Well, good morning. We have a
small crowd here today. But I think today's message I
hope you'll find interesting and important, as I did, going
through it and writing it and studying, because the gospel
of Christ is a very important message. So think about this, every soul,
every person here on earth, we all have an eternity to spend.
And we'll either have an eternity to spend in heaven or an eternity
to spend in hell. And just think about that. Really
think about it. I like to ask people this question,
where will you spend an eternity? Look into the gospel. Find out
what eternity means. Find out who the true savior
is and find out who the true savior of the universe is. Find out who has the power to
save. This is an important message
and I always tell people I talk to and Jim used to tell me all
the time. You may want to check into it
because it's only the most important thing that you'll ever hear about
and it is. It's the most important thing
you could ever hear about. So the title of today's message
is An Eternity in Christ. Scripture will come from Isaiah
46 10. So please turn in your Bibles
to Isaiah 46 verse 10. It says declaring the end from
the beginning. The end from the beginning. And from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I
will do all my pleasure. The beginning to the end, that's
an eternity. Let me tell you this, and this
is one of the greatest false teachings being taught in mainstream
religion today. It's the teaching that Christ's
death, his blood sacrifice, is only one of many ways that God
chooses uses to save sinners. Now, that is a great error that
Jesus Christ and redemption through his perfect obedience and through
his precious blood is only one of many ways that God has used
to save sinners. But that's what's being taught
and it's always been taught. That's nothing new. Just to set
the record straight, The scriptures plainly state that Jesus Christ
has been and will always be the only way a sinner can ever be
justified in the sight of God. It doesn't matter whether a person
lived in the days of the Old Testament, in the days of Moses,
in the days of the New Testament, or if the sinner lives right
now in our time. Since Adam fell in the Garden
of Eden, there's only been one way, and that's only through
Christ. and it doesn't matter if it's
Jew or Gentile. The only way to eternal salvation
is through Christ, period. In John 14, 6, Christ said, Jesus
saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man
cometh unto the Father but by me. Listen to what Christ just
said. He said he is the way, the truth,
and the life. And then he said, no man comes
to the Father except by him. He doesn't say you can come to
the Father by your works, by being baptized, your good deeds,
keeping the law, giving your money, or abiding by the law. He clearly states that he is
the only way to God the Father. In Acts 4.12, it says, neither
is there salvation in any other for there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved through
Christ is the only way. Romans 6 23 says for the wages
of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord and John 8 56 Christ said Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day and he saw it and was glad. We can go all the way
back to Abraham and say that he saw the day of Christ and
found his joy and redemption through Jesus Christ, not through
the law, not through his good works, but through Christ. In John 5 46, Christ said, For
had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote
of me. Christ said that Moses wrote
of him before he came here. Moses knew Christ was the only
way to God the Father. In 1 John 5, 11 and 12, John
wrote, and this is the record that God hath given us eternal
life. And this life is in his son. He that hath the son hath
life. And he that hath not the Son
hath not life. In Isaiah 53 verses three through
five, it says, he is despised and rejected of men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid it as it were our
faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed." Now, a lot of people will teach, and this is
the way that the error is taught, and this is the way it's being
taught today. is that, like I said earlier, that Christ and his
blood is only one of many ways that sinners are saved. And this
is kind of the way it's taught. God created man in his own image
and he wanted nothing more than for those sinners to be saved.
That was God's intention and that was his original design.
That's what they say. They say that he created man
and he hoped nothing more than to have fellowship with man.
Will man fail? So God began to seek another
way to save him. So in other words, a lot of people,
what they're saying is that the fall of Adam slipped up on God.
It surprised God. So then God had to start his
search for a savior, find another way. So he tried this. He sent his
prophets into the world, hoping that people would hear the prophets
and turn back into fellowship with God. But they wouldn't hear
the prophets, and they wouldn't listen to the prophets. So that
failed. Then God, out of desperation,
gave the law of Moses to man. He gave us the Ten Commandments.
So people say that God gave man the law with the hope that it
would restore man into fellowship with him if he kept the law perfectly. Well, we know what happened there.
It didn't work. Man can't keep the law. So God
said, since people wouldn't listen to the prophets or keep the law,
he said, I'll send my son. So then he sent his son down
here and that failed because people rejected his son and they
nailed him to a cross and killed him. This kind of teaching is an insult
to God Almighty. It's an insult to his wisdom,
to his holiness, his power. It's an insult to his majesty.
and an insult to every attribute of God. This kind of teaching
denies the Holy Scripture. God the Father is an eternal
God. He has infinite wisdom. He is
all wise and unchangeable. He is the immutable, unchangeable,
infinite God. He does absolutely nothing in
time, nothing that He did not decree and purpose and plan from
all eternity. and you can write that down.
God does not change, he does not change his mind, he does
not change his purpose, and he does not change his ways. Listen
to Acts 15 verse 18. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. This was not an afterthought.
