Preaching should always have
a sense of urgency about it. And I feel the burden of that
urgency this morning. And I do hope that the Lord will
enable me to preach a message to you that will strike your
heart with its urgency and move you to take action. You see,
preaching is not religious entertainment for the gratification of our
fleshly religious inclinations. It's not a performance. It is
not merely the transference of information from one person to
another, though it does involve that. Preaching is not merely
the moving of the emotions, the stirring of the affections, though
we certainly would hope that a person's heart would be moved,
his emotions stirred up by what he hears. Preaching is the delivery
of a message and that from God. That is preaching. is the act
of delivering God's message to men. It is a message from our
Creator, and that should interest us. Preaching is a message from
our Judge, who holds our eternal destiny in His hands. Don't you
think that makes it kind of important? Preaching is a message from the
King, and it merits our attention and response. What does that
say of most of the popular preaching of our day? There's so little
urgency in it. There's so little seriousness
in it. It's all wrapped up with the things of this life. Let
us never go to worship, whether as the preacher or as the listener,
with the attitude that we're doing something light or frivolous,
that we're going to merely perform some religious duty. Let us never
preach nor hear as though our souls are not hanging in the
balance of God's truth. If the preacher tells us the
truth, our souls are responsible to that truth. And if he does
not tell us the truth, then our souls have been deceived and
led astray into that which will bring us destruction. Oh, how
important preaching is! It's a shame and a sham what
has become of so-called gospel preaching. It has become nothing
more than religious entertainment. I think it's good when the preaching
of God's truth is a joy to those who hear. But when entertainment
becomes our goal, when that's what we're aiming for, making
people feel good, making people enjoy the worship service, If
that becomes our goal, then it will not be long until the truth
must take a back seat if it's allowed in at all. The scriptures
say, buy the truth and sell it not. Are you interested in the
truth? I don't just mean true things.
I mean the truth. I hear people say, well, such
and such a preacher says some good things. Well, I'm glad he
does, but I don't need just some good things. I need the truth
of God. How about you? Now, the message
I want to bring to you this morning has such an urgency to it. And
I do hope God will help me, help me to preach and help you to
hear. It says in Hebrews 7, verse 25, therefore, he is able to
say to the uttermost those who come to God by him. Of course,
it's speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, our high priest, and
it's telling us that there is salvation in him for all who
come to God through him. Now let's first note an inescapable
experience for every one of us, and that is that we shall come
to God. Someday, sometime, you, you personally,
you alone, you individually, shall stand before God, and the
scriptures say there shall be a search made for your sin. Now how will you fare in that
day? You are coming to God. That's
unavoidable. Most people try to put that out
of their minds. But if you knew that today, At
such and such a time, you were going to meet God face to face. What would you think of gospel
preaching then? How serious would it be to you
then? How much would you be concerned that whatever preacher you're
going to listen to this morning would be telling you the truth
about how you can come into the presence of God safely? See,
you will come into the presence of God. That can't be changed.
You will come before Him and be examined. That can't be changed. What we must know, what you and
I must discover before that time is how we can come before God
and be examined and it not result in our eternal destruction, our
eternal condemnation. We shall come before Him. Notice here though the subject
that's addressed. salvation. Now, we hear that
word salvation and we immediately get religious about it. We think
of religious ideas of salvation. Well, let me tell you what salvation
really amounts to. The word simply means a rescue. Now, what does a rescue indicate? It indicates somebody in trouble.
and that somebody remedies that trouble. Now, that's what a rescue
is. You might get lost. Well, a rescuer is someone who
can find you and bring you back home. You might be in the pool
going under, and you're gonna drown, and there's nothing you
can do about it. Your strength is gone. You're
unconscious, floating in the water. What do you need? You
need a rescuer, somebody to come out there where you are and bring
you back to the side of the pool, put you up, on the concrete there
and breathe life back into you. You need a rescuer. And that's
the kind of thing that's spoken to us of here. Salvation. A rescue. Now God is operating under the
impression that you need saving. Now you think about that. God
believes that you need to be saved. Now, how do I know that?
Well, I know that by this. He devised a means of salvation
and sent a Savior to implement that salvation. God doesn't waste
His efforts. He does not provide that which
is not needed. He does not set forth a plan
which is not necessary, nor would He send His Son into the world
to be a Savior if it were not that the world needs a Savior.
