None but Jesus, none but Jesus
can do helpless sinners good. I'm here today, I believe as God's ambassador
to your soul, and I'm calling you to faith in Christ. I'm not calling you to make a
religious decision. I'm not calling you to come join
this church. I'm calling you to faith in the
Son of God. Calling you to bow to Christ
the Lord. To surrender your life to Him. Acknowledging Him. as your Lord,
as your rightful Master, as God your Savior. I'm calling for
consecration, devotion to the Son of God. That's what faith is. That's not the highest level
of faith, that's what faith is. Some years ago I read a book,
a very emotionally stirring book. In some ways it had some good
things in it. It was called Absolute Surrender. But the very crux of the book
was denial of everything the gospel teaches about faith in
this regard. It suggests throughout every
proposition in it That a man or a woman might believe on the
Son of God and not surrender to Christ, absolutely. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Believers, in the depths of their
souls, absolutely surrender to the Son of God. I did not say
perfectly surrender. That's not going to happen. Not
while we live on this earth. but absolutely, holding back
nothing. We confess our sin, absolutely,
holding back nothing. I mean by that, we confess and
acknowledge to God what we are and the totality of our being.
And when we speak of absolutely surrendering to Christ, I'm saying
the Word of God teaches, the Book of God clearly demonstrates,
as I'll show you this morning, that faith doesn't exempt anything
from the dominion of Christ. Trust in the Lord with all your
heart. and all thy ways acknowledge
him, and he shall direct thy paths." There is something else
in that passage. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. But there's a Is it really safe? Is it really
wise? Is it really prudent so to trust
Jesus Christ? Is it really, really smart to
trust the Lord God Almighty in all things and for all things? Is it really Prudent to trust
Him with all your heart. I know this, faith in Jesus Christ
is nothing less than the willing, deliberate, voluntary, continual
surrender of my very life to the rule and dominion of the
Son of God as my Lord. It is trusting Christ alone for
my salvation by all means. Trusting him alone as my sin-atoning
substitute, certainly. It is trusting him alone as all
my righteousness before God, certainly it is that. It is trusting
Christ alone to keep me and to keep me safe forever and bring
me at last by his almighty grace into everlasting glory. But the
Lord Jesus Christ is more than a fire escape from hell. Salvation
is indescribably more than the hope of going to heaven when
we die and having eternal life. Often we speak of the Lord saving
our souls. Oh, may the Lord save your soul.
He won't do it. He won't do it. The Lord Jesus
Christ did not die at Calvary to save your soul or mine. No, sir. He doesn't save souls,
Rex. He saves sinners. Lock, stock,
and barrel. Body, soul, and spirit. He will either have all of you
or none of you. He will save you, all that you
are, or he will damn you forever, all that you are. That's not the way I've always
heard it. You've always heard it wrong. The Lord Jesus Christ
demands that we trust him with the rule and government of our
lives, that we commit, consecrate, and devote our lives to him and
to him alone. Turn one more time, if you will,
to Mark's Gospel. Mark's Gospel, Chapter 8. The Son of God demands absolute
surrender in the city of man's soul. Man by nature is enmity against
God. The natural man in the very core
of his being hates God Almighty and hates the fact that he's
God. And so in preaching the gospel, we confront sinners with
the claims of the sovereign Christ and demand that you bow. And
he will not, he will not, he will not take you, except you
raise up the white flag of surrender to him. I never will forget,
back in 1971, I went out to Appomattox, Virginia,
preaching in a Bible conference out there, and I had the privilege
The humbling privilege of visiting Appomattox Courthouse, for you
who are not that much aware of history, that's the place where
Mr. Lee signed the truce of surrender to the armies of the North. There's
a picture hanging on the wall, a picture of the signing of the
surrender, Grant and Lee sitting at the table, their officers
around them, but there's another The rebel troops, as they were
called, the Confederate soldiers, Lee's Army, is standing on two
sides of the road going to Appomattox Courthouse. And they don't have any weapons.
