This week our meeting starts
Friday at 7 o'clock. Rick Ward from out in California,
Stan's brother, and Pastor Todd Nybert will be down here to preach
for us. And I'm really, really, really looking forward to it.
But I want you to just look there in 2 Timothy 1, verses 8 and
9. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord. Never be ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, the testimony of Christ, testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one worth testifying
about. And don't be ashamed of me, his
prisoner, but be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel.
according to the power of God, who hath saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. You know, today I preached on
that salvation of the righteous, and I'm going to continue that
way. I preached this morning, and you remember, I'm sure, very
well. God purposed salvation. God provided salvation. God applied
our salvation. God sustains us in salvation,
and it's all by grace. All by grace. And the reason
we know that we have to be saved, because God said they would.
God said they would. He said, everlasting salvation
to the Israel of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ laid
down His life for us. They sung that tonight. You know
that on that cross, on that cross, He bore everything that was against
us. And after it was all paid, after
it was all said and done, they took Him down off of a cross,
wrapped Him in linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb, put a
big stone over it. Done that on Friday afternoon, early Sunday morning. The stone
was gone, and so was the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because God was satisfied. What's
proof of it? His resurrection from the dead.
What's proof of it? He stayed on this earth for 40
days and 40 nights, appearing to nobody, nobody but His people. And even today, just like He
did after His resurrection in those 40 days, the only people
He appears to is His people. He does not appear to the world,
He appears to His elect, He appears to His people. And I tell you,
we must be saved because of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I've
got you in my hands and ain't nobody can pluck you out. And
we're in the Father's hands and nobody can pluck you out of them. And as I said, and I hope this
is so, to preach salvation any other way than salvations of
the Lord and salvations by the grace of the Lord. is to rob
Christ of His power, rob our Lord Jesus and the God of His
glory, and to rob the saints of their comfort. All of grace,
all of grace. And that's what we're talking
about here, this grace. You know, I said God saved on
purpose, and here it says He saved us on purpose, not according
to anything we did, but grace was given us in Christ before
the world began. Now here's my second point if
I'd have kept preaching this morning. Salvation's of the Lord. It's necessary for salvation
to be of the Lord. It's absolutely necessary for
it to be of the Lord. It must be of the Lord or we
would not, could not ever be saved. It'd be impossible to
be saved if salvation were not of the Lord. It's a necessity
that salvation be of the Lord. You know, Look over here in Romans
chapter 8 with me, I want you to see this. I could quote this
to you, but this is something, when you see something for yourself,
then you say, yes, right there it is, right there it is. If
it wasn't of the Lord, we could never be saved, never ever be
saved. Isaiah said, all of our righteousnesses
are as a filthy rag. whereas a leaf which doeth fade,
and the wind carries us away. He says all flesh is grass, and
oh my, and here look what he says in Romans chapter eight
and verse seven. This is why it has to be of the
Lord, because the carnal mind, the fleshly mind, the natural
mind, the mind we're born with, is enmity against God. That word
enmity is the same word as hate. Same word as hate. People say,
I don't hate God. Not the God you know, not the
God you think you know, but the God in the Bible. I don't know
how many times people have said, if God's like that, He has to
be a monster. If God's like that, my God's
not like that. But I'll tell you to be carnally
minded is enmity, is hatred against God. It's not subject to the
law of God. Neither indeed can it be to the
law and principles of God. And then they that are in the
flesh, they that are in their own nature, it's impossible for
them to please God. You know, our nature, that carnal
nature, is against holiness? Oh, it's against holiness. Oh,
we want to have our own holiness. We want to have our own righteousness.
We want to have our own abilities. But I tell you, our nature is
against holiness. Our nature is against righteousness.
Our nature is against God itself. And if you don't think that's
right, you go somewhere and start preaching the gospel of the grace
of God. And I tell you, everything about
us was against God. And that's why I say, if it's
a necessity, that salvation must be of the Lord, or we could not
possibly ever be saved. And what about our inward struggles?
