And I preached this message last
Sunday in Sarasota, Florida. And I tended to preach up here
a couple of weeks ago, and the weather was bad. We didn't get
to come. But I'm going to hopefully bring it today. But the verse
that I want us to look at is Psalm 98 and verse 2. 98 and
verse 2. The Lord hath made known His
salvation. His righteousness hath He openly
showed in the sight of the heathen. Now, if anybody's ever going
to know the Lord, going to know God, if the Lord's known at all,
He must make Himself known. You can't discover Him. You can't
find Him. You won't bump into Him. That's
not the way it works. You won't even find Him in creation.
You won't find Him in the stars. You won't find Him in the heavens.
If you find God, or God, I should say, God finds you. If you know
Him, it's because He made Himself known to you. And here it says,
the Lord hath made known His salvation. You know, God dwells
in a light that no man can approach unto. A man no man hath seen
and no man hath ever seen or ever will see. That's the way
God is. And this word made known, this word known means to reveal
or to uncover. And God has to reveal Himself
in His salvation and uncover it. You notice it doesn't say
He showed. He showed, but He made known. He made known. Now in the Old
Testament, in the Old Testament there were types and shadows
and pictures and the gospel was veiled in these. It's like when
Moses went up and got the law, the Ten Commandments, and came
back down off the mountain. He had to put a veil over his
face because his face shone from being in God's presence. Well,
Paul said the glory that was in that law, the glory that was
in those shadows and tithes, he said that glory has no glory
by the glory that excelleth in the Gospel. That glory just fades
away. And when Christ comes and He
takes away the veil from the heart, takes away the veil from
the eyes, takes away the dark from the understanding, then
that glory so far excels anything that you ever thought you could
ever possibly know anything about. And it gets better and better
all the time. And God just, it won't take me
long to say what I have to say today, but look what it says.
It says in verse 2 there, the Lord hath made known His salvation.
Notice it says His salvation. And it says it's His salvation,
it's a perfect salvation. Because God cannot do anything
other than perfect. Everything He does is perfect.
There's no second guessing him and the scriptures tells us plainly,
plainly that salvation is of the Lord. Salvation, Jonah found
that out when God sent him down to the belly of hell and he was
down there and he cried out, Oh Lord, salvation is of the
Lord and this is what happened. He's not like an Arminian, not
like a free will. God, when He took him out of
that whale's belly, He took him and did take him up about 10
feet from shores and spit him out and said, now you make it
the rest of the way the best way you know how. You can swim. You know, I'll put you out enough
where you can wade in. No, no, God put him out on dry
land. God's salvation is perfect. And
when you know that salvation's of the Lord, I mean, He comes
and He makes you know that if you're saved, He's the one that
saved you. It's of the Lord and His planning.
And oh, the wisdom of God. Oh, God's wisdom's past finding
out. How could anybody have devised
a salvation that could have possibly saved sinners like ourselves?
And this is the thing about it, that this salvation is eternal. God didn't decide, you know,
when Adam fell, that he's going to do something to make things
right. No, no. Before Adam was ever put in the
garden, before God ever breathed into man's nostrils the breath
of life, God, before the foundation of the world, He had a Lamb slain,
He had salvation purposed, He had a Savior before there was
ever a sinner. And I thank God that He did.
You know, God's eternal. And here's what He does. Everything
He does is based on eternity. He declared the end from the
beginning, saying all things are not yet done and all my counsel
shall stand. And you know why we know how
it's going to come out? Because the way God declared from the
beginning. There's not anything that happens that's not eternal.
And our salvation's eternal. We just didn't find out about
it until in time. When you look at Romans 8, 28,
29, and 30, everything there is in the past tense. He hath
foreknown. He hath predestinated. He hath
called. He hath justified. He hath glorified. Every one of those is in the
past tense. And they was in the past tense before you ever know
there's a Bible. It's already done. It says glorified. What does that mean? That means
as far as God's concerned, I'm in glory now. And with Christ,
I'm seated with Him in heavenly places right now. And all He
did, and I love this, all He did, He did on purpose from before
the foundation of the world. In fact, the Scriptures tell
us we were chosen in Christ. When? Before the foundation of
the world. Let me tell you a story. It's
a true story. Years and years and years ago,
back in the 70s, I was a preacher. When I first came to Tennessee,
I was a tongue-speaking, bench-jumping Pentecostal. Wouldn't have known
God from a goat. But I sure know how to live,
and I know how to live holy, you know. I know how to live
holy. I know how you weren't supposed to dress and how you
weren't supposed to go places and all the things you weren't
supposed to do. I know all that. But I began to preach and I had
all these people that made these professions of faith. And then
after about six months, eight months or a year, they'd go right
back out into the world. So it began to really trouble
me. What's the matter that these people that I'm preaching to
You know, why can't they live right? Well, I began to seek
the Lord about that. I began to earnestly seek God.
