I have a most interesting subject
today from a very familiar text. I'll be preaching from 2 Timothy
1, verse 12. And I'll be preaching
on the subject, what is saving faith? What is saving faith? And this scripture that I read
to you from 2 Timothy 1, verse 12, Charles Spurgeon, the outstanding
preacher of Metropolitan Tabernacle in England, said this is the
most concise and best definition of saving faith that he's been
able to find. In all of his ministry, he said
this is the most concise and best definition of faith that
I've found. Here in 2 Timothy 1, verse 12. Listen to it. Paul's been writing
to Timothy, his son in the ministry, and he told him in the preceding
verses, he said, don't be ashamed of the gospel, and don't be ashamed
of me, the Lord's prisoner, and you be a partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel, because he said, I'm in prison now for the sake
of the gospel. That's right. Verse 12, look
at it. For the sake of the gospel, I suffer these things. Nevertheless,
I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed, for I know whom
I have believed." This is the definition now. This is his confession,
false confession of faith. I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded, I'm confident that he is able to keep that
which I have committed to him against that day. Now, I have
three points this morning. And the first and most obvious
one, the most obvious thing here is that Paul's faith and hope
for eternal life was not in himself. It was not in his religious affiliation. It was not in his rituals and
ceremonies and keeping of days and laws. It was not in the traditions
in which he was raised and taught, but was in a person. Did you
see that? He said, whom I have believed."
He didn't say, I know in whom or of whom. He says, I know Him.
I know whom I have believed. And you know, I find this to
be true. If you examine the faith of every
believer in the Scripture, and through the years I've become
acquainted with the testimony and confessions of these people
in the Word of God, Old Testament, New Testament. And if you'll
examine the faith and hope of every believer in the scripture,
you'll find this to be the case. They believed a person. None
of them based their hope for eternal life on law, obedience,
works, religious rituals. It was always Christ, Christ
of Abraham. The scripture says he believed
God and was counted to him for righteousness. And the Lord Jesus
Christ said himself about Abraham. He said, Abraham saw my day. Abraham saw my day. He rejoiced
to see my day, my coming. He was glad. He saw my day and
was glad. And you know, I told you this
last week, when Abraham and his son Isaac were walking up the
mountain and Isaac asked, where's the lamb? Abraham made this tremendous
statement. He said, My son, God will provide
himself a lamb. That's Abraham's faith in Christ,
the Lamb of God, the coming Lamb. Abraham said, God will provide. That's one of the seven names
of Jehovah in the Old Testament. God, Jehovah-Jireh, God will
provide. That was Abraham's faith, a person.
You see that? What about Moses? Christ said,
Moses wrote of me. I was the subject of Moses' writings,
the subject of all five books. Moses wrote five books, Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Christ is the key. He's the
subject in all of them. Moses wrote of me. Moses wrote
in Deuteronomy 18 about Christ. He said this, God will raise
up a prophet like unto me, and God will put his words in his
mouth, and him you shall hear. God will send a priest, Moses
said, like Melchizedek. Moses is the one who wrote about
Melchizedek, the type of Christ. Moses is the one who instituted
the Passover lamb. Take a lamb without spot, without
blemish, put it up four days, sacrifice it, roast its body,
put the blood on the door. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. And Moses instituted that Passover
to be observed every year as long as Israel, the nation, stood. And that Passover is Christ.
Moses' faith and confidence and hope is in Christ. What about
Job? Job's supposed to be, according to most people, the holiest book
in the Bible, the first patriarch. What did Job say in Job 19? I
know that my Redeemer liveth. And He'll stand on this earth.
He'll stand on this earth. My Redeemer, my God, will stand
on this earth. And though worms destroy this
body, yet I'll see Him. Myself, not another. I'll behold
Him. What did David say? The Lord's
my shepherd. The Lord Jesus Christ is my shepherd,
and He restoreth my soul. He restoreth my soul. And then
I told you a few weeks ago about this 53rd chapter of Isaiah.
