I invite you to turn back, if
you will, to the book of 2 Thessalonians, the second chapter, and I'd like
to read beginning with verse 13 and read down through the
17th verse. Verse 13 through verse 17. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and the belief of the truth, whereunto he called
you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast
and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether
by word or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself,
and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort
your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. I read recently of the missionary Judson He was
a missionary to Burma. And while he was on the mission
field, he passed through many unheard of hardships and performed
many dangerous exploits for the Master. And he returned to America,
and it was announced after many years of absence, he was gone
about 30 years, And when he returned, it was announced that he was
to speak on a certain occasion. And there was quite a large congregation
of people that came out to hear him. And he was considered by
many to be a very famous man because of all of the years that
he had spent in Burma. And he got up to speak on that
occasion. And he spoke about 15 minutes.
And he spoke of the precious Savior, of what he had done for
his people, and of what we owed to him. And then he sat down. And after the meeting adjourned,
and as they were on their way home, one of his friends said
to him, he said, the people were disappointed with you. They were
very disappointed because they look for a story. They look for
something. You being a missionary, just
coming back from a foreign field, they look for something more
exciting from you than just what you preached about. And he said,
well, he said, I can't believe. He said, what do they want? And
do they want something else besides the old, old story of Jesus Christ
and his love and his mercy and grace toward sinners? Well, what
did they want? Well, he said, I presented the
best of my ability, to the best of my ability, the most interesting
subject in all the world. I spoke the most interesting,
I told the most blessed story that has ever been told by the
tongue of man, and they wanted something else. They wanted something
new. of a man who had just come from
the mission field, then I'm glad that they have to say that a
man coming from Burma had nothing better to tell them than the
wondrous story of the dying love of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, beloved, my business is
to preach the gospel of Christ as it was his business. And when
I can speak at all, he said, these are his words, he says,
I dare not trifle with my commission. I dare not trifle with my commission. When I looked upon these people
today and remembered where I would meet them next, and that would
be at the judgment seat of Christ. How could I stand up and just
furnish food to vain curiosity? How could I tickle their fancy
with amusing stories? He said, regardless of how decently
I strung them together on a thread of religion. He said, that is
not what Christ meant by preaching the gospel. And then how could
I hereafter meet the fearful charge? I gave you one opportunity
to tell them of me and you spin it in describing your own adventures. Now I opened my remarks this
morning to you by giving you that because I know that there
are many that when they come to church They want to hear something
new. They want to hear something that would tickle their
fancy or something that would amuse them. Well, beloved, we're
not here to amuse you. We're not here to educate the
mind of anyone. We're here to preach to men's
hearts. And I want this morning to use
the 16th verse primarily of our text here in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 3. And I want to talk to you about
some things that God has impressed upon my heart and I hope that
this whole story of the gospel of redeeming grace And good hope
through grace will be a blessing to you today and that it will
encourage and bless your souls and comfort you that know the
Lord. And those of you who are strangers
to God, strangers to His grace, have never come under the fountain
filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. that it may
please the Lord today by sovereign grace and sovereign mercy to
bring you to repentance and faith in a living Redeemer. Now, I'd like to, in talking
about this scripture, let us look at it, verse 16, Now our
Lord Jesus Christ Himself And God, even our Father, which hath
loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word
and work. Now, we take note here that the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself, God even our Father, it says Paul
does here under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, which hath
loved us, which hath loved us. The unpurchasable love of God,
the unmerited love of God toward poor sinners. I have loved you
is the testimony of the Word of God with an everlasting love. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but that God loved us and gave his Son to be a satisfaction
