When I was a little boy, that
hymn stuck on me. What I understood, I don't know,
but that hymn was the hymn that really seemed to grip my heart
even when I was a child. When you turn back to 2 Thessalonians
2, tonight we're going to consider
That passage of scripture in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21,
where it says, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of
God. What does that mean, to submit
yourselves to one another? I've entitled this message, Eternal
Comfort. Look in verse 16, now our Lord
Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved
us and hath given us everlasting or eternal comfort. The inspiration for this message
came from I was going to say me looking
at something, but I hope the inspiration of this message came
from the Lord. But what inspired this message is I was trying
to see what the scripture had to say concerning this thing
of comfort, being comforted by the Lord. And I was looking at
every scripture with regard to comfort, and this just hit me
like I'd never seen him before. Maybe I haven't, but he speaks
of the Lord giving us everlasting consolation. That's the word
comfort, eternal comfort. Now the Holy Spirit is called
the comforter. And when I read this thing of
having eternal comfort, A comfort that never had a beginning. A
comfort that shall never end. Eternal comfort. I thought to
myself, this is the only kind of comfort that will do me any
good. Eternal comfort. Now what does
that mean? Eternal comfort. Comfort that
is everlasting. Comfort that's eternal, comfort
that never had a beginning, and comfort that never will have
an ending. Eternal comfort. Now, whatever
God does is by necessity eternal, because he is eternal. All men know innately and intuitively
that God is and that he is eternal. Nobody made him. He is the eternal
God. Now I realize that there are
many atheists, a whole lot of atheists. Maybe there's more
atheists than theists, I don't know. A lot of atheists. But
nobody began that way. Perhaps they didn't like the
implications of God, so they said, there is no God. Now, that's unreasonable. There's no comfort in that. Life is meaningless with that
point of view, meaningless. There are no absolutes. There
is no right or wrong. What a horrible way to live. What a lonely place this is if
there is no God. There's no comfort in that. There's no comfort in religion.
None at all. Religion is man's attempt to
find God. And it can be summarized by your
salvation being dependent upon what you do in order to get God
to respond to you. There's things you need to do.
You'll never find God unless you do this, this, and this.
Then you'll find God, then you'll be saved. There is no comfort. in that way of thinking, when
have I done enough? What is it exactly that I need to do? There
is no comfort, there's no satisfaction in religion. Am I sincere enough? Am I good enough? And the correct
answer for all that is no, you're not. No, you're not. But there is comfort in the gospel
of God's grace. You see, the gospel's not a religion.
Christianity is a religion, but the gospel is not a religion. Turn with me for a moment to
Isaiah 40. Comfort. God says to his servant, Isaiah,
comfort ye, comfort ye my people, sayeth your God, speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. Now, I want you to think
about this. It doesn't say comfort her by
telling her her iniquity will be pardoned if. It says nothing
about her warfare is accomplished if. It doesn't say anything about
forgiveness is offered to her or it's offered to her that her
warfare might be accomplished. No, these are statements of absolute
fact. Her iniquity is pardoned. Her warfare has already been
ended, has already been accomplished. Now I repeat, the only thing
that gives true comfort to my soul is that which is eternal. that which is declared by God
himself, something that never had a beginning and never has
an ending, therefore is incapable of change. You know, the one constant in
our temporal lives is change, isn't it? Change and decay in
all around I see. O thou that changest not. abide with me." Now God is the
eternal God. He's not bound by space the way
we are. We can't be two places at once,
can we? He's omnipresent. There's no
way where He's not. He's not bound by time. You and
I are locked into a sequence of events. Not Him. There's no sequence
of events with him. Everything is in the internal
present. There's no past. There's no future. God is eternal. Now somebody may be thinking,
and the reason I'm saying this is because I thought this, should
you even be going here? I mean, this is transcendent.
