I'm about to rattle some cages
this morning. You know, minister of the Lord does not
worry whether we're going to offend somebody or not. We bring
the word of God according to the word of God. And sometimes
the word of God can be quite offensive. even to God's children. So I want you to think about
this this morning. Does this message, does it offend
me? Or am I blessed? The Lord's Word does one of two
things. It's a two-edged sword. It either cuts asunder unto salvation,
or it cuts unto damnation, one of the two. In Colossians chapter 1, beginning
at verse 21, we read these words, 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, to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. If, if, that's not my words. Our Lord
inspired Paul to put that very word exactly where it's at. God Almighty, through His death
and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to present you holy and unblameable
and reprovable in His sight, if you continue in the faith
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel, which ye have heard and which was preached
to every creature. My subject this morning is grounded
and settled. Am I grounded and settled in
the gospel? If ye continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. I'm sure some of you have heard
this before, such and such, so and so. Gave a profession of faith at
one time or another. How many ever years back? Came from quite a while. And
then one day, they just stopped. Haven't seen them since. Last
I heard, I've heard a little bit about. Last I heard, they
weren't even attending anywhere. Not going to any church at all.
I worked with a man who. declared that he knew the truth. Several, several years before
I even started coming to this church, he went to this church
with his family, some friends of his. And one day there was
a division in the church over something minor and foolish,
and a whole bunch of them got up and walked out. Thank God that the minister stayed
and continued to preach the truth of God's word. Thank God that
that minister was still here when John Reeves came that day
looking for consolation from my brother Lee. And the gospel
was continued to preach. But when I retired, that man
that I worked with still claimed he knew the Lord. And I asked
him several times over the years that I worked alongside him,
where do you go to church now? Oh, I don't go to church anymore. I just can't help but wonder
in my mind, in this fleshly, weak mind of mine, is that being grounded? and settled
in the gospel. We all know another man who spent
five years or so with us. One day he just quit going to
church. Was he grounded and settled in
the faith? Do not many of us have someone
in our lives who wants to profess to know God? Someone maybe who
went to church for a while, then life got busy for them. Something
came up. Couldn't be there. Something
happened. It doesn't matter. You put whatever
you want there. Now, I remember one time my son,
or my brother, had lost his son. Him and his wife had lost their
son. And we were gathered at his house. We were gathered at
his house, weeping over the sorrow of losing a loved one, supporting
the family. And I got ready to go out the
door and was asked, where are you going? So I'm going to church. It's Sunday. Where else are we going to find
consolation? Where else are we going to find peace? I had no peace with anything else
of this world. I loved my family, but it just
wasn't bringing any peace to me at that moment. I had to come
and hear the gospel preached. I don't know why. The Lord just drew it. Put it
on my heart. Go. Sometimes these folks who come
to the church for a little while, it just seems that they have
no interest in spiritual things anymore. The world has taken
over. They rarely come to worship God,
and they have little interest in the gospel. I ask you, can one still be saved
and take little or no interest in true worship? Look with me
again at what the Scriptures say here in Colossians 1 verses
21 and 23. It says, And you were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now hath He reconciled in
the body of His flesh your death to present you holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in His sight. That should be a statement that
should just grab a hold of you if you're a sinner. That should be something that
if you're a sinner, God should just grab you a hold of it. Take
you and shake you and say, look what I brought you out of. Look
at the grace by giving you un-reprovable. By making you un-reprovable.
To present you holy and un-blameable in His sight. But it keeps going, doesn't it?
It doesn't just stop there. It says, if ye continue in the
faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. You who were lost are now found. You who were at war are now reconciled. You who were separated from God
are now holy and unblameable. If you continue in the faith.
Not if you quit or fall out of the way or if you go back into
the world. No, the scripture says if you
continue in the faith. Folks, you have no right to a
promise without the condition. How can you claim that promise
to be yours if you're not going to keep the condition? You are to be grounded and settled
and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Now let me
read you some scriptures. Put your Bibles down and your
laps there for a moment. I'm going to read some scriptures
to you. If you want to read them a little bit later, and I encourage
you to, be like the Breans. Don't just take my word for this.
As I go through these scriptures, write them down. I'll try to
list them slowly for you. Write them down and look them
up a little bit later. Make sure this is what these verses mean. This is what the Word of God
says in Hebrews 3 verses 6, and it goes right along with the
line that we're talking about being grounded and settled. True believers continue to believe
is what it's saying. True believers do not quit. True
believers do not leave the gospel. Well, we may think we do at times.
