Scripture that he read for us
in 1 Peter chapter 4. And let me direct your attention
to 1 Peter 4 and verse 18. 1 Peter 4, 18. And the Scripture says, if the
righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the
sinner appear? My subject is scarcely. Saved. Scarcely saved. What does it take to save a sinner? Most people today in religion
seem to think that the salvation of one like us, a sinner, is
a very easy thing. This is a day of mass evangelism. This is the day of decisionism. It's the day of easy believism. It's nothing to do to be saved
except just answer yes to a few chosen questions. Do you need
to be saved? Yes. Do you want to go to heaven? Yes. You don't want to go to
hell, do you? No. Do you believe Jesus is the
Son of God? Yes. Do you believe He suffered,
bled, died, rose again? Went back to heaven? Yes. You
believe He's the only Savior? Yes. Then you're saved. Is that what salvation is? What does it take to save a sinner? Well, this is a very simplistic
answer, but it takes God. That's what it takes. It takes
God. It takes God the Father. It takes God the Son. It takes
God the Holy Spirit. There is involved in this salvation
creation. There is involved in this salvation
divine providence. It takes God to save a sinner. It takes God the Father. There
is no salvation unless God chose a people unto salvation. Folks need to read the Bible.
God, before He ever made the world, He elected a people unto
salvation. That's what Scripture says. Don't
tell me Getting saved is a simple thing, is an easy thing. It took
God's eternal purpose of grace. It took God in His infinite wisdom,
infinite wisdom, to arrive at the only way whereby He could
be just and righteous, not in any way lessening His
demands of perfection. And yet he could show mercy and
grace and forgive folks like us. It took infinite wisdom.
God purposed salvation through the death of the Lord Jesus. You call it a simple thing? It
took God's wisdom Nobody else could come up with a way to save
sinners without God somehow or another compromising His law
and His justice. God in His infinite purity, how
could He embrace one like unto Yourself without defiling Himself? A God who must visit every iniquity
with wrath? How could He ever forgive your
iniquities? How could He ever look at someone
who is absolutely full of sinfulness and say, I fully forgive all
of your sins? How could He do that when His
justice demands that all of your sins be the objects of His wrath? How could God do that? And you
listen to people, preachers today in their evangelistic messages,
they don't address the issue of how can God be just and justify
the ungodly. And the reason they don't address
that issue, they really don't understand that issue and it
doesn't matter to them. They have no concern for the
glory of God and the salvation of sinners. They just say, Jesus
died because He loved you. And all you got to do is accept
Him as your personal Savior. He wants to save you. He wants
to do you good if you just let Him. Would you let Him save you?
Would you let Him be the Lord of your life? He wants good things for you.
He wants to heal your marriage. He wants to heal your bank account.
He wants to heal your body. He wants to heal your wallet. He wants to heal your family
issues if you'll just let Him. Poor God needs us to let Him
do what He wants to do. That's not the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible is a God of salvation. He's a God who
saves and He saves in a right way. That's the only way God
can ever do things, is in a right way. In a way that's always consistent
with His justice. I know, and you know, because
we read the Word of God, something has got to be done about our
great iniquity problem. What about our transgressions?
What about all of our... I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. Does that matter? Well, yes,
it matters. But God has come up with a way
whereby He remains in His absolute purity and He deals with all
of our sinfulness in a righteous way through the death of His
Son. Salvation? Is it an easy thing? Is it a simple thing? It takes
the eternal purpose of God. It takes God the Father. I tell
you what, it takes God the Son. Yes, it takes the Son of God. Who got us into this mess? A
man? A representative man? A man likened to ourselves, but
yet without any sinfulness. Adam didn't have any sin. He
was the one who stood for all of us. It's only God deals with
everybody through these two men, two representative men. The first
Adam and the last Adam. Adam got us into a mess. A mess,
we can't extract ourselves from it. We can't get out of the mess
we're in. In fact, we're in such a mess,
we don't even know how bad the mess is. And we don't even want
to get out. We're ignorant of our absolute
depravity. But I'll tell you who's not ignorant
of it. God's not ignorant of it. These people God set apart in
old eternity for Himself. These people God chose in grace
that He'd save them. He saw us falling in at them. And before we ever fell, before
we ever became rebels against God, He had already purposed
to do something about it. You see, before He ever chose
us, He chose a Savior for us. Before He ever picked out the
sheep, He picked out the shepherd. And He gave to the shepherd this
great responsibility. Save all the sheep. Redeem all the sheep. Our Lord Jesus, He came down
here to this world. The Son of God made flesh. He
came down here to do the work that He purposed to do before
God made the world. You see, this matter of salvation,
it even involved creation. We know God made all things.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. In
six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth and all that in
them is. What was the reason for creation? Why did God make
all things? Why did God make this earth?
