Thank you for the invitation
to come up here and preach the gospel to you. It's a dear congregation. It means the world to me. And it's been a blessing to be
among you. Turn in your Bibles, please,
to Jeremiah, the 50th chapter. I want to read two verses of
Scripture. The title of my message is, A
Sure Thing. sure thing. Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 19
and 20 it says, And I will bring Israel again to his habitation
and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan and his soul shall be
satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead in those days and
in that time saith the Lord. The iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none. And the sins of Judah,
and they shall not be found, for I will pardon them whom I
reserve." Now, though this passage deals with the historical deliverance
of Israel from Babylonian captivity, as it says in verse 18, Therefore
thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I
will punish the king of Babylon, and his land as I have punished
the king of Assyria." Though these words are about that, these
words are actually a revelation of the successful work of the
Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree. This passage teaches unequivocally
that salvation is a sure thing. Salvation is a sure thing for
the elect of God. I love absolutes. Ever since
I heard the Gospel, I've loved absolutes. And this is one of
the absolutes of Scripture. Everyone for whom Christ died
will be brought to Christ. Everyone for whom Christ died
will spend eternity praising Him for saving their souls. Now most religions speak of eternal
security. Hardly any religion that any
man knows of doesn't have anything to do with eternity. And most
of them speak of eternal security. I, as a young fellow in a Southern
Baptist Church from the time I was, before I was even born,
I cut my teeth on eternal security. But I have no use for that confidence
or of that carnal doctrine of so-called external security that's
being preached and has been propagated for a hundred years or so, by
the free will, decision-based, owl-trotting, altar-hitting,
praying-through, never-doubting, man-exalting religion, it is
little more than self-deification, that's all it is. If God can't
save you unless you let Him, who is in charge in that scenario? Who is God in that scenario?
It ain't God, it's you. If you have to let God do something,
then you're God and He's not. So all of that idea of eternal
security that men talk about is just a little more than self-deification
hatched by man's consummate penchant for self-deception and his unalienable
tenacity to willfully find respite in a false hope and a refuge
of lives no matter what the scripture says. There is, however, substantive
confidence, full assurance, full assurance of faith and full assurance
of hope to be had in the salvation wrought by God through the blood,
death of the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect righteousness.
If God is the author of salvation, If God is the finisher of salvation,
then I can rest assured, quiet and at peace that it is perfect
because God has done it. It is successful because God
has done it. It is eternal and that nothing
can be put to it and nothing can be taken from it because
it is God that has done it. If God has saved me, I'm okay. If I let him save me, I'm not
okay. It's that simple. But if he saved
me, he saved me, then I'm okay. I love this passage of scripture.
It is poetry and it is prose. It is the rhyme and reason. It
is the melody and the lyric, the stanza and the refrain of
accomplished redemption. What Christ did on Calvary's
tree. It declares, proclaims the absolute sure thing of the
elect salvation. The elect or the redeemed, the
believer, that person whom God has forgiven because God chose
him unto salvation before the foundation of the world. This
glorious disclosure of the salvation that belongs to God is a veritable
checklist of the method of grace and the roster for whom it was
perfected. It is void of human fingerprints. This text is void of human fingerprints. It's void of the taint and stain
of human will or human decisional regeneration. Man is revealed
to be one who is not an actor here at all but one who is acted
upon by sovereign will and sovereign grace. And that sovereign will
is exercise in the free effectual, eternal grace and mercy that
saves the soul of a sinner. In the first place, the language
is the parlance of something solid. something unshakable,
something well-founded and well-grounded. That's the language. It begins
this way. Thus, therefore, thus sayeth
the Lord, excuse me, verse 19, and I will. We can stop right
there in the matter of salvation. God's will. God's will. That settles it, really. If God
says, I will, then He will. And if He says, you shall, then
you shall. Because God does not speak in
line. Now, sadly, for the most part,
the term God's will is used in the world as an afterthought
or some kind of hook. Usually finding itself on the
