John chapter 10, I forgot to
start the recording, so it'll be partial on sermon audio, but that was the word and aim of
God. John chapter 10, and look with me at a couple of verses
here. John chapter 10, look at verse
27. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and
they follow me. And I, Jesus Christ, give unto
them, my sheep, eternal life. And they, my sheep, 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. Now brethren, we can go to a
hundred more verses, but we don't need to go to any other when
the Lord Jesus Christ here himself says, there are people that are
mine, that was given to me of my father. They're my sheep and
they're gonna follow me. And no one can pluck them out
of my hand. I give them eternal life and
they shall never perish. And the question is, as far as
preservation is concerned, is how in the world, when Christ
tells us that he's gonna do that for us, can we ever think that
we could do anything in and of ourselves to dispel what he said? We can't dispel that. Our sin
doesn't dispel that. Our disobedience doesn't dispel
that. Our unfaithfulness doesn't dispel
that. When we are unfaithful. He is faithful, right? He has made the promise. The
covenant is not conditional. It's unilateral. God has made
a covenant to us. This is what I'm going to do.
And Jesus here is letting us in on some of the terms of that
covenant. If you are my sheep given to me of God, the covenant
that I have entered into with myself is this, those who are
given to me will never perish. And so your preservation is just
as secure as Christ. The only way that you're going
to lose your salvation, to lose being one of God's sheep, is
for Christ himself to be lost, to be disowned of God, or to
be made a liar. And I don't think any of that's
happening. I don't know about y'all. I don't think any of that's
happening. You are as secure as Christ the
son is secure. You are as secure as a child
of grace, as the covenant that is everlasting, that is signed
in blood. None of us had laid hand to sign
that covenant. None of us laid hand to make
conditions or to even discuss the terms of the covenant. See,
in this life, when we make covenants, two parties get together and
they discuss terms till they come to agreement, say, all right,
we make an agreement, so all this has to happen, and all this
is gonna have to happen, now we all sign this little document.
We didn't have any part of any of that. The only one that signed
his name was Christ. He said, I'm gonna do this for
these people. Brethren, your name has been
written. in a book of life of the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. Your name has been written on
the palm of his hand. Your name has been written on
the heart of God. You have been taken on the shoulders
and on the breastplate of the high priest of high priests.
There is nothing that is going to draw you away. There is nothing
that is going to keep you away. There is nothing that is going
to knock you out of play. There is nothing that is going
to take salvation away from you. That ought to be great encouragement
and great joy and glory. As Brother Kevin said yesterday,
it's beautiful. It is. Look with me at Ephesians
chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5, a little
obscure here, but a beautiful reassuring to us. Look with me
at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church, gave himself for that he might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word
that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish." Now, if you're found here, that is the outcome of Christ's,
what does it say there? Cleansing, sanctifying, washing, The outcome of His love is your
being made holy and without blemish. If you're holy and without blemish,
how in the world, world, can you ever lose what He's given
you? How do we lose salvation? Well, we can't. How do we lose
fellowship with God and heaven? We lose that by sin, right? We
lost that by sin. When Adam sinned, sin entered
into the world and death by sin, and sin and death passed upon
every man, every woman, every child. And so because we are
all sinners, by that in and of itself, everyone
should lose heaven and lose fellowship with God. But, Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord does not impute sin. That's why we say that every
aspect of salvation, it isn't just about death, burial, and
resurrection. Salvation is grounded upon that, but it is far more
than that. That's why we've broken down
everything as it pertains to election, to predestination,
to sanctification, justification, to redemption, why we've looked
at expiation, why we've looked at these things, because in every
aspect of the atonement or the finished work of Jesus Christ,
something was effectual and secured for a certain group of people
that was allotted to Christ to take their place, to give them
what God had blessed them with from eternity past, and said
they will be my people and I will be their God. And they have been
from every generation and they have come into the experience
of knowing that relationship and fellowship by quickening
and they will in glorification come into the fullness and the
good of all that Christ has done for them. And it has nothing
to do with us. So that's why it's important
whenever we look at the atonement, that's why it's important when
we look at the aspects of the atonement, that we see that it
isn't an offer, a free offer. It isn't a maybe so, or a proposition
that we just lay out there. No, it isn't just a potential,
brethren. It is an effectual atonement
that actually solidified several things for God's elect and they
are guaranteed that inheritance. It cannot fail. Otherwise, God
is a liar and Christ is not a savior. That is one of the most atrocious
things to me is to think that Jesus Christ is not a savior
that he claims to be. He has lied and he has failed,
but we know the scripture says that he has overcome. He is victorious. And so whenever we look at this,
we see that His purpose as He loved us and as His people and
as His church has washed us and cleansed us and will bring us
to Himself, then we see that there is an end result happening.
