Saved - Being Saved - Shall Be Saved

My message today, I believe,
is one that is needed, desperately needed in our generation. I'm
going to be speaking to you on this subject. Saved, being saved,
and shall be saved. And I want you to take your Bibles
and open them to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse
10. Now listen to Paul, 2 Corinthians
1, verse 10. He delivered us from so great
a death He doth deliver in whom we trust that he will yet deliver
us. Our religious people frequently
use the word saved. Their religious conversation,
they say a person got saved or a person is saved. And there's
nothing wrong with this word. It's a Bible word. It's a scriptural
word. It's used frequently in the word
of God. For example, the angels in announcing the birth of Christ
said to Joseph, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. And our Lord, in defining his
mission to the world, in Luke 19.10, said, The Son of Man is
come to seek and to save that which was lost. And then our
Lord, talking to his disciples before he ascended back to the
Father, instructed them to go into all the world and preached
the gospel to every creature. And he added, he that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved, shall be saved, and he that believeth
not shall be damned. And then in the book of Acts,
chapter 16, verse 30, the Philippian jailer came to Paul and Silas
and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And Paul replied,
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ And thou shalt be saved. Now
it's a scriptural word. It's used over and over again
in the Word of God. Being saved. Saved. But, now what troubles me, and
what troubles me to no end, is the meaning that the modern religious
generation and community has given to that word saved. This
is what troubles me. There's a vast difference in
what we today mean by the word saved and what our Lord meant
when he said a person is saved. For example, today we have a
great religious campaign. We call it a revival campaign
and several hundred people walk down an aisle and take a preacher's
hand and accept Jesus as their savior and we pronounce this
vast multitude saved. And when we're giving a report
about the meeting we say, oh we had a big crowd and a hundred
people got saved and then a person has an emotional religious experience
maybe there's sickness in the family or maybe the person himself
is sick or perhaps there's been a death or some tragic loss and
this person has an emotional experience and joins the church
and we pronounce that person saved or a soul winner goes to
a person's home and talks him into a religious profession talks
him into joining the church and being baptized, and we come down
and say, this person got saved last Sunday night or last Sunday
morning or last Wednesday night. The church roles are bulging
with the names of people who have got saved. Either as we
talk them into a profession or in some sort of revival meeting
or religious campaign, the church roles are bulging with people
who we say are saved. but who never worship God, who
never attend the house of God, who never pray, who never give
God, honor God with the first fruits, who manifest no love
for people, who give no evidence of genuine godly sorrow for sin,
who do not pray, who do not conduct their business in an honest manner
and in integrity, but these people we say are saved. And these people
are saved and we keep adding more to these roles. Now, this
is what troubles me. What our Lord said about being
saved and what we say today about being saved, there seems to be
a tremendous discrepancy. There seems to be a vast difference.
I want you to take your Bibles and read some scripture with
me. Let's compare these scriptures with the way we talk today and
the way our Lord talked. For example, turn to John chapter
2, verse 23. Now listen to this. John 2, 23.
This was the Passover, the feast of the Passover. This was at
Jerusalem. Now listen to this, John 2.23.
When Christ was at Jerusalem in the day of the Passover feast,
many, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which
he did. Now today, we would pronounce
these people saved. Did they not believe? Did they
not follow the Lord? Did they not see the miracles
and they were convinced that he was some great person? That
it was an unusual thing that no man spake with authority like
this man? No man could do the things that
this man does except God be with him? Did they not see his miracles
and believe on him? That's what it says. So we say
these people are saved, but not the Lord. The Lord didn't count
them saved. Listen to what he said to them.
In John 2.24, and that says, In the Passover, at Jerusalem,
when they saw the miracles which he did, many believed on his
name. But Jesus did not commit himself
to them. He did not. Because he knew all
men, he knew what was in man, he needed not that anyone should
tell him what was inside of these people. They called him Lord
with their lips, but their hearts were far from him, and he looks
on the heart. God does not look on the outward
countenance, he looks on the heart. And though these people
believed, and though they made a profession of belief, and though
they saw the miracles, and though they were convinced that he was
some great person, Christ did not commit himself unto them. Now here's another scripture.
Turn to John 6, 24. Now listen to this. You'll see
the difference in what we call saved today and what our Lord
calls saved. In John 6, 24, when the people
saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, They got in
ships, and they sailed to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. They went
to a lot of trouble. They traveled a long ways. They
got on ships and crossed the waters, seeking for Jesus. And
when they found him, they called him, Master. And they said, Master,
when did you come over here? We've been looking for you. Now,
surely they were saved. Well, we'd pronounce them saved
today. Did they not go to a lot of trouble to hunt Jesus, to
seek Jesus? They crossed the water to find
this man, Jesus Christ? Did they not call Him Master?
