In God Is My Salvation

I would like for you to open
your Bibles today to the book of Psalms, Psalm 62. I'm going to use as my text,
verse 5, as I speak to you on the subject, In God Is My Salvation,
or Salvation Is of the Lord. But I'll be using other verses
from this particular psalm, and I'd like for you just to keep
it open there in your hands and listen carefully to the message
I believe God has given me something for every listener today. Salvation is of the Lord. A wise
old believer once requested of his family that after he died
they would record on his tombstone and beneath his portrait these
words, In God is my salvation. In God is my salvation. He said,
I'd like for every memory of me to be prefaced by these words,
in God is my salvation. Isn't this what Paul is saying
when he wrote, by the grace of God, I am what I am? Isn't this what David is saying
in our text? In Psalm 62, verse 5, in God
is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God. And isn't this the essence of
the entire Bible? My friends, I've looked into
God's Word for a long time. I've prepared many messages,
I've preached for thirty-some odd years, and I cannot find
any other doctrine taught in God's Word except this, salvation
from beginning to end, Alpha to Omega. is of the Lord and
of him only. That's all I can find in God's
word. I cannot find any other doctrine. When Moses brought
the children of Israel out of Egypt and was leading them to
the promised land pursued by Pharaoh's mighty host, he came
to the Red Sea and he stopped there before that Red Sea with
the mountains on either side and Pharaoh's army behind him
and these helpless people under his command And these are the
words that he said to the people. He said, stand still and see
the salvation of the Lord. Stand still, stand in awe, stand
in reverence, and behold your deliverance, your salvation of
the Lord. God did it. God delivered them.
God saved them. God brought them out with a mighty
hand. They didn't save themselves, they didn't deliver themselves,
God did it. Jonah's entire book is a full declaration of what
he said from the whale's belly, recorded in Jonah 2 verse 9. Down there in the depths of the
sea, the iron bars about him forever, the seaweed wrapped
around his head, doomed forever. But he cried out, salvation is
of the Lord, and it is. And that's what his book's all
about, that's the message of the book of Jonah. David's psalms
of praise declare over and over again, the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord, and of him only. And the last words of David,
I believe they're found in the 23rd chapter of 2 Samuel. These be the last words of David,
the sweet psalmist of Israel, the mighty king. Although it
be not so with my house, the Lord hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure, and this is all my
salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow."
Salvation is of the Lord. And then this is the message
Paul preached in his epistles. In Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, he says,
For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. In Titus 3, verse 5, It is not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
his mercy he has saved us. Salvation is of the Lord. This
is the essence of the whole Bible. This is the message of the whole
Bible. This is the doctrine of the whole
Bible, and I can find no other doctrine in there anywhere. I
cannot find salvation by human works, by deeds of the law, by
self-righteousness, by any of these things, only by grace.
By grace. whose grace? God's grace. Now,
anything that departs from this message in God is my salvation
departs from the scriptures. And anything that departs from
the scriptures is heresy. That's what Paul said. He said
there's just one gospel. He said to the Galatians, I'm
amazed that you've departed from the gospel of Christ to another
gospel. There is not another. It's a
perversion of the gospel of Christ. And Paul said, though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel than the gospel
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. Anything
that departs from this, salvation is of the Lord, is heresy, error. And my friends, you will find
that all error and all heresy has its beginning right here. This is where heresy This is
where cultism, this is where error begins. The addition of
something man does to the work that Christ does. Now that's
where error starts. All heresy departs from this
truth. In God is my salvation. He only is my refuge. He only is my strength. He only is my savior. He only is my hope. Anything
that we add to the work of Christ leads to heresy, it leads to
error, and it leads to condemnation. My soul, David said, wait thou
only, only on God. I want you to listen. Take your
Bible there and look at Psalm 62 and see how often David repeats
this message. See how often he says these words. that in God is my salvation.
