Alright, look here with me at
1 Peter. I've titled my message this evening, Elect, Redeemed,
Regenerated, and Preserved. And everyone up right here in
front of us. Simon Peter, he is the one who
wrote this. He says, Peter, an apostle of
Jesus Christ. He wrote two epistles. This is
his first one, and you see it's called a general epistle. And the reason it's called a
general epistle or general letter is because it isn't addressed
to any particular person or particular church. You know, Paul wrote
to Philemon, wrote to Philippians and Colossians, but here he's
not addressing it to any particular person or church, but he's writing
it to Christians. to believers, saints, scattered
abroad, that's what he says, scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And I'll tell you, and he's written, and he shows
us over here in 1 Peter chapter 5, let me show you where it's
written from. I'll show you where it's written from and who he
sends, used to send it to, scattered abroad, to all the saints around
scattered abroad. Here in verse 12 he says about
Silvanus. Now Silvanus is the same person
as Silas. The one who traveled with the
Apostle Paul. That's who that is. That's Silas.
A faithful brother unto you. As I suppose I have written briefly
exhorting and testifying. Now listen. This is the theme
of this message. This is the reason he wrote this
book. That this is the true grace, true grace wherein you stand. And then watch what he says,
the church is at Babylon. Now that's where he's writing
from. He's in the church at Babylon. Elected together with you. Salute
you and so doeth Marcus my son. So he wrote it from Babylon to
God's elect wherever they are. And that's what he said, we came
to the main purpose of this letter, to declare unto you the true
grace of God. And you stand in that grace of
God. Now when we talk about standing in grace, everything about our
salvation is grace. If we stand today, we stand by
grace and we stand in grace. Not only do we rejoice in the
grace of God, but the scriptures teach us that God put us in grace
and we stand in that grace. Now what does that mean? That
means that we're not going to get out of grace. We're not going
to get out of it in our preaching. We're not going to get out of
it in our thanking. We're not going to get out of it in our
worship. We're not going to get out of it in our testimony. We're
not going to get out of it from the scriptures. We're going to
stand in the grace of God. Now you hold that and look over
in Romans 5 and let me show you what I'm talking about. Romans
chapter 5. And I'll tell you something about
Simon Peter, the Roman Catholic Church. They say Peter was the successor
of Christ. They use what our Lord said to
Peter in Matthew chapter 16, upon this rock I build my church.
And he told him how he was blessed to understand that Christ was
the Son of God. And they say that Peter was the
successor of Christ and then this first pope was the successor
after Simon Peter. Well, I tell you, Peter doesn't
call him a successor of Christ. He doesn't call himself the Pope. He doesn't call himself the Vicar
of Christ. He doesn't call himself the head
of the church. You know what he calls himself?
The Apostle of Jesus Christ. That's all he calls himself,
an Apostle of Jesus Christ. But look what he said here in
Romans 5, verses 1 and 2. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace. Now what's
this? Wherein we stand. And what do
we do standing in this grace being justified by this faith? We rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. That's reason to rejoice, isn't
it? Reason to rejoice. Now back over here in our text.
And look what he says now. He said, Peter, an apostle of
Jesus Christ to the strangers. The Lord's people are strangers
wherever they at, but he says they're scattered abroad. He's
writing to people who've been driven from their homes, driven
from their lands by persecution for the sake of Christ and his
gospel. And you know who is responsible for a lot of that? You look in
Acts chapter 8 and I'll show you. These things, you know,
when we find these things in one epistle, We look and we find
out what they're talking about because it actually happened.
And this is what it says here in Romans chapter 8. And here's Saul, he was the one
who became the Apostle Paul. And Saul was consenting unto
his death. Acts 8 verse 1, Saul was sitting
unto his death, and at that time there was a great persecution
against the church was at Jerusalem. And listen to this, they were
scattered, all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea
and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen
to his burrow, and made great lamentation over him. As for
Saul, he made havoc of the church in him, and to every house, and
hailing men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they
that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word."
And it says in Acts chapter 11, also this says that through persecution
they were scattered abroad. In fact, They had to leave their
homes. They had to leave families. They
had to go and find some place to live. And that's what they
did. And they did that and they were
scattered abroad. They had to leave their homes
for the sake of Christ and His gospel. And then look what He
says here in verse 2. Here's my first point. Elect. Elect. Love that word election. Love
it. Cherish it, love it, but elect
according to the foreknowledge of God. Now beloved believers
and Christians are called the elect of God, and you know why?