There's two things that goes on in us all the time. Faith
and unbelief. Faith and unbelief. Now you're
talking about a struggle. That's a struggle. Faith and
unbelief. That goes on in us all the time.
I believe, Lord help my unbelief. I believe that every time, and
listen, I'm telling you the truth here. Every time we doubt, doubt,
that's unbelief. Every time we, if we don't believe
God explicitly and implicitly, that's unbelief. And oh, how
much unbelief have we got in us. I come to this service at
some time and I'm so full of unbelief, you wouldn't believe
it. How much unbelief I have inside
me when I come here to preach. Oh, by an inward struggles of
faith and unbelief. What about the inward struggles
of the flesh and the spirit? The spirit wants you to be a
certain way. The spirit wants you to be strong.
The spirit wants you to be The Spirit wants you to have
great moments of devotion. The Spirit wants you to call
on Christ and look to Christ all the time. But the flesh,
He doesn't want you to look to Christ. He doesn't want you to
call on Christ. He doesn't want you to believe on Christ. He
wants to keep you from doing anything spiritual, this flesh
does. Does y'all have that problem?
Does this flesh keep you from doing the things that you would
love to do? And then you go around and you
say, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm sorry. I'm
sorry that I've done that. I thought that. I felt that.
And then what about the struggles of Bitterness you ever had any
it. You know when you people have
a little feelings toward one another And then you know you
get to thinking about them, and you get to going over in your
mind How would you deal with this? How would you deal that
what I did you know you have these things these walls in your
mind? Why didn't I say this? Why didn't I say that? Why did
I do this? Why did I do that? Why didn't I and next thing you
know you got this battle going on your mind next thing? You
know you learn awake at night He's in with struggles I tell
you what, they're real. They're real. If salvation was
through the Lord, we couldn't be saved. And oh, our outward temptations.
Oh, what outward temptations. In the world, on our job, on
our job, in our homes, You know, what we are in our homes is what
we really are. And what about our secret sins? I want you to see something over
in Psalm 19. Psalm 19, what about our secret
sins? In Psalm 19. You know, and our flesh, oh my
goodness. Look what he said here in verse
12, Psalm 19, 12. Who can understand his errors?
You know what that saying is? Who will admit to having errors? Who will admit to doing things
wrong? Who can understand his errors?
who can understand all the things that he's done is wrong. And
that's what he's saying. Cleansed thou me from secret
faults. Faults that nobody knows about
but me. Keep back thy servant also from
presumptuous sins. What's a presumptuous sin? Adam,
I mean, David was a presumptuous sinner. He presumed to take another
man's wife and that God would overlook it. He presumed to kill
a man and thought he'd get by with it. Simon Peter, presumptuous
sins. He presumed to tell the Lord,
oh, you can't do it. Now the Lord said, I've got to
go to Jerusalem. I must suffer, I must die at the hands of sinners. I've got to do it. Simon Peter
stopped him and said, no, Lord, no, no, no, Lord, it's been far
from thee. Pity thyself. What a presumptuous
thing. And then when our Lord told him,
you know, that I'm gonna go to my time, my hour's come, he said,
I'll go with you to prison, I'll even die for you. How presumptuous
was he? And oh, God said, keep me back.
David said, keep me back from these presumptuous sins. Keep
me back from presuming that I can go through this and I can handle
that and I can do this and I can do that other thing. And I'll
get by with it. David didn't think anybody saw
anything. Oh my. And oh, don't let these
presumptuous sins have dominion over me. Then I shall be upright
and I shall be innocent from the great, great transgression. Now look over here in Psalm 90.