just so we could run around up and down on this earth and have
a good time? So a bunch of people could live
on it and enjoy their lives and enjoy one another? He made this
earth because this earth is where He would bring to pass His purpose
of salvation and redemption and reconciliation. It's on this
earth. That's why God made all things. He made all things for Himself.
Even the wicked He made for the day of evil. He made this world where He would
bring to pass that which He determined before the world was ever made.
The salvation of sinners in His Son. And lo, two thousand years
ago, the Son of God came into this world. Made flesh, dwelt
among us. Bone of our bone, flesh of our
flesh. A real man. the representative
man. For us, He lived. For all His
sheep, He lived. For all those that God gave Him,
He lived. He came for us. But there was that work of redemption
He came to do. Because we owe to God a price
that we couldn't pay. All of our sinfulness, like so
many debts, So many debts we'd run up to God. Oh, we're head
over heels in debt. Well, I was reading the newspaper
the other day about all these people filing bankruptcy, head
over heels in debt. That's an awful thing to be in
that kind of shape, I'm sure. What about being in debt to God? What about owing a debt to God
you could never... You can't even imagine how big
your debt is. You don't even know how large
the debt is. We can't ever pay what we owe
to God. All of our offenses against God,
all of our transgressions against His law, what is sin? It's the transgression of the
law. That's what the Scripture says. How many times have you
transgressed God's law? You have no idea. You can't count that high. The
math would stagger your mind. Because it's not only the things
that you do and the things that you say, it's the things that
you imagine. And it's your nature of sin.
We're filthy on the inside. That's the reason we say and
do the things we do on the outside, is because what we are in here,
out of the heart, perceive all of these sayings. And bless His
name, the Son of God came down here to do something about our
sinfulness. Don't tell me saving sinners
isn't easy. Oh, it's a simple thing to be
saved. It took the purpose of God, and
it took the death of the Son of God is what it took. He offered
Himself to the wrath of God, to the justice of God. Somebody had to pay. And we didn't have the wherewithal
to pay. But he did. He's able to save. And I tell
you, the question is, will he? Is he willing to save? And he
is willing to save. He is willing to save and able
to save. And how did he save us? He suffered,
he bled, he died. and the wrath of God, the justice
of God. The heirs of God's justice sought
out our substitute. They found him and they shot
him right in the heart. The sword of justice, read Zechariah,
that God pulled the sword of justice forth out of its sheath
and thrust it into the very soul of the Son of God. Don't tell
me salvation is an easy thing. It took the death of the Son
of God to save us. Nothing less would do. Nothing
less would satisfy God but the death of His Son. The Lamb of
God had to die if all the other lambs are going to live. And
in His death, we see our life. In that darkness that He endured,
we see the light. The light of God's presence. Salvation, an easy thing. It
took God to bring it to pass. It took God the Father and His
eternal purpose. It took God the Son coming down
here Meeting every jot and tittle of the law and then dying under
the wrath of God. Then rising again because of
our justification. Going back to glory to intercede
for us. Then he sent the promise of the
Father. What does it take to save a sinner?
It takes the work of the Father and it takes the work of the
Son. It takes the work of the Spirit of God because He's going
to make application of what Christ did. He's going to show us the
Son of God. And we go through life comfortable,
comfortable in our ignorance, comfortable in our sinfulness.
