Well, good evening, everyone.
If you would, open your Bibles with me to Psalm 47. Psalm 47. Oh, clap your hands, all ye people. Shout unto God with the voice
of triumph, for the Lord Most High is terrible. He is a great
king over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under
us and the nations under our feet. He shall choose our inheritance
for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved. God has gone up with a shout,
the Lord with the shout of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises. Sing praises unto our king, sing
praises. For God is the king of all the
earth. Sing ye praises with understanding.
God reigneth over the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of
his holiness. The princes of the people are
gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham. For the
shields of the earth belong unto God. He is greatly exalted. All right, Sean, come lead us
in our singing, if you would. Okay, if you would, turn in your
hymnal to song number 263. We'll sing a shelter in the time
of storm. The Lord's our rock, in Him we
hide, a shelter in the time of storm. Secure whatever ill be
tied, a shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is the rock
in a weary land, A weary land, a weary land. Oh, Jesus is the rock in a weary
land. A shelter in the time of storm. A shade by day, defense by night. A shelter in the time of storm. No fears alarm, no foes affright,
a shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is the rock in a weary
land. a weary land, a weary land. O Jesus is the rock in a weary
land, a shelter in the time of storm. The raging storms may
round us beat, A shelter in the time of storm. We'll never leave our safe retreat. A shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is the rock in a weary
land, a weary land, a weary land. Oh, Jesus is the rock in a weary
land, a shelter in the time of storm. O rock divine, O refuge
dear, A shelter in the time of storm. Be thou our helper ever
near, A shelter in the time of storm. Oh, Jesus is the rock
in a weary land, a weary land, a weary land. Oh, Jesus is the rock in a weary
land, a shelter in the time of storm. Okay, if you would now
turn to song number 268, just a couple pages over, How Firm
a Foundation. How firm a foundation, ye Saints
of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. What more can he say than to
you he has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled? Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed, For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee,
and cause thee to stand, upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow. For I will be with thee thy troubles
to bless and sanctify too. Thee, thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy
supply. The flame shall not hurt thee
I only design. Thy dross to consume, and thy
gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned
for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though All hell should
endeavor to shake. I'll never, no, never, no, never
forsake. Let's open our Bibles now to
Exodus chapter 26. Exodus chapter 26, we'll begin
reading in verse 15. And thou shalt make boards for
the tabernacle of Shittim wood standing up. Ten cubits shall
be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the
breadth of one board. Two tenons shall there be in
one board, set in order one against another. Thus shalt thou make
for all the boards of the tabernacle. And thou shalt make the boards
for the tabernacle, 20 boards on the south, south side, southward. And thou shalt make 40 sockets
of silver under the 20 boards, 2 sockets under one board for
his 2 tenons, and 2 sockets under another board for his 2 tenons.
And for the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side,
there shall be 20 boards. And there 40 sockets of silver,
2 sockets under one board, and 2 sockets under another board.
And for the sides of the tabernacle westward, thou shalt make six
boards. And two boards shalt thou make
for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides, and they shall
be coupled together beneath, and they shall be coupled together
above the head of it under one ring. Thus shall it be for them
both, they shall be for the two corners. And they shall be eight
boards and their sockets of silver, 16 sockets, two sockets under
one board and two sockets under another board. And thou shalt
make bars of shit and wood. Five for the boards of the one
side of the tabernacle and five bars for the boards of the other
side of the tabernacle. Five bars for the boards of the
side of the tabernacle for the two sides westward. And the middle
bar in the midst of the boards shall reach from end to end.
