Unsettled, beside the highway
begging, His eyes were blind, the light he could not see. He clutched his stripes and shivered
in the shadow. Then Jesus came and made his
door When Jesus comes, the tempest
varies for us. When Jesus comes, the tears are
all away. He takes the world and builds
a life with glory. For all is changed when Jesus
comes. From home and friends the evil
spirits drove him. Among the tombs he dwelt in misery. He cut himself as demon hearts
possessed him. When Jesus came and sent the
captive When Jesus comes, the tempter's
power is strong. When Jesus comes, the tears are
wiped away. He takes the gloom and fills
the light with glory. for all is changed when Jesus
comes to stay. Unclean, unclean, the leper cried
in torment. The deaf, the dull, in helplessness
stood near. The fever raged. Disease had
gripped its victim. Then Jesus came and cast out
everything. When Jesus comes, the tempter's
power is broken. When Jesus comes, the tears are
wiped away. He takes the gloom and fills
the light with glory. For all is changed when Jesus
comes to stay. were too sad, as in the tomb
they laid him, for death had come and taken him away. Their night was dark, and bitter
tears were falling. When Jesus came, and night was
turned, When Jesus comes, the tempter's bar is broken. When Jesus comes, the tears are
wiped away. He takes the gold and fills the
lion with glory. For all is changed when Jesus
comes to stay. So men today have found the Savior
able. They could not conquer passion,
lust, and sin. They're broke apart. ? And left them sad and lonely
? ? Then Jesus came and dwelt himself within ? ? When Jesus
comes the tempter's power is broken ? ? When Jesus comes the
tears are wiped away ? ? Takes the gloom and fills our
life with glory ? ? For all is changed when Jesus comes to reign
again ? Please turn in your Bibles this
morning to the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah. And I want to read one verse
of scripture to you. And I hope that you will listen
and take in every word that is spoken. And that verse is verse 17, which says, But Israel, and that is the Israel of God,
the church, God's elect, his children, people, the true Israel. But Israel shall be saved, no
doubt about it. Nothing otherwise can happen. All that make up that Israel
of God shall be saved. They'll be delivered. They'll
be rescued by God. They shall be saved in the Lord. In the Lord Jesus Christ. Just like Noah and his family
were saved in the ark which was a type of Christ. They'll be
saved in the Lord, in the Lord Jesus Christ with an everlasting
salvation. With an everlasting, eternal
salvation. Ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded,
world without end." They'll all be saved. They'll
all be saved in the Lord. They'll all be saved with this
everlasting salvation. And not one of them will ever
be disappointed. or confound it. The title of my message this
morning is this. When is a sinner saved? And I know from the beginning
that when we begin to ask a question like that, We're already out
of our league. We're already above our heads. We're already in water too deep
for us. Because we have to remember that
the Bible says that the eternal God is our Savior. We have a hard time, entering
into eternal salvation, what is involved in eternal salvation. But we know this, just as was
said here and is said many times in the Bible, God our Savior
accomplishes salvation. He accomplishes the salvation
of his people. And when you look at the Bible,
I mean when you look at all of the scriptures, when you look
at all of what the New Testament says about salvation, you'll
find out that salvation is a big word. It's a big word. And it is spoken of as being
in the past tense, in the present tense, and in the future tense. It says that he hath saved us. It says that we are being saved. It says, we shall be saved. And it says, now is our salvation
nearer. That's what the Bible says. And this salvation that is of
God, it involves saving us from all our sins. Every one of them. will be saved from all our sins. And it involves saving us from
Satan, because God will bring his children out of the captivity
and snares of the devil. We'll be saved altogether from
Satan and his deception. And we'll be saved according
to the scripture from this present evil world. We're going to be
saved from wrath through him. We're going to be saved from
this present evil world that's under God's judgment that's going
to be destroyed The people who are going to be condemned, we're
going to be saved from this present evil world, and we're even going
to be saved from ourselves. Hallelujah. It seems like sometimes
I'm my worst own enemy. I'm the one who does the most
to damn me and destroy me and condemn me. We're going to be
saved, everyone, from ourselves, our weakness, our error. We're
just going to be delivered. God's going to save the whole
package. But I find out that men, in describing
salvation, everybody knows what it is to be saved. But when they
begin to describe salvation, they're like the fairy tale of
the blind men describing the elephant. One man had a hold
of his trump, and he was describing the elephant in this way. Another
man had hold of the same elephant, but he had a hold of his leg,
describing him in another way, another his tail. And all of
them together were describing the same elephant, but they were
confused because of their own blindness. And in truth, they
were all telling the truth. But they were not telling the
whole truth. That's what we have a problem
with. Telling the whole truth of God. And men tend to tell or emphasize
or say the part of salvation on which God has given them a
little light. And it's a very little light.
