We're righteous people. But we
didn't make ourselves to be righteous. That's God's doings. We're the
furthest you can get from righteousness, while we're unrighteousness.
Everything God demands of us, we're the very opposite. But by his grace, we're made
righteous. And I want you to look at this
verse of scripture with me here in Psalm 37, 39. But the righteous,
or the salvation of the righteous, Psalm 37, 39. But the salvation of the righteous,
of the righteous, is of the Lord. God, Jehovah, who is our salvation. And He is their strength in time
of trouble. Oh, salvation, what a wonderful
word. And it's a big word. It's a broad
word. And let your mind go as far as
it wants to about salvation. It's still of the Lord. The salvation
of the righteous. is of the Lord, and it's a word
that really sets forth all of God's purpose of grace for his
people. Therefore, this salvation that
is ours in Christ Jesus, as I said this morning, it extends from
eternity past into eternity future. When I think of salvation, I think it's needful that we
define it. In fact, someone asked me last
Lord's Day, they said, would you take a little bit of time
to actually define the word salvation? And we're often guilty, I'm guilty,
we all are, anybody who speaks publicly, who preaches, we're
guilty oftentimes Just thinking that people know exactly what
we mean when we use some of these words, even the word salvation. It's a very basic word, but it
is a big word. It's a word, Mr. Spurgeon said,
very pregnant with meaning. When I think of salvation, I
think first of all of deliverance. That's what salvation is. It
is deliverance. It is deliverance from our sin,
It is deliverance from Satan. The scripture says of the Lord
Jesus, Joseph was given this command, thou shall call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. He
will deliver his people. That's what it means. He'll deliver
his people from their sins. This deliverance, what is this
deliverance? What kind of deliverance is it?
And I said this morning, it's a deliverance from the penalty
of sin. The wages of sin, the scripture
says, Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I don't
want the wages that I've been earning. I don't want what I
deserve for my deeds and for my sinfulness. I don't want God
to give me what's rightfully and naturally coming to me. Somebody
said to me years ago, they said, well, I just want God to look
at the things that I've done and reward me accordingly. And I said, well, I don't want
that. I don't want God to reward me
accordingly based upon the things that he's observed me do. Because
the very best that we can do is unrighteous, filthy rags according
to Isaiah chapter 64 and verse six. No, I don't want the wages
of my sins. I want deliverance from the wages
of my sins. I want deliverance from the penalty
of sins. I want to be delivered from the
love of sin. I want to be delivered from that.
And that's salvation is that. It's deliverance from the love
of sin. Every child of God has been brought
by the spirit of grace to hate sin. You hate it mainly in yourself. because you see inside your heart
at least a little bit of it. You see a little bit of your
depravity. You see a little bit of your
rottenness. You know a little bit of how
your mind works and how you can think things that are not honoring
to God and how your motives most of the time are far from honoring
God. You know something about the
filthiness of your own heart and you hate your sin. We don't
love sin, we hate sin. That's the reason the scripture
says to the people of God, hate evil, hate it. Why should I hate
sin? Why should I hate evil? Because
it's God's enemy, that's why. If our sin had its way, we'd
jerk God off his throne. It's treason against God. That's
what sin is. It's rebellion against God. That's
why there are no little sins. Every sin is an attack upon the
very character of God. Hate sin. Hate sin. Thank God. We're being delivered
from sin, and in the process of being delivered from sin,
the Lord brings us to despise sin. Now, we hate sin in the
world. It's so disgusting. It's so awful. The vulgarity of our day, the
perverseness of our day, the immorality of our day, we hate
that. There's no child of God that
can condone all the stuff that's going on around about us and
we don't want to become desensitized to the awfulness of sin. And
it, you know, it's on the television. You hear it, you read it. And
if we're not careful, we will become desensitized to some of
these God awful things. And may the Lord help us and
continually teach us to hate sin. Not to love it, not to embrace
it, not to caress it, but to despise it. to despise it because
it's God's enemy and to despise it because Christ died to free
us from it. That's why he had to die. Your
sin is the reason he had to die. There's no question about that.
Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. If we didn't
have any sins, he wouldn't have had to die. It's our fault. His blood's on our hands. We're
guilty. We're guilty of crucifying the
Son of God. We're guilty of being rebels
against God. And God in salvation, He's delivering
us from the love of sin. He's bringing us to hate sin,
all of it, especially what's in here. Because it is opposed
to Him. I believe that I can say, and
I believe that you can say, and understands a little bit of what
the Apostle Paul meant in the book of Romans chapter seven.