And thou shalt overlay the boards with gold and make their rings
of gold for places for the bars. And thou shalt overlay the bars
with gold. And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle
according to the fashion thereof, which was showed thee in the
mount." And we'll end our reading there. Let's bow before our Lord
together. Our Father, it is with grateful
and joyful hearts that we gather together this evening to worship
you, to hear one more time the glorious good news of the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ, to hear of him, to sing praises
to him, to his name, hear one more time of who he is and everything
that he has accomplished for his people. And father, it is
our earnest plea this evening that you would not let us meet
here in vain, but father, that you'd be pleased to meet with
us, that you'd send your spirit upon us and give us hearts of
worship. Give us hearts that are made
ready by thy spirit to receive and believe the word that we
hear spoken of this evening. Let us take these things home
with us and back out into the world with us tomorrow to bring
joy and confidence and comfort to our hearts when we think upon
these things of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we thank
you for this opportunity to worship. We thank you for this place of
worship that you've seen fit to provide for us. And Father,
we'd ask that you would bless your word as it's preached from
this place. Bless it to get much glory to
your name, to spread forth the fame of your son, the glory of
your son, that your people, your sinful people may be called to
Christ, Come to him and find in him everything that we need.
And Father, we thank you for the blessings of this life that
you've given to us. After you've given your people
everything that we need to stand accepted in thy sight and in
your presence, you've given us all your grace and your mercy
and your love. You've given us the riches of
your grace, the riches of everything that our Savior purchased with
his precious blood. And on top of that, how you blessed
us physically and materially. And Father, we're grateful. We
thank you, knowing that we haven't done one thing to deserve any
of these blessings. It's all because of your goodness.
Father, we thank you for our homes and our families. Father,
we thank you for our children, and we pray a special blessing
for them as they are getting ready to start another school
year. They already have started this next school year. Father, we pray that you'd watch
over them, that you'd go with them as they go out into this
world, and Father, that you'd protect their minds and their
hearts, that you'd enable them to get a good education, that
you'd give them ready minds, but Father, that you'd protect
them, that you would see fit, as soon as it could be thy will,
to reveal yourself to them in mercy and grace. And Father,
all these things we ask and we give thanks, and that name which
is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. I've titled the message tonight,
The Walls and Bars of Salvation. We just read the instructions
for making these walls and bars and how Moses was to put them
together. When you put the walls and the
bars together, you have this building that you see here on
the model. It's 45 feet long, 15 feet wide,
15 feet high. And all that put together shows
us about Christ the God-man, just like every other piece of
this tabernacle tells us what Christ the God-man is gonna do
when he gets somebody's coming. And these walls tell us something
else new about what he's going to do when he gets here. And
the first thing is this, Christ is coming with the power to save. Verse 15 says, and thou shalt
make boards for the tabernacle, if Shittim would, standing up.
Now, as we've seen so many times, this Shittam wood is incorruptible
wood. Like our cedar wood, it wouldn't
rot. And that's a picture of the humanity
of Christ. You know, we talk about the humanity
of Christ, the Son of God becoming the Son of Man so frequently. But this is a marvelous, wonderful
thing. that the Son of God became a
real man in every way. He humbled himself. The Son of
God humbled himself to become what we are in our flesh. He felt exhaustion like we do. He felt hunger and thirst. He felt happiness and sadness.
He endured in the flesh everything that we endure. Now he did it
without sin. That's why he's incorruptible.
But you think of how he humbled himself to become what we are,
to take on our flesh, so that he could be the savior of men
and women who are in the flesh. And since our savior became flesh,
and you know, as he's right now seated on the throne of glory,
he's still in the flesh. He's in glorified flesh, but
he's still in flesh. Our high priest has compassion
on everything that his people go through. You think of that,
he's touched with the feeling of our infirmity. The things
that his children experience matter to him. He know whatever
it is you're going through, the joys of this life, the trials,
the difficulty, the pain, the disappointment, the loneliness,
the whatever it is, Our high priest knows exactly what that
feels like. Because whatever it is, wherever
it is his children go, he's gone first. He leads them. Remember the good shepherd, he
comes to the fold and he calls his sheep by name? He doesn't
send the sheep out in front of him, he leads them out. So that
every step we take, he's taken first. He knows, and you know
from your own experience, once you've gone through something,
then later on somebody else goes through it, you have compassion
on them, don't you? Because you know what it's like,
you know what it feels like. And isn't that comforting, to
know that the Savior that we pray to, the high priest that
we pray to, he knows what it feels like, and he knows how
to comfort. Isn't that something? But he
knows that because he came in the flesh. But now, like I said,
it's sinless flesh. That's why the wood is a picture
of his sinless humanity because Christ cannot sin. I get amused with folks that
want to argue about whether or not the Lord Jesus could sin.