And then, whenever God has determined He crosses our paths with the
gospel. And something happens, strangely,
mysteriously, miraculously. And I know everybody doesn't
have an experience that stands out. To some people it's like,
you know, I gradually came to knowledge of the gospel. With
me, I was sitting in Rosemont Baptist Church back in the early
seventies. I was assistant pastor, music
director, choir director, taught Sunday school, preached when
the pastor was gone. He knew I had to sharpen whatever
abilities I had, so he gave me the last Sunday night of every
month, that would be my time to preach. And I did. And I was
going along, I knew some doctrine, had some doctrine up here. I
was a Calvinist, if you didn't believe me, I'd argue with you
about it. I'd be glad to. God sent a preacher,
a certain preacher, who pastored this church. sent him to Winston-Salem
to preach a meeting. And he preached that night the
Gospel. I suppose I had heard the Gospel
before, but I really heard it that night. I really heard it. I couldn't get over it and I
hadn't got over it to this very moment. Because I had always thought
salvation plan. And I remember him saying it
to me, it's like he shouted it right to me. Richard, you said
like that guy preached right to you. It's like he was preaching
right to me, Richard. He said salvation's not in the
plan. Well, that got my attention.
He said it's not in the plan, it's in a person. And like an
arrow that found my heart. arranged all of that. The Spirit of God. Don't tell
me salvation is a simple thing, just an easy thing. Oh, it takes
a Spirit of Grace who arranges all the details. He gets everything
in alignment. There's the preacher. There's
the Word of God. There's a particular sermon,
a particular message, and there's a particular sinner who had led
the singing for him. We had a choir, led the choir. I enjoyed doing that. Sat down
thinking we did a pretty good job. Don't think anybody was
flat. I always told people, smile. You don't get flat. You don't
go flat if you smile. While I'd be leaving, I'd say,
smile. I'd sit down. We did a pretty
good job. And he got to preaching. Then
I found out I was an awful sinner. And I needed a wonderful Savior.
I didn't need a plan. I needed the God-man. That's who I needed. I needed
the Savior. See, that's what the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of God, He makes us alive. He quickens us. He
takes the Word of God, the incorruptible Word of God, and He makes us
alive. This is the seed, this is the
living seed of God. And the Spirit of God puts it
in the heart. And miraculously, mysteriously,
the dead sinner lives to the glory of God. And I'll tell you,
when the dead sinner is made to live to God's glory, he's
interested in the gospel. He's interested in the subject.
How can God be just and justify this ungodly man? And that's
when the good news of Christ Jesus and His death really becomes
good news. In the same Spirit of grace,
He keeps on teaching us. He abides with us. The Savior
said, I'll send you another comforter. One likened to myself. He's the
life within us. He's the life within us. He's
the light. He's the one who teaches us.
He's the one who preserves us. What does it take to save a soul?
The Spirit of God's got to keep us safe. He's got to watch over
us. Because all of these enemies,
the enemies of our souls, our own flesh, and the world, And
Satan, who is a roaring lion, he goes about seeking whom he
may devour. The Spirit of God has got to
protect us from all of these things. And He causes us to grow
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
on some appointed day, the Lord is going to say, it is time to
go home. And take us home to glory. And this old body is going
to go back to the grave. You see, my soul is saved. I'll go back to, go to the Father. But He redeemed this body too.
And it's got to come forth from the grave. That's part of salvation
too, isn't it? Salvation of this body? Isn't
that part of salvation? Well, sure it is. I bear the
effects of sin. This body does, yours does. The
disease, the infirmities of the flesh. Why do we have these things? It's because of sin. That's the
reason. And I'll tell you what salvation
is. It's to be freed from every effect of sin totally. And in that glorious day we will
be. Then we can say, we'll sing salvation
to our God and unto the land. Don't tell me salvation's an
easy thing. Oh, it's simple to get saved. No, it isn't simple. It takes
infinite wisdom of God Almighty. It takes infinite power. It takes
the omnipotence of God. This religious but lost generation,
with their mass evangelism and their easy-believism, they've
got salvation boiled down to nothing. All you've got to do
is repeat the sinner's prayer. That's all you've got to do.
One noted evangelist, pastor, really he pastors a huge church,
At the end of this message, he always says, now we're not going
to close the broadcast without giving you a chance to make Jesus
the Lord of your life. If you want to be saved, you
repeat this prayer. You're ready to repeat this prayer.
