Verse 2 of 1 Corinthians 15 says,
by which, and since that's a pronoun, which, what's it referring to? Well, he's speaking of the gospel,
because in verse 1 he says, I declare unto you the gospel, by which
also ye are saved. Now, tonight's message is entitled,
Are You Saved or Have You Been Saved? And that may be a strange
question to put to a group of people such as this, a small
group, as the world would consider it, an utterly insignificant
group. And you've met together on a
Wednesday night, which means you've given up what is normally
set aside in the American schedule as the time of relaxation. You've
come together to worship. So why would you ask a group
like that? Have you been saved? Well, one reason is this. You'll
notice in our text, I said, by which or by this gospel also
ye are saved, but read what comes after this in verse two. If ye
keep in memory or hold fast what I preached unto you, unless ye
have believed in vain. Now this sounds strange to us
of sovereign grace persuasion. We believe one of the doctrines
is the perseverance of the saints, or the more popular way to express
that, once saved, always saved. And yet the scriptures never
do tell us that simply because a person makes a profession of
faith that he is truly a believer. For many have professed faith,
And maybe, humanly speaking, sincerely so. I mean, they, for
a while, receive the Word with joy. But something happens along
the way, and they stop. And I've seen people go many
years and then stop. Now we aren't surprised when
someone gets all excited and for three, four, five months
they're at church all the time and seem so excited and taken
up with it, but then they start to falter and then it's less
and less and then you see them once in a while and then suddenly
realize I haven't seen them in about a year. We understand that
pattern. But what about the pattern if
somebody stays 20 years and then disappears? It happens. And so to a group like this,
it is perfectly legitimate to ask, have you ever been saved?
Not only that, the scriptures teach us that even among those
whom you would expect to be saved, expect to be among God's chosen
people, only a remnant would be saved. It says that of Israel.
And I'll guarantee you, virtually everyone in Israel considered
they were saved. I mean, I don't know if that's
the terminology they used, but they believed that they were
in God's favor. They believed that all was well with him. They
believed that they were believers. And yet it says, nevertheless,
a remnant shall be saved. And we know that the remnant
is the lesser part. If you get a bolt of cloth and cut one yard
off of it, you don't say that what's left on the bolt is the
remnant. It's not a remnant until you've pretty well used up. You
say, well, nobody's going to want what's left on here. Throw
that in the remnant pile. Maybe somebody can make rags
out of it. A remnant, even among those whom you would expect,
are truthfully within the group of the redeemed. We need to consider a question
like this because of its great importance. We're talking about
matters of our souls. Now, we constantly check on our
health. We go to the doctor, we get physicals.
When we don't feel bad, we'll go to the doctor, get a physical
to make sure there's not something going on that we just haven't
experienced any symptoms of it yet. And if anything does go
wrong, we rush over there, we want it to be set right. Well,
if we do that for our bodies, how much more should we give
ourselves? Well, they're not physical, maybe
we should call them spirituals. You need to go get a spiritual. Make
sure that things are as they need to be. But also this, and
here's another reason this is such an important question to
address to a group like this, because many who do believe live
in fearful doubts, for many preachers, even well-meaning preachers,
clutter the gospel so much that people are left questioning whether
or not God has ever saved them. They describe salvation experiences
in such dramatic terms, and someone thinks to themselves, nothing
that dramatic ever happened to me. Maybe I've never been saved. They talk about their own repentance. And I can tell you as one who's
preached now for nearly 40 years, we who preach can get overly
traumatic in the way we describe things that happened to us. We
make more notable stories out of them than what really happened.
And people hear that and they think, I don't ever remember
feeling that bad about sin. I don't ever remember feeling
that lost. or whatever, or they read some
of the old writers who like to be equally dramatic. And so we
need to look at the scriptures and determine from them this
question. Even John Newton said, "'Tis
a point I long to know, and often it gives me anxious thought.