tongue of men after something has happened that they can't
quite figure out that it comes outside the realm of their expertise
and understanding or goes beyond the bounds of what they think
to be their realm of control. It's a pipe dream. They have
no control, but they believe they do. Like when some disaster
strikes, they'll say it's God's will. Or some tornado comes through,
they'll say it's God's will, because they don't have an answer
for it otherwise. They know they couldn't stop
it. They know the Doppler radar couldn't tell them soon enough
for them to get out of their house. I saw the other day a
tornado came through a little town, and there was not one building
that was not damaged in that whole town. And I'm sure if you
were to talk to those people, they would say, well, there's
a purpose in this. There's a reason for it. It must have been God's
will. Well, it was. It was, for he
is in the whirlwind. The clouds are the dust of his
feet. He wraps his hand in lightning and makes it hit the mark. God
is in control of all things, of all things. Scripture declares
that God's will is sure for accomplishment. People say, well God commands
people to do things and they disobey. That's the will of command
and they do disobey. But they will find in time that
their disobedience was obedience to God's will of purpose because
everybody obeys that. Everybody obeys that. God's will
is the will of accomplishment, sure accomplishment. There is
never a case, there is never a moment There is never a nanosecond,
there is never a time or an age in which God's will is not done
according to his good pleasure. His will is never frustrated
and his will is never disannulled. When those men brought their
shiny pretty little God before David, had him on a pedestal
and said, this is our God, see how beautiful he is and he's
silver and gold. They said to David, where is
your God? And he said, our God is in the heavens. He had done
whatsoever. He has pleased. He had done whatsoever. He is pleased. He said, I will
do all my pleasure. And Isaiah 14, he said, my very
thoughts shall come to pass. I will do it. I will do it. Here his will is wondrously demonstrated
in the complete salvation of his people. He says, I will and
they shall and that is how it is and shall be. He said, I will
bring Israel again to his habitation and he shall feed on Carmel and
Bashan and his soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim
and Gilead. God said, I will bring them.
Therefore, they will be brought. Therefore, they will be brought.
Somebody is going to be brought. When our Lord talked about taking
the children of Israel out of Egypt and ushering him to the
promised land in Deuteronomy 6, he said, I brought you out
to bring you in. And that's how it is. He'll bring
you out of sin to bring you into the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I
know that some religious derelict is going to pop up, is going
to shoot off his mouth and oh so cleverly retort that he might
not want to come. God's dragging him, God's bringing
him, God's persuading him in his mind and his heart and his
soul by giving him ears to hear and eyes to see. And some fool
says, well, I might not want to come or I have the ability
to reject that offer. First of all, God doesn't offer
you anything. He never offered anybody anything. He either give
it to you or He doesn't give it to you. And if He gives it
to you, you have it. And if He doesn't give it to
you, you never will have it. But it's not an offer. But somebody
likes, people like to say that sort of thing. Well, I can reject
that. I might not want to come when God calls. That person has
never known what it is to be held in captivity. That person's
never known what it is to be in prison and in the shackles
of sin. I dare say that there was not
a person who was rescued from the deluge of that great flood
Katrina. Not one ever mustered the inconceivable
thought that when the merciful hand of the rescuer reached out
to pluck him from the murky quagmire, he never thought that he might
not decide to be rescued. Such a thought is stupid. I've
been in jail and I was so happy when they sprung me. I was so
happy when they opened up the doors. And if they had offered,
do you want to leave? I would have said, you bet your
last dollar I want to leave. I don't want to stay. The whole
idea of someone rejecting the call of God is utterly stupid. Because God calls his people
and his people are bound in sin. And when they hear that there
is a rescue, fly to that rescue. They're glad to have it. I never
heard in all these reports one person saying, I know they wanted
to save me, but it was always up to me to accept or reject
the hand of deliverance. Nobody ever says that who's been
delivered. Nobody ever said that who's been in trouble. You see,
stupidity knows no bounds. And when it comes to religious
blockheadedness, the breadth and density of the obtuseness
seems boundless. God says, I will bring Israel.
Are they going to be brought? Yes, they're going to be brought.
