I invite you to turn this morning
your Bibles to the 12th chapter of the book of Acts. Acts chapter
12. I'd like to read to you this
morning the first 19 verses of this chapter. Acts chapter 12. Now about that time Herod the
king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.
And he killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. And because
he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter
also. Then were the days of unleavened
bread. And when he had apprehended him,
he put him in prison and delivered him to sixteen soldiers to keep
him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing
of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought
him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers
bound with two chains, and the keepers before the door kept
the prison. And behold, the angel of the
Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison, and he
smoked Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise
up quickly, and his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel
said unto him, gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals, and
so he did. And he saith unto him, cast thy
garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed
him, and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel,
but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first
and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth
unto the city, which opened to them of his own accord. And they
went out, and passed on through one street, and forthwith the
angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself,
He said, Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel,
and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all
the expectation of the people of the Jews. And when he had
considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother
of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together
praying. And as Peter knocked at the door
of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when
she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but
ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said
unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that
it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel. But Peter continued knocking,
And when they had opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. But he, beckoning unto them with
a hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought
him out of the prison. And he said, go show these things
unto James and to the brethren. And he departed and went into
another place. Now as soon as it was day, there
was no small stir among the soldiers what was become of Peter. And
when Herod had sought for him and found him not, he examined
the keepers and commanded that they should be put to death.
and he went down from Judea to Caesarea and there abode. I wanted to speak for a while
upon this passage of scripture this morning and then use some
other verses that I believe in the providence of God that I've
been led to to use this morning that might be a help and encouragement
to this church. Peter was kept in prison, we
read in verse 5, but prayer instant and earnest prayer was made unto
God for him. Now, Peter was in prison awaiting
his execution. The church had no earthly help. They had no earthly power nor
influence that they could exert whatsoever to save him from death. Herod had executed James, the
brother of John, and he was going to execute Peter. There wasn't
any question about it. But the church believed in the
power and the omnipotence of prayer. They believed that they
could pray down the blessing and help of God. And so they
had a prayer meeting. They gave themselves to fervent
and importionate prayer. asking that God would deliver.
And I tried to imagine the prayers that ascended up unto God in
that room on this evening when Peter, this was his last night
on earth, Peter was going to be executed the next morning.
And I can imagine, you see the people were very well acquainted
with Peter and they were in fellowship with him as a brother. They knew
his voice when he spoke. And they were very, very interested. They had a burden on their soul
for Peter. And can't you imagine that prayer
meeting? I can just imagine as one brother after another, as
one sister after another would plead with God that he would
spare Peter, that he would intervene, that he would come down and visit.
that jail, and that he would deliver Peter, that he would
do what they were not able to do, that he would come into that
prison and make a way for old Peter to escape. Now God sent
his angel, we read in verse 7, who aroused Peter from his sleep,
and he led him out through the first, the Bible says, through
the first and the second wards of the prison. And when they
came to the iron gate, that it opened of its own accord. and
Peter was free. Verse 10. There may be some iron
gate in your life this morning that has blocked your way. You
may feel this morning that you're in prison, you may not be chained
between soldiers like Peter was, but you may feel this morning
that you've come up against an iron gate, a great iron gate. And like a caged bird, maybe
you've often beaten against the bars, but instead of opening
up, you've had to fall back, very tired, very exhausted, and
sore at heart. The gate just will not open. It will not open. You've come
up against this iron gate. There is, I believe, a way to
get the gate to open. I believe in your life, my life,
and whatever our situation, our circumstances are, wherever we
be this morning, however we look upon this gate that seems to
be in our way in our life, whether it's a gate to personal victory
in our life, whether it be a gate that holds us back from going
forward in our Christian lives, whether it be a gate in our human
relationships that is making life difficult and trying, whatever
be our gate that's in front of us, I believe that there is a
way to get that gate to open. And that way, beloved, is believing
prayer. It's looking to God. It's crying
out to God. It's opening up of our hearts
unto the Lord. It's pouring out our souls and
unburdening our souls before the Lord. Now, I believe that
the gate will open of its own accord. You know, we think sometimes
that we gotta get a bar and that we'll have to some way or another
get a settling torch and cut the gate down. But the Lord will
deliver His people. Let us resolve that we shall
never look anywhere else but unto God for our deliverances.
