Bibles please turn back to the
10th chapter of the Gospel of Saint John. The Gospel of Saint
John chapter 10. And I want to read out of the
63rd chapter of the book of Isaiah four verses. Four verses. I'll read the first. You just
keep your finger there in John chapter 10 and listen to these
verses. Who is this that cometh from
Edom with dyed garments from Bosra, this that is glorious
in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?
I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. I have trodden
the winepress alone. And of the people there was none
with me, for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them
in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments,
and I will stain all my raiment. And I looked, and there was none
to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore
mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury it upheld
me. In all their affliction, He was
afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them. In His love
and in His pity, He redeemed them, and He bared them and carried
them all the days of old." The burden of the Lord upon our
hearts is to preach God as He is, to men as they are. God as He is to men as they are. Now, beloved, as we read the
10th chapter of the Gospel of John this morning, and then the
verses that we were led to out of Isaiah chapter 63, these verses
exalt one that is mighty to save. One that is mighty to save. Now,
an impotent Savior is no Savior at all. An impotent Savior, let
me repeat, is no Savior at all. Those who cry up a God who cannot
save without the consent of man's free will or the assistance of
man's works, they cry up a God who is nothing but the useless
figment of man's perverted imagination. An impotent God is no God at
all, let me repeat. An impotent God is as useless
as a bucket without a bottom in it. If your God is a God who
wants to save everyone, If your Jesus is a Jesus that died to
redeem everyone, if your Spirit, your Holy Spirit, tries to save
everyone, and some people go to hell in spite of all that
your God has done to keep them out of hell, then, beloved, you
need another God. You need the God who is God,
the sovereign God of the Bible. You need to examine who your
God is this morning. Now, I know that most people
are very charitable, and they would like to let everyone know
that they believe that every God who is worshipped in the
city of Great Pauls is indeed the God of the Bible. But we're
not that charitable here. We believe that the God of the
Bible is an absolute sovereign and we trust and we worship and
preach an almighty, efficient, sufficient, effectual Savior. We preach God as He is. The God of the Bible is an absolute
sovereign. He brooks no rival. He sits on
no picarious throne, nor borrows leave to be. The God of the Bible
is an absolute sovereign. Our Savior is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the Son of the Living God
He is. He's the Son of the Living God
that was commissioned by God and sent down from God into this
world. He is the anointed Savior and
He came into this world to do a work. He was sent into this
world to make an end of transgression and to bring in everlasting righteousness
on the behalf of His own, and He did that work. He successfully
accomplished that work. He is mighty to save. Now He
does not merely provide salvation and offer salvation. Many preach
that the Lord Jesus provided salvation for anybody that take
it. and that he offers salvation
to everyone, and that that's the end of the story. And they
try to get men to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has made
an offer, and that they need to accept that offer. Well, beloved,
the Lord Jesus Christ has done more than just provide a salvation. He's done more than just offer
a salvation. The Lord, our God, has, by His
effectual Spirit, made it certain that all those for whom Christ
died on Calvary's cross, that they would be regenerated, they'd
be brought to life, and that they would be brought savingly
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, the Lord Jesus saves
his people from their sin. We read in Matthew 1.21, For
thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall, not he might, not
he'll try to, but he shall save his people from their sins. In John 17.2, the scripture says,
Jesus himself, praying to the Father, said, I have power over
all flesh. to the end that I might give
eternal life to as many as the Father has given to me. I have
all power in heaven and in earth, and I give eternal life. I have
it to give. I provided it, and I have it
to give, but I provided it for a special people, and I can give
it to those people. I have power over all flesh,
and I can give it to whoever I will. I can give life. I have
life in myself. He said, as the father had life
in himself, so is he given to the son to have life in himself,
and he quickeneth whosoever he will. He makes alive whoever
he will. The Son of God has the power
to save all that the father has given to him, and he cannot fail
to do so. Isaiah chapter 42 and verse 4
says, that he shall not fail nor be discouraged. He will accomplish
the work that the Father has sent him to accomplish. We want
to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. We're here in honor of the Son
of God who loved us out of our sin, loved us out of the death
of sin, and loved us into that eternal life which He has given
to all of His sheep. We want to honor Him. Let me
say this morning that every sinner who was chosen of God in eternal
election was given to Christ before the world began. Do you
know you and I are creatures for an hour? Our God in old time,
back before the morning stars ever sang together, before the
songs of the angel was ever uttered in glory, years and years and