for our sins. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace,
ye are saved. Isn't it a marvelous and wonderful
thing that Jesus Christ and God even our Father hath loved us. We read in verse 13 that we're
bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. I like to think about when God began to love his people. And I know and believe, as the
old English preacher stated it, that before the solemnity of
silence was broken by the song of the first angel that God loved
his people and before the ether air was disturbed by the flapping
of the seraph's wing that God loved us and chose us in his
Son Jesus Christ. Who hath loved us? Who hath loved
us? Jesus Christ and even God our
Father hath loved us. Now beloved, listen to me. We
take note further here, it says, and hath given us. He hath loved
us and he hath given us. Well, he had to give it to us
because we couldn't get it any other way. You see, everything
under the gospel is a gift. It all is a gift. The wages of
sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. If thou knewest the gift
of God in Him that is speaking to you, then you would have asked
of Him, and He would have given thee living water. Under the
law, it's all payment. But under grace, it's all a gift. He must give it unto us. Now we couldn't get it any other
way. What is He giving unto His people? Well, He's giving us
everlasting consolation. And He's giving us good hope
through grace. Well, I like this, this everlasting
comfort that the Lord is giving unto His people, those that He's
chosen in old times to be the bride of His own Son. Those that
He chose in covenant love, He is giving to them this everlasting
comfort, this wonderful hope, this good hope through grace. Now nothing in the Bible I've
ever read about a temporary salvation. This speaks of everlasting consolation. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. 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
the judgment, but is passed from death unto life. The record is
that there is eternal life in Jesus Christ. He that hath the
Son hath this eternal life, and he that hath not the Son of God
has not life. The life that comes from God,
spiritual life, that your soul desperately needs is eternal
life. The life that God has been pleased
to give us and the consolation that He's given is an everlasting
consolation. Now I mean by that, that this
is not going to be taken away from us. That there's nothing
in the Bible that says anything about us being born again, again,
and again, and again. No, this consolation, this good
hope is a gift of God and it comes to the people of God and
it's God's salvation and it's forever. Nothing is to ever be
taken from it. Nothing will ever be added to
it. Now, beloved, I want us to think
a little further here. We take this good hope through
grace. Now, beloved, it's a great act
of grace on the part of Jesus Christ and God even our Father
that sinners should have any hope at all. Here we are in this
world, man has fallen in Adam and we've broken God's law, we
thumbed our nose at God and told him to go back to heaven that
we would run this world ourself as we saw fit, as we pleased
and that there should remain any hope that there should remain
any hope whatsoever, beloved, ought to cause our hearts to
leap for joy. Here we are, rebel sinners in
God's world, partaking of God's bounties and benefits, living
in God's good time, and yet we are rebels against Him, and yet
He holds out hope. And He says, I'm going to give
you good hope, everlasting consolation, and this is through grace. Beloved,
the sinner was in prison, and those of us that have experienced
the good hope, those of us that have been born of the Spirit
of God, and have been brought out of darkness into light, those
of us that have been brought into gospel hope, we were in
a cell, and over that cell was written, no hope. No hope! And you're here this morning,
if you're without Christ, if you're without God in this meeting,
then beloved, over your cell is written, no hope! But if the
Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, if He's pleased to come, as He
came to my cell one time, and He exercised His divine prerogative,
And beloved, He took out the key. He had the key, you know. He has the key. I didn't have
the key. You didn't have the key. And
I think most of you would say amen to that, those of you that
know the Lord. And you this morning that are
here and you're lost sinners under the condemnation and wrath
of God, you do not have the key to unlock the cell, to let yourself
out of that cell of condemnation and bondage to sin. You do not have the key. Well,
the Lord Jesus Christ has it and He came to me and He opened
the cell and He let me out. He let me out. He let me out
of this bondage. He let me out of sin and He gave
me a solid and well-grounded hope in His own beloved Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, beloved, this morning
this is the hope, the good hope that is held out unto sinners. Now in Romans chapter 15 and