Let us resolve that the gate will open of its own accord in
God's time. And whenever God is pleased,
the gate that is in our life that's obstructing us, it will
open, and it will open indeed. There is, I believe, a way that
the church can enter in and they can pray and they can seek God
on the behalf of the church itself. There are many times when we
know that there's a gate before us as a body, and we've struggled
with many things, and we've struggled with this and with that, but
as a church, We could see these gates taken down, we could see
them open before us. And I think when we pray, as
did the church in this case, that insurmountable difficulties
will disappear, that adverse circumstances will prove favorable
if we can pray with the faith of God. We read over in the book
of Mark, chapter 11, where it says Jesus spoke to his disciples
and he said, have faith in God, have faith in God, meaning have
the faith of God, believe God, trust God. And he said that if
a man would believe that he could say into this mountain, be thou
removed into the sea, be thou cast into the sea, and if he
doubted not in his heart, but believed, that he would have
what he asked for. And he went on to say in verse
24 that what thing soever a man desires when he prays, let him
believe that he receives them and he shall have them. So when
we come before God in believing prayer, I believe that we shall
have the desires of our heart. Now, first thing I'd like to
do this morning, there's some points of special interest to
me in this story, and I'd like to talk about them just a little
bit this morning. First of all, let me say we know
that Herod had slain James, the brother of John. And we know
that Peter now is in his custody. And God has allowed Peter to
fall into the hands of this wicked one and has allowed him in his
providence to be in this prison. And I'd like to say that if the
enemies of God, if the enemies of the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, if your enemy as a child of God, if they ever get a hold
of us, they will They will have no mercy upon us. Children of
God, we're living in a time when only God knows how much longer
we'll be able to move about, testify of the grace of God,
bear witness to the grace of God and to the pure gospel of
God's grace. Only God knows how long we're
going to have. There may come a time when we'll fall into the
hands of the enemies of God. And I'll tell you, they'll have
no mercy upon us. Peter was put into the strongest
prison in Jerusalem. And these 16 soldiers, six on
and six off and six on and six off, they were guarding this
man, and they had him in chains. One soldier on one side and one
on the other. He was chained, and I'll tell
you, there was no human way that he could escape. Now, Herod was
determined to kill him. He was so determined to kill
him that when God delivered Peter out of his hands, Herod was infuriated
to the point that he executed the 16 soldiers that was responsible
for his keeping in the prison. He meant to bring him out. The
Jewish people, they applauded him and they thought he did a
great thing when he had slain James, the brother of John, and
he said, I'm looking forward to the very minute when I can
take old Peter's head off of his shoulders and the people
will be elated and they'll be blessed and I'll be blessed because
I put Peter to death. And let me tell you this morning,
he was determined, was he not? He was determined. These men
were innocent. They couldn't help it. There
was a stupor came over them, and the chains fell off of Peter,
and he was delivered by the angel of God out of the prison. There
wasn't anything they could do about it. But Herod said, you're
responsible, and he took their life. Now then, the second thing. That's a point of interest to
me, beloved, because I want to impress upon you that if you
ever fall into the hands of the wicked, fall into the hands of
the world, they'll have no mercy upon you, and don't expect it.
Don't expect it. The second point of interest
is when a case is put into God's hand, He will certainly manage
it well, and He will intervene in sufficient time to bring His
people out. God will deliver His people.
Just commit it into God's hand. Pray and lay it before the Lord. Put it into His hands and God
will intervene. His purpose, now you hear me
on this, His purpose will determine what He does about the deliverance.
His purpose. It was God's purpose and reasons
unknown to me. I have no idea why James, the
brother of John who was a pillar in the church in Jerusalem, the
infant church in Jerusalem, their pastor and leader, one of those
whom God was blessing to lead that little body of believers
in Jerusalem. Why it was that God allowed him
to be put to death, He didn't deliver him like He did Peter.