Do I love the Lord or no? Am I His or am I not?" And so
it's good to ask the question, have I ever been saved? Now,
the fact that we have this question does not mean that doubt is a
necessary part of faith. At least, it's not theoretically.
I mean, our Lord rebuked the disciples for doubt, but He rebuked
them this way. He said, O ye of little faith,
why did you doubt? He didn't say you of no faith.
There were people, well, the devil's clever at this. He will
take our doubts and use them to convince us that we don't
believe at all. Because surely if you believe, you don't doubt.
No, the only people who don't doubt are unbelievers. Believers
doubt because they are of two natures, one which believes and
another which does not. And that conflict comes together,
it gets mixed together and just basically doubt. But there is
nothing intrinsic to the gospel to give us a reason to doubt.
Now, in the religion that dominates the area I came from, or at least
one of the churches of it, and it's the church that most of
the folks in our church came out of, but they made a virtue
out of doubt. They said things like, they would
actually say things like, well, I believe the gospel, but I don't
know if I'm saved. And the first time I went to preach to them,
way back in December of 1986, I was in the home of the people
that were hosting me that weekend, and we were talking after the
evening service, and I realized that the things he was saying
didn't make any sense unless you assume that about half of
the people that were trying to start this church didn't even
claim to be saved. And I'm thinking, you know, where
I come from, everybody's been saved, some of them two and three
times. So how come out of a group of 15 people trying to start
a church, seven of them don't even claim to be saved. And so I asked the guy, I said,
well, are you saying you're not saved? He said, well, you know,
I don't want to presume. And I was just going to take
him back. And I said, it's never presumption to believe God. It's just unbelief
not to. And there's no way to put a virtuous
label on unbelief. Unbelief is calling God a liar. But people do make a virtue out
of it. They think that it somehow sets
forth their humility. What doubts actually do and what
this whole idea of I can believe and still be lost, what it does,
it insults God. It insults God on the clarity
of His promises. God has made some promises. And
despite what many preachers do with these promises, they are
clear and simple. They were designed to call specifically
those who, according to the wisdom of this world, ain't got much.
Our Lord said that God's not called many wise. He's not chosen
many that are able to delve into deep philosophical questions. His elect. Well, like someone,
one preacher I heard, he said, it's kind of an insult to be
the elect of God. Not many wise, not many noble, not many significant. So we would expect that the gospel
would be designed that the unwise, the uneducated would be able
to perceive it. You see, our problem in knowing
the gospel is not an intellectual one. Because the gospel is not
particularly intellectual. A child can understand the doctrine
of it. Our problem with knowing the
gospel in a saving way is a spiritual problem. The natural mind does
not receive the things of the Spirit of God. He can pass a
theology exam, but he can't believe that that's really the way it
is. So we insult the clarity of God's
promises if we say, well, I believe the gospel, but I'm not sure
that I'm saved. Secondly, we insult the sincerity of His promises,
the truthfulness of them. You know, we are such liars that
if we're going to give testimony on anything serious, they require
us to swear. Because if we don't swear, we'll
figure we'll say whatever we want and get away with it. Now
if somebody, you know, just giving you a weather report for tomorrow,
you don't make them swear on it because it's not that important.
But if they say, I guarantee you, you give me $10,000 by the
end of the year, I can turn it into $100,000 for you. They say,
you guarantee it? Yeah, I guarantee it. You swear
to that? Why? Well, because we know he's got
something to gain by lying. He's going to keep your money.
And we just don't trust him. Our Lord said, let your yea be
yea and your nay be nay. And what we're saying is, you
ought to have such a reputation of being honest, nobody would
ask you to swear. Because they believe your word.
You know what God did? And here's the condescension
of God. He spoke in the language of liars. He spoke like liars
have to. He swore an oath to back up his
promise. Now it should be that God says
something and we just believe it outright. We should never
question what he says, the sincerity of it. But because we're such
liars, we won't believe anybody, not even God. unless he swore
by himself, which you know what that means? He's saying, if I
don't make good on this promise, I quit being God. I'm no longer
God. He swore by, so that we liars
could be sure of the promise. So we dare not insult the sincerity
of God's promises. And I make this point right here,
that when it comes to faith, at issue is the promises, not
the purposes. So what do you mean by that?