They don't have any sword. They don't have any rifle. They don't have any powder horns. All their weapons are stacked
in front of them. as the armies of the north riding
between them. It's called surrender. And the
one who makes the terms of surrender is the one who conquers. That's
just the way it is. These are God's terms for surrender. Bow. Stack your weapons and surrender. to his son as your Lord." Our
Lord says this in Mark 8, verse 34. This is what it is we reconcile
to God. When he called the disciples
to him, he said to them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself, That's not talking about deny yourself of the fish on
Friday or whatever it is that you choose to deny yourself of.
That's not talking about giving up eating raw asparagus for Lent. That's not talking about that.
That's religious nonsense. What's it talking about? Deny
any claim to yourself. Ain't nobody topside of God's
earth going to do that unless it's conquered by grace. Deny
yourself, and take up your cross and follow me. For whosoever
will save his life shall lose it, and for whosoever will lose
his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall have
it. I'm calling on you and on myself
this hour to give up ourselves to Christ. to believe on the
Son of God, to acknowledge that we are His lock, stock, and barrel,
and calling for us to devote ourselves this day forward as
His servants, to devote life, our entire life, all my family,
all my time, all my talents, all my money, all of everything,
to devote my life to the service and kingdom and glory of Jesus
Christ the Lord. Anything less is a mockery of the claim of
faith in Christ. In our baptism, I see it's been now 36 years, I confessed to the world and
to God, Don Fortner is dead, and Don Fortner is buried. And Don Fortner has been raised
up from the dead by the power of God through the blood and
righteousness of Christ, his hope to live forever unto him. That's all. That's all. Perhaps you think, well, Pastor,
that sounds great. It seems to me that it's the
right thing to do. But it's just not practical.
It's just not reasonable. Surely the Lord doesn't expect
me to totally give myself to him. Surely he does not expect
anyone to trust him absolutely. Again I ask, is it really safe? Is it really wise to trust the
Lord? I can't stand here and tell you,
and I won't stand here and tell you that it is physically, mathematically,
economically, philosophically, safe and wise to trust the Son
of God. That which is demanded by God
Almighty can never be put in any kind of human scale or any
kind of human chart. In fact, I must honestly tell
you that in all earthly terms, In the light of all human reason,
faith in Christ is anything but reasonable. But I love what Martin Luther
said. He said the first thing faith does is to knock the brains
of reason out. You will never serve God by reason. You will never do the will of
God by calculating how you're going to do it. You will never
obey God by sitting down first and saying, now, let's see how
we're going to have the way to do this, how we're going to get
through this. Listen to our Savior's word in Matthew 6. You don't
need to turn there. When he calls for us to believe
God, to trust God, this is what he says. If the Lord God Almighty,
your Heavenly Father, watches over and feeds the sparrows,
so that not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's
knowledge, if the Lord God Almighty does that for birds that you
can buy two for a penny, don't you suspect he'll watch over
you? If the Lord God Almighty has numbered the very hairs of
your head, I mean has from eternity predestined the hairs of your
head at all times, don't you suppose he cares for you? If
he feeds and clothes the wild beast of the field, if he feeds
and clothes all things in creation, If he causes even the lilies,
just the wild lilies, to be arrayed in the splendor that you look
at them and they're just breathtaking, you say, oh, look at that. Which today are and tomorrow
are cut down and cast into the oven. Don't you suspect he'll
feed and close you? Isn't that reasonable? Isn't
that reasonable? Therefore, he says, now listen
to this, take no thought. No anxious thought, okay. However
you want to put it, you're not going to cut it away. Take no
thought saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink,
or wherewithal shall we be clothed, for this is what everybody in
the world lives for. After all these things do the
Gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things, but seek ye first. Seek this, and make everything
subordinate to this. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added
unto you. Therefore take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow
shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof. As Peter put it, humble yourselves
unto the mighty hand of God, casting all your care upon him,
for he careth for you. Can we really be expected to
do that? Can we really be expected to trust Christ first in everything? To put Christ first in everything? Not only is it expected, it's
demanded that we trust Him for everything, and put Him first
in everything. I don't suggest today, or imply,
or think that this trust is perfect. There is nothing in my soul,
nothing in my heart, nothing in my life over which I have
more reason to weep in bitter repentance than my unbelief. My highest faith would sink a
world to hell forever because it is so full of unbelief were
it not bathed in his blood and robed in his righteousness. But
this faith is universal. It is the abandonment of myself
to His will. The abandonment of my life to
His dominion. Faith is never perfect in us,
but true faith is that which trusts the Son of God in all things and for all things,
compelling us to surrender all things to His dominion. Now I
know what you're thinking. I know because I've been there. I know because I've been there
real recently. If I so trust Christ that I devote my entire
life to Him, if I trust Christ so that I devote the totality
of my life to His will. How can I live in this world?
