I invite you to turn back in
your Bibles this morning to the book of 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4. And I want to read verse 6 down
through verse 8. I want this morning, if I can,
to preach on a subject that I feel is one that is very needful.
I feel that all of us need this. And certainly there's no exceptions,
especially among the living family, the people of God. I want to
talk about assurance. Assurance this morning, and the
assured hope that the Apostle Paul had. As Brother Randy mentioned,
this was the last letter of the Apostle Paul, and he was coming
down to the very end of his life. And he spoke these words with
assurance. and I'd like to read them. He
says, For I am now ready, verse 6, to be offered, and the time
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me
only. but unto all them also that love
is appearing. Now, in the words of our text
this morning, we see the Apostle Paul, I believe, looking in three
directions. First of all, he looks downward,
backwards, and then forward. Downwards, he looks to the grave,
because he's soon to die. Now, he had been spared were
told that he had been delivered out of the mouth of the lion,
the last part of verse 17, which shows that he had been spared
for a while after he had been convicted and after he was sentenced
to death. He was delivered for a while
and was not immediately executed so that he might be able to go
on and to preach the gospel and look after the Lord's work the
best he could, being in his position. So he was looking downwards to
the grave. He said in verse 6, I'm now ready
to be offered. I am now ready to be offered
and the time of my departure is at hand. I'm about ready to
leave this world. And I say this because I won't
be around long. And I'm about ready, my time
has about run out in this world, and I am going to be moving up. I'm going to be going upward
unto eternal glory, up on high. But he looks backward to his
ministry, and he looks forward to that great day when the Lord,
the righteous judge, would give him a crown of righteousness,
a crown that is due unto perfect righteousness. The Apostle Paul
knew that he was righteous in Christ. He said, in my flesh
there dwells no good thing, nothing good about me, but In Christ
I am right. He said Christ has been made
unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And not to him only, he says,
is this crown due righteousness going to be given, not to me
only, but also them that love his appearing. Now we believe
in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do, and what a great
joy it brings to our hearts to think about that He that shall
come will come and will not tarry. And this same Jesus, whom you've
seen taken up into glory, that He shall come again in like manner.
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. We want that the Lord Jesus would
come back. And Paul said, although all those
that love His appearing, there awaits them the same crown that
awaits me, we all being justified through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ, then, beloved, we all await that day of Christ's
coming when we shall receive this crown. Happy is that soul
who can look where Paul looked and speak as Paul spoke. Happy
is that soul that comes down to the end, and they know that
the time is short, but they can speak as Paul did. He looks downward
to the grave, and he does it without fear. He does it without
fear. He knows that the Lord Jesus
Christ has taken the sting out of death. He knows that Christ,
that he pulled the stinger out of death and that Jesus went
into the grave and that he came out on the other side. He knows
that he knew that the grave was not the end. He knew that. He
knew there would come a resurrection of the body. Marvel not at this,
the hour is coming. When all those that are in the
graves will hear his voice, and they'll come forth, he knew and
believed in the doctrine of the resurrection, and he knew of
a certainty that Jesus had been resurrected, because he talked
with him. He had a conversation with him
on the road to Damascus, don't you remember? The Lord spake
to him, and Paul said, Well, who art thou, Lord? And he said,
I'm Jesus. I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting.