that they have. So when we come to the business
of determining when a sinner is saved, we get a whole lot
of blind folks, I'm afraid, telling only the part that they see and
know. But it is as the Bible has said
that God has saved us. And I absolutely contend for
the fact that God saved us in the great sense when he willed
to. He saved us. He determined to
save us. The Bible says that He ordained
it. It says that we were predestinated
to be conformed to the image of His Son. Who can stop Him? If he wills to do it, if he determines
to do it, if he marks off beforehand, which is what predestination
means, if he determines and marks off beforehand those he'll save,
who can stop him? I'll tell you this, our determining
who's saved and who's not saved will not stop God from saving
all his people, every one of them. And our failure to understand
all there is about this salvation, that won't hinder our being saved
because God is the one who saves us. I think we get to thinking sometimes
that it's what we know, what we understand that determines
when we were saved and all these things which are utter foolishness. God saves his people. And he, in a sense, saved us
when he chose us in Christ Jesus to salvation. When He put us
in Christ Jesus and determined that all our righteousness, all
our salvation was to be in Him, He, in a sense, saved us as much
as we can be saved when He put us in Christ. He chose us in
Him, and He put us in that everlasting covenant in Christ Jesus, and
determined to give us all spiritual blessings in Christ, and he determined
to do it without failure. It's not possible that Christ
could fail. It's not possible that any of
God's elect, that God chose to say, not receive what He determined
to give them based on Christ's work. It's not possible that
He should fail. That's what the scriptures say.
He shall not fail. And when He determined, That we be conformed to the image
of Christ. If you read that closely, it
doesn't say that we are predestinated to be conformed to the image
of his son. Those words to be were added
there. It actually says we were predestinated,
conformed to the image of his son. It's all in Christ. It's all
by God's grace. He chose us. He gave us. He determined
to save us. And God's will to save us is
salvation. And nobody can stop Him. He does
what He will. in the armies of heaven, and
among the inhabitants of men? And Nebuchadnezzar stated rightly,
And who can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? God has never tried to do anything. God has never, never wanted to
and not done it. His will to save us is our salvation
because His will is in Christ who came and did the will of
God in that salvation and it was not possible that He should
not do it. We were saved by Christ. not
only doing the will of God, but doing it by coming into this
world and dying for our sins. What does it say in Matthew 121? Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. He is called
over and over in this book the only Savior that there is, the
Savior of the world. He is the Savior, and if He didn't
save, He can't be called that. He's the Savior of His people. And if the debt is paid, we're
saved. If His blood and His sacrifice
on the cross paid the sin debt, actually did pay the sin debt,
we're saved. In other words, if He justifies,
if God's justice is satisfied, if God's wrath fell on Him instead
of us, we shall be saved from that wrath. That's what the Bible
says. We have been saved. We are being
saved. We shall be saved. We're going
to be saved from wrath because He, in our place and as our substitute,
bore what was due us under the law and justice of God. He satisfied
God on every hand. We're going to be saved. We are
saved. Every person that he died for,
every person that he shed his blood for, every person that
he stood in their place and died there, which are the sheep. He laid down his life for the
sheep. Every one of the sheep are going to be saved. But salvation. It's also spoken
of in the Bible, and it's spoken of as being the experience
of those who are being saved. God has purpose, and it is the good news that
he tells us about that we are to learn of what he's done for
us. What he's done for us. Now I hear a lot of people. I hear most people. I heard a
man recently telling about his daddy being on a sickbed and
the folks from church coming over and his daddy got saved
that night. But the problem is when we talk
about things like that, it is absolutely improper and it is
absolutely untrue in the light of salvation because salvation
is not an experience, but it is experienced. It's made known to us. It's revealed
to us. God's determined that His people
hear this good news and learn and are taught of Him of this
salvation. And the truth is, God's elect
are experiencing salvation from the day that they're born. As a matter of fact, Did you
know that the Lord had to save you in your birth? In other words, how many people,
how many children, how many infants are about to be born in this
world to this day and are not? Think about all the aborted children. Think about all the babies that
die in childbirth. Think about all the children
that die in early childhood and all these things. You see, God
has been saving us. saving us from things like that,
not only then, but all our days. Think about all the time you
