I want to bring the message this
afternoon out of Psalm 37. I titled this message, and this title came to me as
I was thinking of Ed and the gospel he believed and so faithfully
supported here for years. Faithfully supported it. So I
titled it The Gospel Ed Parker Believed. I couldn't think of
any more fitting sermon to bring than the gospel that he believed. The secondary title of it is
The Salvation of the Righteous is of the Lord. Probably a year ago, Ed talked
to me about doing his funeral. And he says that when the Lord
takes me home, He said, I don't want you to talk about me. He
said, no, I want you to talk about my Lord. I want you to
preach the gospel that we preach here every week. That's what
he wanted. So I'm going to honor his request. Our Lord has reached into this
flock here at Bethel once again, and He's taken one of His sheep
home. And as I said, our sorrow is
mingled with joy. There is a real joy in the midst
of this sorrow, is that we know that our brother is well. We
know that. I'm confident of that. I'm as
confident of that as I'm standing here. You know, our Lord said
this in John 14.3, And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you unto Myself. that where I
am, there you may be also. If I go and prepare a place for
you, I'm coming to get you. I'm gonna take you to that place,
that place that you and I can't even begin to imagine. We can't
even begin to enter into our imagination, that place where
God dwells. God dwells, it's called paradise. And we know this, we know that our times are in
His hand. Until He comes to take us to
that place, we have a time to be born, we have a time to die. I mean to the second. And we
have a way to die. God has determined our time.
and the means by which He will bring us home, take us out of
this world. God has left nothing, zero, to
chance. He leaves nothing to chance.
He has ordered this. This is ordered. It's appointed
unto me and wants to die. This is His appointment. And
we have an appointment also. Now, I want to give you The gospel
Ed believed, and it's summed up in this statement, the salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord. Now, when we talk about salvation,
we must start with God. We don't start with the fall
and then go to God. We start with God Almighty. That's
who we start with in all things. The salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord in its planning and its purpose. No accidents
with God. No chance. No such thing as chance
or luck at all. Those whom God saves, He purposed
to save them before the creation of the world. God has purposed the end from
the beginning. Listen to this in Isaiah 46.10.
God said He's declaring the end from the beginning And from ancient
times the things that are not yet done say, My counsel shall
stand, My eternal counsel shall stand, and I will do on My pleasure. Our God is a God of order. He
has left nothing that He has not ordered. He has not left
anything for you and I to finish. We don't finish anything. God
is the one who finishes all things. He's the one who finishes our
salvation. When the Lord died on Calvary's
tree, He said, It is finished. He didn't finish His part now.
He finished all of it. His part and my part. He finished
it all. Listen to what David said, Although
my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered our gods a God of order. ordered in all things,
and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my desire." Our God entered into a covenant with
His Son, Jesus Christ. I never even heard of a covenant
until I heard my pastor, Henry Mahan, preaching the gospel,
same gospel as priesthood. I never even heard of a covenant.
But He entered into a covenant with His Son. We know it as a
covenant of grace. He entered into that covenant
with His Son to redeem a people, a multitude of sinners which
no man can number. And our Father gave this multitude
into His hands to redeem, to bring home. In that covenant
of grace, Jesus Christ stands as their surety. Do you know
what that means? He stands as my surety. The surety
of this multitude of sinners. That means He's responsible to
bring them home. He's responsible to pay their
debt. He's responsible for it. He stands as their surety. He
stands as their mediator. Now you and I are not going to
come to God without a mediator. There's got to be someone standing
between me and God. God is holy and I'm not. I need
one to stand there and mediate. I need one to stand there that knows me and that knows
God. And Christ being God and a man,
He can mediate for both parties. Christ is that mediator. There's
only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. In this covenant of grace, He
stands as their high priest. You can't come to God without
a high priest. You know, the Old Testament teaches us this,
that there are some things that you must have before you can
come before God. Sacrifice. the blood, and a high
priest. You can't come apart from these
three things. And we have all that in Jesus
Christ. And this was established in that
covenant of grace. All that I need, I have in Jesus
Christ. I don't need to provide anything.