He knew that Jesus had been crucified, he'd been buried, but now he
was sure that he'd been resurrected. And so Paul didn't only believe
in it as a doctrine, he believed in it as an experience. He knew
that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and that he also would
be raised from the dead. Well, I want you to hear what
he says now. I'm now ready, he says, to be
offered. The time of my departure is at hand. Writing what he well
knows here, as we've mentioned, will be the last letter he'll
ever write. Now brethren, men usually show us, I believe, as
to what lies at the bottom of their heart when they have come
to die. When they come to die, they generally
express what it is that really is their heart, that has filled
their heart and occupied their mind and thoughts. Often their
last words have been indicative of their entire character. So
it is with Paul. He is trusting in Jesus Christ. He is anxious to show his love
for the Lord Jesus by dying for his cause. He's very anxious
to do that. The welfare of the church and
the advancement of the holy cause of the gospel are uppermost now
in his mind. He has been telling young Timothy
to preach the word and to be instant in season and out of
season. And he's been saying, watch thou
in all things. He says, endure afflictions and
do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry. And so he's interested in the
work of the Lord. Now it's a very beautiful thing,
I think, to observe the way in which Paul describes his death
here in verse 6. According to our translation,
he speaks of it as being an offering. I am now ready, he says, to be
offered. Now, if we accept this version,
he may be supposed to mean that he felt as one standing like
a bullock or a lamb ready to be offered or laid on an altar,
if we take our version to mean that. And he foresaw that he
would die a martyr's death. He would not die like Peter,
he believed that he was going to die by the sword. He believed
that his head would be severed from his body by the sword, and
it was. So he was waiting for the sacrificial
knife to be used, that he might be presented as a sacrifice. So our translation would lead
us to think, but the original, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar,
neither am I a Greek scholar, but the original I think is helpful,
and he likes himself, he likens himself here, not to a bullock
or to a lamb, but because he himself knows that the offering
is Christ. that the offering, the sacrifice.
You know, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, he said that even Christ,
our Passover lamb, is sacrificed for us. He knew that Christ was
that offering that was a sweet-smelling savor in the nostrils of a holy
God. He knew that, and he understood
that. And so he says, I'm not the offering,
but I'm, as it were, the drink offering. Every Jew would know
what that meant, and he was the drink offering that was sometimes
added to the main sacrifice. When there was a burnt sacrifice
offered, the bullock of the victim then slammed was the main part
of the sacrifice, but sometimes there was a little supplement
added to that sacrifice, a little oil and a little wine were poured
on the altar over the bullock, and so a drink offering was said
to be added to the burnt offering. Now to Paul, Christ is, so to
speak, the sacrifice on the altar, and he likens himself only to
that little wine and oil that is poured out as a supplement
Not necessary to the perfection of the sacrifice, but as it were
tolerated in performing a vow or allowed in connection with
a free will offering. Now the drink offering was a
kind of addendum by which a person who gave it showed his thankfulness. So Paul is resolved here to show
his thankfulness to Christ, the great sacrifice, and he is willing
that his blood be poured out as a drink offering on the altar,
where his Lord and Master was the great burnt offering. He
rejoices when he could say, I'm ready. I'm ready to be presented
as a drink offering unto God. And then he says, the time of
my departure is at hand. I'm like a ship about to unmoor
and put to sea. All on board is ready. Brother,
sister, these are glorious words to come from the lips of a child
of Adam like ourself. Glorious words. I'm ready. I'm ready. Are you ready to die?
Are you ready to make your exodus from this world? Are you ready
to leave this world at a moment's notice? Are you ready, my friend? Are you ready? Words to come
from the lips, I say, of a child of Adam like ourselves. You know,
we're all sinners, and none of us know anything about eternity
as of yet, except what we've read in the Word of God and what
God has given us a solid faith to believe about eternity and
about the life to come. Death is a solemn thing, and
never so much so as when we draw near to it ourselves. the nearer
you draw to it yourself, it'll become a much more solemn thing. You can read about people dying,
and you can read about various accidents, so-called, that takes
people out of this world, and it may affect you to some degree,
but, beloved, when you come near yourself, then it becomes a very
solemn thing. The grave is a chilling, heart-sickening
idea, and it's vain to pretend that it's not so. It's vain to
pretend it's not so when the only victory that we can have
in this world over the grave and over death is the victory
of faith. the victory of faith. We must
believe what the Word of God teaches, what it says. And if
we believe what it says, we shall get the victory, and our hearts
will be filled with thoughts about what God says about it,
and our thoughts will be God's thoughts toward it, and it will
not be our thoughts or the solemn thoughts of men, but it'll be
the thoughts what the Word of God has planted in our very souls. I say to you, We must get a firm
grip on what the Word of God teaches about this solemn event
of death. Now, yet here's a mortal man,
the Apostle Paul. You can look calmly. He can look
calmly into that narrow house that is appointed for all living.
