Well, it's good to see each of
you here this evening. Go back to John chapter 6, if
you would. John chapter 6. We actually have finished with
John 6, but I'd like to go back to this chapter, kind of as a
starting place to start from in order to get to our subject
for this evening. In John chapter 6, Our Lord Jesus
has set forth great doctrines. Doctrines that many of the Jews
found to be very offensive to them. They even said toward the
end of the chapter, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? These
are offensive statements. These are doctrines that we just
cannot abide by. We cannot tolerate them. And
then they left Him. The Scripture says many of them
left Him. Many of His disciples deserted
Him and followed Him no more. In this great chapter, John chapter
6, our Lord has set forth the doctrine of depravity. In verse
44, if you would look at this, He said, No man can come to Me
except the Father which has sent Me draw him And I'll raise Him
up at the last day. This is the absolute inability
of man to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I admonish you to come
to the Savior. I say, believe on the Lord Jesus
and thou shalt be saved. Here's the sad truth. You have
no ability to come to the Master. This is what our sinfulness has
done to us. It's robbed us of all ability.
It's robbed us of life. We're spiritually dead. And that
which we are admonished to do, that which God commands us to
do, we have no ability to do. Boy, ours is a sad case, isn't
it? Unless God shows mercy, unless
God's pleased to show grace to us, unless He gives us life,
unless He who breathed life into Adam at first, unless He breathed
spiritual life into us, we'll just remain dust and ashes, spiritually
speaking. He set forth the doctrine of
total depravity, and the folks found this to be very offensive.
He also set forth the doctrine of unconditional election. He
said back in verse 37, All that the Father giveth me, all that
the Father giveth me, every one of them, they shall come to me,
and him that cometh to me I'll let no wise cast out. This is
a good pleasure of God's will. He chose some as the objects
of His love without any merit on their part. Those whom God
set apart in old eternity to be the objects of His love, to
be the objects of His grace, were undeserving of, unworthy
of the least of God's mercies. The reason for God setting His
love upon us is only to be found in His own sovereign, eternal
will and purpose. There's nothing to draw forth
God's love. You know, when we talk about
loving one another, we see attractive qualities in each other. This
lady sitting back here, I saw attractive qualities in her many
years ago and so it was easy for me to love her. But there's
nothing lovable about us. Not by nature. Just filth and
iniquity and wickedness. And yet God said, I've loved
you with an everlasting love. everlasting love. In love He
chose us to be His own. And never forget this, love's
behind it all. The love of God for His people.
And then our Lord also set forth the adoption of limited atonement
or particular redemption. In verse 38 he said, For I came
down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him
that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent
me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but shall raise it up again at the last day. He identifies his
elect with himself. These will be the ones who partake
of the sufferings of his death and the merits of His death and
the reward of His death. How else could it be said that
He should lose none of those given to Him unless those who
were given to Him were fully redeemed by His blood? O you
who believe this glorious gospel, your debt has been paid. Everything
God demanded of you, your substitute has rendered satisfaction to
God's justice on your account. His blood has washed your sins
away. His righteousness is freely imputed
to you. And you stand before a holy God
in the very righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what
a blessed people we are! And everybody that our Lord Jesus
redeemed, He will have these. He will have those whom He bought.
Not a one shall perish in their sins because their debt's been
paid. Because justice has been satisfied. by our great Redeemer. And then the Lord Jesus, He set
forth irresistible grace. This is the effectual almighty
work of God the Spirit and the people of His choice, those that
He redeemed by His blood. He gives to them, He gives to
us a heart to know Him. He teaches us. Notice what he
says when you get down to verse 45. It is written in the Prophets,
they shall all be taught of God. All of those set apart in eternal
election, all of those redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus,
they'll all be taught of God. Everyone will be instructed effectually
by God. Every man therefore that hath
heard the Gospel, heard the voice of God in the heart, will learn
of the Father. We learn of the Father. And He
says, those who learn of the Father, we come to Him. We come
to Him. You know, this matter of faith. Somebody said, well, we have
blind faith. Faith isn't blind. Faith sees. Faith sees. Faith sees who God is. and bows
to who God is in His absolute holiness, in His glory, in His
sovereignty. Faith bows to the Scriptures
that set forth God to us, and faith bows to what the Scripture
says about us. Faith receives the record about
ourselves, about our depravity, about our sinfulness, about our
awful dilemma, and faith receives a record that God has given us
concerning His Son. And that substitutionary death
that He died upon The cross of Calvary. And faith is instructed. Faith isn't ignorant. Faith isn't
blind. Faith is that which God gives
us to embrace that which He teaches us. They shall all be taught
of God. All of the elect, all of the
redeemed shall be instructed of the Lord. And I'll tell you,
He's a good teacher. When He teaches you, Learn the
gospel. Learn the gospel. And then the
Savior in verse 40, He proclaims the perseverance of the saints.
