Practical Fruits

Introduction: The Certainty of Perseverance and Its Practical Fruits

0:01 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, January 30th, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:11 Let us once again seek the face of God in prayer.

0:22 Our Father, we have breathed out the longing of our hearts in the language of the hymn we have just sung in your presence. And we would again plead, O Holy Spirit, come, great and gracious gift of the Father. Come in power, come in grace. Come as a gentle dove to those disturbed and distraught hearts and consciences.

0:54 Come as a thundering voice to those that are careless and comfortable in their souls. Come as gentle rain upon thirsty hearts. Come as a distressing voice and clap of thunder upon those who are comfortable in their ignorance and their sin. O Holy Spirit, come and attend the word with power and do your saving work in all of our hearts.

1:28 For Jesus' sake, amen.

1:39 For a number of months, our Lord's Day mornings have been taken up with examining together some of the vital aspects of the biblical doctrine, which has commonly been designated as the doctrine of the perseverance and the preservation of the saints. The distilled essence of this doctrine is the assertion that all true believers, not all who profess to be believers, but all who profess to be believers, not all who make a decision or a profession, but all true believers most certainly shall and most assuredly must

2:21 continue in faith, holiness, and obedience all of their days and be found glorified in the presence of Christ in the last day. Now, having examined some of the key texts related to the necessity of personification, we have come to the conclusion that the first major category of study is the study of God. And then, for a number of weeks, the various means ordained of God for our perseverance, we are drawing this series of studies to a close by considering certain dimensions of biblical truth pertaining to the certainty of our perseverance and preservation.

3:04 And in our two previous meditations on this third category, that is, the certainty of our perseverance and preservation, we considered together the explicit assertions from Scripture that we shall persevere and be preserved if we are the people of God. And then, in our last study, the threefold basis of this certainty of our perseverance and preservation, namely, the unchangeable purpose of God the Father, the unfailing purchase and intercession, and the unremovable indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

3:47 Now, today, in our final message in this series, we'll consider together the practical fruits of the certainty of the perseverance and preservation of the saints. Having considered the necessity of perseverance, the means of perseverance, we are in that third major category of the certainty, the unchangeable purpose of God the Son, the certainty of our perseverance. Having looked at the biblical assertions of that certainty, the threefold grounds of that certainty, now, finally, the practical fruits of that certainty.

4:26 Since it is God himself who has designed and procured a salvation which is rooted in his own purposes and plan, a plan of salvation, which secures the salvation of his people, we should expect that this truth, being part of the truth which is according to godliness, should have practical implications. And there are many very practical, intensely practical fruits which flow out of or are produced by this doctrine. But it is only produced, or the fruit is only produced,

5:10 by the doctrine of God the Father, by the doctrine rightly understood, truly believed, and spiritually regulative of thought and practice. Let me run that by again. These fruits will not automatically follow simply because you've heard the doctrine. It is when the doctrine is rightly understood, truly believed, and has become spiritually regulative of thought and practice, then we will see its blessed fruits.

Practical Fruit 1: Magnifying the Glory of God's Grace

5:45 And I want us to trace out this morning the practical fruits of the certainty of the perseverance and preservation of the saints with respect to God himself, with respect to the children of God, and with respect to sinners. First of all, then, with respect to God himself. What does the proper understanding of, and belief in, and submission to this doctrine do with respect to God himself? Well, most fundamentally it does this.

6:23 It magnifies the glory of his grace. It magnifies the glory of his grace. If you will turn, please, to Ephesians chapter 1, you will notice in this great paragraph extolling the salvation, the salvation of God in Christ, that the great end envisioned in the planning and execution of this salvation is found in the language of verse 6, verse 12, and verse 14. All that God has done with respect to our election in Christ

7:05 and our foreordination unto adoption is, verse 6, to this end, to the praise, or to the extolling of the glory of his grace. He has done these things to the praise of the glory of his grace. Now embodied in those words are these major thoughts. God's grace is something which, like the sun which sends out its beams, is glorious.