Look at Psalm 90 in verse 8. Look down here in verse 8, Psalm 90. Thou hast set our iniquities
before thee. God sees. Oh, listen to this. And our secret sins in light
of thy countenance. Oh, David thought he had got
by with it until Nathan come by and said, put his face, you're
the man. Our Lord told Simon Peter, said,
you know, Simon, Simon, Simon, Satan sought to sift you as wheat,
and I prayed for you that your faith fell not. You have been
so presumptuous that if it wasn't for my prayers for you, you'd
fall away. That tells us that salvation
out of necessity must be of the Lord. I'll tell you what, in
our flesh, the things that we would do, we don't. Things that
we hate, we do. Things that we wouldn't do, we
do. So we have this war going on in us. And the will's with
us to perform. The will, we have the will, but
how to perform, we don't know how. And oh my, if salvation
were not of the Lord, everything I just mentioned would destroy
us. Absolutely destroy us. Wouldn't it? If salvation wasn't
of the Lord, What do you think would happen to you, or what
do you think would happen to me? Huh? What do you think would happen
to us? What do you think would happen to us? You know, Noah,
in that ark, he was saved in an ark. And that ark never had a shipwreck. That ark You know, I'm gonna
talk about making shipwreck of the faith here. If salvation
were to the Lord, what would happen to you? God put Noah,
built, he built an ark, and God put Noah in that ark, and ark,
he closed that door on that ark. And that ark went through the
fiercest storm. And you know what storm it went
through? It went through the storm of God's wrath. God said,
all flesh has come before me, it's wicked, it's evil, and I'm
going to destroy it. I'm going to destroy all flesh
off the face of the earth. And he sent water, after water,
after water, and fountains broke up in the deep, and all these
springs, now, they weren't there, they just sprung up. And God
brought all this water. And with that great storm beating
down on that ark, wind blowing and the rain just beating and
beating and beating and beating for 40 days, 40 days and 40 nights. And when that ark, when it was
through, when all the water just went away, it just settled right
down. Noah got over it. He never had
a drop of wrath of God on him. then there's all these people,
you know, then there's the Titanic. Everybody's heard about the Titanic. They built that thing and said
it's unsinkable. It's absolutely impossible for
that ship to sink. Everybody that was anybody got
on that ship. The wealthiest people that there
was was on that ship. And then there was people that
was waiting on those wealthy people on that ship. There was
people on that ship to shine the shoes of those wealthy people. On its maiden voyage, it sunk. Man can brag in both to what
he can do, but I'm telling you what, and here's the thing about
it. Timothy says, you know, said there's, they're holding faith
in a good conscience unless you make shipwreck of the faith.
You know what it would be like? We'd all make shipwreck of the
faith if it wasn't for salvation being of the Lord. When we talk
about shipwreck, when you see something shipwreck, you see
a whole bunch of stuff on the ground and on the water and on
the shore. There's the profession, there's
the faith. There's the hope of forgiveness.
There's their justification. There's all their, everything
that they were trusting in over there is laying over there. There
they are. All their righteousness is gone. Everything they thought they
had that's gone is wrecked. They made shipwreck of it. Get
it all over. And then people say this all
the time. Oh, if anyone's saved, he surely is. Oh, when he got
saved, I felt the witness of the Spirit. Well, John said, you know, try
the Spirit, whether they be of God or not. Many false Christs
have went out. I want you to see 1 John. Go
over to 1 John with me, chapter two. You know, this is the thing,
what I'm telling you is, beloved, that if salvation's not of the
Lord, we're gonna make shipwreck of the faith. Oh my, people, preachers do it,
church members do it. Oh my. And I, oh listen. Look what it said here in verse
19, 1 John 2, 19. They went out from us. Oh, they
was with us for a while. They went out from us, but they
were not of us. They wasn't of us. They didn't
have the love. They didn't have the grace. They
didn't have Christ. For if they had been of us, there's
not a doubt about it. They would have continued with
us. But they went out. Where'd they go? They went out
after their own will. They went out after their own
way. They went out after their own flesh. They went out after
their own opinions. They went out after the world.