He says, this is the will of Him that sent me, verse 40, that
everyone would see the Son and believe on Him may have everlasting
life and I will raise Him up at the last day. There is no
possibility any of His sheep will perish. They were entrusted to the sheep,
and the sheep were entrusted to the shepherd in the covenant
of grace, and he shall not fail to bring them all home to God.
And this is really what I'd like to stress this evening, this
matter of the perseverance of the saints. And I want to go
back now to chapter 8, to that scripture that our brother read
to us, and I want to focus on verses 30 and 31, 32. 30, 31,
and 32. of John chapter 8. As he spake
these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are
ye my disciples indeed. There's my subject. Disciples
indeed. Are you a disciple indeed? That is, in reality? Are you a genuine disciple? The Lord says, if you stay with
Me, if you walk with Me, if you just keep on believing Me, then
you are My disciple indeed. He says, and ye shall know the
truth. Those who are His disciples indeed,
they shall know the truth. Not a truth, the truth. There
is but one truth. There is but one great body of
truth. That's the faith of God's elect.
His great body of truth of salvation by grace. By the doing and the
dying of the Lord Jesus. This message of all of God and
all of grace and all in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's people know the truth.
We don't know just about the truth. We know the truth. We
know Him who is the truth. We know Him. We know Him because
He knows us. And He has identified Himself
to us. He has introduced Himself to
us. He has made Himself known unto us. We're not strangers
to Him. We're not strangers to His voice.
There was a time when we didn't know His voice, and His voice
is the Gospel. We didn't recognize His voice,
and the Gospel went forth, and it meant nothing to us. The Gospel
Word was faithfully declared by some preacher, and it went
in one ear, as we would say, and out the other ear. But then
one day, it lodged in our minds, it lodged in our hearts, the
truth. And now we know the truth as
it is in Christ Jesus. We know the truth and it sets
us free, it liberates us. It liberates us. Now, the Savior says, or the
Scripture says in verse 31, the Lord Jesus said to those who
believed on Him, verse 30, many believed on Him. And on the surface,
this does sound good. Just like it does back in John
chapter 2. Go back to John chapter 2 with
me. Look at John chapter 2. This is after our Lord Jesus,
He had changed the water to wine. He then entered into the temple
and He drove out the money changers. People witnessed what He did. They listened to what he had
to say. They were so overwhelmed by who he was, they said they
believed him. Look at John chapter 2 and verse
23. Now when he was in Jerusalem
at the Passover and the feast day, many believed in his name. Many believed in His name. And
we just read essentially the very same thing back over here
in John 8 verse 30. Many believed on Him. So it says,
many believed on His name when they saw the miracles which He
did. And to us, we would say, well, it's wonderful. Wow, what
a wonderful service they had that day. All of these people
professing faith in the Lord Jesus. But the Scripture says,
the Spirit of God tells us in verse 24, Jesus did not commit
Himself unto them because He knew all. He knew these people. He knew their minds. He knew
their thoughts. He knew their hearts. He knew
all about them. He didn't need anybody to testify. A man for he knew what was in
man. This was an insincere faith. He saw that. Oh, they professed
faith with their lips. Their hearts were far from Him.
This was not a full commitment to the Son of God. This was just
a very shallow, temporary thing. They were impressed by the miracles
which He did, but they weren't impressed with the Savior. See,
there were lots of people who saw what He did, were even recipients,
like of the feeding of the 5,000 men plus the women and children
back there in John chapter 6. And they said, wow, we're ready.
Let's make Him the King. This is the prophet, they said. But they didn't believe Him in
their hearts. They saw no need for Him. They didn't think they were sinners.
