Before the world began, God loved
me then. He chose me for his own, an heir
of the throne. God included me. Yes, included me from eternity. No room to boast of I, the lost
and die. But God in wondrous grace gave
unto God included me. Christ paid my debt one day,
the only way. He died upon the tree to set
me free. In pure and sovereign grace,
Jesus took My places, thank God, He included me. Yes, He included me from eternity. No room. ? Don't you ask if I
will also die ? ? But God in water's grace came and took my
place ? ? Thank God He included me ? In time the spirit sought, and
grace was wrought. He took the word of God, the
mighty rod. He broke my stony heart, and
did faith impart. Thank God he included me. ? Yes, he included me from eternity
? ? No room to boast of I, the love said die ? ? But God in
wondrous grace came and took my place ? ? Thanks be to God Thank you, ladies. That was a blessing. Well, let's go back this morning
to the prophecy of Zachariah. And once again, I invite your
attention to the 10th chapter. Lord willing, next week we'll
go into the next chapter. I've got a subject today that
I believe the Spirit of God has led me to. And I hope it will
be of interest to everybody, everybody in here, everybody
who's watching. I tell you, the older I get,
and I'm on the good side of 70 now. You say, you mean the bad
side? No, I mean the good side, because
I'm getting closer going to meet with the Savior. That's the good
side. As I get a little older, I find
myself more and more interested in the subject of my salvation. I'm interested in your salvation,
but I've probably been selfish. But I want to be saved. I want to
be saved forever. Jim, you're a preacher, you are
saved. Well, I'm being saved. That's scriptural, isn't it?
I'm being saved. But I want to be fully saved and be with the Lord Jesus in
heaven's everlasting glory. Don't you? That's what I want.
I don't want to be lost. To be lost, that's a sad word. One of the saddest words is to
be lost. A child gets away from mom or
dad in a big crowded area, and you can't find your little boy,
your little girl, and they go up to a policeman
and say, I'm lost. That's an awful thing to be lost. But I'll tell you something that's
worse than that is to be lost before God, to be without God,
without hope in this world. And I want to be saved. I want
to be found. I want to be found by the Lord. I don't want to just be religious.
I don't want to just join the church and things of that nature. I want to know God. That's what
I want. And so therefore, my subject
this morning, it has to do with salvation. And I'll take my text
from here in Zechariah chapter number 10 and verse 6. This is what God says, and I
will strengthen the house of Judah and I will save. Who's it going to save? He's
going to save the house of Joseph. Now the house of Joseph would
be Israel, the northern kingdom, and then, of course, the house
of Judah, that's the southern kingdom. And out of the northern
kingdom and the southern kingdom, the Lord had a remnant according
to the election of grace. And we know that all of Israel
stands as a picture of That number of people who are
called God, true Israel. All of the Israel of God's going
to be saved. That's what we read in the book
of Romans. And so all of Israel, they shall
be saved. All of God's true Israel. All
of God's elect people, all of God's people that have been chosen
unto salvation, all of those in whose stead Christ Jesus suffered,
bled, and died upon the cross, all of those whom the Spirit
of God will quicken and call to the Savior by effectual grace,
these shall be saved. And I want to be in that number.
And I don't take anything for granted. So you've been a preacher
for all these years. I've tried. I've tried to preach
the gospel for all these years, but I'm more interested in God's
salvation right now than I was back in the early 70's when I
heard Brother Mahan preach the gospel. It's the first time God
opened my ears and opened my heart so that I can understand
how God could be just and justify the ungodly. I've never heard
about the justice of God in salvation. At least I never heard with the
spiritual ears. Maybe I heard with physical ears,
but it didn't make any kind of impression on me. But I'll tell
you, the Spirit of God did a work in my heart. He opened my heart. He gave me an interest in Christ
Jesus, the only Savior of sinners, and He gave me an interest in
this business of salvation. And I don't want to miss it. I don't want to lose out on salvation. Now, here's my subject. Based
upon that expression, God says, I will save the house of Joseph. Here's my subject. God will save. Now, He's going to save somebody.
I know that. Because He's the Savior. That's
what He does. And I want to be among that number.