I'm here to tell you this morning, we must always bow our knee to
the purpose of God as He reveals it in His providence. And it's
the purpose of God that will determine what he does. God is
able to do anything. There is nothing too hard for
the Lord. He can do anything he wants to
do whenever he wants to do it. And none can say to him, what
doest thou or stay his hand. God is an absolute sovereign
and he can do whatever he will, but his purpose always determines
what he does. And the church says amen. The
church is in agreement with the purpose of Almighty God. And they bow their knee to his
purpose. Peter's case was put into God's
hands. This is his last night. This
is the night that the Jews celebrated the Passover. This is that night. Way back yonder when God, when
the Jewish people slew, the believers slew the Lamb and put the blood
on the doorpost, and the death angel passed over. This was the
night. Here's Peter now, and Peter's
doing nothing. He's in the prison and he's asleep.
I suppose that God had given him the victory. I suppose that
God had calmed his heart. I suppose that he felt the best
way to spend his last night on earth was sleeping, I suppose. Unless God had revealed to him,
I'm going to deliver you. I'm going to deliver you out
of this. Now if God made known to him in his heart that he was
going to deliver him, and beloved, there are times when you have
a peace that passes understanding. You don't know anything about
what's going to happen, but you just know that God's going to
intervene. You just know that God's going
to visit you and that something God's going to come and He's
going to do. That's something which must be
done in your life. You just know it. And you can
just go to bed and you can sleep in faith knowing that God is
going to intervene. Well, that's what Peter was doing.
And somebody would say, well, How, how will God intervene,
preacher? You said that if the case was
put into God's hand, how, how is God gonna do what I need in
my particular situation for me? How is God gonna do that? Well,
let me say that true faith has no such word in its vocabulary
as how is God gonna do this. True faith is not concerned with
the how. Believe you me, it's not concerned
with that. God is able to deliver His people. Trust Him and depend upon Him,
and God will deliver in time His people. Now the third thing
that's of great interest to me is that when God shall come to
deliver His people, all the circumstances in my life and your life, which
seems to be against their deliverance, against our deliverance, will
only tend to set forth the more His glory." I think we should
reflect upon that just a moment. What contempt that God puts upon
chains. What contempt that God puts on
prisons, and iron gates, and wards, and inner and outer wards,
and armies, and otherwise! Let me tell you that the circumstances
that you think are so difficult, it's impossible for God to get
around, and God can't touch your case because there's difficult
circumstances that He just simply will not be able to manage. I'm
going to tell you that when He comes to deliver you, It'll just
tend more to His glory that He was able to manage all of those
circumstances and get to you and solve your problem. God is
able to solve the problems of His people. Now the fourth thing
that is of great interest is that the whole story seems to
teach us that no difficulty can ever occur which God cannot meet
when He makes bare His arm, whenever God's arm is made bare. Now it
is true that God waited until the last night before Peter was
to be executed. But when God says it's time and
I may bear my arm, then all the difficulties are going to be
removed. Oh, that iron gate, that iron gate. Here we come
back to that iron gate again. I'm troubled about that gate,
are you? I have faced it many a time. I couldn't pass over
this now and just simply say a little bit about it one time.
This iron gate, I've been against this iron gate. We had faith,
somebody says, up till now. I got out of this and I got out
of that and I've come this far, but now I'm up against this obstacle
that won't budge, it won't move. We've got to the Iron Gate, don't
you see? That's where we're at. Maybe that's where we're at this
morning as a church. Maybe that's where we're at as
individuals. Maybe this is where we are. If we could just get
past this, if we could just get past it, if we could, in your
individual life, now you know whether it's true or not. You
know whether you've got this circumstance, this situation,
and you've come to it, and maybe you came to it a long time ago.
And it's still there. It's still there. It's never
been moved. You can't do a thing about it.
Well, listen to me. This one in the text, it tells
us that it opened of its own accord. I like that. It opened
of its own accord. And so we're going to believe
God that the door that is before us, that is going to remove. Now then, let me come to this.