verse 13 it says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy
and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the
power of the Holy Ghost. Now He is called the God of the
Bible. Even God our Father is called
the God of hope because He's the author of all well-grounded
hope of His people. If you have any hope this morning,
it's because God gave it to you. And if you've got it, He gave
it to you through His grace. You didn't deserve it. You didn't
buy it. You didn't earn it. He gave it to you through His
grace. All hope of which the Lord is
not the author, is, beloved, a false delusion. What kind of
hope do you have this morning? Would the hope that you have,
would it bear some scrutiny? I mean, would it bear some examination? What kind of hope do you have
for your never-dying soul? Are you a child of God? I mean,
do you have hope in your heart? Is it a well-grounded hope? Is
it a firm hope? Is it a hope through grace? Is
it an everlasting hope? Well, that's a tremendous question. Many people do not have a well-grounded
hope because what they've got they did not get from the God
of the Bible. The God of the Bible gives, He
gives true hope. He gives a well-grounded hope. Now in the New Testament there
are three adjectives that are descriptive of hope. Here in
2 Thessalonians 2 and 16, it's called a good hope. In Titus
2 and 13, it's called a blessed hope. And in 1 Peter 1 and 3,
it's called a living hope. And so this describes the hope
that God's people have. They have a good, a blessed,
and a living hope. This morning, do you have that
hope? Do you have that hope? Now here this word hope means,
this good hope it's talking about, it means favorable and confident
expectation. It has to do with the unseen
and it has to do with the future. the happy anticipation of good
in the future unseen world. It has to do with hope and eternal
glory. It has to do with a home in heaven. It has to do with blessed fellowship
and communion with God Almighty for all eternity. That's what
it has to do with. Now then, this morning, what
is the basis of your hope? And what is the basis of a good
hope? Do we have grounds? Is there
anyone that has grounds for a good hope? Should a man be so bold
as to get up and talk about having a good hope, a solid hope? Should a man rejoice in his soul
that he has hope for eternity to come? Should he? Well, these
are questions that I'd like to answer if I could. What is required
for a man to have a good hope? What's required for that? Now,
I believe that every one of you would desire to have a good hope
through grace. But beloved, listen. Listen to
me this morning. I know that salvation is entirely
by the grace of God. I know that it is. That's the
testimony of the Word of God. All through that salvation is
by the free favor of God. That salvation is by the gift
of God. That salvation is had through
God providing all that He requires. But there are many who come still
with something in their hand. There are still those who come
believing that God is going to look with favor upon them for
something that they've done or something they have not done.
There are still those that believe that God somewhere or another
is going to reward them in heaven for their own merit. Well, beloved,
listen, in this text of Scripture, it just simply says that all
of this is through grace. It's all through grace. And I
want you to see that this morning. And I want you to see that if
you die and leave this world, and listen now, if you don't
have a good hope this morning, it won't be any good when you
stand before God. If it's not good now, it won't
be good when you stand before the Lord. When you stand before
God, that's too late. You better examine your hope
now. Do you have a good hope now? Is it a hope that God himself
gave you? And is it a hope that you can
abound in and praise God for and rejoice in and keep on believing
it until your departure and exodus from this world? Is it that kind
of a hope? Well, I hope that it is, but
let me talk to you about some of these things which God requires
and only God can provide. And this is a necessity, and
I'm not talking about conditions that you can meet, but I'm talking
about conditions that God must meet for a soul to be able to
entertain a good hope through grace. Now, I rejoice to be able
to tell you that the God of the Bible has provided all that He
demands of a poor soul. Now I wouldn't have drove in
here this morning to tell you that there was something that
you must do in order to have this good hope. But I rejoice
that I was able to get up and to go this morning and to come
in here and tell you that there are some things that are required
for a never-dying soul to have a good hope and that God has
provided all that is required. Now that's my word to you this
morning. That's a word of hope. to your
poor soul because you're bankrupt. As far as righteousness is concerned,
take all of the righteousness of everybody in this room and
put it in a thimble and it'll rattle like a peanut in a boxcar.
