His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. What a powerful
name it is. I've been thinking of the old
hymn. How firm a foundation, you saints
of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to
you he has said, you. He has said, for refuge to Jesus
have fled. What a mighty God we serve. What
an awesome Savior. These folks, for those of you
who are visiting with us that just had the newborn baby, we
get a little emotional here because we see some of the most awesome
things. Fesler's both of them heroin addicts, both of them
coming to Grace Gospel Fellowship from prison, both of them coming
to know Christ and one another, both of them marrying here. And now this is their second
child. And they live together over in
the village on Moreland Street. And both of them working for
Grace Centers of Hope have jobs here. How great is our God. My sheep hear my voice. And I know them. And they follow
me. And I give unto them eternal
life. Eternal life can only mean one
thing, you're not going to perish. And they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which
gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of my Father's hand. In the religious world, not many
hold to this truth that God in and through Jesus Christ gives
his people eternal life, that he gives them eternal life, and
that they will never perish, and that no man is able to pluck
them out of this double-fisted Christ and God. I thought it
most interesting. I've been ministering for 50
plus years and I never saw that God has us in his hands and Christ
has us in his hands. How are you going to break the
bondage there? How are you going to break the bond that's there?
No man is able. We call this, or all my life
having been raised in the Baptist church for the most part, we
call this assurance, blessed assurance. We even proclaim,
once saved, always saved. That's what we preach and teach,
and that's what the Bible teaches, that if God saves you, he saves
you forever. My hardest job is getting the
saved man to believe he is saved, and the religious man to know
he's not saved. This is true because the saved
man has spiritual life. I always tell people who come
to me saying, pastor, I just, I'm not sure whether I'm saved
or not. And I always go, you can't doubt
what you don't have. The very fact that you are judging
yourself to not be good enough to make it, to hold out, is evidence
that you have spiritual life. You see, most of the time the
saved person gets his head stuck in his belly button, And because
he doesn't sit under the message of grace, let me tell you, it's
important that all saved people sit under the message of God's
free and sovereign grace. Because if you don't, you're
soon going to be doubting. When you look away from Christ
alone, and you look to your works, your baptism, your being a Baptist
or Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever, and start to look
to your works, you're trying to work your way to heaven, it
isn't going to be long until you say, in my flesh dwells no
good thing. You're going to start to doubt
that you are a Christian. because you get away from this
grace thing. See, you are not a Christian
because of something you did. The only people that have blessed
assurance are people who have been saved
by grace. And you only get blessed assurance
by knowing that salvation is of the Lord and not of yourself
from first to last, that He's the alpha in your salvation. that He saved you. It was not
your will. You don't have a free will. It
is not your works. It is not your baptism. It was
God who came to you when you would not come to Him, and He
saved you. And we have been justified freely
by His amazing grace. That's why our hands go up here
at Grace Gospel Fellowship. We know it. We know it's true. Thank God he didn't give us what
we deserve. The religious person, the person
who believes in salvation by works, has their head stuck in
their belly button too. Only they're liars and hypocrites.
They don't acknowledge what's in there. They acknowledge what's
on the outside. They claim themselves to be clean
as a houndstooth. You know, they are Methodist
Catholic Baptists. They've been that for hundreds
of years now. They've been baptized by Reverend
so-and-so. They have their baptism certificate. They give to the poor. Don't
go to church much, but you know, I'm basically a good person.
Bill Davis, who died and was such a blessing to us and came
to know Christ on his deathbed, used to say to me out on the
golf course, he gave thousands of dollars here, and his son,
of course, is one of our major donors, Danny Davis. But Bill used to say to me out
on the golf course almost every Thursday during the summer, I'm
a good person, aren't I, Pastor? And I would say to him, Bill,
you are a wretched, no-good-for-nothing sinner. And unless you come to
know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will surely perish."
And he would laugh and hit the ball. Seemed like he hit it a
little further after I said that. Anyway, come to find out his
housekeeper had been witnessing to him for 20-some years, and
she came up to Beaumont Hospital and led him to Christ, and he
died 30 days later. I want to say to you who are
here, and there are many of you here today, you're no good. I
don't know what you're counting on, but it shouldn't be your
life and works. That's not going to make it.
And if you are counting on that, you are a liar, what's going
on in your mind and your nature, because you are a depraved, wretched
sinner. That's what the Bible says. about
you and I. So there is no assurance outside
of this fact and this truth that salvation is of the Lord. I hope
you know that, and I hope that there is a tickle that goes down
from you, all down your backbone when I say that. You go, every
praise belongs to my God. He's the one that sought me.