Because He chose them to be His elect. It is He that done the
choosing. And he, the scripture says that
God, beloved, we're bound always to thank God for you because
God has from the beginning chosen you unto salvation through sanctification
and belief of the truth. And he told the Thessalonians
over in 1 Thessalonians, he said, beloved, knowing your election
of God. How do you know it? Because you
received the word of truth. And everywhere you go, and as
many as were ordained to eternal life, what did they do? They
believed. And I tell you, the cause of
our election is this, according to the foreknowledge of God.
That's the reason of our election. It's found only in that it pleased
God. The only reason we're one of God's elect and we can call
ourselves one of God's elect is because it pleased God to
do it. We cannot never ever find any
reason in ourselves that God would choose us. She's telling
it tonight, you know, and there's this one old hymn that says,
Lord, if thou hast not chosen me, I never would have chosen
thee. If thou hast not set the banquet and bid me come, I never
would have come. And that's the way it is. Look
over in Matthew 11 with me and I'll show you exactly what I'm
talking about. You know, and I tell you, you find so many
places in the scriptures where it says that it pleased God to
make you His people. It pleased Him. We're accepted
in the beloved according to the good pleasure of His will. His
will. And I tell you, if it pleases
Him, I'm thankful, so thankful. But look what our Lord said here
in Matthew 11 verse 25. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank thee, O Father, my Father, you are the Lord of
heaven and earth, you are the sovereign of this world, and
I thank you that you have hid these things, the truths of the
gospel, the truth of Christ and His glory and His power and His
saving grace and His Godhead and all that He is. I thank you
that you have hid Him from the wise and prudent and have revealed
Him unto me. And listen to what he says about
him. Even so, Father, for it seemed good in thy sight. Our Lord said, You hid it from
all these fools around here? People thought they had all the
answers. And He said, People are just babies that didn't know
nothing. He said, That's who you revealed yourself to. And,
O beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ said, He knows His sheep, and
His sheep would know Him. And I tell you the scripture
says, for whom He did foreknow, them He also did call, them He
called, He also justified, them He justified, He also glorified. What are we going to say then
to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Who
shall I charge to God's elect? It's Christ that died. And oh,
you know what the means He uses to call His elect? Look what
it says there in the verse. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. And I tell you, God, when He
talks about foreknowing somebody, that means that He don't just
look down through time and see what somebody's going to do. He foreknows everything's going
to happen because He predestinated and ordained everything to happen. I mean, He knows us, He knew
us before we ever was. And when we come into this world,
He had our balance set for us, He had the hairs of our head
numbered, the steps ordered for us, and the time we would believe,
and how long we would believe, and how much we would believe,
everything about our lives, God Himself has chosen and ordained
for us in this world. I believe that with all my heart.
If I thought for one minute, One hair on my head was out under
the providence and sovereignty and grace of God and His electing
purpose. I'd be scared to death. Oh, bless His name. Makes you
glad that He said, Oh, thank you, Father. It's in good in
your sight. And if it's in good in God's sight, it's sure enough
good in ours. Oh, whatever pleases Him just
tickles us to death. And look at the means He uses
to call His elect. and manifest who they are. He
said, through sanctification of the Spirit. You know, God's a God of means.
God's a God of means. And He uses sanctification of
the Spirit. And I already quoted to you where
in belief of the truth. Now I'll tell you this, there's
no way a man, anybody, can be saved without the Spirit of God.
And when it talks about the spirit of sanctification, that means
the Spirit lays hold on you. And He began to separate you
from yourself and your sin. And your rebellion, He begins
to separate you and make you miserable in the condition you're
in. And as He separates you, He starts bringing you to a knowledge
of the truth. And I tell you, as He keeps bringing
you and keeps separating you, He brings you to have nothing
left that you can do but say, I surrender. Yes, that's the
truth. And I mean, when He lays hands
on you to bring you to Christ, I may not know it. Nobody said
besides you may not know it. The only person who knows is
the one that God's got his hand on, making him, bringing him,
separating him, and bringing him to Christ. That's all sanctification
means. I'm going to set you apart, and
I'm going to set you apart to the truth. I'm going to set you
apart to Christ. I'm going to set you apart to
make you understand that God is all and in all. And I'll tell
you, you can't be saved without Him. And I tell him the truth,
and he brings the truth to the heart and to the will. That's
why he said, you know, whoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. Well, how they go call on him
in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? You've got to hear about him.
