Please open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 1. We began speaking on the subject of Christian assurance a month ago, and our first message was on assurance based on the veracity of God. And we took for our text there at the beginning of Titus, where he's called the God who cannot lie. Today we want to speak on assurance based on the work of Christ. And so I'll take from my text this very familiar passage in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. It could well be argued, and some might make the case, that this should be the starting point when we begin to deal with the doctrine of Christian assurance. How can we know that we are truly the children of God? This is a large subject with many aspects to it, as we'll be seeing. But today we want to speak on the Christian's assurance as it is based on the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. It's certainly true that no sinner has any legitimate hope of escaping God's fiery condemnation except his sins be dealt with in one way or another. The gospel is the true and the only remedy to that great and perplexing problem. Except our sins be atoned for by a Redeemer, then we cannot be saved. Now, men have been struggling to deal with the guilt of their sins by their own devices for thousands of years, but altogether without success. But the blood of Jesus Christ suffices to wash away the foulest of guilt. It can save the very worst of sinners. It saves sinners who have not lived notorious lives, but it saves many who have. It saves people like Saul of Tarsus, who was a murderer of Christians. It saves men like King Manasseh, who was a great persecutor and murderer and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood from one end to the other. It saved such a wicked man as him. This is the great distinction between Christianity and all false religions and all what we might call imitations of true religion is the fact that the true religion of Christianity as it's taught in the Scriptures does have a remedy for sin. It does have a way in which sin can be put away. What it really does, this is how it really separates itself from false religion because all false religions have some way that they say that you can quiet your conscience, some way that you can quit worrying about sin. But the gospel tells us how that God can be just and still justify ungodly sinners. This distinguishes true Christianity from the false versions of Christianity, the imitations of the true gospel. I will say to you that it is more important that God be just and maintain His holiness than it is that sinners be saved. God's character is more important than our salvation. But God has so wrought in the Gospel that we can be saved without any violence being done to the justice of God, without His justice being compromised in any way. And that's the Gospel that we heard preached this morning, how the righteousness of God can be attained by those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're going to be seeing more of that today. I told Dad between services that he had preached my sermon for me. I'll be covering some of the same points that he was, but we'll be looking at it under the aspect of Christian assurance and how these things pertain to the assurance that we may have of our salvation as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. I do think, though, and I'm explaining why I've chosen to preach this second instead of first, I do think that the work of Christ is the second stone to be placed in the edifice of the Christian's assurance. And this is the reason why I preached on the veracity of God first, is because that if God were anything less than the God who cannot lie, then we would not be able to put any confidence in this gospel. If God was a liar and a cheat and a fraud like so many of the heathen gods that they've spawned out of their own imaginations, well, we would not be able to put any confidence. If the Word of God were full of inaccuracies and errors and lies and false doctrines, then the best of His promises would be but shaky ground upon which to build our eternal confidence. But the reason that we can have confidence that God does save those sinners who believe on His Son is because of the veracity of God. The fact that in His very character, in His very nature, God cannot lie. So we have to establish that first. The fact that the Gospel promises are built upon the character of God. The very attributes of God are at work on the behalf of believers in the gospel. Deceit is contrary to the very nature of God, and so we can lay firm hold on the rock of His promises. And so since God cannot lie when God declares to us, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, then we can take a firm grip upon that promise and hold to it in spite of the mockery and the persecution of an unbelieving world. The foundations of all the hopes of men, whether they're religious hopes or political hopes or sociological hopes, whatever they are, they're built upon nothing better than human opinion and human understanding. Men brag all the time about human reason and mock at religion and say you just need to base things on the power of human reason. Well, human reason is completely corrupted just like every other aspect of human nature. It's been affected by the fall and by our depravity just like our will and our affections. So human reason is a poor foundation to build our hopes upon. But we have a solid rock to build upon, and it's not based upon our will, it's not based upon our affections, and it's certainly not based upon our own reason and our ability to figure things out, but it's based upon the character of God. But also in this unshakable foundation, we have the work of Christ upon which to establish our hopes of eternal life. However, before I enter in upon