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     1. The Necessity of the Bible for Salvation   (27:21)
     2. Take Time to Be Holy   (2:03)

Romans 8:24-25.  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? ²⁵But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Hebrews 6:19.  Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; ²⁰Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

The Bible is so very dear and precious to me.  It seems to me like that crystal stream that issues forth from the throne of Almighty God.  And that’s exactly what it is: “The words that I speak unto you,” Jesus says, “are spirit and are life.”  A person cannot be filled with the Holy Ghost until they’re filled with the Bible.  You can have the baptism of the Holy Ghost—you can see that stream—but here we read about those who are “not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.”  How did they get there?  Why, by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, by receiving the Gospel, by believing it, by being filled with the Holy Ghost—or baptized with the Holy Ghost.  But now, they’re not at the goal yet.

It says, “We’re saved by hope.”  We’ve started on the “pilgrim’s progress.”  We have left the ways of world and sin.  We have forsaken the “City of Destruction,” but we’re not yet in the city of God, “the heavenly Jerusalem.”  But, thank God, we’re on the way.  And now, you notice how the Holy Ghost talks about “walking in the Spirit.”  Glory to God!  So many people love to claim this promise: “There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”  But they “walk in the Spirit”!  Glory to God!  They take certain steps.  Psalm 119: “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. …  They also do no iniquity.”

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Oh, my Lord and my God, what did You save me for?  Why, not to make me wonderful.  Jesus Christ died on the cross and paid the great price because He wanted a possession among all the nations of the world that hate Him.  For “whatsoever is born of the flesh” is enmity against God.”  You can cloak it with any religion you want: Christian Science, Unitarianism, Lutheranism, Catholicism.  Whatever you call it, it’s enmity against God.  But Jesus Christ has a bride, a church—glory to God!—that’s going to be “without wrinkle, without spot, or any such a thing.”  And the question is, “Do I belong to that church?”  “Many are called, and few are chosen.”  How do I become chosen?  Why, when I choose Him—when I choose His way, when I choose Jesus Christ to be my way—praise God!—when I “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh.”

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Oh how sad it is to hear people say, “We’re saved,” and then they smell like tobacco factories.  Or they say they’re saved, and they still live in the lusts of the flesh, and they still hanker after the things of earth.  They “halt between two opinions.”  How many there are even in this assembly who are like that.  Their heart still draws them—the lust is still in their hearts, is still rooted there.  Oh, beloved, once you’ve seen Jesus Christ, you’ll want Him more than your “own life also.”  And that’s what Jesus means when He says, “You’re wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked—with all your religion, with all your boastfulness.  Come to Me.  I’ll give you gold tried in the fire that you might be rich.”

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We have “grown up into Him.”  We have put off old things: we have “put off the old man with his deeds;” we’ve “put on the new Man.”  How few people do that!  We can boast—we can be very boastful.  And isn’t that the sin of the Pentecostal people?  We used to think that epistle to the church of Laodicea belonged to the Catholics and to the dead church.  I believe it belongs to us: “rich and increased with goods.”  Look how we advertise what we do.  Look how we like to publish magazines and pictures.  What is that?  What’s behind it?  Why, “I’m holier than thou.  I do more than you do.  That guy, he only saved a thousand souls.  Watch me!  I’m going to save a million!”  Now that sounds harsh.  Oh, but, beloved, when I am rich in humility!  Humility?  Nobody thinks of that.  “Lowliness of mind.”  Oh, that was the beauty of the Son of God who “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation.”

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Beloved, we’re not rich in God until God is our wealth.  We’re not really saved until God has become our salvation.

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Beloved, the Promised Land was there!  But it was full of giants, full of dangers, full of deadly enemies, and they saw these deadly enemies.  And God said, “I will drive them out before you.”  But they didn’t believe God because they couldn’t see Him. 

So are we.  The Promised Land is before us.  God has provided a “rest for the people of God.”  Beloved, we will never rest until we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” fully—until we find that way, until we make that exchange where we can say like the Apostle Paul, “Not I.  I live no more.”  As long as I live, I’ll be in trouble.  As long as I live, the devil will always find something within me that he can attack, and something that he can get hold of.

That’s what’s the matter with this spiritual pride that has cursed us.  We’ve been blessed of God with the power of the Holy Ghost, and presently, we appropriate something to ourselves, maybe unconsciously.  There is within us a root of pride, of self-seeking, that we didn’t know was there.

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“We had the sentence of death in ourselves.”  What for?  Why, there was something that was not yet fully given, something there that was still of self—a choice in the Apostle Paul to live.  And God wanted to be his life, and so He pronounced the sentence of death, and put it in his very body so that Paul might reach out to the Tree of Life, and help himself to the life of God.

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And while we’re “saved by hope” and anchored in the glorious city of God, we despise the world and all its charms.  But we despise ourselves, and the working of our flesh too.  That’s where we’re defeated.  We don’t know how much we exercise flesh. 

Let me get into a trial.  It’s easy to boast as long as I feel good, and as long as I’m healthy.  But let me get sick a little bit, or let me get into a real trial, and watch me go down like on a heap.  Watch me.  Oh, Father in heaven!  We don’t believe that “all things work together for good.”  We don’t believe that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life.”  We don’t believe when He says, “Let not your heart be troubled.”  He authorizes me to believe in Him.  What does that mean?  Why, in His presence, His indwelling, His being my all in all.  How many times we sing, “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord.”  But are we planted on that foundation?

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An illustration of following a stream to a destination.  “This river, thank God, is a very safe roadmap, a very safe guide: ‘The unction which ye have received of Him abideth with you.’”    (from 2:43)

Die Wacht am Rhein — The Watch at the Rhine.

Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein: Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein! — Dear fatherland, put your mind at rest,

Firm stands, and true the Watch at the Rhine!

Der Rhein ist ein Schweizer Knabe — The Rhein is a child of Switzerland.

Zuckerbäcker — a confectioner.

Konditor — a pastry chef.

Das ist sächsisch — This is Saxon dialect.

The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, 1678.

How Firm a Foundation, a hymn by John Rippon, 1787.

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