He said, oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I
am. Oh, defiled man that I am. Not
that I used to be. Oh, I used to be a real rebel
rouser, preacher before the Lord saved me. No, you still are. Oh, wretched man that I am, present
tense. But Paul, you're an apostle.
You're a preacher. You're a founder of many churches. You're a missionary. You're an
evangelist. You're a laborer in God's vineyard. And he says, yeah, that's true. But oh, wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Oh, wretched
man, oh, afflicted, I'm afflicted. I'm afflicted with this awful
disease of sin, and I wanna be delivered from it. I need to
be delivered from it. Who can deliver me? He says,
I thank God through Christ Jesus, my Lord. We're renewed people, that's
true. But we're still sinful people.
And there's not a want of us in here that hasn't transgressed
against God many times today. God forgive us. Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors. That's how the Lord Jesus taught
us to pray. You got more sins than you could
ever number. Lord, forgive all my sins. You
know, the Lord even had offerings for secret sins. Sins we don't
even know about. Sins we're not even aware of.
Sins that we have no consciousness of. We need deliverance. And we need
to be saved, we need to be delivered from the power of sin. Romans
6 says, sin shall not have dominion over you. You're not its servant
anymore. Don't cow down to sin. Don't
give in. No wonder the apostle said in
Ephesians, fight the good fight of faith. Psalm 97 10 says, ye
that love the Lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of his
saints. He delivers them out of the hand
of the wicked. Proverbs 8 and 13, the fear of
the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy and the evil
way and the forward mouth I hate. We're saved from the power of
sin. And then I think of the word
rescue when it comes to salvation. Rescue. Salvation is to be rescued from
every enemy. I don't need a little help. I
don't need assistance. I need to be rescued. See, that's
the dilemma of all of us. We need to be rescued. We're
in trouble. We're in danger. We're exposed
to enemies. and we have no power to defend
ourselves. I've got to be rescued and only
one can rescue me and that's the Lord. The rescue of the righteous
is of the Lord. The deliverance of the righteous
is of the Lord. We can't deliver ourselves and
we can't rescue ourselves. We're drowning. We're drowning
in sin. We're drowning in iniquity. We're
drowning in transgressions. We're going down for the third
time and who can help us but God only. You can't save yourself. You
can't rescue yourself. I used to be a lifeguard. I pulled many a person out. And
some of them said they could swim. Oh, I can swim? And I'd
have them swim a little bit. And they'd say, OK. I'd say,
OK, go ahead. And sometimes they'd start going under. I didn't say, well, just rescue
yourself. You said you could swim. Let's
see you swim. And that just swallowing water
and going under, that wouldn't be much of a lifeguard, would
it? That wouldn't be much of a savior
to them, would it? You see, the Bible never says,
send her, rescue yourself. That's impossibility. It's like the disciples said
to the Lord, Lord, who then can be saved? He said, with men,
impossible. Impossible. You can't rescue
yourself, you can't rescue anybody else. That old song we sang years
ago, rescue the perishing, care for the dying. We can't rescue
the perishing. We say, well, you can throw them
a life jacket or throw them a life preserver. Yeah, but you can't
give them the ability to grab hold of it. Because of the condition of man. Rescue, salvation's to be rescued
from every enemy. I'm exposed to all of these enemies
and I have no ability to withstand their onslaught. I can't rescue
myself. And then I'm exposed to the wrath
of God. The law of God is stirred up
against me. It's not only Satan. Now he's
a formidable enemy. There's no question about that.
I need to be rescued from him. But I'll tell you, there's something
that stands against me like a big block wall. And that's God's
holy law. And it has every reason to condemn
me because I'm nothing but filth. and iniquity from the top of
my head to the bottom of my feet. There's only wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores that haven't been bound up. I need somebody to rescue me
from the law. Not to change the law, that's
never gonna happen. but to obey the law and then
fulfill the demands of the law, death for sin. That's what's
gotta happen. Somebody's gotta die for me.