What's His salvation? Is salvation something that we
do or something that you do? Is salvation by our works and
part of your grace? Or what is it? And I said, show
me please what salvation is. Because evidently my message
is not working. I began to examine my message
in light of the people that I was preaching to. And that went on for a long time. I mean that went on for a long
time. And I began to grow and God began to reveal things to
me. But one day, back in those days in 1977, back in those days
I had a Bible wherever I was at. I read the scriptures all
the time, and I was up on the hill behind my house, sitting
on a stump. Now y'all ain't gonna believe
this, but I was sitting on a stump. I had a 20-gauge shotgun, and
I was up there squirrel hunting. And I had on a little old vest,
and I had a paperback Bible in the back of it, and I got that
Bible out and began to read it. God took and turned on the light
that day on that hillside and it dramatically Dramatically
changed my life my message and My fellowship with who I felt
and this is the verse of scripture that God gave me and answered
every question I've been praying about God second Timothy 1 9
God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling that's
our holiness right there God can only call one way by holiness
and He can only be a holy God so He calls us to holiness and
holiness is a state of being not something you can do and
it changes from time to time who saved us and called us with
a holy calling not according to our works and man that stabbed
me but according to His own purpose and grace given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. And that day I began to search
the scriptures in light of God's purpose, God's grace, and God's
holiness. And beloved, my heart changed,
my mind changed, everything about me changed. And I repented, oh I said, God
forgive me of all the lies I told. And so that's why I say, beloved,
God does everything He does on purpose. On purpose. And you say, well, how do you
know you're one of God's? Well, it's easy. God takes everybody
different ways, but He said to Jeremiah, He said, Before you
was ever formed in your mother's belly, I knew you, and ordained
you to be a prophet. And He takes all of us different
ways, but one way He's going to end us up at, He's going to
end us up at the feet of Christ, and Christ is going to be our
all in all. He may take us different ways, but that's what He's going
to do. And not only is salvation of the Lord perfect, In his planning,
but it's perfect in its execution Now you and I can make lots of
plans But boy if we don't have the power and the will and the
wisdom to carry it out It don't do good any good to plan But
God what he planned in purpose from eternity. He has the power. He has the will he has the wisdom
he has the carry out his plan to carry out his purpose in this
work and His will is going to be executed exactly as it should
be. I don't care what happens, it's
His will being carried out. And that's why we pray, you know,
Lord, Thy will be done on earth even as it is in heaven. We want
His will done here. And He works all things after
the counsel of His own will. Known unto God are all His works
from the creation. And I tell you what, this salvation
is made known. It's revealed. It's uncovered.
How? Look what it says here again
in verse 2. It says, "...the Lord hath made
known His salvation, His righteousness hath He openly showed." Well,
how did He execute this salvation? How did He openly show it? By
sending His Son into this world. That's how it happened. Christ,
before the foundation of the world, entered and struck hands
with His Holy Father. And the Father said, I'm going
to give you a people. They're going to be sinners,
they're going to be depraved, they're going to be wicked, they're
going to be awful wretches. I mean their minds are going
to be polluted, their hearts are going to be hard, their lips
are going to be full of poison and venom. There's not going
to be anything right about them. They're awful, awful creatures. Horrible creatures. But I'm going
to give them to you. and they will have to have, they
got a debt. They are sinners and I tell you
what, I'm going to give them to you and you're going to come
into this, I'm going to send you into this world through the
womb of a virgin. I'm going to put my seed in the
womb of a virgin and I'm going to send you into the world and
you're going to go down there and you're going to be born of
that virgin, and you're going to be raised, and you're going
to grow up, and you're going to live a life not for yourself,
but for them. You're going to be their representative.
You're going to be their sacrifice. You're going to be their substitute.
You're going to be their sin offering. And when you go down there and
represent them, and do for them what they cannot do for themselves.