7:39 His grace sends out beams of glory. And having displayed those beams of glory in his grace, it is that those beams may be recognized and become the occasion of praise. These things he has done to the praise of the glory of his grace. Having seen the display of his grace, he is to be praised in the light of that display.

8:11 Verse 12, To the end that we should be to the praise of his glory. And verse 14, which is an earnest of the inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession unto the praise of his glory. In other words, the salvation planned by God the salvation executed by God, is a glorious salvation and it is God's design that men be Sure by olsa. beholding the glory of that salvation, should praise Him for it.

8:48 Now we have seen that the salvation which comes to us in Christ is a salvation which secures the perseverance and the preservation of the people of God. If God's grace merely secured a salvation which the people of God might enjoy for a day, for a week, for a year, for a decade, or even for ten decades, but ultimately forfeit it, how could it be a salvation which secures the praise of the glory of His grace?

9:30 God would be like the man in Luke 14 who is mocked because he could not finish what he began. You remember Jesus in urging sober consideration of the cost of discipleship used in illustration. He said, a man who's going to build a tower sits down first and considers whether he has enough to complete the project before he begins it or else people coming by and seeing his half-finished product and all of us perhaps can remember places in our old hometown where someone actually did that, began to build a house and years later the shell sat there deteriorating and any visitor comes and said, what fool began but couldn't finish? He said, what fool began but couldn't complete the structure?

10:15 Well, you see, if God's grace merely provided a salvation which brought people into the enjoyment of its blessings for a time, but did not secure their perseverance and preservation, God Himself would be the monumental object of mockery and scorn because there would be strewn across the span of time the wreckages, of people who began but who did not persevere and were not preserved until the end. Now that there are those who profess to be saved who do not persevere and are not preserved,

10:59 the Bible clearly teaches, but that any true believer is not preserved to the end, the Bible clearly denies. And so God is to be glorified in terms, in terms of grace that secures the ultimate salvation of His people. If God is glorified in people, I'm sorry, if God were to have a people who trusted Him but did not persevere, His grace would not be glorified. If God justified people upon believing, but did not so work in them that they would persevere in faith and holiness and obedience,

11:44 but they would ultimately go to heaven even though they live like the devil, that would not glorify grace. That would be the display of an impotent grace that could change people's destiny, but not their character and their patterns of behavior. But the grace we've examined says that God will change people's hearts. Jeremiah 32, 40, I will do something in them that they will not depart from me.

12:14 And so... And so when we see sinners persevering in a way that is entirely contrary to their native inclinations by birth, when we see them adhering to ways that run counter to all of their natural judgments, we have to say something has worked in them that has no explanation in terms of human psychology, human conditioning factors, and what do we see?

12:42 We see the glory. We see the glory of God's grace. And seeing it, we are to praise Him for it. Likewise, if there were to be a people who trusted Him but were not preserved, who truly came into the possession of eternal life at one point in their existence and ultimately lost eternal life, what would this say of God's power to preserve His own?

13:11 The Lord Jesus said in John 10, that, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish. And then He links that into the identity of His person. I and My Father are one.

13:30 And it would be a sad reflection upon the power of Christ and therefore upon the very nature of the person of Christ if He did not keep every sinner who entrusted his soul to Him. But when we have a salvation, a salvation that secures through grace both the perseverance of the saints in the way of holiness and their preservation in spite of all of the opposition, we have a salvation which manifests the glory of His grace. And when we understand that salvation taught in Scripture, then one of its most practical fruits in our hearts will be a constant,

14:15 constant peon of praise to God for the glory of the grace manifested in such a salvation. What glory surrounds the grace that finds expression in an unchangeable purpose, a purpose that marked us out that we should be holy and without blemish before Him? What glory surrounds grace that sends a Savior to make an unfailing, unfailing purchase of His people and then ushers Him into a state in which He engages in unfailing intercession for them? What glory surrounds the salvation