Oh, listen. So Eric, you know, elect. Elect. I've got a four or five point
message on election I'm going to preach here pretty soon. But
look what else it says now. And then we're redeemed. Look
what it says. Through faith and sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. You know, they've been redeemed. They've been bought, they've
been paid for. How have they been paid for? With the blood
of Christ. Oh, with the precious blood of
Christ. And you know what the end of election is? It's to bring
us unto the obedience of Christ. To bring us to where we trust
Christ, know Christ, and we come to the strengthening of the blood
of Christ. You see, it's the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
that cleanses us from all of our sins and justifies us before
God. Now, I'll show you that over
here in Hebrews. Look with me in chapter 9, just a minute.
Hebrews is just one book back. James and then Hebrews. Hebrews
chapter 9. Look what he says here. Oh, listen. God says that He'll bring every
thought, every high thing that exalts itself unto the obedience
of Jesus Christ. And that means that, beloved,
He's going to bring us down and we're going to submit and rejoice
in Christ's obedience and what He accomplished in His obedience.
And that's why when he talks about his obedience, he talks
about his person and his work and what he accomplished in his
life and in his death. He was obedient even unto the
death of the cross. And so when He comes to talk
about us coming to the obedience of Christ, it don't mean that
we just bow down and obey Him in every way. We're coming to
trust and rest in His obedience that He rendered to the law,
to justice, to God, and death, and sin, and everything that
was against us. We've come to His obedience.
We ain't got none. But He has. That's what he's talking about.
But look here in Hebrews chapter 9 in verse 22. Well let's look back up here
in verse 21 first. Talking about Moses. Moreover
he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels
of the ministry and almost all things by the law are purged
with blood and without shedding of blood. There's no remission.
And all the time they took the blood. Every time they offered
a sacrifice, the first thing they've done is when they got
that blood shed, they walked up to the altar and they sprinkled
it on the ground before the altar. Every time they've done that.
They did that when they went on to the mercy seat, they sprinkled
blood. They took blood out of that basin
and sprinkled it. Because you know why? They've
got to stand on their obedience and on the blood and can't approach
even the altar without blood. And we can't approach, we can't,
certainly if they couldn't approach the altar, the blood had to be
before the altar before they offered the sacrifice. You had
to have a blood standing before God and there had to be a perfect
standing based not on what you did, but on the atoning sacrifice. And so see, then look what it
said down here in Hebrews 9.14. Now listen to this. Verse 13, For if the blood of
bulls, and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled
and unclean, sanctified, set apart to the purifying of the
flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God? What does
that mean? I ain't got no works. Every work
I've done before I knew Christ was dead, dead, dead. Because
I was a dead dog sinner. And all a dead dog sinner can
do is produce a dead work. Ain't that right? That's what
Paul meant. He said, everything I've done
before I knew Christ, can't be done. You know why? Dead works. Dead works. And oh beloved, and
I say, He was delivered for our offenses and raised for our justification. And I tell you, the blood cleanses
from all sins, and we are freely justified by His blood through
the grace of God. Freely justified by His blood.
So we elect, we're redeemed, and oh, let's see, I've got these
things sticking together. You know, this humidity is bad
stuff. There we go. Regeneration. Elect, redeemed and regenerated. Look what it says down now in
verse 3. And oh Peter breaks into praise
just like the Apostle Paul does. When Paul starts talking about
election and starts talking about all the blessings we have in
Christ and the new birth. He says, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh my, he breaks out into praise,
he starts out blessing God and how blessed God is and how blessed
God is to be the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what he
blesses him for, he says he blesses because he is the God and father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our father, our Lord Jesus Christ
had a father and our father, his father became our father.
through our Lord Jesus Christ and this is what he blessed him
for he's been blessed for everything before but look what he says
here now which according to his abundant mercy he starts praising
him for his abundant mercy and this is the cause of all we have
from election to eternity in glory the scripture says that
God is rich in mercy his mercy endures forever And oh, according to His own
mercy, He saved us, not according to our works, but according to
His own mercy. He regenerated us, justified
us, nothing we ever done. And I tell you, mercy, mercy,
mercy. He's the Father of mercies. And
I tell you, mercies, mercies, mercies. One day you say, surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life? Not His goodness going to follow
Him, but God's goodness and mercy is going to follow Him all the
days of His life. And not only does it follow us,
but it goes before us. He said His mercy can do us forever. Now how long is that? You think
we're going to wear out God's mercy asking Him for it all the
time? How many times a day do you say, Lord have mercy? Oh
God be merciful. When you pray for somebody else,
you say, Lord, oh, Lord, have mercy toward them. Oh, Lord,
be gracious toward them. Oh, Lord, help them. How many
times have you reckoned you've used the word mercy in your life
as a believer? Have you wore it out yet? You reckon God's going to run
out of it because we just keep asking Him? No, He said it will
endure. Boy, you think, boy, I just can't
say, you know, I just don't ask for it. It just keeps on going.