This is so far above your understanding. You're bound to time. Should you even be thinking this
way about eternal things? Well, turn to 2 Corinthians 4,
and this will answer this question. Paul says in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians
4, For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment so temporary, worketh for us a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory while we look not at things which are
seen, but at things which are not seen. For the things which
are seen are temporal, temporary, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. Yes, this is what we look at. That which is eternal, not that
which is seen, but that which is not seen. Turn with me for
a moment to Hebrews chapter 12. Verse 27. Let's begin in verse 26. Whose voice,
speaking of the voice of God, then shook the earth, but now
he hath promised, saying yet once more, I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifieth
the removing of those things that are shaken, or that may
be shaken, that are unstable, as of things that are made, that
are created, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Now, anything that can be shaken,
anything created, anything material, is not gonna remain. It's not
going to remain. What's going to remain? That
which cannot be shaken. That which is not made. That
which is eternal. There's a saying that says, life
is fleeting. Soon shall be past. Only what
is done for Christ shall last. You see the problem with that? Life is fleeting, it will soon
be past. Only what's done by Christ shall
last. Not what you've done for Christ,
what he has done. Turn to 2 Samuel chapter 23 for
a moment. These are David's dying words. Verse one, now these be the last
words of David. Well, let's go to verse five. Although my house be not so with
God, and he could talk about his children, his wives, His
relatives, it was a mess. And God said it would be. He
said, the sword's not gonna depart from your house. His house was
a mess. He couldn't look at his home
and think, find words of comfort. He's talking about this house.
This house. Although my house be not so with
God. I'm a sinner. I am a sinner. Although my house be not so with
God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, an eternal
covenant, a covenant that does not find itself in time, but
it took place before time. It never had a beginning. It
will never have an end. He's talking about the covenant
of grace wherein Christ covenanted to be everything in my salvation.
He took full responsibility for my salvation before time began. Now, like I said, this is all
that gives me comfort. Something that happens in time
and doesn't find its roots in eternity doesn't do me any good.
But this is the everlasting consolation that Paul is speaking of in 2
Timothy 3, verse 6. He's made an everlasting covenant
with me. What it says next? Ordered in
all things and sure. It's sure. It's not unstable.
It's not something that goes back and forth. It's sure. And
David says, this is how much of my salvation? All my salvation. How much of
his desire? All my desire. This is all I
want. This is all I have any desire for. to have this covenant
that's ordered in all things ensure that is eternal, made
before the foundation of the world. I love the way Hebrews
4.3 states, all the works were finished from the foundation
of the world. Now, if my salvation is in fact
an eternal salvation, And that's what it's called in Hebrews 5.9,
an eternal salvation, a salvation that had no beginning, no beginning,
no starting point, and no ending, no time in which it can be ceased.
If everything I have was given me in Christ Jesus before the
world began, and that's what 2 Timothy 1.9 says, he saved
us and he called us. The saving came before the calling. He saved us and He called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which were given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Everything you have you have
in Christ Jesus before the world began. He hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. My salvation is eternal. No beginning, no end, it's not
subject to change. I am complete in Him, nothing
lacking. Oh, can't you see why Paul spoke
of this everlasting? eternal consolation or comfort. My salvation is not subject to
any change. I love what the wise man said
in Ecclesiastes 3.14, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it
shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nothing
can be taken from it, and God doeth it that men should fear
before Him. Now, what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done, nothing can be added to it, nothing
can be taken from it. It's immutable, it's eternal,
And this is all my salvation and all my desire. Do you remember
how God told the demon possessed man to go home and tell your
friends and family the great things God has done for thee? And he went home and told them
the great things Jesus had done. Did he make a mistake? No, no. But what I love to think about
as much as, I love to think about the cross. Yes, I love to think
about that, that which took place in time, but I love to think
of the Lord Jesus Christ standing as my surety before time began
and saying all the responsibility of Todd's salvation is on me. Oh, I love that, that eternal
salvation. Christ is called the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world, saved in eternity. The reason I'm saved in time
is because I was saved in eternity. Every aspect of our salvation
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. I love this passage of scripture
in Acts chapter 15, verse 11. We believe that through the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they,
those Gentiles. That almost sounds future. We
shall be saved. But one of the things I don't
know, I don't understand, I know a little bit about Greek enough
to make it dangerous. I don't know much about it, but
I know this. Greek has a tense that is not found in the English
language. It's called the Aorist tense.