One of the reasons this particular church that most of our folks
came out of, why they have this idea you can believe the gospel
and not be saved, they said, because I don't know if I'm one
of the elect. God never told you to ask that question. Being
the elect is not your business. That's God's business. It's written
there so that we'll know it's so, but that belongs to God's
eternal reality, and we're not a part of that reality. We live
in space and time. We live in the realm of cause
and effect. And it is written, all that the
Father gives to me will come to me. Now, what response are
we going to make to that? There is no response to make
to that, except to believe that it's so. I mean, that doesn't
move us to any action, does it? But what do you follow that up
with? He that comes to me I will in no wise cast out. That's a
promise. That's what we act on. And we
don't sit around and try to figure out whether the Father ever gave
us to Christ before we come to Him. We just look at the promise,
He that comes to me I will in no wise cast out. We lay hold
of it with both arms and we come to Him and we find out just exactly
as He said, we'll not be cast out. And so let us not insult
the clarity or the sincerity of the promises. To make a virtue
out of doubt is to present God as a cruel and uncaring person
about the concerns of sincere hearts. Now, I know that naturally
no man's sincere, but really we don't have to go through all
these theological gymnastics to explain what we mean. If a
man is seeking God, he's seeking Him sincerely. Now, he can be
insincerely religious. But if man truly wants God's
salvation, and these people claim they do, and they're seeking
it, and they've asked for it, and they present God like some
kind of genie, you know how a genie, how they are, no matter what
you ask them, they find some way to twist your question to
where it comes out bad for you. You know the old joke about a
guy going across the desert starving to death and he comes on a genie
bottle, he rubbed it, genie comes out and said, look, I'm tired,
I'm old, genie, got one wish left, what do you want? The guy
says, make me a ham sandwich. And the genie says, okay, you're
a ham sandwich. God's not like that. He's not
listening to your words anyway. He's looking at your heart. And
God is not uncaring about those who care about their souls and
are seeking His face. He does not hide from those who
truly seek Him. And He does not play games with
their requests. Now, I'm not rebuking doubters
with the purpose of trying to make them feel worse than they
already do. I'm just rebuking those who try
to make a virtue out of doubt. I've heard so many preachers,
and I know exactly why they do it. They make the gospel difficult. Because if it's not difficult,
they can't take any glory in knowing it. If it's not complex,
what good is a THD in pure simplicity? They've got to make it complex,
and also it's a way to rule over men's consciences. They can even
make the doctrine of free and sovereign grace into a theological
legalism and bind people with it. Well, what do I mean by saved?
Well, there's an eternal aspect to our salvation. You say, what
do you mean by that? Well, God is an eternal being.
Everything he does has an eternal aspect to it. Because eternity
is where he dwells. And understand eternity, I've
heard people talk about old eternity and eternity future. There is
no such thing. Because eternity is simply timelessness. What
we call history, what we call the flow of time is kind of like
a bubble floating around in this timelessness of God's eternity.
Time is of no significance to God. He created it for us. Like someone said, God created
time so that everything wouldn't happen at once. You know, well,
things happen in progression here. But there is an eternal
aspect to it. We were chosen in eternity. Christ
was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, so we were redeemed
in eternity. The Bible talks about those that God predestinated. He called as though it's a done
deal. He glorified it's a done deal.
It is in God's reality. It's all done. I kind of believe
that that's what our Lord meant when He said, Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I don't think
He's praying to His Father that people on earth would start freely
willing the will of God and doing the right thing like they do
it in heaven. Say why? Because they don't always do
the right thing in heaven. Remember the devil goes there. And the
word that's translated done there is a word that's talking about
the reality of things. You can translate it, thy kingdom
come, thy will be realized on earth as it is in heaven. And
what we experience and what we see as history is merely eternity's
finished business invading our experience. That's all it is.