He said, I'll accept them for what you do. You pay their debt, and their
debt will be paid. You make them righteous, and
they'll be righteous. You make them holy, and they'll
be holy. You give them a new heart, and
they'll have a new heart. And I tell you, our Lord Jesus
Christ, God who came down, who is God, who is eternal Spirit,
God from everlasting to everlasting, come down here and inhabited
the womb of a woman who was a virgin and became flesh. And this, I
asked Henry Mayhead and Scott Richardson one time, talking
with them over in Cherokee, North Carolina, I said, what's the
greatest mystery in this world that you know of? And both of
them immediately said, Great is the mystery of godliness. God, God, God, eternal God, God
was manifested in the flesh, seen of angels, justified in the Spirit, Priest unto the Gentiles, people
like us, and this is the greatest mystery of all. He was believed
on in this world. I'm one of them that does. Isaiah asked this question, who
has believed our report? And I say, I did. I do. I believe the report, don't you?
And oh, listen, our Lord Jesus came down here, born of a virgin
to us, a child is born to us, a son is given. And it says,
"...he came to openly show his righteousness." Now what righteousness
is he talking about? Well, it's not a righteousness
of the law. You know, I had one of those
one time. I had one of those one time and I just couldn't...
I would get up every day and I'd start out to live a righteous
life and by the end of the day, Oh, I didn't have no peace, didn't
have anything. It is not a righteousness of man's making. And do you know
how you tell of righteousness of a man's making? Is this is
what he says. He said, I'll tell you what, if I ever become a
Christian, I'll show you what being a Christian is like. I'll
show you how to live right. I know how to do it. You'll try
to witness somebody and they'll say, oh listen, I'm going to
join the church one of these days. I'm going to get right
with God one of these days. I'm going to come to the services
one of these days. I'm going to make a change one
of these days. Do you know how self-righteous that is? And then people, I'll tell you
what, this righteousness of man's making, that he He thinks that
he can actually make a righteousness by his obedience, or by his dedication,
or by his prayer life, or by his commitment, or by his Bible
reading. He thinks he can, and church
attended, he actually thinks that he can make a righteousness
that God will accept. But Paul said, if righteousness
come by the law, by anything a man did, Then the death of
Christ is in vain. You know what Paul said about
his righteousness? He said he counted it but done.
You know for a man, this is a gross thing to say. But for a man to
think he could be accepted of God by his own merit or his own
righteousness, it'd be like a man standing in a cesspool, taking
the lid off of his septic tank and crawling down in it and standing
in it up to right there and saying, now this is the righteousness
that I've got. That's what God thinks about it. When Christ
had to come here to do our righteousness and make our righteousness and
bore our sin to make us righteous in the sight of God, you think
that God would ever accept any other righteousness than His? There ain't but one righteousness
and that's the righteousness of Christ. Oh, listen, I'm telling you,
His salvation must be consistent with His character, with His
holiness, and with His justice. All pagan gods must be appeased
by man. How many Hail Marys you got to
say? How many Our Fathers you got to say? How many prayers
you got to go through? How many altar calls you got
to go through? How many times do you have to make appeasement
to God? But oh, look over here at Psalm 106. Let me show you
something. All pagan gods have to be appeased. Look over at Psalm 106, verse
19 with me. I tell you what, the only thing
that will satisfy a man's conscience, I mean quieten his conscience,
and make his conscience go to rest is a perfect sacrifice. If he's got a sacrifice that
God himself provided, then he'll never look for another one. And
look what he said here in Psalm 106 and verse 19, they made a
calf in Horeb and worshiped the molten image. Thus they change
their glory, whose glory? God's glory, into the similitude
of an ox that eateth grass. They forget God their Savior,
which had done great works, things in Egypt. Their Savior, God their
Savior. And then look over in verse 36,
or 37, excuse me. Now this is people who at one
time, God brought them up out of Egypt. Yea, they sacrificed
their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent
blood, even the blood of their sons and daughters whom they
sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted
with blood. And all, listen, in my hands,
no price I bring, simply to Christ I cling. But our God, who made
known His salvation, here's the difference. Instead of us appeasing
Him, pagan gods being appeased by man, He appeased Himself. He satisfied Himself. He did
something for Himself before He could ever do anything for
us. Is that not right? Isaiah 53. You all know this
so well. You all know this so well. But
Isaiah 53. Look what it said in verse 10. You see, God appeased Himself.