years back in old eternity, our God gave a people to His Son. He chose a people and He gave
them to His Son. I do not know who they are. I
do not know who they are. I do not know the addresses of
those who are the elect of God. All I know is that God loved
a people. He loved a people. He loved a
people and He gave that people unto the Lord Jesus Christ as
a love gift. He gave them to Christ. They
are, Jesus said, they were yours and you gave them to me in John
chapter 17. And so the father had a people
that he had chose in eternal election and he gave them to
Christ and all this took place before the world began. Now when Christ stood as the
surety of his elect in the covenant of grace, it became his responsibility
It became his responsibility to save those whom the father
had put in his hands. Now, when one becomes surety
for another, they assume the responsibility of the debts or
obligations of that individual. Now, beloved, when you think
about a man marrying a woman, he assumes the debts and obligations
of the woman that he is marrying. And when the Lord Jesus became
our surety, when he said, Father, I will stand surety for these
that you have chosen, then the Lord Jesus took upon himself
the responsibility of our sin. He took upon himself the responsibility
of our transgressions of the holy law of God. He took upon
himself all that we would become in our lives. And then He would
answer to God for our sin. The Bible says He was made to
be sin for us. He knew no sin, but that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. He took upon Himself. He was made to be sin for us. And He stood in our room and
stood in place. In the fullness of time then,
Christ died in the place. in the room, in the stead, and
in the place of his elect. This one mighty to save, this
one who had pity upon the poor afflicted people of God and died
to redeem them, redeem them as Isaiah 63 says. Bore them back
from the slave market of sin to present them before the Father
holy and without blame before Him in love. The Lord Jesus,
He died in the place of His elect. He bore our sin in His own body
on the tree. The Lord Jesus said, I lay down
my life for the sheep. I'm the good shepherd. I lay
down my life for the sheep. I lay down my life for those
that the Father has chosen and has given to me and put in my
hands. And the Father must be satisfied.
His inflexible justice must be satisfied. Somebody has got to
answer to God for sin. Somebody's got to pay our sin
debt. Somebody's got to stand and receive
the just penalty for sin. And that penalty is death. And
the Lord Jesus died in our room, in our stead, and in our place. And then we know that the Lord
Jesus, that He was taken up to glory. He was raised from the
dead. We read in John chapter 10 this
morning. He said, I lay down my life.
He says, no man takes it from me. I lay it down of myself. And He says, I've got the power
to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my Father. I've got the power to take it
again. We're not talking about a man
here. We're talking about the God-man. We're talking about
The Son of God. We're talking about Him who said,
All power is given to me in heaven and earth. He said, I can take
my life again. Now isn't that somebody, is it
not, who can say, No man takes my life. I lay it down of my
own free will and accord. I lay it down because that's
the purpose that God had for me when I came into the world.
I lay it down because it's God's will that I lay it down. Then
I got the power to take it again I can die for my people and then
I can be raised from the dead and they'll be raised they died
in me and they'll be raised in me and then I'm going yonder
to be seated at the right hand of God and the Apostle Paul said
that we're seated in Christ Jesus in heavenly places we all so
positionally this morning if we're in Christ and If we were
in Him when He died, if we were in Him when He was raised from
the dead, then we're in Him today, seated at the right hand of God. And that's our position before
God. We're in the Lord Jesus Christ
and wherever He is, However accepted he is, that's exactly where the
elect are. That's where they are. They're
in Christ, seated at the right hand of God, accepted back at
the throne of eternal majesty. God being satisfied, God being
completely satisfied on the behalf of all those whom Jesus represented
when he was here in this world. Now, beloved, we're exalting.
My purpose is here to preach God as he is and to lift up the
Lord Jesus. to lift him up in honor of Christ.
We don't come here to preach up a man. We don't come here
to preach up the members of this body. We come here to preach
and lift up the Lord Jesus Christ that poor sinners might by the
Spirit of God be brought to hope in and trust in Him. So Jesus
makes intercession in heaven for His elect, His redeemed people.
Mike mentioned that in his prayer this morning. The Lord Jesus
said in John 17, 9, He says, I don't pray for the world, but
He said, I'm praying for those that believe. I'm praying on
the behalf of those that you've given me. Those that you've given
me out of the world, I'm praying for them. So Christ is now making
intercession on the behalf of his people. You know, he prayed
for old Peter. He said, Peter, Satan hath desired
to sift you as wheat. But he said, I have prayed for
thee, that thy faith fail not. And the scripture says that in
the last days when great trials come upon the world, and that
if it were not for those days being shortened, that even the
elect would fail under those great test and those great trials
that's coming on the earth. But Jesus is praying for his
people and that's why they will not fail, they will endure until
the end. Because he that has begun a good
work in them will perform it until the day of the Lord Jesus.