And it's true. If you're living this morning,
you're going to die. You will die, sure, as you're
breathing. Once you're set to breathing,
death becomes absolutely certain, my friend, for you. That narrow
house, that grave, will come to everyone that is living. And I say this morning, here's
this man looking at this house appointed for all living, and
say, he sees it all. And he says, I'm not afraid.
I am ready to be offered. Listen to him. I fought a good
fight, he said. I fought a good fight. I fought
that good battle with the world of flesh and the devil from which
so many shrink back. I fought a good fight. I finished
my course. I finished my course. I served
the will of God in my generation and in my time. I served God. I was a spokesman for God across
the Gentile world in the days when God left me here in this
world. I've run the race, marked out
for me, however rough and steep was the way. I've not been turned
aside. I have stayed the course. I have
stayed in the way. I have kept the faith. He speaks
as a steward. He says, I've held fast, as it
were, the gospel that which was committed to my trust. I've not
mingled it with man's tradition, nor spoiled its simplicity by
adding my own notions. nor allowed others to adulterate
the gospel without withstanding them to the very face, as he
did Peter on one occasion. The Apostle Paul had been truthful
and faithful to the gospel. Now the Christian is happy, who
when he comes to die can leave such a testimony behind him,
Amen. Would you not say amen to that?
If you could leave that kind of testimony, I think you'd be
ready to go too, wouldn't you? Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. Now I know a good conscience
is not going to save any man. It's not going to wash away not
one sin. It won't lift us one inch towards
heaven. Yet a good conscience, a good
conscience I say will be found to be a very pleasant visitor
at our bedside in a dying hour, a good conscience that we've
served the Lord, that we've been faithful the best we knew how
to be unto Him. Well, Paul would say, my work
is over, this one thing remains for me to look forward to, this
one thing. I'm being offered as a drink
offering unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at this hope that
he has. He speaks without any hesitation
or distrust. He regards the crown as a sure
thing, as his own already. Now, this is wonderful. Here
is unaltering confidence. Now, Paul was no stranger to
all the criticisms and the circumstances. He was no stranger to the circumstances
of that great day to which he referred, that time when he was
going to stand before the Lord. He was not in any way in ignorance
about it. The great white throne, the assembled
world, the open books, the revealing of all secrets, the listening
angels, the awful sentence, the eternal separation, all these
were things with which he was well acquainted. Paul knew all
about these things. But none of these things make
him hesitate a one moment. His faith saw Christ as his all-prevailing
advocate and the blood of sprinkling for the remission of his sins. A crown, he talks about, a crown,
he says, is laid up for me. The Lord shall crown the righteous
with everlasting life and glory. The Lord's going to do it. The
Lord Himself shall give it to me. He shall give it to me. I
will not earn it, I cannot buy it, but the Lord will give it.
That's grace. Anytime you see the word give,
that's grace, my friend. I want this morning, for the
remaining time, to talk to you about this one point. And this
one point is about Paul's assured hope. He looks forward to his
own prospects in the day of judgment. I ask to you this morning to
listen to what I have to say for the next few moments, and
then ask yourself the question, how shall it fare with you, my
friend? How shall it fare with you when you go before the Lord?