It just keeps on enduring. It keeps on enduring. In spite
of us, it endures. It endures. And then look what
he says. He blesses him for his abundant
mercy. And here's what he has. This
is why I'm talking about regeneration. The new birth has begotten us
again. regenerated us and gave us the
new birth unto a living hope, a living hope. You know why it
says he hath begotten us again? Because we were begotten wrong
the first time. Peter says it over in 2 Peter,
he says being born again, not a corruptible seed, That's all
we would be born with the first time, was with a corruptible
seed. When we're begotten the second
time with the new birth, we're begotten with an incorruptible
seed by the Word of God. And that's like Nicodemus. When
Nicodemus, our Lord said, Nicodemus, except you be born again, you
can't see or enter the kingdom of God. He said, how can this
be? How can a man be born again? Can a man as old as I am, like
me, enter into my mother's womb and come out again? Is that what
you're talking about? Our Lord says, no, no, no, no.
Death is born of the flesh. It's flesh. Go on back to your
mama. Go on and you'll still come out
of the flesh. You'll still. You've got to be
born of the Spirit. The Spirit of God must come and
do something for you, blow on you. And he said, if I talk to
you about earthly things, about birth, and you know that birth
is something that somebody you didn't have nothing to do with,
you didn't choose your mother, you didn't choose your daddy,
where you'd be born, anything about it. He said, so if that's
the way it is and you can't understand the natural things I talk to
you, how in the world are you going to get it if I talk to
you about heavenly things? You know how you understand heavenly
things? When you're born again. Ain't that right? When you're
born again, you don't understand, you don't even suspect nothing
until the Spirit of God saves you by His grace. And then He
says, He begot us to a living hope. Living hope. You know what that means? It's
not based on us or on our dead works. It's a living hope. I
mean it's a hope that lives. Lives within us. It's like faith.
It's alive. Faith is a living principle in
this. Hope and faith are twin brothers and twin sisters and
born in the heart at the same time. If you've got faith, you've
got hope. You've got hope, you've got faith. Without faith, you
ain't got neither. And that's what we do. Faith
gives us this living hope. I talked about that Sunday night.
I said, you know death? Believers don't die. It's the
body that dies. The believer, he lives on. He
passes into glory. He passes really into life. And
the reason you pass into life is because you have life here.
It's the body that's going to die. It's not the spirit. It's
not the soul. It's that soul. And that's why
he says we have a living hope. And I'll tell you something about
hope and faith. The minute you get to glory, hope dies, love
dies, faith dies. The only thing that exists after
you get into glory is the love that you have in your heart by
the Spirit of God. That's the only thing that will
remain. It's the love that God put in our hearts. And I tell
you, look what He said, how He begot us again under this living
hope. By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. How
do you know she got this living on her? Christ rose from the
dead because he lived, I shall live. You say, you can't believe in
me and die. Martha said, Lord, if you and
me are here, my brother has to die. He says, Martha, Martha,
your brother is going to live again. Oh, I know He is in the
last day in the resurrection. He said, Martha, don't you know
that I'm the resurrection? The resurrection ain't on a day,
it's me. You believe in me if you have
life already, I'm the resurrection. I give life. I've got the power
to raise you from the dead. I've got the power to quicken
you from your sins. I'm the resurrection right now,
and I'm the life. Don't wait for a day, I'm that
resurrection. That's what He says, you know,
by the resurrection of Christ. And because He lives, we live.
When He was quickened from the tomb, He took us up with Him.