And that can just as easily be translated. We believe that by
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been saved, we're being
saved, and we will yet be saved. Now the word eternal or everlasting
is most often connected to eternal life. We read the word eternal
71 times in the New Testament and 41 of those times it's with
regard to eternal life. A life that did not begin in
time. Now in our experience It did
begin in time, didn't it? There was a time when I didn't
know God. There was a time when I didn't have any understanding
of the gospel. There was a time when I was satisfied
with things as they are. But that changed in time. God revealed himself to me. God revealed to me my need of
Jesus Christ. God revealed to me who Jesus
Christ is. All that took place in time. But the reason it took
place in time is because it was accomplished in eternity. Christ is the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Having been slain is how that
actually is stated. The Lamb having been slain from
the foundation of the world. Now somebody's going to say,
well, if He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
why did He have to come in time? That's real dumb. That's all
I can say about that. That's real dumb. I know people
use that reasoning. If we're saving eternity, we
don't need to believe in time. Yeah, you do. As many as were
ordained to eternal life, believe. We're bound to thank God always
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. Now, this eternal life, while
we have to believe in time, I realize that. Let's think about this
thing of eternal life. A life that had no beginning.
Now, I was began, as far as my experience goes, September 9,
1959. I don't remember when that happened. Somebody says, you
ought to know when you were saved. Well, I don't know when I was born.
I don't remember it. I know I was. I can't remember what it was.
Can anybody remember the day they were born? Of course not.
But there was a time when I lived, and that was when I believed
the gospel. But that life I have is a life that's eternal, because
it's the life of Jesus Christ. That is my life before God. When
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, Christ Jesus' life is
my life before God. I am the way, the truth, the
life. The life. No man comes to the
Father but by me. His eternal life is the life
of every believer before God. Now, like I said, in our experience,
seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, there was
a time when we were not saved and then there's a time when
we were. But Christ has always been my life. My consolation,
my comfort is that which is eternal. You see, all of salvation is
comprehended in our eternal union with the Lord Jesus Christ. He
said in Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5, and this is true concerning
every believer, this is what he says concerning you. Before
I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. You were a person that God knew
before you had any physical existence. Before I formed thee in the belly,
I knew thee. Whom he did foreknow, them he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Whom he foreloved. Whom he knew beforehand. You can't know someone who is
not. I love it the way that goes on. Whom he did predestinate, them
he also called. That happened in time, didn't
it? Whom he did predestinate, them
he also called. Whom he called, them he also justified. whom he justified, then he also
glorified. And beloved, that's not prophetic,
not saying he will glorify. He's glorified. He's glorified. Now, we read of the eternal mystery
in Romans 16, 25. All the truths of the gospel
are mysteries, aren't they? They're things we would have
never known had not God made them known. Now, we believe the
mysteries, but it's like, can you understand the mystery of
the Trinity? How God is one God and three persons? Of course
you can't. Do you believe it? Yes. Yes. Do you understand eternal union
with the Lord Jesus Christ? No. Do you believe it? Yes. Yes. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Do you understand how that is?
No! Do you believe it? Yes, these are all eternal mysteries. They never had a point when they
began to be. They are eternal. of the blood of the everlasting
covenant. In Hebrews chapter 13, verse
20, the covenant was sealed by the blood of the Lamb, slain
from the foundation of the world. And it's the same covenant that
David spoke of. I've already quoted that scripture
in 2 Samuel 23, verse five. Although my house be not so with
God, yet the Lord hath made with me an everlasting covenant. ordered in all things and sure. This is all my salvation. This
is all my desire. And note this statement at the
end though, though he make it not to grow. Now what in the
world does that mean? It means that I've got a salvation
that doesn't grow. Now, don't you believe in growth
and grace? Of course I do. I believe in growing grace and
the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I believe
we grow in the fruit of the Spirit where we love Him more. We believe
more firmly. We have more joy in understanding
justification. We become more long-suffering. I believe in growth in the Beatitudes.
I want to become more poor in spirit, don't you? I want to
mourn more over my sin. I want to be more meek before
God. I want to hunger and thirst after righteousness even more.
