Not saved - Are saved

I'd like to read with you in the prophecy of Jeremiah, please. That's back in the Old Testament, if you have your Bible. Jeremiah in chapter 8, please.

Jeremiah chapter 8 and verse number 20. The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. Now, this is not the words of the prophet.

This is the words of the people. I want to read them to you or with you again. The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.

Now, over for a final reading to 1 Corinthians in chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse number 18. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. One more time.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. We've read about two different, not types or classes of people, but two eras in which people heard a message in which they had to respond to. The first that we read about and the second really we could say the same.

Their life could be summed up in a series of wrong choices. To understand if you're not saved in the meeting tonight, that is the summation of life for you. It has been a sum of wrong choices.

We're not good at making good choices. The first choice that man ever made was a wrong choice, and his choice was to disobey God. There's an awful cost.

There's an awful price to pay for that. We've been hearing of a debt that you cannot pay, and you can't pay this one either. Costly business to make a wrong choice when it comes to dealing with God.

And these people will sum up the whole of their life by saying, not saved, not saved. You know what the tragic part of it is? They're still saying that, not saved. Well, we sit in the comfort of this high school here in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

There are people tonight in hell saying, not saved, not saved. There's people in heaven tonight that could say or sing, saved by the blood of the Lamb. 1 Corinthians 1, but unto us which are saved.

Now these people, these Corinthians, did not deserve to be saved any more than the people back in Jeremiah 8 deserve to be saved. Nobody deserves to be saved. I sat with a young man, in fact, the man we're praying with, that's attending gospel meetings in my hometown in Sussex right now.

The other day in our son's home where he is staying, he's a brother-in-law to our oldest boy, and I said, Kevin, you get one thing straight. God is under no obligation to save you. I've had people come to me and actually say, well, you know, if I wanted, God has to save me.

God doesn't have to save you. Didn't have to save me. Didn't have to save Brandon.

Didn't have to save these that we heard testimony from tonight. God is under no obligation to save anybody because it's by grace. So it was not that these people in Corinth had a better chance, if you like, or a better opportunity than the people in Jeremiah's day.

Jeremiah's day, they heard preaching. They heard it from a prophet whose heart poured out for the people. It broke his heart to watch them sin.

Really, as gospel preachers, when last, brethren, do we ever weep over a soul? I'm not talking about something that was just an emotional moment. But look at a soul on the way to hell. And on our knees, plunge to them.

While the tears dripped down to the chair, and we prayed, God, don't let them go to hell. That'd be our prayer for you tonight, man, if you're not saved. Your boy and girl in this gospel, if you're not saved.

I would sum up these two expressions like this. The greatest tragedy known to mankind is to have to say, not saved. The greatest tragedy known to mankind.

But we read of the greatest triumph or the greatest reality known to mankind is to be able to say, I'm saved. How do you make up with that term tonight? Saved. I had an uncle, or sorry, my wife had an uncle, went to his funeral, and I visited him on one occasion.

Because the conditions under which Uncle Ralph would only allow me back into his house were that I would not use the word saved. I said, Uncle Ralph, I have no other message for you, I'm sorry. Far as I know, he died.

Or a religious man. I went to his funeral. Watched their pastor take a plaque of dedication for 34 years of a deacon work at his church.

Lifted it off the casket and passed it to his widow, and she embraced it like she did her first child. Is that all she's got for Ralph? A plaque? Not saved. How about you tonight? Would you like to leave this auditorium tonight saved? Not just so you can pass coin with Christians.

Not so you just say it to get preachers off your back. Or for you to understand something that's very ultra-important tonight. That you must be saved.

One of the first questions I was asked when I arrived at this conference was this, followed by a statement first, or preceded by a statement first is, In gospel work, I can't get them in. How do you get them in? Well, I can't either. I've been at this for 38 years and I haven't got a soul in yet.

Well, you say it's time you got a day job. Well, maybe. It's God that brings them in.

It's God that saves them. You're absolutely right. Christians get a wrong impression of me sometimes.

They think of only big meetings because of Northern Ireland or maybe here in parts of Iowa, where there's big meetings, no doubt about it. But for five or six weeks to happily punch my time in a tent, where the biggest number, it was a small tent. It would have held lots more.

The biggest number was 13. Some nights only five. But there was one soul in that meeting, started at the beginning.