They had no understanding of who God was. They didn't realize
how alienated they were from God. They were Jews. They were
Abraham's children. Here's this one who came and
said he's come to save people from their sins. They said, we
be not sinners. We want you to be the king and
run the Romans out of here. That's what we want. We want
an earthly kingdom. We're not interested at all in
a spiritual kingdom. But our Lord Jesus said, my kingdom's
not of this world. And because they made no commitment
to Him, He made no commitment to them. He had never committed
Himself to them. Let me tell you something. In
old eternity, our beloved Savior, He made a commitment to redeem
His people, to save His people in covenant love. He engaged
Himself to this work. He made a commitment. And as
a result, He came into the world, He redeemed us, And as a result
of His work of redemption, He then sent the Spirit of Grace
to teach us of His redemption, to teach us of reconciliation,
to teach us of the forgiveness of sins, of the righteousness
that He freely imputes. You see, He committed Himself
to us long before He ever made the world. And this is what He
does to those who really believe Him, that is to His people, to
those to whom He gives faith. He gives the grace that we commit
ourselves then over to Him. He's already committed Himself
to us. But this, in John chapter 2,
He didn't commit Himself to these people. He was never committed
to these people. Was He? No, never was He committed
to these people. He's committed to His elect.
And he's always been. And he saw the insincerity of
the hearts of these people. They didn't entrust themselves
to him, and he didn't entrust himself to them. You see, a real
believer says like the apostle in 2 Timothy chapter 1, I know
whom I have believed. I'm persuaded He's able to keep
that which I have committed unto Him against that day. I have
made a deposit of that which is of utmost value to me, my
everlasting soul. I have deposited it to Jesus
Christ. By the grace of God, I've come
to Him. I lean on Him. I bow to Him. I believe Him. I cast myself
on the Savior. I have committed myself to Him
because He committed Himself to me before He made the world. He made a commitment. But these
people in John 2, they didn't make that commitment. They didn't
make that commitment. And so back over here in John
chapter 8, when it says, meaning believed on Him, well, let's
not get too excited yet. Because this is what the Savior
said. If, if you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples. Indeed. Indeed. You see, those who really believe
the Savior, they'll stay with Him. They'll stick with the Gospel. It doesn't mean that we won't
fall and stumble and mess up. I'll tell you something about
an individual who is an object of God's saving love who's been
redeemed by the blood of the Savior, who's robed in the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus, who's been brought by the Spirit of grace
to make a full commitment of the soul to Christ Jesus. You
deposit your soul to Him for sake keeping. I'll tell you something
about them. They'll continue in the faith.
They'll continue in the faith. Job said, the righteous shall
hold on His way. Doesn't mean He won't sin. He
will sin many, many times. But He'll continue in the faith.
If it's a God-given faith, if it's the faith of God's elect,
He'll continue in the faith. He'll continue in the truth.
He'll continue in the truth. Now, as I set forth this subject
of disciples in deed, let me give you I want to help you to
understand three things on the matter of perseverance. Number
one, all of the elect of God will be preserved by the Lord. You see, the reason we will persevere
is because we're preserved, we're kept. We're kept by the power
of God. You see, the elect of God, we
are forever secure. I know there are a lot of people
who seem to think that it's wrong to have some kind of assurance
of your salvation. They think, well, you're being
presumptuous. I'm not being presumptuous. I
just believe the Word of God. He that hath the Son hath life,
Bill. That's what the Scripture said.
And listen, to not believe that is sinful. That's unbelief. I believe what God says. Those
who have made a commitment of themselves to Christ Jesus, who
see His beauties, who see His glories, who see who He is, that
He's God, He's man, He's the Savior, He's the only mediator
between God and men, He's our righteousness, He's our friend,
He's our beloved, He's our husband, He's the vine, we're the branches,
He's everything to us, Those who believe Him, who cast their
souls upon Him, you can have absolute confidence. He will
keep you till you have to cross the Jordan River, and He'll bury
you safely over to the other side. That's not presumption,
that's assurance. All of the elect of God are preserved
by the Lord. And I'll give you several reasons. The covenant of grace can't be
nullified. It's forever. It's forever. No wonder David said, God's made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, ensured.
This is all my salvation. All of my salvation is not, oh,
I've made a commitment, or I've done this, or I've done that.
I do believe it, but that's not all of my salvation. The everlasting
covenant of grace, that's all my salvation right there. There's
my security. There's my hope. He who set me
apart won't let me go. He who loved me with a love that
began before the world began, He won't ever cease to love me.