faced danger, all the time you made foolish decisions, all the
time that somebody was after you, or you were doing something
that your life could be ended in a minute. It's God who's been
saving us. Every one of us. We look at somebody
else when they do something foolish and something dangerous and we
say, look at that idiot there. He don't even know he could kill
himself and yet we'll turn around and do something else just as
bad, just as dangerous. Like driving down the highway. Like going out in this world
to work today, tomorrow. You see, if God didn't save us,
if he didn't keep us from the evils that are there, if he didn't
keep us from the evils of our own heart, if he didn't save
us in that sense, we'd be lost. But God brings every one of his
people to experience this salvation,
to the knowledge of this salvation. When in time, in their experience,
the Holy Spirit brings to them the truth, brings to them the
gospel, and gives them new birth. You remember what Jesus said
to Nicodemus in John chapter 3? He said, unless you be born again,
unless you be born of the Spirit, you cannot see, you cannot enter
the kingdom of God. So in order for us to experience
what God has done for us, in order for us to know of this
great salvation as it's called, we have to have a work in us
by the Spirit of God, and we have to be brought to the truth
of it. He causes us to believe the truth. And He brings the gospel to us
and enables us to believe what God says about this Savior and
His salvation. You remember what Paul says in
Romans 10? Let me read it to you. He said, for whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I believe that's a little bit
more than just speaking vocally or speaking in your heart. Because
when you go back in the Old Testament, This is not the first place here
in the New Testament that this business of calling on the Lord
is mentioned. And in the Old Testament, we
find out actually what it was to call upon the name of the
Lord. It's to worship God as He is
in a sacrifice. Abraham, traveled to this place,
traveled to that place, and everywhere it says that he stopped, he took
stones, he built an altar, he offered up a sacrifice that God
had ordained and was pleased with it, and there he called
upon the name of the Lord. So to call upon the name of the
Lord is to believe on Him, it is to worship Him, it is to regard
Him, it is to be accepted by Him through that sacrifice of
blood which He has appointed and given and ordained, which
is the cross death of Christ. But then Paul says, how then
shall they call on him in whom they have not believed. And how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. Even the feet of the messengers
of God who bring this message of the gospel of peace, the peace
that he made by the blood of his cross, the good news of free
and full salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, even their feet
is described. That's beautiful. Beautiful. And in and over in Ephesians
chapter 1, it says this. Paul writing to the people at
Corinth, to the church, to believers, he says in verse 13, in whom
you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. What is the gospel of your salvation? It's the gospel Paul preached.
It's the gospel that determines and says that you have to be
saved. You have to be rescued. In other
words, salvation is our having to be rescued like drowning people
who were drowned in our sins were it not that we have a rescuer. We have to be saved. There's no other name given under
heaven among men whereby we must be saved. We got to be saved. Salvation is about being saved. And Paul says you've got to hear
this word of salvation, of your salvation, of how God saves sinners,
of how he has saved you and he witnesses it to you by that Spirit
of God. You remember that God sent a man by the name of
Philip. Sent him out into the desert.
And he sent him out in the desert to meet one man, the Ethiopian
eunuch, who was returning from Jerusalem. He'd been in a lot
of religion, but he didn't know about salvation. Why? Because he didn't know about
the true Savior. And he had the book of Isaiah.
He was reading from the book of Isaiah in chapter 53. And Philip joined himself to
the man in the chariot that he was riding in. He said, you understand
what you're reading? He said, how can I? I said, some
man show me. And from that very scripture,
from that Old Testament scripture, he preached unto him Christ. And he believed. He preached
to him salvation all in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, he didn't have a Bible
like you and I have. He had the Old Testament scriptures. He was reading from the prophet
Isaiah. And all those Old Testament scriptures,
though they pointed to Christ, they did not actually say who
he was. They said how he'd be. And the New Testament scriptures
tell us who he was. This Jesus of Nazareth. This
man Christ Jesus. This man born in Bethlehem. Oh,
we hear about him a lot. But the farther you get from
Bethlehem in most modern gospels, the farther he is from being
the Christ. Who do we have to hear to be
saved? That's something to think about,
isn't it? I know a lot of preachers that
when they get through it all, basically it's this, you got
to hear me preach to be saved. You got to hear what I'm saying.
