Here in 2 Corinthians chapter
1, I want to start reading here in verse 8. For we would not, brethren, have
you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were
pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we even
despaired of life. But we had the sentence of death
in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in
God which raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a
death, and doeth deliver on whom we trust that he will yet deliver
us." Now, I want to talk today about a fourfold salvation, fourfold
salvation. Paul says in verse eight and
nine, that he didn't want these people to be ignorant of the
great trouble that he had, the sufferings that he had, and how
that he would have came to them, but he was pressed above measure,
that he even says, well, I'm not even going to live through
this. He despaired of his life. He said, this is it. He said,
this is the end of it for me. But yet, he said, we even sentenced
ourselves to death. We just said, well, this is it.
And he done this, that we should not trust in ourselves. That
we trust in God. God, who is life. God, who has
power. God, who can meet all of our
needs. But that we should trust in God,
not in ourselves, but in God, which raises the dead. So if
we die, we're going to be raised again anyway. And then he said,
who delivered us from so great a death? That's the death we
have in Adam. and doeth deliver in whom we
trust, and he will yet deliver us." Now, he's talking about
he has been saved, he is being saved, and he shall be saved.
We have salvation here in three tenses, has, is, and will be. And that deals with our past,
deals with our present, deals with our future. And there's
a threefold salvation there, but I want to talk about four.
Mr. Arthur W. Pink said this. He
said, God saves us from the penalty of sin that's in the past. There's therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. We're saved from the penalty
of sin. We're dead to sin. We died to sin in our Lord Jesus
Christ. He paid the penalty. Christ signed
our pardon. And then he says, we're also
saved from the power of sin. Paul says, you know, in Romans
6, 14, that sin shall not have dominion over you, shall not
reign over you. Why? Because you're not under
law. You're not under law. You're not trying to be saved
by doing. You're not trying to be saved by keeping the law.
We're saved by grace. Salvation is by grace. If there
were sin about it, grace does much more of that. And then we
say, from the pleasure of sin are being saved. You know, in
the world, all that's in the world is the lust of the flesh,
the lust of eyes, and the pride of life. And these things are
not of God. We love righteousness. We despise
sin, and we despise it especially in ourselves. We want our affection
set on things above where Christ sets it at the right hand of
God. Paul says that sin is a burden to us, and I tell you, it is
a burden to God's people. It's a bitter pill. It's a bitter
thing. That's why we say, O wretched
man, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Who shall
save us from it? And then the fourth thing that
he said was, we shall be saved someday from the very presence
of sin. What a day that'll be when God
takes us right out of the birth presence of sin. And you know
where He'll save us from? He'll save us from the presence
of it in ourselves. We'll be in a new heaven and
a new earth. And all this is true. But I want to look at it
just a little different this morning and talk about our fourfold
salvation according to the Scriptures. Now, if it's not according to
the Scriptures, there's no sense even worrying about it. But let
me tell you, Now he says we have been saved, we are being saved,
and we trust God who yet shall save us. When he says deliver,
deliver means salvation. Yet deliver always means salvation,
means being saved, means being set free. That's what deliverance
means. But let me tell you the first way we're saved. We're
saved from the foundation of the world. God's people And Christ
has always been saved. Before God ever made this world
or put anything in it, you say, can you make that good? I can.
Look at Ephesians chapter 1. You know, God calls the things
that be not as though they were. He told Abraham, you're going
to have a son. Now, Abraham didn't have a son. He wondered, when
I'm going to have one? He waited and waited and waited
and waited and waited. God calls things that haven't
existed yet as if they are. Isaiah 46 says this, God hath
declared the end from the beginning. How could you do that? I don't
even know what the next hour is going to bring forth. We don't
know what an age is going to bring forth. The Scriptures tells
us. And yet God says, I know what the end is going to be.