I will bring Israel, and Israel shall be brought. And we talk
about Israel in the Old Testament. We talk about Israel, and Judah,
and Jerusalem, and Zion, all those. Those are references to
the church of the living God. He is not a Jew, which is one
outward, but one inwardly, the circumcision of the heart and
not of the flesh, whose praise is of God and not of men. All
that is of Israel is not Israel, but in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. And as Isaac was so are we, it
said. We as Isaac were in Galatians
chapter four. True Israel is the church of
the living God. All that had happened in the
Old Testament. See, the Old Testament is about Jesus Christ from Genesis
chapter one, all the way through the end to Malachi, it's all
about Christ. When the disciples came preaching,
they didn't have the New Testament, they had the Old Testament. They
preached Christ. That's what the book of Acts said. They preached
Christ everywhere. Philip preached Christ and Peter
preached Christ. After Paul was called, he preached
Christ. They all preached Christ. And
Israel shall be saved. All Israel shall be saved. Every
one of them. Where will they be brought? Our
Lord says they will be brought to his habitation, home. Everybody brought home. Where
is home? Home is where God is. Where God
is. God's lovely house. God's temple. God's pasture. God's dwelling
place. God's sheepfold. God's habitation. Those are the language, that
is the language used to describe the home of the child of God,
the flock. Other sheep have I which are
not of this flock, them also must I bring. of this fold, them
also must I bring. And there shall be one flock
and one fold and one shepherd, one shepherd. John chapter 10,
that's what our Lord said in Ephesians 2. The church is called
the habitation of God, a holy temple, a holy temple. That's
where they'll be brought. They'll be brought into the church.
Some people think there's not much going on in the church.
There's not much reason that the church is not important.
Well, let me tell you, it's where God operates in this world. That's
where God operates in this world. There might be things going on
out here all around, but God's operating in one place. He's
operating in Israel. He's operating in His church.
That's the way of the church. Just like he did with natural
Israel in this world. I don't know how many acres of
land there are in the world. I read somewhere like it's 59
million or something. Ridiculous amount of acreage
in the world. That's a lot of land. That's
a lot of land. You got a lot of beautiful land
up here in Michigan. Big spread of land. This church
is on a nice piece of property. Our property, if we want to see
the back 40 of our property, we have to look up the stovepipe
because it's straight up where we live. but you got nice property,
beautiful fields God met with one man in all the acreage of
the world God met with one man one day once a year in a 15 by
15 foot cubicle called the Holy of Holies That one man represented the
people. That one man pictured the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
called the High Priest. On the ouches that he held his
ephod on and on the breastplate, he had the 12 names of the tribes
of Israel engraved on those stones. 15 by 15 foot cubicle. I can only
imagine how small that is. God Almighty. and all the inhabitants
of the universe and all the landscape of the world met with one man
and he represented a people whom God had chosen. That people picture
and typify the church of the living God, God's house, God's
habitation, God's habitation. When the church was being built
and the temple was being built in the Old Testament, 2 Kings.
Or 1 Kings it was, I think it's chapter 6. Every stone was cut
in the quarry before it was brought and put in the temple. We are
called living stones or lively stones by Peter. Before they
were brought, there's already a place for them. God simply
brought them into the place that they belong. And when it was
over, there were no stones left over. and there are no holes
in the temple. Every stone had its place. This
is where you're brought. Don't ever take light this wonderful
thing that God has called His church, His people, His temple. It's the finest thing, the finest
thing on earth. I don't know if any other churches
are preaching the gospel in this area tonight. I would hope that
there would be, but I don't know. But I know this, where the gospel
is being preached, Christ is there. He's in our midst tonight. And His Spirit is taking the
things of Christ and revealing them unto us. Where else is He
doing it? Nowhere else. In His church. That's where He'll bring them
to. What shall they do? Well, they'll build a bridge
to heaven. No, they won't. They'll press on to higher ground.
They'll look for the deeper life. No, it doesn't say that. It says
they shall rest. And I will bring Israel into
his habitation and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan and his
soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim. He shall rest
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We read that this morning in
Zephaniah chapter three and verse 13. They shall eat or they shall
feed and they shall lay down. They'll be satisfied, not be
troubled, not be full of anxiety, not be vexed. They'll be satisfied. They'll be sated. They'll be
sated. Where shall they feed? They'll
feed on Carmel and Bashan shall they feed. Carmel means a planted
field, a garden, an orchard, a vineyard, or a park full of
green ears of corn. A plentiful fruitful field. That's
where they'll feed where there's plenty to eat. We preach the
gospel, we set the table with the feast of fat things. With
wine on the leaves and well refined. We give people the very best
that God has when we preach the gospel. We set forth Jesus Christ
and him crucified. And we say, come and dine. And
those whom God has called will come and they'll feed themselves
in this field. Bashan is the place of a defeated
enemy. The place that was assigned to
the tribe of Manasseh. The elect feed and live in the
domain of the prince of the power of the air. whom Christ defeated
on Calvary. We live in peace in the midst
of our enemies, those who despise and hate God and hate us for
loving God. Yet we live in peace in the midst
of our enemies for their master rules their enemies. Christ rules the enemies. He runs the show. That was the
promise given to him in Psalm 110. Psalm 110, it says, the
Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand. When did that
happen? After he had purged our sins on Calvary Street. Until
I make all thy enemies thy footstool, the Lord shall send a rod of
thy strength out of Zion. That's the church, that's the
gospel. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. Satan is a horrible foe. We dare
not try to contend with him because he's handled people like us for
thousands of years. but God will contend with him.