He's the one that caught me. He's the one that found me when
I was wandering. He's sovereign. Some people don't
like that. And by the way, you'll notice
that in the 10th chapter of the book of John, those Pharisees,
they were out to get the Lord Jesus. In fact, the last verse,
after the verses that Joe read, it says, immediately they picked
up stones to stone him. They were going to kill him.
because of the truth of grace. Some here this morning might
say, pastor, the text you've chosen might be better suited
for a Wednesday night crowd. You know, I've heard people say
that to me for 55 years. You know, pastor, I think that
was for a more mature Christian group of people. You know, our
Lord never hesitated to preach the deeper doctrines of the gospel
to the most miscellaneous assembly. We have prostitutes here this
morning. We have crack addicts here today. We have heroin addicts here.
We have people who are addicted to pornography here today. I
got a big fishing hole here today. And then some of you more than
likely at first, unless God does something in your heart, you're
gonna get very angry at me today because I'm gonna tell you what
Jesus said. Jesus pointed his finger to these Pharisees and
he said to them, you believe not because you're of your father,
the devil. That's pretty strong. That wasn't
a Wednesday night crowd that was gathered around him. That
was the religious bunch that gave their tithe and made their
brag about their works and their life. He was in his home area. They
became very proud of him. After all, he was healing the
sick and giving sight to the blind. And so they gathered around
him and then he began to preach election. Oh, election will make
people mad. What makes many mad makes me
so glad that God chose me, a rattlesnake. a little alley rat, a sinner,
and yet God chose me. I will never get over the wonder
of the truth of election. Some of you are going, yeah,
you think you're better. Well, that's what the Pharisees
thought, but that's not what people who believe the election
that's taught in the scripture believe at all. We are in wonder
that God chose us. Can I get a witness here today?
We wonder that God chose us. that God saves the Sarepta woman
and left many Israelite widows to die in their sins. The Jews
couldn't get over that. There were many lepers in Israel,
but God went to Naaman. He was the only one. And he wasn't
of the Jewish race. Let me tell you, if in your heart
you look at a black, white, Chinese or anyone else person and go,
no, no, no, no, God would pass them right on by. What you need
to see is this, that God, in sovereign, free, amazing grace,
chose a people and He converts them to Himself in His power,
in the power of the Spirit, regenerates them, comes to where they are
in their lostness and quickens them and gives them life. And by the way, When I was reading
the text, I started on Monday reading from John 10, and every
time I got to this, my sheep. My sheep. You know, the notion
that certain truths are not fit to be preached to a general assembly,
that there ought to be kept to special gatherings of saints
is a horrific wrong. The doctrine of election ought
to be preached on Sunday morning to those that believe it and
to those who do not. The doctrine that gives God all
the glory that says, you did not choose me, but I chose you.
I said, well, pastor, I can't do that. The deacon board would
relieve me of my duties. And besides, that sounds like
Calvinism. I don't care what it sounds like.
It's the truth of the word of God, my sheep. My sheep that
were given to me by the Father before the foundation of the
world. Jesus in John 17 said, I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they
were and you gave them to me to redeem on the tree of the
cross. You believe not because you're
not of my sheep. I wonder if there's someone sitting
here today and your thoughts are going like this, oh, I want
to be one of his sheep. You know, you can find out if
you are today. I mean, you can find out right
now. Let me tell you what to do. You
want to find out whether you were chosen before the foundation
of the world? Get up right now, come right
up here, and say like this to me. I believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ that He's my Savior and Redeemer, that He died in my
room instead, and I'm trusting Him alone. And I will say, bless
God. You are one of the elect of God. You know, they came to Christ. And by the way, probably some
of you are going like, he didn't really mean that, did he? I really
meant it. I would love to see my sermon
interrupted by you coming forward. It really wouldn't interrupt
me at all if you just came forward and confessed Jesus Christ right
here, right now. I do know this, the Spirit of
God's in this place this morning. I do know that. You know, these
Pharisees, the most religious of that day, came to Christ and
they said, tell us if you be the Christ. You know, sometimes
people pretend they really don't hear what I'm saying. I know
they do by their silly, silly question. The Lord had already
healed a blind man. He had already made a man walk.
who had been paralyzed for over 30-some years. And they saw the
miracles that he did, but they didn't like him claiming to be
God in human flesh. And my point is simply this.
Sometimes a man is deficient, not as to the gospel. There's
no one who's attended this church for any length of time who mentally
has not heard me preach the gospel. because it's ever service. So
I know you've heard it and you know about this Christ who came
into the world to save sinners. You're knowledgeable that Jesus
died on the tree of the cross. But what you are deficient in
is your desperate need of the blood of Jesus Christ to pay
your sin debt. Your desperate need of coming
to Christ. That's what you're deficient.