He declared it from the very beginning. I declare what the
end is going to be. And then he wrote it all down
in this blessed book so we'd know what the beginning was and
what the end is. You know what the end's gonna
be? Our salvation eternally with the Lord Jesus Christ. The sheep on the right hand,
goats on the left. And look what it says here. Ephesians
1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us. with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Now listen, this
is one of His spiritual blessings. "...according as He hath chosen
us in Him." When did He do this? Before the foundation of the
world. What was the reason that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love? That's why He did it. That's
why He did it. "...having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself." And oh, I love
this right here, according to his good pleasure. And Romans 8, 29 says that all
things work together for good, not to everybody, only to them
who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did
foreknow, them he also called. Them he called, he also justified. Whom he justified, he also glorified. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be against us? And you notice
everything about God's salvation for His people is always in the
past tense. He has chosen us. Do you know
why it's in the past tense? Because as far as God's concerned,
it's done. All right? Let me show you. We've looked
at this so many times, but I want to look at it again. In 1 Timothy,
2 Timothy 1-9, we have looked at this so many times. You see,
Christ stands as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the Word.
Now, if he was slain from the foundation of the world, and
Revelation 13 says that all names, the names of his people were
written in the Lamb's Book of Life, slain from the foundation
of the world. God had the names of all his
people in the Book of Life, the Lamb's Book of Life, before the
foundation of the world. And so beloved, if our names
were written there, That means that we've been saved, as far
as God's concerned, ever since Christ stood as our surety and
the One who stood good for us. God has never, ever one time
looked to His people for anything. He's always looked to Christ
for what they've had. Never, ever looked to us for
one iota of anything. You know, He had Christ as the
Lamb slain before He ever made Adam. Now, He didn't make Adam
fall. But in Ephesus, the man that's
the first man that ever had a free will, and he's the only man who
ever had a free will. And God gave him one commandment,
I'm the creator, I made you, and you'll do what I tell you
to do, and if you don't, you'll die. And when Adam died, every
part and faculty of the human race died in him. We lost our
ability to believe, we lost our ability to trust, we lost our
ability of holiness, we died and we became desperately wicked
sinners. And there's nobody ever been
saved by their own free will. They've been saved by the free
will of God, or they haven't been saved at all. Ain't that right? He worketh
all things out to the counsel of his own will. Look what it
said here in 2 Timothy 1.9. Oh, this is the verse that God
used to make me understand clearly the gospel and how salvation's
of the Lord. Talking about the power of God
who has saved us. See how again it's in the past
tense? And called us with a holy calling.
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, now listen to it, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Now, when did we learn about
it? Christ brought it into the world when He appeared. All of
God's elect You know, all of God's elect,
as far as God was concerned, they stood in Christ before the
foundation of the world. They've always stood in Christ,
and they shall always stand in Christ. Will our standing in
Christ change when we get into eternity? Well, if it wasn't
changed in the eternity past, if it will not change there,
what makes you think it changed back there? We were preserved
in Christ Jesus. When were we preserved in Christ
Jesus? When we believed? No, we were preserved in Him
from the foundation of the world. He was the surety for His people
and stood good for us from all eternity. He entered once into
the holy place and there He became the author of eternal salvation. If it's an eternal salvation,
that don't mean, beloved, when it means eternal, that means
eternal. Has no beginning and no end. We just found out about it when
we, and I'll get to that in a minute, we just learned it. That's what
makes the gospel good news. Because it tells what Christ
did for us before we ever were. Before Adam ever fell, Christ
stood for his elect, his people. And he came in time to pay for
what they did. Wonder why Abraham was called
nobody else was. Because he is in the Lamb's Book
of Life. He was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world. And oh, beloved, I'm telling you something. And oh, the Old
Testament saints, beloved, all of God's people. I mean, beloved,
and I love this. I love this. Salvation is an
eternal act. Salvation is never an act of
man in any way, shape, form, or fashion. It's always the act
of God. And as you say, well, boy, I
don't know. Well, listen. Do you want salvation
to be in your hands at any one time? I don't. Now, there was a time
I did. Till God taught me better. That's
what my next point is. Now, we have been saved. God,
we're chosen in Christ. Fourfold salvation. First salvation,
chosen, saved from the foundation of the world. Second, we have
been saved, who delivered us. Then we're saved in time, in
this world, by the hearing of the gospel. That's why Paul said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel. But therein is the power of God. It's the very power of God. Therein
is God's righteousness revealed. Now, I'm going to tell you something.