14:58 that procures for all of the people of God an unremovable seal of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit Himself? This is omnipotent grace, indefectible grace, overcoming, conquering grace. And that's exactly what Newton had in mind when he said, through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come, tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. Though he could not be a prophet and predict what the combination would be

15:41 of affliction and trial and testing and sin in his own life, he dared to assert, grace has brought me safe thus far, grace will lead me home. And so the first practical fruit of this great doctrine of the certainty of the preservation and perseverance of the saints is to be found with reference to God Himself. It manifests the glory of His grace. Now, what is its practical fruit with respect to the child of God?

Practical Fruit 2: Feeding the River of Holy Joy in Believers

16:19 When this truth is rightly understood, truly believed, and spiritually regulative of thought and action, it will bear many blessed fruits in the life of a Christian. I want to just point you to three. First of all, it will feed the river of holy joy in a believer's heart. It will feed the river of holy joy.

16:44 Now, holy joy holds no little place in the Christian life. Holy joy. Romans 14, 17. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

17:01 One of the marks of those who are the true subjects of the kingdom of grace is that they have joy in the Holy Ghost. It is holy joy, born of holy realities, and couched in a holy life. The kingdom of God is righteousness. Not only righteousness imputed, but righteousness imparted.

17:22 So don't talk about being happy, happy, happy in Jesus unless you're also holy in Jesus. It's a holy joy found in a holy life. But it is one of the three major elements of the mark of the subjects of the kingdom, according to Romans 14, 17. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

17:45 And as Paul lists the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, what is second only to love? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. And there are few truths more calculated to feed that river of holy joy as a constant spring in any kind of weather than an understanding of and a spiritually regulative perspective of this great truth. I shall be preserved.

18:24 I shall persevere because God has willed it. Christ has died that it should be so. He intercedes to secure it and the Spirit dwells within me to make certain that that will be true of me. Turn to Romans chapter 5 for a description of the relationship of this doctrine to the feeding of this river of holy joy in a believer's heart.

18:51 Romans chapter 5. The apostle has just expanded on the great doctrine of justification by faith alone and he says, being therefore or having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we've had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, now notice, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only is there peace as a justified man, but there is joy. And he says that joy,

19:36 that exalting, that glorying, has reference to hope of the glory of God. Now for some of you who may be new to Bible language, the word hope in the Bible does not mean a kind of a woozy and at times maybe even strong wish. Well, I hope that I'll get three weeks vacation next year instead of two. I hope.

20:00 We use the term in the sense of a strong wish. In the Bible it doesn't mean that. It means a confident expectation of a blessing promised by God. That's biblical hope.

20:12 A confident expectation of a blessing promised by God. Now Paul says, we rejoice or exalt in the hope, the confident expectation of a promised blessing that is described as the glory of God. And when we trace that through the epistle to the Romans, particularly in Chapter 8, and compare it with other scriptures, it's plain that he's referring to that time when all the redeemed are glorified at the second coming of Christ. when we shall be like him, seeing him as he is, and glorified together with him in that day.

20:54 Now the apostle says that as a justified man, he not only has peace with God, and therefore the peace of God in his heart, but he has an exalting, a rejoicing that is born of this confident expectation, he shall be preserved until he is resplendent with the very glory of God and his own glorification.

21:24 And he's confident of that. And he says he rejoices in that hope. He has no question whatsoever that when the Lord Jesus is manifested, he shall be glorified with him. Now this is the same apostle who said, I keep under my body and buffet it, lest in preaching to others I myself should be ad hocimus, reprimanded.

21:44 He understood the doctrine of the necessity of perseverance. This one thing I do, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. He knew he had to persevere. So convinced of it was he, that he said he buffeted his body, he kept under all of these passions and appetites, which if given free reign would have taken him into hell, and he knew it.