Now all for whom Christ died and makes intercession at God's
appointed time, they're called. They are called out of the world. Yes, our God calls men. And we read in verse 3 of John
10. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice,
and he calleth his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. He leads them out. The sheep
follow him, verse 4, for they know his voice. The sheep know
the voice of the Son of God and they follow Him. Isn't that a
marvelous truth that God calls His own? In the Word of God,
salvation is attributed to a call from God over 165 times. You've
got to hear from God in the Word, and God must call you. You've
got to hear from the Lord. The voice of the Son of God,
you must hear in your own heart. As the Word is preached, as you
read the Bible, as you meditate upon the things of God, God will
call you. All God's people are called They
are called. They must be called by the Holy
Spirit, by the irresistible, effectual Spirit of Almighty
God. So then, all who are called by
the Spirit of Christ, they come to Christ. They come to Him. He comes and He calls. They know
His voice. and they follow Him, and they
come to Christ. In John 6 and 37 it says, All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and they that come
to me I will in no wise cast out. I'll never cast them out.
They come to me and I will not cast them out. And in Psalm 110
verse 3 it says that my people will be willing in the day of
my power. Psalm 65 and 4 speaks of the blessedness of those whom
the Lord chooses and calls us to approach unto Him. God calls
His people out of the world unto Himself. Now, those who come
to Christ by faith are saved, they're saved people. We read
here in verse 9, in John 10, He says, I am the door, and by
Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and
out and find pasture. They shall be saved. They'll
have salvation. They will be born again. They'll
be children of God, new creatures in Christ Jesus. And they have
come, they have come through the door. And Jesus, He said,
I am the door. I'm not one of them. I'm the
door. I am the door. If any man comes
by me, as He said in John 14 and verse 6, He said, I'm the
way, the truth, and the life. I am the way. I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father
except by me. And so when a man comes to Christ
by faith, then that man is saved by God's grace. It is not possible
for a sinner to come to Christ in the scriptural sense of the
word and not be saved by that coming. He will be saved if he
gets to Christ in faith. If God calls him, God will give
him faith and he can lay hold of Christ. He will come to Christ
and he'll be saved. Now, all who are saved by Christ
are kept unto eternal glory by Him. We read in John chapter
10 here, verse 28, and I'd like for you to look at that. Very
familiar verse to a lot of you, but it says, And I give unto
my sheep. Verse 27 says, My sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give. They don't buy it. They don't
work for it. They don't get it some way other
than a gift. He says, and I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish. They'll never perish. I give them life. They'll never
perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. And my Father which gave them
me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out
of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. Now then, If you trust Christ
alone as your substitute, as the one who stood in your room
and stood in place, if you trust Him alone as the one who answered
to God for all of your sin, as the one who suffered the curse
on Calvary, the curse of the broken law, in your place, as
the one who paid your sin debt, If you trust Him alone as your
substitute, then He has saved you. And you ought to cling to
Him with all of your heart. Trust in the Lord with all of
your heart and cling to the truth of the gospel. Now, you say,
preacher, in the light of what you have said here in your opening
remarks, Who then is saved? Who then is saved? Well, let
me very quickly try to answer that question. Who is the saved
of the Lord? I want to get in on it. I'd like
to be saved, wouldn't you? I really would like to be saved.
I don't want to go to hell. I know that I ought to go to
hell. I'm a sinner. And apart from
my Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, I certainly would go to hell.
I have no hope of escaping. I have no way of raising what
God demands of a man. I cannot provide what God demands. And I certainly would go to hell
if it wasn't for the mercy and love of my God and my Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so who then shall be saved
is a question that's mighty important to me. Now, we here at the New
Covenant Baptist Church, we loathe the doctrine that makes man his
own Savior. We know that it's a lie. We know
that for any man to think that he can provide what God demands
is entirely erroneous and is contrary to Scripture. And anybody
that's working on their salvation defames the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ finished the work of salvation. The last words on the cross,
it is finished! It is finished! The Lord Jesus
finished the work that the Father gave Him to do, and we loathe
any doctrine that suggests that man is able to save himself and
promotes the worship of man's will rather than the worship
of the sovereign God of the Bible, because that doctrine works doctrine,
the doctrines that teach that man can make a contribution to
God in regards to his salvation is entirely erroneous. Now the Bible teaches plainly
then that salvation is of the Lord, that salvation is of the
Lord. It says in John 1 And verse 12
and 13, But as many as received him, to them gave he the power
to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. That's John 1 and verse
13. nor of the will of man, but of
God." Now there are some who totally deny the sovereignty
of God and become very furious at those who preach the fact
that the God of the Bible is a sovereign and that he has a
people and that his purpose is to save that people. But I'm
here to tell you today that this is exactly the teaching of the
Bible. Read the Word of God. The sovereign
purpose and effectual power of the grace of God is clearly set
forth throughout the Bible. Now, there are many that all
they can see when they read the Bible is whosoever will. They
say, well, preacher, isn't it whosoever will? Whosoever will? Well, I say yes, it is whosoever
will, but it's not whosoever won't. You know there's a lot
of people who say, oh I believe in whosoever will, but they won't.