And the first thing that goes through my mind is, well, it
doesn't really matter because he didn't sin. But they say,
well, he must have been able to sin because where's the value
in his obedience if he couldn't sin? Let me tell you this, that's
foolish talk. The Lord Jesus Christ could not
sin. He cannot sin. It's impossible. He was conceived by the Holy
Ghost. He was conceived by Holy Seed.
The angel told Mary, he didn't even know what to call the embryo
in her womb. All he knew to call it was a
holy thing. Conceived by the Holy Ghost,
he can't sin. Just like you and I, every one
of us, we all love our daddies, but we're conceived by our father's
sinful seed. So all we can do is sin. Our
Savior was conceived with sinless seed, so He cannot sin. It's impossible for Him to sin
because His nature is holy. And He lived a life of perfection. He did no sin, He knew no sin,
neither was any guile found in His mouth. His very name is the
Holy One of Israel. Now I'll tell you why that's
so important. That means all of His people, Everybody that
he represented must be made holy. There's no way that he cannot
save them from their sin because he's the sinless substitute. You notice the Lord said very
specifically that these boards are to stand upright. You know
today if we have boards or aluminum siding or whatever kind of siding. It looks like the boards are
horizontal, one on top of another. That's the way we tend to do
it today. But the Lord very specifically told Moses, these boards are
to stand. You and me are fallen in Adam. We're not upright in any way
whatsoever. And when we fell in Adam, I want
to tell you, We fell flat. I mean flat in the dust. We have
fallen short of the glory of God. These boards are 15 feet
tall. There we are down in the dust
of the desert. You can hardly see up to the top of it. We've
fallen so far that we can't even reach God. We can't even see
Him. If we're ever gonna see Him, He's got to come to us,
doesn't He? That's what this God-man business is all about,
the one who's coming to us. But when we fell in Adam, I mean
we fell. We fell all the way from life
to death. So we cannot live. We cannot
make ourselves live. This flesh will never live spiritually. Never, ever, ever. There's nothing
to support spiritual life in us because we fell into death.
When Adam fell, we fell into sin so that we can't do anything
but sin. It's the only thing we can do.
It's the only thing we can think. It's the only thing we can want
to do. Everything we do is mixed with sin. We fell from light
to darkness so that we can't see and we can't understand anything
spiritually. We've fallen flat so we're useless
to hold anything up. If all these boards were just
laying down in the dust, they couldn't hold anything up, could
they? That's us, we've fallen into the dust so we can't hold
anything up. But our savior came, conceived
of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin so that he cannot
sin. Since he was conceived of the
Holy Ghost, he wasn't conceived by the seed of a man, he did
not fall in Adam. He did not partake in Adam's
fall. He came standing upright and
he always stood upright, wholly. Harmless separate from sinners.
He never fell and he never and never came fall because he cannot
see him Now I tell you why that's so important. I mean that that
sounds like Some kind of theology, you know, dr. Gill would talk
about then it but I tell you where this applies to you and
me Right here where the rubber meets the road tonight The standing
of our Savior is the standing of all of his people That's our
standing before God. As He is, so are we in this world. Well, how is our Savior? Holy,
so are His people. He's righteous, so are His people. He's accepted of the Father,
so are His people. He's loved of the Father, so
are His people. He's glorified, so are His people,
already seated in heavenly places in Him. See, His standing is
our standing. You and I, by Adam's fall and
by our own sin, we've fallen so far, we can never stand. But in Christ, we have a perfect
standing. That's what the walls of this
tabernacle tell us. That's what Christ is coming
to do. Now, those walls were made of that incorruptible wood,
and as so many other things are, they're covered with gold. Verse
29 says, and thou should overlay the bars with gold, and make
their rings of gold for places for the bars, and thou should
overlay the bars with gold. Now this gold, as we've seen
in many other different places in the tabernacle, is a picture
of the deity of Christ. This is his precious, pure deity. The man, Jesus of Nazareth, is
God. He is God. Remember Isaiah 9,
Isaiah said this one who's coming, what's his name? The everlasting
father. The child that is born is the
everlasting father. Now I don't care how long you
try to think about that, you'll never figure that out. John said
the word, the word in the beginning was the word, the word was with
God, the word was God. That word was made flesh, the
son of God is also the Son of Man. Look over at Luke chapter
one. I quoted part of this just a
minute ago. Luke chapter one. Verse 35. Well, let's look at
verse 34. Then said Mary unto the angel,
how shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered
and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that Holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God." Her baby boy, he's gonna be a real man, but he's gonna
be called the Son of God. And you know why he's gonna be
called the Son of God? Because he is the Son of God. That baby
boy is also God. Two natures, one body, one man. That's what those boards overlaid
with gold are a picture of. Two materials, but one board. So that the Lord Jesus Christ
is personally God. All we will ever see of God is
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's also personally a man.