We may think that we're running off on our own. But I'll tell
you what. The Lord will bring trouble into our lives and remind
us that we need to come back to Him. In Hebrews 3, 6 we read
this, Christ did the sign over His own house, whose house we
are, if, there's that if again, there's that condition, if we
hold fast to the confidence and rejoicing firm unto the end.
The end of what? the end of this life, till the
day the Lord takes us out. He takes us out of this world.
There's a race to be run, folks. And we have to keep running it.
Is the battle won? Absolutely. Everything is provided
for us in our Savior. But that doesn't mean we just
sit back and say, OK, everything's all right. I don't have to do
anything. Also in the chapter 3 of Hebrews,
in verse 14, we read this, we are partakers in Christ if we
hold fast, if, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence,
steadfast to the end. What's the beginning of our confidence?
Can you remember when the first time you heard the Lord, the
beginning of your confidence was in what? It is in that He
is God. He's not a wannabe God. He's
not a God who wants. I had somebody on Facebook, oh,
I wanted to jump all over this and just say, what do you mean
your God wants? God of Scripture doesn't want.
He purposes and brings it about. And He provides what we can't
do. The beginning of our confidence
is the fact that we heard about a God. In the Lord Jesus Christ,
all the fullness dwelleth in Him. Hebrews chapter 10, we read
these words, Paul says, that just shall live by faith, but
But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in
him. And then the writer continues in verse 39. He says, we are
not of them draw back into perdition, but we are of them that believe
to the saving of the soul. In Matthew chapter 10, verse 22,
we read these words. He that endures to the end, the
same shall be saved. In 1 John 2, verse 19, John is
talking about some folks that have left the gospel, they have
left the church, they have left the body of Christ. And John
says this, they went out from us, but they were never of us.
For if they had been of us, If they had been true believers
and members of the body of Christ, they would have no doubt continued
with us. But they went out, that they
might be made clear that they were never, that they never were
of us. No, no, they just quit. I wonder about this dear fellow
brother, this dear friend. And he was a good man. He was
a friend at work. But I wonder, was he standing
firm on the gospel? Or had he left us because he
was never with us, because he was never of us? Folks, we're
not talking about those who can't come because of work. We're not
talking about those who can't come to church because they live
a long distance from anybody that worships God in truth. We're
not talking about those who have maybe a loved one at home that
they have to care for. We're talking about the ones
who can go without worship. Can you go without worship? I
remember one time, Kathy and I were over on the coast. And
we were taking some time off away from the valley. And we
were over on the coast enjoying a little vacation. And Sunday
come along, and I want to hear something about my Lord. I want
to hear something about His grace. We went to a church. And we got
the Yellow Pages out and tried to find somebody according to
their title of what religion they believed that might come
close to the sovereignty of God being preached. And we got there.
And of course, it was a free will doctrine. And we read their
little pamphlet. It was just plain as could be
in what they stated their creed was. So we got up and we left. And they chased us out the door,
by the way. What are you doing? Where are
you going? But put that aside. We went off to the beach. And
I'm not sure if this was exactly that time, but I remember we
went to a beach at one time or another, and we stopped, got
out the laptop, found a Wi-Fi thing, and listened to Henry
Mahan live while the waves were crashing against the beach. We
had to hear. My point is this. A child of
God has to hear the gospel preached. We've got to be either where
God's people meet, or where we can at least visit with them
online, or whatever the case may be. We're not talking about
those who can't be here for work. We're talking about the ones
who don't have a need, the ones who feel OK with or without the
sound of the gospel. I'll tell you this, the word
of God is clear and plain. The next time someone comes to
you and says so, and so and so had made a profession many years
ago, and now they have no interest in the gospel. They've quit.
They've gone out. They've departed. Read that verse
of Scripture to them. And then you tell them that you
don't have an opinion, but God does. This is God's Word, not
mine. I'm not telling you you've got
to hold fast. God's Word tells us we've got to hold fast. The Scriptures are clear. It
says they went out from us because they were never of us. For if
they had been of us, they no doubt would have continued with
us. They went out that it might be made clear. Clear! Manifest
that they were not all of us. Folks, the Scriptures are very
clear and plain. They really don't need any comment from me.
They're very plain and they're very clear. True believers continue
to believe and those in the faith continue in the faith. They live
by faith. That's our lives. That's the
new man in us. True preachers are really concerned
for the glory of God. If we were concerned for the
glory of God, the truth of God's Word, the truth for our own souls,
for our own spiritual well-being, and for the well-being of our
hearers, we would quit going about crying these words, peace,
peace, when there is no peace. That dear lady that we all knew
is now in a better place. How do you know? She never went to church. Oh,
maybe twice a year. She didn't show much love for
God's Word. How dare somebody tell them that
there is peace in that? There's not. We are either drawn
to Christ or we are not. If we'll just deal honestly with
the Word of God and have the glory of God in our hearts and
the well-being for our hearers, we'll preach this, we'll preach
repentance. We'll preach conversion. We'll
preach faith and coming to Christ. Folks, these things that God's
ministers preach are not a once-for-all decision. You don't just repent
once, you repent continually. You're not just converted and
then you're another person. You've been converted and you
will be converted all the way to the end. It's not an emotional experience.