Nicole. She worked at one of the department stores there in the town of Madawaska. Going home from a gospel meeting on a Sunday night.

By herself in her car. She realized the truth. That Christ had died for her.

And I'll tell you, I was so thankful. So thankful. I didn't get her to the meeting.

God brought her. You say, well, that's different with me. I'm a Christian child, so I'm expected to be here.

God brought you, young man. Dear girl, God brought you. It'll be God that saves you too.

Nobody else. No one else can save you. No preacher.

No prophet. If this prophet could have saved these people, he would have done it. He couldn't.

He could speak to them. He could pray for them. He could weep over them.

And the sad lamentation at the end of their life is harvest is past. Summer's ended and we are not saved. These people knew what a harvest was.

I wouldn't have to come to Wisconsin and tell you tonight what a harvest is. You know it better than I do. Even though I was raised on a farm.

You know what's so significant about a harvest? That it comes and goes so quickly. One minute those tractors, as I saw them in the spring here, are literally raking those fields, getting them ready to plant corn, soybeans, whatever it might be. It just seems a little while and you're back, it's harvest, it's gone.

And you say, where did that summer go? You get as many summers in as I have and people in the meeting tonight have more summers than I have. I want to tell you, they go like a shaft of light. They go, my friend, like a shot out of a gun.

You're starting to plan to put the tent up. Next thing is you're pulling the stakes, you're taking it down. That was with these people.

They thought they had lost the time. They thought, what's the rush? They looked at this prophet and said, hey, what are you crying for? What's the big fuss? Don't worry about us. When Mrs. George Uhlenhopp was on her bed dying, her son Lyle went to see her.

He looked at his mother. Why wouldn't he? A very respected woman, his father too, one of the most respected men in this part of the country, George Uhlenhopp. And she looked up into Lyle's face and she said, Lyle, my boy, don't you weep for me.

You weep for yourself because you're not going where I am. How do you like that? You going to argue with a mother? Am I speaking to a boy here, a girl here tonight? You're not going where mom and dad are going. You're going to hell.

They're going to heaven. These people could have said they were saved. They would not use the word, the language, except they knew what it meant.

They were familiar with it. But it bothered them. I mean, this isn't just something they float.

This is like the man in Acts chapter 16. What must I do to be saved? Who told him what being saved was like? He knew it. He knew it.

So did Saul on the Damascus Road that we're hearing about today. He knew what being saved meant. And so do you.

It's just something like kind of in your way, isn't it? Off the eastern coast of Maine where I was working this summer, earlier, two years ago, there was a fisherman operating a 42-foot long liner, as they call them, fishing lobster and, you know, different types of fishing they would do off the coast of Maine. And he had licenses for several types of fish. This particular day he went out.

He should have gone out because the weather forecast was not that good. But he's a seasoned fisherman, and he's a seasoned captain on his boat. And he went out there.

And I'll tell you, the Atlantic Ocean was too big for him. It was just a matter of seconds, that boat had capsized, and he found himself in the water without his life vest on, even though he could swim. No life vest.

Didn't expect it was going to happen. He was sure he was going to get back to the shore, but he didn't. Suddenly he found himself in the rolling, boiling waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine, frigid temperatures.

Watched his little vessel literally being tossed like a cork. Different pieces out of the boat come floating past him. All of a sudden he looked at what we would call a jerry can.

I'm not sure what you call them over here. Just a plastic can that would carry four or five gallons of fuel. It was in the boat that day.

He saw it coming toward him. And in his own words, he made one desperate lunge for that jerry can and grasped it like you should grasp salvation tonight. And he hung on to it as if his life depended on it, because it did.

The currents and the tides allowed that man to drift over to a small island. And soaking wet, little strength, he climbed onto that island and sat down and thought, this is where I'm going to die. Nobody will find me here.

The Coast Guard found him. They rescued him. Why I'm telling you this is because of what he told a reporter from the Portland News.

They're asking about what happened. He said, you know, the ironic part of it is this. I was in that boat, and everywhere I stepped, everywhere I went, that jerry can was in my way.

He says I was kicking it from one end of the boat to the other. Walking on it. It was in my way.

But if it wasn't for what was in my way, I wouldn't be here just now. Do you ever feel like that about the gospel? That salvation is kind of something that's just in your way. You know, every time Mom looks at you, even if she doesn't say anything, you know what she's praying, you'll be saved.