The covenant of grace can't be nullified. I'll tell you something
else, the blood of Christ Jesus wasn't shed in vain. The death of our Lord Jesus was
a successful work of redemption. His blood bought and paid for
His people. He redeemed us and He will have
what He bought. You go to the store and you pull
out some money. You've got some items right up
there in front of the cashier. And you give her the money. You
expect her to bag those items and give them to you. And you'll
walk out the door and say, these are mine. I paid for these. Our Lord Jesus, He paid our debt. He satisfied God's justice. How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? The God-Man satisfied justice
when He died in our stead on the cursed tree. And our Lord
Jesus, He must have what He bought. There's our security. That's
why we're preserved. He bought and paid for us. And
I'll tell you something else, the seal of the Holy Spirit can't
be broken. Ephesians chapter 1, in whom
ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, in whom, after ye believed, ye were
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance unto the redemption of the purchased possession unto
the praise of His glory. We're kept with the Spirit of
God. He won't allow us to spoil. He has sealed us. We're not going
to go bad. We won't go back. There won't
come a day when God says, I'm just going to throw you out because
you've gone bad. No, He sees us in the beauties
of His Son. He keeps us in Christ Jesus. We're sealed by the Holy Spirit.
In fact, the Spirit of God Himself is the seal. It can't be broken. The power of God, then, it can't
be defeated. The covenant can't be nullified.
The blood of Christ Jesus wasn't shed in vain. The seal of the
Holy Spirit can't be broken and the great power of God can't
be defeated. We're kept by the power of God.
Who keeps us safe? You keep yourself. So I get the victory every day
over the devil. You've never got a victory in
yourself. All you know is defeat. Kept by the power of God. He
keeps us. He preserves us. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His
abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. God keeps you. And I'll tell you something else,
the promise of Christ Jesus can't be broken. He said, my sheep
hear my voice and I know them, they follow me. I give unto them
eternal life. That's what he said. I give unto
them eternal life. And they shall never perish. That's what the Master said.
They shall never perish. All of these sheep that were
given to Him in the covenant of grace, our Lord Jesus says,
they shall not perish. And nobody is going to get them
out of My hand. And He said, My Father which
gave them Me is greater than all. Nobody is able to pluck
them out of My Father's hand. He said, I and My Father are
one on this. We're in agreement on this. I'll
tell you something else, the love of God can't ever cease.
That's why we're preserved. His love will never cease. Having
loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the
end. In Romans chapter 8, who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.
Oh, but I have so many sins, surely that will overwhelm the
love of God. Your sin has been put away. Your
sin has been paid for, child of God. And I'll tell you something
else, the work of God in us can't be overthrown. He who began a
good work in you will finish it to the day of Jesus Christ.
I know that whatsoever God doeth, Ecclesiastes 3.14 says, I know
that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever, and nothing
can be put to it, nor anything taken away from it. And God doeth
it that men may fear before Him. This is an everlasting salvation. And I'll tell you this, the immutability
of God won't allow His chosen ones to perish. He said, I am the Lord, I change
not. That's why you sons of Jacob
aren't consumed. That's the only reason you sons
of Jacob aren't consumed and we're the sons of Jacob. Oh yeah, we're preserved. For
you see, no sin can ever be charged to a justified soul. No sin can ever be charged to
a justified soul. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is He that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. How can sin ever be charged
to a justified soul? When that sin has been removed
from us, separated from us as far as the east is from the west,
buried in the depths of the deepest sea, and God says, I've forgotten
them. He said that the judgment, the
sins of Israel and Judah shall be sought for, shall not be found. You can't find that which doesn't
exist. All were preserved. Those who
are disciples indeed, are preserved. And I know will continue to be
preserved because the prayer request of our Savior will not
go unanswered. John 17, the Savior said, Father,
I will also that they would, those whom thou has given me
be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou
has given me for thou lovest me before the foundation of the
world. That's His prayer request. We're preserved. And you know what? If one of
the chosen ones should fail to reach glory, then God's everlasting
purpose of grace will have been frustrated. And that can't ever
happen. That can't happen. Now, here's
the second thing. Persevering to the end is a result
of being preserved. Why is it we persevere? Some
of you, you've been in the faith for many, many years. Why are
you still in the faith? Why do you still believe this
Gospel? After all, we've seen others leave. Why are you still
here? Why does this Gospel still thrill
your soul? Why does the Word of God still
speak to you? Is it because of you? Is it because
you're more intent than others who left or more sincere than
many who fell away? Is that the reason? No. The reason you're still here,
the reason you persevere, the reason you are a disciple indeed
is because you've been preserved. You are being preserved by the
Lord. You see, here's an identifying
mark, an identifying mark of God's true people. They just
keep on believing the gospel. They're not looking for something
else. They just want to hear the old, old story. And that's
enough. That's all they want. I believe when a preacher goes
to a congregation, a congregation has every right to demand that
a preacher do two things. Number one, tell them the truth
and love them for what they are. Tell them the truth. Love them
for what they are. Because that's what the people
of God want to hear. It's the truth. It's the truth. It's the sheep food. Sheep food. I'm not saying a believer won't
sin. He will. I'm not saying that a believer
won't do things that he ought not do. He will. But he won't
quit believing Christ. He won't do that. He won't quit
looking to the blood and the righteousness, the obedience
of the Son of God. He won't do that. He won't leave
the truth. He won't quit looking unto Jesus. He began this by looking unto
Jesus. He's living a life of faith,
looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.