Now, I'm going to give you three questions this morning that I'm
going to ask and try to answer from the Word of God. Number
one, who saves sinners? And the answer is obvious. It's
God who saves. It's God who saves. The church
doesn't save anybody. Somebody said to me not too long
ago, How come you don't have people walk down the aisle to
get saved? Because salvation is not down
here. You see, salvation is in somebody. And it's not in me, and it's
not in you, it's not in the church, it's in Christ Jesus. I like
what Brother Scott Richardson used to say, Come to Christ,
but don't move a muscle. Do you understand what he meant
by that? I do. You come in your heart. It's not about you sashaying
down the aisle and come down here and shake my hand and I'll
send you back to a Sunday school class with somebody to talk to
you and give you the ABCs, the one, two, threes of salvation.
Now you believe? Yeah, I believe. Well, you saved
it. Be baptized, be faithful, next week we'll give you a job
in the church. That's not what it's about. It's
not salvation. Your business is not with me. Your business is with God. And
the only way you can come to God is through the Lord Jesus
Christ. I hope you understand that. Christ
said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. Mary is not the way to God. I hope this doesn't affect anybody
here or anybody watching, but you know, Catholicism is the
most ridiculous religion there is. Where in the world they get
that from? Come to Mary, who was born without
sin. She wasn't born without sin. She is a sinner. You don't come
to God through Mary. You come to God the same way
Mary came to God, through Christ the Savior. She said, My soul
doth rejoice in God my Savior, in Christ Jesus. You come to God the same way
that man who worked in the temple, Simeon, when the Lord Jesus was
just a wee infant and Mary and Joseph brought the Savior in,
the Savior in. And Simeon looked in the face
of the Son of God and he said, I'm ready now to die. Upon what
basis do you say that? He said, mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. You see, the Lord Jesus, He is
God's salvation. He is the only Savior. There
is nobody else who can help you. He is God Almighty, so He has
power to save. And He's the Son of Man, made
like unto us, joined His deity to our humanity. And in the flesh,
He suffered, bled, and died in order to satisfy God's justice
and thereby save His people from their sins. That's salvation's in Him. Who saves sinners? God says,
I will save! I will save! Look back, you know,
the book just before Zechariah's book of Haggai, and the one just
before that is Zephaniah. That's the one I want you to
look at. Zephaniah chapter 3. So you're only going to like,
in my Bible, it's only four pages backwards. I didn't ask you to just find
it, you know, from a closed Bible. That'd be more difficult. You
only got to go back four pages or so. Look at Zephaniah chapter
3. Zephaniah chapter 3. Look at
verse 17 now. Zephaniah 3, 17, the Lord thy
God in the midst of thee is mighty. He's got to be mighty if He's
going to save us. Therefore it says, He will save. He will save. Who must save us? One who is mighty. One who is
almighty. One who has all authority, all
power over all demons, over all devils, over all humanity, and
one who has all power over you. You see, the Lord is the only
one who can bring you and me to the end of ourselves. To see
in ourselves there is no hope for salvation, The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee. He's in the midst of us right
now. He's not very far from any of
us, is He? He's everywhere. So the Scripture
says, He's omnipresent. And He's mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. Who rejoices over you when God,
by His grace, saves you? God, first of all. He will rest in His love. He
will joy over thee with singing. Look at verse 19. God says, behold, at that time
I will undo all that afflict thee. I will save. That's what he says again. I
will save her that halteth. What does that mean? Everybody
who's lame. You see, here's our problem. We're lame and don't know it. We can't come to it. But here's
what the Spirit of God did. He shows us we're lame. He shows
us we can't come to Him. And then He makes us willing
to be saved, willing to come to Him in the day of His power. Psalm 110 verse three says that. The Lord says, I will save. Who
saves sinners? God saves sinners. You don't
save yourself. There's not a soul in here this
morning who would dare to stand on your feet and say, I saved
myself. Surely nobody would say that.
And yet there are multitudes who are essentially saying that,
though they would not utter those exact words, they make salvation
to depend upon the sinner. But I have news for you, salvation
is not dependent upon you. It's God's salvation and He gives
it to whomsoever He will. Would you say salvation is a
good gift? Oh, that's a good gift, isn't
it, Ron? The deliverance of the soul? The deliverance of the soul All
sinfulness and guilt and vileness, that's a gift. That's a gift. Well, read James 1. Every good
gift and every perfect gift, where does it come from? Above. This is God's salvation. It's not something you do for
the Lord. In the book of Titus chapter
3, Paul writes and says, not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to His mercy He hath saved us. It's not you. Ephesians 2, for by grace are
you saved through faith. And even that's not of yourself,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Who saves sinners? God saves
sinners. Well, Jonah went to a most interesting
Bible seminary. It's in the world belly. And
he made all these vows. Then he finally came to the end
of himself and he said, if I'm to get out of this mess, God's
going to have to do it. Salvation is of the Lord. Look
out. Here you go. Right out of the
great fish's mouth. I don't sure. Because he's right. Salvation's of the Lord. Salvation's
not in the church. It's not in you doing something.