They went out after everything but Christ. People have sat here
for two or three years and leave. And it's sad, very sad, very
sad. And look what he goes on to say,
and this is the reason they went out from us, that it might be
clearly seen, made manifest that they were not all of us. Huh? Oh, it's the dog turning to his
vomit to sow to her warren in the mire. You know, I see these kids, They
had these 4-H things and FFA things, and they show hogs and
show cattle and show sheep and show all these things. And you'll
see these kids, and they'll have these beautiful hogs. I mean,
they're spotless. They scrub them up good, and
I mean, they walk them along with a little stick and, you
know, make them stand up and their little tails curled up,
and they make them into a little hog corn. But they take that
hog back and turn him back loose in the lot. And he's going to
be in a mud hole before you can say nothing. I had a pond, my
first pond we ever built. You know how I got it sealed?
A fellow told me, he said, you want to know how to seal that
lake, that pond? He said, turn a bunch of hogs
in it. And I did. I turned some hogs in it, and
they watered down there, and down there when the water started
rising, they just watered, watered, watered. Next thing you know,
that pond never went down. It's just... So hogs are good
for something. But I said all that to say that
the sow's gonna still go back to its mire. It's gonna go to
its mud. The dog's gonna turn to its vomit. And what I'm telling
you, beloved, is how utterly, utterly dependent upon God and
His grace to save us. If salvation wasn't
of the Lord, we wouldn't last. We'd have been made shipwrecked
by the faith years and years ago, years ago. But I tell you, how utterly dependent
we are upon the grace of God, and we wouldn't have it any other
way, would we? And then here's the third, here's
my third point. This blessed truth, this blessed,
blessed truth is a great comfort and a great consolation to God's
people, to his elect. If salvation's of the Lord, I
can be saved. If salvation's of the Lord, I
shall be saved. Huh? If it had been of angels,
We'd have reason to despair. We'd have reasons to be afraid.
Oh my, for lots and lots of angels fell. Oh, it's not of angels,
huh? If it was of our free will, our
choice, oh, it'd be, there's no way we could
be saved. You know, when man made his first,
we all made our choice, didn't we? We all made our choice in
Adam. We did. Adam made his choice. I want that fruit more than I
want God to reign over me. I want that fruit more than I
want God's glory. I want that fruit more than I
want the will of God done. I want that fruit more than I
want to be saved. And that's what we did. People
say, well, you gotta make your choice. Every single human being
that's ever been born made his choice in Adam. I will not have
this man reign over me. Huh? Ain't that right? And no,
listen, had not God chosen us, you reckon we'd have chosen him?
Had not God called us, you reckon we'd have called him? Had not
God found us, you reckon we could have found Him? Job asked the question, canst
thou by searching find out God? Philosophy classes, one of the
things that philosophy class teaches is this. Who am I? Where am I from? How did I get
here? And where am I going to go? And
they debate that all this is, oh, who am I? Who am I? Where'd I come from? Well, I know who I am. Sinner
saved by grace. Where'd you come from, Adam? Where are you going? To glory. How are you going to get there?
By the same way God saved me, through Christ our Lord. That's
my philosophy back there. That's a good philosophy class,
ain't it? Oh, salvation by free will of
our choice, oh my goodness. And I tell you, if I worked the
salvations of the Lord, And I'm sure, I'm sure he'll save us
and preserve us. Why? Because he promised. He promised. He promised that
everyone that come to him, he'd not cast him out. He promised
to save them that he gave to his blessed son. He promised
salvation. Salvation stands on his precious
word. And since he promised, he's got
the power to keep his promise. He will never, God cannot lie. And I'll tell you one other thing,
beloved, is he's unchanging. He's until never change. We're
up, we're down. We're in, we're out. But he'll
never, never change. Since salvation's on the Lord,
and he'll never change, and he promised, we'll be saved. Has no doubt about it. And I'm
not saying there's no soul salvation. I'm not telling you about what
my experience. I'm telling you about what God said. If the Lord
said, promised he'd save us, mark it down. You're going to
be saved. And since he don't have the power
to change, he ain't never going to change towards us. You say,
I got this under control. Listen, he ain't going to change.