And one day, he'll be satisfied when he sees the Lord Jesus as
He is. He just keeps on looking to Christ
Jesus. This is the one dominant mark
of salvation and grace. Perseverance. We just persevere. True believers don't quit. They just don't quit. They get discouraged. Might get
their feelings hurt every once in a while. Join the crowd. Somebody might not speak to them.
Whereas other people say, you know, nobody spoke to me at that
church. I'm not going back anymore. Well, I'll tell you the truth.
I'm not here so one of you will speak to me. I've come so God
will speak to me. That's who I want to speak to
me. I want God to speak to me. If you choose not to, you probably
got better people to speak to anyway. But I'm thankful the
Lord speaks to me. That's why we come for the Lord
to speak to us. Speak, Lord! That's what Eli
said to Samuel. Say, speak, Lord, for thy servant
here. I've come to hear. I'm not come
to be entertained. I play games. I've not come out
of a religious habit. I've come to hear from God. You know whose attitude that
is? Somebody who's a disciple indeed. And you can't run them
off. You can't run them off. Because
the truth will bring them back. Boy, I tell you, did you hear
what that preacher said? Yeah, and I'm going to go back
and hear him again tonight too. I had a woman one time come to
me and said, you stepped on my toes this morning. I said, boy,
I'm a bad shot. I wasn't aiming for your toes.
I was aiming for your heart. She said, I'm coming back tonight.
That's the way God's people are. They persevere. Persevere. And let me give you this and
I'll quit. Perseverance is an evidence of being a disciple
indeed. A disciple indeed. Keeping on believing, it's not
a condition of salvation, it's evidence, isn't it? It's evidence
God's done something for you. You've seen people make a profession
of faith and they run well for a while, then they lose interest. And we hate to see that, but
there's nothing you can do. As preachers, we've seen it lots
of times. And you just see it's like trying
to hold on to sand. It's just going right through.
And there's nothing you can do because if the Gospel doesn't
hold them. In fact, we don't have programs and stuff. We've
got nothing that appeals to the flesh, really. What is it that holds the folks
in our congregation? The truth. And that's enough
for God's people. That's all we need. The Savior said, If ye continue
in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. Let me give you this. I'll quit. In the word of God,
we're surrounded by many, many promises. lest we become discouraged, lest we get down in the dumps. God's
made His promises. He'll keep us. He preserves us,
kept by the power of God through faith. And we're also surrounded
by many warnings as well. Don't quit. Don't you quit now. Don't ever stop believing. Pastor,
how long do we have to hang around here before we can be considered
to be a disciple indeed? All your life. Isn't that right? All your life. I'm so thankful when somebody
makes a profession of faith and Bill has to fill the baptistry.
That's an exciting time and we rejoice, we give thanks. But
we also know this. Well, let's see where they are
in 10 years. Yeah. We see a lot of shooting
stars that come in I said, wow, well this is going to set this
church on fire. And as quick as they come in,
they go out. They fizzle out. The reason we hadn't fizzled
out is because He keeps us. Thank God, all glory to our Lord,
He keeps us believing. Well, let's sing a closing song
tonight. Let's sing Jesus Saves, number
231. I'm thankful He does. Nobody
else can, but He can and He does. And He saves forever.