Our Lord didn't call them saved. Listen to what He said. And He
turned. When these people came to Him, and they said, Master,
when did You come over here? Why, we looked for You everywhere
on the other side of the sea, and finally we took ship, and
we came all the way over here seeking You. Listen to Him. He
says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, You seek me. Not because
you saw the miracles. You seek me because you ate of
the loaves and were filled. That's why you seek me. You seek
me because you were fed. You seek me, you're not interested
in me personally. You're not interested in my kingdom
or my words or my commandments. You're interested in the benefits
that you can get from following me. That's what you're interested
in. And we get up and ask people today, you want to go to heaven?
You don't want to go to hell, do you? Well, who does? And so
these people walk down an aisle and accept Jesus, and we tell
them they're saved. But Christ didn't tell them that.
These people followed Him all the way across the sea. They
came to Him and called Him Master. They looked for Him. They followed
Him. Why? Because of what they could get from Him. And that
was the only reason. I'll give you another example.
Look at Luke 9, verse 57. A certain man came to Him and
said, Lord, I'll follow You no matter where You go. Now, I'm
sure that man would have been pronounced saved in this day.
He made this profession. I'll follow you, Lord, no matter
where you go. What'd the Lord say to him? He
turned to him and said, Foxes have holes, and birds of the
air have nests. The Son of Man doesn't have a
place to lay his head. He gave him no encouragement.
Our Lord knew his heart. And here's another man. He said
to another man, Follow me. This is in Luke 9, 58. He said,
follow me. And the man said, well, I will
now, Lord, but let me go home first and bury my father. And
his father wasn't even dead. This was a custom in that day
that the young man would take care of his father, and when
the old man died, and he buried him, then he could pursue whatever
he wanted to do. And this man said, all right,
Lord, I tell you, I've got some obligations. My father's an old
man, he's a sick man, and I've got an obligation to him. And
I've got to take care of burying him, and I'll tell you what I'll
do now. When I take care of that obligation, I'll come and follow
you. We would have said he's saved. The Lord didn't. The Lord
turned to him and said, Let the dead bury their dead. You take
up your cross and follow me right now. Right now. All right, read
on. The same chapter. Luke chapter
9, verse 61. Another said, Lord, I'll follow
you. I'll follow you. But let me first
go home and tell my people goodbye. That's what I want to do. I've
got people at home that I want to see, and I want to tell them
all goodbye, bid them farewell. And the master turned and said,
no man, having put his hand to the plow and looked back, is
fit for the kingdom of God. Now, we can have these. Let me
ask you this. At what time would you have pronounced
the apostle Peter, Sadie? Now you look over his whole life,
his great confession and his great defense of the Lord and
all of these things. When would you say that it could
have been said of Peter, he's saved, he's converted? Well, after three years, our
Lord said to him in Luke 22, 32, he said, Peter, when you
are converted, strengthen your brethren. After three years,
when you're converted, strengthen your brethren. My point is this,
and this is my point, and you listen to me now, and I ask you
to search the scriptures, to examine the word of God. This
is what I'm saying. We are pronouncing people saved
who give no evidence of being saved, who give no evidence whatsoever
of being vitally united with the Son of God. We're pronouncing
people saved who give no evidence of a genuine work of godly repentance
and saving faith. We're pronouncing people saved
who give no evidence whatsoever of a regenerating work of the
Holy Spirit in their lives. We're saying of these people
who don't follow God, who do not love God, who do not love
Christ, who do not love one another, who never attend the house of
God, who never pray, who never study his word, who never hunger
and thirst for righteousness, because they come down an aisle
and give agreement, mental agreement, to what we have preached, that
they're saved. But the Lord doesn't do that. And you can go back
through this whole book of John and the book of Luke and hear
these people making all kind of professions and all kind of
decisions and all kind of commitments. And our Lord did not commit himself
to them. He knew their hearts. Now listen to the Master define
discipleship, and discipleship is redemption. No man is a Christian
who is not a disciple. Jesus Christ is no man's savior
if he's not his Lord. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. If any man have not the Spirit
of God, he's none of his. That's what the Scripture says.