Some of you are sitting back there, something like this. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same old message, same old story. But somebody here, God is sending
me to tell you Christ came into the world to save the chief of
sinners, even you. There's some of you here today
that are hearing good news for the first time. I mean, you are
really hearing good news. because you know your deep and
terrible need. Some of you don't think you need
a doctor. That's because you don't know how sick you are.
But you are sick, sick, sick. You are dead in sins and trespasses. You need a power outside of yourself
to quicken you, to give you life, to come to where you are. And I know preachers say this
all the time. I gave my heart to Jesus. He
doesn't want your stinking heart. He's not asking for your depraved
heart. We just, some of us need to correct
our theology a bit here. He will give you a new heart
and a new start and a new life. My sheep. I think that's interesting. I studied sheep yesterday. I
went online. You know, sheep are pretty stupid. You know, you can take a dog
and drop him off 10 miles from home, he'll beat you home. A
sheep will get out of the pen and cannot find his way back.
I wonder why Jesus picked sheep. Not my dogs, not lions, not ravening
wolves, not all men are sheep. Some men who might be called
sheep are not Christ's sheep. I mean, most of you here, I would
say, you'd say something like this. You know, basically I've
been to church most of my life. You know, I'm a Catholic. I'm
a Methodist. You know, I'm a Baptist. And
you haven't been to church in 10 years. The only reason you're
here is because somehow you got hooked up with an addict who
invited you over. All men don't belong to this
flock when He says, My sheep. He claims this, all whom He chose
of old, those given to Him of the Father in John 17, those
who have been bought with His blood, John 10, those who have
been redeemed from among men, Ephesians 2, He claims them as
His own sheep. And He calls them My sheep. Somebody said, this was years
ago, said to me, are you saying that I am just a sheep? I said, yes, but if you're His
sheep, think about who He is. You are His sheep. He's the sole
owner. He's their shepherd. He's their
keeper. He's their guardian. He's their proprietor. He's their
possessor. He's to them the Lamb of God
that takes away their sins. He is their redemption. He's
their propitiation. He's their justification. They
say, what a beautiful name it is. He's wonderful, counselor,
mighty God, Prince of Peace, everlasting Father. He's everything
to them. That's how you can know He's
your shepherd, because He's everything to you. They're His sheep. They're
dependent. They're timid. They're trembling.
They're obedient. They're teachable. They're made
sheep by the Spirit of God. They're not doggish whorlings.
They're not swinish whorlings. They're not wolfish in nature. I guarantee you this, if you
know you've been saved by grace, you're going to be gracious to
other people. If God's been merciful to you, you'll be merciful to
other people because you're one of his sheep. Gracious and merciful. You're going to want to see other
people come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. How awesome it
is to be able to say, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want,
want, want for anything because I'm complete in Christ. I'm accepted
in the beloved. Here's what Jesus said about
his sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I'm struggling
just a little bit because I'm very knowledgeable right now
that the devil doesn't want this message preached. I wonder who
you are. Somebody I know, because what
God has been doing all week with me is sending you a message. Do you have ears to hear? Is
there somebody in here who is truthfully really hearing? You think I read your mail? You
think I know what's going on in your life? There's something,
a stir on the inside of you? And I would say to those of you
who are converted, I think on a few occasions I've had this
happen. I've heard him with my body. It was as if every pore
was an ear for my Lord's sweet voice. And I said, as the old
songwriters say, I could hear my Savior calling while we were
singing. It was like every pore in my
body heard the voice of the great shepherd of the sheep, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Is there today someone here who's
earmarked? You didn't know it? Maybe when
you came in, but today you are hearing the voice of the great
shepherd through my voice. It is true that if my poor voice
is the only voice you hear, you will leave here none the better.
But if in the providence of God, through my voice, you hear the
voice of God calling you to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, we're
going to see a miracle today. Calling. How pathetic are our
churches today? Going through the routine of
religion. And people get up every Sunday
and say, I've got to go. I've got to go over there again.
I've got to go over there again. We don't do that, I don't think,
here. There may be a few. But I think for the most part,
when people get up here on Sunday, they go, I was glad when they
said, let us go up to the house of God, because we're gonna see
God do something. This is a happy place. They hear my voice, these sheep
that are mine, they hear my voice. I know them. Oh my goodness. He knows you inside and out.