22:11 He was self-conscious of his own efforts, in persevering. Yet he had no question about the issue. In the midst of it, his holy joy was fed by the confidence that he would share in the glory of the sons of God, at the return of the Lord Jesus. And you and I, with the apostle, will not have any sure, certain, unfailing spring of holy joy, or river of joy, unless this spring,

22:46 this spring of confidence that we shall be preserved and shall persevere is born in our hearts as we believingly appropriate the word of God. I say it will feed the river of holy joy. And could it be that the lack of joy that some of you have is an evidence of your unbelief in this great doctrine?

23:14 You really don't believe that you're going to make it. You really don't believe. You really don't believe that you shall be preserved. Oh, child of God, take the texts that we gave you several weeks ago and pray over them and meditate upon them and cry to God the Holy Spirit to write them upon your heart until you have a clear perception of the truth and a believing attachment to the truth and thought and action begin to be regulated by it.

Practical Fruit 3: Strengthening the Nerve of Holy Courage in Believers

23:44 And then you, with Paul, will be able to say, and not only so, but I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. But the second blessed fruit it bears in a practical way in the life of the believer is this. It will not only feed the river of holy joy, it will strengthen the nerve of holy courage. It will strengthen the nerve of holy courage.

24:12 You see, the child of God faces a formidable array of powerful and insidious enemies, You see, the child of God faces a formidable array of powerful and insidious enemies, to his soul, the world, the flesh, the devil, and all of the various manifestations of those insidious enemies and powerful foes, any one of which in itself is able to cause poor, weak, vulnerable sheep and lambs to be mortally wounded. Now, what will give us a strengthened nerve of courage Now, what will give us a strengthened nerve of courage to face all of those enemies, unafraid,

24:55 not to tempt God or to tempt the devil, but nonetheless face those enemies with holy courage? Turn to Romans chapter 8. The apostle again is the great example of one who had this strengthened nerve of holy courage, born of a conviction of this doctrine. Verse 31.

25:19 What shall we say then to these things? The previous things that he has been expounding of God's purpose to save his own and to conform them to the image of his Son? Having foreloved them, he predestined them to sonship, and having done that, he called and justified and will certainly glorify them. What shall we say then to these things?

25:41 If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall we not with him freely get up? Who shall not with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?

25:56 It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

26:12 Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see what he's saying?

26:54 Bring on what you will, bring on what you may, from any realm, heaven above or earth, I am persuaded that I am bound to my saving God in bonds of love which nothing in heaven, earth, or hell can ever sever. You talk about a man who has a nerve of holy courage. It wasn't born of something that lay in him. He said if God is for us, if Christ has died, if Christ has been raised, if Christ intercedes, if the commitment of God to save me to the uttermost

27:38 is manifested in all that he has done and is doing for me in Christ, who's going to come and stay the hand of an omnipotent Savior? Who's going to change the purpose of a sovereign God who is for us? My dear Christian, do you catch something of the glory of this? Or are you so accustomed to hearing these verses they don't give you the goose bumps anymore?

27:59 Why are some of you so timid? Why do you jump and start and blanch white at every little twitch behind the trees and every little sound in the shadows? Why? Why is it that you're ready to start looking back over your shoulder, fainting and halting at every little opposition, can it be that you have a weakened nerve of courage because you're looking too much at yourself instead of at the God who is committed to take you all the way to glory, fully conscious of all your weakness, fully conscious of all that is in you

28:44 that could lead you into the ranks of those who are the wreckages of mere professors of the faith who've never had the real thing? Oh, child of God, this doctrine, spiritually apprehended, can be useful in the hands of the Spirit not only to feed that river of holy joy, but to strengthen the nerve of holy courage. But then thirdly, another of its practical fruits in the believer is this, it will nurture the disposition of holy humility. It will nurture the disposition

Practical Fruit 4: Nurturing the Disposition of Holy Humility in Believers

29:26 of holy humility. Now one of the fundamental graces of every true Christian is humility. No man is saved without being humbled. Humbled, past tense, being humbled.