The fifth thing here I see that's of great interest to me is the
omnipotence of prayer. Let me talk about that a little
bit. If all these believers that we're meeting in John Mark's
mother's house that night. I don't know how many were there,
but if all these believers that were there, let's say there was
some, let's say there were some professionals there, let's say
there were some people there that knew somebody that knew
somebody, let's say that there was maybe some politicians there
that was there in that prayer meeting that night. Well, if
all of these people had swore an oath that they would get Peter
out of this jail, they could never accomplished it. They could
have never accomplished it. Even if they had made a vow that
they would never take another bite of food or rest until Peter
was out, they couldn't have done a thing about it. The prison
is strong. The guards are not to be bribed.
The last night is come. They had but one weapon. I'm
talking about prayer, the omnipotence of prayer. But who among us is
stirring up himself, himself or herself today to pray? Who
among us? Who is calling for a prayer meeting
today? No prayer meetings anymore, hardly
ever. Do you hear about anybody that
will make a suggestion, maybe it's time that we get together
for prayer, that would you come over to my house and hold a prayer
meeting? Would you come over and We have
the idea, and I've heard somebody say, well, we need a Bible study
in the middle of the week. Well, I'd be the last person
on earth to suggest that we didn't need a Bible study. I'd be the
last person to do that. But I'll tell you what this church
really needs. This church here really needs
to pray. That's what it needs. This church
needs a prayer meeting. We say, well, we need to sharpen
our wits, preacher. We live in a difficult world.
And we need to know the Word of God better. I certainly agree
with that. I certainly am in favor of you
studying the Word of God and knowing it better. But when a
man gets on his face before God, he is able to see that the work
is not us going out to match wits with men, but it's a work
which only God can do. Let me remind you, beloved, that
men are not dumb, they are dead, and God must intervene. And through
prayer, we can see the hand of God come upon sinners. We preach to sinners. We preach
and preach and we attempt everything we can do. But let us see this
morning that the power is not in some magic word that the preacher
will use in the pulpit. That the power is God's. And
it's His power to quicken and to bring dead sinners to life. It's only His power that can
touch an individual who is in a state of rebellion and whose
heart is yet to be broken. It's only God that is able to
intervene there and touch him. And the church needs to be praying
and believing God that He's able, just as able as He was to deliver
old Peter. We need to believe that. Now,
I asked you this morning, have we lost our fire? Have we lost
our sense of obligation? Isaiah, you know, when he saw
how that Israel was failing spiritually, he said of them, there is none
that stirreth up themselves to seek the Lord. And I say to you
this morning that when we fail to pray, And when we fail to
acknowledge our helplessness in prayer, that this is the largest
statement of pride and self-sufficiency that we could possibly make.
We must come to the realization that the devil will laugh at
a church with a program. We're not interested in having
a program. Why, these churches in Great
Falls are filled with programs. They're programmed to death.
But I'll tell you this, that the devil will tremble at the
church who will follow the pattern of the New Testament and know
that their sufficiency is of God and who know that there is,
as we said earlier, no magic in the words of a personal worker
or no magic in the mouth of the preacher. No magic words. That's
going to do the job. Only God can deliver a sinner. But I want you to notice something
else here. And that is that when Peter came out of prison, his
deliverance was so marvelous His deliverance was so sudden
that he did not know whether it was true or whether it was
a vision He just didn't know in verses 9 and verse 11 look
at verse 9 and he went out He was following the angel, you
know, and so he went out and And he followed him, and he wist
not that it was true, which was done by the angel, but thought
he saw a vision. He wist not that it was true
what had happened. He just did not, he just could
not understand how in the world such a thing could have ever
occurred. And he felt like that it was just a vision or something
in his imagination. He was dreaming, he had a vision
or something. Here, if you will, there's another
verse here I want us to look at, and that's verse 11. And
when Peter was come to himself, when he was come to himself,
he said, Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel,
and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all
the expectation of the Jews. When he come to himself. When
he come to himself. Now, beloved, let me say that
I want to read a psalm to you, Psalm 126 at this time. There's three verses in this
psalm that's of great interest. In Psalm 126 it says, verse 1,
when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like
them that dream. We were like them that dreamed
when the Lord turned the captivity of the city of God, when He took
it out of the hands of those that had invaded, and when He
had given it back to His people, why, the psalmist said, we were
like them that dreamed. Then was our mouth filled with
laughter. And our tongue was singing. Our
mouth was filled with laughter. Our tongue was singing. And then
said they among the heathen. You see, the heathen saw this.