this most profound and happy subject, I want to reiterate, and I'll probably go through this every time I speak on this subject of assurance, that I do not want in any way, shape, or form to give any carnal confidence to a false professor of Christianity. This doctrine of assurance has been so mishandled that most of the time that's what it's calculated to do. So far be it from me to tell any sinner to just trust Jesus to pay for your sins and then never have any doubts about the security of your soul from then on. That is a false doctrine of assurance. That's the kind of assurance that leads a person down to hell. It is true that the finished work of Christ, His great atonement that was made on behalf of sinful men, is an essential part of our assurance. And there can be no true assurance of salvation apart from the great work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But at the same time, the work of Christ and His sufferings on the cross on behalf of wicked men was never meant to convince any person that, well, since I believed on Jesus and He died for my sins, and I don't need to ever have any further concern about my spiritual estate. The apostles never preached the gospel in that way. And in fact, they frequently gave strong warnings to people to convince them against this kind of false and carnal confidence. Now, it was a propagation of this doctrine which began, I suppose, back in the 1800s under Finney was when it started to get very popular and it's only gotten worse since then. But in the 1950s and 1960s, Rolf Barnard was saying that he believed that many thousands, maybe the majority of people sitting in churches had been given over to a reprobate mind because They had embraced this doctrine and thought that since I had made my decision and walked down the aisle and I had faith in Jesus and decided for Jesus at one time in my life that I can just go on in whatever I want to do. And so, Rolf Barnard, if you listen to his sermons, and there's a good number of them on Sermon Audio, you'll find him constantly attacking the false assurance of carnal professors. A devilish doctrine had arisen. I don't know who was the first one to espouse this particular idea, but the notion that you'll hear frequently nowadays that you can believe on Jesus and have Him as your Savior, but not have Him as the Lord of your life. But you're still going to go to heaven, you're just not a... committed Christian or something like that. But it's the idea that you can have Christ as your Savior and not as your Lord. And this leads to a false assurance of salvation. An assurance that's built upon the idea that, well, I believed on Jesus and that's all I have to do is believe. And so now I can just go on in my carnal life without any change being wrought in me. That's a false assurance. And it's not based upon the truth of the Word of God. The idea that Christ will pay for your sins, but make no claim upon your person is a false and damnable doctrine. And thus, the church was and is full of people who had disgraced the gospel by their wicked and carnal lives, all the while brashly confident that Christ was their Savior, although He might not be the Lord of their life. And that plague that was abroad in the day of Rolf Barnard has been multiplied a thousand times today to the point where men and women can openly practice the vilest of sins and then become enraged when somebody points out that no person engaged in their lifestyle can inherit the Kingdom of God. It doesn't matter how plain the passage you might point them to. They'll say, well, you have no right to judge. Well, we're not judging. We're just repeating what the Word of God said. God already passed judgment. So we don't have to judge. We're not sitting on the throne to condemn them. We're just telling them the Word of God says you cannot be a child of God if you're practicing this kind of iniquity. The atonement of Christ was never made to inspire confidence in people who are just living in carnality and ungodliness and wickedness and worldliness. It was never made to inspire confidence in those kinds of people. If a person is hoping that Jesus is going to pay for their sins and save them in spite of the fact that they are living in rebellion to every principle of the Word of God, they have a hope that was wrought in them by the devil and never by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God does not give confidence to people who are living in open rebellion. And in fact, I would tell you the Spirit of God He's not at work in the heart of a person who is living in sin. If you can be comfortable in your sin, then you have either grieved the Spirit of God or He's not working in you at all. So a person who takes Christ's death and resurrection as a license to indulge his carnal desires, the truth is that they have no part in Christ's saving work. They're still in bondage to their sins and under the just wrath of God. No matter what their religious profession might be, the Spirit of God is going to have an effect in the hearts of the people who are saved by the blood of Christ. So there must then be evidence of the working of the Holy Spirit in a person's heart if he can attain to a true biblical assurance. People can have a false assurance, the assurance that the devil might give them, that they're saved even though they're living in filth and ungodliness. But that assurance does not come from the Spirit of God, and it's alien to what the Scripture teaches concerning the confidence of the child of God. But God does not leave us to cling to nothing more substantial than our own personal efforts at sanctification in our assurance. If that was all we had to look to, if all we had to look to was how we are striving after holiness in our lives, which we must be if we are children of God, but if