Saved

Before we read together from the scriptures, let's pray together. Our Father, we are thankful for a pardoning God like Thee. We are thankful for a God who delights in mercy, and a God who is rich in mercy, and a God who has exceeding riches of grace.

Tonight, Father, we in Thy presence are humbled. Each one of us, no matter how long we've been saved, need to be humbled in the presence of the one who has shown us such love. We are thankful for the coming together of the believers this weekend.

We're thankful for the teaching of the Word of God. We are thankful for the brethren who have come prepared and teaching us from the Bible. Oh, Father, we are thankful for the gospel tonight.

We are thankful it is the power of God unto salvation. We are thankful for these sinners here to listen to the gospel, but tonight we pray it will be a time of thoughtful reflection upon eternal matters, that we would think about eternity, meeting God, and where we will be forever after we die. Help us to focus on these things.

Help the young ones to pay close attention, and give the older ones a conviction of sin, that there will be a speaking to the conscience rather than just a speaking to the mind or the heart. We ask Thee to bless as we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. In the New Testament, the gospel of John, please, chapter 3. It's John chapter 3 and verse number 15.

What have I told you that a few years ago, I was standing on a platform like this, in a building a little smaller than this, and I was opening the gospel meeting for a brother, Scott McLeod, and as I was reading the Scriptures, not preaching, but as I was reading the Scriptures, a young man got saved. Listen to what the Bible says. Read it and ask yourself, what is God trying to say to me? God is trying to get your attention.

He's trying to tell you something. What is it that he's trying to say to you? John chapter 3 and verse 15. We'll read verse 14.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved.

That the world, through him, might be saved. Who knows what it means to be saved? I am quite sure that I could ask for a show of hands and everyone would put their hands up. What might surprise you is that when I call on people who have their hands up, I get different answers.

Doesn't make sense, does it? Almost all of us in this room tonight have heard the terminology, saved, from the Bible. We know that the Bible says we must be saved. We know that the Bible says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And we read here tonight in the Bible that God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved. Now I want you to pay close attention to this simple concept. We understand the word in our everyday language, of course, don't we? We know that to be saved, well the kids in Garnevillo know anyway, they told me, means to be rescued.

To be rescued from danger, right? So if we were to speak in terms of a person who is drowning and they're calling out, rescue me, save me, we know what they mean, don't they? Don't we? We know that they want someone to come where they are and to remove them from the water and place them on the land. They need to be removed from the danger and put in a place of safety. And if someone did that, we'd probably give you a medal, put you in the newspaper, and we would say, young boy rescued from drowning.

Or we might just say he was saved from drowning, right? I remember I told this in Garnevillo the other night, but I make no apologies for it. I remember it as plain as day when my friend Darren came to me with his phone and told me, did you see the rescue off the coast of Newfoundland yesterday when the boat lost power? I said, no I didn't, and he showed me the video. There was a boat out at sea in the North Atlantic, the time of year was the springtime, early spring, where the water is so cold that you can only last for minutes if you go overboard.

There are no ice cubes in it and there are no icebergs everywhere you look, but the water is cold. Hypothermia sets in like that. So you can't jump over and swim to shore, you would die.

The boat lost power, the waves were getting bigger as the winds increased, and these people knew that they were in danger and they needed to be rescued. Knowing that they needed to be rescued, there's only one thing they can do. They make a call.

They call out. I do this because that's what a phone used to look like, by the way. They call out.

When they make the call, there's someone on the other end who is waiting for a call. Now the people on the other end, I assume it was in Gander, Newfoundland, you can look it up, it's a real place, beautiful place. The people on the other end at the airbase in Gander were waiting for a call like this.

They had trained for a call like this. They had really dedicated their life to answering these kind of calls. And as soon as the call comes in, they put the rescue plan into action.

They race to that helicopter, the helicopter leaves the base and it begins to move out into the ocean. What are they doing? They're going to where the danger, they're going to where the people are in danger. You see the helicopter flying out? Well, you didn't see this on the video, but by the time I start watching the video, this helicopter is hovering over that boat and down below there are men who are waiting to be removed from the danger so that they can be taken to a place of safety.

And they're completely depending upon the people who are in that helicopter. And one by one you watch as the rescuers come down and remove people from the danger, one by one. If you were to, if you were to pick up a tourism guide for Prince Edward Island, you would find that we used to be called the Gentle Island.

Very few rocks, no mountains, no bears, no coyotes, no moose. Well, yeah, we have coyotes. No wolves, no moose.

Gentle Island. If you're to pick up a, I don't even know if they still make magazines, but if you're to go on the internet and look up Newfoundland tourism, you know what you would find they call it? The rock. Newfoundland is the rock.

And these people were taken from that place of danger and they brought them all the way in to the rock. You see it, don't you? What we are preaching to you tonight is exactly the same concept as a rescue from a boat. Except it's in a different context.

