Paul and Silas, following a special revelation
by the Spirit of God, went down to Philippi to preach. And when
they got there, Paul began to inquire to find out if there
were people in that city who worshiped the living God. It
seems that a group of women met to gather down by the river outside
of the city where prayer was wont to be made. So Paul went
to that place on the Sabbath day where these women assembled
to pray, and he worshiped with them, and he preached to them,
and the scripture says that a woman named Lydia, a seller of listened
to what Paul had to say, and God opened her heart. God opened
her heart to receive the things that Paul preached concerning
Christ, and she was saved. And Paul went to her home and
spent some time, and then he began to go about the city, preaching,
witnessing, and there was a woman, a young woman, who followed them
And this young woman was a strange person. She was a fortune teller. She was one of the soothsayers,
or she claimed to have the powers to predict the future. And this
always is connected with evil. Always. When people profess to
be fortune tellers or predictors of the future, and use these
things as a means to attract attention, to make money and
so forth, always connected with evil. And she was possessed of
evil spirits, demons, evidently. I know very little about this,
and I don't know anybody else that knows anything about it
either. But she was following Paul, and she kept saying, and
there was some people, there was a group of men who sponsored
her. like the newspaper sponsored
Jeannie Dixon and other evil prophets, and they made money
off her. In other words, she'd go around
and make prophecies and these sensational foretelling of events and so
forth, and folks paid for it. They paid for the information.
These fellows made a lot of money off her. And she kept following
Paul around. Paul and Silas screamed, and
these are the men of the Most High God who come to show unto
us the way of salvation. It's strange how that even demons,
spiritual wickedness in high places and rulers of darkness
and evil, always make some reference to God and to salvation and to
spiritual matters. You see, Satan, most folks It's
so difficult to get them to see, and you may not pay any attention
to what I say this morning. That's your business. But Satan,
contrary to the average person's opinion, just doesn't hang out
in the saloons. He doesn't hang out in the mafia's
club room. He doesn't hang out in the dens
of evil. That's not where he does his
business. Satan is a religious operator. And that's where he operates.
He operates in the realm of religion. And here this one, not that he's
not in those places, not that he doesn't motivate, not that
he doesn't have something to do with all evil, but where he
does his work of deception, where he does his work of deceiving
people, is in the realm of religion. And here was this demon-possessed
girl who was possessed with evil and made a fortune for a group
of men by her evil tactics and ways, she's following Paul around,
calling attention to him, calling attention to him. Satan knew
what results this would bring about, and so Paul, being grieved,
turned and cast the demons out of her. And when those who profited
by her evil ways saw that that they didn't have her anymore. And when a person's converted,
they don't fool with astrology and astronomy and horoscopes
and foretellings of future. Same people don't fool with those
things. Redeemed people don't fool with
them. And that's so, because they're trusting Christ, not
fate or luck or chance or prophecies of the future. They don't fool
with us. People who know God don't depend
on things like that. So they lost her. When she came
to knowledge of God, of Christ, when Paul dealt with her in mercy
and cast the demons out of her, she left that. And they saw that
their means of support was gone, and so they stirred up the people
against Paul. This may have been Satan's original
intention anyway. And so they stirred up the people
against Paul, and they brought them before the magistrates and
the judges and said, these fellows are Jews. This was a Roman colony,
and these fellows are Jews, and they've come in here teaching
things that they ought not teach and commanding us to follow customs. It's not our practice, and so
it stirred up the mass, the multitude, and the judges stripped their
clothes off of them and beat them and cast them into prison. And when he cast them into prison,
he gave the jailer, the Philippian jailer, The man who lived evidently
there in the jail with his family, and the dungeon was down below,
and he lived evidently upstairs in some way, he gave him charge
to keep these men in prison and watch them. So at midnight, Paul
and Silas were praying and singing hymns, and the other prisoners
were listening to them, and suddenly there was an earthquake. It shook
the foundations of that old dungeon, that old prison. And all the
doors just fell off their hinges. And all the shackles and the
bands that were about the prisoners' arms and legs fell off. And the
jailer awakened out of his sleep. He was sound asleep, feeling
that the prison was secure and the prisoners were secure, and
he woke up. And he saw the doors all open, and he thought the
prisoners were gone, and he knew that he would be killed because
he was given the responsibility of keeping those men, so he drew
out his sword and would have killed himself, and Paul called
him, he said, wait, do thyself no harm, we're all here, no one's
gone. And he called for a light, called
somebody to bring a light, it was dark in that dungeon, bring
a light, and they brought a candle, some kind of light and he went
into the dungeon and there were the prisoners standing there,
no chains about them, the doors open, and he trembling brought
Paul outside and fell down and he said, Sirs, what must I do
to be saved? What must I do to be saved? What's necessary for me to do
to be saved? Well, in the first place, I know
quite well, and I think some of you do, what is involved in
this matter of being saved. It's a whole lot more. It's far
deeper and wider and greater than most men and women realize.