Salvation is of the Lord. Look back at verse 1. Psalm 62,
verse 1. Listen to David. Truly my soul
waiteth upon God. From him cometh my salvation. It comes from God. Now look,
if you will, at verse 5. My soul wait thou only upon God. Not upon man, upon God. For my expectation is from him. And then look at verse 7, In
God is my salvation. Look at verse 11, Power belongeth
to God. Look at verse 12, Unto thee,
O Lord, belongeth mercy. What is David saying? He's saying
that salvation is of the Lord. In God is my salvation, that
it all comes from him. My friends, you ask me, what
is my message? What is my faith? What is my
hope? It's all summed up in these words,
in God is my salvation. That's the summary of it. That's
the essence of it. That's the whole of it. What
I'm saying is this, that the whole of the work, whereby a
son of Adam, a lost sinner, is delivered from the power of sin
and from the kingdom of darkness, and from the just demands of
God's holy law, and from the condemnation and curse of the
broken law, and from the justice of the Lord, and from the power
of hell itself, the whole of the work whereby that sinner
is delivered from the clutches and fetters of these demands,
and translated into the kingdom of light, into the kingdom of
God's dear Son, into forgiveness and mercy is of God and of him
only. That's what I'm preaching. That
man doesn't do it, that God does it. No angel or man makes any
contribution to that blessed work. It's pure mercy and pure
grace. It is all of God from beginning
to end. You know, my friends, God will
teach a believer three things. Now, this is important, and I
want you to listen very carefully to what I'm going to say for
the next few God will teach a believer three things. Now, every man,
in John chapter 6, verse 44 and 45, our Lord said, No man can
come to me except my Father which sent me drawing, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. And they shall all be taught
of God. Every man that is taught of God
cometh unto me, if he's taught of God. Now, what does God teach
us? Well, God teaches every believer three things. Number one, he
teaches us to define the gospel, to define it. He teaches us,
secondly, to declare it from our hearts. He teaches us, thirdly,
to defend it. Now, that's right. And I want
to see if I can make good on that. Now you listen to it. First
of all, God will teach every believer to define the gospel. Salvation is of the Lord. He
only is my salvation, my refuge, and my strength. Every believer
knows what David's talking about here. That's right, he does.
Every believer knows what David is saying. Salvation is of the
Lord. Now, you cannot call that salvation
which only puts me in a savable condition. Can you call that
salvation? That work which only puts me
in a savable condition, that work which only enables me to
be saved if I'll do a certain thing, that work which presents
me savable, that's not salvation. A bridge that just goes halfway
across the river is not a bridge. You can't call it a bridge unless
it takes you from this side all the way to the other side. Call
it anything you want to, but it's not a bridge. And you can't
call that salvation which does not take me all the way from
Egypt to Canaan. Israel was not saved. They left Egypt, but they didn't
go to Canaan. So they just soon stayed in Egypt.
They didn't get to Canaan. Some of them did, but most of
them did not. You can't call that salvation
which supplies a part of the work and leaves the rest of it
for me to perform in my inability. You cannot call that salvation
which starts me on a journey and then stands back and waits
to see if I'll make it. That's not salvation. No, the
bridge has to go all the way. If it's a bridge, it takes you
from one side to the other, all the way from the downhill to
the throne, all the way from Egypt to Canaan, all the way
from darkness to light, all the way from the grave to the throne
of God. Now, that's salvation. And that's
what Paul's talking about in Romans 8. Salvation is of the
Lord. In God is my salvation. He's
the author and finisher of our faith. He's Alpha and Omega.
This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 8.29, when he
says, For whom he did foreknow. And we're back in eternity past
here. Whom God did foreknow. This is
before angels and men ever ever existed. This is before the morning
stars sang together. This is before the foundations
of the world. This is in God's eternal foreknowledge. Whom he did foreknow, he predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his Son. And whom he predestinated,
he called. And whom he called, he justified. And whom he justified, he glorified. Now, this is salvation. for knowledge
to glorification. This is all the way. This is
deliverance all the way from Egypt to Canaan. That you can
call salvation. This is a bridge all the way
across the river. This is taking a person all the
way from the dunghill to the throne. You can call that salvation.
But that which just lifts me out of the dunghill and washes
me off and I may fall back in it, you can't call that salvation.
That's not deliverance. That's not salvation. In God
is my salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. You
call that salvation which lifts the center and crowns him. Whom
he foreknew, he predestinated to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren,
and whom he predestinated, he called, and whom he called, he
justified, and whom he justified, he glorified. Here you have a
work purposed You have a work started, you have a work continued,
and you have a work complete. Now that's salvation. In other
words, in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 14, the wise man Solomon
said, I know that whatsoever God doeth, whatsoever God doeth,
it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nothing
can be taken from it, because God doeth it that men may fear
before him. David made a statement one time
that went like this, I will be satisfied when I awake with his
likeness. Now, if I never awake with his
likeness, then I never have been saved, because I never have reached
the goal. I never have crossed the finish
line. I never have finished my course. I never have come to
that object of faith. I'm not like Christ. I shall
be satisfied when I awake with his likeness. Paul said to be
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. If I'm
never resurrected, my vile body is never conformed to the image
of his perfect body, and I never reign with Christ, and I'm never
a joint heir with the Son of God throughout eternity, then
I've never been saved. You can't call that salvation
which does not complete what it starts, Philippians 1.6. He
that hath begun a good work in you shall perform it, or finish
it, in the day of Jesus Christ our Lord." My friends, defining
salvation, God teaches every believer to define it. And he
can tell you this. He'll have to put it in his own
words. And I'm not saying you have to be a theologian to be
saved. I'm not saying you have to be a doctrinalist to be saved.