And by that I mean this. The danger that you are in is not freezing to death in the North Atlantic. The danger that you are in is not drowning in a pool.

And I hope you never are in that danger. The danger you are in is of losing your soul. What you need to be saved from is your sin.

And God is able to save from sin. The Lord Jesus is able to rescue you from the danger. You need to be removed from your sins and placed in Christ.

You need to be taken off of the broad road and placed on the narrow way. You need to be taken out of the danger and placed in a position of absolute eternal security, safety. You need to be saved.

And I have good news for you because God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world. He sent him into the world that the world through him might be saved. I ask you just quickly, but I want you to think now.

I always hope that my audience is a thinking audience. Are you saved? If it was just me and you and your mom and dad and I asked you, are you saved? Would you look to mom? Would you look to dad? Or are you saved? It really is tremendous the words that we have read because we began with the Old Testament illustration that the Lord Jesus gives to Nicodemus. The religious man is going to be taught from the religious book.

He's going to be reminded of an Old Testament event that really took place. I hope we understand that the Old Testament events are literal accounts of real happenings. They can be used as illustrations.

They can be used as applications. But what happened in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, on into the Kings, the historical books, are all literal real events. I need to be careful when I say that, but I need to be adamant when I say that.

Because sometimes we are preaching to people and you have a mixed-up way of thinking. I remember speaking with a man I knew very well, and he had been a churchgoer all his life. And he said, I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in Jonah.

He said, I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in Noah. And I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in Adam and Eve. And I said, well wait just a second.

Hold on. You are saying that you trust in the Lord Jesus, and that he has taken away your sins, and yet you don't believe what he says. You see, because the Lord Jesus spoke of Jonah.

And he didn't speak of Jonah just as a picture. He spoke of Jonah as a literal man. Reality.

And the Lord Jesus spoke of Noah. For he said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. And he spoke of Adam and Eve.

He said in the beginning, God made them male and female. And if you are going to believe on the Lord Jesus, you have to believe the Bible. I've never said that from a public platform before, but for some reason I think it is necessary.

You need to know that this is the Word of God. God has been using this book for centuries, and for millennia, to speak to mankind. Written over the course of history, over thousands of years, by different men, at different times, for different purposes, to address different people.

It has been preserved to us to this day, to give us the mind of God as he speaks to us in the gospel, and for all things to truly furnish every man unto good works. What am I saying? I am saying this is the Word of God. It is.

The more I read it, the more I become convinced that it's the Word of God. The more I see the details of the Old Testament fulfilled in the New Testament, the more I am heartened by this book. The more courage I find when I look at details of crucifixion that were written a thousand years before Christ even came, that were written about 800 years before crucifixion had ever first been invented and used as a method of capital punishment.

When I see the little details concerning the birth and the life and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that were written by men who never got to see him, by men who didn't even know what they were writing, and yet in the person and in the life and in the death and in the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, all of these scriptures have come together in perfect, accurate fulfillment to prove that this is the Word of God. And I am thankful that there are prophecies. I'm not sure how I got on this, but we're here and we're keeping going, no turning back.

There are Old Testament prophecies that have already been fulfilled. This has kind of been a theme of the meetings in Garnevillo, by the way. If you look into your Old Testament, you will find writings about the first coming of Christ, and they were fulfilled when the Lord Jesus came.

But the skeptic will say, well that's the Bible telling us that the Bible is right, and you can't prove the Bible by the Bible. Well, I beg to differ, but what about this one? What about the book of Daniel? When in Daniel chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, and in that dream there is an image, and that image is set up, and it has a head of gold, and it has the shoulders and the arms of silver, and it has brass and on down to iron, and then iron and clay at the bottom. And Nebuchadnezzar is scratching his head, and he's saying, what does it mean? Daniel comes before him, and he gives him an accurate interpretation of what it means.

And God was telling that man what was going to happen in the hundreds of years that were going to pass between him and Christ. Listen to it. He said, Nebuchadnezzar, thou art the head of gold.

And he said, the shoulders and the arms is going to be the Medes and the Persians. It will be another kingdom that will come and will take over. The brass is going to be the Grecians, the Greeks, who will come, and with their mighty army they will conquer, and they will take over the world.

And then you're going to have it divide in two, but that division of two is going to be so strong it's going to be like iron, and that's going to be the Roman Empire. And then he says that the the ten toes that are of brass, that are of iron and clay. Now follow this.

This is impressive. He says there's coming a day when a stone cut out without hands will come, and it will crush the entire thing, and it will swell up so that it takes over the entire world. What was he saying? He was saying, Nebuchadnezzar, you watch, because your kingdom is going to be over.

The Medes and the Persians will come. And you know what happened? Medes and the Persians came. It just so happened that there was a man named Philip of Macedon, and his son Alexander the Great decided that he was going to conquer the world.