It's not in being a church member. Hey, this is a wonderful church
to be a member of. I'm thankful for that. But that's
not salvation. It's not in being baptized. It's
wonderful to be baptized and confess your faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ publicly. Baptism is the answer of a good
conscience toward God. But that's not how you wash your
sins away. I was at a doctor's office this
week. And after a chiropractor's office,
he worked on me, and I laid down on this, had three little couches. You lay down, close your eyes,
and just he's manipulating you and trying to help me with some
things. And there was a woman laying
across from me, and then a man over here, husband and wife.
And a lady came in and said, well, we'll be seeing you later. And I said, well, I'm going to
be going up north preaching before long. You won't see me then.
She said, OK. I said, well, just check with
us at the receptions. I said, all right. And the woman, I love you ladies. You sure do
love to talk. And this woman, don't get mad
at me, this woman, she said, my husband does some preaching.
He's laying right there. And he didn't say a word the
whole time. And she said, my husband does
some preaching. Where do you preach? I said,
I preach 13th Street Baptist Church in Asheville. She said,
well, we're members of the Church of Christ. Yeah, that's the kind of face
I made. That's be dipped or be damned. That's their religion.
Be baptized or go to hell. And I said, well, we preach salvation
by grace alone. It's not by being baptized. Nobody
ever lost their sins in the waters of baptism. This is the only way sins are
washed away in the bloody crimson fountain of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wash and be clean. In fact, we sing, wash me, Lord,
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Salvation's not in
baptisms, not in works. Salvation's the Lord's work.
That's what Jonah said, salvation's of the Lord. One of the first messages I ever
read by Charles Spurgeon is in, I think it's in his very first
volume of New Park Street Chapel from Jonah chapter two, verse
nine. Y'all read it. And if you hadn't
read it, I'd get you a copy of it. Read it. Salvation of the
Lord. So the Lord and His purpose.
So the Lord and His purchase. So the Lord and His power. That's
not you. He saves you. You don't help
Him save you. He saves. The Lord saves. Who
saves sinners? God does. For by grace He is
saved through faith. Whose grace? Whose grace is it? Through faith, you say, now that's
my part. Hang on a minute. And that not
of yourselves. It's a gift of God. See, this
whole package of salvation, it's all of God. So the first question
is, who saves? God saves. You've got to get
it out of your brain that this involves something that you must
contribute to kind of assist or help out at least in a secondary
way to kind of help out God. No, you don't help in a secondary
way. You don't help at all. God saves
and He saves by Himself and He gets all the glory. And He's
not going to have it any other way because He's not going to
let you He's not going to let you or me or anybody else, not
these clever evangelists, not these false preachers out here
who are begging for money and they're millionaires. They're
not going to get any glory and salvation. To God be the glory! Great things He hath done. He's
going to get it all. Here's the second question. What
does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be saved?
I've already said the issue is not being a member of the church.
Join this church. I say it's a wonderful church
to be a member of. That's not going to save you. What difference
does that make? And the issue is not, are you
a good person? I feel pretty sure that I'm looking
to the faces of people who are moral, You're decent people. You try to do what's right. And
you ought to be. You ought to be a good person
as good as you can be. But you know what the Bible says?
There's none that doeth good, no not one. And God demands holiness. Be ye holy for I am holy. That's what God said. Are you holy? Probably not, but
I'm trying to do the best I can. Well, I'll tell you what, only
holy people are gonna go to heaven. And our problem is we're fit
for hell and unfit for heaven. We got problems, folks. Well, how am I gonna be holy?
We're holy and righteous and perfect only in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the issue is not, are you
religious? If you wasn't somewhat religious,
you wouldn't even be here this morning. But that's not salvation. And
the issue isn't when you say, I read my Bible and pray every
day. Those are wonderful things to
do, but that's not the issue. There are a lot of people who
read their Bibles and they don't know anything about God's salvation. What does it mean to be saved?
It means to have your sins forgiven. All of them. What does it mean to be saved?