Either I'm gonna die or somebody's gonna die for me. And you're
not qualified to die for me. If you stepped up to die for
me, I'd say I appreciate it, but ain't no use in you giving
your life for me, because it's not gonna do me any good, not
gonna do you any good either. I've gotta have a perfect sacrifice. I gotta have somebody that satisfies
God. I've gotta have somebody that
God says, this is a fit one here. He's worthy to take your place. Christ is the only one who can
rescue me. Nobody else can. I gotta be rescued. And then
there's another word that comes to mind, liberation. To be saved
is to be liberated. I'm in bondage. 2 Timothy chapter
two talks about how Satan holds men captive at his will. You
go ahead and hang on to free willism till it is like a millstone
around your neck and takes you to hell. Free willism, who as
a top lady said, it can't cure a toothache. Much less can it
lead to your salvation. I tell you what, free willism
will lead to, your damnation. That's what it'll lead to. Men have made a monument, they've
made an idol out of man's so-called free will. But here's the problem. The Bible sets forth us as being
captives. We need to be liberated. Your
will can't do that. Satan holds you captive in his
will. You can't break his grasp on
you. It's foolish to think that you
could. Spiritual death holds you. You gonna overpower spiritual
death? You gonna give yourself life?
You're blind, you can't see the glories, the beauties of Christ
Jesus. You gonna give yourself sight?
You're deaf, you can't hear the voice of God and the gospel?
You gonna give yourself hearing? Your heart is dead and cold and
hard. It's like a rock. You gonna give
yourself a new heart? You gotta be liberated. Somebody's
gonna have to make you free. And only the Lord Jesus can do
that. I tell you what, if the Son of God makes you free, now
you free indeed. You really free then. And then when I think of salvation,
I think of being made whole. Being made healthy. Not physically,
although in the end we will be physically perfect and healthy,
but I'm talking about spiritual health. the wholeness of a child of God. We're sick. We're diseased. The Lord Jesus, shortly after
the conversion of Matthew, he called Matthew and said, follow
me. He left his tax tables, the tribute tables, and he followed
the Lord Jesus. And Matthew called his friends
and neighbors and coworkers He said, I'm going to give a feast.
And I tell you, I just want you to come meet the guest of honor.
He gave a feast for the Lord Jesus. And there's some self-righteous
folks always going on. They had something smart to say.
And the Lord Jesus said, the whole have no need of a physician
but those that are sick. Now, you've got to learn what
that means. That's what he said. I'll have mercy, not sacrifice. you out here praying on the street
corner and reading your Bible in public so everybody would
say what a great Christian you are, what a great child of God
you are, and you got on these self-righteous garments and self-righteous
attitude. He said, you'll need me. You'll
need me. He said, I'm the physician for
the sick. I sure would love to find somebody
who's sick in sin. Said, preacher, would you tell
me of a remedy for my disease? I'd be mighty happy to. I'd be
mighty glad to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ. You've been bitten by the fiery
serpent. Death is in your veins. It's
in you. There's no hope for your recovery. Ah, but a savior died. Look and live. He's a great physician. You see, it's what I'm trying
to say. Salvation, it's more than getting religion. Salvation's
more than turning over a new leaf. It's more than joining
a church. It's a new life. It's a new life. It's a whole life. It's the life of God in the soul.
And I'll tell you, this salvation, and I know it had an eternal
aspect to it, there's no question about that. It's got a future
eternal aspect to it, no question about that either. But this salvation
in our experience, it begins with the very first, what we
might call consciousness of sin. When the Spirit of God deals
with us, He first begins to deal with us. That's part of salvation. And He begins to show us our
neediness and that we're spiritually bankrupt before God. God demands
perfection. I can't produce it. God demands
righteousness. I can't render that to Him. I
don't have it. And I've run up a debt to God
that I can't pay. And he convicts me, oh my soul. I'm a rebel against God. I killed
the Lord Jesus Christ. What am I gonna do? It begins
there. That's the first workings of
salvation. And it goes on and on and on
until in glory, it's perfected. But it's an ongoing thing. Salvation is not a one-time event. And it's done and over with.
Well, I got saved and I'm good to go for eternity. No. No, you're not good to go for
eternity. Because this matter of salvation,
of being delivered, of being rescued, It's more than just
making a decision. It's God going to work in the
heart. It is God who works in you both
to will and to do of His good pleasure. You see, preservation, that's
part of salvation. It's not, well, I got fixed up
for heaven. You see somebody at work tomorrow,
one of your neighbors, they say, well, I got saved yesterday. You did? Yeah, I got saved. It's more than that. It's more
than that. Because here's what happens in
religion today, and I've been in religion a long time, and
I was in false religion a good while, and I know how it works.
People make a profession of faith and they'll say, I got saved.