And it ain't going to stop. It's not going to be thwarted.
He will present us to Himself that way. Look if you would at
Philippians 1 and verse 6. being confident of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. He who began a good work will perform it. See, we have
all these legalists running around thinking that they have to perform
for Jesus Christ so that they can stay right with God. I used
to grow up not only hearing this, but preaching this all the time.
We've got to stay right with God. You've got to get right
with God. Well, I can tell you what your problem is, the reason
you're suffering and all that stuff, because you're not right
with God. You've just got to get right with God. Well, there's
only one way to get right with God, and that's through a mediator.
The only way for you to be right with God is for a substitute
who obeyed for you to stand for you. Because no matter how right
you get, your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. You need
a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness not only of
the Pharisees, but of any human being, save the Lord Jesus Christ. You notice that the Bible says
your righteousnesses. It didn't say your badness. All of our badnesses are as filthy
rags. It said your righteousnesses.
So see, we need someone to substitute. And so how do we perform until
the day of Jesus Christ? Well, the only way we can perform
anything is for God to work in us to willing to do His good
pleasure. for God to give us a heart of flesh and take out
that heart of stone and cause us to walk in his statues. Faithful
is he who called you who will do it, right? Who's doing it? Is it you doing it? No, it's
not you doing it. That's why I mentioned a while
ago, if there's anything of any value spiritually from me or
any other preacher you hear, it's not because of me, it's
because of God. If any other believer in Christ, if there
is any spiritual service to each other or to God, it's because
of God who works in us. If we have fellowship and one
mind and one accord, it's not because we worked hard to do
that, it's because He is working in us to will and do His good
pleasure. And so our perseverance is all about Christ and His work,
not our work. Rest, brethren, in the work of
Christ. Don't rest in your activity.
Don't rest in your knowledge. Don't rest in your immense knowledge,
your ability to quote Scripture. I know men that can quote Scripture
all day long, but yet they don't have the grace of God. That doesn't
mean anything. Rest in Christ. If you look to
your activities to be your assurance for being into Christ or being
kept in Christ, you're gonna have a rough evening when you
get home at night and all those thoughts of sin come rolling
through your head. Lastly, let's look at Jude chapter
one. Certainly not Jude chapter two. And look with me at verses 24
and 25. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling. Let's just stop there because
there is a wealth of richness right here. Now unto him who
is able. Who's the one that's able to
keep you from falling? It's not your preacher. It's
not your wife. It's not your husband. It's not
your mom. It's not your dad. It's not your grandparents. It's
not a seminary. It's not a theologian of old. It's not yourself. There's only one person that
can keep you from falling away. There are going to be people
that fall away. Yes, but they were never his. There's going
to be a lot of people fall away from the faith, not fall away
from faith. They're going to fall away from
the faith, the faith once delivered to the saints, the body of teaching
and doctrine and gospel that Jesus gave us, that we reciprocate
age after age since he left. There is a body of people who
have received that, who believe that, and perpetuate that, but
there are a lot of people who join themselves to that, but
eventually fall away because it's not their heart. It's not
their love. It's not their food and nutrition.
They will fall away, but the children of grace will never
fall away. Now unto Him that is able, He is able. Christ is able. Rest in Christ's
work for your salvation. You don't have to hang on. We
have these songs. Clinging to the old rugged cross.