Being saved is a whole lot more than changing your way of living. Being saved is a whole lot more
than deciding that you'll go to church from now on and behave
yourself. Being saved is a whole lot more
than that. Being saved is a whole lot more than believing religious
doctrines and practicing religious ceremonies. It's a whole lot
more than just deciding that you don't want to go to hell
and that you'd like to go to heaven when you die. go out more
than that, being saved. Now, getting religion and being
saved are two different things. The multitude has religion. Many are called, few are chosen.
Many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, did we not preach
and cast out demons and do many wonderful works? And He'll say,
I never knew you. And I wouldn't have you to be
deceived. I'm going to tell you this morning what I believe the
Bible teaches that salvation is. It's not a profession of
faith. Salvation is not a reformation
of life. Salvation is not a religious
profession. Salvation is not deciding that
instead of going to hell, you just believe you'll go to heaven.
Cast your lot with Jesus. Salvation, number one, is deliverance. That's what the word means, deliverance. He hath delivered, he is delivering,
and he will deliver. Deliverance. And Webster says
deliverance is to be set free. Now, you don't make a decision
to get some man sitting in the dungeon down there in jail can't
just decide he's going to be on the outside. Somebody's got
to set him free. Somebody's got to deliver him.
The slaves back in 1860 couldn't just decide that they were free
men. They had to be set free. And
salvation is to be set free. Free from what? Well, there are
four things, and Arthur Pink wrote a whole book on this one
time, Fourfold And it's all the way through the scripture. Number
one, to be saved is to be delivered, to be set free from the penalty
of sin. It's to have a new righteousness
from the penalty of sin. God's righteous justice must
punish sin. God said, I will in no wise clear
the guilty. The curse of the law rests upon
guilty sinners. What the law saith, it saith
to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped,
and all the world become guilty, and guilty people must be punished. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. There is over us a penalty of
sin. There is over us a curse, because
we've broken God's law. Now, to deceive is to be delivered
from that penalty and delivered from that curse. And you just
don't decide you're going to be delivered from that penalty
and that curse. The one who put it there is the
one who decides whether or not it'll be removed. And the only
way it can be removed is for his justice to be satisfied and
for him to have a reason to remove it. And over in Galatians chapter
4, it says, ìGod, in the fulness of time, God sent forth his Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were
born under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us.î So this thing of salvation, first,
is deliverance. Itís deliverance from a penalty,
from a curse. He that believeth not on the
Son, the wrath of God abideth on him." There's judgment against
us, recorded against us, written against us. There's judgment. There's penalty. And you don't
walk down this aisle and decide you won't be under that penalty
anymore. You don't just shake a preacher's hand and say, now
I believe in Jesus. Now the penalty's gone. Now the
curse is gone. Now the wrath's gone. Now the
enmity's gone. Now God's reconciled to me. That's
what you think. That starts with God, not with
you. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. That's
a decision he made. That's a work he did. That's
a righteousness he accomplished. That's a justification he brought
to pass, not something you decided to do. You see what I'm saying? Salvation is greater than most
folks think it is. It's to be delivered. It's to
be set free from the curse, from the penalty of a just and holy
law. In Christ we have that. Secondly,
according to Mr. Pink, it's to be set free not
only from that awful penalty and curse of sin, but to be set
free from the power of sin. The power of sin. Now in the
heart of an unsaved man, in the heart of an unredeemed man, sin
is not a guest. That's what most folks think,
sin just moved in, visited a while. Sin is the master. Sin is their
master. They do what they do, they think