100% God and 100% man. Now that's such a great mystery.
The apostle Paul said, great is the mystery of godliness,
that God was manifest in the flesh. Of all the things that
God revealed to Paul and taught Paul, he took him into the seventh
heaven. He showed him all these, Paul saw all these things. He
understood so many things, but this is something Paul could
not understand, the God man. This is a great mystery. You can't figure it out, can
you? But by faith, you see that as clearly as you see your hand
in front of your face, don't you? I can't explain how it's
so, but I see that as clearly as I see anything, don't you?
As we see that by faith. Then here's something else that
these walls tell us that Christ is coming to do. He's coming
to uphold all the purpose of his Father. Look at Psalm 89. Now I've taken the covers off,
but you've seen those covers that went over the tabernacle.
Without these walls, those coverings would just lay flat on the dirt.
The walls hold them all up, which is a picture of Christ coming
to hold up all of the purpose of God. And when the Father chose
someone, To lay this responsibility on, he chose wisely. He chose
someone who had the strength to hold it all up. Psalm 89 verse
18. The Lord is our defense, and
the Holy One of Israel is our King. Then thou spakest in vision
to thy Holy One, and saidest, I have laid help upon one that
is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. The father laid all of this upon
one who's mighty. He was mighty enough to hold
up all of the grand purpose of God in the redemption of his
people. He could hold it all up by himself. Now the tabernacle without these
walls would just be a heap laying down on the ground and you couldn't
tell what anything was. It's just all, you know, The
veils and the coverings would just all be laying on down on
top of anything and you couldn't do anything with it. That's us. We're not able to hold up anything.
We're just falling down on the dust and you can't do anything
with us. We're useless to do anything.
But the Lord Jesus Christ came and he upheld all of God's purpose. The great purpose of the father
was to get glory for his son and the redemption of a people
he chose to save out of Adam's fallen race. Their sin debt is
astronomical. It's beyond calculation. But
he upheld it all. He upheld it all. They all must
be made perfect. and righteous, a work that no
one had ever done before in the history of creation, and Christ
came and did it. He upheld it all by himself. Scripture says he upholds all
things by just the word of his power. Gary, he's not even straining
under this weight. He upholds it by the word of
his power. He upholds the salvation of his
people by his perfect righteousness. His perfect righteousness makes
it impossible for their salvation to fail. His perfect sacrifice
paid the debt. They can't be charged with sin
ever again. They can't be charged with any more debt before God
ever again because his perfect sacrifice made an end to their
sin. So he can never be knocked down
and the salvation of his people could never be knocked down.