And then they kind of cool off and they don't come to church
anymore. But we've invented phrases for folks like that. They're
out of fellowship. Or they're just carnal Christians. They're Christian, but they're
carnal. And it goes on and on for years, out of fellowship. Oh, every once in a while they'll
come back to church and they'll get all emotional and they'll
say, I want to rededicate my life to the Lord. And they'll
come down to the front. Why don't you come down to the
front? Pray, pray brother, just pray through. And they pray and
then they run well for a while and then they fall out again.
Ah, but he saved, you know. He made that decision back there
years and years ago. He just kind of carnal now. I
know he hadn't been faithful, but he got saved. No, he wasn't
saved. He got religion. He got caught up in the manipulating
language of a slick soul winning preacher. He joined up, but he
didn't meet the living sovereign savior. You don't get over that. Oh no, you don't get over that.
You don't have a one-time encounter with the Lord, and then you're
done. You're finished. Job, in Job one, Job knew the
Lord. Job believed the Lord. But he
had some things he had to learn throughout the book of Job. And
you get over to Job 42, he said, I've heard of thee, Lord. By
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore
I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. It's very true we were saved
in eternity. Second Timothy chapter one in
verse nine says that. Who hath saved us and called
us. within a holy calling. He delivered us back then. He
rescued. The Lord God came to our rescue
back then. He liberated us back then. And He's still liberating you.
He's still sparing you. He's still delivering you. If
He stopped delivering and saving you right now, you'd be damned. He just lets you go. Well, I
brought you this way, now let's see how far you can go on your
own. And He just releases His grip on you, or you'd fall into
hell. Sure as the world. So I'm holding
on to Him as tight as I can. It ain't tight enough to keep
you out of hell. Not your hold on the Lord, it's His hold on
you. He took hold of us in sovereign
effectual grace. He'll never let us go. I know
we take hold of him by faith and we reach out with arms of
faith and we take hold of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it's not
our grasp on him that saves us, it's his on us because he'll
never let go. If he didn't let us go, we'd
be goners. We were saved from the beginning.
We were saved when Christ died in our stead. Luke 19.10, for
the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Well, did he do that? Thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
Did he save his people from their sins when he came and shed his
life's blood on the cross to satisfy God? Well, of course
he did. We were saved. We're saved in
eternity. We were saved at the cross. And
Romans 13, 11 says, now is our salvation nearer than when we
first believed. Salvation's ongoing. See, the
Bible says, he that endureth to the end, the same shall be
saved. Not he that runs well for a while
and then stops. And this salvation won't be finished
till we're glorified. It won't be complete until the
last day, when the trump shall sound and our bodies will be
raised when corruption when corruption puts on incorruption and mortality
puts on immortality and we're raised and our bodies are fashioned
to liken to our Lord's glorious body, then, then you can say,
now I'm saved. Now I'm delivered. Now I'm liberated. Now I'm rescued body and soul. And you know who give the glory
to? You'll give the glory to the Lord. You'll say as it says
at the end of Revelation chapter five, salvation unto our God
and unto the Lamb. You're not gonna say salvation
by my will, salvation by my works, salvation by my worth. You'll
say salvation to the Lamb, to the Lamb of God. You see, religion today has this,
this idea, you do something for God, then you start living the
Christian life. And they're really big on that.
