We're in Jonah Chapter 2. Now,
Jonah is the rebel that fled from the face of God, from the
Word of God, from the calling of the Lord. The Lord came to
him and told him to go to Nineveh. Go to Nineveh and preach unto
them. Tell them, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Jonah did not want to do that. Wednesday night we heard the
reason why Jonah would have been racist towards these towards
Nineveh, towards the nation. Now, this account took place,
we know, without a doubt. This is one of the most beautiful
pictures of the Lord's salvation, what he had done for his people. The Lord even uses Jonah as an
example. He says, as Jonah was in the
belly of the fish three days and three nights, so shall the
Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three
nights. So we see the picture of Christ's redemption. We also
see that God's will will be done. God's will will be done. And
Jonah, Jonah didn't want to. Jonah fled from the face of the
Lord. He went down to Joppa to get on a ship going to Tarshish.
He went down into the sides of the ship and he fell asleep and
he was fast asleep. He was snoring. He was perfectly
content being in rebellion. And we know the account goes
as The Lord sent a great wind, and the wind caused the mariners
to think the ship was breaking, and they were afraid, and everyone
called upon their God. And the captain of the ship went
to him and said, oh, you sleeper, wake up. Call upon your God.
Maybe he'll have mercy upon us. Jonah knew what the problem was.
Jonah knew he was the problem. His rebellion is what caused
the storm. And he told the mariners, you're
gonna have to cast me overboard, so they did. They did, and a
whale swallowed Jonah up, and he spent three days and three
nights in the belly of that whale. Jonah was spat back out on dry
land when he confessed salvation is of the Lord. That's what I've
titled this message. Salvation is of the Lord. Confessing that
salvation is of the Lord is the only confession. The only confession
that releases us from death. Now the reason that is is because
it is confessed by the faith of Christ. So if he's given faith
to confess that salvation is of the Lord, That means death
has no claim upon us any longer. Death has no claim because of
the faith that the Lord's given us. There's a verse that men use
often in religion. It's Romans chapter 10 and verse
nine and 10. It says that if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart,
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For
with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Is that true? Absolutely. Absolutely true,
beyond a shadow of a doubt. But no man can confess that salvation
is of the Lord. No man or woman can confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, that he is God, unless he's been given,
or she's been given faith to do so. Do you know who will confess
that? The Lord's people. The Lord's
people are made to. The Lord's people are made to. The only way that we will confess
this is if God reveals that we are in the whale's belly. That's
what we deserve. We deserve death. We deserve
hell. We're going to see that that's
what Jonah calls this place is out of the belly of hell, I cried.
We must be made to see the Lord literally Spiritually dangles
us over hail and shows us that's what we deserve. And immediately,
immediately we cry salvation is of the Lord and he shows us
Christ in mercy. It's twofold. It's what we talk
about often. It's repentance because of what
we are in its faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there
is a very very. Big difference in seeing that
we're a sinner. and being made a center. There's
a difference. There's a lot of men and a lot
of women that will tell you that their centers, but that doesn't
mean they've obtained grace. That doesn't mean that they've
been made the chief of centers. See, that's the act of God. That's
a work of the Lord that he must do in the heart. It's done to
the preaching of his gospel. It's the revelation of Jesus
Christ. It's what I'm describing when I say he dangles us over
hail. He shows you are the man, David,
you are the woman, the one that is the offense towards God. It's
not just what you do. It's what you are by nature. It's what I am by nature. This
is why salvation is of the Lord is I can do nothing, but he must
do it all. He must do it all. And he draws
that confession from his people. Salvation is of the Lord. He
must do it all. Now, unless he makes us a sinner,
unless he makes us a sinner. And in the same time he makes
us a sinner, we confess Christ. That's our confession. We no
longer go around saying, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner. We go
around saying Christ is all. Christ is all. I've seen my sin. I don't glory in my sin. That's
not my righteousness. Saying that I'm a sinner doesn't
make me righteous. Being made a sinner is the qualification. But we don't go around saying
I'm a sinner as it is our righteousness. No, we go around saying Christ
is our wisdom. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our
sanctification and redemption. That's what our confession is.