We don't have enough righteousness, all of us together, to get one
of us past the judgment of God into heaven. And we've got to
have everything that God demands of us given to us. And when it's
been given to you and you're assured that it's been given
as a gift from God till you never die and so then you got some
hope. You got some hope. Now listen
to me this morning. God requires complete atonement
for all of our sins. God demands that we be washed
from our sins. He demands that we be clean from
our sin. Now listen, sin, all sin is against
the infinite God and it requires infinite punishment. Now remember
that. Sin is not something you can
pay for. Our sin is against God Almighty
and only God Himself can provide Himself with an infinite sacrifice. God cannot and will not accept
any man until he dies under the curse of the law and until his
sin has been punished to the full satisfaction of infinite
justice. and his sin is completely removed
from him. Until this takes place, God will
not be satisfied. God cannot, listen to me now
this morning, God cannot and will not be satisfied until your
sin has been dealt with to the full, until atonement has been
made. Now then, this atonement for
sin could only be performed by God Himself when Christ died. As the sinners substitute, all
of God's elect died in Him on Calvary. Died in Him, I say. His death was the death of His
people. It was their death. It was their
death to sin when He died on Calvary's cross. Our sins were
punished to the full. Penalty of the law in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And all our sins were put away
by Him. We read in 2 Corinthians 5 and
21 that He was made to be sin for us. He knew no sin, but that
He might be made the righteousness of God unto us. In Hebrews 9
and 12, it speaks of this one offering that the Lord Jesus
Christ has made, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by one
offering He hath obtained eternal redemption for us. And so the
Lord Jesus Christ has provided this atonement that God requires. And all sinners that are washed
in the blood of Jesus Christ, they are completely, every wet
clean, they are clean before God. And no sinner can go off
yonder into the presence of God without being clean before Him. And then also I want to say this,
that God requires perfect righteousness as a condition of salvation. Now I mentioned a few moments
ago that we, all of us collectively, taking up an offering of all
that we have in righteousness couldn't get one of our souls
past the judgment. God feels a pity for these religionists
who keep on trying to provide a righteousness which God will
accept and they have their little partial obedience to some of
the law when it's convenient for them and they think that's
going to gain them favor with God. It's not so. You must listen
to what the Word of God says. It says be ye holy. for I am
holy that's what God says you be holy because I'm holy implying
that we ought to be as holy as God is now without perfect holiness
the book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12 and 14 no man shall see the
Lord No man shall see the Lord without perfect holiness. Now
Christ established righteousness for us by his obedience to God's
law as our representative. And I challenge any legal-minded
religionist this morning on the face of this earth to provide
me with a better righteousness than the Lord our righteousness
has provided for us and for me. Beloved, you cannot establish
one yourself. That's where the Jews fell off
the end, is when they sought to establish a righteousness
of their own. They went about doing it, but
they failed because they did not submit themselves unto the
righteousness of God. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith as it is written, the just. shall live
by faith, and we're all the children of God through faith in Christ
Jesus. And the only way, it's to him
that worketh not, but to him that believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. That's what
the Word of God says. And so if you want to be righteous
before God, you must have the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ imputed or accredited to your account. And with His
holy garment on, you're as holy as the Holy One. You're as holy
as God is if you're in Christ. and if the garments of salvation
has clothed your immortal soul. Now listen to me. This is very
important. You cannot have hope. You've
got no basis for any hope in eternity unless you have the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And may God and all the
presumption of a self-righteous religionist that would presume
to die and think he's going to heaven without full faith and
confidence in the righteousness of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. And beloved, listen to me this
morning. There's another thing that God requires, and that is
this, that we have a spiritual life. That we have a divine nature
implanted in us. Now I recognize that many people
do not understand that most people that are born in America, they've
heard sometime or other that everybody that's born in America,
this is a Christian nation, and that everybody that's born in
America has a spark of life in them and that if you take a fan
and fan it a little bit, it will just turn into full-fledged spiritual
life. We've been told that we're brothers
and sisters in the human race and this makes us all children
of God. It's not true, beloved. It's
not true. All of that is a lie out of the
pit. It's not so. This is the truth. That God requires spiritual life. He demands that we have a nature,
His nature, in us. And that nature must be imparted
to us. And this takes place in the new
birth. That's what Jesus meant when
He said, You must be born again. You've got to be born from heaven. You've got to be born of the
Spirit. Nicodemus said, well, can I enter into my mother's
womb and be born again? Well, Jesus said, except you
be born of the water and of the Spirit, you will not enter into
the kingdom of heaven. You've got to be born again,
born from heaven. Now this is when the divine nature
comes into us. This is when God plants in us
His whole nature. And that's why a Christian feels
different about sin than the unbeliever, the whirling sinner.
