Well, my text this morning is
in Psalm 35. As I said, it's in the end of
verse three. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. The salvation of my soul. The salvation of my soul. This
life, we were thinking about the death of the Lord's saints
last week, which we saw in Psalm 116, that death is precious in
the sight of the Lord. And, you know, it's good to remember
that this life always, for all of us without exception, this
life is but the entrance porch to eternity. You know, we come
in the front door of it and then we go through the lobby and then
on into eternity. And it's true, the longer that
we're in it, the smaller it appears to be. When you start out first
in it as a child, then it seems like it's an enormous great palace,
but the longer that you're in it, and the older that you get,
and undoubtedly the nearer to your departure from this life
that you get, the smaller that porch this life appears to be.
What will eternity be for you? What will it be for me? The message
of God's book, the message of God's Word, is that unless God,
by His Spirit, speaks these words, I am thy salvation, unless God,
by His Spirit, speaks these words to your soul, eternity will be
a lost eternity under God's just condemnation for sin. That's
not me that's making it up, it's what this Word of God says quite
clearly. But if God speaks to your soul,
I am thy salvation. If God speaks that to your soul,
there is no greater comfort for the sinful soul. There is no
stronger, clearer assurance of eternal bliss, that the passage
through this porch, when it comes, is an entrance into eternal glory. You see, the salvation we're
talking about, and let's be in no doubt, the world is full of
religion. There's religion everywhere,
and every religion has its salvation of sorts. This isn't salvation
as religion. I don't care what you call it.
whether you call it Hinduism or Islam or Catholicism or Anglicanism
or whatever you might call it, I don't care what it is, extreme
orthodoxy, extreme Calvinistic religion in many ways, I don't
care what it is, if it is not true that God has said to your
soul, I am your salvation, then it's no salvation at all. You
see, so much religion puts salvation, or the attainment of some sort
of eternal bliss, as the result of cooperation between God and
the one who is presumed to be saved. God does a lot, but then
we have to do something, we must do something. And they lower
the standard of God. You know, they amend God's law,
they mollify God's law so that it's attainable, so that people
think they can attain it. And as the prophets in Jeremiah,
where he says, they speak, peace, peace, when there is no peace.
Peace, peace, based on their estimate of a worthy human attempt
at being right with God. It might be a decision to believe
God, it might be a decision to follow God, it might be a decision
to reform your ways and turn over a new leaf. It might be
an attempt at sanctification, making yourself more holy by
moral conformance, an attempt to conform to right things to
do. But when the Spirit of God comes,
When the Spirit of God comes, as only He can, and uses the
knife of God's law, because God's law is like a knife, you know,
the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. When He comes and
uses the knife of God's law to cut away an individual's trust
in their fleshly works, in the things that they might do to
be right with God, when he reveals that true state of sinfulness
before God, for what is it? It's a state. Sin is not just
things we do. We do sins because we are sinners,
and we are sinners by definition because we are not as God is,
righteous and holy in every aspect of our being. And the just demands
of God's nature, for God himself is holy. He dwells in unapproachable
light. Even the sinless angels, we read
in his words, shield their faces and cry, Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord. When the just demands of God's
nature, his character, weigh crushingly on our conscience
as the Holy Spirit comes and reveals what we are as sinners.
It is as Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse
9. He says, but we had the sentence
of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves.
Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever had the sentence
of death in yourself? Have you ever committed some
felony? Have you ever been caught by
a speeding camera? Something as simple as that and
you think, oh no, I've been caught. You've got the sentence of the
crime in you. You know there's going to be
a fine. You know there's going to be retribution. This is the
Holy Spirit coming and giving us the sentence of death. that
we are sinners before a perfectly holy God who must condemn sin,
whose nature cannot tolerate sin, whose nature cannot abide
sin in His presence. Have you ever been brought to
that state? That state where you know that no effort of man,
whatever you might do, however much you might determine to reform,
no effort of some priest or some minister no ritual that they
might go through. Do you ever, we watch too much
television, any television more often than not is too much television,
but we were watching a program about some old people that had
gone to try retirement in India, and of course part of it was
that these folk who are probably on average about our own age,
and they're coming across the religion and the superstition
of a lot of the religion in India, and oh how they're utterly enthralled
with it, how they think it's such a wonderful thing, how they
think that this superstitious faith of these people and the
stupid things it makes them do, the irrational things it makes
them do, what a wonderful, admirable thing it is, and yet the worship
of the true God and listening to what his word really says,
that has no effect whatsoever. And they will go through rituals
without thinking about it. People will go through whatever
somebody religious tells them to do without thinking about
it. People blindly follow their church as if they're Christians,
as if they're really worshipping the true God. And basically they're
just going through the motions of what the church tells them
to do. They try to do works, they try to do penance, they
try to be good people. But that won't do. That's not
good enough for God. A good effort is not good enough.