what they think, they say what they say because sin is the master. Sin reigns, sin rules, sin controls. an unregenerate, unredeemed man,
is dominated by evil. He's dominated by evil. And that
domination, that reign of evil, allows him to have no peace and
no joy and no rest and no hope in Christ. He cannot be the servant
of God while he's the servant of self and of sin. Now, in order
to be saved, to be delivered Something's got to happen to
give him deliverance from that awful master, that master who reigns over him
and controls him and rules him. Something's got to happen so
that it can be said, sin shall not have dominion over you. What has to happen? He has to
be born again. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, it thinks flesh, it's motivated by flesh, it's controlled
by flesh, it's dominated by flesh, its whole being is flesh. He's
got to have a new life born in him, born in him. He's got to have
a new master to come in over in Luke 11. Verse 21 and 22,
it says, When a strong man, armed, keeps his palace, his goods are
in peace. But when a stronger than he comes
upon him, he drives him out. He drives him out. This is the unsaved man, the
man who is unsaved. Satan, flesh, self, it takes
several forms. It may be, here's an unsaved
man who's given over to drunkenness. And to all kind of the, like
Adolf Hitler, so cruel and wicked. There's no, just no limit to
wickedness. Well, that's a controlling power
of a baser sort. That sin reigns, and sin in its
awful expression, but here's a man who just His general tenor
of life is to shortchange people, to cheat people, just one way
or the other. He's good to his family, he's
good to his wife and children, and he goes to church on Sunday,
but he's a cheat. His business is crooked. He takes
what he ought not to take. Well, that's evil, too. It's
just evil taken in another direction. And here's a person, he's just
sound as a dollar on paying his bill. He always pays his bills
on time. He never, he gives pound for
pound. Boy, he's proud of the fact you
buy ten dollars worth of oatmeal from him, you get ten dollars
butted down to, I never cheat anybody. But he hates colored
people. Or he hates his next door neighbor.
Or he despises this person or that person, he's got a heart
of malice and hatred and anger, intemperance. He's dominated
by that. This man over here is dominated
by drink. He's dominated by the terrible
outward evil of drunkenness or gambling. This man's dominated
by his covetousness. He can't quit. He's just got
to cut corners here. If he can see, he can make a
deal, you see. He can sell this and make a deal
and make a little, and nobody knows the difference. He's dominated
by that. He can't conquer it. This man here, he's conquered
and dominated, ruled by his intemperance, his hatred. Here's another man
ruled by self-righteousness. He's a churchman. He's a preacher
maybe. But he's so good. He's so righteous. He's so pure.
He looks down on everybody else. He's critical of everybody else
because they're not as good as he is. They're not as straight
in their doctrine or straight in their what? Well, he's dominated
by self-righteousness. Control. This is the thing about
sin, it controls, Paul said. It rules. I don't know what ruling
over you or ruling over me, but if we don't know, if we're saved,
Christ rules. That's what happens when a man's
saved. I'm not saying these things don't crop up. We're not perfect
by any means. We will be someday. But I'm saying
sin shall not reign. It doesn't rule. It doesn't control. It doesn't dominate a believer.
He has an awful conflict with sin and a rationing with sin
and these things crop up and he says, I'm not supposed to
think that or say that or do that, I don't want to, God give
me grace, give me strength, help me. You see, Christ is his master. That's salvation, that's a new
principle. He's controlled. You know what
I'm talking about. I don't need to draw pictures
to this congregation. You've got enough spiritual wisdom
to know what I'm talking about. When a person's saved, he has
a new righteousness and he has new principles by which he lives. And not only that, but he's free,
he's delivered from not only the penalty of sin and the power
dominating, ruling, reigning power of sin, but He's delivered
from the practice of sin. Now, he that is born of God does
not, 1 John says, commit sin, but that word can't be commit,
and you know it can't be, because we've already sinned this morning.