The Word of God says this, Paul says this in Colossians, in Him
you are complete. I don't bring anything. I don't
produce anything. I'm absolutely complete in Jesus
Christ. God has done it all. He has provided
all of it in His Son. I want you to listen over in John
17. Our Lord said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Son,
that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, as Thou hast given Him
power over all flesh. Christ has power over all things.
You know, you look out here at the world, you think, some think,
it's chaos. It looks like it's just out of
control. No, it's ordered chaos. It's under His control. God's
purpose and God's will is done every day. Listen, He says this in that
verse 2, As thou hast given Him, that is, the Son of God, power
over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given Him. He has power over all flesh. Thy people, it says in Psalm
110, thy people shall be made willing, in the day of thy power."
If He didn't have power over me, I'd never be willing to come
to God. Christ said, you will not come to Me, that you might
have life. Our natural will is not to come
to God. God is light, I'm darkness. God is holy, I'm sin. The natural
will is to go the opposite direction. It says this in John 17.6, I
have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me
out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them to me." When did he do that? Two thousand years ago? Back in eternity. In this covenant
of grace, God handed him over to his son. And he said, bring
him home. Bring him home. Now secondly,
The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord in its execution.
No one assisted our Lord in this matter. The blood of bulls and
goats was not mingled with the blood of Christ. It is written
in Isaiah 63.3, I have trodden the winepress alone, alone. And of the people there was none
with me. Peter said, Lord, you're not
going to die. What happened? He denied him
three times and all of them scattered and ran. The sheep were scattered
when they took the shepherd. They all left him. He came into this world and died
alone. Someone said, No one ever died
as alone as Jesus Christ. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? God came into this world. Now,
I want you to understand this. That man, Jesus Christ, is Almighty
God. In Genesis, it says, God created
the heavens and the earth. That God that created the heavens
and the earth is Jesus Christ. Because in the New Testament
it says, all things were created by Him and for Him. He is that God. And God came
into this world, took upon Himself flesh. God became a man. God
became a man. And as a man, he worked out a
righteousness, a righteousness for his people, all these sinners.
He worked out a righteousness for them. He went to the cross
and died in their place under the curse of the law. That's
what happened at Calvary. Calvary is not a rescue attempt
on the human race. It's God Almighty in human flesh
dying that He might justify a multitude of sinners. and bring them home. Because for God to be God and
God to be just, He can't just forgive me. Sins have got to
be atoned for. My sins have got to be paid for.
And God Almighty in human flesh went to the cross and paid for
my sins. That's the gospel Ed believed.
That's the gospel. He died in our place under the
curse of the law, buried, rose again for our justification,
that's what it says in Romans chapter 4. And now He intercedes
for them at God's right hand. The God-man sits at God's right
hand interceding for us. He intercedes for us. Who are
these sinners? You say, well, everybody's a
sinner. Well, just go down to the local jail, see if you can
drag one up here. You won't find one. It takes
God, it takes God Almighty to bring a man or a woman to the
place where they say guilty without making an excuse. Remember in
the garden, when God came in the garden, walking in the cool
of the day, and He said, Adam, where are you? And he hid himself,
and then, to make a long story short, Adam said, God, the woman
you gave me, She made me do it. It's her fault. And ultimately
God, it's your fault for giving her to me. He's blaming God for
that. So when God saves a sinner, that
sinner makes no excuse no more. Guilty. I'm guilty. In my heart, I'm telling you
what, in my heart is a cesspool of sin. It's nothing but a cesspool
going on in here. And in this matter of reconciliation
and peace with God, the Lord Jesus Christ reconciled me to
God. The Lord Jesus Christ reconciled
Ed to God. Ed didn't make peace with God.