He didn't know much at the beginning, but boy was he a conqueror. And he began in Europe, and he started across the Middle East, right down into the Far East, and he conquered the world. And what was he? He was a Grecian.

Eventually, when his empire crashed, there was nobody left as a successor. So the Roman Empire was formed, and it was strong as iron, and it was in place at the time of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And exactly what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar would happen was fulfilling itself.

And I'm not just going by biblical history now. I am telling you that secular history has marked all of those states as being authentic and real, because the Bible is the Word of God. Tremendous! And there is coming a day, there is coming a marvelous day, when the Lord Jesus himself shall appear, and in power and glory every eye shall see him.

And when he comes, he will put down all rule, and all authority, and all power. And in doing so, he will set up a kingdom that fills the entire earth. He will reign as a priest on his throne.

He will be the one who will ensure that righteousness reigns, and that peace will mark that kingdom. Just like all of the rest have been fulfilled, so he is coming again. This is the Word of God.

Of course, you know that there's another Old Testament prophecy that is connected to a date in history. Daniel said there was going to be a beginning and an end of his prophecy. He pointed to the day when the commandment will come to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.

And in pointing to that day, he was saying that's when it begins. And then he began to count all of the days, and all of the weeks, and all of the years, until Messiah the Prince would come. Keep this in mind.

From the day that the commandment went forth to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, he had numbered the days. Tremendous. And you say there's no way on this earth that he's going to be accurate to the very day.

Ah. In the book of Nehemiah chapter 2, we read about the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. What's happening? Prophecies beginning to be fulfilled.

From that day forward, they went and they restored the walls of Jerusalem, and the gates of Jerusalem, and all of the different things that would happen in history. And I know that people who were reading their Bible closely would have been saying, it's getting close, it's getting close, it's getting close. And there are other people who would be saying, ah, that's not going to happen.

That's just another man trying to make predictions for money. Nostradamus. You familiar with that name? Some people are.

If you ever stood in line at the grocery store, you'll see the National Enquirer. Nostradamus predicts that someday something good might sometimes happen. Boom.

There it is. Vague prophecy that may or may not be fulfilled to sell books. But there were those who were watching.

And for those who were watching, they would have seen that four days, I'm saying four days, the beginning of the week of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of Zacharias prophecy, he comes riding on a colt. And connected with that prophecy is, behold, your king comes. And you will know that a person who is riding on a colt, now according to the Bible, Old Testament people, the ones who rode on colts were princes.

And what had Daniel predicted? He predicted the day when not Messiah, the sufferer, would come, but Messiah, the Prince, would come. And right down to that very day, it can be traced that Daniel's prophecy was fulfilled. Why? This is the Word of God.

You know that the Bible says that the Lord Jesus is coming again? According to the Scriptures, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. The dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord.

The exhortation from the Apostle is, wherefore, comfort one another with these words. The Lord Jesus himself said, I go and prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also. The Apostle Paul said, our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior who shall change our vile bodies and fasten them like unto his body of glory.

For the Thessalonian believers, Paul was happy to say that they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. Actively waiting for his Son from heaven should be the activity of every believer on the Lord Jesus. Why? Because the Lord Jesus is coming.

For those who have never trusted Christ, it will be a day of separation. It will be a day of damnation, having your doom sealed because there is no more open door. And yet the carrying on and the going on in heaven will be a time of rejoicing.

It will be a time of enjoying the presence of Christ. It will be a wedding feast. It will be a time of reward.

It will be a time for glory. I'm looking forward to that time for glory. I know I look around at a lot of Christians.

We are tired, brethren. We are tired, and some of you are tired of me. That's okay, but we have something far better than what this world is telling us to look for.

The Lord Jesus is coming. So I started into that by talking about the serpent on the pole and we never got there, but listen to this. In the background of the sin of those people, God providing a way for them to be saved from the poison, from the venom of the snakes.

What was the way that those people would be rescued from the venom of the snakes but a serpent on a pole? When that serpent was placed on a pole, everybody knew that's God's way of dealing with the problem. And the announcement goes out, an announcement of good news with a promise of results. Notice the promise of results.

The good news is God has a way to deal with the problem. The promise of results is you look and you will live. And every single person who looked, they lived.

Why? Because there was power in God's way and God's promise was sure, whoever looks will live. Against the background of that Old Testament illustration, the Lord Jesus says, just like Moses did that, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

What's that? That's God's way of dealing with the problem. The problem we identified as your sin. For you to be saved from your sin, there must be Calvary.

For you to be saved from your sin, there must be a cross. For you to be saved from sin, Christ must die. And the cross of Calvary and all that it involves is God's way of dealing with the problem of sin.

But there's good news tonight. The news is Christ has completely satisfied God and it comes with a promise, a promise of results. What is it? Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.