That's why the believer, he has that in him that makes him want
to do right. He don't always do right, but
he wants to. It's in his heart to do it. He
feels that he wants to walk with God and he wants to please God. He's got something in him. He
can't fellowship with the world and the things of the world.
He's not happy in that. And he's only happy when he's
walking with God because he's got that new nature in him. God
put it in there. And it changed him. It made him
different. And he's just, the old things
have passed away and all things have become new. He's a new creature
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, listen. All the sins
of Adam are born in spiritual death. The Word of God teaches
that in Romans 5 and 12. Wherefore is but one man's sin
in and into the world, and death by sin, because death passed
upon all men, for all have sinned. When Adam sinned, we all did
too. We fell in Adam and we all died spiritually. And we were
born into this world. It's not possible for any of
us to enter the Kingdom of God until the Spirit of God comes
and borns us again. We've got to be brought to life.
We don't have enough life to know that we're dead until we're
born from heaven, until we're born of God's Spirit. This new
birth is accomplished by the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit
implanting this nature in us. That's what 2 Peter 1 and 4 tells
us. And then of course there in John
3 and 8 about the new birth. This is the testimony of the
Word of God. And no man has any ground to believe he's going
to heaven when he dies unless the nature of God is in him in
this life. If he's not born of the Spirit
of God here, I mean if he's not made a partaker by grace of God's
own nature in this world, he has no right to expect that he's
going to glory and be with the people of God for all eternity.
You must be born again. You say I'm a friend of the preacher.
You may be a friend of the preacher, you may have a Bible, but you're
going to hell unless the divine nature is implanted in you and
you have no hope. No well grounded hope. I mean you don't have a hope
that'll pass the examination of God unless you're born again,
unless God's spirit dwells in you, unless you have the new
nature. Now God requires faith also as
a condition of acceptance with him. Hebrews chapter 11 verse
6 says that without faith it's impossible, it's impossible to
please him because he that cometh to God must believe that he is. and that he's a rewarder of those
that diligently seek him. So, beloved, listen, faith is
the result and not the cause of God's grace. We're mindful
of that and we ought to believe that. Grace, listen, is the cause
of faith. Not faith the cause of grace.
You don't believe and receive eternal life. You're born of
the Spirit of God and then you're unable to believe. Faith is a
condition but only God can meet that condition. I've read testimonies
of many. John Bunyan said when he realized
that he had to have faith but only God could give it to him,
he said, I just wish I was like that toad there hopping along. If I was like they had told,
I wouldn't have any responsibility. I ought to believe God. I must
believe God. I'll go to hell if I don't believe
God. But I can't believe God. I'm not able to do it unless
God gives me the faith. And of course, God did give old
John the faith. And he was able to believe. And
it was so with Shane and others that testified of the Bible.
They heard people say, believe, believe, believe. And they were
not able to do it in and of themselves. Then listen to me. God gives
faith. Faith is necessary. Without faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, no man can be saved. Mark 16 and 16. It says that
he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be damned, Mark 16, 16. But listen to me, this is
faith, this faith that I'm talking about is the gift of God, Ephesians
2, 8. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Faith
is a gift of God. So these things that are required
for a soul to have a good hope for him to have that in him an
expectancy toward the future for eternal glory. That's real
solid ground to stand upon. I mean a ground to stand on when
the winds of affliction and when the winds of trouble and sorrow
were beating upon our bodies, and when pain and illness, and
whenever the doctor says it's terminal, you're going to die.