Jesus Christ made peace with God on His behalf. He made peace
with God. I can't do that. I don't even
know where to start. Not only do I not know where
to start, I don't even want to start. Not naturally, I don't. Not naturally. Now, thirdly,
the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord in its application.
It's a matter of election. Election is not salvation. It's
unto salvation. There's got to be the work of
grace in the heart. There has to be the work of grace. There's got to be the application
of grace. There's got to be a new birth.
Our Lord said this, you do not put new wine into old bottles. Because if you do, He said the
wine skins will burst. You've got to put new wine into
new bottles. This revelation of God, this
forming of Christ in you has got to be done in a new man,
not that old man. Salvation is not the renovation
of the old man. That old man, this is the last
what you're going to do today. This is the last step of getting
rid of that old man. And we put this corrupt body
in the ground. And it's gone. Listen, while we are alive, every
believer knows that they still have the presence of sin. But
the minute we close our eyes in sleep, as the Lord calls it,
The minute we do that, the very presence of sin is gone. It's
not allowed in that place. It's gone. There's got to be
a new birth. Nicodemus came and started to
ask the Lord some questions, and the Lord stopped him. He
said, you must be born again. You must be born again. That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and it'll never be anything
else. I don't care if you educate it, dress it up, I don't care
what you do with it. It's flesh at the end of the day. Take off
all your garb, take off your suit, take off everything, stand
in the mirror. What are you looking at? Flesh. Flesh. But that which is born of the
Spirit is Spirit. You know, when the Lord speaks
of eternal life, He's not talking about how long. Everybody's going
to live forever. You're going to live forever
either in His presence or in destruction. But when he talks
about eternal life, he's talking about the life of God in the
soul. That's what he's talking about.
He's talking about the life of God. So there's got to be the
application. There's got to be the new birth
born of the Spirit by the will of God and the word of God. Salvation is not a cooperative
effort between God and the sinner. It's not. It's not a cooperative. It's him breaking me. God has
to break me. God has to lay me in the dust.
He's got to strip me. He's got to bring me off my high
horse. There's nobody we think more of than we think of ourselves.
And He's got to bring us down to where we see ourselves as
He sees us. Not as I see myself, but as God
sees me. And I can never see myself as
God sees me until I see Him who He is, for who He is. I want you to listen to this,
"...of His own will," God's will, "...beget He us with the word
of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.
So then," in Romans 9,16, "...so then, it is not of Him that willeth, nor of Him that runneth," effort,
merit, "...but of God." that showeth mercy. That's what
it's of. Not by my great big will, not
the will of the flesh, not the will of man, but the will of
God. My salvation is according to the will of God. Aren't you
glad of that? I know some of you are glad of that. Well, if
it's up to our will, our will changes. Our will is so fickle,
we will today, we won't tomorrow. God will never change because
God Himself never changes. He said, I am the Lord, I change
not. Therefore you sons of Jacob, you sons of election, are not
consumed. That's why you're not consumed, because I don't change.
I don't change. The Holy Spirit, He takes the
blood of Christ, He applies the blood of atonement on the heart
of the sinner, He cleanses the sinner from all his sins. He makes application. Chosen
of the Father, redeemed by the Son, regenerated by the Holy
Spirit. That's the work of salvation. That's it. God has never left
the final results up to the sinner. That would be foolish. Would
you leave the final results up to someone that hates you? Would
you? The Word of God says that we
are born in this world with an enmity in our minds by wicked
works. We are born with a natural enmity
to God. That's what the Bible says. That's
what the Word of God says. And He's got to overcome that
natural enmity. And He does that by the work
of His Spirit. And then fourthly, The salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord in its sustaining power. It says
in 1 Peter 1.5, "...who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." You know, I heard and believed
the gospel 40 some years ago. I can tell you right now, after
all those years, I haven't kept myself at all. God's kept me. Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither
by thy help I've come." I believe God today by the same power I
believed Him 47 years ago. His power, not mine. His. We cannot keep ourselves. God
must keep us, and He does keep us. Listen to what Paul wrote
to the Galatians in Galatians 3. He says to the Galatians,
Are you so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are
you now made perfect by the flesh?" In other words, are you going
to take over and finish the race? Are you going to say, I can take
it from here? I can't take it from anywhere.