The Lord knoweth them that are His. Sometimes we don't know Him,
but He knows us. He knows His sheep. The fact
is, it's not just He knows about His sheep, He's in love with
His sheep. He loves, for whom he did for
no, for love, before you were formed in your mother's belly,
he had already chose you. Before he ever created the world,
he loved you. Before you were born, he wrote
your name in the book. While you were out using heroin,
your name was in the book. Oh, preacher, don't tell people
that. They'll live like hell. They
live like hell anyway. The only thing that's going to
save people and deliver people, you know, I thought about this
this week. All my life, I was pretty well
taught that the assurance of salvation came through not having
a phys ed class because you had to wear shorts. I surely was
saved. And all these other kids were
going to hell. I didn't play cards. I didn't play pool. There were so many things I didn't
do. And I thought I'm meeting the
rules. I didn't even go roller skating
because you might hold hands with a girl or, you know, something
might happen. It looked too much like dancing.
I've never been to a dance. Some of you go, pastor, sometimes
it seems like you want to dance. You're just kind of happy up
there. Why don't you turn loose? Because I have no clue. I have
no rhythm. I don't know how to dance. But you know, it wasn't too long
in my early childhood that I began to know there was something bad
wrong with me. And I didn't have blessed assurance because I knew
sin went deeper than simply not dancing or playing cards. Sin,
my nature was sinful. So he knows us, he foreknew us
before we were formed in the belly, chose us from the foundation
of the world. But I thought about this. He knows your secret sighs and
your mornings. And I'm talking to you, the children
of God, you're in here today and this past week, you've had
a tough week. You've just had a tough week,
and there's been some sad things happening in your life. Do you
know Jesus knows that? He knows all about that. In fact,
the Bible says He's touched with the feelings of your infirmities. There's not a tear, little child
of God, that ever runs down your cheek except Jesus knows. There's not a failure in your
life except Jesus knows. And He's made provisions through
His blood. He hears your private prayers.
He knows your praises in the silence of your heart. Some of
you go like this, you know, I just can't lift up my hands in service. You know, it's just too, but
your heart is jumping up and down. You ever seen the swan
out on the lake? If you could go underneath, That's the way I am many times.
I thought about shouting, praise God, right in the middle of our
song service today, but I knew that would shake some of you
up. He knows your praises. He knows
how you look to his atoning blood. Some of you in here right now
are going, it's the blood. I know it's the blood. It's the
blood of Jesus Christ. There's power in the blood. There's
wonder working power in the blood of the lamb. What can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Some of you in here
are going, that's true. That's true. Preach it, pastor.
Say it louder. Say it clear. Lift him up. You're
saying, Jesus knows that. He sees you praising him. He
knows you delight in Him. My sheep, He said, I know them.
What a sad case it is over in the Gospels when that crowd gathers
before the Lord and they say, didn't we cast out devils in
your name? We did many wonderful works in your name. We went through
the one-year program over at Grace Centers of Hope in your
name. And he says, depart from me,
you worker of iniquity. Here's your only hope, my friend.
It's in Jesus Christ. You must come to know him. You know your name's written
in the palms of his hands. Isn't that something? And here's
what he says. They follow me. Somebody wrote me this week and
said, Do you really think anybody is following the Lord? And I
wrote back, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they
follow me and I give unto them eternal life. You know how you
follow and I follow? Like this. And most of the time when you
get over here, all the time when you get over here, the Lord goes
more toward the center. And you get here, but you don't
stay here too long. You begin to doubting or looking
to your works, or somebody says something to you about how salvation
is a decision you make for God. The devil voted against you,
God voted for you, and you're the big factor in salvation. I'll tell you, that's just not
true. When the vote was taken, you were not a registered voter.
God voted for us, so that makes it a sure thing on our part.
But we follow like this. When we get over here, we don't
like it over there really. And then the preacher preaches
on power in the blood, and we sit there in the house of God
and go, I'm not gonna do that ever again. Lord, forgive me
for what I did this week. Lord, help me to be more holy,
more like you. Help me to be a witness. They
follow me. You see, his sheep are not only
earmarked, they're footmarked. Their ear and their feet, they
hear, And because of what they hear, they want to follow. Sanctification
is not something you do by some preacher beating the hell out
of you. Sanctification is, you're in love with this man. Wilt thou
go with this man? Wherever he goes, I will go.
Wherever he lives, I will live. He's my Lord. He's my Savior.