You got to hear it the way I say it. But we have been blessed by God's
grace with the New Testament scriptures. And I tell you, I
find some pretty good preachers there. I can read what Jesus preached. I can read his sermon. I can read what Paul and what
John and what Peter and all those apostles, you see, When Christ
says through Romans there by Paul, he says, how can they preach
except they be sent? The word apostle means one sent
forth. I've looked at this a long time, and I've heard preachers Like
I say, when they get down to it, it amounts to this, you can't
be saved unless you hear me preach the gospel. I tell you, I believe that the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, John, all the apostles,
all the prophets, they're far better preachers than anybody
preaching today. including me, especially me. So a man can come and a spirit
can regenerate and reveal Christ in the scriptures to the preaching
of Christ, to the preaching of the apostles. Didn't they preach
the gospel? I believe they did. I believe
I'll trust their preaching a whole lot more than I'll trust any
preaching this day and time, including mine. You see, when
it all boils down to the final essence, we're going to believe
what thus saith the Lord. And a man might not say what
thus saith the Lord, but the Lord always says what thus saith
the Lord. You see, I've told you before
this, you don't believe the truth because I say it, the truth. You believe the truth only when
you know it to be the truth. You read it for yourself and
know it to be the truth from the Word of God. I might make an error. And that's
why I'm always telling you to do like the noble Bereans did
Paul, search the scriptures to see if what we're preaching is
true. I hope that what I say to you
all the time is true, but you only believe the truth when you
believe it from the Word of God as God spoken, as God breathed. But if we do that, if a sinner is saved through reading the scriptures
and by the aid of God's Spirit, that sinner will desire to hear
more and more of the preaching of that which glorifies God as
a just God and a Savior. Now, there are a lot of people,
and I know scads of them, they say they're saved. They say they're
saved by reading the Bible. They say that they were saved
so long ago and such as that. But there's just one problem. They deny the truth of God's
Word. God is not going to save me through
looking at one part of His Word and then cause me to deny another
part of His Word. It just doesn't work like that. He said, whosoever shall be ashamed
of me and my words, all of his words about Christ. And it seems
like that some of these that claim to be saved in religion
and such as that, they're still rebelling against the things,
the very singular things that glorify God, ascribe to him all
the glory and salvation. Well, I'm saved, but I don't
believe in that election stuff. I'm a Christian, but I don't
believe in that predestination stuff. You can't throw the baby
out in the bathwater. Either Christ is who he says
he is, and he's done what he says he's done, and God has done
in him all that he said that he's done, or it is nothing at
all. It's another Jesus. He believes, he brings us to
believe the precious truth of the gospel. What gospel is that?
Well, you can read right there in Romans 1 and about verse 16,
he says, the gospel, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed. We'll not heard the gospel if
we don't see how, if we don't believe God can save us and remain
just. I might not be able to explain
that on the first day, second day, or whatever, but I'm telling
you what, if you're born again, God's going to reveal that to
you, because He's a just God and a
Savior. I remember hearing a preacher,
he would always say this, God's a just God, but He's a Savior
too. That's not what it says. It says
he's a just God and a Savior. And unless we can come to some
understanding as to how God can be a just God and a Savior at
the same time without conflict, without violating any of his
attributes, evidently we don't know much about God. A born-again Christian. I almost
hate that term now, born-again Christian. Well, a sinner born
of God will desire to hear the truth that glorifies God. Am
I not understanding it at first? Might even kind of rebel against
it at first. But the Spirit of God is going
to subdue my spirit and bring it into submission to the Word
of God. And not only bring me to be submitted
to it, but to delight in it. To delight in it. and to hear
what glorifies, what gives all the glory to God, and give us
a desire to have fellowship, a necessity to have fellowship
with those of like precious faith. There's a man in John chapter
9. lest we don't confuse reformation
or healing or change of life with true faith in Christ. There's
a man in John chapter 9 that was blind from his birth. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
along, and he healed that man's physical
blindness. He ascribed that healing to God. He said, how can a man do this
if he's not of God? But I want you to read with me
what is said in John 9. John 9, chapter 28, those Pharisees
and Sadducees and all of them, they reviled this man. It says,
then they reviled him and said, thou art his disciple, but we're
Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses,
as for this fellow, we don't know where he's from. The man answered and said unto
them, Why, hearing is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from
whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know
that God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper
of God and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began,
it was not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was
born blind. If this man were not of God,
he could no do nothing. They answered and said unto him,
thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?
And they cast him out. Now, you watch what happens here.
They answered and said unto him, they cast him out. Jesus heard
that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, he said
unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? The Bible says, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. It always gives the
evidence of those who have been saved and are being saved and
shall be saved. The evidence always is they believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Look at his answer. And he answered and said, Who
is he, Lord? You mean to tell me he can have
his eyes opened by Christ physically and he still doesn't know Him?
