For a scripture reading, turn
with me to John chapter 17. John chapter 17, we'll be looking
at verses 9 through 15. This is our Lord's intercessory prayer, is our heart
preached. And he says in verse 9, I pray
for them. Who's he talking about? Those
he gave the promises of God to, the Word of God to. Those for
whom he's about to die. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine
are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I'm no more in the world,
but these are in the world. And I come to thee, Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name, those that thou gavest me. I kept, and none of them is lost
but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.
And now come I to thee, And these things I speak in the world,
that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them
thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not
that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but thou shouldest
keep them from the evil one. If you will turn back with me
to John 17. The lesson this morning is about the keeping of God's saints. The perseverance of the saints
and the preservation of the saints. And I'll use from my text, John
17, verses 9 through 15. Verse 12, he said, while I was
with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that
thou gavest me, I've kept, and none of them is lost but the
son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. The keeping
of God's saints. It's a very humbling fact that
the very best of God's saints must be kept. Kept. You know, we look at these
men, we admire them. They're just as susceptible to
sin as you are. Men that the Lord has used in
a great way. I'm convinced that the reason
for preserving such painful details about men like David, David was
a man after God's own heart. Samson, Lott, and many other men of faith. I'm
convinced that the reason for preserving such painful details
about them is to show us our need of being kept. Peter was
so sure of himself when he said, though they all forsake you,
I won't. He meant it. He meant it. He wasn't just making
that up. He meant it. But he had no idea of what it
was to be sifted of Satan. And while Judas was full of disagreement,
found himself guilty, I'm sure, of lesser crimes, I don't think
he ever imagined himself to be the betrayer of Christ, the Son
of God. And my friend, sin reigns in
the hearts of men unto death. He said, by one man's offense,
death reigned by one. Sin entered and death passed.
We all live out our days in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and are by nature
children of wrath, even as others. The lust of the flesh arises
from a sinful nature. That's where it comes from. We're influenced by Satan in
society and anti-Christ religion and things like that, but the
lust of the flesh is what produces evil thoughts. Out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemy. These are the things, he said,
that defile a man. The nature of fallen man is nothing
but a cesspool of iniquity. He said to look down his throat
is to look into an open grave. An open grave. And to flip to
himself, he's going to self-destruct because destruction and misery
are in his ways. How's he going to do it? I don't
know. There's so many ways you can't count. But he's going to
do it. Their throat is an open grave
with their tongues they've used to see, and all of these things
hiding the fangs that are under their lips. Now I want you to hear me. Even more dangerous than a fallen
nature is the satanic remedy for it. Well, at least they're going
to church. Oh, I hope you don't find no hope in that. At least they're going somewhere.
That ain't a step up. That's a step down. Antichrist religion as a whole
is described in the scripture as a beast. What is a beast? A beast is an animal, a creature
who cannot reason. He has no reasoning. He has instinct. The beast is controlled by Satan,
and his aim is at the Son of God. It is in any way that he
can to mar, disgrace, or overturn His purpose of grace. It's for
Himself, for Himself to sit in the same seat that Christ sits
in. That's what He wants. He wants to sit in the seat of
the highest and be praised for it all. And his beast is called
Antichrist because it is the opposite of Christ. Anything and everything concerning
Christ, he's opposed to. He's opposed to his person, his
ways, his accomplishments, his glory, his offices, everything.
He's opposed to. In his capacity as the evil one,
the father of lies, the father of false religion, he's called
that man of sin. The son of perdition. He's called
the God of this world, little G. I don't care what it is that
men profess. If you listen to them describe
their God, that's what they're describing. All false religion is after the
working of Satan, it says, with all power and signs and lying
wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. What in the
world is that? That's a man who convinces you
that all your unrighteousnesses are righteous. That's what that
is. You swallow it up. a righteousness without God.
And this power is a force that has engulfed the entire world.
Don't slough it off. Don't say, well, that doesn't
affect me. Oh, yes it is. More than you
know. The best of saints must be kept. We who know God are begotten
of God. Begotten unto a lively hope.