As short as this day is, and as blessed as this day is, and
as holy as this time of assembly is, we've already said something
we shouldn't say or thought, even in the flesh we've already
sinned. But this is not our tenor of
life, this is not the bin of our will. The tenor of our life
and the bin of our will and the direction of our thoughts is
toward the Lord. And we're saved from the practice
of sin. The practice of sin. And then
someday we shall be saved from the very presence of sin. For
we shall see him as he is and be like him. So when this man
fell on his knees before Paul and Silas and said, Sirs, what
must I do to be S-A-B-E-D? Well, I guarantee you he was
talking about a whole lot more than just what can I do to make
sure that I don't go to hell when I die. But salvation, salvation is deliverance. Deliverance is to be set free. It's to be operated on by the
power of God so that the enmity has been removed. Christ has
satisfied God's justice and obeyed and honored God's law and removed
from all of us that awful cloud of sin that separated us and
God. And it's to have a new principle,
a new master, a new ruler of my life. It's to have a new direction.
I'm walking a different direction. Sure, I stumble and my feet hurt
and the way is rocky, but I'm walking in a new direction. I'm delivered from the practice
of sin. And I'm walking toward the day
when I shall be delivered by God's grace from the presence
of sin. And that's my goal, and that's
my hope. I'll be satisfied, and I never will be satisfied, till
I await in his likeness. Now that's the reason, and I
may be a religious maverick, and may be a throwback on this
generation, but that's the reason. that I wouldn't give you two
cents for all the people walking the aisles in these so-called
religious evangelistic campaigns today, praying the sinner's prayer
and making decisions for Jesus. I want to sit back and see God
do something in the life of a man or a woman and have that person
come and tell me, I've been saved. I'm not the same. God's done
a work of grace. I hadn't had some little silly
experience. I've met the Lord. And I'm a
different person. I've been saved. See, something
else it is to us to be born again. To be born again. Our Lord said,
Nicodemus, you must be born again. Born again. New nature. Divine
nature. God lives in this house. Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. If any
man be in Christ, he's a new creation. He's a new creation. Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things become new. Of his own will, beget he us
through the word of truth. We are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible seed, by the word of God that liveth
and abideth forever. Born again. I'll tell you the third thing salvation
is. Salvation is deliverance, to be set free. Salvation is
a regeneration, a new creation, to be born again. Never to be
the same. There is no going back. There's
nowhere to go. We're no creatures in Christ
Jesus. We're in the family of God. We
can never be in any other family. We're in God's family. We're
sons of God. We can never be anybody else's
son, son of God. And thirdly, it's a living union
with God in Christ, a living union. Turn to John 17. I want you to
read something here with me. John 17. It is a living union
with Christ. In John 17, verse 20, our Lord
said, this is his great priestly prayer, he said, Neither pray
I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me
through their word, that they all may be one, as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me, and the glory which thou gavest me I have given
them, that they may be one as we are one." Listen to verse
23, "...I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect
in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast
loved them as thou lest Christ liveth in me." Look at verse 23, I in them and
thou in me, Christ lives in me. That's what salvation is. He
said, I'm the head, they're the body. I'm the vine, they're the
branches. Paul said, my little children,
I prevail to Christ be formed in you. Christ liveth in me. That's salvation. And when salvation
is fitly described and properly identified, it comes down to
this, it's to know the living God, not just to know about him
or to believe that there is a living God, the devil believes that
and trembles, it's to know him, and Jesus Christ whom he has
saved. So when men hear the true salvation
described. It makes a man examine himself.
We're supposed to let a man examine himself whether he be in the
faith. Know you're not your own selves, how that Christ is in
you, except you be reprobate. Give diligence to make your calling
and election sure. If you do these things, you shall
never fail. That's the reason Paul said,
Oh, that I may win Christ and be found in him. not having mine
own righteousness. So this question, what must I
do to be saved? And the average preacher and
religionist has brought it down to this thing of going to church
on Sunday and going to heaven when I die. And the Bible talks
about it being a living relationship with a living God. And what I'm
saying, if a man has that living relationship, he has the hope
of heaven. He has the hope of eternal life.
He has the hope of the blessed inheritance. Well, what's the answer? Well,
the man asked the question, and Paul said, Believe. That's a
simple word, believe. And yet so rich and so full.