Our Savior is a mighty Savior. No one ever has to wonder, is
He mighty enough to save me? Somehow, in a very twisted way,
when somebody says, well, I just can't trust Christ because I
don't know that He's powerful enough to save me. Somehow, that's
a twisted self-righteousness, isn't it? You know what I mean? I can't
exactly explain that, but it's almost like taking pride in how
sinful I am or something. Our Savior is a mighty Savior
who's able to save. There's no question about His
ability to save. He upholds everything that the
Father laid upon Him. Now, what did the Father lay
on His Son? He laid His elect upon His Son. He gave his son the responsibility
to save, to redeem, to call out, and to glorify everyone the father
chose to save. He put all of that responsibility
on his son, and the son didn't shirk it for a moment. He didn't
shy away from it for a moment. He's always upheld. He's the
eternal surety of his people, holding his people up. The father
placed redemption on his son. His son must pay the redemption
price. It's an awful, horrible price
and nobody could pay it, but the son of God come in the flesh
and he did it. He upheld it. All of the glory
of the name of God depends upon Christ doing what the father
gave him to do. all of the glory of the Father, the glory of God
whom the heavens cannot contain. I mean, what kind of weight must
that be? This is God's glory. He laid
it on his son and he upheld it all. If you wanna see the glory
of God, all you've got to do is look to Christ. He held it
all up. He held up God's grace and mercy
and God's justice all at the same time. He held up all the
future glory of all of his people. He's upheld it all. Without Christ,
all of redemption would fall into a mess. We wouldn't have
anything to preach. There'd be no good news. There'd
be no redemption to declare because without Christ, it'd all fall
into a mess. Without Christ, there's no sacrifice
for sin. There's no blood. There's no
blood to cleanse. There's no blood to apply and no gospel. Without Christ, there's no righteousness
to impute. There's no holiness to impute.
Without Christ, there's no high priest to offer the sacrifice,
and there's no altar on which to offer it. Christ is our altar. Without Christ, there's no intercessor.
There's no mediator. May as well not be, because without
Christ, without his blood, he's got nothing to plead. The Holy Spirit would have nothing
to point us to. The Holy Spirit comes, and what
does he do for God's people? He shows us the things of Christ.
He points us to Christ. Well, if Christ never came as
our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit would have nothing to point us
to. And since Christ holds everything
up, we can look into the purpose of God and see God's glory in
it. Now, I know we can't see it all.
understand what I'm saying. We can't see it all. But what
I can see is breathtaking, isn't it? Just like these walls. If
those walls weren't there, you couldn't look into the tabernacle.
We couldn't have studied and seen about the glory of the ark
and the mercy seat. But since the walls hold it up,
we can. Since the walls hold up those
coverings, we can see the glory of the golden altar of incense.
We can see that candlestick, how it pictures Christ. We can
see a picture of Christ in that table of showbread because the
walls are holding everything up so we can look into it. Christ
has held everything up. So even though it is in a limited
way, we can look into the glory of God and his redemptive purpose
for his people. and see how Christ has fulfilled
it all. And whatever it is that we see
of Him, causes us just to rest, doesn't it? Causes us to believe.
If you see these things, how can you not believe Him? If you
see these things, how can you not rest in Him? And the way
we see Him is Christ has upheld all the purpose of His Father.
And you know, on top of that, our Savior upholds all of creation,
all the goings on of creation. Every event going on in the world
today, Christ is the one who governs it all and upholds it
all. He told his disciples before
he sent him back to the Father, all power is given to me in heaven
and in earth. Not only does he uphold spiritual
things, he upholds all of the earth too. Isaiah said the government
is gonna be on his shoulder. Every time I quote that, I probably
say this, but I love that Isaiah didn't say it's on his shoulders.
He said his shoulder. This one, he just holding it
all. And it's all his to run. Since the government is on his
shoulder, what it means is he rules over it all. He ordains
everything that's happening in this creation. Now the believer
knows that that's true. We know that's true. But then
things happen in our lives, things that cause us pain, cause us
loss, cause us sickness, and things that are so traumatic,
30 years later, how many years later, we remember the death
of our mother, we remember the death of our father. They're painful,
the trials that we go through, things that worry us to death. You think, oh my goodness, these
people that have their fingers on the nuclear button don't have
the sense that God gave a toddler. You just worry, what's gonna
happen? Our God's the one governing it.
He's governing all these things. And while it may be painful,
The believer always comes to this realization in times of
trouble and trial and worry. This is the thing we always come
to. I don't understand this. And
quite honestly, this is not the way I would have done things.
But I know this, our God hasn't made a mistake. He's governing
these things. And what a comfort to his people.