It means you're righteous before God. You stand in the Lord, our
righteousness. It means you're justified before
Him. It means when God looks at you,
He sees you in the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be saved?
It means that you're absolutely liberated from the curse of God's
law. Because Christ was made a curse
for us. What does it mean to be saved?
It means you have eternal life. This is the record. 1 John 5
says that God hath given us eternal life. This life is in His Son. And he that hath the Son hath
life. Do you have the Son of God? If you have the Son of God, you
have life. And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
What does it mean to be saved? You have a personal knowledge
of the living God. You know God. Bill brought a
good message on that this past Wednesday. This is life eternal,
to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent. What does it mean to be saved?
It means to have the Holy Spirit. If any man have not the Spirit,
he's none of His. You see, all who know Christ,
all who are redeemed by Christ, all who are saved by His bloody
sacrifice have the Spirit of God as their comforter, their
teacher, their guide. What does it mean to be saved?
It means you can call God your Father. That's right, you call Him your
Father. The Lord Jesus said, after this manner, therefore
pray ye, our Father which art in heaven. He's my Father. I live by the incorruptible seed
of the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever. In this
Word of God, this is the gospel that we preach. We live by this
gospel. It means we have the Savior.
Christ is mine. He's my Lord. He's my Savior. It's like Thomas. Thomas saw
Him a week after our Lord arose from the dead and fell down on
His feet and said, My Lord and my God, my Lord. I can call Him
my Lord. And I love his lordship, don't
you? Yeah, I love his lordship. He's not a doormat. on the way
to heaven. He's not just a hell insurance
policy that I've made my decision and I fold up my hell insurance
policy and put it in the cedar chest like I got the rest of
my insurance policy. He's not a hell insurance policy.
He's my Lord. He's my friend. He's my brother. He's my savior. He's my all. Christ is all in all to his people. Is he to you? And what does it mean to be saved?
It means when you die, you go to be with him. You go to heaven's
glory. What does it mean to be saved?
Within this word, saved, is the idea of being made whole. Wellness. See, we became sick
in the fall of Adam. We became diseased. We're like
the lepers in the scripture. The lepers picture us quite well. Because I tell you, we sure are
unclean. That's what Isaiah said, we're
all as an unclean thing. He didn't say all of y'all are
like an unclean thing. He said we're all as an unclean
thing. We're all together like filthy
rags. We're all in the same boat. I preached a message at a funeral
years ago, and I've said this several times, of course. I said,
I'm a sinner, and I need a savior. A woman come up to me at the
funeral service and said, I thought I'd never hear a preacher say
he is a sinner. I said, you never heard a preacher
say he is a sinner before? She said, no, I haven't. I said,
you've been listening to the wrong preachers. Hey, we're all in this together.
I'm no better than you. You're no better than me. Maybe
in some ways you are better than me. But before God, we're all
sinners. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. That's what the Bible says. And
the wages of sin is death. We're all alike. We're all a
bunch of wiggling maggots before God. We're all in bad shape. See, I've only got good news
for sinners. There ain't no good news for
anybody else. Sinners. What does it mean to
be saved? It means that the great physician, he heals us of our
spiritual diseases. How'd he do that? By his death,
he washed our sins away. He wiped the slate absolutely
clean. What does it mean to be saved?
It means to be rescued. To be rescued. We're made whole
in Christ Jesus and we're rescued. The disciples were out on the
Sea of Galilee with the master. Storm came up. He's in the back
of the boat fast asleep. There's his humanity right there.
Fast asleep. The winds were howling. Waves
were crashing over the bow of that little fishing boat. And they said, went to him and
said, Master, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And
you know what they said? Save us! That's what I'd be yelling
too, wouldn't you? Save us! Let me tell you something. When you see the vindictive winds
of God's judgment, and you see in your mind and in the Scriptures
the waves of God's wrath coming your way, That's when you'll
say, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. I tell you the
problem with most people, they ain't never been in trouble with
God. Never been in trouble with God.
Oh, that God would trouble you! The winds are coming. The waves
are rolling. That's when you see the wrath
of God and the justice of God. That's when you'll cry out, Lord,
save me or I perish. Our Lord fed 5,000 people. And then He told His disciples,
Y'all go across in the boat. Go across the Sea of Galilee.
I'm going to walk over the hill. He went up in the hill and prayed.