What's that? That's a person. That's Christ. Unlike all the religions of this
world, our hope is alive. He's seated at the right hand
of God. I don't have any hope apart from Him. He's the living hope, and it
says, by the resurrection of God. God raised Him from the
dead. And our inheritance in Him is
incorruptible, undefiled, and fades not away. It is reserved
in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. That inheritance,
who's going to get it? Those God keeps. That's who's
going to get it. If any man draw back, Hebrews
chapter 10, the last two verses, if any man draw back, God said,
my soul will have no pleasure in him. But here's the good news. We're
not of them who draw back unto perdition. We're of them who
believe to the saving of the soul. So some people have a little
more intellect than others. Faith is the gift of God. It's
not of works lest any man boast. If you have a faith that you've
produced, you'll boast about it. You tell everybody about
it. Somebody who ought to know better
said recently, my faith is strong. Really? Well, mine not. Mine not. You know, I think the
only man that I recall God saying he had strong... Well, a couple
of them I can call to mind that he said had strong faith. One
of them was Abraham, the father of all in the belief. He was
strong in faith, giving glory to God. And the other was the least that
you'd ever suspect, the Roman centurion. And he said, I'll
follow you home. He said, no, you don't need to
do that. He said, all you need to do is say the word. Just say
the word. He said, I ain't found faith
like this in all Israel. Strong in faith, oh. I'm gonna tell you what, we're
kept by the power of God, our faith. The reason we have faith,
God gave it to us. The reason we still have faith
is because God maintains it. In Jude verse 24, he writes,
Now unto him that's able to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. What you saying preacher? I'm
saying salvation is of the Lord. That's what I'm saying. We say
it all the time, but we don't believe it. Salvation is of the
Lord. That's where it comes from. That's
where it's maintained. That's where it's perfected.
It's of the Lord. He's the way, He's the truth,
He's the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me. And then secondly, how does God
keep His sheep? He keeps His sheep through His
Father's name. That's what He's praying here
about. None other name unto heaven given among men, whereby we must
be saved. You ever think about that? God said, that's my sheep, I'm
going to save them. And he declares his name to them,
and he must be saved. I pray for you, Peter, that your
faith fail not. He said, I pray for them. I pray
not for the world, but for them which thou gavest me, for they
are thine. We must be saved. That's what
it says. We must be saved because our
representative has wrought out a perfect righteousness for us
and imputed that righteousness to our camp. Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him for righteousness. We must be saved because our
substitute took our place before the holy bar of God and paid
our sin debt, settled the account, paid it in full, satisfied divine
justice. What's that mean? That means
I must be saved. My debt's paid. We must be saved
by that name because God raised Christ from the dead declaring
our full and free justification. In that name we must be saved
because Christ was seated at His Father's right hand where
He ever liveth to make intercession for us. Who's going to separate
you from the love of Christ? Huh? Tribulation, distress, what's
going to separate you? Nothing. Nothing. In that name we must be saved
because Christ has an everlasting priesthood and he's able to save
to the uttermost all them that come unto God by him. We must
be saved. If Christ has brought me to the
Father, I must be saved. And in Christ, by whom that saving
name is manifested, we must be saved because all power in heaven
and earth been given to him to give us eternal life. That's
how he begins this prayer. Oh, that name, that precious
name, that glorious name. Where is there another name like
it? A name whereby you must be saved. How does God keep His saints?
He keeps them through His own name. Not through their name,
through His name. And then secondly, through the
means that He's ordained to that end. What means? Faith. Repentance. The hearing of the gospel. The
watch-care of a faithful under-shepherd, the diet of Christ crucified
being fed to him, the assembling of the saints, prayer, reading
of the Word of God. The wise man wrote, he that keepeth
his way, preserveth his soul. You won't die? Quit eating? I said, okay, I said, just quit
eating. It'll just be a few days, you'll die. Quit drinking. Don't
drink any water, don't drink any liquid. Don't do anything,
you'll die. Quit breathing. Do you know all those things
are used to describe those being kept of God? If thou knewest, that's what
he told the woman at the well, he said, give me a drink. Now
she had a bunch of stuff to say. He said, if you knew, if you
knew the gift of God and who it is that saith unto you, give
me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have
given thee living water. You to ask, and he to give. You here this morning and you
don't have Christ, ask. If you had asked, I'd have given. Thou knowest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith unto me, Give me to drink, thou wouldst
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
I'm the bread of life. Moses didn't give your fathers
that bread back there in the wilderness. My father gave them
that bread. I'm the bread. I'm the bread
of life. He that cometh to me will never
hunger, and he that believeth on me will never thirst. Paul
said, we're ministers. Listen to this, I'm quoting this,
this is out of 1 Corinthians 3. Paul said, we are ministers
by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. How many people did he use that
means? Every man. Why did they show up? God gave
them. Isn't that what that says? Why did he give them? He says,
for the perfection of the saints, on Ephesians chapter 4. They
were his ascension gift to his church, and he gave them. Why
did he give them? For the perfection of the saints.