Even God's elect, those chosen in Christ, you know when they
find out that they were saved back there? It's when they hear
the gospel. You see, there's no salvation apart from the gospel. Now, look back over here with
me in 2 Thessalonians. Second Thessalonians. I'm going
to look at Second Thessalonians, just a moment. You know, the
apostle says, you know, after you heard that we trusted in
Christ, after you heard the word of truth, you can't trust in
Christ until you hear the word of truth. And then the gospel, he said,
then you heard the gospel of your salvation. There comes a
time when you hear the gospel and the gospel becomes the gospel
of your salvation. Not somebody else's, it's yours.
You hear it for yourself. That's why Paul said, my gospel. Because it was the gospel that
God used to save him, though he said, I was separated from
my mother's womb. He's the one that taught about
God's election. But look what he said here in
2 Thessalonians 2.13. Of course, first thing it says
about in verse 11 that God sends some people a strong delusion
to believe a lie. that they all might be damned.
They didn't believe the truth. But look what he says in verse
13. But we're bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren,
your beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. Well, He chose us to this salvation
for the foundation. Well, how are we going to get
it? Through sanctification of the Spirit. The Spirit comes
and sets us apart and belief of the truth. Now how did he
bring us to this sanctification of the belief of the truth and
set apart by the Spirit? He called you by our gospel to
the attaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
beloved, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about you
hear the gospel. I got a little book the other
day in the mail, and it talked about, this fellow's talking
about ten indictments against the church. And the first thing
he indicted them against was their ignorance of God. And he's
talking about his denomination, because I know, you know, you
take somebody like Rothbard and Henry Mahan, they started preaching
the gospel way back in the early fifties. And A.W. Muse and those fellows. Now,
I'll tell you, God's always had a people on this earth and always
had somebody that preached the gospel. And I'm telling you something,
the Holy Spirit comes and applies this salvation that we were chosen
unto. He works in us what Christ worked
out for us and what God predestinated us to. He gives us faith. The
Holy Spirit gives us faith. He gives us repentance. You see,
God plans salvation. That's one thing to be chosen.
But how in the world are we going to know that we're chosen? How's
this salvation going to be executed? Well, Christ came into the world. As the Son of God, virgin-born,
to be a lamb slain from the foundation of the world, He actually became
God's Lamb in time. And He came as a Lamb to bear
the sins of His people as a substitute, a sin-bearer, a sacrifice, a for all the sins of his people
for all time and eternity. When our Lord Jesus cries out,
it was finished, salvation was accomplished from all of God's
people, chosen from the foundation of the world to the last one
saved on this earth. If it ain't finished, don't mean
nothing. Look in Romans 10, just with
me, just a moment. You know, God executed. How are
we going to get it? The Holy Spirit comes and He
applies it to us. He applies it to us. And that's
why we don't have altar calls, that's why we don't sing songs,
and try to talk people into things, and try to convince folks. I
mean, we tell them the truth, we preach the gospel to them,
we pray for them. They hear the truth, they know
what the truth is, and we tell it to them over and over and
over again. But beloved, salvation is of the Lord, so what good
would it do me to talk you into anything? When salvation is of
the Lord, when the gospel is the power of God unto salvation,
then what? The altar is not the power of
God unto salvation. Faith is not the power of God
unto salvation. Repentance is not the power of
God unto salvation. Your work is not the power of
God unto salvation. Your decision is not the power
of God unto salvation. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. The gospel is. And look what
he said here in Romans 10. Romans 10 and verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Oh, that's true. That
is true. You call on the name of the Lord,
God will save you. He will save you. But listen
now. How then shall they call in Him of whom they have not
believed? You don't call strangers up and
ask them for anything, do you? How in the world of people come
in, and people talk them into something, get them up to make
a decision, make them a profession or something like that, just
won't let a service in until somebody makes And that's what
they called us. We had to move this morning. We had to move. Well, I tell
you, that's awful. But listen, how shall they call
on Him? If you're going to call on the Lord to be saved, you've
got to believe Him. And then watch what it says.