And oh, He died for our sins and rose again for our justification. And who is He that's going to
condemn us? It's God that justifies us. And then look what else He begat
us to. Oh my, He begotten us. And John himself, and Peter talks
about the new birth in a couple of other places. But the first
thing that John talks about in his epistle, He said, he that's
born of God overcomes the world, and he that's begotten of Him
loves Him that's begotten of Him. And I tell you, begotten of God,
that's a miracle for God Himself to begat you and bring you into
existence, bring a life into existence, a spiritual person. And then look what He begat us
to. He begat us unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. Listen to this now. To an inheritance. Oh, to an inheritance. Well, I tell you what, most of
us can go through our mother's and dad's inheritance pretty
quick. All I got from my dad was a chair and a lawnmower and
a water hose. Didn't get anything from my mother. What did I get? Oh well yeah
I got that later. That was, that was, that was,
yeah, you're right about that. But anyway, we're not talking
about that. But it's an inheritance. All it was was just paying back
some money that he owed me. You know, he's the only man in
here and I gave him. But anyway, leave that off me.
But he began us to an inheritance. Mary you got to be quiet sweetheart.
Don't tell everything you know. Don't tell everything you know.
Don't let the kiss out of my hair. Oh boy. And I tell you about
this inheritance. Try to get serious if I can.
Look over at Matthew 6.20 with me just a minute. You know when
this When this resurrection comes, when this inheritance comes,
that our Lord Jesus Christ gave to us, you know, it's an inheritance
that won't never, the moth and rust and corruption never bothered. And over here in Matthew 6 and
20, look what our Lord said here. He said, The lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven. For neither moth nor rust doeth
corrupt, nor thieves do not break through nor steal. For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Now listen,
you know who laid up these treasures in heaven for us? Our Lord Jesus
Christ did. He laid up in heaven for us an
inheritance. And listen, you know what? What did He say there? Moth won't
get it. I've seen things on television
where people have so much money and they would stash it away
in walls and mattresses and stuff like that and when they went
back to get it, the rats had it all eaten up or else it just
crumbled, just crumbled. And that's what he's talking
about. He said, you know, treasures in heaven don't have nothing
to do with physical currency. Moth and rust and stuff, it'll
rust your money. It will eat you up. Thieves can break through and
steal it. But you know we have an inheritance. And you know
who laid up His treasure in heaven for us? Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And He said, there ain't no moth, no rug, no crutch. Go get on
this inheritance. Because He laid it up for us
in heaven. And I'll tell you what, beloved, and that's why
He said in Colossians 1, 12, Giving thanks unto the Father
who hath made us need to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
already in glory. Huh? Oh my. And then look what
else it says about our inheritance here in 1 Peter. It's incorruptible. That's what
he meant, you know, by day. Nothing gonna defile it. Nothing
gonna defile it. And it's undefiled. That means
it's pure and it's holy. Untouched by sin. Man ain't had
nothing to do with it. And look what else it says about
it. It says it doesn't fade away. Doesn't fade away. Oh my, things
fade away, things fade away. The world in this fashion is
going to fade away. But our Lord Jesus Christ says
this inheritance will not just grow dimmer and dimmer and dimmer
and dimmer as you leave it behind. You know, we're gone and as we
go on down and our children get our inheritance and it goes on
down, pretty soon the inheritance has just faded, blown away, and
there's nothing left. He says, this hill will never
fade away. It'll always be the same. Never fade away. And then look what else he said.
It's reserved for you in heaven. In heaven it's reserved for you.
If y'all ever went to a place where they had to have reservations
and you had tables and they had your name on the table, you know,
you go around in the building looking around, see if you find
the table had your name on it. You know, you sit down here and
you kneel. I've seen people do this, I've seen people go in
and have tickets you know for a certain seat and then they
go in and they think well the person ain't going to show up
in this seat way down here in the front. Next thing you know that person
comes up there and that's his, he's paid for that. So these
folks got to go way back where they was. We ain't going to have
to do that. We ain't gonna do that. We got
front row seats and we ain't never have nobody gonna bring
us back to the back. And it's reserved for you in
heaven. In heaven. Who? The elect. The redeemed. The regenerated. Those cleansed
and justified by the blood of Christ. Who are looking for Him
at His coming. And did my last point there in
verse 5. We're preserved. Oh, this is
reserved for you. God's elect. Those born again
by the Spirit of God. Those that God gave an abundant
mercy to. Those that He gave an inheritance
to. These are the same. These people. These people. How do we know we're going to
get this inheritance? How do we know we're going to go to
glory? How do we know that we're going to be? Who are kept by
the power of God. Huh? That's how I know I'm going
to get that. God's going to see to it. Huh? Kept by the power
of God. Now let me just look right over
to you, just a minute, to Jude. Look back over to Jude, that
last little tiny one chapter book that's over here. And look what it says in verse
1. Kept by God's power. It takes the power of God to
keep us. It really does. But look what he said in verse
1. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and listen to
this, and preserved in Jesus Christ in Calvary. Will you preserve
that? He said they'll never be taken
out of my hand. Never. And then look down at
verse 24 of Jude. Verse 24. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. That's what he's
going to do for us. And then back over in our text,
you are kept by the power of God. But now listen to this.