He satisfied Himself. Look what it said, Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise Him. And that word pleased is the
same word as satisfied. Satisfied. And He hath put Him
to grief. Put who to grief? His Son, the
Lord Jesus. When thou shalt make, listen
to this, His soul an offering for sin. Not for our mistakes. Not for our faults, not for our
weaknesses, but for our sin. He shall see His seed. He shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. Now listen to this. He shall see of the travail,
the agony, the burden of his soul. When he prayed in the garden,
and he sweat great drops of blood, and he said, Father, my soul
is exceeding sorrowful unto death. He said, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. But oh, God saw the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied. God said, I'm satisfied with
him. And by his knowledge, by the knowledge of God, by the
knowledge of Christ, by the knowledge made known by our Lord Jesus,
shall my righteous servant justify many. Why? Because he bare their
iniquity. Let me show you something. This
is the Gospel here. I don't mean to take too long.
I don't. But over in Romans 3, this is the Gospel. I remember when I told you when
I learned the Gospel, there was two years that I didn't do anything
but preach on how God could be just and justify people like
us. That's all I preached over. Two solid years. Because I couldn't
get over it, and I ain't got over it yet. How can God stay
just and holy and righteous? It saved me today. Today. Not yesterday. Today. Saved me from my sin today. Saved me from my pride and self-righteousness
today. Look what he says in Romans 3.20. Therefore by the deeds of the
law, Any doing of the flesh, no flesh is going to be justified
in His sight. That's where it counts. By the
law is the knowledge of sin. God set the law to make us know
how sinful we are. But now, but now, great big door
swing on these little hinges, the righteousness of God. God's
righteousness, God's righteousness in His person, God's righteousness
made known, God's righteousness given without the law is manifesting,
brought out for us to see. It was witnessed by the law,
by every sacrifice that was offered. By every time a priest went into
the presence of God, for every bloodshedding that was done,
it witnessed to the Gospel. And every prophet has something
to say about the righteousness without the law. We just read
it in Psalm 98. And look what he goes, even the
righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ by the faith
of Christ and the faithfulness of Christ unto all and upon all
them that believe." There's no difference. And here's the thing.
The same people in Romans 3.23 is the same people in Romans
3.22. Those that all upon all have
sinned have come short of the glory of God. And look, look,
look, look, look, look. Being justified, justified freely. freely, by His grace,
through the payment, through the blood shedding that's in
our Lord Jesus Christ. God set Him forth in the Scripture,
set Him forth in His life, set Him forth on the cross, and sets
Him forth now on His throne. to be a propitiation and atoning
victim of mercy, see, through faith in that blood that's shed
before God, God declares how righteous He is for the payment
of our sins. To declare, I say, at this time,
God is righteous and that He's just. Didn't let His justice
go. No, no. His Son went under God's
justice. His Son went under God's wrath.
And He justifies them that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
now, beloved, God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And you know what
Jeremiah 23, 6 says? Jehovah's a kid in you. The Lord
our righteousness. Now let me hurry up. Salvation
is of the Lord in its application. Now it's one thing to plan it.
It's one thing to purpose it. It's one thing to make it, show
it openly. But how am I going to get it?
How is it going to become mine? He has to apply it. He has to
apply it. Well, how does He apply it? By
His Word. In the Gospel. In the Gospel. Oh, listen. By His own will begat
He us with the Word of Truth. You know, it says in 1 Peter
1.25 that we are begotten by an incorruptible
seed. Not a corruptible seed, but an
incorruptible seed. The corruptible seed is what
we had in our father Adam. The incorruptible seed is the
gospel. And this is the gospel which by the gospel is preached
unto you. Now here's what God does. God's
in preaching the gospel. Our Lord said this in Matthew
13. He said He sowed the seed and the seed fell on different
kinds of ground. But anyway, the seed is the Scriptures, the
Word of God. And God takes this gospel, the
Word of God, and He sends it out every time a preacher preaches.
And he plants a seed in a heart, just like a seed planted in a
woman's womb. And sooner or later, I don't
know how long it takes, God's the only one, that's why the
new birth is so mysterious. He puts that seed in the heart.
And Paul said, you know, I sowed the polished water and I tell
you what and that seeds put in the heart and you just keep coming
under the gospel keep coming on the God and Eventually, you
know when that seeds gonna bring forth fruit when you say I believe
Jesus Christ is my righteous my only hope before God Ain't
that right? But it has to be a seed And that's
why we've got to always make sure we preach nothing but the
gospel of the free grace of God in Christ and Christ's righteousness
alone. Our Lord Jesus says, the words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and what else are they? Life. Life. Oh, my sheep, He said, hear my
voice. I know. What are they going to
do? Well, they're going to follow
me. Where are you going to go? Wherever He goes, that's where
I'm going. Listen, I'll tell you what. He goes and finds His sheep.