I want to be a peacemaker even more. I want to be more merciful.
I want to be persecuted for right. Yes, I believe in growth and
grace, but listen here. I don't grow in holiness. If you grow in holiness, that
means you can be less holy. That's a denial of what holiness
is in the first place. I don't become more righteous.
You don't become more righteous or less righteous. You're either
righteous or you're not. There's no growth in this. I'm
holy. I'll never be more holy than
I am right now. And that's hard to get hold of. I realize that,
but that shows you how much this flesh brings us down. The difference
between now and heaven is I won't have this flesh anymore to deal
with. It's gonna be gone. I'm as righteous right now as
I'll ever be because the righteousness of Christ is my personal righteousness
before God. We read in Hebrews 5.9 of an
eternal salvation, and I have no interest nor any comfort in
a salvation that's not eternal. You see, only if it's eternal
is it sure and immutable. We read in Hebrews 6.2 of eternal
judgment as one of the foundational truths of the gospel. If it's
not eternal, the sentence can be changed. But because it's
eternal, it can't be changed. For instance, I don't know how
well this will illustrate this, but I've used this before. Did
God know you'd be here this morning? Of course He did. Is there any
chance you wouldn't have been here? No. Does God know you're justified,
complete? Did He know that before time
began? Did He know that? Is there any way it won't be
that way? You see, this is all according to God's eternal purpose. We read in Hebrews 9, 12 of eternal
redemption, literally the Lamb having been slain from the foundation
of the world. Now listen to this. God created
the universe for the cross. The Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. Everything God does, He does
for the glory of His Son and the glory of the cross wherein
He's made Himself known. God manifesting Himself. We read
in Hebrews 9.15 of an eternal inheritance. How many people
have made a will died, and then the bickering begins. And people
hire lawyers to change it, and that inheritance is changed.
That's happened many times over the years, but here's someone
places it's not going to happen. This is an eternal inheritance. eternal weight of glory, a house
eternal in the heavens. What gives me everlasting, eternal
comfort? That salvation is what the Lord
has done for me in eternity. That's what gives me comfort.
I understand exactly what David meant when he said, although
my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting
covenant. ordered in all things and sure. This is all my salvation and
all my desire, though he make it not to grow. Now, what I've
been talking about is impossible to understand and the only thing
that makes sense. Does that resonate with you?
It's impossible to understand. And it's the only thing that
makes sense. Our need is not to figure out
whether or not we're eternally united to Christ. Don't even think about that right
now. Am I one of the elect? Am I somebody included in the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Those are questions
really that you shouldn't be asking. Now, why are you saying
that? Because your one responsibility
is to believe the gospel now. To believe that he is who he
says he is. The son of God. God's Christ. God's prophet. God's priest. God's king. Your responsibility
before God is not to figure out whether you've been eternally
united to Christ. You believe on Christ right now. That's it. I think of that passage
of scripture in 2 Timothy 1.15. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm trusting you to save me.
I've got a right to trust you for that because you said you
came into the world to save sinners and I'm one of them. Save me,
be good to your word, I know you will. I'm entrusting all
of my salvation to that statement. Your son came into the world
to save sinners. Now, I believe what you said. Do you believe that Jesus Christ
is the uncreated son of God? Do you believe that? Do you believe
he's God's Christ, God's prophet, God's priest, and God's king?
Whoso believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Now, I want to emphasize as much
as I can your responsibility and my responsibility is not
to figure out whether or not we're one of the elect. Your
responsibility. God commands everybody in this
room to believe the truth. Believe who his son is. to believe
that who he is and what he did is all that's needed to make
you perfect before God. And if you believe Christ, you're
going to find out, you're going to know, you're going to understand
that the only reason you believe is because you've been eternally
united to the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. I close with this statement. The only thing that gives any
sinner comfort, true comfort, real comfort, well-grounded comfort,
is that which was accomplished in eternity. Let's pray. Lord, I ask in Christ's name
that you would give each person in this room the grace, and Lord
it's the gift of your grace, the grace to look to Christ alone and nowhere else. In Christ's name we pray, amen.