No, the law of God says this. You say, well I've been pretty
good, I've obeyed most of it, surely that counts for something.
The apostle James tells us no. He said, if you offend in one
point, you're guilty of all. No, it's only the salvation of
which God speaks here that will bring peace, that will bring
comfort. When he says, say unto my soul,
this is David praying to God. He says, please God, say to my
soul, I am thy salvation. Has God said to your soul, I
am thy salvation? This is the salvation of which
God speaks throughout his word. The 66 books of this Bible, this
is the salvation of which God speaks, and we know what that
salvation is, or should I say we know who that salvation is. That salvation is Christ, the
Lord Jesus Christ. For why? He said, you read the
scriptures. For in them you think that you
have eternal life, and you do. Because if you want eternal life,
it's here, in this book of God, inspired by his Holy Spirit,
written by different people down centuries, millennia even. And
here is the key to eternal life, and Jesus said, these scriptures
are they which speak of me. These scriptures are about Christ,
for Christ is the salvation of God. He doesn't just preach the
salvation of God, Christ is the salvation of God. If you would
have the salvation of God, you must have Christ. And if your
religion is less than that, if your religion doesn't bring you
here, to this point, then it's utterly worthless, as far as
entrance into eternal bliss is concerned, into the true kingdom
of God in eternity. So, this morning, let's look
at, first of all, our need for salvation, the need that we have. Secondly, the scope of the salvation,
the extent of it. Thirdly, the God who is Himself
our salvation. and fourthly, briefly, the work
in the soul that is saved. So first of all, the soul's need
of salvation, the need of salvation. Our youngest son, he's in corporate
sales and he has been a very successful salesperson and he
now has a sales training company where he's teaching the techniques
of effective selling. But one thing that he's told
me again and again is if you're going to sell anything, and be
an effective salesman, you have to expose the need that the client
has for either the product or the service that you are selling.
You have to show them that they need that service and you put
that feeling of, I must have this because it's going to make
things work so much better. Well, if it's not too irreverent
an illustration, it's like that with God's salvation. With salvation,
only the Holy Spirit can reveal to a soul its need of salvation. A preacher can be ever so eloquent. And there have been some very
eloquent preachers. There have been some who are
very easy to listen to, whose style of speaking is engaging. They carry you along with them.
Their words are effective and powerful and persuasive. But
I don't care how good they are at that. It needs more than that
for a soul to feel the need of salvation. It needs the Holy
Spirit to come. And take the words of the preacher,
the faithful preacher, and apply them. Apply them to the heart. Because you see, The natural
man, again a text I quote often, the natural man doesn't receive
the things of the Spirit of God. People as they are in their basic
born human nature do not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
Paul writes this, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14. Neither can
he know them. Why not? Because they're spiritually
discerned. Where do we get spiritual discernment?