And they was going across about somewhere between 3 and 6 o'clock
in the morning, the fourth watch, it's called. Storm came up. And the Lord Jesus started walking
out there to see him. And they thought they'd seen
a ghost. He said, it's me, don't be afraid. Simon Peter said,
if it's really you, bid me come and walk to you. Come on. Simon Peter started walking on
the water. And then he saw the waves. Took
his eyes off the Lord Jesus. That's a dangerous thing to do
is take your eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ. Because then you're
going to see your troubles. And I'm talking to the people
of God now. That's when you'll worry. Peter
starts sinking, took his eyes off the Savior. Guess what he
said? Lord save me! You ever said that in your heart? Tell you what, if you ever see
yourself sinking beneath the fierceness of the wrath and the
vindictive waves of justice, you see yourself going under,
and if you go under, you're not coming back up, you'll say, Lord,
save me. Save me, Oroparis, save me. Oh, God, put that cry in your
heart. Lord save me. What does it mean to be saved?
It means to be rescued. Rescued. I used to be a lifeguard. A lot of people I rescued. Little ones and bigger ones too. I tell you what, I never did
have one of them help me save them. They tried to drown me. Anybody else a lifeguard in here? Anybody been a lifeguard? They'll
drown you if they can. There's a technique you use,
and it ain't knocking them in the head. But you gotta grab
them the right way. And not a one of them helped
me. I'd get them out. And Ed Huggman said, thank you
for saving me. And isn't that what we say to
the Lord Jesus Christ? Thank you for saving me. I was
slipping away. Thank you for saving me. Well, here's the last question. When her sinner is saved, And
I'll have to go real quick on this. Number one, 2 Timothy chapter
one verse nine says, before the foundation of the world, who
hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his grace that he gave us in
Christ Jesus before the world began. When was, Jim, when were
you saved? Well, I was saved in the purpose
of God before the world began. And I'll tell you something else,
when was I saved? When does God save sinners? When
Christ the Savior died in our stead. My sins nailed Him to that cross. He's dying for me. And when he died and suffered
the wrath of God in my stead, let me tell you something. Before
the justice of God, I was saved. There's no way I could wind up
anywhere else except in the presence of my Lord Jesus Christ when
he died for me. Because he paid my debt. He paid my debt. Somebody's got
a great debt they can't pay and then some Benefactor pays off their indebtedness?
Thank you, thank you, thank you. And Christ paid my debt. I'll
just enjoy eternity just saying, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I bless his name. I'm debt free before the justice
of God. When is a sinner saved? When
the Spirit of God convicts them of sin, convicts us of sin, and
gives us spiritual life, and we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That Philippian jailer in Acts
16, that's fresh on my mind because I'm writing Sun School lessons
on Acts chapter 16 right now. Right at the end of it now. He
brought Paul and Silas out of that dunya and said, sirs, sirs,
what must I do to be saved? I wish somebody asked me that.
They said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved, and your household will be saved too if they believe
on. You ask me, Jim, what must I
do to be saved? I'm telling you, salvation is
of the Lord. May He enable you to believe
on Him. That's the way salvation is received,
by God-given faith. What do we say when we come to
believe Him? And really, we're being saved. You see, faith isn't
an isolated one-time act. It's continual. When are we saved? Actually,
we're not totally saved yet. Not in our experience. We'll
be totally saved when we're with the Lord. and the Savior then
comes back and brings all our souls back with us, and he raises
these bodies, he's gonna raise this body, be fashioned like
in his glorious body, and my soul and my body be joined back
together, that's when I'll be fully saved. And I'll retrace forever My great
salvation saved me before the world began. He saved me at the
cross. He saved me when he quickened
me by his grace and gave me the gift of faith. And when I get
that new body, and body and soul, I'm free from sin, then I can
say, I'm saved now. I'm really saved now. God says, I will save. I hope you're interested in this
salvation. It's all of God. It's all of
grace. And it's all in Christ. Come
to Him. And don't move a muscle. I don't
want you to come down here. I don't want you to come down
here. I want you to stay right where you're at and do business
with God. And I'll tell you, I hope God
will do business with you. That'd be a good way to put it,
wouldn't it? God do business with you. Let's sing two stanzas
of number 50. Let's sing about our Savior. Fairest Lord Jesus, verses one
and four. Hymn number 50, Fairest Lord
Jesus. God said, I will save. He gonna
save somebody. I'm gonna get in on it by His
grace. Yes, sir. Number 50. Let's stand, sing
verses 1 and 4.