He'll say a few words for you. Now, if you repeated that prayer,
we believe you've been born again. Write to this address on the
screen. We'll send you some literature
on how you can live the Christian life. Is that all it is? Is that
all it is? Here's what Peter says. He
says, the righteous are scarcely saved. You know what scarcely
means? With difficulty. The righteous are saved with
great difficulty. It's a work involved here. There's
labor involved here. There is deity in this, scarcely
saved, save with difficulty. Wherein lies the difficulty? Well, number one, the difficulty
with the justice of God that demands retribution. It demands the penalty be paid. There are few evangelists that
ever talk about that. What about the justice of God? How can God's law be silenced? The law that screams, screams
for our condemnation. The soul that sinneth shall die. That's what the law says. And the law won't get weaker.
The law won't sweep any sins under the rug. It demands death.
The wages of sin is death. That's what God's Word says.
What kind of death? Well, physical death, yeah. Spiritual
death, we're born that way. What about eternal death? Eternal death. A death that will
never end. The justice of God's got to be
answered. And it seems to me like not too
many people are interested in the justice of God and the salvation
of sinners. But Job was. How can God be just
and justify the ungodly? Is this where the difficulty
is? The difficulty is How can God's broken law and its vengeance toward me be
appeased? To where the law would look at
me and say, I have no charges against you. Can you imagine
that? God's strict holy law looking
at you, looking at you, examining you from the bottom of your feet
to the top of your feet? And Isaiah says, by nature, from
the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, there's nothing
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. Can you imagine God's
law examining you with a fine-tooth comb? The law of God taking the
magnifying glass to all of your imaginations and your dreams
and your motives, as well as your words and your deeds, and
the law of God saying, I find no fault with this one. Well,
I'll tell you what, that's the way it's got to be before you're
going to go to glory. There's only one way that could
ever happen. It's through the substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Him dying in your stead. And
so the Scripture says, for God hath made Him to be sin for us
who knew no sin. He knew no sin that we, we who
drink iniquity like water, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. The justice of God, the demands
of justice have got to be met so that God can say, deliver
him from going down to the pit. I found a ransom. I found a ransom. We couldn't find a ransom. We
didn't know what the answer was. What's the answer to this? Here's
God in His purity in me and my defilement. How can the two of
us be brought together? God's a consuming fire. How can
He embrace me and not consume me? God found the way. Ransom. Christ the Lord. That's how mercy and truth are
met together. That's how righteousness and
peace have kissed each other at the cross, at the cross of
the Lord Jesus. Scripture says, Proverbs 16,
6, by mercy and truth iniquity is purged. This is the first
difficulty that had to be met. The demands of divine justice. I'll tell you something, and
you hear me say this all the time, and I'm all the time saying,
how can God be just and justify the ungodly? Whenever I listen
to a message, that's what I'm listening for. Because the answer
to that is the gospel. And if a man doesn't answer that, he may preach all around the
gospel. But if he doesn't answer that
question, he hadn't preached the gospel. I know that. And I'll tell you the second
difficulty. Scarcely saved, saved with difficulty. The second difficulty, our own
depravity has got to be overcome. We're fallen and depraved. We're not opposed to religion. We're not even opposed to morality. You know what we're opposed to?
God's way of salvation. That's what we're opposed to.
Read again Romans chapter 10, where the great apostle writes
of those whom he loves so much. He said, I bear them record.
They have the zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Well,
Paul, what are they doing? He said, they're going around
trying to establish a righteousness of their own. And they won't
submit. See, that's us. We won't submit. We're so arrogant. We're so rebellious. We won't submit to God's way
of saving sinners by the righteousness of the last Adam. We just won't
submit. And I'll tell you what, Our own
depravity, it's got to be overcome. And nobody can do that but God. God's got to do it. See, we have
no ability to change our condition. We can't even give ourselves
faith. God demands faith. God demands repentance. And we
can't even muster it up. Paul says he went forth preaching
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I don't have any repentance toward God and I can't come up with
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a real issue right there.
I've got a real problem. What God demands, I can't produce. And God says, Be ye holy, for
I am holy. I can't produce that either.
I'm in a real mess. God demands repentance. I don't
have it. God demands faith. I can't produce
it. God demands perfection. I don't
have that. Can that be overcome? Is there
an answer to this dilemma? Yes, there is. There is the work of the Spirit
of God again. He gives us repentance. He gives
us life. We're born again of the Spirit.