Still doesn't know who did it. Yes. We can experience reformation
of life. We can experience a lot of things
and not still believe on Christ. He says, Who is he, Lord, that
I might believe? And Jesus said unto him, Thou
hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And
he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. When was he saved? Well, evidently,
he'd been saved before eternity. In eternity, he'd been saved
when Christ had died on the cross. He'd been saved all this life,
especially. Can you imagine a man being born
blind and all the hazards he faced? But he believed on Christ when
Christ revealed himself to him. I can't say when that happens
to a person. But I know this. If they are born of the Spirit, time will reveal it. Time will reveal it. They'll
be brought, as the Scripture says, they'll all be taught of
God. And they'll come to Christ, the
true Christ. They'll look at Him as God says
that He is in the Word. They'll seek those who preach
His Word. They'll seek that which glorifies
God. They'll seek those things which
alone can give a sinner peace and blessing of heart. And that's the fact that God has saved them. When is a sinner saved? Oh me. We have been saved. We are being saved. We shall
be saved. And they're continually saved
through the word that they hear. That's what the pastor is called
to do, is to feed the sheep. That's life-giving sustenance
for the sheep, the Word, the Gospel, the truth of Christ Jesus. They want to know that Gospel
wherein the righteousness of God is revealed. How it's revealed. How it's shown to be that God
is a just God and a Savior in Christ, bearing our sins in His
own body on the tree. Salvation by grace. Salvation is God's work. Salvation
as an accomplished thing. Christ as a successful Savior. He finished it and did it all. And I'll tell you this, those that God really saves,
Not these sham professions and such. Those that really God saves,
they'll be humbled by the fact. They won't be walking around
proud trying to catch up somebody in this and that and the other.
The question is not when you were saved. The question is my
salvation. Who's my savior? We're humbled by the fact that
God is saving us in and by the Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Not anything we've done. Not
any work that we have performed. Not any righteousness that we
have drummed up. We're just glad that God, according
to His Word, is saving us. And He's given us an understanding
of it. So the question really is not
when, it's who and how. Say you're saved? I don't want to know when. The Bible speaks of Christ being
revealed to us like the day star. What's the day star? The sun. And he says it's like when the
day star arises in our heart. The sun doesn't just pop. pop
up there. Seems like sometimes it does
to us, but the sun is just as it comes up. I know a lot of
you don't ever see it, but I see it a lot. I know what it looks
like. And it's just like light comes
creeping over the land. I love it. That's my favorite
time of day. When light starts to come and
chase away the darkness and chase away your fears and chase away
things that aren't phony and all the boogerman you see in
your dreams. When light comes, that's, he
says, that's like God revealing Christ to you. And the longer
The longer his people live, the brighter that sun gets. He doesn't ever diminish. If he diminishes to you or anybody
else, he's not the real sun. We're not to be looking back. When I look back, I see the Lord's
been saving me a long time. Saved me out of religion. Saved
me when I met this fella here on the front row. Saved me when
everybody preached the gospel to me. Saved me when I first
was unable to believe it. He just keeps saving me, despite
of myself. He said, no, looking unto Jesus, who is the
author and finisher of our faith. Israel shall be saved in the
Lord with an everlasting salvation. Every time I hear the gospel, When the brother was here preaching
and I got to sit down on the front row, I believe God saved
me all over again. When he comes in his truth, when
he comes in his spirit, it's like Richard sang, when Jesus
comes to save, oh, things are different now. If he didn't keep saving me,
I'd surely be lost. I'd surely be lost. Now, I said that I believe that
a person can be saved, that the Spirit of God could regenerate
him by just reading the Scriptures. But, I would never try to prove that.
I wouldn't say that that's the way that God normally operates
because of what he did to the Ethiopian eunuch. Caused him
to hear the gospel, sent him a man with the gospel. I wouldn't
do it because I don't want to condone, justify
what is really a false profession in a person. Because a person who says they
were saved then, were regenerated then, but they've hated the truth
of God ever since and do today, there's nothing to it. And I
will not give them a false hope. I won't put God, as Henry used
to say, I won't put God in a box. But I won't give them a false
hope, no. I won't do it. God is the Savior, and that's why He gets all the
glory. If I figured out anything by which I can kind of boost
my knowledge or glorify myself, it ain't of God. Who's your Savior? How did He
save you? If you want to know about the
true Christ, I've got some good news for you. Good news for you. We have been saved. We are being
saved. We shall be saved. We shall be
saved from wrath through Him. Our Father this day, we trust and hope that we have
been obedient and truthful to your word. We thank you for those who faithfully
preach the gospel, the gospel of our salvation. the gospel
of the Savior who accomplished all our salvation, who is our
salvation. And we pray for more grace, whereby, like Simeon of old, we might see our salvation and
the glory of it in the face that is in the person and work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you and pray in His
name and for His glory. Amen.