That's how sanctification is. It's not by works or legalistic
preaching. They openly vow him as their
shepherd. He's their leader. So, sanctification
is not your claim to assurance. I'm almost through. And I give
unto them eternal life. My sheep hear my voice, I know
them, they follow me. And I give unto them that hear
my voice and follow me, I give unto them eternal life. Eternal life. You know, there's a whole lot
of folks, just wait till you get as old as I am, you will
begin to see, there's a whole lot of folks over there on the
celestial shore. They're waiting for the trumpet
of God to sound. The spirits of just men made
perfect. Somebody asked me this week,
well what do they know over there? Do they see all my mess ups and
blah? I don't know what, they know this, worthy is the Lamb
that was slain and they're listening for the blast of a trumpet. And
Jesus will return and we which remain shall be changed in a
moment in the twinkling of an eye and forever be with the Lord. I give unto them eternal life,
eternal security in Him. Think about this. Yeah, I'm talking
to you. I know. I know most of you in
here. I know your past. What a mess. I know my past, what a mess. But you've come to know Christ.
You have eternal life. Say, but pastor, how could I?
Because he gave it to you. And because he said so. And because
he's guarding you. because he paid your debt, because
he satisfied justice, because on the third day he got up out
of the grave. And so, just as he got up, you,
if you pass away, will get up. I think I would just soon be
around for the trumpet. I'd like to, I would like to
see, you know, all that happen. Amen. But it's a reality to me. No, some of you in here like
this. Pastor, you've never used drugs. You don't know the power of drugs.
I know the power of Satan, but I know one who crushed his head.
He just got a wiggle now. My grandfather and I, years ago,
was walking out. I was walking out, just a little
boy, with him to milk old Betsy down at the barn. And as we walked
along that path to the barn, a big snake, I mean, it was six
feet long, came out in front. And I saw it and started backing
up. My grandfather reached down and he went like this. Boom!
He grabbed that snake by the tail and popped that snake's
head right off. He laid that snake back down
and he said, come on, kind of boy, that snake's not going to
hurt you. It has no head. Oh, I'm getting happy right now. The snake has no head. All it
has is a wiggle. No, I know you think you're not
going, but you're going because of the power and the blood of
the great shepherd, the captain of the sheep, the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a contradiction it is. for
a person to say, he gave me eternal life and now I'm lost. I said
to myself, that doesn't make any sense. He gave me eternal
life. I say, you have eternal life
and now you're lost. How do you have eternal life
and then not have it? If Jesus gives you eternal life
and he said he does, then you have it, eternal life. But you
know the power of pastor. You know how many times I've
relapsed. Do you know how many times I've relapsed? No, you
don't, because I don't tell you. And I relapse on different things
than maybe you do. But there's nobody in here who's
not a relapser. We're the church of the relapsers.
But greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my Father's hand, nor my hand." Think about that. He's got you. He's got you. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
And aren't you singing blessed assurance? You see, when I was
growing up, I was taught in church, and I know God has done the things
He's done with me to unteach me what I was taught. Sanctification
was all of these things you don't do. And I was so, so fearful
because I knew the truth about myself. You know the truth about
you. There's another side. There is
a secret life that goes on inside of each Christian here every
single day. You don't want people to know
what you've already thought while I've been preaching. You don't
want folks to know that secret side, but in everybody here,
there's a secret side. Why are you looking at me that
way? You know that's true. There's a secret side, but Jesus
got you because one day you'll lay down that old flesh that's
corruptible, One day you will lay it down. And one day the trump of God
will sound and you're gonna get a new body. And you're gonna
live in a place where there's no sin. And there's no more tears,
no more heartache, no more separation, no more letting one another down,
no more division. What a great message we have.
My sheep, where are you? Somebody in here today has heard
the shepherd's voice. I know it's true. Maybe it's
one of you tough guys way in the back. Maybe you just came into Grace
Centers of Hope. Maybe you're visiting with us
today. Maybe you're from Kentucky and God brought you all the way
up here and didn't let Larry Holman wreck the bus. God protected you all the way
up here to get you in this service for you to hear his voice. What
a wonderful God he is. What a wonderful God he is. And maybe God is saying and said
this morning to the Holy Spirit, fetch him out of Lodibar, the
dead dog that he is. Go fetch him, Holy Spirit. I
know the Spirit of God is here. Oh, he's a wonderful retriever. He'll sniff you out. By the way,
you have such a smell because of your depravity. It's not hard
for him to sniff you out. He can find you readily, but
he comes where you are. I've seen some of you this morning
trying to act like you're not shedding a tear, but you haven't
fooled me. I think something is happening
on the inside of you. Maybe it's a sorrow for your
sins. I don't know what it is. Will you come to Jesus now just
as you are without one plea? Let's stand and sing together. Will you confess him as your
Lord, as your Savior?