How can I provide for my family? How can I exercise prudence as
a man responsible for things in this world? If I allow anything
to keep me from worshiping God and obey Him, if I refuse to allow anything
What will happen to my business? Who's going to take care of my
retirement? Is that really safe? Is that
really wise? Let's see. Turn to the book of
Exodus. Exodus chapter 34. Look at verse
23. I want you to look at it. That's just 3423. Thrice in the year, Passover,
Pentecost, Tabernacles. Thrice in the year shall all
your men, children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. Three times every year, God required
all the men in Israel, no matter where they lived, no matter what
possessions they had, no matter how many fields they possessed,
no matter how rich they were, no matter how important they
were, no matter how high up the social scales they climbed. God
required them all, three times a year, to abandon everything. I mean, flat out, abandon everything. Lock up your doors. Leave your
stores unattended. Leave the fields out there unattended.
Leave them alone. Just leave them. Don't do a thing.
But you leave everything, and no matter how long it takes you
to get there, no matter how difficult the journey, no matter how much
it costs you to get there, you go up to Jerusalem and worship
me for a week, three times a year. Well now, wait a minute. They're pagan neighbors. They're
gentile neighbors. They're heathen neighbors who
didn't fear God. And these students start mocking
the calendar. Old Bobby's going to leave that
house, and his wife, and all his equipment, and his farm,
this week. And he's going to be gone a week.
He's going to be gone a week. I knew he was going to be gone
a week. And this week, and this week. We can take it all. And there
won't be anybody there to resist us. If Bobby comes back, it'll
all be gone. We'll just take squadron rights
and it'll be ours. And Bobby Estes might, with reason, believe
that was what was going to happen. Growing up here to worship God,
putting Him first, obeying Him, believing Him, leaves me vulnerable
to the whims of all evil. And that would be a very reasonable,
very reasonable assumption, wouldn't it? It would be very reasonable.
Except for one thing. Verse 34. For I will cast out
the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders. Now watch
this. Neither shall any man desire
thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord
thy God thrice in the year." You mean, preacher? You mean, God? That you are such
a God? that even the ungodly pagan idolater
who lives only for covetousness won't bother my things when I
serve you? You got it. You got it. We have a similar
situation in our text, in Luke chapter 25. As you know, I travel a lot.
I used to leave faith and shoveling here a lot, out here on this hill. I leave shoveling here now a good
bit myself. And every now and then someone
will ask me, don't you worry about your family when you're gone? And I'll be honest with you.
If I were going fishing, I would. If I were going to spend a week
playing golf, I would. I know because I've been there.
But when I'm going on my father's business, no. No. No. No, I don't worry about
him. I don't worry about him. I'm going taking care of his
business. I'm just real confident, David, he'll take care of mine.