Jesus Christ was no emergency plan to save the world. He is
the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Christ was the
plan the whole time. The Old Testament scriptures
told of the coming of Christ. Listen to Isaiah 46 10. It says
declaring the end from the beginning. And and from ancient times, the
things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand
and I will do all my pleasure. The end from the beginning. That's
in eternity. Ephesians 1, 4 says, according
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. We
were not chosen in the prophets, not chosen in the law, but chosen
in Christ. Moses was a prophet. He was recognized
as a prophet of God. He told people about Christ,
and he wrote of Christ. But Moses never claimed to be
the Savior. He claimed to be a preacher of
the gospel. The law wasn't given to save. The scripture plainly
says in Galatians 3.24, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. God never intended to redeem
us through the law. You can't redeem lost sinners
by obedience to the law. The reason is because we cannot
possibly keep the law. There's only one gospel. Galatians
1 9, Paul says, as we said before, so say I now again, if any man
preach any other gospel unto you, then that you have received,
let him be accursed. There's one gospel. There has
never been but one gospel, there will never be but one gospel,
and that gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, our Lord and
Savior. Listen to Romans 1, verses 1
through 3. Paul says, Paul, a servant of
Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel
of God, concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made
of the seed of David according to the flesh. The gospel of Christ,
his substitutionary work, his death and his obedience is the
very gospel that God first revealed to Adam and Eve in the Garden
of Eden. In Genesis 3.15, God said, and
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, And between thy
seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise
his heel. Then the gospel of substitution
through Christ is the gospel that God showed to Adam and Eve.
There they stood after they had fallen, naked. They gathered
fig leaves to make them an apron to cover themselves. They were
afraid. They were ashamed. They were
convicted of their guilt. They tried to cover themselves.
It wasn't good enough. So God, so an innocent lamb was
slain and shed its blood and took the skin of that animal
and covered Adam and Eve. God is saying right there, this
is the way that sins and guilt are covered by death, by the
shedding of blood, by the sacrifice of the innocent lamb to cover
the guilty. And that is Christ. This is the
same gospel that Abel believed. This is why he brought a blood
sacrifice. Abel brought a lamb and slew
that lamb and put his blood on an altar. God accepted his offering
because it was a picture of Christ. It was a picture of a coming
of Christ. He knew that only the blood of a spotless lamb
could atone for sins. He knew that Christ was coming
to make the final payment for sins with his blood. with his
sacrifice. And then you had Cain. Cain refused
it, offered the works of his hands, and God did not accept
his offering because it was by the works of his hands. Only the blood of a spotless
lamb will be accepted by God. Christ was the plan from the
beginning. He was predestinated by God the
Father to come and die on that cross for the payment of sins
for whom he represented ever since the foundation of the world
in eternity. In Luke 24, verses 44 through
47, Christ said, now these are the words of Christ. These are
the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law
of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me then opened he their understanding that they might understand the
Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus
it behoove Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third
day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached
in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." By nature,
we reject God's way and we go our own way. By nature, we try
to make up our own Savior. It's a savior of our imagination.
Naturally, by our human nature, we try to make God into something
he's not. We try to figure out a way to
work and save ourselves. That's a God of our imagination.
The Bible clearly teaches of the true and living God. And
from the foundation of the world in eternity past, when God was
making everything and planning everything, He had this perfect
person coming the whole time. It was sure and certain. So many
people look to the cross for their salvation. My friends look
to Christ. Look to the one who hung on that
cross. Jesus is the savior. Worship him. The saving power
is in the blood of that perfect one. People now worship so many
things in the name of religion, but they're missing the target.
Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, and don't get me wrong,
Mary was a wonderful person, but she should not be worshiped.
People try to be saved by their water baptism. There's no saving
power in water baptism. We take the Lord's Supper, but
there's no saving power in the Lord's Supper. The only saving
power is in the blood of Christ. Do not be confused. There is
one righteousness, and it's nothing we can do to work for it. It's
the righteousness of Christ, and the Christ who said in John
6.37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. This is an eternal
statement from Christ. He just said that all that the
father gives him, they will come to him and he will never cast
them out of his eternal kingdom, never. And that's an eternity. Listen, Christ was here on earth
and this is what they did to him. They spit in his face and
they said, nail him to the cross. But there is good news here.
Christ is on a throne. In Hebrews 10, 11 through 13,
it says, and every priest standeth daily ministering and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices over and over, which can never
take away sins. It's talking about the works
of a sinner's hands. They can never take away sins.
But here's the good news. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God from henceforth expecting till his enemies may be made
his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." All we can do is be thankful
for that blood sacrifice. Follow Christ and him alone for
salvation. Be thankful that Christ came
into this world to establish a righteousness that we could
never produce. This is an eternal and everlasting
righteousness. Be thankful that he died on that
cross, that he paid the sin debt permanently owed for the sins
of his sheep, because without Christ the Lord, we'd spend an
eternity in separation as lost sinners. In conclusion, think about it,
eternity. That's honestly a term or time
stamp that we cannot fathom. If you start thinking about it,
it will blow your mind. We cannot imagine what eternity
is. Only God knows eternity. But
as we read through scripture, we'll hear terms like eternity
before the foundation of the world, eternal life. Those are
all real terms in scripture. You can't look at a specific
time, a specific date when you were saved. It was all in the
eternal mind of God. It was done in eternity, sure
and certain. Salvation of God's sheep was
established at the foundation of the world in the eternal covenant
of grace. God's children were saved according
to God's plan and according to his purpose, not at a time when
a sinner chooses to save themselves. If you believe that a sinner
makes the decision for Christ, then that's worth salvation.
It's Christ that does the saving. Grace is a work that's done by
God. It's only done by God. If the sinner makes the first
move, then it's not grace. Listen to what I'm saying. This
is the most important thing you will ever hear. Everything else
has an expiration date. All of your money, all of your
hobbies, your job, everything, it will all expire. All earthly
possessions have an expiration date. Once you die, all of that
stuff is either passed on, lost, eliminated, or whatever. And I know you can't just foolishly
throw everything away, but what I'm trying to get you to see
is the importance of this message, this eternal message, because
this is an everlasting message and we all have an eternity to
spend somewhere. Amen.