How shall they call, believe in Him of whom they have not
heard? How can you believe in Him if you've never heard anything
about Him? Now, if you hear about a Jesus, there's so much misinformation
in this world. There's a Jesus who stands and
goes like this. Please let me in. Let me, would
you set me in your heart? Open your heart and let me in. He's standing in the banners
of heaven looking down, said, oh, if they would just, if they
just, if they just let me. They don't know what they could
have if they just let me. No, no. You can hear about that
one. That's the one, you know, I love
everybody so much and I died for them. If they can just understand
how much I loved them and, oh, listen how I died for them. If
they can just get up enough faith, if they can just weep enough,
if they can just mourn enough, then I'll save them. No, no. That's not the Christ of the
Scriptures. The Christ of the Scriptures says, no man comes
unto the Father but by name. He said, all powers given unto
me in heaven and earth, that I should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given me. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I'll never, ever
cast him out. He said, except you believe I
am he, and I am is the same. He said, who do you say you are?
I am. I am the bread of life. I am
the love of the world. I am the vine. I'm the great
I Am. Who you say you are? Well, you're
going to stone me what for? Because I said that I'm equal
with God? Because I am God. You know who
it was that met Moses on the mountain in that burning bush?
That was the Lord Jesus Christ. You know who it was that met
Him and talked to Him? Christ. And oh, you've got to
hear about Him. You've got to hear the right
information about Him. And how shall they hear without
somebody telling them? Huh? And also, you see, beloved,
God planned it, He executed, He has to apply it. If you get
saved, if God saves you and He comes, He'll apply the salvation
that Christ executed in His life and death on the cross. And then,
beloved, if you ever get to glory, He'll have to consummate, He'll
have to take you all away. And all this is why we preach one
gospel. There's not two, three, four
gospels. If you got one of them Bibles that says, you know, there's
there's three or four or five different gospels. Get rid of
it. Get rid of these Bibles that
got man's motes in them. Just read it for what it says.
You say, what do you reckon that means? I reckon it means what
it says. This is why we preach one gospel, Christ and Him crucified. First you have Christ, eternal
God, and then you have Him in His humanity. That's why He come
to be crucified in His body, in His humanity. As we preach
one gospel, Christ and Him crucified, that your faith would stand in
God's power. And what God works in you, what
God does for you, not in the wisdom of man. Not in somebody
taking you down the Roman's road. Not in somebody convincing you
to come to the front. Not in somebody making you to
have some kind of experience. Not somebody getting you to come
and pray on their altar until you get prayed through. No, if
your faith stands in the wisdom of men, you know what will happen?
A smarter man, a more persuasive man, a more charismatic man will
come along and change your tune for you. Happens all the time,
ain't that right? That's why people can go from
being a Baptist to a Pentecostal. That's why Pentecostals can go
from being Pentecostal to becoming Catholics. You just, you know,
whomever gets a hold of you and just keeps, that's why some people
become a Camelot, a Camelot can become something else, because
their faith stands in somebody's wisdom, somebody convinced of
them or something. But oh, if God saves you, if
God breaks His gospel to you, if God works in you, then there
ain't no worry, nobody ain't going to talk you out of it.
Oh, nobody's going to talk you out of that. Nobody's going to
convince you that there's something else, no other way to go. It's
like a big old Clarence Poore said one time, the fellow that
got out and preached, he said, there's more in this Bible than Christ.
Old big Clarence Smith, before he even got out of the pulpit,
he says, you're wrong. You're wrong. He said, Christ
is all there is, and Christ is all we're going to preach, and
Christ is all we're going to be, believe, and I don't want
to hear anything else you've got to say. And Clarence was
a big old boy. I'd hate for him to come into
the program with me. You know. And oh, I'll tell you
something. William Tyndale, he wrote the
Scriptures and he made a translation of the Scriptures. And this was
back when the Catholic Church ruled the whole world at that
time. And they didn't want men to have the Bible. They didn't
want people to read the Scriptures for themselves. But he wrote
in the preface to his English translation of the scriptures,
and they hunted him down like a dog and killed him. He said
in his English translation of the scriptures said that the
evangel, the gospel, signifies, this is what it tells us, it's
that good, that merry, that glad, joyful tidings that makes a man's
heart glad, and make of him sing and dance and leap for joy."