Believe. I know like nail men, men want
to hear something else. They want to be given a work
to perform, a righteousness to produce. They'd like to buy salvation. But all Paul said was believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe. I know we'd like to
add, well, our church is the right church, and you must be
in the right church, and baptism, the Lord's table, the sacraments,
the communion, all these different things, you must do this, you
must do... Paul just left it like it is. Believe. Believe. But what is it to believe? Abraham was righteous. It said
he believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. What
did he believe about God? That there was a God? No, he
believed that God was able to perform all that he promised. In other words, he believed that
what God said, God would do. That's Abraham, that's the foundation
of his faith. He believed in what God said
God would do. That's where you start. And it
was not only written for his sake, but for all them to whom
it shall be imputed if we believe. This is where you start. You
don't put a question mark on this book and believe on Christ.
Because this is the only place you can find out about Christ.
You're not going to find out about Christ from your dreams
and visions and soothsayers. You're going to find out about
Christ from the record that God has given concerning His Son.
Here's where you start believing. The Word of God. What is it to
believe, secondly? It is to trust Christ. To trust
Him. To trust Him. I trust Christ. Paul said, I have committed it
unto Him. I trust Him. I've committed everything
to Him, past, present, and future. I trust Him. I'm persuaded He's
able to keep that which I've committed to Him. I trust Him.
I believe what God says about Him, and I trust Him. What is
it to believe on Christ? It's to receive Him. As many
as received Him, to them gave He the right, the privilege to
become sons of God, to receive Him. Receive him as my prophet
to reveal God, my priest to represent me by his blood, and my king
to reign over me. What is it to believe on Christ?
It's to receive him as prophet, priest, and king.
And then watch this. Notice our text in Acts 16, 31. Paul said, believe, now watch
this carefully, on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is his deity. No man
can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Spirit. If thou shalt confess
with our mouth Jesus to be Lord, he's the Lord, the God-man. Jesus,
that's his name of humiliation, humanity. When the angel came
to announce to Mary and Joseph the birth of this son, the angel
said, Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He didn't say call him
the Lord Jesus Christ, he said call him Jesus. That's the name
of that body, that person, that tabernacle of clay, Jesus. God
in the flesh, but God in flesh. Lord, God. Christ is God. Jesus Christ. He said, I and
my Father are one. And I believe he's the Lord,
immutable, unchangeable, eternal, infinite, by whom all things
were made. I believe he is Jesus, very man
of very man. He came bone by bone and flesh
of my flesh. He was a living human being,
made in the likeness of sinful flesh. Christ. John sent word to him, John the
Baptist, and said, Are you the Christ? He knew he was the Lord. He heard the voice from heaven
saying, this is my son. He knew it was Jesus. He knew
his mother. He knew his brothers and sisters.
He wanted to know, Cecil, if he was the Christ. Are you the
Christ or do we look for another? Simeon, he recognized him as
the Christ. Who is the Christ? The Christ
is the Messiah. The Christ is the one of whom
Moses wrote, God shall raise up from among you, from among
the people a prophet, him you shall hear. The Christ is the
one that the tabernacle represented, that the priest represented,
that the types represented, that to whom David looked. The Christ
is the son of David who shall restore the power and glory to
the true Israel of God, the Christ. And this is what John was asking,
are you the Christ? The woman at the well said that.
She said the Christ, when the Christ is come, the Messiah,
he'll tell us. So this believing, you want to
know what it is to be saved? When our generation Thank God, one day, the Lord God was pleased to send
Ralph Barnett over here to Ashland, Kentucky, to wake up a bunch
of religionists, who didn't know, as L.R. Shelton used to say,
ephem zizard, whatever that means. But he came preaching a message,
and some of us, for the first time, blew the dust off our Bibles. We was going to prove him wrong,
you know. But thank God, we blew the dust off our Bibles and got
acquainted with this book. Got acquainted with it. Found
out something about righteousness and justification and sanctification
and the new birth and what God does when he saves a sinner and
the Lordship of Christ and the glory of redemption. And it's
something more than this little silly decisionism and easy believism
and walking in an aisle and deciding to go to heaven and playing church
and singing this little light of mine and running around burning
candles and wearing little old silly robes and playing church
on Sunday and having a little social fellowship around the
Lord. We found out that there's a living
relationship with a living God that's to be coveted. That's
to the salt, seek ye the Lord, while ye may be found. And that's
what I'm trying to do for you, what he did for me. I'm trying to do for my day what
God led that old hitchhiking evangelist to do for us. He wouldn't leave us alone. He
made fun of our religion, didn't he? Ah, you remember? And I'm
going to make fun of yours till you give it up. till you just
throw it in the river, till you do what God led us to do 29 years
ago, and that's throw it in the river, because it hadn't brought
you any happiness or peace or comfort and hadn't brought you
to know God. It hasn't done anything for you but make you miserable
because you can't decide which world you want to live in, this
one or that one. And the sooner you junk it, the
better off you'll be. Soon you quit claiming to be
saved when you're not, and know it, and everybody else knows
it, and God knows it. Salvation is to know Christ.