I'm just real confident. Here in Leviticus 25, in verses
1-7, the Lord has commanded that the children of Israel not go
one week three times a year, but he commands, Bobby, that
you neglect that farm and everything concerning it for one year, every
seven years. During that sabbatical year,
these Jews were not allowed to gather their crops from the previous
year. They were not allowed to plow their grounds and sow their
seeds for the next year. But rather they were required,
now for three years, to live upon God's bounty, trusting God
alone to feed them for three years. Without picking up the
axe. without picking up a hoe, without
picking up a turnpike, without picking up a handful of seed.
I mean they were to live on the provision of the 6th year, the
7th year, the 8th year, and the 9th year, and then the 10th year
they'd go get some more food. Is that reasonable? Is that safe? Let's see. Verse 18. Now read the text like it says.
Wherefore you shall, not you might, maybe you will, I hope
you will. Wherefore you shall, you shall do my statutes, and
keep my judgments, and do them, and you shall dwell in the lands
in safety, and the land shall yield her fruit. And you shall
eat your field, and dwell therein in safety. Isn't that amazing? Shall, shall, shall, shall, shall.
You, the lamb, shall, shall. How can you be sure? God said
it. Shall. They don't. And if you shall
say, what shall we eat the seventh year? Oh God, forgive our unbelief. What shall we eat the seventh
year? Behold, we shall not sow nor gather in our increase, then
I will. I will command my blessing upon
you in the sixth year. And it, that is the land, or
my blessing upon it, shall bring forth fruit for three years,
and ye shall sow the eighth year. and eat of the old fruit until
the ninth year, until her fruits come in, you shall eat the old
store." Now look at what God promises here. Here are three
promises. He gives assurance by these three
promises that they would lose nothing by believing Him. Lose nothing by keeping his statutes,
lose nothing by worshiping him, but rather regain greatly. First, he says, you shall dwell
in safety. You shall dwell in the land in
safety. That word safety doesn't only mean I'll keep you
safe. I promise you no physical harm
will come to you. While you are enjoying this Sabbath
year rest, not only will I keep you safe, but you will in your
soul be confident that you're safe. I'll keep you safe physically,
outwardly, and I'll keep you safe inwardly. And then he promises
them plenty. He says, now don't worry about
what you're going to eat. You shall eat your fill. You'll
get up every morning and eat everything you want. You say,
man, we're getting close to the end of this thing, now we're
going to have to start rationing out the beans. No, no, no. You'll
eat everything you want every day. You'll eat your fill. When
we're obedient to our Savior, obedient to the revealed will
of God, when we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
We may cheerfully and confidently trust Him. Oh, I can't tell you how this
reproves me. When we seek first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, we may cheerfully and confidently
trust Him to provide for us everything we need all the time. My God shall supply, anybody
know what it says? All your need, according to His
riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And then the Lord promised that
they would not lack provision for doing that year, or during
all of that year, in which they neither sowed nor reaped. He
says, I'll command the blessing in the sixth year. You're not
lacking a thing. In other words, the Lord says, now, you worship
me, you believe me, you trust me, you follow me, you do what
I say. You do what I say and I promise
you a standing miracle. I promise you a standing supernatural
work of my providence that no man can explain. In the sixth
year That land that you've been plowing
and tilling and fertilizing and hoeing and weeding, that land
that you've been busting your back trying to get to raise a
little bit of beans, that land every six years will bring forth
enough value for you to have everything you and your family
can possibly eat every day for three years. I promise you. Well, I wonder if we can believe
that. as surely as you can believe
God. What did he do for Israel in providing a banner? He commanded
them on the seventh day to rest. Seventh day, that's mine. Seventh day, you acknowledge
me. Seventh day, you give no word.
