he save me or not? Did he save me or not? Well,
they say yes and no. That's what they say, yay and
nay. He did, oh yes, now he did, but the work is not finished
yet." Well, if that's the case, then
He didn't save me. But thank God that's not the
case. Christ saved His people from their sins. And that's yea and amen. He took
all of the sin away from His people. I just hope we can get
a hold of that. We are sinners, and we're going
to sin until the day we leave this earth, and Christ has already
taken our sin. He took the past sins, the current
sins, and the future sins, and He laid them on Himself. I don't
know how old I'll live to be, but if I live to be another 10,
20, 30 years, I don't know. I'm going to be a sinner for
the next 10, 20, 30 years. And if I belong to Him, whatever
I commit during that period of time has already been laid on
Him. It's what sent Him to the grave. It's what separated Him from
God. I did. Christ bore it and God dealt
with Him. God punished my sin on Him and
in Him. And it's yay and amen. Christ
poured out His blood to pay for it. And in doing that, He satisfied
everything. And that's, again, why God raised
Him from the dead. He paid the uttermost farthing.
And with Him being raised, God's people are going to be raised
with Him to eternal life. So His death is what brought
pardon and life to His people. And here's the thing, it's finished.
It's finished. Go with me to John 17. John 17
verse 1, it says, These words spake Jesus, and
lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is
come. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son
also may glorify Thee, as Thou hast given Him power over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast
given Him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. Watch verse four. He said, I
have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
Thou gavest me to do. If we want to cling to a promise
from God that's yay and amen, we can cling to this. Christ
Jesus came into this world to save sinners and it is finished. He did it and it's done. Now
let's look at one more promise before we close, all right? Turn
with me to John chapter six. John 6, verse 37, our Lord said, All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. If we truly do see ourselves
to be sinners, if we truly do, then we can rest in the assurance
and the promise of the Word of God. That if we come to Christ
for mercy and for grace to help in time of need, if we come honestly,
and one man made this statement and it's so true. He said, your
sin will never keep you away from Christ. He said, your self-righteousness
will. that lie that I'm worthy, but
if we come honestly, sincerely, acknowledging what we are, then He will in no wise cast
us out. You want to talk about great
news? You want to talk about great news? He said in Matthew 11 verse 28,
come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. That's his promise to us. And
it's yay and amen. Our Lord said in Matthew five,
where we were, he said, it's a sin against God to go back
on your promise. Even just one promise, it's a
sin against God to go back on your promise. Christ said, that's
why I'll never do it. In him was no sin. He knew no
sin. And he said, I'll never do it. I'll never fail God or
the law or you in keeping one of my promises. And based on
his own word, he said, here are my promises. I came to save sinners. It is finished. And now you can
come to me and rest. That's wonderful, wonderful promises. And there's so many more where
that came from. All right, Brother Eddie, you come and lead us.