We don't brag about being sinners. We're embarrassed of our sin,
aren't we? We're disgusted. We're disgusted with ourself.
We're disgusted of our sin. We constantly cry out, truly,
salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. Unless
the Lord makes us sinners, we will rebel just like Jonah. We'll
run from the presence of the Lord, the face of God. and we'll
run right into hell. It is by mercy. It is by the
Lord's mercy that he sent that wind as we heard Wednesday night. That wind is what caused Jonah
to be awoken. That wind is what caused Jonah
to be thrown overboard. That wind is the wrath of God
is what it represents. And that we see that as soon
as he hit the water, the sea ceased. And that was the Lord
satisfying the wrath of God for his people. And we see that the
death, the whale could not hold him. It had to spit him back
out. And all those that were in Christ were presented as perfectly
righteous before the father. That's what the picture is here.
Salvation is of the Lord. He did it all and gets all the
glory. Now look with me in chapter two at Jonah's confession. Then
Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God out of the fish's belly.
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord,
and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried
I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hast cast me into the
deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods can pass me about.
All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said,
I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy
holy temple. The waters can pass me about,
even to the soul, The depth closed me around about. The weeds were
wrapped around, wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms
of the mountains and the earth with her bars about me forever.
Yet that thou brought up my life from corruption. Oh, Lord, my
God. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord. My prayer came in and to thee
and thy holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. but I will sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that, I will pay that
that I have vowed salvation is of the Lord. The Lord spake unto
the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. You and I have been made to know
that when repentance and faith is given, we will have this same
exact confession. Salvation is of the Lord. Now, David recognized the same
thing that Jonah recognized. Salvation didn't belong to him.
We're going to read this later, but in Psalm 51, after David
had sinned with Bathsheba, David makes this statement. Restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation. We've been made to know that
salvation is of the Lord. It's all his work. It's all his
doing. And he gets all the glory for
it. In mercy, he allows the weeds of our sin to be seen, that it's
choking us to death. He shows us that. He shows us
that our sin is choking us to death. And we cry, save me. And looking to Christ relieves
that weight of sin. Unless the Lord makes us a sinner,
we never feel the weight of our sin. We never feel the gravity
of it. When he shows us that we're being
choked to death by it, we see that it's, we can't bear the
burden of our sin before him. He must bear it. There's no way
I can repay that which I owe. The debt is too much for me.
I can't do anything good. I can't do anything right. I
am the sinner. Lord, You're going to have to
take that sin. I can't even cast it to You. I want to. I want
to give it to You, but I can't transplant it from myself to
You. You're going to have to do it all. Do it all. And that's exactly what He did.
That's exactly what He did for His people. He took it all. Only
when we're made a sinner will we see that we're drowning, and
only drowning people need saving. There'll be a bulletin in your
article next Sunday that has some of these that I'm about
to speak on. But only drowning people need saving. Only blind
people need sight. Only deaf people need ears to
hear. Only the lame needs legs to walk.
Only the leper needs to be cleansed. And only they that are sick need
the great physician. Only they that are hungry need
the bread. Only those that have been made thirsty need the fountain
of living water. Lord, make me a sinner. Don't let me deceive myself in
thinking that I see my sin and therefore I'm qualified and I
know that I've made things right because I see myself as a sinner.
No, we don't look to ourself in any way. Look to Christ. Look to what He has done. We
don't brag about our sin, do we? No. We're embarrassed of
our sin. Lord, I'm lame. I'm blind. I'm
deaf. I need Christ. I don't brag that
I'm blind. No, Jesus, Son of David, have
mercy upon me, because if you don't, I'm going to die blind.
I'm going to die lame. I'm going to think that I'm OK.