I mean, I hope that'll endure to the end. You've got to have
these things, these conditions. And only God can provide them,
and praise be unto God, He has provided them through His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, who is saved? Who has
this hope? Who has it? Let no one deceive
you. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ as He's revealed in the Scriptures, get this. Somebody
says well now wait a minute preacher now wait a minute now listen
to what the Word of God says listen to me it let no man deceive
you if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed
in the scriptures you are born of God you're born of God you
say well somebody say they don't wear the sleeves long enough
and their hair is not the right length this is wrong that's wrong
something else is wrong hear me out If a man believes on the
Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the Scriptures, then he is
born of God. It is of absolute no importance
for you to determine when you began to believe. You say, well,
I don't know whether I do or not. I don't know whether I...
I just don't know. Well, listen to me. It doesn't... It's of absolute
no importance for you to begin... to tell how you begin to believe.
Or who was preaching when you began to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ? These are questions often raised
by men. They say, when did you believe?
Who was preaching when you believed on Christ? Just when did you
believe on Christ? These are questions that are
often raised by men, but listen to me, they were never once raised
in the Bible. Never once. Listen, if you trust
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, you are saved. If you do not
trust Him, you are lost. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Beloved, it's just that simple.
And it's not all these other things. I tell you, we are in
a time when religious people, I mean, it's amazing if anybody
cuts through all of the religious all of this trash and rubbish
and gets to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all due to sovereign grace
and mercy when anybody gets through all of that entanglement of religion
and gets home to Jesus Christ and bases their hope in Him. Christ who is our hope, the scripture
says, He's it. We base and bottom on the Lord
Jesus Christ. We believe on Him by God-given
faith and we do have eternal life. 1 John chapter 5 and verse
1, just listen to this scripture here as I read it to you. 1 John
chapter 5 and verse 1, it says, Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. Not that they're going to be,
But they are. Everyone that believes is born
of God. Now listen to me now. I want
you to hear what I'm saying. Now we know that faith is based
upon knowledge. We know that it is. When a person
believes something, They got to know something to be able
to believe it. I mean, it's based on knowledge. Now God is more interested in
heart knowledge than He is in head knowledge. God's interested
that you know something in your heart. And faith, true faith,
is based upon the knowledge of God's revealed truth. It's based upon that. It is not
necessary that you know everything that God has revealed. But true
faith is based upon what God has revealed. Now, you must know
some things. For an example, the dying thief,
the Philippian jail, and the Ethiopian union. They didn't
know much, but they did know some things, and that which they
knew was the basis of their faith. What did they know? What is the
knowledge which is essential to salvation? It is essential
to faith that you know, I believe, three things. Three things are
essential to faith. And I believe that all God-given
faith embraces these three things that I'm giving you. And if your
faith embraces these things, and you can give testimony to
these three things that I'm going to give you, then I believe you
can say, I got the good hope, preacher. I got the good hope!
in my soul and I believe as far as eternity is concerned it's
a settled matter I'll be with him throughout eternity. Now
the first one is this Beloved a faith that is God-given is
a faith that believes and accepts that the soul was ruined totally
utterly ruined at the fall ruined in sin that the soul is hopeless
apart from the intervention of God in Christ. Now listen to
me, you must know yourself to be a sinner. You must know yourself
to be utterly helpless, totally depraved, fully deserving the
wrath of a holy God. Now anyone who acknowledges his
sin Before God with an honest heart I believe is saved in 1st
John 1 in verse 9 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so, beloved, have you come
to that place where you can say with God-given conviction, I
know that I'm a sinner and I know that I was utterly and totally
ruined in Adam and that I need desperately everything that God
is pleased to give a poor sinner. I need a whole dose, I need a
full dose of God's salvation. Alright, now the second thing
that I believe that faith must know and lay hold of is that
redemption is by the blood. It's by the blood. You must know
that the only way that a sinner can be accepted with God is through
the merit of Christ's obedience unto death. That somebody else
had to die. That you get to heaven not by
your own death, but you get to heaven by the death of another.