And it does that, don't it? It makes the lame leap, puts
a new song in our mouth, makes us dance, makes us sing. Oh, my. That's why it says, how beautiful
upon the mountain are the feet of him that publishes peace.
And that's why, beloved, that's why trusting in an old, old experience
is so dangerous. Salvation is of the Lord. And if you go back to a time
and you say, well, I know I'm saved because I felt this, I
felt that, I experienced this, I experienced that. All I know is that salvation
is the Lord and He saved me when I heard the gospel. And I'll
never forget when I heard the gospel. I'm going to go to my
next point. Let me hurry up. Saved from the
foundation of the world, saved in time by the gospel, have been
saved. We are being saved. Romans 13,
11 says this, it says, Our salvation is now nearer than when we first
believed. See, we're being saved from some
things to some things. Now, we are being saved right
now. And I tell you what, how many times do you pray, Lord,
I need you. Lord, save me. Lord, have mercy
on me. Lord, I don't want to be deceived. Lord, I don't want
to be lost. I want to know Christ. You see,
we are being saved from sin's power. Sin still has way, way
too much power over me. If it didn't have power over
me, I'd never sin. But if I have power, that's power
over me. I'm sinning while I'm standing
in this pulpit, you're sinning while you're sitting and listening
to me. If your mind's not exactly fixed on God, then it's not right. And if I've got any pride in
me while I'm preaching this, any great assurance that, boy,
God's really using me this morning, well, then I've been nullified
just as far as God's concerned. So that's why we go out and sell
ourselves to Christ. We're being saved from sin's
power. We are being saved from sin's pleasure. We're being saved
from the world. We're being saved from our own
strength. We're being saved from error.
We're being saved from ignorance. We're being saved from all of
our preconceived ideas. We're being saved from our self-trust. Being saved from our confidence
in the flesh. We're like David said, Oh Lord, wash me throughly from my iniquity. Save me, oh God, wash me throughly
from my iniquity. Wash me. And how does God save
us even now? By the Word of God. That's how
he saves from error, and from ignorance, and from self, and
from self-confidence, and self-righteousness, and from our flesh, and from
our sins, is by hearing the gospel again. I read it to you. Who
can, who, word with me, shall a man cleanse his ways by taking
heed thereto according to your word? That's how he does it. And, oh, beloved,
that's why our Lord Jesus Christ said, sanctify them, father,
sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. The word is
truth. And then he saves us by his word.
He saves us by chastisement and intercession. And I'll tell you,
everyone for whom Christ died, if he's a son, he will be chastised. He will feel the rod of God on
him. God will hide his face from him.
God will make him feel the pains. He'll make him go for maybe weeks
and come hear the gospel, and it won't have no power on him,
no effect on him. It'll bring him to the place where he'll
say, Lord, oh, God forgive me. And he'll cry out for God. Did,
oh, Lord, cause your face to shine on me. It's been dark. Is your anger clean gone? Have
you enraged, forsaken mercy? My feet were slipping, Lord,
and they're slipping. If you don't have mercy on me,
my feet's gonna slide. Oh, listen, if you go through
this world, and you don't suffer over sin, if you don't suffer
over your flesh, if you don't suffer over your attitude and
your way you are, then I'm telling you something. You're not God's.
God will chastise His people. I mean, He'll take your sleep
from you. He'll make your mind scared to death. He'll make you
abhor sin. He'll make you say, Oh God, how
did I get myself in this shape? Save me from it. Let me tell
you something now. Listen to me now real well. When
God saved us, and we are being saved, we all had or do have
our own grave clothes, just like Lazarus did. Nobody comes into the kingdom
of God full-born. Do that. Nobody comes into the
kingdom of God full-grown. You know how you come into the
kingdom of God? You come into it as a baby. That's why Peter
said, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word.