Well, first of all, I'll try and show that the hope that Paul
expresses is a true and a scriptural thing. It's a true and a scriptural
thing. Assurance, as it is expressed
here by Paul, is not a mere fancy. Now, I know there's a lot of
confused people in this world. I know there is. I saw the other
day where there was 70 million people. over, I believe it was
in India somewhere, that were going out into a huge body of
water and dipping themselves in order to get their sins washed
away to have eternal life. By the way, they said if you
could fax them a picture of yourself, somebody would take it out there
and dip it in the water, and you too would have your sins
forgiven, and you would have eternal life. Now that's ignorance,
my friend. You call it whatever you want
to, you say, well, sincerity is what that is. while those
people are sincerely wrong. They're wrong. Nobody gets saved
that way. I know there's a lot of people
that wants to have assurance. They'd like to know for sure
that their sins are forgiven. They'd like to know for sure
that their sins are pardoned and that there's nothing between
them and a thrice holy God. They'd love to know that. They'd
like to know it. Now you listen to what I'm telling
you here this morning. This is not a fancy or a feeling
that Paul has here. It's based on solid facts, the
facts of the Word of God. It's not the result of a good,
healthy constitution or of an animal spirit. It is a positive
gift of the Holy Spirit, bestowed without reference to men's health
or constitution, and it's a gift which every believer in Christ
should seek after. Every believer in Christ should
seek to have assurance in their soul that they know the Lord,
that they're saved. The Word of God plainly teaches
that a believer can have assurance as to his own salvation. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that? I state it plainly, I can say
no more, and certainly I can say no less. that a true believer
in Christ can reach that comfortable degree of faith, that in general
he shall feel confident as to the safety and the forgiveness
of his own soul, and he shall seldom be troubled with doubt,
seldom be distracted with hesitations, seldom be distressed with anxious
questions, seldom be alarmed about his own state. He can reach
that particular state. Now he may have many an inward
conflict with sin, but he will look forward to death like Paul
without trembling and to judgment without dismay. For me to live
is Christ, Paul said, and to die is gain. Now this statement
would be rejected by many in the religious world as being
plain rubbish and a bunch of foolishness. But I say to you
that a believer should strive to come to that place where they
have an unsettled, where they have a settled heart, get rid
of all that condition wherein they feel that they're in one
day and out the next. They should be laboring to study,
to know the Word of God, and to know it well enough to know
where they stand. It offends and annoys many in the religious
world. They do not like others to feel
comfortable. Now that may surprise some of
you. that there are people in the religious world that don't
want people to feel comfortable. They would like that people would
go around like they are and never feel any comfort or assurance
in their soul, because these people themselves have no assurance
they don't want anyone else to have. They consider it to be
presumption to have assurance. They seem to think that it is
scriptural humility to live in a certain state of doubt, that
that is scriptural humility, and it's not so. Now, brethren,
there has never yet been a scriptural truth that has not been abused
or been imposed upon and counterfeited. I know that, and I think most
of you know that. There will be counterfeits as
long as the world stands. The tares will grow with the
wheat. But mark it down, hope like Paul's
is a scriptural thing. My answer to all who deny the
existence of real, well-grounded assurance is simply this. Look
at the Word of God. Look at the Word of God. If it
cannot be found there, then I'm out of business, I've got no
sermon, and I have not a word to say any further, if this is
not substantiated by the Word of God. But does not Job say
in Job 19, 25-26, I know that my Redeemer liveth? and that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Does not David in
Psalm 23 and 4, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil, for with me thy rod and thy staff
they comfort me. Is not the feet of the saints,
are they not preserved? forever are not the Lord's people
kept? Isaiah says, thou wilt keep him
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he
trusteth in thee. And again, the work of righteousness
shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness,
and assurance forever. Isaiah 32 and verse 17. Paul says in Romans 8, 16, the
Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God. And to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians
5-1, we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, that we have a building of God and a house not made with
hands that is eternal in the heavens. And to Timothy in 2
Timothy 1-12, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against
that day." He speaks to the Colossians in Colossians 2.2 of the full
assurance of understanding, and to the Hebrew of the full assurance
of faith and hope, Hebrews 6, 11, and 22. And in John, it says in 1 John
3 and 14, we know that we have passed from death unto life,
and these things I have written unto you in John 5 and 13, that
believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that
you have eternal life. Now, beloved, these verses that
we've given you are what we must believe. And we must study them,
we must think upon them, we must become well grounded in the truth
of them and established in the truth of them. We must believe
them with all of our hearts. I remember reading a story about
a young fellow who was I think 10 years old and he had been
saved and he had heard about 1 John chapter 5 verse 13 and
verses right before that. where it said if we believe the
witness of God or the witness of men, the witness of God is
greater. If you believe what men tell
you, the witness of God is greater. And you ought to believe what
God says. And this is what God says. This is my record, God
says, eternal life. And this life is in my Son. And he that hath the Son hath
life. And he that hath not the Son
of God doesn't have life. Doesn't have life and then he
said these things have I written unto you that believe On the
name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal
life. Well this young fella got a hold
of that truth and He went to bed at night one night and the
devil was harassing him about this no soul salvation business
and the devil was telling him and of course the devil never
kicks a dead horse and I've told you that before, but he never
does. If he kicks you, it's because you're alive. And so the devil
was tormenting him over this. So this young fella, he got up,
turned the light on, got his Bible, opened it up to this verse
of Scripture, 1 John 5, verse 13, and he believed that the
devil was under his bed. So he took the Bible, stuck it
under the bed, and he said, there, devil, read it for yourself. Read it for yourself. And my
friend, let me tell you something, read it for yourself. Listen
to what The Bible plainly states this truth. And again, he says,
we know that we are of God and the whole world, life and wickedness,
1 John 5 and 19. We know we are of God. Now, Lord,
how did these brethren know these things? They knew them because
the Lord by the Spirit had burnt them into their soul. And they
knew it because God's revelation to their hearts. Now in these
verses I see the language of persuasion. I see the language
of confidence. I see the language of knowledge. I see the language of certainty. Do you not? If the Word of God
can be trusted, then assurance is scriptural. My friend, I come
back to this. Our warrant is the Word of God.