It was His death that saves the sinner. It was His death that
was my death to sin. You cannot, if you die and go
to hell, that's called eternal death in the Bible. And you can
go to hell and spend eternity there and you will never, never,
never, never, never, never Throughout eternity, you'll never pay your
debt of sin. I told you earlier, it takes
an infinite payment to pay the debt of sin. Now it's Christ's
obedience unto death as the sinner's substitute that we must lay hold
of. Now any sinner in all the world
who trusts the crucified Christ as his only hope of acceptance
with God is saved. If you can believe that you were
accepted in the Beloved, that you were accepted by God in Christ
through the merits of His death, that you are accepted before
God. If you can believe that, that's
the faith, that's the knowledge that you must have in order to
be saved. Now, I think also that we must
believe that regeneration is by the Holy Spirit. And I don't
think that there's anybody here that is saved, that's a child
of God, that does not believe that salvation is of the Lord.
That salvation is of God. That it's not a human project,
it's something that God must do by His grace and power, and
that God alone, without any works or the will of man, but by the
will of God, has brought us out of death, spiritual death, into
spiritual life. And that's our conviction. That's
what we believe. God did it. I didn't do it. The preacher didn't do it. God
did it. He brought me out by His own
divine power. Now any sinner who truly acknowledges
that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ
alone, is born of God. Because Ephesians 2 and verse
10 says, we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God hath beforedade, that we should walk in them.
But we're His workmanship. He did it all. He did it all,
and that redemption or regeneration is by the Holy Spirit. This being
brought out of death into life is by God's Spirit. And so that's
why we say that all is vain unless the Spirit of God comes down.
That's why we're praying as our brother did this morning for
power from on high, that the Spirit of God would come down
in our midst and finger the hearts of men and bring them out of
death to life. This is the work of God's Spirit,
and you can't have any well-grounded hope until the Spirit of God
intervenes in your soul and brings you to a point where you say,
I accept that I was ruined by the fall. I believe that redemption
is by the blood, and my testimony is that what took place in me
that changed my life was by divine power. It was God's regenerating
work. Now then, To sum this up and
to close, some will seem to say, well, it's very strict interpretation
of the scripture, Preacher, for you to say that people have got
to know some things. People have got to know these
things. Well, hear me out. I believe that they say you might
be requiring too much knowledge. Well, I ask, where in the Bible
can you find a saved person who knows less than what I've just
said? Can you find anybody in the Word
of God who's a saved person who knows less than this? Knows about
ruin by the fall? Knows about redemption by the
blood? Regeneration by the Spirit? I don't know of anybody in the
Bible who was saved that knew less than this. And there's another
thing. Somebody says, well, I believe
here that you're requiring here too little knowledge. I think
you're excessively lenient. to say that a person can be saved
and know only these three things. But I ask you this, who can you
find in the Bible? Where in the Bible can you find
that there's more required than what I've just said? Where is
there more required to have a good hope through grace? Well, beloved,
you cannot find it in the Word of God. If you would have a good
hope through grace, Then you see what God demands and see
that He's provided it. And if He's brought your dear
heart along to where you're unable to believe and you have this
knowledge in your heart that you were ruined and that Jesus
Christ went to Calvary's cross and died in your room and stayed
in place and that God accepted His sacrifice for you, treated
Him like you ought to have been treated on that tree, And now
He's willing to treat you like He ought to have been treated,
Him without any sin. That's your position if you're
in Him this morning, without sin. You're justified from all
things. And this morning, if you're willing
to testify that the Spirit of God has brought me out, and I
know that I'm in Christ, I know that the work has happened, I
know God's done it, then, beloved, you can claim a good hope. You
can claim a good hope. You got grounds for a good hope. And let the religionist say what
he wants. Let people say, well, until they
quit doing this or quit doing that or quit doing something
else, ain't got anything to do with it. All of that's a bunch
of Tommy Rock foolishness. What I told you this morning,
we got down to the foundation. We come down here and we bottomed. This is bottomed. And let all
these people talk about this quitting and starting all they
want to. All this other foolishness. This is the gospel truth. This is the story that will save
a ruined sinner from eternal judgment and woe. and save him
to eternal glory and everlasting bliss. This is it. This is the
everlasting consolation. This is the good hope through
grace. May God bless this truth to your
soul.