29:44 H-U-M-B-L-E-D, it's hard to pronounce, you can all hear it. I didn't say no man is saved who is not humble, but I said no man is saved who is not humbled. Matthew 5 and verse 3, when Jesus takes up his brush to sketch in the character traits of all of the sons and daughters of the kingdom, the first stroke falls upon humility. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

30:18 If you've never been humbled, you've never been converted. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And the first sign that grace is at work in you to prepare you to receive grace is that God humbles you. He takes you down off your high horse, not to get you to do a con job on yourself, to convince yourself you're some little worm that you're really not, but to get you for the first time to be honest about what you really are.

30:50 Humility is not a divine con job. Humility is the grace that is the attendant of the realism of seeing yourself for what you are in the presence of God. A creature dependent upon God for the very breath you breathe. In him we live and move and have our very being.

31:14 You couldn't breathe your next breath if God didn't decree that you should. Oh, you say, come off it. That's the truth. That heart that beats, plump, plump, plump, plump.

31:27 It doesn't just beat because it beats, but it's beating. It's carried on as an expression of the sovereign will of the God who can say enough. And you'd have it. And they'd open you up and maybe find some reason for it stopping.

31:45 Or maybe not. That still happens, you know. Unexplained cessation of cardiac activity. They can't explain it.

31:56 And even if they could explain it in terms of this occlusion or that or the other, who sovereignly ordered your genetic structure so that all of your pipes would get clogged up at age 35 when someone else who eats the same way you do and exercises as much doesn't get clogged up until he's 80? That all just chants, no, my friend, you're in the hands of a sovereign God. He holds the keys of life and death. In him we live and move and have our being.

32:24 We are creatures utterly dependent upon him. But furthermore, we are sinful creatures who've broken his holy law in Adam, provoked his wrath by our sin, who are defiled and undone and unclean in his sight, and even our righteousnesses are his filthy rags. What is humility? It is the reflex response in the disposition of man when he begins to see and own for the first time what he is as creature and sinner.

32:52 That's why Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom. When he brings people into the kingdom, he starts by showing them what they really are. He resists the problems of the world. He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

33:08 Now, how is that grace of humility fed? Well, it is fed in many ways, but no little way is by an understanding of and a spiritual apprehension of this great truth of the certainty of the perseverance and preservation of the saints. Now, someone says, Wait a minute. If I was certain, absolutely certain, that I would be preserved and would persevere, that would make me proud.

33:37 I'm going to make it. Would it? You see, my friend, if your salvation ultimately rests upon what you do, now the door is open for pride. Because you can look back and say, Ah, I've held on to my way for ten years.

33:54 I could have fallen, and really fallen totally out of the faith, but I'm still in the faith. Why? Because I've kept myself in the way. Look at those dirty apostates who didn't do what I did.

34:08 You look down your nose at people who apostatize. But when you say with John Newton, Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come, tis grace has brought me safe thus far. Now there's a climate in which the grace of humility can be manifested. Why did the temptations that took that man and that woman aside into apostasy, why did those same temptations coming by me, why did they not have the same power over me?

34:44 There's one reason. The Triune God is committed to preserve me. And His preserving work was manifested in my persevering in spite of the fact that I've got enough fuel in me to lead me out of the faith a hundred times any given day of my life. And so I bow before the God of grace and say, Oh God, I am one.