Nobody comes into the kingdom of God full-born. Then you start
out as a baby. And as you hear the gospel, things
start falling off. Things start changing. Your ideas
change. Your feelings change. Your opinions
change. Your views change. Your attitude
changes. Everything. Then you start as
children. Then when you get children, you
get a certain age, nobody can tell you nothing. You've got
it all figured out. Until God chastises you, you
find out you know no nothing. And then, beloved, you become
young men or young women. You get a little older, you get
a little wise, you get a little stronger. And then you become
fathers and you become mothers. You see, when we were first born
into the Kingdom of God, all of us had the great clothes of
ignorance. How ignorant were we of God?
How ignorant were we of His Word? How ignorant were we of ourselves? How ignorant were we of His salvation?
How ignorant were we of Christ? And oh, beloved, we had on the
grave clothes of ignorance. We had on the grave clothes of
sentiment. Oh, we were so sentimental when we started hearing the gospel.
And we began to hear about it and how it was. And the first
thing we had to ask was, what about my brother? What about
my mommy? And they'd say, oh, we'll get
along for old time's sake. And tradition, all the traditions
we had. Oh, the traditions we had. My
soul, the traditions we had. Oh, go back to all the things
we went through in our religion, the testimonies, the praying,
the altars, and the clothes we wore, the way we dressed, the
places we went, no television. Oh, my goodness, we had so many
traditions and so much great clothes. And all things may be
handed down and all beloved, but in Paul's God said, you know,
I saved you from the traditions of your fathers. And then when
you hear the gospel, the first great closure comes up, says,
well, that's against everything I've heard of all my life. That's
opposite to what I've heard all my life. I like the old fashioned way.
I like the old knee right way. A praying deer and a dancing
foot don't go on the right side of the way. Well, Paul left his tradition.
You know what he said? He said, I was a Pharisee of
Pharisees, a Hebrew of Hebrews. After the righteousness of the
law, nobody was more zealous than I, nobody more blameless
than me. They said, if old Paul, if anybody's
going to heaven, Paul's going. You know what he said? He said,
I count every bit of that, but dumb, but garbage. I'm walking
off and leaving it all. Huh? And oh, we must be saved
from our way to His way. We like our morality. We like
to hold on to our morality. We want to preserve our dignity
at the expense of God's glory. We want to hold on to how good
we are, and how moral we are, and how decent kind of people
we are. But let me tell you something,
beloved. You hold on to your dignity at the expense of God's
glory. You see, we didn't become lost by doing anything. What
did you do to become a sinner? What did you do to be lost? Nothing. Shaken in iniquity and conceived
in sin. And Adam, we all died. And so
if we're going to be saved, we're not going to be saved by doing.
We're going to have to leave it all. And then our works. Oh, we like our works. We're
going to hold on to them. But we're saved by grace and not
by works. Now, we're not only being saved
from some things, but listen, we're being saved to some things.
We're being saved to the glory of God. Now, listen to me. God's going to get the glory
to Himself through His Son for our salvation. And this is the
thing about it. That's what we want. We want
God to get all the glory. How do you tell the difference
between the gospel and something else? God gets all the glory.
Man don't get any. If you ever find anybody giving
glory to man in salvation or in anything that God does for
them, you've heard a lie. Oh thou worm, Jacob! Cry, what shall I cry? All flesh
is grass. He's as the grasshopper of the
field. Worms, maggots, Sinners, ungodly,
without strength, without God, without hope in this world. The
Bible, outside of Christ, says everything that man is, a despicable
creature, outside of Christ. And God's going to get all the
glory in our salvation. And that's what I want, not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy glory. For Thy true
sake. To God be the glory, great things
He hath done. And I tell you, we're being saved
to a greater conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what
predestination is about. We're predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ. Huh? Oh, and I tell you, we're being
saved to a greater willingness for His will to be done. We're
being saved to a greater understanding and appreciation for the grace
of God. Don't you appreciate the grace of God now more than
you ever have? Don't you understand how desperately
you need to be saved by the grace of God now more than you ever
have? You understand it for your children,
you understand it for your neighbors, you understand it for yourself,
and you appreciate it for yourself that if God didn't save me by
grace, there would be nobody saved, and you understand it
more now than ever, and you have a greater appreciation for it.