They won't. And they expect somehow or other
that because they believe in a whosoever will gospel and whosoever
will salvation, that that helps them when they won't. They won't
believe. They won't come to Christ. They
won't honor the Word of God. They will not stand with a New
Testament church. They will not affectionately
live for Christ in the world. They won't do that. But they
say it's whosoever wills. So they preach up human responsibility
in such a way that they make responsibility to be the same
thing as ability. And beloved, it's not so. It's
not so. You are responsible. You're responsible
to believe the gospel. You're responsible to trust Christ.
You're responsible to walk in the ways of God and to fear God
and to love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, all of
your mind, your soul, and your strength. You're responsible
to do that. Ability is another thing. You
see, we're all fallen in our Father Adam. We all are fallen
men and women. And we have not the ability,
the ability, to do that which is contrary to our fallen natures. A man cannot will to do that
which is contrary to his nature. His nature is contrary to God. His nature is sinful, it's fallen. He's a rebel by nature and he
would put a butcher knife in God's back if he could get to
him. That's his nature. Our nature is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can it be. It cannot be. Somebody's got to do something
for us. Somebody's got to will our salvation. Somebody's got
to do something if we're going to be saved. Well, we believe
that salvation is of the Lord. Now, James 1 and 18 says, Of
His own will begat He us with the word of truth. Of His own
will. Begat he us. He's our father,
our spiritual father. And it was of his will that we
come to know him. It is God's will that determines
who is saved. The will of God will determine
who finally at last is housed in eternal glory. It's God's
will that will determine that. Not the sinner's will. If God
leaves you to yourself, you'll go straight to hell. You will. You will not. Listen, some people
say, well now, you know, man started at the bottom and he's
working his way to the top. Beloved, evolution is lying to
you. And let me tell you this, man
started at the top and he fell to the bottom and that's where
man is. He's on the bottom. He's a depraved, sinful, worm
of the dust, a wiggling maggot of the dust. He doesn't have
the life of God in him. He's alienated from the life
of God and cut off from the life of God. And if God doesn't will
him out of his state of desperation and wickedness and sinfulness,
a man will never come to have life. God must will him out of
it. Say, leave me to my will. Well, you go straight to hell,
because that's where your will will take you. Say, well, evolution
will get me out of it sooner or later. Listen, evolution,
you take a man who is a brute, and you know, George Whitefield,
he got in trouble with a religionist back in his day, because he said
man is half devil and half brute, and he was right. And you know,
if you evolutionize a half devil and a half brute, And what are
you going to have? Well, you're just going to have
somebody that's a whole lot bigger, half devil and half brute is
what you're going to have. He's never going to come up the
ladder where he's going to love God and where he's going to fear
God and where he's going to want to do what God wants him to do
and where he can breathe the very fellowship and life of God
in and out of his soul. He'll never get to that place.
He's dead, lost. Damn for all eternity unless
God wills his salvation. God must will it. God must will
it. You shut up to that. You shut
up to that. Somebody said, I don't like the
doctrine of election. Listen, there ain't nobody gonna
be saved without the doctrine of election. Nobody. Unless God
chooses you. And Jesus said to his disciples,
you've not chosen me. He said, I've chosen you. I've
chosen you. And then Jesus said to the Jews,
he said, you believe not on me because you're not one of my
sheep. You don't believe. The reason you don't believe
is because you got a problem figuring this thing out mentally
and intellectually. The reason you don't believe
is because you're not one of my sheep. You don't believe. If you were one of my sheep,
you'd believe. You'd trust me. You believe on
me. So who's going to be saved? Well,
those whom God wills to be saved. They'll be saved. Those who are
the sheep of Christ, they'll be saved. The elect of God will
be saved. Those whom Jesus died to redeem,
they'll be saved. Those whom the Spirit effectually
calls, they'll be saved. Those who receive the gift of
eternal life from the blood stained hands of the Lord Jesus Christ
will be saved. He said, I give unto my sheep
eternal life. They shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Let me read this
poem and we're through. Proclaim the gospel of God's
grace by every means at hand. Publish good news to Adam's race,
sinners in every land. Pray that the Lord will open
doors and let us faithful be to do the work He gives to us
that fallen men may see. God will His chosen ransom ones
save by almighty grace as we preach Jesus Christ His Son and
His great work of grace. God sent His Son, His darling
Son, for sin to give His blood, and all who trust His Son alone
reconciled to God. May the Lord be pleased to give
a blessing and to apply his word this morning to the hearts of
those that heard it. Mike would you lead