He that loveth not knoweth not God. Now that's true. Now listen to the Master define
salvation. In Matthew 10.37, he that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross
and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He cannot be my
disciple. Listen to Matthew 16.24. If any
man will come after me, now you can follow a preacher, you can
follow a doctrine, you can follow a denomination, you can follow
a church. under their rules and terms. But if any man come after
Christ, that's who I'm talking about. I'm talking about knowing
the Savior. I'm not talking about joining
a church. I'm talking about knowing Christ. If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. Whosoever shall save his life
shall lose it. In other words, If you're not
willing to confess Christ, if you're not willing to tear up
the blueprints of your life and turn it over to Him, if you're
not willing for Him to be your Lord and your Master and your
King, if you're not willing to totally be devoted to the Son
of God, then you're going to lose your life. You save it for
your own plans and purposes instead of surrendering it to God's purpose
and to God's will. If you save your life, you're
going to lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life in Christ
shall save it. What shall it profit a man, if
he gain the whole world and lose his soul? Now my friends, the
apostles of Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the apostle
Paul, these men gave no comfort, they gave no assurance to people
who made professions of faith and did not continue steadfast
in those professions. They didn't give any comfort
to those people. Now, we can say a person, oh, he's saved.
He got saved in the revival meeting ten years ago. Of course, he
doesn't come to church, and he doesn't worship God, and he doesn't
read his Bible, and he's pretty ornery, you know, and he doesn't
love the people of God, but he's saved. Christ didn't say that,
and the disciples didn't say that. Listen to the apostles. Listen to Hebrews chapter 3,
verse 6. Christ, as a son over his house,
whose house we are, if, if, not if we make a profession of faith,
not if we got saved in the revival meeting, if we hold fast the
confidence and rejoicing firm unto the end. When Paul came
to the end of his life, this is his testimony. The time of
my departure is at hand. I fought a good fight. I finished
my course. I've kept the faith. He that
endures to the end, the same shall be saved. And no one else,
and no one else, has any right or privilege to call himself
a son of God who does not continue in the household of faith. Now
listen to Hebrews 10, verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith.
It's not by works. I'm not preaching salvation by
works. Salvation is by faith. It's by grace, grace alone. It's
the gift of God. But what I'm saying is this,
the just shall live by faith. But, Paul said, if any man draw
back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we're not of them
who draw back unto perdition. But we are of them who believe,
who keep on believing, who will continue to believe to the saving
of their souls. And you know what John said about
the folks that left the disciples and left the assembly of God
and who left the people of God? You know what he said? He said
in 1 John 2, 19, they went out from us. They no longer worship
God with us. They no longer attend to the
things of the Lord. They no longer search the Scriptures. They no longer praise the Lord.
They no longer walk in holiness and honesty and integrity. They
don't walk with us anymore. And he said the reason is they
were not of us. If they had been of us, they
no doubt, he said, would have continued with us. But they went
out from us that it might be made manifest they never were
of us. Now, turn again to the text.
I want you to look at this carefully. 2 Corinthians 1.10. Paul said,
He delivered us from so great a death. He doth deliver. in whom we trust, he will yet
deliver us. Now I know that this refers to
the trouble that Paul had down in Asia. He said the trouble
we faced was more than we in any human strength could bear.
It was too much for us. We had the sentence of death
upon us and we'd given up all hope. And we could not trust
in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. He delivered us. The trouble upon us was more
than we could cope with in human strength. We had the sentence
of death in us, and we'd given up all hope. We couldn't trust
in ourselves. We had to trust in God, and he
delivered us. But isn't that a picture of the
sinner who comes to Christ by faith? Can't the sinner say,
my sins are more than I can bear? My sins and troubles and trials
are more than human strength can endure? We have the sentence
of death in us by Adam's fall and by our own transgressions,
and we've given up any hope of being saved? Isn't that what
we can say? And we couldn't trust in ourselves. We could put no
confidence in the flesh. But we trusted in God, who raises
the dead. And you who were dead had to
be quickened and made alive in Christ Jesus. And he delivered
us. He delivered us. Now the word saved means delivered. It means to deliver. So here's
what I'm preaching, and this is what the Word of God teaches.
That all whom the Lord saves, and I'm not talking about everybody
that walks down a church aisle, and everybody that goes into
the baptismal waters, and everybody who's sprinkled as an infant,
and everybody who memorizes some doctrine, and everybody who puts
his name on a church roll. I'm talking about people who
are delivered. Delivered from the penalty of sin, from the
power of sin, from the practice of sin, and someday, by God's
grace, from the very presence of sin. But here's what I'm saying.
He hath delivered us. We have been saved. We are being
saved. And our salvation now is nearer
than when we believed. Now, let's see if we can make
good on that. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2,
verse 8 and 9. Now, you're familiar with this
scripture. You've heard it all your life. But now this is what
that scripture says, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace have
you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. We have been saved. Yes, sir.