Faith, repentance, and conversion are a state of the heart, a state
of the mind, and it continues in those things. A man who truly
repents keeps on repenting. A man who truly believes keeps
on believing. A man who truly is converted
and comes to Christ keeps on coming to Christ. There was a day when the Lord
had just fed a whole bunch of people. And He preached to them. He preached to them that they
must eat His flesh, not literally, spiritually, coming to the Lord's
table, remembering that that bread, though it not be anything,
is a picture of what Christ gave for us. Christ preached Christ. Where did I lose myself? Oh,
here we go. Sorry about that. There was a
great multitude around him, and he fed them all, he preached
to them, and then he made them angry. He turned to his disciples
afterwards, after he made the group angry, after they had all went away,
about 5,000 of them, he turned to his disciples and he said
this, will you go away? Will you go away also? Peter
said this, he said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. And we believe. We believe You. Where else can we go? We believe
and we are sure that you are the Christ, the Son of the living
God. God's disciples find all they need in Him. They find all
they want in Him. They find all that God requires
of them to be in Him. And now they say this, where
shall we go? We have nowhere else. Folks,
listen to me for a moment, will you? What a wonder it would be if
preachers would sound this note. But they don't and they won't.
And most aren't going to. The word of God reveals this
to his people. Salvation is not a head knowledge. It's not something you can get
by sitting down and just reading this book. There's a lot of people
who know the words in this book who have no idea of what salvation
is. God's Word reveals that salvation
is a union. Christ is the head and we are
the body. We are co-heirs with Him. He is the groom. We are the bride. It's not just an acceptance of
doctrine and facts. It's not just changing your lifestyle.
It's not changing your living, your personal growing, your lifetime
union. It's a union with the Son of
God in Christ. The Scripture says this, it says,
I in them, this is in John 17, and thou in me. It is Christ
in you, the hope of glory. When Christ who is my life shall
appear. Isn't that what scripture says?
Christ is not the most important thing in my life. He is my life. Is He yours? Paul wrote these words. He says,
I am dead to the world. I am crucified to the world.
I am dead and buried. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ lives in me." Does Christ live in you? This is the
key to being grounded. Grounded and secured. Grounded
and steadfast. This is the key. Is Christ in
me? Christ is not a fire escape.
He's not an insurance policy. He's not someone that I'm going
to grab a hold of just before I slide down from this world. Christ is my life, or he's not
at all. I ask you this morning, is he
yours? Don't stand up, raise your hand,
say, I can tell you. Answer in your own heart. Salvation is not acceptance of
religion or lifestyle. It's a union with a person. It's
a new life. Those who are saved have been
saved, they are being saved, and their salvation is nearer
now than when they first believed. Are you grounded and settled
in the faith? Is it the faith of God? Faith according to holy scriptures?
Our Lord's Word is clear. Redemption, salvation, eternal
life is not a decision. It's not a once and for all emotional
experience, or just accepting some facts, or changing your
lifestyle. This redemption and salvation
is a new birth. You must be born again. It's a new creation, a new man,
a new life, and a union with Jesus. It is Christ in you and
you in Christ. There is no way to go back. There's
no other place to go. There's nothing to go back to. The old man is crucified in Christ. The old life is dead. The old
creature is gone. We are dead. And that is what
baptism is saying about we died in our Lord. The old man died. I was alive, but now I'm dead. I'm buried and I'm risen in Christ
to walk the newness of life. There is no going back. There's
nothing to go back to. Four times in Scripture, it says
these words, the just shall live by faith. It also declares that
we are kept by the power of God through faith. That's in 1 Peter
1, verse 5. This is what's being said by
that. A dead sinner, a lost man or a woman or a child is quickened,
given life by the power of God to acknowledge their sin and
their need of Him, their need of a Redeemer and His need of
a mediator. We are brought to see that we
were lost. We are convinced of the depth
of our sin. See, that's the difference between
the Pharisee who walked into the synagogue, walked into the
temple and said, I'm glad I'm not like that man in the corner.