from God alone. God must come and reveal His
truth in the heart, the truth about what we are by nature,
and what God is by nature, and what God demands by nature, and
where we must be. before we can enter into the
kingdom of God. You see, this is it, we're talking
about the kingdom of God here. You know what Jesus said to Nicodemus
when Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, one of the rulers of
the Jews, came to Jesus by night, and he said, we know that you
are a teacher come from God, for no man can do these things,
these miracles that you do, except God be with him. So Nicodemus
thinks he knows quite a bit about the kingdom of God and the things
of God. Because he's a religious person, he's a religious leader
in Israel, and he thinks he knows a lot, and he's up there with
the Pharisees. And Jesus says to him, Jesus
answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus
says, well, how can you be born again? And Jesus says later on
down here, he says, marvel not that I said unto you, you must
be born again. The wind blows where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. The thing that he's saying there
is that the work of the Spirit of God is to come, and you don't
know where from and where he's going to, but he comes. and he
opens your eyes, and he reveals the truth of God to the soul
in some measure. It may be in a moment, as it
was with the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus,
was in a moment, the man was vehement in his opposition to
this new thing, the church of Jesus Christ, and he wanted to
eliminate it. And in a moment, the Holy Spirit
revealed the truth of who God was to him that he said what
would you have me to do Lord of course he learned more over
time following, but nevertheless it was sudden. And then in other
cases it's gradual that he reveals it. I remember, I would say with
myself, I was in the sixth form at school and as part of general
studies there was a whole set of books that was brought in
one day and I picked one up and just went away and read it and
it was a rather mystical sort of a book, but nevertheless It
made me deeply start to think about the nature of life and
of this universe and what it is and what is consciousness
and all sorts of things like that. I'm sure that God used
that in a way to gradually set me on the road to the truth of
God and the truth of eternity and the truth of Christ and his
salvation. The Holy Spirit comes and reveals
God to the soul, the majesty of God. the power of God. You know, people, most religious
people, Their God is altogether too small, altogether too human,
altogether too much like they are. They like to put their God
in a little box, you know, like an idol, where they can move
Him around and they can, you know, make Him do the things
they want their God to do and not other things. But when you
come to a knowledge by Holy Spirit revelation of the true God, of
His majesty, of His power, of His absolute sovereignty, You
know, God's not sitting on the sidelines of this world, wringing
his hands in frustration as to what a mess we're all making
of it. No, it's all in God's hands, his holiness, his purity,
absolute purity, his utter perfection of character. and the Holy Spirit
comes and revealing that, lays bare the human heart. What a
cesspit of sin it is by comparison. You say I'm a good person, I
would never do anybody any harm, do you know that in your soul
and in mine, this is the truth? The Word of God tells us, in
your soul and in mine are the seeds of every iniquity ever
committed. The seeds of it are there. The
heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it, says Jeremiah. The sin of unbelief. To be in
a world that screams so much about the God who has made it,
who has intelligently designed it, who upholds it. I know the
scientific communities stood me up against a wall and shot
me for even mentioning intelligent design. Everything else I see
in this house that I look at that works and does something
was made by intelligence, designed by intelligence. Why not this?
Why not this? When I see those swifts screaming
round the air on these lovely early summer evenings and catch
it, you know, could anything design that? Anybody that's worked
on any engineering project knows the complexity of even making
something pretty rudimentary. Look at that, it put itself together,
come off it. No, we don't believe that God. That's sin, to disbelieve God. Do you know what disbelief is?
It's not intellectual superiority. You're not saying, I'm standing
on this pinnacle of the independence of my mind and I'll make my mind
up when I have. No, you're calling God a liar.
That's what you're doing. You're telling God you're a liar.
I don't believe a word of it. The God who upholds all things
by the word of his power. No, unbelief, rebellion against
God, unholy thoughts, the seed of every wicked act is in the
heart of man. However good we may think we
are, do you know something? The truth is it's only because
of providential restraint. I can even think of myself down
the years where if opportunity for certain things had presented
it, I couldn't have prevented myself from doing it, but God
providentially prevented me. So everything in us is against
God by nature, and we are sin which is against God in His nature. And the Holy Spirit reveals divine
justice to us, that we are unfit for God's eternal presence, and
that we must be judged and we must be found guilty by the God
who is over all. and we must be condemned to eternal
separation, in a state where time is no more, so time doesn't
bring it to an end, that's what eternity is. And the Holy Spirit
shows that we're hopeless failures, unable to self-redeem, to self-save,
to self-rescue us. We need salvation to answer every
requirement of God's law and justice. If we're to be saved
and therefore qualified for heaven, and therefore released from the
condemnation which is God's justice to enact, then we need a salvation
that will answer every requirement of God's law and justice. A salvation
that is as extensive as the demands of God's law for justice, because
anything less is inadequate. If your religion is less than
that, if your salvation is less than that, every demand that
God makes, then it's just like a sticking plaster. There's so
much sticking plaster religion, so much that calls itself Christian.
It's a mere sticking plaster and it will do nothing for the
basic wound and the sore and the corruption. And religion
comes along and thinks it can make the law easier and make
it attainable. I remember when our sons were
in the cubs, some of them anyway, you know, the wolf cub pack.
And the leader of the pack was the person that was called Arcela. At the end of the Cubs meeting
they would all be told to assemble for the Grand Howl, where Arcela
would encourage the Cubs to do their best, and they would all
respond, Arcela we will do our best, and it used to vary according
to the accent of the region in which you lived. But you know,
so many people think that God's religion and God's justice and
God's requirements are like, Cubs do your best, and it isn't. There's nowhere in the Word of
God where there is any hint that Cubs do your best will suffice. It's got to be absolute perfection.
The best that we can do is way short of the requirement. Some
say, work harder then, and it's futile, because the more you
work, the more you discover that you cannot be the righteousness
that God requires. And others say, oh well, let's
make it easy. you know, the so-called evangelicals, make it easy. There's
this thing called belief, you know, you can either obey the
law of God perfectly, or you can say, Lord Jesus, come into
my heart, come into day, come into stay, come into my heart,
Lord Jesus, and then, tick, pong, you're going to heaven, because
you have done this work of belief. You can't find that anywhere
in the Bible. It's a complete fabrication of
the fallen human minds of people who will not listen to the word
of God. No, easy-believism is not salvation. Just saying, I
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, is not salvation. Not at all. No. The sinful soul doesn't need
a salvation dependent on me going, oh okay then, I'll believe in
you. No, it needs a salvation that satisfies offended divine
justice, that honors the law of God that has been broken,
that destroys sin and rebellion against God, that puts down Satan,
yes I believe in a real Satan, that overcomes the world and
all its opposition to the Kingdom of God. It needs a salvation
that glorifies God and God alone. The sinful soul needs God's Spirit
to make it feel the truth of God. You know what the truth
of God is, Galatians 3.10? tells us what we like. Imagine
the law court, and here is the charge being read out. And in
the law court, this is what it says in Galatians 3.10, quoting
Deuteronomy. He says, Cursed is everyone that
continues not in all things, without exception, that are written
in the book of the law, to do them without fail, constantly,
never failingly. And then it shows the remedy.
Then it shows the salvation of God. Because if you read on three
verses into Galatians 3.13, you read there, but Christ has redeemed
us. Ought us. Paid the price. Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? By he himself
being made that curse for us. He was made sin. He who knew
no sin was made the sin of his people and bore its guilt and
bore its penalty, and bore its curse, and paid its penalty with
his precious lifeblood. The life is in the blood, and
he shed his blood. And that blood is not the blood
as of bulls and goats, but it is the blood as of Christ, the
Passover lamb, a lamb without blemish and without spot. That
is the lifeblood that pays the price of the sins of the people
for whom he died. This is the need that we have,
is to be brought by the Holy Spirit to see that we need salvation. And being brought there, to be
shown what that salvation is, that it's redemption from the
curse of the law in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is the
scope of this salvation that is needed by the soul that is
alarmed by its need? Well, the scope of salvation,
it isn't just a free pardon for sin. It isn't just the removal
of the sin debt, though it is that, and then leave the sinner
where he is. You know, it's like, imagine
in the days when we had capital punishment, and there's a person
waiting for the gallows, found guilty, sentenced to death, and
he's going to hang. And a pardon comes from the queen,
the ruler, the monarch, releasing the murderer from death. releasing
them from the penalty, letting them go free, but leaving them
where they are, in their poverty-stricken condition, to fend for themselves. No, the salvation of which God's
Word speaks, pardons sin, cancels its condemnation by the payment
Christ has made for his people, and then elevates the saved sinner
to the king's palace. It saves from the curse of sin
and saves to the righteousness of God that is in Christ. Hannah
in the book of Samuel, first book of Samuel chapter 2 verse
8, in the song of Hannah of Thanksgiving when she wanted a baby and Samuel
was going to be born to her, and she sang this, she said,
He, God, raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the
beggar from the dunghill, not to leave them there, but to set
them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory.