And before he can touch you, or before he can touch me, he
got to crawl on his belly like the reptile that he is, and he
must seek permission to touch me. God said, see my servant
Job. Satan says, yeah, I see him. God says, he's just a fine fella,
he hates evil and eschews evil and loves that which is good
and serves me, doesn't sin against me. Satan said, well, you've
given him everything. Does he serve you for nothing?
You've given him everything, he's the richest man around,
he's got more kids and more cattle and more camels than everybody
else. The Lord says, yeah, he does serve me for nothing. You
have my permission to take everything he's got. And Satan took everything
he had. You know what? Job still served
the Lord. He served the Lord. Satan came
back and the Lord said, you see my servant Job? He took everything
he had and he still worships me. He said, the Lord giveth
and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
He said, will you let me touch his skin and make him sick? Because
sickness is tough, isn't it? It's hard on us. Let me touch
his skin. God says, okay, touch his skin.
Touch his skin. And Job didn't falter, but he
didn't fail. He fell, but not clean away.
And in the end, he prayed for his friends and God delivered
him from his captivity and gave him twice what he had before.
But Satan had to ask permission to do anything. And He does for
you, too. Satan has desired you, Peter,
that he might sift you like wheat. But I prayed for you. Your faith
is not going to fail you. We operate in peace and tranquility
and joy and utter satisfaction right in the realm of the enemy.
Right in the realm of the enemy. I'll bring them, the Lord said.
They shall feed there. How will they fare in this wicked
world? They'll be just fine. Our Lord said in Isaiah chapter
three, say unto the righteous, it shall be well with thee. And
if you read the first eight verses of that chapter, you'll find
that the Lord takes away everything that people count on. judges
and princes and riches and elders and wise men and everything is
taken away. And they're given fools to lead
them. People say, you got a pretty
suit, be our leader. That's what it is. That's how
foolish people become. And he's not giving babes to
lead them. They just won't know anything. And I'm gonna take
away everything. I'm gonna take away the stay and the staff,
everything they have. But here's what you say to the
righteous. It shall be well with thee. It shall be well with thee. They're going to fare just fine
in this world. It says, and his soul shall be
satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead. They will have satisfied,
sated, full to the brim, packed down and running over souls.
That's what they'll have. They being complete in Christ
will want for nothing. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not want. Why? Because the Lord is my shepherd,
not some hack Hatton and Johnny come lately, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, I shall not
want. They will possess all things for the Lord has given them all
things. All things are yours and you are Christ, and Christ
is God, saith the scripture. Scripture says, this blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto
thee, even to thy holy temple. He may dwell in thy courts and
be satisfied with the goodness of thy house. They'll be satisfied
upon Mount Ephraim. Ephraim means fruitfulness, double
fruit. And they'll be satisfied in Gilead.
Gilead means a heap of testimony, just a pile of testimony. And that testimony is God, the
gospel. The gospel is the balm in Gilead,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in those days and at that
time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
be looked for. There shall be none. That's what
it says. There shall be none. And the
sins of Judah, they're gonna be sought for too and they shall
not be found. For I will pardon whom I will
reserve. Now what could possibly bring about such a peaceful and
satisfactory thing in a doomed and dying world? Only one thing
can bring peace. And that is if it's established
on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein he reconciled
his people unto God. Only one thing can bring peace
and calm and fill the soul with fatness. It is this. And I hope
I'm speaking to those tonight who know this to be true. One
thing gives me peace. Knowing my sins are gone. Knowing. My sins have been put
away. They're clean gone. These words
are not the musing of some religious zealot or some crazed miscreant
babbling inside some ghoul-infested insane asylum. These are the
words of him who cannot lie. God says this. All their sins
will be looked for and there won't be any. You believe that? I believe that. I'm just crazy
enough to believe that. Barnard said, nothing but a crazy man
believe the Bible. And he's insane if you don't.