But the man over in the corner, all he could do was get down
on his knees and beg for forgiveness. We're brought to know the need
of a Savior. I'm not just sin from my little
fingers and what they do. I'm sin from the top of my head,
all the way through my soul, all the way out of my feet. Everything
I do. Don't ever put me on any pedestal.
Don't put any pastor on any pedestal. For we are just men. And I know
that happens. Don Fortner was broken hearted
over people who put him up on such a pedestal. And look at
it now. He's not coming to the conferences.
Look at all the people who don't show up anymore. The Word of God's truth is still
being preached here in rescue, yet our numbers are small. Because
those who left us were not of us. They were not grounded and settled
in the faith. After being brought to a knowledge
of what our sin is, the depth of that deprivation, the new
man looks to Christ. God reveals that Christ is His
righteousness. Christ is our sin offering. And through Christ we have forgiveness
and eternal life through His life and death before God. You
see what I mean about Christ being our life now? Is Christ
your life? Or are we just walking through,
are we just walking through the motions, can I, I gotta get up
and go to church today, I gotta get up and go to church, it's
Sunday. Or are you here this morning,
online or in person, because God has given you the desire
to hear about him. The man who's had his sins revealed
to him. And that through the righteousness
of Christ, there is salvation. He looks to Christ and he believes
Him. By faith, he is justified. By faith, he is redeemed. And
by faith, he is accepted in the Beloved. That person who does
such, receives a new heart, a new nature. We are a new creature. We now love the things of God,
and we hate the things of the world. We now love the things of God,
and we find His rest, His peace, and His joy in the Lord. It's
not just talk. It's not just saying. It's an
experience. Do you find peace in the Lord? If you do, then you will grow
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. I ask you again, are you grounded and settled? What
I'm saying is this, what are my priorities? Are the things
of this world more important to me? Or is my Savior my life? It's not a matter of going back. It's a matter of growing, actually.
It's not a matter of leaving Christ, but loving Christ more.
There is no question at all about turning back. The question now
is, how much of the Word do I discern and lay a hold of and understand
that I might grow more like my Savior? Kathy, could I have a
glass of water, please? I'm about to cough. Pardon me. I want to show you this before
I close. I'm going to wait, though, because I really need a drink. I'm sorry, I've got something
tickling my throat really bad. I forgot to bring my shelf water.
Lord, help me not to forget that for my dear pastor friends in
crime. Thank you, Bill. Pardon me. I want to show you this before
I close. The Apostle Peter wrote in 1
Peter chapter 2, he says, as newborn babes, desire the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby. If so be that ye
have tasted or experienced that the Lord is gracious. Have you? Have you tasted? Have you experienced? To whom? To whom coming, this
generation says this, to whom I came. This is not what Peter says at
all. He says, to whom coming. Did you catch that? To whom coming. You might say this, oh, I repented.
I repented back in 2004. Gave myself to the Lord. Do you mean that you're not repenting
now? Ask yourself that question. Am
I repenting today? Am I on my knees asking for the
Lord's forgiveness for what I was thinking earlier about how I'm
such a person, thinking more of myself than I am? Am I repenting
now? Oh, I once believed. Do you not
believe now? Do you not still believe? If not, then you never did. As
newborn babes, it says, newborn, newborn. What does that mean,
newborn babes? Think about this for a moment.
Newborn babes. We are born of God, is what Scripture
says. Now you may say, well, we're
all born of God. Well, we all come into this world by the power
of God through the birth between the mixture of the seed
and the egg, man and woman. That's true. But it also says that we all
come into this world spiritually dead, doesn't it? To be born
of God in the word of God means to be spiritually born. We are
born. See, that's what salvation is.
It's a new birth. We are the sons of God and we
are born into the family of God. We are born by the Spirit and
the grace of God. This is not a decision. It is
a birth. You are born of God as newborn
babes. That is the children of God.
We are not masters understanding all things. I'm not a master.
I'm the least of anyone who should be standing in a pulpit. I didn't
graduate from anything. But Paul says this, he says,
I haven't apprehended yet. He hasn't got it all yet. I haven't apprehended. I haven't
received everything that the Lord has for me yet. And we're
not going to until the day we stand with Him in heaven and
understand everything. He says, I haven't apprehended
yet. I haven't laid hold upon that
for which I've been laid hold by Christ. In other words, I'm
not perfect in the flesh, and I haven't arrived to where I'm
supposed to be yet. I'm still just a baby, just a
child. Children need to grow, folks. If you have a child who's not
growing in stature and in mind, we take them to the doctors and
check on them, don't we? They've got to mature, learn. They're being taught, taught
as newborn babes. As newborn babes, children have
a desire, don't they? You leave a baby. Ask my granddaughter
this. She's got a brand new baby, just
about a year old now. Be a year old next month. But
she still cries out when the bottle's not available. She'll
let you know she's still hungry. Are you hungry? Do you have a desire for the
Lord? Oh, thank God for giving us that
desire. For every one of us here today,
know that we didn't have that desire at one time. Lord, do not pass me by. Have you ever been hungry? Little
mouths work all the time, you know. They just want nourishment. They want milk. They want food.