There's nothing else worth believing. Feelings come and feelings go.
But our warrant is the Word of God. And you need to trust in
the Living Word and to read it, reread it until you know it by
heart. Beloved, it cannot be wrong to
feel confident in a matter where God speaks unconditionally. It cannot be wrong, I say. We
must believe decidedly when God speaks. Decidedly! We must believe
decidedly. We lean on the Word of God and
on the Mediator of the New Covenant. We lean on it. Oh my soul, we
lean on it. Our security, listen, security
is our nearness to God. It's not our distant from danger. Oh, yes, there's many, many dangers,
many, many pitfalls, but our security is in the Lord, is in
the Lord, and we need to believe that, and we need to lean upon
the Word of God, and if you lean upon it, Then you'll have comfort,
and you'll be established. And if you don't lean on it,
then my friend, you will not. We believe Christ means what
he says. In the verses that Kent quoted this morning, I give unto
my sheep eternal life. They shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave
to me is greater than all no man. No man can pluck them out
of his hand. We believe that. And we believe
Christ meant exactly what he said. Assurance is after all
no more than faith that grasps the promises of Christ with both
hands, a faith that argues like the good centurion. If the Lord,
speak the word only, Lord, speak the word only, Lord, and I'm
healed. I'm healed. Speak the word only. If God says it, depend upon it.
Paul was the last man in the world. that would build his hope
on anything of his own. The last man in the world. In my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. To will is present. How to perform
that which is good? Fine not. Paul didn't have anything
in him. He cut out the same piece of
cloth you are. The gifts of God made him what he was. He was
made what he was. God made him what he was. Manner
of thing is nothing more than what God makes him. Build your
hope, my friend, not on anything you've done, but on what Christ
has done, and you'll come to solid assurance. He said, I'm
the chief of sinners. That's what he said about himself.