that's all that we had to cling to, then we would be resting on a pretty shaky foundation. Efforts at personal sanctification and strivings after personal holiness are always at work in the child of God because the Spirit of God is dwelling in him and the Spirit of God will not let one of his children sit at ease when he's dwelling in sin. But the truth is that our efforts at sanctification are so weak and imperfect that we have to look to one who is far mightier than ourselves if we would attain to the highest degree of assurance. One of the wonderful things about the Gospel is that God works so majestically in the Gospel that the more clearly and the more firmly our eye of faith is fixed upon Christ and His atonement, the greater success we will enjoy in our struggles for personal holiness. The more clear our sight is of Christ and how perfect His atonement is and how He truly saves those that come unto God by Him, when we are keeping our eye of faith fixed upon that, you can't be comfortable in sin if you're looking at Christ. And so the more firmly our faith is fixed upon Christ, the greater advantage and the greater success we will have in striving for sanctification. The Scripture plainly teaches that no man lacking holiness will ever see God. Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man will see the Lord. The Scripture says that in no uncertain terms. But at the same time, no man will ever see God on account of his own holiness. We have to keep these things straight and in their proper order. We practice holiness because Christ has saved us. Because Christ has saved us, He's put away our sins and given us a new heart. Because of these things, we practice holiness and seek to live according to the standard of the Word of God. But we have to keep this straight. We always have to keep it in our minds that it is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy that God saved us. But because God has saved us, we do live according to His commandments. And a person who is not striving to do so has no true ground for assurance. And that's what the book of 1 John is about. It is mainly there to tell the children of God how they can gain confidence that they truly are the sons of God. And one of the primary marks, which I hope to address in a later message, is that we live according to the commandments of God. If we would ever have our sins finally and fully dealt with as far as how we relate to God and how our sins would accuse us before God, if we would have those sins fully dealt with and paid for, then we must look to something or to someone outside ourselves. And this is where the Gospel and its glorious promises come in. The Scripture tells us plainly in Romans 3 in verse 23 that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And because we have sinned, because we have not attained to the glory of God, then we are under the just wrath and condemnation of God. But here in our text we read of the great Redeemer who the Scripture says shall save His people from their sins. Now, I wish to place special emphasis upon the word shall. The Scripture says, He shall save His people from their sins. It does not say He will try to save His people from their sins. It doesn't speak of Christ making an effort to save everybody or anything like that, but He makes a definitive statement. This is a promise given by God through the mouth of the angel to Joseph. And since it has already been established in our previous message that God is not like the sons of men, that He should not lie, and in fact it is completely foreign to the character of God to ever lie, then this promise which was related by the angel to Joseph is as much certain of fulfillment as any other decree of God. If the Scripture says that Jesus Christ shall save His people from their sins, then it's going to happen because the promise was given by God and God cannot lie. God is of perfect power and perfect ability to fulfill this promise that He made. This one brief sentence is a verse that neatly encapsulates the whole saving work of Jesus Christ in one brief sentence. This is why this is a favorite text for preachers to preach on. Those who understand the gospel very often go to this very text as a subject to preach upon. And it's a wonderful one for us to address. The statement itself is very short, but the act that is described here in Matthew 1 and verse 21 is of such astounding depth and importance that we could spend the rest of our lives preaching on this without exhausting its fullness. In fact, it could truly be said in some way or shape that everything the gospel minister teaches is centered around the fact that Christ does save His people from their sins. Everything we preach, if we're preaching on some duty that the child of God has in our service to God, well, that's connected to the fact that Christ saves us from our sins. be telling people how to live in obedience and humble service to God if Christ had not saved us from our sins? We would have no power to be living unto God if we had not been saved by Christ from our sins. Now let me go forward and tell you that this salvation which is foretold by the angel involves more than one single thing. Now when most people speak of Jesus saving them from their sins, they mean only that Christ saved them from hell by His atonement. And certainly the judgment and condemnation of God is one of the just and inevitable consequences of unforgiven sin. There is no doubt that this is one of the main things that is intended by the angel in this prophecy. This is one of the glorious things that Christ does for us, is that He delivers us from the wrath of God by taking our sins upon Himself and suffering the penalty that was due to our sins upon Himself. And He did that for us in His great sufferings at Calvary. But preachers do a great