The heathen saw that God had delivered his people. The heathen
saw that God had intervened and that he had come and rescued
mightily his people, that he had made bare his arm. And the
heathen heard the singing of his people, and they heard the
voice of the laughter of the people. And they said among the
heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath
done great things for them. Now, the third verse says, The
Lord hath done great things for us. whereof we are glad. Now, beloved, let me just say
that God, this speaks of great things, these verses, great things
that the Lord has done for his people. Let me remind you that
what God does in grace is always great. It is always great what
God does. He's a great God, and He does
great things for His people. Now, I know that when God saves
a sinner, that He does a great thing, else why would the Bible
say that we're saved with so great a salvation? If the salvation
of the sinner is not great, it is great through God's grace.
But I thought about how that the Lord's people Many, many
times when God saves His people, when the Lord gives them His
salvation, when the Lord visits them and brings them out of their
death, their spiritual death, and brings them into spiritual
life, when God saves them and they are born again by the Spirit
of God, how that it seems like a dream to them. When God suddenly
appears and he saves somebody, how it seems like a dream. How
true this is. Of most all of the deliverances
of a child of God, from conversion to glorification. It seems like
at first that it must be something that we just imagined, rather
than something that is real. We just, we just, we just wish
not that it's true that God surely has visited us when a sinner
is saved, when he's pardoned, when he is justified, when he,
then I think he is utterly astonished and thinks that it's just too
good to be true. It's just too good to be true
that God should have visited me, and that he should have touched
me, that he should deliver me. I, I, I can believe, and I remember
back when the Lord saved me, back many years ago, probably
49 years ago, and I remember when I came downstairs the first
morning, I thought, well, I'm going to tell my parents, I'm
going to tell my mother and my dad that God done something in
my life. And then, something come over me and said to me,
oh, don't you think you ought to wait until you know whether
or not it really happened or not? Don't you really think that
it just could be something in your imagination that makes you
think that you've been touched of God? I mean, you being touched
of God? Well, I thought to myself, well,
I could believe that anybody else in the whole world could
be touched of God. But can I believe that I have
been touched of God? That God visited me? That God's
come into me? That God's now living in me?
And that I'm His child? I'm a child of faith? Can I really
believe it? Should I say anything? Well,
thank God I did say something. I told my mother and I told my
father that I believed that God had delivered me, that God had
saved me. And I couldn't explain, and I got out in the road and
was walking a few miles up to the schoolhouse, and I told two
or three people on the road, I couldn't explain how it could
be that God had mercy on me and didn't have the ability to explain
it. All I know is something had happened in me, a dead dog sinner,
a maggot, a wiggling maggot of the dust, that God had set me
free and my chains had fell off. And they've been off ever since.
God delivered me, and I knew that it happened. Beloved, the
reality of God's mercy is only laid hold of by faith. We've
got to believe God. And that's what old Peter had
to do, and when he come to himself, He knew of a certainty. He said,
Now I know of a surety that the Lord has sent his angel and he
has delivered me. Well, maybe you're at the place
this morning. You know John 5 and 24 says,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Now what I'm talking about is
the reality of God's mercy can only be laid hold of by faith. There may be someone here this
morning and you say, I believe. Preacher, I have just a little
bit of confidence that maybe, just maybe, God has said something
to me. Maybe God has visited me. Maybe there's been a seed planted
in my soul. Just maybe, I've got just a little
hope. Now listen to me, the reality
of faith is that which makes this real. We must believe God. We can only
lay hold of the reality of God's mercy by faith as we trust Him. In John 5 and 24, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, shall not come into judgment, but is passed
from death unto life. See what I'm talking about? That's
what I'm talking about. Jesus said, truly, truly I say
unto you, he that heareth my word and believes, they are not
going to come into condemnation. They pass from death to life.