Not only is he governing the affairs of this world, so it
keeps spinning until he returns, But since our God is governing
all the affairs of this world, everything going on in it, what
men do, what devils do, He is governing it all. You know what
that means? Nothing is ever going to come
and take even one of His people away from Him. It's comforting
that our God reigns. Now, this is who is coming to
save sinners, the one who's holy. He's the sinless man, the God-man,
and he never one time shied away from a filthy, guilty, rotten
sinner. Not one time. He was never contaminated
by them, and he was always gracious to them. Now the self-righteous,
I know that they're just as guilty, but being self-righteous, that's
another story. But any sinner, I don't care
how foul and revolting they are, Every sinner that ever came to
Christ, he never shied away from, and he was always gracious to
them. You know why? Because that's
who he came to save. He loved them from eternity,
and that's who he came to save. That's who's coming. That's what
those walls tell us. Now, the second thing are the
bars. Back in our text in Exodus 26,
verse 26. And thou shalt make bars of shit
and wood, five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle,
and five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle,
and five bars for the boards of the side of the tabernacle
for the two sides westward. And the middle bar, the midst
of the boards, shall reach from end to end. And thou shalt overlay
the bars with gold, or the boards with gold, and so you got these
gold bars holding up these gold walls. Now again, the bars, this
is a story, a picture that's so often repeated in the tabernacle. This must be of vital importance. They picture the God-man. Here's
these two elements again, the incorruptible wood, the sinless
humanity of Christ covered with gold, the deity of Christ, the
God-man. And these bars held the boards
in place. It held the whole tabernacle
in place and gave it its correct shape. Without the bars, the
walls would just kind of, you know, fall hither and yon, but
the boards or the bars hold them all together in just the place
that they're supposed to be. That's exactly what Christ our
Savior does for his people. He holds everything together. He holds it all together and
keeps it right where it's supposed to be. I already quoted this,
that he upholds all things by the word of his power. That's
how he holds everything together. But look how Paul said it in
Colossians chapter one. Colossians one, verse 16. For by him were all things created. that are in heaven, that are
on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by him
and for him, and he's before all things. And by him, all things
consist. And that word consist means framed
together. By him, everything is framed
together and held together just exactly where it's supposed to
be. Now, just like that applies to redemption, salvation, spiritual
truths, that also applies to creation. And I'm not, I want
to be able to say this without sounding, I'm not making any
political statement or anything whatsoever, but about all these worries about,
you know, global warming and what, all these things that are
going to happen and, you know, the earth is just going to fall
apart and, you know, maybe there's not going to be a place to live.
That's not going to happen. That being said, we should take
care of God's creation. I mean, we're just squatters
on his land, and his children especially ought to take care
of his creation, shouldn't we? But no matter how much of all these things that people
want us to do, how much of them we do or don't do, let me tell
you this. Christ our Savior is the one
that created this world and He's the one that's gonna keep it
spinning. He's the one that's gonna keep it full of air. He's
the one that's gonna keep it full of water and food for in
its season and all those things. He's the one that's gonna hold
it all together. The glaciers aren't gonna melt
and all of us are gonna drown. Now that's just not gonna happen
because God already said specifically He's not gonna destroy the world
with water ever again. That's not gonna happen. And I'm glad. that it's up to our God to hold
all these things together, aren't you? It's not dependent on man. And I'm mighty glad for that
because we got a bad track record. But our God's got a good track
record. He's gonna hold all of this together. But what is especially
comforting to God's people is that Christ our Savior holds
all things together spiritually. all things concerning redemption,
all things concerning his church, he holds it all together. He's
the rock of ages. Now the world can beat against
it, the waves and the wind and the sand can beat against it,
but he's the rock of ages that shall never be moved. And if you're built on him, you
won't be moved either. He's the one that holds it together.
You're complete in him. You are held together in him. And if you start making any part
of salvation dependent upon us, I mean any part of it, even just
a little part of it, the whole thing will fall flat. Salvation
is not our righteousness. Every one of us ought to sin
less than we do, but salvation is not our righteousness. It's
his righteousness and his alone And that's before conversion
and after conversion too. It's his righteousness only.