35:08 I am what I am by the grace of God. Who maketh thee to differ? 1 Corinthians 4, 7 And I tell you, when you've been on the way a while and you look back as I can look back these thirty plus years now, and think of some who once were upon their knees with me fervently pleading with God for the salvation of sinners, advancement in holiness, grace of grace, but who now for years have blasphemed that worthy and precious name, have sold themselves to every form of iniquity and do not manifest

35:52 one smidgen of evidence of any desire to find their way back to the paths in which they once walked, it is a humbling thing to acknowledge that the ultimate difference lies with Almighty God. He is preserving me. And His preserving is the only reason why I have persevered to this point. And then as we look to the future, you see how that grace and disposition of humility is fed.

36:28 What is my hope for the future? Not that because I have certain fixed patterns of choice and perspective and cultivated spiritual appetites and disciplines, I am now locked into a pattern that I can coast, as it were, on that pattern to heaven. No! I acknowledge that I am still vulnerable and the potential for every form of iniquity is yet within me.

36:55 And therefore, if I have been brought to this moment by grace, in the language of Newton, it is grace and grace alone which will bring me safely home. And therefore, that disposition of humility will always give birth to prayerfulness, dependantness, and thankfulness. Prayer is the language of true humility because it is going out of myself to another for help. Humility, humility is the very life and spirit of prayerfulness.

37:33 Humility is not to be found in terms of a certain type of personality. It is far more profound in its impress on the human soul. And the great test, the litmus paper, as it were, of the presence of humility is eminent prayerfulness. Constantly going out of myself to another in acknowledged felt weakness to lay hold of his strength, the spirit of dependantness.

38:02 Without me, you can do nothing. Humility says, Lord, it's true. It's true. That's not poetic overstatement.

38:11 Lord, without you, I can do nothing. Nothing in the way of being a holy man, a holy woman. Nothing in the way of pleasing you. And then, humility is always joined to thankfulness because we acknowledge that what we are and what we have is all, all of grace.

Practical Fruit 5: Highlighting the Glory of the Gospel for Sinners

38:33 I suggest, dear people, that those are three of the holy fruits that will be born in your heart by a conviction of the certainty of your own perseverance and preservation. The certainty of that great truth will feed the river of holy joy, strengthen the nerve of holy courage. It will nurture the disposition of holy humility. And then finally, its fruit will be born not only with reference to God himself, with respect to the people of God, but also with respect to the sinner.

39:14 And by the sinner, I mean those of you sitting here today who are strangers to God's salvation in Christ. And my friend, I have but one point to make under this heading, and it's this. This is the fruit of this great truth with respect to you. It constitutes a major factor in the glory of the gospel.

39:36 It constitutes, this great doctrine does, a major factor in the glory of the gospel. Here you sit this morning, guilty in Adam. The scripture says, as in Adam all die. By one man sin entered into the world and death passed upon all men, for that all sinned, that is sinned in that one man, Adam.

40:00 You sit here polluted from your mother's womb in sin did my mother conceive me, Psalm 51 6. You sit here under the weight of the guilt of your actual sins. You sit here in real bondage. Whosoever commits sin is the bond slave of sin.

40:18 You sit here in all your hell deservedness. The wages of sin is death. The wrath of God abides on him that believes not. Now what is it that we offer you sincerely, freely, earnestly in the Lord Jesus Christ?

40:35 What is it that we offer you by the warrant of God himself, when we hold before you Christ as the God-man, Christ in his perfect life, Christ in his death upon the cross for sinners, Christ in his glorious resurrection, Christ in his place at the right hand of God the Father, Christ in his willingness to give his spirit to needy sinners. What are we offering you? Are we offering you a salvation that says that for a day, for two days, for a week, a month, a year, a decade, five decades, you may enjoy the privilege of a conscience of peace and rest

41:19 through the blood of Christ? We offer you something that for a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, or five decades, you may rejoice in the knowledge that you are accepted in the Beloved. You will know the liberation from the chains that now bind you, but at last, you may ultimately go back under the guilt of those sins and back under those chains and that forever and therefore make your hell all the worse because you'll be tormented with the memory of having tasted of the glories of salvation in Christ. Is that some glorious message to offer to sinners?