My Lord has got to take me from the cradle to the grave and into
glory. He's got to keep me. If He doesn't
keep me, I'm not going to be kept. He's got to do it. This sinful nature I was born
with is too strong for me. Satan is too strong for me. The
archangel wouldn't even argue with him. He said, the Lord rebuked
you. We are kept by the power of God
through faith. Listen again at this psalm I
read to you in Psalm 37. But the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. He is their strength. He's their
strength as they walk through this life by faith. He's their
strength in the hour of death. He's their strength coming out
of that grave. He's their strength and glory.
He's always our strength. Someone asked me one time and
said, how do you do that? How do you preach funerals of
someone that's close to you? I just read it to you. The Lord
shall help them. He's their strength in time of
trouble. This is how the family's enduring it. They have a hope
that the world knows nothing of. They have strength that the
world knows nothing of. In the midst of sorrow, they
have strength to face it because He gives strength in the time
of trouble. He's their strength in time of
trouble. The Lord shall help them. That's
what He's doing right now. He's helping us. and deliver
them." He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them.
He shall save them. Listen, I have been saved, I
am being saved, and I shall be saved. That's the process of
salvation. As none of this gets saved, I
have been saved in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a Lamb slain before
the foundation of the world. That's why when Adam fell, we
don't read of the lightning and the thunder that happened at
Mount Sinai. The reason you hear the voice
of the Lord walking in the cool of the day is because God already
took care of it. He'd already been taken. Christ is the Lamb
of the Flame before the foundation of the world. Remember when Nathan
said to David after he committed adultery and then had Uriah murdered? Nathan said, Thou art the man,
you're guilty, you're the man, but you're not going to die because
the Lord has put away your sin. Well, when did he do that? In
Jesus Christ. Because with God, what all His
purpose is already done. Now, you and I have to experience
it, but with Him it's done. It's done. And then, Last of all, salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord in its ultimate perfection. The goal of salvation is to be
made perfect, to be perfectly conformed to the image of Jesus
Christ. The goal of salvation is to stand
in glory perfect. Perfect. Now listen. Colossians
1.19, I'm going to read a few verses here. For it pleased the
Father that in Him, in Christ, should all fullness dwell. And
having made peace through the blood of His cross... See, He's
our peace, He's the One who made peace. By Him to reconcile all
things unto Himself, by Him I say, whether they be things in earth
or in heaven. and you that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in
the body of His flesh through death, here it is, to present
you holy and unblameable and unapprovable in His sight. Our Lord hath presented our brother holy Unblameable, unreprovable
in God Almighty's sight. That's His work. That's the work
of the Lamb of God. That's His work. He will raise our vile bodies,
and we'll have a body like the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will
stand one great throne, perfectly holy, holy as God Himself. The Lord said it must be perfect
to be accepted. We stand there as holy as He
is. Let me read something to you here, and I'll close. In 1 Corinthians 15, listen to
this. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep. See, when the Word of God speaks
of the believer, it speaks of sleep, not death. It speaks of
death when it speaks of the unbeliever. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trump shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For
this corruptible, what you're looking at, this body is corruptible.
It's got to go to the grave. This is the last thing that's
got to go, this corruptible body. This corruptible must put on
incorruption, that incorruptible body. And this mortal must put
on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting?
Ed felt no sting. He was at peace. As Thomas said
to me, he died well because he died in Christ. O grave, where
is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, the
strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God which gives
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our brother Ed has now attained
that ultimate perfection. What an experience. What an experience. This is the gospel that Ed Parker
believed. And this is the gospel that carried
him home.