He ain't gonna change towards his love, not gonna change in
his purpose, not gonna change in his grace, not gonna change
in his will, not gonna change in his... I ain't got nothing
about God's ever gonna change. And if that's the way it is,
then I can be saved. I believe that I'll be saved,
cause salvation's of the Lord. And oh, he said, I'm persuaded
that neither life, nor death, nor ages, nor principalities,
nor powers, persons, nor things to come, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God's in Christ.
Neither house, nor death, nor birth, nor death, shall be able
to separate us from the love of God's in Christ. Huh? Oh my. They say, hold to God's unchanging
hand. Listen, I want His unchanging
hand to hold me. My hand ain't big enough. But
His hand is. I'll tell you something about
Him. His hand's big enough. You may say, we won't hold to
God's unchanging hand. Listen, let His unchanging hand
hold us. His hand is glorious enough,
powerful enough, blessed enough. precious enough that He can take
hold of every one of His children in this whole world and hold
every single one of them in His hand. And that does not limit, He's
got space left over to hold a few more. Huh? Oh, how can we praise
Him enough? Oh, this truth comforts us. Oh,
how comforting it is. and encourages us to pray, encourages
us to seek the Lord, and to look outside ourselves, look outside
ourselves, and look to Him alone for salvation. I put it in, I
think it's in the bulletin this week or last week, Martin Luther
said, if I look to myself, I can't be saved. When I look to Christ,
I cannot not be saved. Oh, we have to look outside ourselves
and look to Him alone for our salvation. And then here's my
last little point. Here's my last point. Oh, what
a great comfort and consolation to the Lord's people, the salvations
of the Lord. Oh, salvations of the Lord. You know, when When Jonah was
in the belly of the whale, our Lord called it a whale. They
said a great fish in Jonah. But he said, when he was in the
belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart
of the earth. But anyway, when God brought Jonah up out of the
belly of hell, when he found out, learned salvation was of
the Lord. Now if the average preacher would
have said this, he said, well, Jonah You know, he brought him
up, and he took him real, real close to shore, opened his mouth,
and Jonah walked out, waded up to the water, and he got up on
the shore. It couldn't have possibly been
that way if salvation was of the Lord. No, no. That whale went right up to the
land, opened his mouth, and Scripture says, spit him out. And he landed
on dry ground. That's what God does for us.
He don't give us, He don't save us and then set us down somewhere
and say, now you run a foot race with the devil, and if you beat
the devil to the gates of Peru, you'll be okay. No, we're not
running a foot race. No, no. We're salvations of the
Lord from Alpha to Omega. And oh, what great comfort. Oh,
what comfort to me. And you know, you're talking
about comfort for people that we love. People, when you get
sick, when you get old, what can comfort you more than that?
Huh? What can comfort you more than
that? And then what a reason, since salvation's of the Lord,
what a reason for humility. Look with me in 1 Corinthians
chapter four. Oh, what a reason for humility. Look what it says here in verse
seven. For who maketh thee to differ from somebody else? Who maketh
thee to differ from another? And what have you got? What have
you received? What have you got that you did
not receive? Now, if you did receive it, why
do you glory as if you did it? You made the difference. as if
you hadn't received it. Oh my. Who maketh thee to differ? Who maketh thee to differ in
nature? Who makes thee to differ in nature? Who makes you to differ in birth?
I could have been, we could have been born in a, I don't know
how many countries there are, But there's a bunch of them.
And we could have been born anywhere besides America. We could have been born anywhere.
We could have been born in Africa. We could have been born in Somalia.
We could have been born an Arab. We could have been born a Muslim.
We could have been born in a thousand places. But God blessed us to
be born in America. Land of the free and home of
the brave. Home of the brave and land of the free. And here
we are, we live in a place where we get able to gather like this
right here. I ain't worried about somebody
busting through the door, arresting us and taking us out of here.
Born in America, when they pledge allegiance to the flag, we put
our hand over our heart. When they sing the Star Spangled
Banner, we take our hats off. When they say praise and allegiance
to the flag, we take our hats off, put our hands over our hearts.