Those things which God determined to come, well, we might put it
this way, those things that God did in eternity but determined
they'd also come to pass in time. And God and the Lord Jesus Christ,
as near as I can tell, is teaching us to pray. Father, what you
have ordained, make happen. What you've already done up there,
so to speak, make it real where we are. And then there is a sense in
which all believers are presently being saved. Now in the freewillism
I came out of, and I really don't know what you all were when you
were, I know you've been in Sovereign Grace for a long time, so maybe
you don't even remember what you were before. But I was raised
in freewillism. They talk about, well, he got
saved. And they look at that as just a point in time, they
got saved. Well, even the scriptures will
speak in those terms. Not to say got saved, that's
really not good grammar. The idea that there is a point
in time which we might say, at that point, God saved me. But
what happens at that point is not all there is to salvation. And for that I'm very thankful.
Now I'm glad I know God, or as Paul said, even more importantly,
that God knows me. I'm glad He revealed His Son
to me. I hope this isn't all there is to that stuff. There's
more to come. There's at least another page
or two here that God's going to do. That's why it's written,
he that began a good work in you will perfect it until the
day of Christ. And so what we're talking about
when we ask this question, have you been saved? What we're actually
saying, has God begun a good work in you? We know he hadn't finished it. We hope for more things than
what we have. We hope not only to be righteous
by means of an imputed righteousness, we hope in time to come to be
both body and soul, body and spirit, to be righteous. We want
to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, body and soul. We love to meet like this, don't
we? Because we have the promise where two or three are gathered
in His name, there He is, we love that. But we want something
more than this. We want to meet together and
see His face. So that's why I say, He's not done.
He's just gotten started. And if He started, He ain't gonna
quit until it's all over and finished up. And so what we're
asking is, have I been born again? That's another way to put it.
Has Christ been revealed to me? Have I come to know that I'm
a sinner in need of Christ, or a sinner in need of a Savior?
Have I been taught that Jesus Christ is the Savior I need?
And have I asked God for His salvation? Now those are the
three questions, those last three questions I asked. Those are
the three questions that I believe, answer them honestly. and you
will know whether or not God has begun a good work in you. So the one question, have I been
saved or has God begun this work in me? Because if God's begun
it, he's gonna finish it. We answer that one big question
by these three. Here's the first one. Have I
seen myself as a sinner in need of a savior? Now, there is nothing wrong with
us opening these scriptures and trying to see exactly how the
scriptures define us as sinners. But I know what some people do
with that. And once again, I can refer to that church that most
of my folks came out of. Part of their catechism speaks
of the great blessedness of knowing how great your sins and miseries
are. That is not a blessing in and
of itself. Knowing how bad you are is not a blessing unless
it leads you to, or drives you to Christ. And quite frankly,
there's not a person in the world that knows how great his sin
is. There's only one man in glory
that knows how great our sins are, and that's the main Christ,
Jesus. And the only others who know anything of their own sin
are those in hell. Well, they know their miseries.