And oh, you appreciate the grace of God that saves you, that keeps
you, and it upholds you, and especially that it's sufficient
for you in whatever's going on in your life. It really does
work. And oh, and He saves us to a
greater love for and understanding of the gospel. of imputed righteousness,
that God gave us the righteousness of Christ, and He washed our
sins away by His blessed blood. No wonder David said, Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity. And then let me
show you my last point, fourth point. Look with me in 2 Timothy
chapter 4. And we shall be saved. We have
been saved. You're in the We shall be saved. We're being saved from sin and
error and ignorance, to grace and God's glory, to greater conformity
to the truth. And look what Paul said here.
And on we are, we shall be saved. Shall be saved. You know, they
told our Lord Jesus Christ, his own brethren, his brothers and
sisters told him, said the feast was getting ready to the Passover
feast. It's getting ready to be done
up at Jerusalem. And his brethren told him, they
said, go on up to Jerusalem. So no man does the works that
you do and the miracles that you do that don't want to be
seen of men. And what they're saying is, and
what they told our Lord, says, you know, he said, anybody that
does anything, they want everybody to see it and they want everybody
to know it. He says, so go on up there and do them great miracles
and do them great works, because you know you want to go up there.
Let everybody praise you and let everybody see your great
works. Now, that's the way human nature is, but our Lord Jesus
Christ's not that way. You know what He said? He says,
you know, my time's not yet. My time ain't come. But I'll
be glorified. My time hasn't come when my work
will be made effectual for all of the Lord's people. My time's
not come." But he says, you know what? Your time's always ready
to be exposed for what you are. And look what Paul said here
in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Oh, we shall be saved for I'm
not ready to be offered. That's why he called himself
an offering. And the time of my departure is at hand. Oh my,
you get that ticket to get on that airplane, you know, and
you're right down to the last few minutes. Boy, I gotta, man,
that ticket says I gotta be on that airplane. Man, you run to
get on that thing. Because you don't want to miss
the flight. Well, Paul says, I'm ready to depart. And listen. Now, I know I said
I fought a good fight. What did he fight? He fought
error, ignorance, sin. Pharisees, self-righteousness
of flesh, men who hated the gospel. I fought
a good fight, and this year I finished my course. I've been on a course
from the time God sent me. And I have, listen to this, I
kept the faith. I kept the gospel. I kept true
to what God taught me. I kept true to the Word of God.
Henceforth, there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness.
which the Lord, the righteous judge, hath given me at that
day, and not only to me, but also that love is appearing."
He said, for me to depart and be with Christ, he said, is far
better. This salvation is going to be
done one of these days. Look with me over in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians 4. You know, that's why he said,
if you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house
are many mansions. If it were not so, I'd have told
you. But I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare
a place for you, so don't let your heart be troubled, if I
go to prepare a place for you, I will come again. I will come
again and get you, take you where I am, take you where I am. And
look what he said here in 1 Thessalonians 4, in verse 13. I love these
verses. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them which also wish sleep in
Jesus will God bring with them. That's what he calls, you know,
what we call death, what we call passing away. Paul calls it just
ending your day's labor and going to sleep, going into a rest.
You don't want to wake nobody up. If I went in this morning
and said, I hate to do this to you, sweetheart, I hate to do
that. I hate to wake you up. Oh, I
hate to wake you up. Don't you hate to wake up after
you've had a, oh, you know, you just have a hard time waking
up? Well, that's why Paul said, you know, you've labored long
and you've labored hard. And now time to go to sleep,
time to go to rest, time to end your labor. Blessed are they
whose labors are ceased to die in the Lord. And then look what
he goes on to say now. For this I say unto you by the
word of the Lord, again, this gospel, that we which are alive
and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not forbid them,
or hinder them, or stand in the way of them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the
dead in Christ shall rise first. Do you know how many people we
know that's going to come out of the grave before you and I?