I told you before, he wasn't being pious, and I told you that
he just wasn't trying to fill up space with words. He was telling
the truth. I am the chief of sinners. But he believed that we're sin
abounded. Do you believe it? Grace. does
much more abound. Grace did much more abound. He had a deeper sense of the
length and breadth of Christ's righteousness than of his own
sin. And you've got to have it, my
friend, if you're going to have any assurance. You've got to
believe, listen to me, have a deep sense of the length and the breadth
of Christ's righteousness, more so than of your own guilt and
sin. that a believer could not, listen
to me, listen to me, and I know that some of you will have to
chew this, will have to chew on it, but Paul believed that
a believer could not commit a sin that could unsave him. He believed that a man could
not commit a sin that would ever unjustify him. He believed that
a man could not commit a sin that would thwart the eternal
purpose of a sovereign God to have all of his children home
in glory at the end. That's what he believed. And
when you get the truth of the grace of God and the gospel rightly
fixed, and know something about the breadth and the length of
the righteousness of the Son of God, it being, it being, it
being put to our account. Hallelujah. Listen to me. You'll
be able to stand firmly there on your God and on the truth
of your God that a believer must stand. He had a clear view of
that fountain that was filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's
veins, that was open for sin and uncleanness. He had a clear
view of it. And to be able to speak words like these in our
text, you've got to see it too, my friend, that Jesus Christ
has cleansed you from all sin. He knew he was weak, but he believed. The Word of the Lord. They shall
never perish. They shall never perish. You
know, in Hebrews 13, the verses that our brother quoted back
here this morning, those are wonderful. But you know, the
Lord said, He has said, Paul said. Paul said, He has said. Did you get that? He has said,
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Now you see, it
all depends on who's doing the saying. Is that right? Who's
doing the saying? If it's God doing the saying,
He has said, I will never leave thee. I preached a sermon on
that one time. He has said, He has said, I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee. Ah, my friend. Makes you feel
sometimes like you'd like to be a 25 again. If you just could
have all of this. in your heart. Would to God I
would have known when I was 25 what I know now. I would have
probably been jumping over these chairs and back and forth all
running around these buildings. I done a little jumping when
I was young. Jumping on the front pew and stuff like that. But
I mean, I know that perspiration is not inspiration. I know that. But I'll tell you what, you get
excited about some of these things. And we ought to. We ought to.
He has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. And I understand that in the
original it was three times. I will never, never, never leave
thee nor forsake thee. I won't do it. I won't do it. He remembered the word and the
work and the intercession of him that loved him and gave himself
for him. So he says boldly, a crown is
laid up for me, a crown of righteousness. The Lord will crown, give the crown that's due righteousness. The righteous judge is going
to give that. You see, the righteous judge
is God Almighty, and he won't give it to anybody not as just
as Christ is. See, you've got to be as righteous
as Christ to go to heaven. You can't go unless you're as
righteous as Christ. The only way you can get into
heaven is to be as righteous as the Lord Jesus Christ. And
God makes all believers righteous as Christ. And there's a crown
due perfect righteousness. That's what Paul was saying.
He's going to give me this crown, the righteous judge. He's got
to do it. Based on the fact that Christ
is my righteousness, the Lord will do it. The Lord will do
it. The Lord will do it. Well, let me ask this question.
Is it possible that a person may be saved and yet not have
this depth of assurance that Paul had? Well, I don't want
to disturb anybody, any weak soul in any way. I'm not here
to try to rob anybody of anything. But I know that there are people
that are saved that don't have this depth of assurance. And
I want to tell you that I sympathize with you. And that I know that
it's possible that all God's children have faith, but not
all have disassurance. Not all have it. Listen, I told
you here the other day, a few, I don't know how many Sundays
back, that you could have confidence in thin ice and get out on it
and drown. Or you could have little confidence in thick ice
and get out on it and be secure. I'm telling you, God must be
trusted. And if you trust the Lord, you're
secure. in the Lord, if you trust the
Lord. An old writer said, a letter
may be written which is not sealed. So grace may be written in the
heart, yet the spirit may not set the seal of assurance to
it. A child may be born heir to a
great fortune, and yet never be aware of his riches, may live
childish, die childish, and never know the greatness of his possessions.