They're no longer dead in their sin. They believe God. They believe Christ. They believe
that Christ died for them, and they're trusting wholly in his
merit. And you may be asking yourself
this morning, will God the Spirit come into a man? Will the word,
sown in weakness by the preacher, spring up with power of the Holy
Ghost? in a man's soul? Can it happen,
preacher? Will it happen? I don't know
whether it's true or not. Maybe just in my imagination,
but it just seems like that something has took place in me, that something's
happened. I just feel like that there's
something begun in my soul. Is it so, preacher? Well, I think
I've come to myself. And I tell you, it is so. That
God does save sinners. That God does visit sinners.
Now the fall of man may not be easy to understand. How that
Adam... But it can be understood. Let
me tell you this. Now this is my point. We may
come to the place where we may say, well I understand that Adam
represented the entire human race in the Garden of Eden. and
that when he did what he did, I did too. And that when he fell,
I fell. And when he plunged the whole
world, everybody, all his prosperity into spiritual death, I was plunged
into spiritual death. Now you say, well, that's tough,
preacher. I'm all about this original sin business. But I
tell you, it can be understood. That's what the Bible says. The
Bible says that Adam was of the earth, earthy, and that he represented
us and we all fell in him. But you know, when it comes to
redemption, this is a mystery that even the theologians cannot
fathom. How that in Jesus Christ, the
Lord from heaven, how that in Christ, that representative of
the covenant people, that the Lord Jesus Christ, who is representative
all the elect of God, how that he can deliver and how he can
save them and how he can bring them out and restore unto them
more everything they lost in Adam and more also they can have
eternal life. And you know, I'm not interested
too much, somebody said, I think a lot about human righteousness.
But you know, beloved, I'm not much interested in... You know,
it's a contradiction of terms, really. Human righteousness? Why? We're an unsound people. The Bible says we're deceitful.
Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know them? The Bible
says we're unsound from the crown of our head to the sole of our
feet. The Bible says that we were born in sin. The Bible says
we came forth out of our mother's womb speaking lies. And you're
interested in human righteousness? We lost it all, beloved, in Adam. Lost it all! And I'll tell you
what I am interested in. I'm interested in the righteousness
of God. And the Bible says He was made
to be sin for us. He knew no sin, but He was legally
constituted sin for us that we might be made, what? The righteousness
of God in Him. Now I can't fathom all that,
but I believe it. And I believe as I stand before
you here today, and I believe that every believer in this place,
that God has saved everybody here that knows Christ. I believe
there is righteous before God as Jesus Christ himself, and
that you are accepted in Christ the beloved one, and you're righteous
in him. Now I know that that sounds like
just something that came out of the preacher's imagination.
It's too good to be true that a sinner can be so delivered
that God Almighty, with His all-scrutining eye, can no longer see any sin
in him, but that he's been completely reconciled to God. That's difficult
to believe, isn't it? That's too good to be true, that
God would look upon His people in His Son, and that they're
hid away in the person of Jesus Christ, and that God's had mercy
on them for Christ's sake and in Christ. Oh, you say, I can't
fathom that. That's a mystery. Well, you're
with old Peter. When God delivered him, he said,
I wish not it was true. I just couldn't believe it. But
when he came to himself, I know of a surety. I know of a surety.