Now, if you're part of the world, and you are, and I am, that means
you and I, we need a Savior. Now what's this salvation that
you and I need? Well, it is salvation from sin. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world, It was said that his name would be Jesus because
he would save his people from their sin. Now, I do not need
salvation from low self-esteem. I don't need salvation from unhappiness
or an unsuccessful life. My problem is much greater than
all of this. You know, Satan has worked his
deceptions with such subtlety in the way he has introduced
new definitions of what salvation is. How often have I read people
talking about surrendering your life to God? Friends, that's
not what salvation's about. Salvation is not about God coming
into your life. God's already in your life. God
has already ordained your life. He ordained when you'll be born,
He ordained when you'll die, and He ordained everything that
happens from the beginning of it to the end of it. He's in
it already. We don't need God to improve
our life or to change our life. The Lord Jesus said He came that
His people might have life. And He wouldn't come for them
to have life if it weren't that they didn't have life. We need
a life that we don't have. You see, sin has destroyed me. Adam's sin has brought me into
condemnation. My nature, which is a sinful
nature, has made it so that I can't do anything but sin. And my transgressions,
have come before God and brought me rightly under His condemnation."
You see, the religious message of our day is treating symptoms,
not diseases. They're acting like a doctor
who a patient presents himself to the doctor and the doctor
said, what's wrong? And the patient says, I'm having some headaches.
So the doctor says, well, here's some pain medicine. And so they
go out and they take the pain medicine and sure enough, they
don't feel so bad. But as time goes by, the headaches
come back. And so the patient goes back
and the doctor says, well, you need some stronger pain medication.
And they keep making the medication stronger and stronger. And finally,
it comes to the point that the pain is so great, the medicine
will not put the pain away. And they take a picture of the
man's head and they find out there's a cancerous tumor in
his brain and it's too late to do anything about it. That's
what religion is doing. Is that what you're following?
Are you merely finding a way to put away your pain, your emotional
pain? Friends, that's not your problem.
Sin's the problem. We gotta find a way to take care
of sin. Sin has condemned me, and I need justification. Sin
has killed me, and I need life. Sin has corrupted me, I need
righteousness. Sin has alienated me from God,
I need reconciliation. Sin has deceived me, I need truth,
and so do you. Do you see then how urgent preaching
is? How urgent it is that we hear
the truth and act upon it? Now this salvation that's set
forth here is salvation to the uttermost. I don't need God to
start something for me to finish, nor do I need God to finish something
that I have started. I need a salvation that goes
from the beginning of the work to the end of the work and everything
in between. I need salvation to the uttermost. I love the Greek word that's
behind this word, uttermost, because it combines two Greek
words, the word for all and the word for complete or accomplished
or perfected. It says he is able to save to
all perfection, all completion, them that come to God by him.
The salvation spoken of here does not merely transfer my eternal
destiny from hell to heaven. It doesn't simply declare me
righteous, though it does that. It does not simply declare me
righteous, but God's salvation will make me righteous. It not
only forgives my rebellion, it reconciles my heart to God. It
does not merely pass over my corrupt nature. It makes me like
Christ himself. That's the kind of salvation
I need. Now let me enter this in right now. I realize that
that means that salvation is not yet being completed in me. But the scriptures say that he
that began a good work in you will bring it to perfection until
the day of Christ. I'm looking for a salvation that
does some things right now, and yet in the future will do even
more. That's a salvation you and I
need. Well, here's a glorious Savior to accomplish that salvation. You and I are unable to perform
the things necessary for our salvation, and God the Judge
is unwilling to do it. We're unable. He's unwilling.
but God our Savior is both willing and able to do it. And God our
Savior is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. By one act,
He has proven His willingness to save and His ability to save,
the act of the cross. He entered in once into the holy
place not made by hands, and He obtained eternal redemption
for His people through the offering of Himself to God. He bore our
sins in His body on the tree, says the apostle. Now, if indeed
he bore my sins in his body on the tree, I will not bear them
in the presence of God. If God, the judge, has laid my
sins upon Christ and punished my sins there, he will not lay
those sins upon me and punish them. You see, God is not unjust. He will not let the guilty go
free, nor will he let the innocent be punished. And Jesus Christ
was made guilty with the sins of God's elect. And God did not
let him go free. God punished him. But Christ
did what we could never do. He survived that punishment.
He survived death. I know that sounds contradictory,
but that's what happened. He rose from the grave, indicating
that he had put away the sins that he bore. And now he is at
God's right hand. accepted, approved, and the promise
goes this way, everyone that comes to God through him shall
be saved. They must actually come. It's
not enough to go to church. It's not enough to go to the
preacher. It's not enough to go to confession or go to this religious
ceremony or that religious ceremony. It says we must go to Christ.
and we need no one other than Christ and dare not go to anyone
other than the Lord Jesus Christ to find our salvation. And here
it is, if we go to God through Him, we shall be saved. We will
go to God, but if we go to God by any other road than Jesus
Christ, we will be condemned. But if we go by Christ, we shall
be saved. Oh God, add His blessing to this
message. I hope it's been plain to you.
I hope it stirs up your heart indeed, and not only stirs it
up emotionally, but stirs you up to take this action, to go
to God through Christ and find His salvation.