It's to be living in a living, vital union with the Son of God.
It's to be a new creature. It's to be born again. It's to
be delivered. It's God to be my King. It's
to believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ. It's not just to believe
in Jesus. We didn't understand what Ralph
was saying when he came here and says, you sing that song,
Jesus saves. He says Jesus doesn't save. The
Lord Jesus Christ saves. No man named Jesus alone can
save. He's got to be the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see what I'm saying? He can't
just be a man named Jesus, he's got to be the Lord, God, in the
flesh, anointed, ordained, sent, appointed as the Messiah, the
Christ. Now, I don't know whether that
makes sense to you or not, but that's what Paul said here, and
that's what the truth is. Believe. That's to believe what
God says. That's to give approval, heart
approval. I don't understand everything
in this book, but I believe it. I believe it. I believe what
God says about Christ. And no little peanut preacher with a
degree from a simple theological seminary who's trying to explain
that the Red Sea had two inches of water in it and stuff like
that's going to turn my attention away from this book. This book
was here when he was born. It'll be here when he's in hell.
God's Word, I believe the record, and I believe Christ Jesus is
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see that? He's the Lord Jesus
Christ. And thou shalt be saved. Now
let me say something here that needs to be said. And this is
amazing to me. It's amazing to me that men and
women who are looking to their own works for salvation. They're looking back to an experience
or to a feeling or to a decision or to religious duties. All over
the world today, they have complete confidence, complete assurance
that they're saved. Well, I'm saved. Anybody makes
it, Lord, surely I will. I'm saved. And yet, not one promise
in God's Word to give them that kind of assurance. Listen to
me, the Bible doesn't say do the best you can and you shall
be saved. It doesn't say that anywhere. The Bible doesn't say
join the church and you shall be saved. The Bible doesn't say
have an experience and you shall be saved. The Bible doesn't say
if you feel saved, you are saved. The Bible doesn't say if you
pray, you shall be saved. And yet they have the strongest
kind of assurance. They have the strongest kind
of confidence. I saved 25 years ago, and nobody's going to make
me doubt it. That's what they say. Because I made my profession,
I joined the Church, and yet many people who believe on Christ,
who have no hope in their works and no confidence in their good
deeds and no confidence in their experience or feeling, who know
that they're sinners, who know that Christ is the only one who
can save sinners, who know that Christ is the only one who can
redeem sinners, who know that if they have any hope, it's in
Him, and yet those people are filled with doubts and fears.
Can you figure that out? When God plainly says, He doesn't
say, do the best you can, you'll be saved, but He says, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He doesn't
say, have a good feeling and you'll be saved, but he does
say, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. He doesn't say, have an experience or walk the isle and
you'll be saved, but he does say, he that believeth on the
Son hath eternal life. What our Lord is saying is, my
word is sufficient. That's what I'm saying. His word
is sufficient. Now there isn't a promise in
here of salvation to the man who's trying to accomplish or
gain that salvation by what he's done. But there are plenty of
promises in here to the man who believes on Christ. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And thou shalt be saved. All
right, let's close this message in thy house. And I know you
want me to get to that, and I know the time's late, but if you'll
be patient I'll have something to say about that. And thy house. Now I know what that does not
mean. And thy house. I know it does not mean that
God will save every member of your family because you're a
believer. That doesn't mean that. You know why I know it doesn't
mean that? It doesn't mean that because our Lord said a man's
enemy shall be those of his own household. I've come to set a
daughter at Barents with her mother. Christ said that. So it doesn't mean that automatically
if I'm really born again, saved, I come to know God that all my
family is going to be saved. David, the last words David said,
a man after God's own heart, we don't have to doubt David's
salvation, everybody here knows David was saved, but his boys
all were not saved. He said, although my house be
not so with God, thou hast made with me an everlasting covenant.