Oh, that there'd be somebody here this morning that God would
so deal with in the next few minutes in this service that
you would be able, before you leave this building this morning,
will you say anything to me or not? you'd be able to leave this
building and say, I know of a surety. I've come to myself and I know
of a surety that God's visited me and He has delivered me. And
I'm not a public speaker and I can't tell people about all
of the ins and outs of the reason of my hope right now, but I know
that I have a genuine hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've got
none anywhere else. I've given all I've given up
all human confidence and I'm trusting Christ. I believe in
him. I just hope this morning that
you come to yourself and you know of a surety before you leave
here and that the Lord has delivered you. That the iron gate has come
down and that you're out and free. You know the Lord delivered
his people out of Egypt. His ancient people out of Egypt. And they were delivered. They
were delivered out. It took a strong arm to deliver
them. But I'll tell you this, He brought them out, the Bible
says, that He might bring them in. And this is exactly this
morning. If God delivers you out of your
sin, and out of your rebellion, and out of your wickedness, if
God delivers you, it's that He might bring you in. He's not
just trying to get you to quit doing what you're doing. His
purpose is to bring you in. into the knowledge of His Son,
into the knowledge of everlasting life, into the knowledge of the
fact that there is a translation that takes place, that takes
a man or a woman out of the kingdom of darkness and puts them into
the kingdom of His dear Son. God is at work. Well, to mere mortal sense, it's
just like a vision, just something that's imagined, but it's true.
God's people have really passed. out of death, they're really
saved, there's no delusion, there's no illusion. Oh may God enable
us to see the key, that it's in the Savior's hand, and that
He's the one that can open the door and set a man free. If the
Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. If He sets you free, you're free. Can you see that key in the hand,
in the nail-scarred hand of the man in glory? Listen to me. You say, well, I just keep shaking
my bars. You just keep shaking your bars,
but until a sovereign Christ comes by your cell, and puts
a key in the lock and turns that lock with the key that is in
his hand. Oh, I know what the Arminians
say, and I know how that the theology of our day, I know how
they preach and tell you that you've got the key, that you're
inside. Well, why are you in a cell if
you've got the key? Why aren't you out? I'll tell
you why you're not out, because the key is not in your hand.
The key is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He's absolutely
sovereign. He said, as the Father gives
life, so has He given to the Son to give life to whomsoever
He will. I mean it's in the hands of Christ.
And I hope you can see that key in His hand this morning. And
oh, I hope you hear that lock turn. And you may say, and maybe
you say this morning, well preacher, if this was all so, if this was
an illusion, and if I'm not just imagining, if I'm not, why then
am I such a poor, helpless creature still to this day? Why am I still
just barely able to raise a song of praise? Why is it that I am
so weak, so feeble, very feeble, unable to be all of what I want
to be? Well, I'm sure that you may say,
well, I'm just sure that I've just imagined what's happened
to me. I'm just sure I've imagined it. Well, let me ask you this
question. What else would you be? I mean,
God saved you, and you know what you were when he laid hold of
you. Why, you wasn't anything, as
the old expression is, you wasn't anything to write home about.
You wasn't anything to brag about at all. But when God laid hold
of you, you were just a poor sinner, a weak, helpless sinner,
when God laid hold of you. And let me just give you something
here, and that is that you're never so safe as when you're
emptied of all confidence in yourself. You believe God. May God give you something besides
a dishrag for a backbone. May God give you some spiritual
courage and some real faith. You come to yourself and you
believe what God has said in his word and you speak of God's
salvation. And those that are ashamed of
him, God says, I'll be ashamed of them. in that day when I come
into my kingdom. So if you say, well, I'm weak. Well, I am too. Say, well, I'm
just poor. I'm a poor, feeble sinner. Well,
if you ever get past that, you went too far. We're all sinners. And we'll always just be sinners
saved by grace. That's all we're ever gonna be.
And how wonderful it is, we just keep coming to Christ. Well,
there's some other things I could say about this. And I was afraid
I had too much material, but I think we're going to close
right there this morning, being just 10 minutes till 12. I believe
we're going to close. And then maybe next week, if
the Lord allows, we may take up some more of this. But we'll
see when time comes. There's a statement made by an
old preacher that I'll read, then Larry will lead us in a
final hymn. He said, let our onward march be brightened by
the music of song and celebration of our Captain's praise, whose
right hand and holy arm will assuredly secure for us the victory. Father, in the name of our Lord
Jesus, we commit to you the message this morning. May it please you
and your holy purpose and will to use it. May it please you,
our Father, to get honor and glory to your own name. May it
please you this morning that victory will be brought to some
poor trembling heart, and somebody would have the courage to come
as they come to themselves, to know of a surety and speak of
it today. In Jesus' name, amen.