Hanging on to Him. The anchor holds. Set your anchor. My uncle used to sing a song. Make sure your anchor holds and
grips the solid rock. How can we do that? Either He
has anchored us or we're not anchored. Either He is holding
me or I'm loose and flailing around. Either He rises me up
and cleanses me and purifies me or I'm not. I can't do it. A leopard can't change its spots.
Ethiopian can't change its color. Unto Him that is able to keep
you, to keep you You wonder, am I going to lose it today?
Am I going to lose it tomorrow? Am I going to give up? I know
the Lord will be faithful, but I'm afraid I'm going to give
up. He's able to keep you from falling. We're not worried about
Him turning away. He said, I will never leave you
nor forsake you. He said, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. He says, I will chasten you because
those who I love, I chasten. If I don't chasten you, then
you're a bastard. You're not my child. So unto Him that is able to keep
you, He keeps you from falling. But not only that. See, He doesn't
just keep us from falling away. Now unto Him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. You remember in
Isaiah 6, whenever Isaiah saw the Lord, High and lifted up,
His train felt the temple. We sing that song. We preach
those verses. And the angels cried, Holy. The
angels cried, Holy. What happened when Isaiah saw
the glory of God in His flesh? What happened? He fell down and
he said, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. And I
am of a people of unclean lips. Uncleanness altogether. See,
whenever the flesh encounters glory of God, what happens? They fall down as dead. What
happened when Jesus was transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration?
They all fell down as dead before Him. What happened whenever John
seen Him in Revelation? He fell down as dead before Him.
Anytime that Christ has revealed His glory to any man, they have
fallen down as if dead. But yet here, He says that He
is going to present us faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy. For one, He's not going to be
ashamed to present us to the glory of God. That is amazing
to think of that. He is gonna present a sinner
into the presence of the glory of God and be joyous about it. He doesn't have any second thoughts
or qualms. But he also says here that he
is going to present us faultless. Listen, be sure that the glory
and holiness of God will find any fault. That's why those people
fell as dead before Christ. Before Him in the Old Testament
and in the New Testament when He showed His glory. They fell
that way because their sin was evident. His holiness was evident. They knew of their sinfulness. The glory of God will seek out
and illuminate every fault but to the child of grace, he presents
us to the glory of God faultless. The glory of God, the holiness
of God cannot find a fault in any of us. Somebody can shout glory if you
want to, it's the Baptist church, but it's all right. We're gonna
be in glory of God found faultless. Now, if that's the promise of
Christ, If that's the promise of the Holy Spirit through the
writer here, brethren, what do we have to ever think that we're
going to lose our salvation? We take traditions and theologies
on ourselves because they are pet theologies. We like them,
right? And it takes a long time for us to shake those grave clothes
whenever the Lord quickens us. I grew up in a lot of tradition
and a lot of false teaching about what the scripture really says.
And it took a while for those grave clothes to be unraveled
off of me. And there's still some being unraveled. But listen,
we take on things that sound good to us. Well, why in the
world wouldn't the Pentecostal or the Charismatic or the Free
Will Baptist or whoever else that believes we can lose our
salvation, why wouldn't they want to at least take on something
that sounds like we can't ever lose it? Just by the sheer fact
that it sounds better than that. Always doubting, always worrying,
always wondering. But see, we don't have to just
take it because it sounds good or feels good. We can take it
because it's the promise of Christ. Christ said, because of me, now
unto me. Just look at this as if Christ
was actually speaking and not through Jude, who was writing
about Christ. Look at Christ saying that, now
unto me, that is able to keep you from falling and to present
you faultless before my glory in exceeding joy, I am the only wise God and Savior. And to me be glory and majesty
and dominion and power both now and forever." What kind of promise
is that? That's a wonderful promise. Don't
look at it through Jude's eyes. Look at it through Christ's because
He's the one talking to you. Unto Him. But let's not forget
unto Him be glory and dominion and power, both now and forever. See, we should be praising, that's
why we're here today. We're here today to exalt the Lord Jesus
Christ, but one of these days we're gonna exalt him too. And
so our preservation is preeminent in the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, brethren,
we'll stop right there and give plenty of time to eat.