So just strike that out as meaning, that does not, that's not what
it means. Everybody in your house is going to be saved if you're
saved. It doesn't mean secondly That we are to assume that our
children are in a covenant of mercy because we are The Jews
assume that they assume that they because they were sons of
Abraham then Don there were sons of God They assumed that they
circumcised all their boy babies that made them a part of the
covenant Well, it was a part of a covenant of a type but not
the saving covenant Not the covenant of redemption, not the covenant
of grace. All Israel is not Israel. And all that are circumcised
are not circumcised of heart. So there's no need for you to
bring your babies and hand them in and tell me to sprinkle that
baby and assume that it's under a covenant or in a covenant or
that it belongs to God. It's not necessarily so. No more
than those old Jews back then could assume that they belonged
to God because they'd been circumcised or because that they had a Hebrew
mama and a Hebrew daddy. It doesn't mean that. But what does it mean? You believe. You believe. You men. You women. You believe. With a heart, faith. Not just changing your morals
and changing your ways and changing your doctrine, but you believe.
God's Word and on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you'll be saved. You'll be brought into a living
union with Christ. You'll be brought into a saving
relationship with Christ. You'll be made a new creature
in Christ Jesus. And as the head of your home, And as the head of your wife,
and the Bible says the man is the head of the woman, and as
the head of your children, it means God's mercies will be on
your home. God's mercies will be on your
home. Joshua said it's for me and my house, we're going to
serve the Lord. And ain't no daddy ever said that yet, that
God's mercies weren't upon his home. That's right, me and my house
will serve the Lord. When that daddy, I'm going to
preach on this tonight, when that daddy went outside that
Israelite home, that Jewish home, and took that hyssop and dipped
it in that blood and put it on that limb and on those two side
posts, God said, my mercies are upon this home. I'm not going
to come down upon this home in wrath. Now you men, let me tell
you something. You quit turning your faith and
study of God's Word and church business and things like that
over your wife. That ain't her business. That's your business. You're the priest of that home.
That's never changed. I know in Christ there's neither
male nor female, black nor white, rich nor poor, bond nor free.
But there's still, according to this book, the daddy of a
home is the priest of that home. And God's going to hold him responsible
for that home. And you better buy you a Bible.
Your wife sits around and reads it, you better buy you a Bible.
And your wife goes to church and you stay home, you better,
you take her to church. You take her to the worship service.
You speak in that home. There was a dear lady called
me from up in West Virginia last night, wanted to talk some business
with me, and her husband's sitting right there and he's telling
her what to say, you know. I don't want to talk to her, I want to
talk to him. He's head of that home, not her. He said that's
insignificant. It's not insignificant either.
And God says if you believe on Christ, God will bless your home. Mercies will be upon that home.
I'll tell you something else it'll mean. It'll mean that whatever
happens to that home will be for your good and God's glory.
Whatever happens. I don't care what it is. But
I say in a home where the man knows God, that whatever happens to that
home, it may be life or death, sickness or health, it may be
success or failure, but I guarantee you God's running that home and
it'll be for their good. It'll be for their good, eternal
good. It certainly will. And I'll tell you the third thing
it means. It means this. It means that the means of salvation
and the gospel of truth has been revealed to that home. And if
anybody in that family is saved, is brought to God, it'll be by
the knowledge of that gospel. You see what I'm saying? At least
the means are there. God's blessed that home by putting
the means there. If a child's brought up in a
home where the gospel's not believed, and the good gospel literature
is not found, and the daddy doesn't know anything about the gospel,
How's the child going to be saved? Oh, he'll get religion. Yeah,
you say, my boys and girls go to church. I know they don't
hear anything. It'd be better if they didn't go than hearing
what they're hearing. And if you know the gospel, they'll
hear the gospel from you. They'll see it in you. They'll
be exposed to it. And being exposed to it, the
Bible says when they are old, they won't depart from it. or
it won't depart from them. I guarantee you this. It's you men and women who've
been faithful to the gospel in this church all these years,
hearing the gospel. You brought them here and they've
heard it. Some of them are not here this morning. Some of mine
are not here this morning. But they've heard it at Nepal.