That is, to bring them into that faith whereby they see themselves
perfect and a representative. There's no other way for you
to be perfect except be in Christ. But if you're in Christ, you're
perfect. Can you find any imperfection
in Christ? It ain't there, is it? God saved men with a perfect
salvation and a perfect Savior. And he keeps his saints through
the work of the ministry. His sheep must be fed. Some of you got animals. You
have to feed them, don't you Walter? You got to get up and
get out there and feed them. They ain't going to feed themselves. His sheep must be fed, there
to be prayed for, corrected, rebuked, instructed in righteousness. And ministers, he said, are given
to the church for the edifying of the body of Christ. We have
men down here every year. They all have churches just like
this one. They all pastor churches, same as I do. But their ministry
edifies the whole body of Christ. And he said he's going to keep
doing that until we all come into the unity of the faith.
Boy, you'll have a hard time finding that. You can hardly find unity in
four or five individuals. That's why we keep preaching.
We keep preaching. You just keep on preaching until
they come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God unto a perfect man. Our hope, our joy, our confidence
is in a man. A perfect man. One who feels
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Is that
right? That's my hope. In the Old Testament it said,
God deviseth means to recover his banished. And to ignore the
means which God has ordained, is deadly to your soul, because
to ignore the means that God gives, the gift of God, is to
ignore God. It's the same thing. Huh? Is it not? Preaching, prayer, assembling
together for worship are not options, they're commandments.
And when God commanded us to forsake not the assembling of
ourselves together, it was preceded with this verse. I bet you can't
quote it. Here it is. Let us consider one
another to provoke unto love and to good works. How are we going to do that? You're
going to assemble yourselves together. That's how you're going
to do it. We are to consider one another
half as men. The best of saints are just men. I love when we did our studies,
Brother Mahan pointed out something I'd never thought about before
when I read the Bible. John is not Reverend John. He's
not Bishop John, he's just John. Look at Peter, see the title
up there, just Peter. It ain't Saint Peter, though
he was a saint. It's just Peter. The best of
men are just men. Men of like passions, the scripture
said, like infirmities, like weaknesses. And we're to make
allowances for those things. And then we're to consider one
another, to provoke unto love, we're to consider each other
as saints, partakers of the gifts and callings of God, having an
interest in God's covenant redeemed by the blood of Christ, having the same Father. And then he uses this word to
provoke. Isn't that an unusual word? I would never use that if I was
talking about, you know, you need to love one another, you
know. That's not the word he uses. He uses the strongest word
in the dictionary, provoke. What's that mean? Well, there's
a guy, you don't care much for him, and he's always talking
sideways at you, and after a while you get tired of it. And then
he says, oh, I want no trouble. Now you want some trouble? Provoke
it. Provoke it. Provoke one another
unto love. Don't let them stay asleep. Provoke them. Wake up. Oh my soul, he that loveth not
knoweth not God. God is love. Provoke one another,
he said. Consider one another to provoke
unto love and good works. What kind of good works? Faith,
worship, prayer. These are good works. Kindness,
gentleness, faith, tenderheartedness, forgiving one another. Oh, don't ignore the means that
God has ordained to save sinners. Don't do it. Don't do it. We have to have our minds attentively
fixed on our brethren, contemplating at all times and considering
their characters and wants, and be ready to help, looking diligently
lest any man fail of the grace of God. Now, it's not my intention to
shock anybody, but the truth often does. The first step to
apostasy is forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Of all things, John writes this
general epistle, and he's going out, 1 John. And he said, they went out from
us. Huh? They went out from us, John said.
They didn't change their theology. They still argue with the old
Calvinism. Huh? Oh, I'm a believer. They didn't give up their profession.