disservice to their hearers by leaving it just at that. It is certainly true and most glorious that Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and He made an atonement that was so effective that it saved every person who has an interest in it. Because He suffered the dreadful penalty of sin upon Himself, we are free from the curse that our crimes against heaven deserve. God will never punish our sins twice, first upon Christ and then upon us. This is one of the primary reasons that we reject the doctrine that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and yet there's still going to be millions of people in hell. The truth is that that makes God more more unjust than the human courts. Here in our American court system they have what they call the law of double jeopardy. That if you go to court and are accused of some crime and the judge pronounces, the judge or the jury pronounces you not guilty of your crime, they can't bring you back into court and try you again on the same charge. Well, the Arminian doctrine makes it to where God has already done trial and He's already punished the sin and exacted the penalty upon the person of Christ, but then He's going to exact it again in hell upon the people who refuse to believe. Well, that makes God less just than the court systems that we live under. But we rejoice in the truth that Christ did not merely try to save us from the dreadful curse of sin, but He really and truly did it. And every person for whom Christ suffered that dreadful curse must be saved because the law has no more penalties to exact against these people. Sin's curse has lost its grip upon us because Christ was made a curse for us. And He answered every demand that the law had to make against our persons. But to do the text justice, we must add that in addition to saving us from the curse and the penalty of sin, Christ also saves His people from the power of sin. We do not live under the dominion of sin any longer. You remember that passage? I've already quoted it from 1 Peter 2, 24, where he said that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, but He doesn't stop there, but He proceeds to say that we, being dead to sin, should live under righteousness. And so when we're brought into a state of grace, sin can no longer have dominion over us. So if you're still living in bondage to the lusts of your flesh, then you have no reason to believe that you have a saving interest in the work of Christ. If we are still servants to our lusts, indulging every base and worldly passion that arises in our hearts, then we haven't been saved from the power of sin. And if you have not been saved from the power of sin, then you have no just ground for thinking that you've been saved from the penalty of sin. So a person who is still living in bondage to the lusts of his own wicked heart has no right to claim the promise made here in Matthew 1 and verse 21. So Christ, in saving us from the penalty of sin, proceeds to save us also from the power and dominion of sin. And sin is no longer the ruling principle in the life of the child of God. And then finally, Christ also will go on to save all of His sheep from the presence of sin. He saved us from the curse and penalty of sin by the atonement that He made upon the cross. And then in doing that great work of regeneration in us, we are saved from the dominion of sin in our lives. And then finally, after these sinful bodies perish, Christ will save us completely from the presence of sin. And we will no longer have to deal with the sin that so afflicts us in our mortal bodies. He will do away at that time with the sinful nature that has plagued us so painfully. The reason that heaven is described in the Scripture as a place of rest is not because we in our glorified state will have no work to do. I believe that the Lord will have work for His people to do in the glorified state. But the reason it is a place of rest is because we will no longer have to contend with the plague of our hearts and the sinful nature that remains in us. You might remember when we taught from Genesis chapter 3 how we showed that all of the difficulties involved with work are all due to the result of sin. God cursed the ground for Adam's sake, and in that I believe He cursed all of the labors of men's hands because of sin. It makes work difficult and hard and strenuous because sin is involved in it. But in heaven it will not be that way. And one of the songs that we sing often on Wednesday evening says that work in the heavenly state, that work can never bring weariness because work itself is love. And that is because we will be free entirely from the presence of sin. So whatever work God might have for us to do in the heavenly state will be no difficulty, but it will be a thing of rejoicing and complete willingness upon the part of those who have been saved and glorified. Our text would teach us that Christ is no partial Savior and that He came to this earth on no haphazard errand. Christ did not come here just hoping to get something accomplished. He came to do something and he did it. Sometimes men living in this world set out to accomplish some great task having no idea at all whether they will succeed. Generals go out to make battle with another general in his army not knowing what the outcome of the battle will be. No matter how good their plans are, one of their subordinates might mess up or maybe their troops will suffer a moral collapse and they will fail in spite of their best efforts. Political theorists will write and speak and do everything they can in an effort to persuade all men to their way of thinking and how their government ought to be. But none of them has ever gained a complete success because they have ideological opponents and they have other people who oppose them simply because they