I think I brought a message on it. But this 53rd chapter of
Isaiah, this is Isaiah's confession. This is Isaiah's gospel. This
is Isaiah's faith and hope, Isaiah 53, as many chapters, but 53
especially. But in Isaiah 53, he uses this
personal pronoun, these personal pronouns, his and him, 43 times. In this one chapter, 43 times. Listen as he gives us his confession
of faith. He's talking about Christ. Christ,
he said, He shall grow up as a tender plant, a root out of
a dry ground. He shall be a man of sorrows,
acquainted with grief. He hath borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
By His stripes we're healed. This is a crucified Redeemer
Isaiah is writing about. He shall justify many, for He
shall bear their iniquities. Oh my, these men didn't trust
in a law or ceremonies or Sabbath days or feast days or their works. They looked to Christ. And the
Apostle Peter, Our Lord Jesus Christ fed a large crowd of people. Then he preached to them, and
they began to walk away. They didn't like what he was
saying. His message was, they said, it's
a hard saying. And they left. And our Lord turned
to the 12 disciples. And he said, will you also go
away? And the apostle Peter spoke up and said, Lord, to whom shall
we go? That's what Paul's saying. I
know whom I have believed. To whom shall we go? Thou hast
the words of eternal life. And we believe and assure that
you're the Christ. You're the Son of the living
God. Can you say that? I believe and I'm sure that He's
the Christ, the Son of the living God. Yes, sir. This is the true
God and this is eternal life. That's what John said. Listen
to his testimony. The Son of God has come. and
has given us understanding that we may know Him that is true. We're in Him that is true, even
in His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And this is the true God,
and this is eternal life. I don't know how that could be
made plainer. And I could take the rest of the evening or morning,
and I could go through all the scriptures and give you the testimony
of every believer. It's Christ. Christ. Saving faith
is in the personal work of Christ. I'll tell you something else
Spurgeon said that I want to read to you. This is one of his
personal testimonies. He was a great preacher. He pastored
in London, England from 1855 to 1892 when he died. But he
said, when I came to Christ, I had no assurance that God would
save me. I had no assurance that I had
a personal interest in the death of the Son of God on the cross.
I just knew I was a sinner, a great sinner. And I knew this. I knew that God said Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. I knew that. And I knew that
God said that he came to seek and to save the lost. And I knew
that God said that he was made sin for us who knew no sin. Christ
knew no sin, but he was made sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. I knew that God said, I heard
the preacher read it, look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth, for I'm God, there's none else. Spurgeon said, I looked,
I believed, I trusted him, I believed him on the strength and authority
of his word, With me, it was sink or swim, I go to Him. He died for those who believe.
I believe. He died for those who trust Him.
I trust Him. He said, All that my Father giveth
me will come to me, and he that cometh to me I'll in no wise
cast out. So I came to Him. That's a good testimony. I looked
to Him. I believed Him. I trusted Him
on the strength and authority of His Word. He said, Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my Word will never pass away. The great hymn writer, Edmund
Jones, in 1787, wrote these words. I love these words. He said,
I'll go to Jesus, though my sin hath like a mountain rose. I
know His courts I'll enter in, whatever may oppose. I can but
perish if I go. I am resolved to try, for I know
if I stay away I must forever die." Paul's faith was in a person,
and that person is the Savior of sinners. He's the sinner's
Savior. That's what Paul said in Acts
13. Paul said this to the congregation in Acts 13. He said, Be it known unto you that through
this man, Jesus Christ, is preached to you the forgiveness of sins,
all sins, and by him all who believe are justified from all
sins, from all things, all sin, past, present, and future, from
which you cannot be justified by the law of Moses. And then
Peter in 1 Peter 3.18 says, Christ, Christ Jesus the Lord, has suffered,
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he himself
might bring us to God. Now, I don't know how I can make
this first point any plainer. Paul says, I know whom I have
believed. Discount any affiliation or or
any association or any work you do or law you keep or morality
you produce, salvation's in Christ, person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is the song of the people
in glory. Now, you listen to Revelation
1, verse 5. This is the song of heaven. It
better be the song of earth. It better be my song and your
song because this is what they sing in glory. unto Him, unto
Him who loved us. We didn't love Him. He loved
us. We love Him because He first loved us and washed us from our
sin. We didn't wash in the baptismal
pool or the fount. We didn't wash our sins away.
The creek didn't. He did. He loved us and washed
us from our sins out in His blood. Don't get so modern and so intellectual
you forget to preach the blood, my friend. It's the blood that
makes an atonement for the soul. I've given you the blood on the
altar to make an atonement for your soul, and it's precious
blood. It's the precious blood of Christ.