I'm convinced they don't know their sin. They're still convinced
that there's been a miscarriage of justice. They should be in
heaven. It's my belief that everybody,
in the end, is going to be surprised. Everybody in hell is going to
say, I don't deserve to be here. And everybody in heaven is going to say, I
don't deserve to be here. When it comes to knowing our
sin, all we need to know is that we're a sinner enough to need
a Savior. The Scriptures nowhere say that
we have to go through any extended period of feeling miserable about
our sins. You know that thief on the cross,
how long did he spend repenting? Evidently not very long. for
he directed his attention to Christ. He was nothing but a
criminal, they crucified him. On the cross, he's cursing Christ,
because the scriptures say actually both of the thieves cast the
same things in his face, in Christ's face. But then God did something
for one of those thieves that he didn't do for the other. And
in a moment's time, that man realized, I'm a sinner in need
of a Savior, and that man's the Savior I need. You say, how in
the world did he figure that out? He didn't. It's a miracle. Not even the disciples understood
what that thief did. Have I seen myself as a sinner
in need of a Savior? Have I realized that I am indeed
a sinner? Now, it is good to learn that
theological truth that we are sinners because of what Adam
did. It's good to learn that theological truth that we are
by nature sinners and that's why we sin. But brethren, faith
is not a theology exam. For lack of a better way to put
it, philosophically, it's a very existential thing. It's a very
in the moment thing. And it's me knowing that I'm
a sinner because here I am, I commit sins. I do this stuff. I can't deny it. To learn something
of the holiness of God, it only takes one sin to merit an everlasting
condemnation from Him. Do I know I'm a sinner in need
of a savior? Do I understand that I am such
a sinner that if somebody doesn't do something for me, I will be
punished eternally? And that's not just the rules
of the game. I deserve it. And I deserve it parts the hard
part. I don't even think that I feel
that way very much. I say it because I realize that's
what we're supposed to say. I deserve to go to hell. I guarantee
if we stood before the Lord and He told us that we were condemned
to everlasting torment, we would begin to argue with Him. But there are times when we do
understand, yes, hell may have been made for the devil and his
angels, but I sinned just as much as they did. and I deserve
to be where they will be. So have I seen myself as a sinner
in need of a Savior? Do I see myself as one worthy
of eternal punishment? And you know, without having
to search your heart, whether you believe that. Like I said,
it's an existential thing. It's right there. In fact, I
was thinking about this before the service. You know, people
think that the Well, even like John Newton says, "'Tis a point
I long to know, and oft it gives me anxious thought, do I love
the Lord or not?" Wait a minute, you know. Now, I realize we get
ourselves tied up in these things, but you know whether or not you
love the Lord. And you know whether or not you think you're a sinner.
Just like if I asked you, if I made some statement about our
present president, good or bad, you'd know that fast what you
thought of my statement. You and I say, well, I'm gonna
search my heart and see whether or not I agree with that. And you know
whether or not you agree with, I am a sinner in need of a savior. Second question, do I believe
that Jesus is the savior that I need? Now, to know your need
is one thing, to know the supply is another. To have the right
question, that's good, but to have the right answer is even
better. Now, going back to 1 Corinthians 15 verse 2, excuse me, verse
3, Paul goes on and says, For I delivered unto you first of
all, or it could be translated as of first importance, that
which I also received. Paul said over and over again,
this gospel he preached is not something he made up, it was
given to him. how that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried and He rose
again the third day according to the Scriptures. Now here is
just a statement of the bare history of the simple, or excuse
me, the central aspect of the Gospel. Now, when it says Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures, that's pretty
much meaningless without the truth of what he was before him
that made him a suitable sacrifice. But still, here's how Paul describes
it. He just says Christ died. Why? Because he's keeping it
simple. Christ died. Why did he die? Because the wages
of sin is death. And if the only way that I'm
going to be able to escape the punishment due to my sin is for
someone else to bear my sin, and if someone else bears my
sin, they must pay for it. And the payment for sin is death.
Now that's pretty simple stuff. Anybody understand that kind
of thing? I mean, if you owe a debt, the
only way you're going to get out from under it if it's paid,
is if it's paid. And if you can't pay it, the
only way it's ever going to get paid is if somebody else pays
it. So the debt has to become their debt and then they make
the payment on it and pay it off and you're set free. Like I said, you don't have to
get complicated with this business. So he says Christ died, and why
is that a testimony to me that he's the kind of Savior that
I need? Because dying's what I needed
to be saved from. Death passed upon all men. Death
passed upon me. Not only because of Adam's sin,
though it did pass on me on account of that, but if Adam had never
sinned, I did, and death would have passed on me on that account.