Seventh day, you identify yourself as my people, trusting me. Now,
six days, I want to give you a banner. Enough banner each
day for that day. But on the sixth day, I'm going
to give you enough manna for the seventh day too, so that
when you quit working, you'll still have all you need. He says,
I'll provide you with everything. Everything. Now all of this is intended to
be an encouragement from our God to you and me. He hereby
teaches us to put Him first. Confidently trusting Him. Casting
all our care upon Him. And assures us that nothing will
ever be lost by doing so. He says, them that honor Me,
I will honor. That's His promise. Back when Faith was a baby, I
was in college. And working, trying my best to
make ends meet, pay my college bills, take care of my family
on $2 an hour, working part-time and I couldn't do it. Just couldn't
do it. Turned out McLean Trucking Company
was hiring dock workers back in 1970. They paid $4.42 an hour. Wow! And so I went over and applied
for a job. At that time I was still 6'3",
weighed about 270 pounds and wasn't too much of it loose.
And the fellow looked at me, they should come to work tomorrow.
And they had a policy. All part-time help was required
to work every Sunday. And I've got a hungry child to
take care of. Wife to take care of. But I'm determined to worship
God. And I said to him, I can't work
on Sunday. He took the application and threw
it in the trash can. I said, now wait. I'll work any
hours you want me to work. Any shift you want me to work.
Except 7.30 in the morning until 12.30 Monday through Friday.
Sunday morning, worship time. Sunday night, worship time. I
can't be here. He said, you'll work anytime we call you. Anytime
you call me. You know what he did? He did
something he'd never done before. Hired me to not work on Sunday. How come? I'll cause the blessing
on that day. That's all. That's all. Now let
me show you five very important lessons, and I'll wrap this up. Our text speaks about the obedience
of faith, and teaches us that obedience arises from faith in
Christ. Verse 18. The Lord doesn't say
now, I recommend that you do my statutes. He says, you shall
do my statutes. You shall keep my judgments,
and do them, and you shall dwell in the land in safety." What
are these things? Go back and read the book of
Leviticus, particularly this twenty-fifth chapter. He's talking
about worshiping him. He's talking about serving him.
He's talking about surrendering the totality of your life to
him. In other words, he's talking about faith. You see, there is
no keeping of any of God's statutes. There is no obeying God. There
is no doing God's service. There is no serving Him except
by faith. This is His commandment. That
is, this one thing summarizes everything written in the law.
That we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. Throughout this book of Leviticus.
The Lord God calls for obedience, and he repeats his argument over
and over again, almost in every chapter, and sometimes several
times in a chapter. And he said, now this is why
you're doing this. This is why you must do this. And he repeats
it again, down in verse 55 of this chapter. Look at it. For unto me the children of Israel
are servants, slaves. But not the kind of slaves that
have been taken captive against their wills. The kind of slaves
that, man, I like it here. You're my bond slaves. They are
my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. I am
the Lord your God. In other words, here is the basis. Here is the motive. Here is the
inspiration for this obedience of faith. You're my servants.
I am your Savior. I brought you out of the land
of Egypt. I redeemed you with blood. I bought you and you're
mine. You're not your own, you're bought
with a price. And I'm God. I'm God. Now, I exercise my claim
over you through mercy. I exercise my claim over you
from the throne of grace. I exercise my claim over you
through the merits of my Son and the sacrifice of my love.
But don't you forget, I'm God, and I'll do with you what I will.
The Lord demands, then, that we constantly acknowledge that
He's God, and we belong to Him. Nothing we are, nothing we have
is exempted. All must be consecrated to Him. It's His right. Later on, the
very next verse, verse 23, the Lord says now with regard to
the land, a man may be sold into bondage and he may lose his heritage
for a while, but you shall not sell the land forever. What right does God have to tell
me what I can do with my acres? It's not your acres. The land
belongs to me. You're just a tenant. You're
just sitting over there by my goodness. Obedience to the will
of God is always costly. I promise you that. It always
causes problems. In the world you'll have tribulation.