It's precious to the Father, and it's precious to every believer.
He washed us from our sins in his own blood, and he hath made
us kings. I tell you, if we're son of the
king, then we're kings. He made us kings and priests
to offer sacrifices of faith, joy, and praise, and priests
to God and His Father, and to Him be the glory and the dominion
forever and ever. Amen. That's it. That's the song of heaven. That's
the song of heaven. It'll do us well to read that
quite often. when we get wrapped up in our doings and duties and
religious and professions and experiences and talking about
what we've done for God, it'd be awful well for us to turn
to the song of heaven and see if that's our song. It's a song
of Moses, song of the Lamb. It's a song of redemption. It
brings the praise and glory to Him. Well, the second thing I
see in Paul's confession, did you remember it? I know whom
I have believed. I am persuaded. I'm confident
He is able. I'm confident. I'm persuaded. I'm fully assured that He's able
to keep that which I've committed to Him. Our confidence is not
in ourselves. My confidence is not in this
flesh, in my holding out or holding on. That's right. It's not my
hold of Him. It's His hold of me. That's right. It's not my hand that keeps me.
It's His hand. I'm in His hand. We have no confidence
in this flesh. That's right. Over in Philippians
3, Paul gives us the three marks of true Israel. He said, the
people who are true Israel worship God in spirit, not form and ceremony,
but spirit. The people who are true Israel
rejoice in Jesus Christ only. The true Israel has no confidence
in the flesh, not in their flesh, not in anybody else's, Our confidence
is not in our church leaders. It's not in our churches. Our
confidence is in Christ. Paul had to rebuke the apostle
Peter down there in Antioch when he came down and sided with the
Judaizers and the law keepers and the legalists. Paul said,
I had to rebuke Peter to the face. You can't trust Peter. You can't even trust Paul. You
can't trust yourself. But you can trust Christ. That's
exactly right. Our hope and confidence is in
Christ our Lord, His blood, His righteousness, His intercession,
His mercy, His grace. Oh, top lady's great hymn, Rock
of Ages. You remember that verse? Nothing
in my hands I bring, simply to the cross of Christ I cling.
Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal know respite? No.
These for sin could never atone. It's Christ that saves and Christ
alone. I'm persuaded, Paul said. I know
whom I have believed and I'm persuaded he is able. He is able
to keep. That's the foundation of Abraham's
faith. You know, Abraham's called the
father of the faithful. We're exhorted to look back to
Abraham's faith and study his faith. But Paul, in Romans 4,
summed up Abraham's faith. He says in verse 20, Romans 4,
Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Abraham had a promise, nothing
more. He had the Word of God, a promise. He didn't see the
promise fulfilled. He had the promise of Christ's
coming, Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, Christ's redemption.
He had it in promise only. But he didn't stagger at the
promise of God through unbelief. but was strong in faith, giving
God the glory, and Abraham was what? Fully persuaded. Fully
persuaded. What did Paul say? I know whom
I have believed. I am persuaded that he's able. Abraham was fully persuaded that
what God had promised, he was able to perform. My friend, you
reach back to the Old Testament and you pull out Abraham. Three
thousand years before Paul. And Abraham believed God, the
promise of the Savior, Christ, the Redeemer, and was fully persuaded
that what God said he was able to perform. Here's Paul, after
Christ died, was buried and rose again, saying the same thing.
I know whom I have believed. I am persuaded, fully persuaded,
that he's able to keep that which I've committed to him. He's able. Hebrews 7.25 says He's able to
save to the uttermost. You've never gone so far. You've
never fallen so low. You've never sinned so black.
You've never thought so wickedly that He can't, by His precious
blood, make you as white as snow. Though your sins be as scarlet,
I'll make them white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
I'll make them like wool. He's able to save to the uttermost,
to the guttermost, somebody said. You bring me a sinner, my Lord
can save him. That's right. And Jude 24 says,
and he's able to keep them safe. He's able to keep you from falling.
That's right. None of his sheep are going to
fall away. Oh, they stumble and fumble and fall, but they don't
fall forever. He always lifts them up. He's
able to keep you from falling, and he's able to present you
before the presence of His glory, spotless." Think about that.