I'm not saying you have to be a person that knows all of the
jots and tittles of the law and the scripture to be saved. I'm
saying that every believer can define salvation. He can tell
you what salvation is. It's of the Lord. The Father
made Christ our surety. The Father made Christ our representative
in his eternal covenant of mercy. He put us in Christ. All that
we have is in Christ. We're chosen in Him. We are loved
in Him. We are accepted in Him. We are
redeemed in Him. We are crucified, buried, and
risen in Him. We are seated in Christ. And
when Christ shall come again, the Scripture says, He'll bring
us with Him. So everything's in Christ. God
made Christ our surety, our representative, just as Adam was our representative
in the garden. And as we have borne the image
of the earthy, Christ is our representative on earth and on
the cross, and we shall bear the image of the heavenly. Every
believer knows that, and he knows that in time Christ came to this
earth and fulfilled the law and honored the law and fulfilled
the justice of God. on the behalf of every believer.
It was necessary that the Son of God, the captain of our salvation,
be tempted and tried as we are, yet without sin. It was necessary
that he go to that cross and bleed and die. It was necessary
that he suffer the wrath of God. It was necessary that he be buried
and rise again as our justifier. It is necessary that our great
high priest intercede at the right hand of God for every believer. Then we know that the Holy Spirit,
in due time, quickened us and called us and awakened us and
revealed the gospel to us. Paul said, I was alive one time
without the law, but when the holy law of God came in the hands
of the Holy Spirit, it slew me. I died. I saw my guilt. I saw my shame. I saw my inability. I cried to God, what will you
have me do? The Holy Spirit was pleased to
reveal Christ to me and grant unto me repentance and faith.
Now, we hear a lot of talk about repentance and faith. Repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I say we don't
hear enough talk about it. But I say we hear the wrong talk
about it. Listen, my friends, repentance
is the work of God in us. It's the gift of God. Now, wait
a minute. It's the goodness of God that led you to repentance.
God hath granted repentance also to the Gentiles. It is God who
convicts men of sin. It is God who reveals unto us
our evil and our guilt. It is God who gives us the spirit
of repentance. Faith is the gift of God. The
disciples cried, Lord, increase our faith. Faith is the gift
of God, not of works. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
of the Lord wholly and completely, and it's of the Lord in its perfection. Some of these days they're going
to take us out and bury us. Now who's going to raise us?
God will have to do that. It is God that will quicken our
mortal bodies and our vile bodies and change them into the likeness
of his glorious body. It is God who shall translate
us to his glorious kingdom. Salvations of the Lord. In God
is my salvation. In God is my hope. My soul wait
thou upon God. My expectation is from him. Power
belongeth unto the Lord. Don't leave any of this for me
to do. God must do it. Salvation is a gift of God. Now
then, God teaches the believer. I say teaches in three things.
He teaches in first to define the gospel. And I'm telling you
this, every believer knows who saved him. God did it. He knows
it's the gift of God. He knows it's the work of Christ.
He knows all of it is of the Lord and of him only. And secondly,
he's able to declare it from experience, from his heart, in
genuine sincerity. That's right. I'm afraid it's
possible for a man to define the gospel without being able
to declare it. Yes, sir, I'm afraid that's possible. I'm afraid it's possible for
a man to define the gospel and not be able to declare it as
a living experience from his own heart. In other words, the
truth becomes dead, dry, lifeless doctrine. And that won't do.