Why wouldn't she? She didn't raise you to go to hell. Every time you see Grandma, maybe not going to see her too much longer. I'm thinking of people I know for a fact, and they don't like going to Grandma's house.

Because if Grandma doesn't say it, she has that look on her face, and why not? She doesn't want that grandchild that she prayed for before he was born to go to hell. Gospel in your way tonight. Just something that's kind of under your foot.

And I am reminded of a solemn reminder in the book of the Hebrews, in chapter 10, of how much sore punishment. Suppose ye shall he be thought worthy of, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, and an holy thing undone, despite unto the Spirit of grace. Just walk on it.

Just kick it out of the way. Hey, let's do it. There's a price for that.

Maybe go back in these people's experience. What were the choices that they made? Well, if you went back to verse number 3 of the chapter, it says that they chose death rather than life. That's strange.

Come on, what's your choice tonight? Isn't it to live? Has life been that sour? Has it dealt you that bad a hand tonight that you'd rather not be living? They had actually chosen death rather than life. Isn't that the language of Moses as he preaches to the people? He says, just about before he's ready to go, I set before you the way of life and the way of death, the way of blessing, the way of cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

You know what that old man knew? These people are going to make a wrong choice. Hardly likely that everybody in this meeting tonight will make a right choice. Hardly likely.

How about you tonight, dear girl? Dear boy? Older person tonight? What choice have you made? Well, you say, I'm thinking about it. How are you? You know something? People that needed time to think over what God was offering them never came up with the right choice. Never.

Never! Listen to that old labor shark called Laban. He says, just abide a few days. Don't rush the damsel.

Don't push this thing. Come on. He's talking to Abraham's servant.

What's the rush about it? Oh, no. Finally, they call her in and say, wilt thou go with this man? How long did it take her to think it over? She said, I'll get back to you in two weeks. Nonsense.

She said, I will go. And that's what I decided the night that I trusted Christ as my Savior. Now, that decision did not save me.

Christ did. Absolutely, my friend. It's a real thing.

A whole of a nation will stand at a pivot point. There's the land looming before them. Everything that God had promised them.

One brave, bold step would put them into that land. But they wanted time to think it over. Did they come up with the right answer? No.

Did they come up with the right choice? No. They perished in the wilderness. Need time to think it over? You haven't got time to think it over, my friend.

You haven't. So they had chosen death rather than life. Then they go on in verse number five, and God says something else about these people.

He said, the sad thing about them is that they have held fast to deceit. You know, my father really didn't put up with a lot from us as a family of seven. He didn't.

Good thing he didn't, because he had some pretty bad boys, and I was one of them. Now, come on. You were no little angel.

There's one thing he did not like. No, you couldn't lie to him. You got caught lying to him.

Boy, you're in big trouble. And I mean big trouble. But you ever tried to deceive him? Oh, I'll tell you, that was fatal almost.

There was just something about him. Because I tried it. Never worked.

You know what these people had done? Just what you're doing. They had deceived themselves. They had deceived themselves into thinking, hey, there's no rush in this thing.

This Jeremiah prophet, he's just one of many. Other prophets weren't like him. He's just too excited about it.

He's just too into it. You know what he wanted? He wanted the best for them. He wanted what God had for them.

But they didn't want it. So they chose death rather than life. They held fast to deceit.

They refused to return. Verse 6 says, No man repented himself of his wickedness. Repentance? Says someone? What's that? The first words out of the Baptist.

John the Baptist. Almost the first words of the Lord himself. Except ye repent.

The Apostle Paul, likewise. My friend, the message of the Gospel is, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. God's salvation, my friend, brings a person to a moment of repentance.

These people here had refused to repent of their wickedness. These are a combination. These are a catalog of things.

The final sentence. You read about verse 10-11, They rejected the word of the Lord. That's it, my friend.

That's the only way by which you can be saved, Peter says. By this word. Being born again.

Not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible. By the word of God. Someone that has rejected the word of God.

They're finished. They're done. I wouldn't do that.

Yes, you are. You're doing that tonight. Not saved, my friend.

You are, at this moment, and have been rejecting the word of God. So is it any wonder that these people will now say, Summer's ended. The harvest has passed, rather.

The summer has ended. Oh, the summer of the time of joy. The time of the singing of the birds.

The harvest, the in-gathering. Other people were saved. Remember those people that will lament in the New Testament, He saved others.