I read a story one time about a boy that had went astray, and
he was on Skid Row. And his father had looked every
place for him for years, for 20 years. His father was a wealthy
man and had a terminal illness and was ready to die. And he
was going to find that boy, if at all possible, and give him
everything that he had. And so he looked for that boy,
and he even went down Skid Row various large cities and just
live like they did thinking that one day he might find that boy. He'd like to tell him, you know,
that he was going to give him everything he had. So one day
he was sitting along with some others and there was a fellow
came up and tapped him on the shoulder behind. He turned around
and looked. It was his boy. He said, I've
been looking for you for 20 years. Here you are asking me for a
dime. I've been looking for you 20 years to give you everything
I've got. And I want to tell you, my friend, God would have
you know that if you're a believing sinner, that everything He has
for sinners, He'll give to you in His Son. Everything He'll
give to you in Christ. You say, well, won't I have to
do this or be that or be something else? No, my friend. If you have
Christ, you have all God has for a sinner. Everything God
has for a sinner, you've got it in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, so however weak your faith
may be, it saves. Christ is the object of faith. Faith saves, my friend. Well, I'd like to say there's
no degrees in justification. You're either justified or you're
not. It's not a question of whether you're saved or not saved, but
privilege or no privilege. It is not a question of peace
or no peace, but of great peace or little peace. You know, I'm
going to hurry up here and finish, but old Roland Hill, the Welch
preacher, he was fond of John 5.24, and he would often quote
John 5.24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my
word, and believeth on him that sent me hath, H-A-T-H, he'd spell
it out in his peculiar vernacular, H-A-T-H, half, and you would
say that means that we've got it, that we've got it, we've
got everlasting life, we've got eternal life. I read sometime
back about when they built the Golden Gate Bridge out in San
Francisco, and when it was under construction, several workmen
had lost their lives by falling from great heights. And the work
was proceeding much too slowly till someone came up with the
idea of building a net under the construction area. Then anybody
that would fall would not fall to his death, but would be caught
in the net. So a giant safety net made out
of stout cord was made, swung under the construction work.
This was back during the Depression. And there was a lot of people
out of work, so many people standing around waiting for a job that
when somebody fell, they could fill the position just right
now. But still, the work was proceeding so very, very slow. So this giant net was made at
a cost of approximately $100,000 in those days. And the work then
proceeded at a much faster rate because the men knew that if
they slipped, their lives would be spared. And they could work
without dread of uncertainty. Now there's a great truth to
this, beloved. Listen to me. We have security
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we must come to know that
we have that security. When we're in His care, We dare
to attempt big things in the name of the Lord. We dare to
be holy. We dare to be obedient. We dare
to serve because we know the eternal arms of God will hold
us if we fall. We know that it will. And listen,
people that believe that you can be lost after you're saved,
useless in the service of God. The only people that are worth
their salt are people that know, know of a certainty that God
has saved them and that they have underneath the everlasting
arms of the Lord and that they're being kept by the Lord, kept
in his care. Well, let me read this poem,
and it was a blessing to me, and then I'm done. More secure
is no one ever. than the loved ones of the Savior.
Not your star on high abiding, nor the bird in home nest hiding. God his own doth tend and nourish,
in his holy courts they flourish. Like a father kind he spares
them, in his loving arms he bears them. Neither life nor death
can ever from the Lord his children sever. For his love and deep
compassion comforts them in tribulation. Little flock to joy, then yield
thee. Jacob's God will ever shield
thee. Rest secure with this defender. At his will all foes surrender. What he takes or what he gives
us shows the Father's love so precious. We may trust his purpose
wholly tis his children's welfare solely." I like those words. They were a real blessing to
me as I reflected upon them, and I hope that the Lord will
be pleased to grant unto each one of you an appetite. Maybe
I've stirred you up just a little bit to where you begin to look
to the Word of God, and as these young people And I tell you,
this is a joy and I cannot begin to tell you how it rejoices my
heart to see these young people get acquainted with the Word
of God. You must do it and believe it,
my friend. Pray always that God will give
you a faith to believe what you read, what you study, and what
you're meditating upon. That God will give you the faith
to, as we said, lay hold of it with both hands. That you'll
be able to grip it and hold to it because that's where my friend
you get strength and that's where you get confidence and boldness
to stand and be faithful unto your God. Father in the name
of Jesus we thank you for your word and Lord we just ask that
though the message has been feebly presented that it might bear
fruit. Oh Lord that there would be those
who would begin to believe quit looking at themselves and despairing,
but would look away, look away from themselves, and look yonder
on Mount Calvary, where the Lord Jesus did and completed the work
of salvation. And would they ever look to Him?
Oh, would they ever look outside of themselves? So many of us
just are caught daily looking inside, looking to find something
in ourselves. Oh Lord, Oh Lord, help us to
look away unto Jesus and fully trust in his finished work. Bless,
we ask, each one that has come out today, whatever be their
particular need. Lord, bless them. We ask it in
Jesus' name. Amen.