Holy, without blame, before God Almighty. My, what a Savior. And Philippians 3 says this,
verse 21, He's able to subdue all things to Himself. There's
no sinner He can't save. He said, My arm's not short that
I can't save. My ear's not heavy that I can't
hear. I'm able to save. He's able to subdue you. If He
sets out to save you, He will. That's right. He's able to subdue
all things unto Himself. Every kneel, bow, and every tongue
will confess He's Lord. You can write that in concrete.
He's able to subdue all things to Himself, and He's able to
raise our vile bodies someday and make them just like His glorious
body. You think about that. Those cemeteries
are going to, graves open one of these days, and every believer,
It's going to be changed. His vile body is going to be
changed from corruption to incorruption, from mortality to immortality,
from shame to glory, from temporary to eternal, immortal. That's
right. Made like His glorious body.
Old Nebuchadnezzar was going to put the three Hebrew children
in the fiery furnace. He was going to cast them in
the fiery furnace. And this is what he said to them.
Who is that God? that shall deliver you out of
my hands." Is any God able to deliver you out of my hands?
And the Hebrew children said, Our God, whom we believe, is
able. He's able. He's able to deliver
us, and He will deliver us. But if He's not pleased to deliver
us, He's still God, and the only God, and will not bow to your
peanut gods." Now that's, he's able, that's what Paul's talking
about. I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded, totally confident,
that he's able to keep that which I've committed to him against
that day. What is this confidence in Christ? I'll tell you what
it is. When old Job was at his lowest
point, everything was swept away. His wealth is gone. His health
is gone. His children is gone. His friend is gone. Friends are
gone. His wife said, why don't you just curse God and die? Why don't you just curse God
and die? And old Job said, though He slay
me, I trust Him. I trust Him. It's not my hold
of Him that saves me. It's His hold of me. It's not
my promise to Him that I believe. It's His promise to me. It's
not my works before God, which I trust. It's His works of righteousness
and holiness and truth. So, saving faith, number one,
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. I know whom I have believed.
Saving faith is confidence and trust in Him. He's able to keep
that which I've, number three, committed to Him. that which
I've committed to Him against that day. You see, the knowledge
of who Christ is and what Christ has done leads us to a confidence
in Christ. And when we have a confidence
in Christ, it leads us to a committal to Christ. You understand that?
If you have confidence in Him, you'll commit yourself to Him.
You'll trust Him. You'll believe Him. You'll receive
Him. And that commitment to Christ, leads us to confess Christ. It
leads us to publicly own Christ. It leads us to identify with
His people, identify with His Word, identify with His Church,
identify with His Gospel, and be baptized confessing Christ
Jesus. He is worthy of my full confidence
and faith and commitment and confession. It's really, listen
to me, listen to me, will you? It's unworthy of the great name
of Jesus Christ to talk about a token allegiance to him. To so great a person, a token
allegiance? It is unworthy of his great gift
of life to talk of a partial commitment. A partial commitment
to such a great person? A partial surrender? Part-time
discipleship? I heard one time a young man
say, I'm going in full-time Christian service. There's no other kind.
You don't talk about a part-time discipleship. Those who came
to Christ came completely. They never turned back. Those
who rest in Christ cease from their own labors and find in
Him all they need. Paul says, He's able to keep
that which I've committed to Him. In closing, what have we
committed to Him? My sins transferred to Him, laid
on Him, paid for. My sins, oh, the bliss of that
glorious thought. My sins, not in part, but the
whole, are nailed to the cross. I bear them no more. It's well
with my soul. What I commit to Him, my immortal
soul committed to Christ. One day my body's going back
to the grave, to the dust, but my soul's going to God, accepted
in the Beloved, in peace. What have I committed? My possessions.
I know how to abound. I know how to be abased. I've
learned in whatsoever state I am to be content. I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me. And my God shall supply all
my needs according to His riches and glory through Christ Jesus.
I've committed to Him my family. The Lord gave. I know what Job's
talking about. And the Lord taken away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. And I've committed to Christ
and His church like Ruth of old. She said to Naomi, entreat me
not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee. For
where you go, I go. Where you lodge, I lodge. Your
people be my people. Your God will be my God. Where
you die, that's where I'll die and be buried. That's the way
I feel about him and his church. Now here's the message, saving
faith. What is it? And the message I
brought last week, the doctrine of Christ. Send two dollars,
we'll mail it to you. God bless you.