And if you don't, this is the word of truth. This is the gospel. This is good news to sinners.
This is the gospel. It is the power of God and the
salvation to everyone that believes. This is he who speaks and it
shall be done. Thus saith the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord. That's like writing it down in
stone. That's like the pen of a ready writer writing things
down that will not change. God says, this thus saith the
Lord. That's it. That seals it. There can be no question if he
has said it. Thus saith the Lord. Nuff said, nothing more to be
said. He says the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for and there shall be none. And the sins of Judah and they shall
not be found. Think about that, roll that over
in your head. Not found, none. What a thought. You say, well, pastor, you don't
know what I am. I know what you are because I know what I am.
Well, we're talking about how God sees you because of the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. These words are not spoken, were
these words not spoken by God Himself, we might have reason.
Indeed, we would have ample reason to discount them altogether.
Experientially, we know that we are sinners. We experience
it every day. We know that all we do is sin.
We know that we can't do anything that does not involve sin. We
know that we can't look at something and do it sinlessly. But in God's economy, according
to His sovereign grace, because of the substitutionary work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When God looks at us and searches
us, their sin shall be sought for. When he looks at us and
searches us from top to bottom, inside and out for sin, he finds
none. He finds none. And listen, if
he can't find them, They're not there. And if I think I can find
them, I'm wrong. Especially if I think I can find
them in somebody else other than me. If I find sin in you, if I search
you and find sin in you, you know what I'm saying? God's a
liar. I wonder how it would be in this
world. Think of this. If every one of us looked at
each other, as without sin. If every one
of us looked at each other and saw Christ, what a thing that
would be. One day we will, but not until
we die. We shed this mortal coal and
leave the flesh behind and we'll see each other like God sees
us. It would be like the woman in Bunyan's novel that looked
at, I think it was Christiana, looked at whoever, at the bride
of Christ, and all they did was look at each other's wedding
dress. Oh, what a beautiful garment you have. Oh, what a beautiful
garment you have. That's what they said to each
other. I say to you tonight, every one of you, dear brothers
and sisters up here in Michigan, what a beautiful garment you
have. I'm looking at a sinless multitude
according to God's Word. What a thing. There shall be
none found. So perfect and complete was the
sacrifice of Christ that no sin is found upon the elect. They're
gone, vanished. annihilated, put away, separated
as far as the east is from the west, behind God's back, that's
the language used, in the bottom of the sea, vanquished. They
do not exist before God. But now, once in the end of the
world, hath Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. Pleased the Lord to bruise him
when he put him to grief, made his soul an offering for sin.
He shall see his seed, and the Lord shall prolong his days,
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He
shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied,
for by his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many, for
he shall bear their iniquities. But this man, when he had made
one offering for sin forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, expecting till his enemies made his footstool, for by one
offering he hath perfected forever. them that are sanctified. God
declares His righteousness and the salvation of your wretched
soul. God says, Kathy, I saved Kathy, and that's the right thing
to do. Why? Because Christ made it right.
He made it right. Do you know right now as you
walk here is God's telling us, well, God will never charge you
with sin. He will not impute sin to you.
He never will, not now, not in the past, not in the future,
not ever. God will never charge his people
with sin. Why? Because he can't find them.
They shall be sought for and there shall none be found. There
shall none be found. And why is God so manifestly
gracious to such sinners? I will pardon whom I will reserve
or whom I reserve because God will pardon. The word pardon
is an Old Testament word. The New Testament word would
be propitiation. Pardon suggests guilt, implies
guilt. When Richard Nixon was pardoned
by Gerald Ford, we all knew that Tricky Dick had messed up. No
matter how good historically he will come out as a president,
he messed up on covering up that Watergate deal. He did it. He
erased those 18 minutes of tape When the president pardoned him,
we knew that he wasn't saying he was innocent. He was saying
he's guilty, but he's going to be let go anyway. And that's
the language of the Old Testament, because it had to be that way.
That was a conditional covenant. But under the New Covenant, the
word is propitiation. But God says, I will pardon them.