I'm going to be in rebellion all the way to hell. Lord, I
need you to make me a sinner. And I need you to show me that
you've taken that sin and you nailed it to your cross and that
you put it away, because I can't I can't do anything, anything
to put away my own sin. In the glorious news of the gospel,
Christ said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. Christ Jesus came to save the
chiefest of sinners. Christ Jesus successfully redeemed
his elect sinners. This is what we're made to cry
out. Have mercy upon me, the sinner. Now Jonah could be read just
as a story. I remember having story books
and there's a lot of children's books. There's movies that are
done based upon all different stories of the Bible. But what
the story can never show us is the spiritual parallel. And the
spiritual parallel is the beauty of Christ and his gospel in Jonah. We see a glimpse We see a peek
into what the Lord was going through on the cross of Calvary
here in Jonah chapter two, don't we? We see, we look through a
glass darkly is what Paul said. We don't understand what we believe. We just believe it by eyes of
faith, but we do have just a glimpse, a glimmer of what the Lord was
enduring on the cross of Calvary here. We see the agony of our
savior as he was in the belly of hell on the cross of Calvary
for his people. We see that our sin, is what
was transplanted to him, what was given to him. The seaweed
that wrapped around Jonah's neck represents what should have choked
us was choking him to death, to death for his people. That's
what we see here. We see that the floods can pass
him about, the waves passing over Jonah here. David said it
like this prophetically in Psalm 88, thy wrath lieth hard upon
me and thou hath afflicted me with all thy waves. Now many
of us, maybe all of us, have seen the ocean. I used to live
seven minutes from the ocean. And we would go and sometimes
it would be high tide, sometimes it would be low tide. But it
didn't matter what tide it was necessarily, those waves would
move you when you got in the water. Waves are powerful. Waves are debilitating. Waves destroy. That sand is constantly
being shifted, isn't it? Because the waves are coming
out and going in. Understand something, the wave
that the Lord would have faced upon the cross of Calvary would
have been greater than the greatest tsunami. And he stood there and
he did the only thing that he could do, endure. He endured
that wrath. If he would have done anything
other than enduring it, if he had all the power, All the power,
he said, was given to him by his father. He could have called
12 legions of angels, the scripture tells us, doesn't it? He could
have gotten off the cross. He had the power to stop it.
And yet he endured the wave after wave after wave of the debilitating
wrath of God for his elect sinners. He endured it until what? Those
waves ceased. They stopped. Why? God was satisfied. God was satisfied with His sacrifice. He had put away the sin of His
people. He endured every single one until
they stopped. He was obedient unto death, cast
out of the Father's sight. What Jonah just said here, Now in Isaiah 53, he mentions
to us that he endured the cross and he despised the shame. Now that word despised does not
mean what I thought it meant when I looked it up. The word
despised means he didn't notice it. He didn't notice the mockery
of the men. He took no notice of them. When
they plucked his beard, he didn't become angry at them. He didn't
even pay attention to them doing that. Sure, he felt pain in his
body when they were beating him. He felt pain in his body, but
it was nothing compared to the agony of his soul that he was
enduring for his people. He paid no attention to the physical.
He was doing spiritual business with God. Being the sinner's
substitute, having our iniquity laid upon him, he was doing business
with God. And as those waves continued
to pound upon him, he paid no attention to the mockery of the
men. He was obedient unto the Father unto death. He was dealing
with God alone in the thick darkness. Just as Jonah said, the Lord
said on the cross as well, prophetically Jonah speaking, when my soul
would have fainted, I remembered God's holy temple. What did he
remember? His purpose. to worship his father,
to perfectly worship and honor his father. That was his purpose. He attempted nothing. You and
I attempt everything. Did you know that? Everything.
If I say I'm gonna walk from where I'm standing to the back
of this building, I'm going to attempt to do that. Now, there's
a pretty good chance, mathematically, that I will succeed in walking
to the back, but that's not guaranteed, is it? It's not guaranteed. I'm
going to attempt to take my next breath, but that's not guaranteed
either, is it? Did you know God doesn't attempt
to do anything? He said, I will, and it comes
to pass. I will call his name Jesus, for
he shall, not attempt, not attempt to save his people from their
sin, he shall save his people from their sin. And he did, didn't
he? He did, he successfully redeemed
his people And God rewarded his son with his bride on resurrection
morning. I love the thought of the Lord
presenting his bride unto the father. And the father looking
at the bride and seeing the son and saying this is my beloved
son and whom I am well pleased. And as he looks at the bride,
he says perfectly righteous. She's perfect, son. She's perfect. Does that give your heart joy?