Salvation is the work of the Lord, not our works. Our works are dead works. All
our works can produce is death. Salvation is all the work of
the Lord. Salvation is all the love of
the Lord. We ought, now I'm particularly
people that know the Lord. I mean every human being ought
to, but particularly people that know the Lord. We ought to love
the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
We ought to love him and we ought to love each other. I mean so
fervently, so purely, so, and it ought never waver. But salvation
does not depend on our love. And it's a good thing, because
our love is so cold and self-serving. But God's love to his people
is perfect. Salvation is not based upon our
faithfulness. Now, again, we ought to be faithful.
I mean, we ought to be faithful. That's one of the things I'd
like to be known for more than anything else, is a faithful
man. But our faithfulness is so fickle. It's so depending on what's good
for me. Salvation is found in the faithfulness of our God.
He is faithful, that promised. Christ our Savior holds all of
that together so it cannot be lost. And you know, I thought
of this this afternoon. We tend to think of salvation
in parts, don't we? We think of these parts and Christ
has got to hold all these parts together. We think of, well,
there's the board, of election. God must elect a people. He don't choose us. We'll never
choose Him first. There's got to be the board of
election. We think there's got to be the board of atonement.
Somebody's got to come make an atonement for our sins and that
must be paid. There's a board of atonement
There's the board of God calling his people, giving them faith
in Christ and revealing Christ to them, causing them to be born
again. There's a board of perseverance. We've got to persevere, persevere
to the end. That's the only people that will
be saved. We think of all those different boards, parts of salvation,
and you know what? Our Savior holds them all together.
He holds them all together in such perfect unity that it's
one salvation. Moses never talked about the
tabernacles made up of a bunch of boards. It was one tabernacle,
wasn't it? Same thing is true of our salvation.
There's one salvation and Christ holds it all together. He's accomplished
it all and he holds it all together. And then lastly, Christ holds
his church together. God's church has unity. But now what holds us together?
You know, we meet here every week, week after week, Sunday,
Wednesday, we meet here week after week. I've known some of
y'all from the time I was 11 years old, and we've been together. What holds us together? Have
you ever wondered that? What keeps people from coming
back? It's Christ. It's Christ, He holds us together.
His love for His people holds us together. And our love for
Him makes us love one another. But it's Christ who holds us
together. We, folks have been together
very long, now you gotta learn to forgive one another. Somebody's
gonna do something offensive, and whether they meant to or
not, you have to learn to forgive. You have to learn to forbear
with folks. We've got weaknesses and, You
know, somebody likes this and somebody likes that. Somebody
thinks this, somebody thinks that. You're gonna have to learn
to kind of overlook faults of one another. We're gonna need
help. And you're gonna have to help
one another. You're gonna have to reach out and help one another. Now
why do you do that? For Christ's sake. For Christ's
sake. Because you and me got the same
Father. We got the same Savior. We've been washed in the same
blood. We've been given faith in the same Savior. We're looking
to the same Savior. Our goal is the same. It's Christ
that holds us all together. You see that? Where would we be without Christ
our Savior? Without His redemption? Without
His perfect standing? and without him holding us all
together, I shudder to think where we'd be. But you know what? God's people are never have to
find out. We're never going to have to find out where would
we be without him because he promised, I'll never leave you
nor forsake you. And so that he holds up all of
his people in exactly the right place for all of eternity. I hope that'll be a blessing
to you. Let's bow together. Our Father, we thank you for
this glorious picture of Christ our Savior, who upholds all things
by the word of his power, that he hasn't failed to do one thing
that you sent him to do. Father, we're so thankful. We're
so thankful for salvation in him. We're so thankful for His
precious blood that washes us from all of our sin, that we're
thankful for His love that cements us together. Father, I pray that
you would enable each one of us here tonight to see these
things of our Lord Jesus Christ and to believe Him, to love Him,
to believe Him, to fall at His feet begging for mercy and to
stay right there at His feet with no other hope except Christ
and Christ alone. Father, it's for Christ's sake,
for his glory we pray, amen. All right, Sean. Okay, if you would, turn in your
hymnals to song number 126 and stand as we sing Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages, clap for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flowed Be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know? These four sin could not atone,
Thou must save and Thou alone. In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling. While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold thee on thy throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee.