How can a man be just with God? How can he be clean that is born
of a woman? What does it take for God to
save a sinner? Those are the questions I hope
to answer this morning. Most people seem to think That
it's a very easy thing to be saved. That faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ is simple. There is no sense of astonishment,
awe, and amazement among religious people in our day. No astonishment
of grace. No sense of wonder at the love
and mercy of God. Why? I'm certain it is because
the salvation they think they have is really no big deal. There's nothing amazing about
grace as most people talk about it at all. Traveling back and
forth up and down this country and around different parts of
the world for the past 40 years, I've met a lot of people. Most
of them, very religious people. We live in the most religious
age, topside of hell this world's ever known. Most religious age. Everybody you know been saved
two or three times. Everybody you know. Got religion
running out their ears. And the most ungodly, reprobate
age the world's ever known. Something's wrong with those
two facts. Something's wrong. And I'll tell you what's wrong.
They don't know God from a goat. Don't have any idea who God is
or what his salvation is. Most people are convinced they're
saved and never disturb themselves by questioning the matter. They
walk down a church aisle, knelt at an altar, and said the sinner's
prayer. They did what the preacher told
them to do. They said the sinner's prayer. They said, I believe
in Jesus. I know many who've had that experience,
even the small children. I did. I was seven years old. Before I was eight years old,
folks had me out preaching. Every Sunday afternoon, go preaching
to a black congregation on the south side of town. By the time
I was nine years old, it is fizzled. Nothing to it. Nothing to it. Folks are confident they're saved
because they followed what men call the simple plan of salvation. Some of you have had that same
experience. You profess that you're saved because you walked
a church aisle, you said the sinner's prayer, and you felt
that inexplainable feeling of relief when it was all over.
So does the papist who goes to the confessional and rubs his
magical rosary beads and says so many Hail Marys has exactly
the same experience. You were talked into a profession
of faith by some slick soul winner and you never questioned the
reality of the profession. Perhaps sometimes you do question
it. I know you do, but you suppress
the questions. fearing their satanic temptation,
because you've been told, don't ever question, don't ever doubt,
this is real, God saved you, everything's all right now, you're
going to heaven when it's all over. Now hear me and hear me
well, salvation is not an easy thing. Salvation is not a simple
thing. It is not a simple thing for
a sinner to exercise faith in Jesus Christ the Lord. In fact,
faith in Christ with men is an absolute impossibility. Faith in Christ is not something
that can be conjured up from within. It is not something that
lies within the realm of possibility with man's imaginary free will.
Let me give you a classic example. In Luke chapter 19, or in Matthew
chapter 19, and again in Luke chapter 14, the Spirit of God
gives us the story of this rich young ruler who came to the Lord
Jesus and wanted to know how he could be saved. What good
things shall I do that I shall inherit the kingdom of God? He
said to the master. And the Lord told him to keep
the commandments. And he said, well, I always did. I always
did. He said, let's see. Go sell everything you've got
and give it to the poor. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. And he walked away to
hell. He walked away to hell. And the
disciples looked at that man and said, Lord, we've known this
boy since he was a child. He's always been a good boy.
He's gone to church all his life. He's never missed a Sabbath school
day in his life. He's kept the commandments. Everybody
admires him. Everybody knows he knows God.
If this man's lost, who then can be saved? If that man's going
to hell, who can be saved? And our master answered this
way, if it's up to men, it's impossible. With men, it is impossible. Well, what about man's will?
So then, it is, what does the book say? Anybody know? It is
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. With men, it is impossible, but
bless God, it's not impossible. For with God, all things are
possible. If salvation is altogether of
the Lord, as the book declares it is, there's hope for sinners. If somehow something's got to
be contributed by you, you're going to hell with men. It is impossible with that in
mind. Turn with me, if you will, to
the book of first Peter, first Peter chapter four. No sinner has ever been saved
by walking a church aisle. Well, I believe I saved walking
the aisle at one of Billy Graham's mass evangelism campaigns. No,
you weren't. You just walked down an aisle.
No one's ever been saved by kneeling at the front of a church. Nobody. Well, that's how I got saved.
No, you didn't. You got a dose of religion. That's all you've
got. Nobody's ever been saved by repeating the sinner's prayer. Nobody. Nobody. If God ever saves
you, you won't have to have somebody tell you what to repeat in order
to obtain his mercy. He pours out the spirit of grace
and supplications upon sinners. And if you're still clinging
to such a profession as the basis of your hope before God, I urge
you, give it up. Renounce it at once. It's a satanic
delusion. This is the language of scripture.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man. We have it twice in the book
of Proverbs, exactly this way. There is a way that seemeth right
unto a man. What is that way? It's the way
that seems right to a man. The Buddhist way and the Baptist
way are the same way. I didn't make a mistake. I said
it deliberately. The Papist way and the Presbyterian
way are the same way. The Pentecostal way and the Jewish
way are the same way. It is the way of man. Anybody
who pretends to believe anything at all with regard to salvation
and declares that salvation somehow hinges on you, that's the way
of man. Doesn't matter what name they
call it. But the end thereof are the ways of death. They all have different creeds
and different confessions and different costumes. They all
have different religious games and different religious programs
and different religious activities. But it's all the same way. It
is the way of free will works religion. And it is a damning
way. The ends thereof are the ways
of death. I repeat, it is not an easy thing
to be saved. I know in this day of mass evangelism,
easy-believe-ism, decisional salvation, what I'm saying will
not be popular. It will not be quickly received.
Maybe some of you will get angry at hearing it, but hear it you
must. It is not an easy thing to be saved. Now, I want you
to see in the scriptures that what I'm telling you is so. See,
if you don't see it in the scriptures, now listen, if you don't see
what I'm saying to you in the scriptures, don't ever hear this
preacher again. I am either God's messenger or
I'm a false prophet. There's no in between ground.
And if what I tell you this hour is found clearly in the scriptures,
be wise and forsake every false way and every demon of hell who
stands in a pulpit and preaches that false way. Are you suggesting,
Brother Don, every man who preaches free will salvation is a demon
standing in the pulpit? I ain't suggesting it. I'm telling
you it's so. It is absolutely so. Our Lord
Jesus said, strive to enter in, agonize to enter in at the straight
gate. For many, I say unto you, will
seek to enter in and shall not be able. Can't do it. How come? I'll tell
you why. I'll use the words of Brother
Maurice Montgomery, standing in this pulpit many years ago,
he said, the gate is so straight you can't take anything in as
you enter. And the way is so narrow you
can't pick up any baggage along the way. That's it. You got to enter in
by the gate, Christ Jesus, naked. naked with nothing in your hands. And the only way you can walk
in this way is naked with nothing in your hands. If saving faith
is no more than saying a prayer, making a decision, walking an
aisle, or believing in the historic facts of the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ, answer me a question. Why is Judas in
hell? Why was Simon Magus pronounced
a lost man? Why did Demas perish? Why was Diotrephes destroyed? They all believed exactly the
same facts you and I believe, but we don't believe facts. We
trust a person and there's a huge difference. True saving faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ is such a rare thing that our Lord asked
this question. When the son of man cometh, shall
he find faith on the earth? The way of truth and holiness
is so plain that the prophet says the wayfaring man, though
fools, shall not err therein. And yet because of the sin and
hardness of our hearts, it is no easy thing for us to enter
into that way and no easy thing to continue in that way until
we reach our home and everlasting glory. Look at 1 Peter 4 verse
18. Peter raises a question by divine
inspiration, an instructive and should be an alarming question. If the righteous scarcely be
saved. Where shall the ungodly and the
sinner appear? The word scarcely here, I've
told you many times a very poor translation of this text. Peter
is not suggesting that God's elect barely get into heaven
or that we shall enter into glory with fear and trembling and hesitancy
by the skin of our teeth. God's saint shall be ushered
into heaven in a blaze of glory, triumphant and victorious by
his grace. Bold shall I stand in that great
day, for who ought to my charge shall lay, while through thy
blood absolved I am from sin's tremendous curse and blame. The
word scarcely would be better translated with difficulty. Peter's meaning is this. If the
righteous are saved with great difficulty, What shall become
of the ungodly and unbelieving? How can a man be just with God? How can he be clean that is born
of a woman? Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? No man. What does it take for
God to save a sinner? If you would be saved, give me
your attention. I've got something to say this
morning that ought to give you hope. and encourage you to seek
Christ. If you are one of God's ransomed
ones, if God has opened the windows of heaven and poured upon you
the spirit of grace and supplication, giving you life and faith in
Jesus Christ the Lord, hear your pastor today. I've got something
to rejoice your heart forever and cause you to give praise
to God forever. Number one, The salvation of
a sinner requires this thing first, the will of God. The will of God. Nobody is saved
apart from the will of God and nobody is saved except those
whom God wills to save. If God willed to save everybody,
everybody would be saved. Well, I believe God wants to
save everybody. If God wants to save everybody, not saved,
he ain't God. Just that simple. Might as well
worship a stump. Just that simple. The first thing
required for the salvation of a sinner is the will of God,
particularly the sovereign will of God in election and predestination. It takes the work of God's sovereign
electing love and gracious predestination. Salvation must begin with somebody's
will. The whole world says it begins
with man's will. Everybody believes in free will.
Everybody. Isn't it amazing? I mean, it
doesn't matter how obviously wretched a human being is. Everybody
believes in free will. Everybody. It's just the it's
just the end thing, as they say. Everybody, religious and irreligious. Well, we believe in man's free.
Don't you believe God gave man a free will? I wish you'd find
me any indication in this book he did. I mean, just the slightest
indication. There's not one place in this
book where there's a hint that man's will is free. Well, maybe. Brother Scott Richardson said
one time, your will's just as free as a frog in a snake's belly.
Jump around all you want to, you just can't get out. It's
as free as your nature, and your nature is enmity against God.
Look at Ephesians chapter one. This book declares that salvation
begins and ends with God's will and choice. Election It's not
something to be afraid of. It's taught on every page in
this book, illustrated in every event in this book. It's taught
everywhere, everywhere. It's not hidden somewhere. It's
taught everywhere. So, well, this is, you know,
preachers all the time. They talk about it in the coffee
shop and talk about it in the office and get bored. Well, we
can't preach that in the pulpit. Can't do that. I'll tell you
why. Because they're scared to death of losing their pension.
They're scared to death of losing their position. Scared to death
of losing their money. Well, this is for grown-up saved
sinners. One of the first things our Lord
Jesus told his disciples, if you haven't chosen me, I've chosen
you. One of the first things he told
them. And one of the last. He said, many are called, but
few are chosen. Election is God's free, sovereign,
eternal choice of his people in Jesus Christ unto everlasting
salvation. And predestination is God's wise,
gracious, orderly arrangement of all things from eternity by
which he secures the salvation of his elect. And I don't like that. I do. My heavenly father is in control
of this world and he's doing everything in time according
as he purposed it from eternity for my good. I can't imagine that bothering
anybody who knows my father. Can you? I just can't imagine
that bothering anybody. If I could convince my grown
daughter and her grown husband and her two young children that
I absolutely rule this world. Do you know what they'd be convinced
of? They'd be convinced they ain't got a thing to worry about.
Don't matter what comes up, dad's in control and he'll do us good. But I'm not in control of anything.
Our father is absolutely in control. Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And this is
how he did it. According as he had chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will. Wonder what that means. It means
just exactly what you thought it meant first time you read
it before you ever heard somebody try to deny it. That means God
does everything according to the pleasure of his will who
chose us and predestinated us unto everlasting glory according
to the good pleasure of his will. Number two, what does it take
for God to save a sinner? It takes blood atonement. Turn
to Isaiah chapter 40. It takes the work of effectual
blood redemption, the satisfaction of divine justice by an infinitely
meritorious substitute. It takes the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ by which he didn't just provide the possibility of redemption,
but by which he accomplished it. Twenty-seven years ago, I was
sitting back here in the office, and a preacher came by, and he
wanted to sell me some insurance. Wish he had stayed with selling
insurance. He was pastor of a church over there where we used to attend,
and going to school at Louisville. And when he found out I wasn't
buying any insurance, he decided he'd ask me a religious question.
He said, what's the difference between your church and ours?
Tell me what you believe and I believe. Tell me what you preach
and I do. I said, you got a little while? He said, yeah, and I spent
four hours telling him the difference. And one of the questions I asked
was this. I said, now correct me if I'm wrong. If you believe
what I think you do, you believe that Jesus Christ died for all
men, shed his blood for all men, and made it possible for all
men to be redeemed, justified, and have their sins put away.
but that he actually did not redeem, justify, or put away
anyone's sins. He just made it possible. And
that man, by his faith, makes the blood of Christ, his death
at Calvary, effectual for himself, for justification, redemption,
and the putting away of sin. He said, well, that's what I
believe. I said, that's damning heresy. That's damning heresy. If you
believe that you're a damned man. How come? Because you really believe you
have saved yourself. Oh, but I believe Jesus saved
me with my help. But I believe Jesus put away
my sin with my help. And with your help means you
don't believe him at all. Isaiah 40 verse one. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem. Cry aloud unto her that her warfare
might possibly someday, if she pretty please by her free will,
will let me be accomplished. What does it say? Her warfare
is accomplished. crying to her, her warfare is
accomplished and her iniquity, it could be pardoned. It could
be, if only you'd let him. No, her iniquity is pardoned. When Jesus Christ died upon the
cursed tree, he said, it is finished. And it is finished. Either Christ put away the sins
of his people or he didn't. Either he redeemed them or he
didn't. Either he justified them or he
didn't. Either he saved his people by
the shedding of his blood or he is a miserable, useless failure. And there is no such thing as
God who is a miserable, useless failure. It is written of him,
he shall not fail. Her iniquity is pardoned. Turn to Romans chapter 3. Without the shedding of blood,
is no remission. God Almighty could not come to
us in mercy and we could not get to God for mercy until sin
was put away. God could not save us and will
not save us. He could not save and would not
save anyone, election and predestination notwithstanding, without blood
atonement. Without the shedding of blood
is no remission. If God is our Savior, He must
be what He declares Himself in Isaiah 45 and verse 20 to be,
a just God and a Savior. He must save us on the grounds
of absolute, unvarying, inflexible, strict justice. He will not just
pretend we didn't see it. This is what He declares in Romans
chapter 3. The only way that could happen is by the sacrifice
of his son. Verse 24, we're justified freely
by his grace. Freely, without any calls in
us. Justified freely by his grace,
but that grace comes through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. whom God set forth before the
world was and in all the Old Testament scriptures and set
forth at Calvary and now sets forth by the gospel to be a propitiation,
a justice satisfying sacrifice through faith in his blood to
declare God loves everybody. Is the Book of Acts a pretty
good example of what evangelism and missionary work ought to
be? I think so. It records for us the first 30
years of the church's history. Do you know it is nowhere written
in the Book of Acts, God loves you? The love of God is not even
mentioned. Well, the gospel is all about
the love of God. It is not. It reveals the love of God, but
it ain't about the love of God. The gospel is all about the righteousness
of God. It's all about the justice of
God. It's all about the truth of God. It's all about the character
of God. He set him forth to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of
him which believeth in Jesus. God requires righteousness and
he requires satisfaction and Christ gave it. when he finished
the work of redemption for us. I've never told this in public
before, but the Bob Lips is in glory now. He won't mind me telling
it. When we first started together, when I first came down here,
the only person in the whole group that had a little bit of
money was Bob Lips. He's right well off. And I was out visiting
with him one day. He had a welding shop down on
his farm. And he started talking to me. Please don't ever lay
down the gauntlet to this preacher, because I will take it up if
the glory of God's at stake. Somebody comes in, so I've got
my son with me, so I want to be careful. They go to the Catholic
church. Don't tell me. If you tell me, I'm going to
deal with the Pope before I get done. I may deal with it otherwise,
but I'm dead sure going to deal with it if you act like I oughtn't
to. I'm dead sure going to where they go to Pentecostal. Don't
tell me don't tell me I don't need to know and I will deal
with it Well, Bob had heard me preaching on particular redemption
limited atonement He said I Just don't believe that Hmm Well Sunday morning he heard
about limited atonement I And Sunday night, he heard about
limited atonement. And he heard about limited atonement for just
about two months, three times a week. And finally, one night,
he walked out the door. He said, Brother Don, God's taught
me that. And I was determined, you're
either going to learn it and believe it and rejoice in it,
or you're going to be miserable here. Doesn't matter who you
are or what you think you've got to contribute. Ain't going
to happen. I went by to see Bob just a few
days before he died. Folks in church down there were
making a big hoopla about selling beer on Sunday, trying to keep
folks from selling beer on Sunday. And I just got tired of hearing.
And I looked at my son. I've got a whole lot thing, a
whole lot of things that concern me a lot more than whether you
sell beer on Sunday. And Bob leaned up on his elbow
is all he could do to muscle strength to do it. He's about
to leave this world. He said, me too. Me too. the glory of God and
the redemption of my soul by the precious blood of his son.
It's something about which there will be no compromise here. These
preachers come in for conference, preach that. If they didn't,
they wouldn't be here. They wouldn't be here. Missionaries, people
ask me, do your missionaries believe what you do? I'm insulted
by that. You think I'd give a nickel for
somebody to go propagate Mooneyism or Buddhism or papacy? Do you
think I'd give a nickel for that? If I could, I'd buy them all
off and have them come home and go sell them something else.
No. Every man who believes the gospel
of God's grace preaches it and he preaches it everywhere. And
those we're privileged to have some association with believe
and preach the gospel of God's free grace. Here's the third
thing. What does it take to save a sinner?
The will of God. The blood of Christ and divine
providence turned to Romans 8, 28. I was reading a piece of history,
recent history this week, or the drew Garner down in Houston,
Texas, wrote a historical essay on the, uh, sovereign grace movement
in this country. And it told the story. Some of
you've heard it many times. Some of you never have true story. 1949 or 50. Brother Henry Mahan had
just moved to Pollard Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
Biggest Southern Baptist Church in the state. They called him
as assistant pastor. Easter Sunday morning, they were
having a revival meeting. That's what they called it, like
folks do now, you know. We're going to have a revival,
let's mark it on our calendar. Everybody thinks they've got
God in their hand, but they're having a revival meeting. And
they had an evangelist come up who was chair of Piedmont Bible
College, chair of theology at the time. Piedmont Bible College
has long since denied everything he taught. But Ralph Barnard
was his name. And he stood in the pulpit, tall,
lanky fellow, looked over his glasses and saw Brother Henry
Mahan sitting down beside his wife Doris. And he said, can
anybody quote Romans 8, 28? just silence, and finally he
looked at Brother Mahan, and Brother Mahan said, I think I
can. He was standing up and quoted. He said, we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God, and sat down. And Mother Barnard said, you
missed it, son. And Henry told the story, he
said, He said he shouted so it shook the rafters. You could
hear him across the street. That's not what it says. It says
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are thee called according to his purpose. And if you ever find out what
that word purpose means, you'll learn the gospel. It's purpose. God doesn't save sinners by accident.
He saves them on purpose. Well, y'all need to give sinners
a chance to get saved. Sinners aren't saved by chance.
They're saved by purpose. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. Well, what's his purpose for
whom he did for know them. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn,
the chief one among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate
them. He also called and whom he called
them He also justified and whom he justified them. He also glorified
Well, what should we say then to these things? if God be for
us Everything's alright If God be for us who can be against
us We worship that God and savior in whom we've obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his will. Fourth, the will of God and the blood
of Christ and the providence and purpose of God will get nobody
to heaven. without the irresistible grace
and power of God the Holy Spirit in regeneration. We sang it a
little bit ago. He must be born again. The salvation of a sinner requires
the work of God's irresistible grace. Why do you keep stressing
irresistible? Because most folks think it's
resistible. It takes the infallible, irresistible, omnipotent power
and grace of God the Holy Spirit in regeneration and effectual
calling by which chosen, redeemed sinners are raised from death
to life and given faith in Jesus Christ. The work of the Holy
Spirit is every bit as necessary, every bit as necessary as the
will of God, the blood of Christ, and the providence and purpose
of God. By election and predestination, we were marked out for grace
and the path by which God's saving grace must come into our hearts
was fixed from eternity. And in God's good providence,
he brings us along that path according to his purpose. In
redemption, Christ met all the demands of God's law and justice.
He removed our sins, opened the way for grace to come to us in
providence. God, our Savior, sovereignly
manipulates all the affairs of the universe. You say, well, that makes men
a puppet. Sort of. I don't have a problem with that. I don't
have a problem with that. He pulls the string, you raise
your arm. He drops the string, you lower your arm. It's just
that simple. It's just that simple. But puppets
who willingly do what they do from their own depraved hearts.
God, by his providence, brings his elect to the appointed place
and the appointed time at which he will be gracious to them,
prepares them and makes them willing to hear his word and
receive his grace. And in regeneration, effectual
calling by the convicting power of God, the Holy Spirit, he performs
the mighty operations of his grace in us. Blessed is the man,
the psalmist says, whom thou choosest and causest to approach
unto thee. If you come to Christ right now,
if you come to Christ, it will be because God has graciously
chosen you and caused you to come. Not because he kind of
tugged at your heart and asked you if you wanted to come. Not
because he gently persuaded you that you should come not because
he opened the door of opportunity to let you in if you would come
but blessed is the man whom thou choosest that sovereign election
and causes thy irresistible omnipotent mercy to come unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts
And when that happens, we shall be satisfied with the goodness
of thy house, even of thy holy temple. Thy people shall be willing
in the day of thy power. Salvation requires faith in Christ,
not a freewill work of man, but the mighty operation of God's
grace. You must believe on Christ if you would be saved. Hear me.
You must believe Him. You must believe Him. You must
trust Him. You must come to Him. But you
cannot believe, you cannot trust, you cannot come, except He give
you grace to come. And if He gives you the grace,
you will believe, you will trust, you will come. And your faith
in Him is the evidence, not the cause. He that believeth on the
Son of God, what does the scripture say? Hath everlasting life. Here's a fifth thing. Just as
necessary as all the others. Gospel preaching. I'll say very
little about that this morning. I want to say more about it tonight,
the Lord willing. The salvation of a sinner requires
the preaching of the gospel. because God has so ordained it. This is the language of scripture.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Gospel preaching is not an optional
additive. It's an absolute necessity in
this work of salvation. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God, and it doesn't come any other way. Doesn't come
any other way. Well, that limits God's sovereignty.
Hogwash. Hogwash. This is what God ordained. This is what God has declared.
And this is how God does it. Well, what if a fellow lives
in the heart of New Guinea amongst those remote tribesmen? who've
never heard the gospel and who've never seen the light of civilization,
who can't even speak the word Jesus, much less believe in Jesus.
What if one of those is to be saved? That puts God in a bind. God doesn't get in a bind. God
doesn't get in a bind. He's not a man. He's not a man. He'll send a preacher to him,
or somehow, put him in a whirlwind and send him to the preacher,
one of the two. Well, that's just not reasonable
to expect. I never said it was. But there
was an occasion when God had a man, a wild barbaric tribesman
on the Isle of Milita, south of Italy, a wild barbarian. And two ships had sailed, two
ships had sailed heading to Rome at the same time. one under the
sign of the skull and crossbones, a pirate ship. And that ship
sailed with no trouble, went right through, went right through
the storms and everything you see, got safely there. There
was another ship that had for one of its prisoner captives,
a man by the name of Paul, a preacher of the gospel. And God tore that
ship apart, ripped it apart in a storm. And everybody on board
the ship came aboard, swimming on broken pieces of the ship.
And while they were out there, cold and shivering, in the wintertime,
they built a fire. And as they were building the
fire, that man, Paul, like everybody else, was working, trying to
keep warm. And he took and put a piece of wood on the fire.
And when he did, a viper came out and bit him on the hand.
He just shook it off, went on building the fire. And they said,
he's God, because he didn't die. And Paul said, no, but I can
tell you who he is. And God saved his chosen, and
three months later sent Paul on his way to preach somewhere
else. God saves sinners by the foolishness of preaching. That's
the reason we spend everything we have in this place in the
preaching of the gospel. expend every energy. Susan asked me this morning,
aren't you tired? I said, I'm a little tired. And I thought, shut your mouth,
God. Tired of preaching. Tired of laboring in the word.
God, forgive me. This is the means by which God
calls out his elect and gives them life and faith in Christ
and perpetuates the gospel through this world, generation after
generation. We have these conferences every
year. They have involved great cost and involved great labor.
You men and women both give generously and work hard and you give it up anytime you
want to. We give it up anytime we want to. That's too much. That's too much. But before you
do, when you think maybe we should, is it worth it? Carol said to Larry a couple
of weeks ago, you didn't know I knew this. Larry said something
about something, one of the messages posted on Freegrass Radio wasn't
getting much attention. Something to that effect. Carol
said, if one hears it, it's worth it, isn't it? If one hears, it's
worth it. Oh, my soul, imagine the God
of glory might be pleased to use this band of ragtag nobodies
to call out one of his elect. Just one. Just one. This is the means by which God
saves sinners. Tell you something else it takes.
Tell you something else. It takes God's preserving grace
to save a sinner. It takes the same grace, moral
heart to keep you believing that has caused you to believe in
the beginning. And if he didn't continue to give you grace, you
wouldn't believe another second. But our Savior said, I give unto
them eternal life. And they shall never perish. And no man shall pluck them out
of my hand. no matter what. We're kept by the power of God
through faith in Jesus Christ. The faith he's given and the
faith he continually sustains. I'm confident of this very thing.
He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. I recall, I've told you many
times, years ago, years ago, when God began to deal with my
soul in such a way that I can point to it and say, I believe
God was doing something. I had made a profession of faith
when I was just a kid, seven years old, and every time I got
in enough trouble to be scared to death, make another one. Make another one, rededicate,
rededicate, and wasn't nothing there to dedicate to start with. I was so reluctant to confess
Christ as my Redeemer, so reluctant to confess faith in Him, so reluctant
to announce to the world by believer's baptism that I'm His and He's
mine, because I thought with the hissing of Satan, it's all
fake. You won't last until the sun
sets. And one day with my heart breaking,
I opened the scriptures and I came to these words just by God's
providence. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. And the next Sunday I confessed
my redeemer in believers baptism. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. Hear me now, my brother, my sister. Though you're weak, Christ is
strong. Though you're unstable as water,
God is faithful. Though you're tempted, he's made
a way of escape for you, and that way of escape is the same
one who was your way of escape in the beginning, Christ the
Lord. Though you sin, his blood cleanses us from all sin, and
he will forgive. Though you fall, he will raise
you up. And though you fall again, he'll
raise you up again. And though you fall a thousand
times a day, he will raise you up a thousand times a day. Our
God declares, I will not depart from them. And that proved it. Every hour
of every day for 40 years, I will not depart from them. I'll tell
you one more thing it'll take. It takes resurrection glory. And the resurrection of our bodies
in the last day is just as essential to our soul's everlasting salvation
as the work of God the Holy Spirit in regeneration and the work
of Christ at Calvary and the work of the triune God in eternity,
just as necessary. For it is written, mortality
shall be swallowed up of life one of these days soon. This
mortal shall put on immortality. And this corruption shall put
on incorruption. And I will see my Redeemer with
these eyes for myself in all his glory. Oh, may God give you
grace now to believe his son unto life everlasting. Amen.