The Lord told Nicodemus, you must be born again. Didn't tell
him how to be born again though. He didn't say run down to the
local religious bookstore, Nicodemus, and buy you a copy of how to
be born again. He just said, you must be born
again. And he said, it's as mysterious as the wind. And it is. You've got to be born again. But that's work God's got to
do. And that's a selective work in a congregation like this. Maybe there are people here tonight
dead in trespasses and sins. The only hope you've got is for
the Spirit of God to invade the dark regions of your heart with
the Word of God and create life. This is the good seed. I know
I'm sowing the good seed. It's the good seed of the Gospel.
It's the good seed that glorifies God. It glorifies the Father,
it glorifies the Son, it glorifies the Spirit. I'm sowing the good
seed, but unless the heart is prepared to receive it, the blackbirds
The devils of this world just swoop down after the service
is over and just take that good seed plum away. There it goes. But if the Spirit of God just
takes the Word of God, the sword, if He takes the sword and just
slices your heart open, that seed just drops down in there.
Something special happens. And that's, it's so mysterious,
the Lord don't even tell us how it happens. And we're like that
blind man in John 9. They said, what happened? He
said, I don't know. The only thing I know is this.
I once was blind and now I see. I can tell you that. And that's
the way it is with a sinner. I was dead and now I'm not dead
anymore. I was deaf but I'm not deaf anymore. I had no interest but I got an
interest now. That's all I can tell you. And
the reason is because God the Spirit did something for you.
We're saved with difficulty. Scarcely saved. Because our own
depravity has got to be overcome. And then the Lordship of Christ
Jesus has got to be acknowledged. And we're averse to that. We want to be gods. We want to
be the Lord. I'm the master of my own fate.
It's my will. That's the way man is. The Lord comes along like He
did to Saul of Tarsus. Bright light shined from heaven. Knocked him off his horse. You've
been knocked off your horse. Literally, have you ever fell
off a horse? I have. It hurts. It hurts. I got four cracked ribs. Now,
the first time I had two cracked, four cracked ribs were over here.
Leave this side alone. I got two cracked ribs over here
when I was a teenager. A horse kicked me. I had fallen off the horse, tried
to get back on, and he wasn't thinking the same way I was thinking.
And he let me know it with both feet, both hind feet. You ever
get knocked off a horse or fall off a horse? It hurts. Saul of
Tarsus, he'd come off that horse. The Lord knocked him off. And he said, who are you? Lord, Lord, he called Jesus of
Nazareth Lord? He had been cursing the name
of Jesus of Nazareth. He despised Jesus of Nazareth. He was going to Damascus with
papers authorizing him to arrest anybody who believed that way.
That way of Jesus of Nazareth being the Savior. And now he
says of Jesus of Nazareth, he says, Lord, Lord, I'm going to
tell you something. The Spirit of God's going to
bring you to the point to where, as our dear brother Richardson
used to say, you'll stack your shotguns up in the corner and
you'll bow the knee to King Jesus and you'll say, He's the Lord.
He's the Lord. And this fourth difficulty that's
got to be overcome, the devil's got to be overcome because he's
not for any of this. As the fellow said, he's a ginnet.
He's a ginnet. But he's no match for the mighty
Savior. I can't handle him. And you can't
handle him. And I tell you, he doesn't mind
hearing people say, oh, getting saved is easy. Satan just warms
himself by the fire. But when somebody starts bragging
on God, preaching Christ Jesus, the sovereign Savior, preaching
the work of the Spirit of God, that's when Satan knows he's
in trouble. He's got to be overcome. You
see, he's a crafty serpent. He thinks his goods are in safe
keeping. He's the strong man who keeps
the palace, goes in and out, in and out at his leisure, until
a stronger man comes in. That's Christ the Lord of glory
and drives him out. And the Lord of glory, He stakes
a claim to our hearts and says, this one's mine. This one's mine. My father gave him to me before
the world began. I redeemed him by my blood. This
one's mine. And we're His forever. Don't talk to me about an easy
salvation. Ain't nothing easy about it.
What does it take to save the soul? It takes God. It takes
God. Let's sing 280.