And when you have a funeral going through, the people stop their
cars and they get off and get out of them and take their hats
off. I see some teenagers do it one day when a funeral's going
through. Teenagers took their hat off
and stood there. Born in America. Tell me another country where
they do stuff like that. Tell me a country where we can
worship the way we do. We turn on a light and the lights
come on, turn a switch and the lights come on. Turn a thermostat
and the heat comes on. Turn it another way and the air
conditioning comes on. Oh, who made us to differ? And
then when it comes to hearing and believing the gospel, who
made us to differ? Who made me to differ from somebody
else? Who made us to differ? I got
three brothers and two sisters. One of them's already dead and
gone. Died at 57. And you talk to them about anything
and they don't want to hear it. It's good luck, I'm doing enough,
I'm alright, I don't worry about it. And oh, here we are. Who made
me to differ? Who made you to differ? Who made
you to differ? Who made you to differ in life?
Life. Oh, who made our life to be what
our life is right this minute, and has been for the last? Who
made us to differ in life? With our jobs, how much we make,
and how much we have, and how much we possess, and who made
us to differ in those things? Who made us to differ in our
intellect, in our brains, Oh my, why didn't he let us be
born somewhere else? Why didn't he let us be poor? This daddy made us poor in spirit.
He made us look to him, trust him. And all the people say,
well, I pull myself up by my bootstraps. I don't know how
in the world you do that. How do you get your bootstraps
and pull yourself up? Huh? I told you this before,
Mr. Spurgeon said, well, I've met
some self-made men, and when I meet one of them, he's a poorly
made man. He's a poorly made man. You know, if you've got
a good work ethic and take care of being a good steward over
what God's blessed you with, who made you that way? Has some
people that the husband can carry it in with a shovel and the wife
can carry it out the back door with a spoon faster than he can
come in with a shovel. I hate that, but, but Lord, salvation's
of the Lord. Who made you to differ? Who made
you to differ? Because salvation's of the Lord.
What a good, good hope we have. Huh? Let me, let me close with
this over in 2 Thessalonians 2. I'll close with this. 2 Thessalonians 2. You know, I'm so thankful for the salvations
of the Lord. So thankful. I know that God's
the one that made me to differ without a shadow of a doubt. Look what he says down here in
verse I'm in the wrong book. According
to what it says down here in verse 16. Now our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace. A good hope. How'd you get it?
Through grace. How you gonna keep it? Through
grace. Oh, what a good hope we have
because salvation's of the Lord. He'll save. Why not me? He came to save sinners. I'm one of them. Well, I would tell you about
Jack the Huckster, but I guess everybody knows about old Jack
the Huckster. I put it in the bulletin so you
could get it, because it's a long story. It's a long story. But I tell you, salvation's of
the Lord. And it's His grace and grace all along. And since
salvation's of the Lord, and He saved you, He saved you. God who hath saved us. God who
hath saved us. God who hath saved us. Then he'll never stop. Never
stop. Until he takes us, calls us into
those portals of glory. And we step on yonder shore. And when we walk through that
back, walk in that place, we'll know that how we got there, the
Lord took us. Our Lord, our great and glorious
God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior, your
God over all, blessed forever. Lord, thank you for allowing
us to meet here today. Thank you for your gospel. Thank
you for the salvation being of the Lord, and you taught us that.
We're not looking for salvation in ourselves, no way. Not looking
at salvations in a church. Not looking at salvation in nothing.
Not our wills, not our power. We're looking for our salvation,
oh Lord, outside ourselves. We look to you. Lord, you saved
us. And you told us, Lord, that what
you started, you'd finish. that you're the author and finisher
of our faith, that you began a good work and you'll finish
it in the day of Jesus Christ. So Lord, we believe you'll carry
on your work. You've carried it on all these
years. Many of us have been saved for decades and decades, some
just a little while, some not even saved yet. But Lord, since
salvation's in the Lord, you can save anyone, anyone. And Lord, we thank you and bless
you for this great, glorious salvation that's in Christ. Amen
and amen. Well, I don't know what to sing,
so I ain't gonna sing nothing. 483? Okay.