You know other people are saved. You have no argument about that. You can tell me people that say they're saved and they're not.

I've heard all those arguments. I used to make them, too. But deep down, I knew people that were genuinely saved.

That's what I wanted. And that's what we want for you tonight, my friend. Nothing short of it.

Nothing. In 38 years, I could put on one hand the number of people that have professed to be saved while I was talking to them. Maybe three.

This is between you and God. I will give you this word. That's all you need.

I love the words of the Lord Jesus when he said, Father, I have given them thy word. Let me tell you about a name tonight that means so much to God. It's the name of the Lord Jesus.

I want to tell you what that name is mentioned before him. The power in that name. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

The power in a name. Neither is there salvation in any other name, for there is none other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved. A few years back in the city of Detroit at the Detroit Metro Airport, in the McNamara Terminal, there was a young man that day, and I'm not sure who he was flying to, but he got very intrigued with all the security.

Pretty soon there were these fellows walking around in suits, you know, with a little coiled line running down into their pocket, and they were connected with radios, and they were just surveying the place out. So he tapped on one of them and said, Hey, what's up? They said, Just stay back. You'll find out who's coming.

Just stand back. Just stay back. Stay back, young man.

I said, Can you tell me who's coming? They said, You'll see who's coming. He stayed back. In just a matter of minutes, President Gerald Ford came up the passenger ramp from the aircraft, and, of course, the press were there, and they were allowed to come in, and everybody was just pressing in and being held back.

This fellow didn't have a chance. He was way back, and he just cupped his mouth, and he said, President Ford, how's Mike? The president stopped him. He said, Excuse me.

Excuse me. Who called for Mike? He put his hand up kind of sheepishly. He said, Come here.

So suddenly there's a party. Suddenly these security men, they're standing back, and this young man's being brought right up to the edge of the rope, and he's face-to-face now with President Ford. He said, You knew Mike, my son? Yeah.

He said, I went to high school with him. Just wondering how he's doing. He said, He's doing fine.

What's your name? Told him his name and greeted him, gave him his best, and said, I will mention your name to Mike. Now, what was it that stopped that president? What was it that broke up that entourage? What was it that made security suddenly peel back? The mention of one name that was very important to a father. Can I tell you a name that's very important to a father tonight? His name is Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no, didn't we, I think we started by almost singing like that at our conference here. All the names of earth, none can be told but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So precious.

But these people had rejected that. They had just decided that there was a, it would maybe come, and listen, they didn't plan on missing it. They didn't plan on this harvest being passed, the summer being ended, and now it's all over.

You know, there really is no, there's nobody in hell that planned on being there. Now listen, I've had men to tell me that that's where they're going, that's where they wanted to go. A lot of nonsense, a lot of nonsense.

Never heard such rubbish in my life. Nobody ever planned on being there. Anybody going to heaven planned on being there.

They made plans for it. Have you tonight? How about it? You saved? Is it possible that one in our company, one would be one too many, that'll ever look back to the 2014 lacrosse conference, and from hell you will wail. Not saved.

Not saved. Or will you come to be the people we read about? First Corinthians. Hey, these Corinthians, listen, we're not talking about people here that were choir-quality people.

They lived very licentious lives. Go to chapter 6, you'll read about it. Wicked lives.

Sinners. But they heard a message, just like the people in Jeremiah's day. They heard the gospel.

I know it would be a different era in which it was preached. I understand that it's now the other side of the cross. I understand that.

Nevertheless, incumbent upon them was to obey what God was telling them. We go to the Acts of the Apostles, it says, Many of the Corinthians, chapter 18, hearing, believed. They were saved.

Now Paul writes to them, he says, The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved. I had a neighbor who lives just next door to me, and he's a supervisor at the mine in our town. Oh, nice fellow, but as soon as you mention the word saved, oh, it's a different man.

Him and his wife, too. The other day I was down hooking on my little trailer, and their black lab came bouncing over. This was back maybe a number of months ago now.

And I'm patting the dog. They're calling the dog, you know. I just pat.

Dog's on my property, it doesn't bother me. We know each other. So when I got up to the house, Shirley said, Were they calling, that's my wife, Were they calling their dog? I said, yeah.

What was the problem? I said they were afraid. Likely I'd ask the dog if it was saved. It'd be a terrible thing.