Well, I'm saved. They're confident in that. They
didn't give up their membership. If there's a controversy at your
church, you go get them. They haven't been there in five
years, but go get them because their name's on the roll. They'll
come in and take part. But they left the Assembly of
the Saints because they found something more needful, more
interesting, and more motivating than the worship of God. And be careful how you treat
the means of salvation. To forsake God's commandment
is to forsake God. Our Lord prays, while I was with
them in the world, I kept them in thy name. I kept them. They
would have wandered. They would have wandered. Or
my father died. I've got to go take care of this
funeral. Let the dead bury the dead. I
kept them. I kept them in thy name. Verse
14. I have given them thy word, and
the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. Now let me tell you something. An understanding of the Word
of God is the gift of God. And it's precious. It's precious. Untold multitudes go through
life reading from the Word of God. being told things from the
scriptures and trying to form some kind of theology to hope
in and walk by, and generally they do come away with something.
But what they come away with is not the truth as Paul describes
it to the Colossians, the word of the truth of the gospel. That's the message of this book.
That's the message of that. I don't care what else you get
out of it. It has no bearing on your soul as far as salvation
goes. The Word of the Truth of the
Gospel. Peter calls it the Word which
by the Gospel is preached unto you. The Word of God is a book
within a book. Its writings contain history,
science, creation, law, government, and on and on it goes. Yet the
message of it is not concerning these things but the salvation
of sinners. It's a book of redemption. And
this understanding comes by hearing. It comes by hearing. Faith cometh
by hearing. It continues to come. You know,
you've got water running in your house. Go out there and cut the
line and then go turn the faucet on. And nothing comes out. But we do that faith all the
time and we think we're still getting fed. We think our faith
is still increasing. Faith cometh by hearing. It keeps
right on coming. It keeps right on coming. This understanding comes by hearing
and no pastor can watch for the souls of men and women who do
not assemble with him to be ministered by him. It's like fixing a meal
for somebody and they don't show up. It's like a doctor. He goes into
the patient room and he opens the door and ain't nobody there. Ain't nobody there. When our Lord said the whole
need not a physician, but there was somebody there that day that
needed him and he was there. He wasn't somewhere else. And then lastly, I want us to
see the unity of God our Father with His Son in this work. The
Son, by His own words, came to do the will of His Father. That's
why He came. I have glorified thee on the
earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Verse
6, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest
me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me. Verse 8, I have given unto them
the words which thou gavest me, and they have known surely that
I come out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me. The whole of the Godhead is involved,
directly involved, actively involved in the salvation of children
and sinners. If you're here this morning and
you're a believer, you had a father before the world was. And your father is the reason
why all these things in time come about. Huh? Read Ephesians chapter 1. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ,
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. The whole of the Godhead is in
union and fully engaged in the salvation of God's elect. And
there's a divine union in the work. And the deity's never in
disagreement. There's never any schism or separation,
no split, no discord. And while the work of Christ
is more visible, yet it's a part of the whole, and the work is
in perfect harmony. The Church of God has a Heavenly
Father. Grace and peace, Paul writes
in nearly every epistle from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. In our prayers, the Lord taught
us to pray. He said, you pray after this
manner, our Father, which art in heaven. Don't think much about
that, do we? Just bow your head and say some
words. God is our Father. And unlike
those scribes and Pharisees, God really is, if we're a believer.
He's our Father. And though it's not often mentioned,
the Holy Ghost, who is no less God than the Father or the Son, who's equal with God, same as
the Son said He was, He's engaged in this work. and
His works in perfect harmony. That's why He's called the Spirit
of Christ. Paul said, so them they which
are in the flesh, they can't please God. But you're not in
the flesh. You're not in the flesh. But
in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any
man had not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. There's a perfect
unity among the Godhead in the salvation of chosen sinners.
And the Father and the Spirit are both manifest in the Son. Oh, may the Lord show us the
heart of our great God in this wonderful prayer. I'll keep through
thine own name, the whole of the Godhead. Ain't no one turned
you loose. Our Lord said on John chapter
10, He said, My sheep hear My voice. I know who they are. They know who I am. I call them
and they come out. And He said, I give unto them
eternal life and they'll never perish. Neither shall any man
pluck them out of My hand. And My Father, which is greater
than all, no man can pluck them out of His hand. And I am the
Father of one. Oh, let me understand, let me
understand that the whole of the Godhead, Russell, is involved
in my salvation and engaged to bring it to pass. You reckon
the Lord's gonna fail? Uh-uh, there ain't no way He
can fail. And I tell you, when you see
that, your hope will be so strong, it'll be so strong, and assurance,
you'll have so much assurance because you done took your hands
off of it. I'm being saved. That's what
I got to do with it. I'm being saved. Oh, may God
give us an understanding of how sweet His promises are.