It always requires, it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't
matter to Larry Brown whether he told him that you'd come in
here and worship with God this morning, or getting out on the lake and
go fishing this morning. Or whether he's talking about God calls
you to preach the gospel in that day. It doesn't matter what it
is. Obedience to the will of God.
always demands choices that have to be made. And sometimes the
choices are costly. But you know what? God still
demands obedience. He still demands obedience. And
he promises to take care of whatever problems arise as a result. We've proved it, haven't we? I haven't, through any art,
skill, or device of my own, provided so much as a piece of bread for
my family in over thirty years. And I don't recommend that you
do what I'm talking about, lest God put you where I am. I'm his
servant. And look at me. You'd think I
must be the skinniest fellow walking around. I haven't been
too hungry. I have on occasion had to wear
britches with the six of shining. I didn't dare turn around backwards,
but I still had britches on. Been doing fine. Been doing fine. Here's the second thing. We must
never allow the cares of this world. to keep us from the worship
of our God and obedience to Him. I don't care what the care is. God gave us one child. I love
her dearly. I want her to be happy. But her happiness is not going
to interfere with me worshiping God. Now when she's little and
now since she's grown. What she wants, now can they
feed me what she can die? I have a wife who dopes over
me. But her pleasure is not going
to interfere with me doing what I know God had me to do. Ever.
Ever. Not going to happen. Hasn't yet.
And by God's grace I'm resolved it's not going to happen. But
what is she? Well, we'll deal with that over
there in the living room. That's not going to happen. That's
not going to happen. Not going to happen. The care of the world and the
deceitfulness of riches choke out the word. Makes it unprofitable. For every man or woman I have
known in my experience, who has abandoned the worship
of God and the cause of Christ, chasing after somebody else,
adultery, or drunkenness, or theft, any of those things. For
everyone I've known, I can name ten, without thinking about it,
who have been gradually absorbed back into the world because something
with regard to the love of this world, came between them and
Christ. And saddest thing is, they don't
even know it. Don't have a clue. Because this
is what happened. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11, God
sent the world in their heart, and they can't find out His word. Look at this. The Lord promises,
he pledges his providence to protect and provide for us as
we seek to worship and serve him, as we seek to honor him
in this world. In verse 18, he says, you shall
dwell in the land in safety. Verse 19, The land shall yield
her fruit, and you shall eat your fill, and dwell in safety. Verse 21, Then I will command
my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth
fruit for three years. Oh, children of God, the Lord
our God has pledged His properties on
our behalf. Surely that should be enough
for every believing heart. Our Savior said, your heavenly
Father knoweth that you have need of these things. We have the privilege of having
Doug Babyson this week. if some catastrophe were to arise. And they stood in great need for anything that they couldn't
take care of. And I was aware of it. If I even
thought, they thought for a second I wouldn't take care of it, I'd
be hurting and I'd be spitting mad. I'll take care of it. Your father
knows your needs. Oh, how little we credit his
faithfulness. And then there's a terrible hindrance
of fear. Oh, how fear hinders our obedience
to God. What shall we eat seventh year?
But if I take my money and give it to support the missionary
down there, if I take my time and I run off to church every
time the doors open by, and I spend my efforts in the cause of Christ,
how am I going to provide for my families? You remember with
Zedekiah, you can read it in Jeremiah 38. Zedekiah, the limpish,
whining king of Judah, Jeremiah told him, he said, you go to
the king of Babylon. God will take care of you. Zedekiah said,
but I'm afraid of the Jews. Jeremiah said, you go, God will
take care of you. If you don't, you're going to suffer the consequences.
I'm afraid I can't do that. I can't do that. Eleven years
after it began raining, the Jews, sure enough, mocked him. Those
Jews who went with Nebuchadnezzar down into Babylon, and they plucked
out his eyes, and the king of Babylon took the city. Oh, God will provide for his
whole. What shall we eat? Look at this
assurance, verse 21. You will never be impoverished. You'll never suffer any loss.
I believe in God. Doing His bidding. Won't happen. Won't happen.