Terrible thing. Yeah, here you are in a meeting tonight. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

A lot better my neighbor did than my neighbor does. Saved. You saved? These people knew what it was.

It was a great reality. They'd never used better language in their life. They'd heard a message, and they responded to it.

They repented. They trusted Christ as their Savior. And I love the way, the text of it.

The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Still is. Still is.

But unto us which are saved, are saved. Just think of it tonight, dear Christians. Just think of it, brethren.

What it costs for you to say tonight. Saved. Unto us which are saved.

Look, I wouldn't even know where this town was, let alone the people in it. I wouldn't even be here apart from Calvary tonight. Apart from a great Savior that gave His life.

That shed His precious blood and died on Calvary's cross. Paid the debt that we've been hearing about that you couldn't pay. So we could be saved.

Saved from what? That awful debt that was taking us down. Saved from a disease that was rampantly eating its way at us. Saved from a great distance that has separated us because of our sin from God.

And tonight I stand here, and I am not a better person than the Corinthians. Although I may not have got into what they got into, or what maybe you got into, or what our brother got into as giving his testimony there at the last. But it still took that great God of wonders to save me.

It's as great a wonder tonight that I'm saved as the worst wretch I've ever preached with. I've preached with some that were pretty rough. Wonderful to be saved tonight.

I want to tell you, I make no apology for saying that it is the greatest reality known to man. Everybody's heard, I'm sure, umpteen stories of the Twin Towers and so on and whatever, whatever. Maybe you didn't realize, but in the North Tower at the highest floors, there's 2,700 people worked in that particular part of the tower for the Stanley Morgan Security and Trading Company.

2,700 people. They had a security ban, born in England, but a decorated Vietnam soldier had won many things in Vietnam, and he was the head of security. Very practical sort of an individual to the point where he frustrated them.

And it would be back in the mid-90s, he got concerned. He said, you know, I have somehow a feeling. You know, he was actually termed, you know what they actually called him? The Prophet of 9-11.

He said, I have a feeling that we're going to be under attack. He said, I have a feeling that we stand here as mighty towers open to the attack of someone. Now, that was before Yusef Amin drove that Ryder truck underneath and tried to bomb that tower.

He'd already talked to Port Authority, New Jersey Port of Authority, New York Port Authority, who owned the buildings and said, ah, they met it with some interest, but said, yeah, it sounds good. Okay, okay. You know, whatever.

After that, they started to listen to him. You know what he had? He had a bullhorn. And he had what he called a rescue drill.

And his rescue drill consisted of no power in the building, no microphone system, batteries unavailable, whatever, but he would go through those floors, sound the alarm, and guide people to the elevator, to the stairways, not to the elevators. Those big executives, some of those boys, multimillionaires, some of them sat at their terminals and said, oh, no. They'd hear that blast, they'd have to leave their terminal.

They'd have to leave maybe a business deal to make it to the stairways, to make it down the stairways. That was Rick's drill. It was all kind of a joke until 9-11.

When that tower was hit, Rick Riscola literally jumped into action and started, with great precision, a rescue for 2,700 employees. And to fast forward that story, made it safely to the ground. Only one person lost their life.

Only one person lost their life. You know who that was? Rick Riscola. He couldn't count.

He wanted to be sure nobody, nobody died in that building. You know what people said? You know what 2,700 people had no argument in saying? Rick Riscola gave his life for me. Because I could have been left in that building.

I used to mock him too. Rick Riscola gave his life for me. I want to tell you about one tonight who gave his life for the world.

So you could say, unto us which are saved. It is the power of God unto salvation. What a wonderful thing to be able to say that.

Wonderful tonight to be saved. You know, whatever you may achieve or don't achieve in life, to be able just to say simply, saved to the Lord. Wonderful.

You know, people talk as if the word saved is, I have people that would, and I'm sure other servants here tonight have experienced the same. I've had people talk to me like the word saved was kind of a, kind of an obscure, limited word in the Bible. We're kind of major and build a doctrine on something that's very renote.

Not so. Do you read your Bible? Do you know the word saved is used likely enough times in your Bible to put almost on every page of your New Testament? Saved. You know the people that love it? They've experienced it.

The people that hate it? Never experienced it. As I close, our prayer would be that not one soul in this company here tonight would ever have to say, am forever. And we are not saved.

Not saved. Might yours be the other language. We are saved.

Shall we pray?