That's what God's salvation does. God's salvation does that. God's
salvation saves us from our sins, but elevates us to the kingdom
of God, to the palace of God. And it's that salvation which
God himself is. It saves from guilt. It saves
from the penalty of sin. There is therefore now, says
Paul to the Romans, there is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the
flesh but according to the Spirit. There is no more condemnation,
there is no more sentence of retribution that it must bring
the justice of God, because the justice of God is satisfied in
what Christ has done for His people. It also saves from the
love of sin, from the love of it. The salvation of God doesn't
just save from the penalty, but from the love of sin, from the
dominion of sin, from the in-being of it. Sinful flesh, don't get
me wrong, sinful flesh remains sinful as long as a person lives,
until we put off this robe of flesh and we die. But a new man,
as Jesus said to Nicodemus, a new man is born within who loves
the righteousness of God. loves it. Change of attitude,
repentance, rethinking, as the word means. Romans 5.20, where
sin abounded, and surely it does, grace, the grace of God, did
much more abound over sin. The grace of God abounded over
sin. Through eternal union with Christ,
God put his people, the multitude that no man can number, multi-ethnic,
every tribe and kindred and tongue. God's elect, as his word says,
again and again. By nature, those children, those
people, that multitude, are children of wrath even as others. In other
words, in flesh, no different from anybody else. This is an
innumerable, multi-ethnic multitude that is the people of God, and
we don't know who they are. There's only one way that we
know who they are. And even now, there might be
some who are listening to this and we don't know that you are
now. But all, in time before they die, come to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and trust their eternal souls to His keeping. to His preservation in that day
of judgment on account of what He has done for them. We're killed
to the law. These people are killed to the
law and married to Christ. There is an account in The prophet
Hosea, it's all about Israel's adultery and Hosea has to marry
a woman who is a prostitute and learn what it's like to be God
with a people that is constantly going after false religion, committing
fornication with false religion, religious fornication. And he
says in Hosea 2.16, God says to his people, he says, call
me Ishi, call me no longer Bali. Now let me explain what that
means. Bali was the harsh, legal, brutal husband. That's the law
that condemns. Ishi is the gracious, kind, loving,
caring husband. God says to his people, On the
basis of what his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, has accomplished,
call me no longer barley, but call me ishy. It's exactly what
Romans 7 says. Romans chapter 7 and the first
few verses. Know ye not, brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law, how that the law, he's speaking
of the law of God, how that the law hath dominion over a man
as long as he liveth. We're married to that law by
nature, we're under it, it's got dominion over us. We are
compelled to keep it and the consequences of not keeping it
is the judgment of God. And he says, look, here's an
illustration. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the
law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband
be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then,
if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man,
she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband be dead, she
is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though
she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law to which you are married by nature,
by the body of Christ. by what he has done and accomplished
in his body, that body which was prepared for him, that ye
should be married to another, even to him, Christ, who is raised
from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Do
you see what is accomplished there? So by Christ we are freed
from the receipt of our just, natural wages. You know what
Romans 6.23 says? For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our
Lord. By grace we receive that gift of God and this alone is
what speaks peace to the burdened soul in coming to Christ. You
know, come unto me all you that labour and heavy laden, burdened,
labour, heavy laden, burdened with sin, that sin which the
Holy Spirit has revealed, burdened with it, coming to Christ and
I will give you, says Christ, rest. peace, comfort, forgiveness
for your soul. This is what takes away the guilt
of unrighteousness. This is what takes away what
Hebrews calls that fearful looking for judgment. which is all that
is ours outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it assures the sinner
of being made the righteousness of God in Christ. He who knew
no sin, Christ, was made sin for his people, that we, his
people, might be made the righteousness of God in him. What a tremendous,
divine, eternal transaction. That's the covenant of grace.
So that when it comes to that judgment day, when we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, it says in Jeremiah
50 and verse 20, the sins of Israel and Judah shall be sought
for. That's symbolical of all the people of God, the Israel
of God in all ages. The sins of Judah and Israel
shall be sought for and they shall not be found. for they're
not there. Why not? For Christ has taken
them away. So then, God himself, and I must
speed up, God himself is salvation. We saw it in our first reading,
which is, excuse me, I've got my notes, Isaiah chapter 12.
Behold, God is my salvation in verse two. God is my salvation
in all his triune attributes, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Father chose his people.
In love, by grace, he chose a people on the basis of no merit in themselves
that made them any different to anyone else, but because,
he says, God says, in Exodus, he says, I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. He says, the Word of God says
in John, so then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who
runs, but of God who shows mercy. Not of the will of the flesh,
not of the will of man, not of the will of tradition or anything
else, but the will of God. It is God sovereignly who chooses. And the Son, the manifestation
of the unknowable, unseeable God, the Son, undertook to come
into time and become man, that which God wasn't before. He became
man. Why? Because only as man could
he stand as substitute for men. Only as a man could his body
be broken and his blood shed to satisfy the justice of God.