To know that the Lord, his finished work, has made the bride spotless. He's given her his own name.
Jehovah sit in you, the Lord our righteousness. She's beautiful
in his eyes. And we've seen what he endured
on the cross just briefly and had a glimpse into that. And
for the remainder of the time, I hope to see a glimpse of what
the Lord's blood has accomplished, what his blood cries out for
his people continually. And we're going to backtrack
a little bit and go back to chapter one in verse 11. He says, Then said they unto him.
Now, these are the mariners speaking. Jonah's just confessed that he
was the reason that all this had happened. He was the reason
that they were in dire trouble. He says, The mariner said to
him, What shall we do unto thee, Jonah, that the sea may be calm
unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, take me
up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm
unto you. For I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard
to bring it to the land, and they could not, for the sea wrought
and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the
Lord and said, we beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee. Let
us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent
blood, for thou, O Lord, It has done as it pleased thee. So they
took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased
from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord
exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows.
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and
Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. You find it strange that Jonah
didn't just jump in Why didn't he just jump in? Why didn't he
just, he knew, he had already confessed to them that his demise
was their only solution. He said, the only thing that's
gonna save you is for me to be cast overboard. Why didn't he
just jump in? Why was it required for them
to cast him in? Do you find that interesting?
He'd already volunteered. He told them it's necessary.
I'm the necessary sacrifice. I'm the necessary sacrifice.
Men try everything. When they hear the solution,
when they hear that Christ must be all in salvation, they try
everything. They lighten the ship, the wares of the ship.
They try to row against the current. They try to endure the wind,
never, not even knowing that everything they're doing is iniquity.
Not knowing, not realizing that. God made these men confess that
Jonah's sacrifice was their only hope. Jonah's sacrifice was their
only hope. They pray, they cry out, lay
not innocent blood upon us. They were afraid of damnation.
They were afraid of the same wrath that they saw was upon
Jonah would come to them if they laid hands upon him and threw
him overboard. But they were made to see that there was no
way of escape. This was the only way. They must
lay hands upon him, acknowledging that his sacrifice was their
only hope in their physical salvation. Transgressor must be put to death. Sin must be punished. The rebel
must pay for his rebellion. You know what the wages of sin
is? You know what the wages of rebellion is? It's death, isn't
it? It's death. The sinner had to
die. That's what this is a picture
of here. Justice must be satisfied. Now, how can you and I be spared
from this wrath? How can you and I be spared from
this wrath? Romans 5, 9 tells us, much more then, being now
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through
him. Christ's blood. See, blood is the requirement
for salvation. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sin. And you and I know that our blood's
polluted. The sinner's been made to know. If God's made you a
sinner, you've been made to know that your blood is not good enough
to please God. Christ's blood was. His blood must be shed. Sin must
be imputed to Christ. Our sin must be imputed to Christ. And Christ must die in our stead. Acts 2.23 tells us, him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken and with wicked hands hath crucified and slain
him. Although we cannot see that we
were physically there at that time, God transferred our sin
unto the Lord Jesus Christ. In a literal sense, we laid hands
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We were dead in trespasses and
in sin. We could not lay hold on him. We could not transfer
our sin unto him. So when we were dead in trespasses
and in sin, God transferred our sin. Our sin was laid upon him. You know how this was done? reminded
in, you remember the scapegoat? We looked at the scapegoat several
times getting away from me now. It could have been months, could
have been months ago. Last Sunday with the 100th message I preached
to us. But the scapegoat is how it was transferred. It's found
in Leviticus 16. For the sake of time, I'm going
to tell you about it. Aaron was instructed to get two goats.
One was gonna be killed, and its blood was gonna be spilled.
That's the necessary sacrifice. The other one was to bear the
iniquity, the transgression, the trespass, the sin of the
people. He physically placed his hands
upon this animal, and he confessed every single sin, all the abominations
of the children of Israel, and he sent it forth into the wilderness,
bearing their sin, taking it away from them. And when we could not lay our
hands upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture tells us in Isaiah
53, God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. Every single
person that was given to Christ in the covenant of grace before
the foundation of the world, God laid the iniquity of them
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And he executed his son for their
sin. Our hope is that it's our sin,
isn't it? Our hope is that he's our scapegoat. This is what the
picture is here. The only way that you and I can
be set free is to lay hold of Jesus Christ and the Lord is
the one that transferred the sin to him and cast him overboard
so that his wrath would be satisfied. And because he endured all these
ways, because he endured the wrath of God, putting away our
sin, the moment he touched death, the waves ceased, they're raging. Death could not reply against
the Lord Jesus Christ. It had nothing to say. It had
nothing to say. And it cannot reply against all
those for whom Christ died. No. Because of this. Because our
iniquity laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ by his sacrifice, he justified
his people. Because of this, his elect are
guilty. They are guilty of the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Understand something, it was
our sin that he was killed for. It was our sin being given to
him. We are guilty of his death. So when we walk around stating
that we're sinners, when we walk around saying that we're sinners
in a bragging fashion, what does that mean that he was made sin
for his people? Well, we don't glory in our sin,
do we? We glory in what he is, what he done in putting away
our sin. We don't walk around saying we know we're saints.
I know I'm righteous. No, that's not what we say either.
What do we say? Salvation is of the Lord. Christ is all. Christ is all in salvation. We are guilty of his death. But
the good news of the gospel is his blood does not cry for judgment
towards his people. It cries mercy. It cries mercy. There's a picture of that in
Genesis Chapter 4. Turn with me there if you will. Genesis
Chapter 4. Verse one. And Adam knew his wife Eve and
she conceived and bear Cain. and said, I have gotten a man
from the Lord. And she again bear his brother
Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the
sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process
of time, it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit of the
ground and offering unto the Lord. And Abel also, he also
brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto
Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering, he
had no respect. And Cain was very wroth and his
countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain,
why art thou wroth? Why is thou countenance fallen? If thou do
us well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou do us not well, sin
lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou
shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his
brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that
Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the
Lord said unto Cain, where is Abel thy brother? And he said,
I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And
he said, what hast thou done? The voice, now look at this,
the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me. The voice of
thy brother's blood crieth unto me. What did the blood of Abel
cry? It cried for justice. It cried
for vengeance. It cried for wrath. What is the
picture here in Genesis 4? The picture is that we are Cain.
We are Cain by nature, bringing the works of our hands to the
Lord, bringing the very best works that we have, the very
best, but we are not pleasing to him, not pleasing to God in
any way. We cannot please God. He has
no respect unto us because of what we are, the sin that we
are. He has no respect unto us. So all men everywhere and even
our flesh, even our flesh hates Christ because God has respect
towards Christ. Our flesh hates God. Right now
our flesh hates God. So by nature we slay Christ in
our heart. That's what we do by nature.
By our own fleshly nature. We slay Christ. So here's the
gospel. Here's the gospel in this wonderful
allegory. When we were without the ability
to confess Christ, Christ confessed his people before the Father. God laid on him the iniquity
of us all. We could not transfer our sin.
We just wanted to kill him. We just went away with this man.
"'Let his blood be upon us and on our children. "'Our flesh
can't see that he's God. "'Our flesh can't worship him. "'Our
flesh doesn't want him. "'We'll not have this man reign
over us.'" You and I would have done the exact same thing there
as they did. We're from the same mold. We're
from the same make. We would not have seen Christ
had he not in mercy revealed himself. People were literally
talking to God and they couldn't see him. We laid hands upon him in anger,
not in hope, not in hope. He took our transgression, He
took our sin, He took our iniquity, our trespasses, and He made us
the righteousness of God in Him. Now we hear the most glorious
sound is what His blood cries, peace. His blood cries righteousness. His blood does not cry justice.
He endured the justice of God. He endured the wrath of God.
His blood cries, peace, mercy, grace for all those for whom
he died. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
12. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 18.
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched,
and that burned with the fire, nor into blackness, and darkness,
and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words,
which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken
to them anymore. For they could not endure that
which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain,
it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible
was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake,
but ye are come unto Mount Zion, and to the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company
of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all,
and the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh
better things than that of Abel. His blood speaketh better things
than that of Abel. You're not come to judgment,
he says. You're not come to vengeance. You're not coming to justice,
which must be served. That's what Abel's blood said.
That's all that Abel's blood said. That's all that Mount the
Mount Sinai can produce, the Mount that we just saw, the Burning
Mountain, the Holy Mountain, that's all that can be spoken
of that mountain. He says, no, you've come to Mount
Zion. I've purchased it with my own blood. I purchased it
with my blood. The most amazing, glorious news
about that mountain, about the finished work of Christ, about
God made sinners is this, instead of vengeance for what we have
done to him, The blood of Christ cries justified, justified, holy,
righteous, perfect, sinless. Brethren, understand something.
The very murder that we had in our heart toward Jesus Christ,
God the Father took that sin and charged his son with it and
executed his son for the murder we had in our heart towards Jesus
Christ. He was punished for our murder
towards Him. Think about that. He was punished
because of the hate our flesh has toward Him. He was put to
death for the murder that we have in our heart and He put
it away. He put it away. So now He doesn't
see that anymore. He sees perfectly righteous sons
and daughters of God. That's what He sees. Our sin
was laid upon Him and God put his son to death for our sin. In the final moment of the cross,
we get to hear what his blood cries out every moment of every
day. It is finished. That's what his
blood cries. That's what His blood is going
to cry through the ceaseless ages. That's what His blood cries right
now, and right now, and right now. Now there is no, therefore,
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Why? It
is finished. Salvation is of the Lord. It is finished. There's nothing
left for you to do. There's nothing left to be done.
It is finished. Everything in the Old Testament,
all the prophecies, everything that the Old Testament pointed
to, the types and the pictures, it is finished. All the allegories
fulfilled, all the promises kept, the covenant fulfilled, it is
finished. This is what his blood cries.
The sea has ceased from her raging. Salvations of the Lord. We have
been washed in the precious blood of the Lamb. And he says, when
I see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass by thee. I will pass over thee when I
see the blood. Why? Because the blood cries to the
Father. It is finished. It is finished. Salvation is of the Lord. Jesus
Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the
dead and the prince of the kings of the earth and to him that
loved us and washed us from our own sin and his own body or by
his own blood, washed us from our sin and his own blood. declares
successfully, it is finished. Salvation is of the Lord. Now,
if God has made you a sinner, if God has made you a sinner,
not that if you see sin, but if God has made you a sinner,
come to Christ, flee to Christ, flee to Mount Zion, the city
of God, the refuge, the sanctuary city, the place, the only place
that we can be saved from the wrath to come. Well, how do I
flee to him? with the faith that he's given
you. If he's made you a sinner, he's given you faith also. They
are instantaneous together. It's a baby being born. The baby
is alive, and the moment that it comes forth from the womb,
it must breathe. The doctor gets the baby. I know
my children, turns it over, smacks it on the butt, and says, and
doesn't have to say anything. The baby takes its first breath.
That's faith, isn't it? We don't even, we don't, We breathe
all the time, not knowing that we're breathing. How many times
have you breathed this service? Well, I didn't know it. I'm not
concentrating on my breath. You don't concentrate on faith
either. It's just given of God. And every once in a while, he
has to smack us on the bottom and say, breathe, doesn't he?
And we just do. We just breathe the breath of
life by his spirit, his gospel. We eat the bread of life. This
is why we come. We come because salvation is
of the Lord. And we've been made to see that.
Amen. Father, thank you that salvation
is yours, that you bought it by your own blood. I pray that
you would bless your word in Christ's name.