I owe death. And Christ paid death. The very
thing, the very charge laid on me is what Christ paid. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to
the world and they said, you will call his name Jesus, which
means Jehovah is salvation. You will call his name Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins. And the only way
to do it is what's mentioned right here. Christ died for our
sins. He didn't have any sins of his
own to die for. But he bore our sins in his body
on the tree as a sacrifice. But wait, there's more. That
he was buried, and that was testimony he did really die. And that he rose again the third
day. Now why is that? Just to prove
he could do miraculous things? No. It was to prove that the Father
accepted his payment. The resurrection is the canceled
check. I know we don't write many paper
checks these days. But you know, it used to be you'd
write that check, the one you wrote it to would endorse it.
And it still didn't mean anything until the bank. It went through
the bank. The bank accepted it as payment. The funds were transferred.
Everything's done. You get back the canceled check.
If anybody else, if the person you gave the check to, say you
bought some groceries over at Walmart, and Walmart says, hey,
you never paid for those groceries. And you say, yes, I did. Here's
the canceled check. Now, you know, when I was raised in free
willism, they used to say that the check was written, you know,
Jesus Christ signed it. It's kind of a blank check you
got to write your name in. The gospel is not a blank check. It's a
canceled check. Jesus Christ is the Savior I
need because He did the kind of saving that I needed done. Now, here's the third thing.
And when I preached this the other day at our church, I preached
When I got to these three questions, I told the parents, I said, poke
your kids if they're asleep. I want them to get this, because
children need to understand these things, and they can. They can. Children are sinners just like
we are, like we adults. They may not have borne as much
sinful fruit, but the roots there, the genetics are there for it.
It's going to happen. They need to know they're sinners. They
need to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior they need. But
here's one thing that so many people miss. Have I ever asked
God to save me? The Bible nowhere says he that
believes he's a sinner in need of a savior shall be saved. The
Bible never says he that believes that Jesus is the savior he needs
shall be saved. It says whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There are a lot of theological
Christians I fear. Sometimes I fear there's a lot
of them in the sovereign grace churches. Theological believers. And they have never really just
plain asked God to save them. Bartimaeus knew he was poor.
And Bartimaeus knew that Jesus could do something about it.
And that didn't move him to just sit there while Jesus went by.
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And the Lord stopped and
said, what do you want? Well, I can see, okay. He asked. Never let any preacher, no matter
how faithful he may be in other things, never let any preacher
give you the idea that there is something more to asking than
asking. That there's something more to
calling upon the name of the Lord than calling upon the name
of the Lord. Don't let anybody muddle it up,
complicate it, make it hard, because it's not. Are you a sinner? Do you know that? A sinner bad
enough to need a Savior? Say, well, yeah, I'm one of those.
Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the kind of Savior you need?
Yeah, I believe that. Have you ever asked Him to save
you? Yes, I did. and on the authority of the word
of God. God's begun a good work in you. You'd have never done
those things without that work. You'd have never seen yourself
as a sinner in need of a savior. You'd have never understood Christ
as the kind of savior you need. And you'd have never called on
him. You'd have gone to church. You'd have read your Bible. You'd
have prayed this. You'd have prayed that. You'd
have done this. You'd have done that. You'd have done anything but
simply ask God to save you. So, has God ever saved you? Probably
right now, you know. And if the conviction of your
heart at this time is, you know, really, I don't think I have
been saved. Preacher, what should I do? Call
upon the name of the Lord. Act on His promise. Because God's
promises are clear, simple, sincere, trustworthy. He that puts his
trust will never be humiliated. You know, we've put our trust
in a lot of things. Every four years, we do. Some guy convinces
us to put our trust in him for the country, and you know, every
one of them humiliates us one way or another. We go out on
election day, yeah, I voted for so-and-so, and it doesn't take
long. Yeah, I voted for him. And then, no, never mind. I ain't
talking about that no more. Nobody that trusts in Christ,
that calls upon his name for salvation, shall in that day
be like those who are shocked to hear the Lord say, depart
from me, I never knew you.