That just will not do. It'll do you no good to define
in the clearest terms God's power if you haven't experienced It'll
do you no good to define the glory of Christ if you've never
experienced it. It'll do you no good to talk
about the majesty of God if you've never experienced it. Christ
said, you call me Lord with your lips, but your hearts are far
from me. Do you know the doctrine? Can
you define it? Let me ask you this. Can you
declare it? Can you say with David, in God
is my salvation. He only is my strength. He is
my refuge. He is my Lord. Can you fall at
his feet with Thomas and say, my Lord and my God? Not just
the God of the world and the God of creation and the God of
the universe and the God of Israel and the God of Christians, but
my Lord. Have you bowed to him? Has he
broken your heart? Is he sitting on the throne of
your heart? Does he control your life? Is he the very beat of
your heart and the thought of your mind, the affection of your
soul? Is Christ your Lord? Can you declare that? In God
is my salvation. Define it, salvations of the
Lord. Declare it, in God is my salvation. Do you believe in the doctrine
of original sin? I do, definitely I do. But I'll
tell you this, I know more about the fact of it than I do about
the mechanics of it. I know that when I would do good,
perfection, evil is present with me. I know something of the fact
of original sin. I don't know a whole lot about
the mechanics of it. I know something happened in the garden that had
an effect upon the whole human race and plunged it into darkness
and death and destruction and damnation. But I know this. They're
seeing in here, in me. I've experienced that. I can
declare it. I can't define it as well as
I can declare it. Do you believe in the doctrine
of election? Of course I do. I couldn't deny the doctrine
of election. I see it in Abraham. God called Abraham. Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. I see it in Israel, I see it
in the apostles, I see it in the Gentiles, I see it in the
Word of God. But I know more about the fact of it than I do
the mechanics of it. God called me. He chose me. If he had not chosen me, I never
would have chosen him. If he had not loved me, I never
would have loved him. If he had not sought me, I never
would have sought him. I'm no fool, I know better than
that. I know if God left me alone and didn't stop me on my road
to hell, I'd still be going there. I know that. I know that God
chose me. I didn't choose him. He said
that to his disciples. You didn't choose me. I chose
you. I chose you. I know that. But I know more
about the fact of it than I do the mechanics of it. I don't
know why he chose me. I just know that he did. And
then you say, do you believe in the doctrine of effectual
call? Of course I do. We are the call
of Christ Jesus. I know more about the fact of
it than I do the mechanics of it. I don't know whom God will
call. I don't know how he will call
them. I just know he will. I know Paul said this, God who
separated me from my mother's womb called me by his grace and
was pleased to reveal his Son in me. Let me ask you a question
from 1 Corinthians 4, 7. Who maketh thee to differ? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now, if you received it, why
do you glory as if you didn't receive it? God made the difference. I know that. I can declare, I
can define salvations of the Lord. From beginning to end,
Alpha to Omega, it's all of the Lord. The whole journey from
hell to heaven is of the Lord. From the grave to glory is of
the Lord. But thank God, I not only can
define it, I can declare it. He has met me on my Damascus
road and called me to himself. Can you declare that? In God
is my salvation and my strength. You say, do you believe in the
doctrine of final perseverance? I certainly do, without question,
definitely. But let me tell you something.
When I think of the rivers that I must yet cross, When I think
of the mountains that I must yet climb, when I think of the
desert wasteland that I must yet cross over, when I think
of the enemies about me, the potential to sin within me, the
power of Satan, the hatred of Satan, there's no way that I'll
ever persevere except by his grace. That's right. He will keep me till the river
rolls its waters at my feet, and then he will bear me safely
over where my Savior I will meet. I declare it by experience. Now, last of all, God will teach
the believer the third thing. He will teach him to defend it.
God is my salvation. And he will defend it against
any enemy, any who contest Because it's his only hope. It's the
only hope he has. If God doesn't build a house,
they labor in vain who build it. And this is my only hope.
I will not let you take that away. I will not surrender it. What shall it profit me if I
gain this whole world, your friendship, the world's fame, the possessions
of this world, and lose my soul? God teaches us to define this
gospel and to declare it from our hearts and to defend it,
yea, with our lives. It's the only gospel there is.
And whatever it costs, whatever I have to give up, I must have
this gospel. I must have Christ. I have no
other choice. It's my only hope. And we defend
it because it's our only message. It's the only message for the
sinner. If I gave you a law to keep, you couldn't keep it. If
I gave you a work to perform, you couldn't perform it in perfection.
If I gave you a race to run, you wouldn't finish it. If I gave you a price to pay,
you couldn't pay it. You're bankrupt. So I give you
a free gift. Christ is salvation. There's
mercy with the Lord. Come every soul by sin oppressed.
There's mercy with the Lord. He'll surely give you rest by
trusting in his word. That's the gospel. It's my only
hope, and it's my only message for you. You say, what must I
do, preacher? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Him, and to say, you
can look to Christ, can't you? Now, this message is on cassette
tape recording, along with the message I preached last week.
Two messages on each tape. Three dollars is the price. If
you want it, write to me. Until next week, I bid you a
very pleasant good day.

In God Is My Salvation

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