41:58 My friend, I'd pack up and quit today if I had to preach that kind of salvation. What do we offer you in Christ? We offer a salvation that is nothing less than the activity of Almighty God joined to His irrevocable commitment to cleanse you, to forgive you, to accept you in His Son, to place His Spirit within you, thereby securing your adherence to His ways to the end of your days and taking you at last to heaven. And your being in heaven will be as certain as the moment you believe

42:41 as when you get there. That's what we offer you in Christ. Now, my friend, is that a glorious salvation or isn't it? You men in the academy last week, we were discussing what do we offer sinners in the gospel.

42:55 That's what we offer. We don't tell, start picking yourself up by your own bootstraps and Christ will come along and help you. No, you're bound. You can't pick up anything.

43:06 Bootstraps, toes, nothing. You can't even pull at your earlobes. You're bound. You're chained.

43:14 Whosoever commits sin is the slave of sin. The carnal mind is enmity against God. He's not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be.

43:25 You are spiritually impotent, bound, condemned, dead, and under wrath and condemnation. What do we offer you? Nothing less than the mighty, omnipotent Savior who saves with the salvation that takes every sinner who embraces Him and the salvation in Him takes him all the way from his state of sin and guilt and hell-deservedness to forgiveness and justification and liberation and ultimately to glorification. Now, my friend, if you've been disappointed in all kinds of people, I can understand how you'd be a little skeptical.

44:07 Don't take it on my word. Listen to the words of the Son of God Himself. Verily, truly, truly, I say unto you, John 5, 24, He that hears My word and believes on Him that sent Me is passed from death unto life and shall not come into condemnation. He is passed from death unto life and shall not come into condemnation.

44:34 Again, hear His words. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and Him that comes to Me I will in no while. He is cast out. Having come, He will never cast you out.

44:49 What do you come to Him for? You come to Him for that which only He can give, forgiveness, liberation, acceptance in Himself with the Father. And the promise that He, taking you as one of His sheep, will preserve you and keep you even to the day of the consummation. I say that's a wonderful practical holy fruit that flows from this doctrine of the certainty of the perseverance and the preservation of the saints.

Conclusion and Prayer

45:24 Now I trust God has been pleased to take some of these truths in these many weeks of studying the doctrine and has written them upon our hearts. And if He has, let us sing this morning, we're going to sing a closing hymn, something we normally don't do. Let us sing as the response of our hearts to God, hymn number nine, hymn number ninety-nine, hymn number ninety-nine, the hymn from which I've quoted many times in the course of this series of studies, another great hymn of Augustus Toplady. Notice particularly that third stanza, my name from the palms of His hands, eternity will not erase, impressed on His heart it remains

46:08 in marks of indelible grace. Yes, I, to the end shall endure, as sure as the earnest is given, more happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven. Let us sing to the praise of God, our sense of indebtedness to sovereign mercy that secures this glorious salvation even for the likes of us. Hymn number ninety-nine, let's pray.

46:45 Our Father, we can only plead that You, by Your grace through the Holy Spirit, will write upon our hearts the great truths of Your word that we have considered over these many weeks, and that You will cause to be born in all of our hearts some of these holy fruits which this truth is calculated to produce where the heart receives them in faith and humility. O Father, we pray for those that sit here, that stand even now before You, bound and condemned and in a state that is frightening when understood in the light of Your word.

47:30 We pray that You would make them jealous and thirsty to know this great salvation offered so freely to needy sinners in the person of our great Savior. Enable them, O Lord, to lay hold of Him. Give them no rest until they know that they are in Him. Seal the word to our hearts.

47:54 Help us as Your people to live and walk in the light of it. May we know increased measures of holy joy, of holy courage, and of holy humility born of the constant reflection upon the great truth that You will keep us and that we shall persevere even unto the end. Hear us, O Lord, to the end that Your name may be praised and our souls enriched in the ministry of the word through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.