And you know, you may be standing right there over their grave,
looking at them, paying, you know, paying respects to them,
going out to visit them at their grave. You may be out there putting
flowers on their grave. And by now, Lord, you see if
you're standing there on that grave of somebody you love, and
they'll come out of that ground, and you won't be a hindrance
to them. And then while they're going
up, just watch, you'll go right up behind them. But then in Christ
shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with Him in the clouds. Listen to it. To
meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the
Lord. And what are you supposed to do with them words? Comfort
one another. Comfort one another. And I tell you, we're going to
be changed no matter when we're called. But God's going to call
us. Let me tell you a little story
here. Let me give you an illustration. Y'all remember Pilgrim's Progress. We have been saved, we are being
saved, we shall be saved. But we are saved in time because
God chose us from eternity. But y'all remember Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress. Two people that walked hand in
hand on their pilgrim way, Christian and hopeful. Christian and hopeful. And they got down, got to getting
to the river, and they saw off into Emmanuel's land. They saw
over there, across the river, they saw Emmanuel's Lamb. Oh,
they wanted to go. And there were so many characters
in there. There was Mr. Ready to halt. He had a crutch
that he walked on. And always ready to stop. Always
ready to quit. Always afraid. There's Miss Diffident. She's bashful and backwards.
Can't put herself forward. Don't know how to talk. She just
kept herself in the background. There's Miss Much Afraid. She
was afraid all the time, you know, do I know Christ? Something's
going to overthrow me all the time. There's old Mr. Fearing.
Feared his self. Feared sin. Feared his falls. And then there's Christian. And
boy, they all got down to the riverside and they're getting
ready to cross over. Old Mr. Redding Hall, he'd throw his
crutch away. Old Miss Dippity said, Look how young did Emmanuel's
land. Old Miss Ferry, all of her fear
dispelled and gone. And they started to cross the
river. And old Christian said, oh, the
water's going to swallow me up. Now, he's the one that started
out from the city of destruction. He's the first one. And he said,
oh, he stepped out into that river and he said, the water's
going to swallow me up. Everybody else went through and
didn't have any problem. Mr. Muchafraid went over and
just rejoiced, and Mr. Divenier, Mr. Fearing, Mr. Adelhold threw away his crutch
and walked across with no problem. But old Christian got in that
water and said, Oh, it's going to swallow me. I'm going to go
under. I ain't going to make it. And then he said, Wait, wait. I feel a rock. I feel a rock.
There's a rock under my feet. Then the rest of it was easy. Our Lord said, lift up your heads.
Your redemption draws nigh. And oh, beloved one, these days
no more struggles. No more struggles of heart. No
more fears. No more fears for yourself or
your loved ones. No more infirmities. No more
infirmities. No more weakness of the body
and mind. No more sitting and weeping over
somebody. No more discouragement. You know
what it will be like to never be discouraged again? No more
darkness. And most of all, no more goodbyes. No goodbyes. We will be in the
glorious presence when we shall be saved of Him who we long to
see and be in His presence and be nothing but joy and life perfect. What a day that will be when
my Jesus I shall see, when He takes me by the hand, leads me
through the promised land, When I look upon His face, the one
who saved me by His grace, what a day, what a day that will be."
And it will. It will. For full salvation. Salvation, I have been, I am
being in a shell, because God purposed it from eternity. Bless
His holy name. Our Father, O our Father, in
the blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for this
great, glorious salvation. O blessed be Your name. Thank
you for the truth as it's in Christ. Thank you for the faith.
Thank you for the grace. Thank you for the keeping, for
sustaining. And, oh Lord, blessed be your
name for this blessed hope that we have in thy Lord Jesus Christ. Bless these dear saints. Save,
save by your grace. Open hearts and open understanding. If someone's heard the gospel
of their salvation, if they've heard the gospel and it's become
the gospel of their salvation, if they believe it, I pray you
to enable them, Lord, to confess their faith in Christ by submitting
to the Lord Jesus publicly by believer's baptism. Lord, you
know them that are yours. You know them that are yours.
In Christ's name we bless you. Amen. Amen.