Back yonder in eternity past, God set his love upon us. Back
yonder in eternity past, Almighty God chose us to salvation, ordained
us to eternal life. That's what the scripture teaches.
And in time he sent his son into this world as our representative,
robed in, clothed in human flesh. And as our representative, as
our federal head, he met the law of God head on. And he was
tried and tempted and tested in all points as we are, yet
without sin. He obeyed that law perfectly.
And then he went to the cross of Calvary and he died for our
sins. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our
iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed,
we have been healed, we have been saved. And one day the Holy
Spirit came on our Damascus road to eternal wrath and awoke us
and raised us and arrested us and stopped us and turned our
eyes to Christ. Yes, we have been saved. And
there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus,
who are kept by the power of God. We're being saved. The work's not finished. The
work's not done. It is being done. We are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good work. Listen
to this scripture, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. For the preaching
of the cross is to them who are perishing foolishness. The man
who is perishing, you don't say, well, he's perished. No, he is perishing. And the
man who is being saved, you don't say he's saved, he's being saved. To them who are perishing, the
preaching of the cross is foolishness, to them who are being saved,
it is the power of God. Now this is a work of God in
us. Redemption is not only a work of God for us, a legal work,
a justifying work, a redeeming work, a work in which he pays
the ransom and sets the captive free. That is done, that's true.
In Christ's death, that's done. But salvation is also a work
of God, not only for us, but in us. He is conforming us to
the image of his Son. It's like when a child is born
into your family. Yes, your child was born, but
your child's growing. He's growing physically, he's
growing mentally, he's growing emotionally. When I was a child,
Paul said, I spake like a child. I understood as a child. I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
And you're watching your children grow. They're growing. And that's
the same way with God's children. Yes, we have been saved, but
we're being saved. And we're being molded into the
image of Christ. We're growing from faith to faith,
and grace to grace, and the fruits of the Spirit are being developed
in our lives. Now, something's wrong with a
child, a physical, natural child, who doesn't grow. It's sick,
something's wrong. And something's wrong with a
so-called believer who doesn't grow, too. He doesn't have the
life of God in him because all of God's children are healthy
children. He gives us a sound mind, the
scripture says. All right, thirdly, we have been
saved by God's grace. We are being saved by God's grace. Day by day, desire the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Now then, Paul
said in Romans 13, 11, now is our salvation nearer than when
we believed. I'm not, now catch on to your
chair there, I'm not saved yet. I won't be until I stand in the
image of Christ. Now that's the goal, that's the
object, that's what God's going to do for us. You want to spend
eternity in the shape you're in right now? No sir. Well, what
do you expect? David said, I'll be satisfied
when I wake with his likeness. That's right, we shall be saved.
Our salvation, our final redemption, the final beautiful trophy of
grace that God shall present to the universe to the praise
of His glory is a whole family just like Christ. O to grace
how great a debtor daily I am constrained to be. Let thy goodness,
like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Here I raise mine
Ebenezer. Hither by God's help I am come,
and I hope by God's good pleasure safely to arise at home. The journey's not over. Do you
know, Paul said, who's crowned in a race? Is it the man that
starts the race? No, sir. Is it the man leading
at the quarter pole? No, sir. Is it the man leading
at the halfway point? No, sir. Crosses the finish line. And he said nobody else is crowned.
Nobody else receives the laurel wreath. Nobody else receives
the prize, except the man that comes across the finish line.
And you needn't talk to me about what you did 30 years ago, or
what you did 15 years ago, or how you ran the race 10 years
ago. I want to know how is it with you and God right now. Are
you being saved? And when we stand at the end
of life's journey, I want to hear you say with Paul, I've
kept the faith. I've kept the faith. And nobody
else is going to enter the kingdom of God except those who keep
the faith. Now that's so. What kind of faith
saves? I'll tell you what kind of faith saves. It's not an isolated
act that takes place under a tent meeting somewhere or down the
sawdust trail in front of the church. It's a faith that believes
the Word of God. It's a faith that is from the
heart. It is a faith in Christ alone,
plus nothing, minus nothing. It's a faith that continues in
Christ. And it's a faith that produces
a likeness to Christ. And it's a faith that is still
around when life is over. That's the faith that saves.
Now this message can be obtained on cassette tape. All of my messages
are recorded and are reproduced on cassette tape. There are two
messages on each tape. The one I'll preach today and
the one I'll preach next week. If you want the tape, you write
to me. They're three dollars. I'll be glad to send them to
you. The announcer will give you the address. Until next week,
Henry Mahan, bidding you a very pleasant good day.

Saved - Being Saved - Shall Be Saved

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Saved - Being Saved - Shall Be Saved

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