It's been planted and I guarantee you they'll never get away from
it. They'll never get away from it. And they might be as old
as I am someday, about 50, 60 years old, and God just might
cause that flower to bloom. But I tell you one thing, the
flower ain't going to bloom if the seed's not there, is it? Then
that's what I'm resting in. I'm resting on him bringing that
seed, bringing it up. And when he does it, I don't
care when he does it. That's his business. I want my
cherries saved right now. I don't. I want God to save them
in his good time. And he'll do it. He'll do it. But brother, he's got to have
the seed. And you'll be saved. You believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you'll be saved. And not
only that, it's your house. Your house. Because the mercies
of God will be on that house. And whatever happens will be
for the good of that house. The eternal good. And the seed
that's planted. I've planted the seed of the
true gospel. in the hearts of your children,
and you've done it too. And it's there, and they'll never
get away from it. It's there, and they know it's there. And
they may go to Timbuktu and back again. They may go to the highest
mountain and the lowest depths of sin, but that seed's still
there. It's been planted. And they'll
never get away from it. They'll never get away from it.
And when somebody mentions God, they'll remember the God we preached.
When somebody mentions salvation, they know it's not in that water.
They know it's not in good deeds, they know it's in Christ, because
they've been taught from a child. From a child thou hast known
the holy scriptures that are able to make thee wise unto salvation.
So parents, don't give God a time limit, don't give up on God.
He may yet bring to pass that which is to us would be the greatest
thing that could happen next to our own salvation. He may
yet. I'm not going to give up. I've
seen him do that. You know, Whitefield tells this
story. Spurgeon told it about Whitefield.
There was a young boy who heard Whitefield preach. This is a
true story. When he was 15 years old. And
that old man Whitefield preached the truth. And when that man
was 75 years old, he was sitting on his front porch, reading the
Bible, and was brought under conviction of sin. And that old
man, according to his own testimony, hadn't heard anything preached
since Whitefield preached to him. He was even living in America
then. But God brought to his mind what that old man Whitefield
had been faithful and preaching to him when he was just a lad.
And when he was 75, 60 years later, Donnie came to the knowledge
of Christ. So let's be true in planting the truth seed. It may
be that God, even 60 years from now, will say, Well, you had
a meeting. Did you have anybody saved? I
don't know. I'm going to wait until I get there and find out.
I don't know. I just kind of believe somebody
did. I know if the Holy Spirit is here and the seed of his word
is planted, it won't return born. And I'm not going to try to measure
God by what he did in March 25th, 1979. I'm going to wait till
eternity, and I'm going to look around and say, well, look a
yonder. Look a yonder. God did do something. Ain't no
time with the Lord. But there's one thing important,
and that's his gospel. I will not compromise it, and
we must not compromise it. His gospel. Our Father, you have
taught us We're not good students. We're
so hard-headed. We want our own way and our own
will. And we're so impulsive. But Lord, you've been pleased
to teach us, and we're thankful. You've given us eyes to see and
ears to hear, at least hearts to understand. Though these hearts,
they put a question mark on your love and on your mercy and on
your grace too often, forgive us when we murmur, find fault
with your providence. We know that you do all things
well. Now bless the sowing of the seed this morning. Shake
us all up in a way that we need to be shaken. Teach us as we
need to be taught. We're just so simple-minded and
so ignorant with such little children. But how we long for
more knowledge of Christ, more knowledge of thy way and thy
will and thy person and thy greatness and thy majesty. Use the message
for whatever it pleases thee to accomplish both now and throughout
eternity. Let us, O Lord, take our eyes
off of the moment and be able to see something of the vastness
of Thy purpose and of Thy providence and learn to wait upon the Lord,
to wait upon the Lord. Unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, my soul would
have fainted. In Jesus Christ's precious name
we pray, Amen.