And that's the way God's children are. It doesn't stop. It doesn't
stop for the rest of the week because we've had a nice meal
on Sunday morning. I get up every morning. I don't
know about you folks. Kathy wins breakfast, right? The Spirit is the same. You get
out of bed in the morning, Lord, I'm hungry. I'm hungry for You. I'm hungry for the flesh of my
Savior, who gave Himself for me. You know, the Son was given. That was our title for our Bible
study this morning. The Son unto us, a Son is given. God gave His Son for you and
I. Does that make you hungry to
feed on it? I do. I want it all the time. I'm as a babe, feasting on the
milk of my Lord. That's the way God's children
are. Children's food, the children's
bread is the Word of God. That's how we grow as newborn
babes. It says, a newborn babe desires
a sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if so be
that ye have tasted it. Well, here's the question. Here's
the question that we need to ask each other. Ask ourselves,
I'm sorry. Am I grounded? Am I grounded
and am I settled in the gospel? Second Corinthians 13.5, familiar
words to each and every one of us, examine yourself. Examine yourselves whether you
be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye
not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ in you, except ye
be reprobates? Turn over to the 26th Psalm. And we'll bring this to a close. Sorry about that. I don't mean
to clear my throat in front of you. Psalms number 26. Over in 2 Samuel, the last words
of our dear brother David, he said, even though my house be
not so, the Lord has made a covenant
with me. Oh, the promises of God, are
they not wonderful? I know the flesh is painful to
be in. But the knowledge that my Savior
has all that under the control and brings it all about for my
good is so wonderful. I can imagine, I can imagine how desperate I
would be in today's world if I did not know the Lord. If He had not given me the confidence
through the gift of His faith to trust in Him. It makes me almost come to the
point I can understand why someone would take their own life. Yet praise the Lord that He has
given me the gift of faith, the gift to believe, the gift to
believe in His works, who He is, what He's done, the power of my Savior Christ
Jesus. Look at verse 1, Psalms 26, Judge
me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. What integrity
do you have? I have the integrity of my Savior. There's no confidence in this
flesh. If the Lord hasn't proven that
to you yet, may He prove it to you soon. And if that's not enough,
may He continue to prove it to you over and over and over again. I have walked in my integrity,
the integrity of my Savior. I have trusted also in the Lord.
Therefore, I shall not slide." Our pastor, Gene Harmon and his
wife, Love to include in every conversation
I have, I'm just waiting for the Lord to take me home. What
confidence He has. What peace He has in dealing
with the degradation and the failures of this flesh. May not
be able to walk very far, John, but my Savior has my day marked. And that day is coming soon. I shall not slide. Verse 2, Examine
me, O Lord, and prove me. Try my reins and my heart. That's talking about the new
heart. The new birth. The old stony heart that said,
I will not have this one rule over me, has been cut away. Removed. And a new heart. A heart that
is willing to come to my Savior and say, Lord, I need you. This
is the heart to try. The heart that you have given
me for thy loving kindness, it says in verse 3, is before mine
eyes. And I have walked in thy truth,
and I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in
the disassemblers. I have hated the congregation
of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I will wash
my hands in innocency, so will I compass thine altar, O Lord. that I may publish with the voice
of thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works. Lord, I have loved the habitation
of thy house." That's the church. That's the congregation. that called out those who have
been called by the Lord. I love to meet with my family. Even if all it is is through
a camera and a microphone, I love to meet with my family. Pastor
Gene says, once again, five times this week, John, tell my brothers
and sisters I love them. I love them and miss them. Verse 8, Lord, I have loved the
habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth.
Gather not my soul with the sinners, nor my life with bloody men,
in whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.
But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity. Redeem me, and
be merciful unto me. My foot standeth in an even place. Where, where in the congregations
will I bless the Lord? Are you grounded? Are you settled? Are you settled in the word?
Or are you just out there in the world flailing around, playing
with religion? Only you can answer that. I ask my father, my Lord Jesus,
be with each and every one of us this day who your word has
gone to. Help us to examine ourselves.
Am I in the faith? Lord, am I in the faith? If I'm
not, do whatever it takes. Take me wherever you need me
to be, but bring me, bring me to the feet of my Savior. Amen.