It means to spare them, to forgive them. Who? I will pardon them. Them. Somebody is in for a saving,
for sure. You say, well, they must be speaking
to good folks, religious folks, who are morally upright folks,
who've been made, who've made a decision for Jesus, who've
let him save them, who've invited him into their heart. No, I want
you to scan this book and this passage, study this book, this
passage, peruse at length this passage, Search hard and long
for any allusion to or even intimation of God-given faith. Seek to find
even a smidgen of repentance. Search diligently for any action
of man. Dig down deep for human inclination. Delve the depths for mourners. Find, if you will, salty tears
on faulty altars. No. Long before faith was given,
long-air repentance was granted back yonder in the secluded annals
of eternal purpose. Observe the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. That bloody sacrifice was there
before the world even began. Blessed sovereign, blessed substitute,
blessed sweet sacred suffering one. And you see full eternal
justification purposed and to be realized in time by every
one of the elect through the preaching of the gospel. You
hear the words of the maker and sustainer and consummator of
all things. You can set your teeth in this, this sacred vow. This is a vow
of God. This heavenly edict handed down. This bull from the throne of
grace, this immutable oath, there's no if here, there's no might
be, there's no should be, there's no coulda, there's no oughta,
and there's no woulda. He said, I will pardon them. I will pardon them. I will pardon
them. I will pardon them. I will pardon
them. That's what the Lord said. Well,
who are they? Whom I reserve. His choice. He will pardon the remnant according
to the election of grace. These are blessed ones. Their
names are on heaven's list. Our brother read from Acts chapter
13 and verse 48 said, And as many as are ordained to eternal
life believe. But that's not the word predestination,
proerigio, that's the word prografo. It means those that are written
to life. Those that are written to life, they're the ones who
are going to believe. That's whom God has reserved.
and he did it before the world began. He reserved a place at
the wedding supper of the Lamb. Their names are engraved on the
seating chart, eternally earmarked for emancipation, picked out,
selected, elected, severed, chosen, spoken for, betrothed, put it
however you want to, elect according to the foreknowledge of God.
They're in the book, those who've been reserved. You ever called
and made a reservation at a restaurant? I don't go to those kind of restaurants
very often because, you know, they cost too much. But I went
to Cracker Barrel the other day, and there were plenty of people
there, and they had a list. And they were calling out names.
People had come in and given their name, and I walked up and
said, James, party of two. And I had to wait until they
said, James, party of two. That was my reservation. But
when it was called, I came. And when I sat down and ate my
pork chop and turnip greens, Reserved. Barnard, you say there's
a whole lot of chairs in heaven. Every one of them's got a name
on it. Every one of them's got a name on it. In that book, that
blessed book of the Lamb of God. Turn to Revelation 22. Or rather,
Revelation 21. It says in verse 27, the last
verse, there shall no wise enter into it anything that it defileth
neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh alive. But they, which
are written in the lamb's book of life, the lamb's That's where the reservation
was made, you see, before the world began. Your names are written
there. Our Lord said to his disciples,
don't rejoice that you can cast out devils, rejoice that your
names are written in heaven. And that's the book that will
be read when you come before God. At the judgment, there will
be books which men who don't know God will be judged out of
those books. But you're not going to be judged.
You were already judged by the penal substitute 2,000 years
ago on Calvary Street. God judged you in Jesus Christ.
What's in that book? Your name's there. What's it
going to be like in that day? I know men say, oh, we're going
to come away smelling like sulfur. No, we're not. We don't fear
the judgment. Perfect love casteth out fear.
We don't fear the judgment because as God is, or as Christ is, so
are we in the world. First John 4, 17. What's it going
to be like that day of judgment? I know men have written great
things and, you know, try to make people afraid and stuff
like that, but you know what it's going to be like? You know what
it's going to be like? Debbie James, here, present. That's a roll call. It's a roll call. A roll call. Ben Haskins. Here, when that roll is called up,
every one of the elect are going to be there. And there ain't
going to be no punishment. There ain't going to be no shame.
because it's all going to be by grace. And all those who are
judged out of the books are going to know it. They're going to
look at those and, why aren't they being judged? They've already
been judged. They've been judged in Jesus Christ. Our Lord said
it. May he give us grace to believe
it. I will bring Israel again to his habitation. He shall feed
on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon
Ephraim and Gilead. In those days and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for.
There shall be none. And the sins of Judah, they shall
not be found for I will pardon whom I reserve. What a gospel. What a thing. Thank you so much
for having me. God bless you.