Really big on that, living the Christian life. It's real simple
to be a Christian, all you gotta do is say yes to a few, answer
a few questions yes, and then you're saved and you get on to
other things. But here's what religion today
is missing. They're missing this, what God
has to do for the sinner. Now, do we seek to live a life
of godliness and a life of honor to the Lord? Well, certainly
we do. I want you to look at a passage of scripture. Go to
the book of Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. Let me read this, Exodus chapter
20. I won't read all of this, what we call the 10 commandments,
and rightfully so. But look at Exodus chapter 20,
verse three. Here's what God says, thou shalt
have no other gods before me. You've seen that in print before,
haven't you? You've seen Ten Commandments hanging on walls
and put them at courthouses sometimes. Of course, some people are fussing
about them being at courthouses and that sort of thing, but here's
what they are. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above. or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth, thou shalt not bow
down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God,
am a jealous God, visiting iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and go
on and on and on the commandments. This is what people, this is
what they put in prayer. But they forget the beginning
of this. You see, here's a steadfast rule
in the Bible. The instructions of God as to
the way we're to live always follow being reminded of what
God has done for you. And nobody, I've never seen on
the list of the Ten Commandments anybody put the first two verses. They forget about this. And look
at the first two verses of Exodus chapter 20. And God spake all
these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. There's
redemption. That's what that is. That's salvation
there. There's deliverance. I rescued
you. Therefore, do these things. But you see, in religion today,
and this is always man's way, it's always what you've gotta
do. What you've gotta do. And they
forget about, they ignore, if they ever knew, what God had
to do. You see, the Lord gave these
instructions to Israel upon this basis. I redeemed you. You was in a mess. He was in
a mess. He was in bondage. You couldn't
get yourself out of that tragic situation, making bricks, building
pyramids, being treated like slaves. There you were. You didn't have
an army. You couldn't fight. You didn't
have any strength. I came to your rescue, I saved
you. It was a temporal salvation,
but it's a picture of spiritual salvation. I rescued you, I liberated
you by the blood of the Passover lamb. I bought you. I paid for you. The reason you're
firstborn lived is because I provided for you a Passover lamb that
died in the stead of the young one. And that's why there is
no death in your house. I brought you out of the house
of bondage. I liberated you. I made you whole. I rescued you. I saved you. But people forget about that
part. Next time you see the Ten Commandments
hanging on a wall, see if verses one and two are there. And if
they're not, it's taken out of context. That's right, it's taken
out of context. You see, the reason, and I preached
a few weeks ago in 1 Peter chapter one, Peter admonishes these folks
who are scattered abroad concerning godliness. Be ye holy, God says,
for I'm holy. Live as obedient children. But
first he tells them to begin with, you're elect according
to the foreknowledge of God. And then he talks about the blood
of sprinkling of the Lord Jesus. And then he talks about the work
of the Holy Spirit. He talks about all the things
that he did for them. And then on that basis, then
live the life as God would have you to live it. Don't put the
cart before the horse. And I'll tell you what we've
got today. We've got people who've made professions of faith in
church, isn't it? They're trying to live what they
think is the Christian life, and they're miserable. They think
it's the Christian life, and they're miserable. But I gotta
do this, you know, I've gotta live this way. You know, the
Lord Jesus said, my yoke is easy, my burden's light. Well, preacher,
how should I live in this world? Live to glorify God. Live to honor Him. How are people going to know
that I'm a follower of Christ Jesus? Well, tell them you believe
Him. Yeah, but I want them to see
Jesus in me. Oh my friend, they couldn't see
Jesus in Jesus when he walked on this earth. They sure enough
not gonna see Jesus in you. They're not gonna see him in
you. Live upright before men, absolutely. But remember this, the life that
you live in the flesh, before the eyes of men, and we're not
living just so that they can observe us, but it's only by
the grace of God that we can render any degree of faithfulness
to God. And we do it out of thanksgiving
because the Lord redeemed us. Why should I have no other gods
but the Lord God of glory? Because He redeemed me. He rescued
me. Why should I not take the Lord's
name in vain? Because he rescued me from slavery
to sin. See, that's the reason, that's
the reason we seek to live right, is because what the Lord has
done for us. The salvation of the righteous.
It's of the Lord. From the beginning all the way
to the end. And he keeps us saved. And he'll
keep us safe until we land safely on the distant shore. And we
find ourselves, oh, what a glorious thing. We find ourselves in the
presence of Christ Jesus. And we'll say, you rescued me.
You saved me. You liberated me. Oh, Lord Jesus,
I was sick. But you, the great physician,
you made me whole. That's the salvation of this
Bible right there. It's a salvation from sin, a
liberation from slavery. It's a rescue from the mess it
was in. And nobody can do that but God.
Your will can't do it. Your works can't do it. But God
can. You say, well, I've got loved
ones. Their hearts are hard as a rock. I know. That's the way
mine was. That's the way yours was, too.
I don't think there's any hope for them. There isn't any hope
for them except in the Lord. But he can do a work that is,
well, it is miraculous. That's what he does. He raises Lazarus's from the
dead, that's what he does. So you children, don't give up
on him, pray. Pray, Lord. You've got the power
to save me if you will, Lord. I entrust them to you. I've done
all I can do. I taught them, I instructed them.
I brought them when they was little. Lord, would you please,
if it be honoring to your will and fulfill your eternal will,
I know the scripture says you're plenteous in mercy. Would you
show mercy to my son, my daughter, my husband, my wife? He's got to do it. And He does
do it to the praise of the glory of His grace.