He doesn't turn goats into sheep. He doesn't turn goats into sheep.
No, no. There's two kinds of sheep. Lost
sheep, saved sheep. And He finds all the lost And
then they put them in the sheepfold, and they're all saved sheep.
Let me tell you another story. Old Milton Howard. How many people
know Milton? He is a big, big, big man. He is a big man. He lived down in Mexico for years. And one day, they was going to
kill a goat and roast a goat. A bunch of the Mexicans and things
he preached to, they was going to kill a goat. They was going
to roast a goat. They was going to have a big
meal, a big feast. Well, he had a baseball bat, and he stood
up in front of that goat, and they held that goat there, and
he drove back, you know, I mean, he's 6'4", 6'5", 6'6", a couple,
250 pounds. He drove back that baseball bat,
boom! You know what happened to that
goat? Just shook his hand. And that's all a goat knows how
to do. You can hit them between the eyes with the truth and they'll
just shake their head. But you here, you're a priest
to a sheep. And you know what he does? He
starts listening. Oh, my. Tell me that story of
Jesus. Oh, I'd love to hear that story
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell me about His obedience for
me. Tell me about His righteousness that He gives to me. Tell me
about the love He had for me before I was ever born. Tell
me about how He hears my cries and hears my groans. Tell me
about how that He took all my sin away and I don't have any
more and God said I won't even remember Him. Tell me about Him. Tell me about His wonderful,
wonderful love. Tell me about His grace. Tell
me about how He comes and comforts me and meets the needs of my
heart and soul every day. Tell me about how He upholds
me in my trials. Tell me about how He's my strength. Tell me about how He's my ability.
Tell me about how He's my everything and I have nothing that I don't
have that He didn't give me. Tell me about Him. Oh, and he applies this gospel
in preaching. In preaching. And he applies
it to the heart. This is the thing. This gospel,
that's what it does. It opens men's hearts. The Scripture
says God said He'd take out the stony heart and He'd put in a
heart of flesh. And He said He would wash you
and He'd cleanse you. Oh my! And He opens the heart. He opens the mind. And you know
what else He does after He saves us? He keeps us. He sustains us in this salvation. That's what amazes me. This is
one of the most amazing things to me, that I stay saved. Knowing me and what I'm like
and who I am and what goes on inside me, it's amazing to me
that I stay saved. Does that ever amaze you? that
God actually keeps you saved all the time. They sung that
song, Old Past Me Not, Old Gentle Savior. Armenians use that to
call people to come to the front and try to get them saved to
get them out and accept Jesus. But that's the heart cry of every
believer. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. Hear, hear my feeble cry. While on others I call and while
you're speaking to people in this congregation, don't pass
me by. Let me at a throne of mercy,
let me at a throne of mercy, let me there find a sweet relief,
kneeling there in deep contrition, What else can we do? No, He that's begun a good work in
you, He's not going to let it finish. He's going to finish
it under the day of Christ. Jude said, unto Him that's able
to keep you from falling and present you faultless before
His presence in glory. And I'm going to close with this.
Salvation made known. You know, Adam knew about this
salvation. How'd he know? God. Slew an animal, shed the
blood, and clothed and covered their nakedness just exactly
like He had to do us. Abel knew. How do you know? He
offered a lamb. Enoch knew. How do you know?
He walked with God. Noah knew. How do you know? When he prepared that ark, you
know what God said? Come thou into the ark. He didn't
say go into the ark. He said come in. You know what
that means? You come in here where I'm at.
You come in here where salvation's at. You come in here where this
ark will bear the wrath, not you. The ark will. The ark will. And Abraham knew he believed
God. He believed God. And beloved,
let me ask you, has He ever made salvation known to you? Has He
made it known to you? I want to know. I'm like the
Apostle Paul. I want to know Christ. I want
to be found in Christ. I want to win Christ. And old Barnard said this, he
said, when my life's over and done, I want to be remembered
as a man who was a lifelong seeker after the Lord. And that's what
we do. We seek the Lord. He sought us,
and we seek Him. And I've got to have Him. Don't
you? I've just got to have Him. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name, oh, the precious name, saving name, secure name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for allowing us to meet, allowing
us to preach the gospel. Oh, Lord, you're so gracious.
You're so gracious, so abundant in mercy. God bless the gospel
to the hearts and minds Save your people in this place. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. Let's sing that little
chorus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will
grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. See you tonight, six o'clock,
God willing. You folks that's going home, be very careful.