kept through faith by the power of God through faith. Now what
does that mean? That means that God does, when
he brings faith, rebellion leads. We're kept through faith, not
in rebellion. I remember just a couple of days
ago, I was looking at some sermons by C.D. Cole. And oh, God used
him idly. But a fellow He was a sovereign
grace preacher. And he was giving his testimony,
and I was reading it. And he said he got converted
at a very young age, 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there. And then he said, I've done like
everybody else did. I went off into the world, and
I followed the wicked, and I was led away with their and the wicked.
And he stayed out in the world until he was 19. And he started
attending the service and said, you know, and the preacher was
real good. And he just picked up right where he left off. And
in a little while he's called a preacher. But he never said anything
about being regenerated later. He's holding on to that profession
that he had back then. Now God don't save a man. Now
listen to me. If He gives you faith, that faith
is going to hold you and keep you and make you look as faith
looks to Christ, lives on Christ, and leans all its weight on Christ.
And if you got faith here, and then you give it up, and you
go over here ten years later, and you pick that back up, it's
not the same thing. There's not no grace of God in
that. The grace of God that teaches
us. And I don't have no more, I have no, and that's what he
said, you're kept by the power of God through faith. Faith. And I tell you, look what
he says here now. unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. You see, this is the way we are.
We have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved.
And I know this, beloved, that faith looks to Christ, lives
on Christ, and leads on Christ, and one of these days our final
salvation shall be revealed when Christ comes to get us. And that'll
be the end of it. That'll be the end of it. For
us, whether He comes and get us all the time, two things I'll
say about this. There's preservation and perseverance
both in that person. God's elect, God's regenerated,
God's redeemed people. We're preserved by God's power,
and yet there's perseverance through faith. Now you can't
have one without the other. If God didn't preserve us, we
wouldn't persevere. But it seems when sometimes our
faith, and it feels like God's a million miles from us, and
we can't feel His presence, we still don't keep on keeping on.
You know why? Because He gave us faith. He
said, I'll not depart from them to do them good, and they'll
never depart from me. That's what He said. He said,
well, He won't leave us, and we're not going to leave Him. Just ain't going to do it. There's
some of you sitting here tonight, you'll be back here Sunday morning,
you'll be back here Sunday night, and you'll be back here next
Wednesday, you'll be back here, and that's just as sure as God's
on His throne. I know, and because of the gospel
that God's done for you, the grace that God has given you,
the things He's worked in you, that you, there's not a doubt
in my mind, that God hasn't kept you, and that you haven't persevered.
Huh? You got to have both of them.
If God didn't preserve us, how long would we last? And then if we didn't persevere,
we wouldn't know we had any faith. So they go hand in hand. When we can't stand, God's making
us stand. And then you know when He feels
far away, that's in faith. But I know one thing, faith,
how do you know you've got faith? You're looking to Christ. How
do you know you've got faith? You're living on Christ. How
do you know you've got faith? You're putting all your weight
on Christ. All of it. All of it. Elect, redeemed, regenerated,
and kept, preserved. That's a pretty good place to
be in. Our Father, O our Father, in
the blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, O how I thank you. O God, my soul reaches out to
you in thanksgiving. Lift it up. So thankful for the presence
of the Lord. So thankful for your word. Thankful
for the children of God who sit here and listen. intently, and
so graciously, and so kindly, and loves your word. Oh Lord, I thank you for it.
Thank you for the work you've done in us, the work you're doing
for us. God bless this Lantana Grace Church. Cause it to flourish.
Cause it to grow. Cause us to grow in grace and
knowledge. Cause us to grow, and cause your
sheep to come in. Bring people in to believe the
gospel. Hear the gospel. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
Please meet the needs of our homes and the needs of our heart.
We thank you in our Lord Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Amen. There is a name I love to hear. I love to sing its word. It sounds like music in my ear. name on earth. O how I love Jesus! O how I love Jesus! O how I love Jesus! Because He first loved me,