And the Spirit then comes to every single one he has redeemed
by his death on the cross, and he regenerates, he makes alive,
he makes awake to the things of God. And all of this is of
God alone, God alone. It's summarized in 2 Timothy
chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1, I'll start
at verse seven. For God has not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love. And I know some
might say as, who was it? Was it Festus or Felix? I can't
remember which one it was when Paul was giving his account in
the Acts of the Apostles. And I think it was Festus said
to him, you're mad, Paul. Your learning has made you mad.
You've gone crazy. There's something wrong with
you. This is just stupidity. No, he says, we're of a sound
mind. This is of a sound mind. He says,
be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord,
nor of me his prisoner. This is Paul speaking when he
was in house arrest. But be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God, because in this
world there will be afflictions of this gospel and believing
it. The power of God, God who has saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, anything that we've
done, including your religious belief, according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus. Listen when? Before the world
began, but is now made manifest by the appearing. It's made clear,
it was a done deal in eternity before time, but it's now made
manifest by the appearing of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Listen,
who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality
to light through the Gospel. Life. This is what we're talking
about. Life. Immortality. God himself in the
person of his son as the substitute for his elect. took on him the
sin-debt of that multitude, and paid the price, the ransom-price,
the liberty-price, the redemption-price of that sin-debt, and he paid
it with his precious blood, as of a lamb, without blemish and
without spot. And he died the death that the
law demands. The law says this, the soul that
sins, it shall die. In the day you eat thereof, he
said to Adam, you shall surely die. He died as Paul again said,
the just for the unjust. We're unjust by nature, but he,
the just, died for his people to bring us to God. He made us,
his people, these people, accepted, not condemned, accepted in the
beloved, fitted for heaven. He has made us meet, it says,
qualified, meet for heaven, made his people meet for heaven. The
blood of Christ has extinguished hell's flames for his people.
Many religious folk will tell you that the law of God as the
rule of life is the thing that will help us on our way to heaven,
it will prepare us for heaven. No, the Spirit of God says this,
the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing
into Zion and everlasting joy shall be on their head. Reason
why? Salvation is of the Lord. Do you know who said that? Jonah
said it. Salvation is not of the Lord plus you, plus some
contribution from me. Salvation is of the Lord. He
says to the soul who he has shown his sin, he says to my soul,
I, God, I am thy salvation. This is the God who is the salvation
of his people. And finally, the effect on the
soul saved. There's a spiritual awakening
by the grace of God, by the Holy Spirit coming and showing the
things of God, revealing the things of God, taking the things
of Christ and revealing them to us. A realization of the person
and nature of God in some measure. an awareness of the burden of
sin and guilt in our natural state before God, and putting
within us a longing to be saved from the curse of the law, and
saved from the condemnation of God's justice, and a desire for
heavenly bliss and communion with God that we in ourselves
know we can never achieve, and a longing, a heart's desire,
to be rid of sin. What it does, what does it do?
Does it make us want to sin? No, it makes us want to be rid
of sin. Titus says this, Paul says to
Titus, chapter 2, verse 11, For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying
ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly. righteously
and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem
us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people,
a special people, zealous of good works, those that want to
do the righteousness of God and want to shun the sin that is
the natural tendency of the flesh. Religion fears this salvation. It does. Most of what calls itself
Christianity fears this salvation. It says that it will foster antinomianism,
i.e. we can sin. Let us sin that grace
may abound. Paul mentions it many times.
Antinomianism, fostered by freedom from the law's bondage. This
is constantly what they said about Don Faulkner's preaching.
when he told you, you are free from the law. And they said,
it'll make people sin, there'll be antinomianism, people will
be doing dreadful things. Oh, awful, awful things that
they'll do because of that. Not in the slightest. No. to
the one truly saved, the desire truly is this, as John says in
his first epistle, to walk in the light as he is in the light. Don't be satisfied with any supposed
salvation that isn't God's salvation. O God, say unto my soul, I am
thy salvation. Amen.