crave the same sphere of power and influence. The dictators and kings who have attained the greatest extent of power in their countries and have had what we would call absolute power concentrated in their hands have still failed in many of their purposes because of the weaknesses and fallibilities and limitations that are inherent to human nature. But the Son of God was different. He was not a sinful man who was limited by his own inefficiencies. He was able to do entirely what He came to this earth to do. He was not inhibited by sin. He did not lack the wisdom and foresight necessary to accomplish His purpose. But He certainly possessed the power and the wisdom to accomplish that which He came to do. This is what separates the gospel that we preach from that which is espoused by most of the preachers and priests around the globe. Because they are speaking and teaching a Christ who hoped to save everybody, but failed because he could not overcome man's obstinate will. Far be it from me to preach to you a God who is unable to overcome the will of His creatures. That is a wretched doctrine and a heresy. And so people are being taught that God either does not have the power to overcome the will of men, or that God, to use their term, is too much of a gentleman to assault the wills of men and rescue people from hell, that He does not want to go there. And yes, they really do use that term, that God is a gentleman and does not violate the will of men. That's a human idea. They didn't get that out of the Bible. That's certainly not quoting any Bible text or any Bible principle. God is perfectly able to call and to change the wills of those that He intends to save. And He does do that. If He hadn't, there wouldn't be any of us who would have ever believed on Christ. This kind of doctrine makes the will of God utterly infinite and makes salvation to hinge upon the determination of men. And that means that men should get some of the credit and glory in salvation. If it's something that we did, if God was not able to do part of the work of salvation but left some of it up to us, then we would not be singing nothing but praise to God in the heavenly state, but in all justice and fairness, we'd have to be singing some of the praise to ourselves. But that's never going to be. All of the praise in heaven is to the Lamb that was slain and redeemed us to God by His blood. The power of Christ's atonement under that false doctrine only stretches so far as the will of men will permit. The efficacy of Christ's blood is hinged not upon its own intrinsic merits, but upon the will of men to make it effective. Brethren, that is not the kind of gospel that is taught in the Scriptures. And that's an insult to the efficacy of Christ's atonement. To say that Christ died just hoping to get something done, instead of saying that Christ died to accomplish a definite purpose, and He did do it. This synergistic view cannot withstand the scrutinizing light of our text, and it casts insult upon the merit of Christ's blood. To say that Christ shed His blood trying to get something accomplished, but failed to do it. It would have us to believe, in truth, that Christ's blood really has no saving value in itself, at least not until the will of men make it efficient. Well, I just cannot tolerate that kind of thought. It's an insult to the blood of my Savior to say that He died and shed His precious blood trying to get something done, but He's going to leave it up to men to make it effective. The Scripture would have us to believe that it is the power of God's will and the power of Christ's blood that saves sinners. And it is easily able to save all of those for whom it was attended. The merit of Christ's sacrifice is infinite. It is perfectly capable to save everyone that He meant to save. Christ shall save His people from their sins. If Christ was only trying to save as many people as would permit Him to be their Savior, then the angel lied by inserting the word, shall, into this prophecy. He should have said, He will try to save His people from their sins, or He will try to save everybody from their sins. But no, the angel said, He shall save His people from their sins. And the Word of God, again, is inviolate. whom Christ intended to save, and the text tells us who Christ intended to save, His people. Whoever is included under the term His people shall be saved from their sins. The text says it in no uncertain terms. It's absolutely unequivocal that whoever is included under this group of His people must be saved from their sins. Christ's blood is sufficient to atone for every sin of His people. From the smallest misdemeanor to the greatest felony, all are covered and atoned for by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10 verse 14 says that Christ sat down on the right hand of God, perfectly complacent, because that by one offering He had perfected forever them that are sanctified. And what does this teach us but that Christ's one offering was perfectly sufficient to save every person for whom it was intended? Do we dare to say that the Son of God failed in His saving purpose? I would not say that. There may be some others who are willing to say that, but I do not dare to say that the Son of God was unable to accomplish something that He set out to do. You can be turning over towards Hebrews 10. I'm not going to read the whole passage. We're going to look at a few of the primary points made by the Apostle in Hebrews 10. And then we'll go back and recover some of the same ground that was used in the first service in Romans chapter 8. But before we begin to look at some of these principles laid out in Hebrews 10, I want to say that if Christ were a failure and if our salvation were suspended upon the power of our will rather than on the efficacy of Christ's blood, then there can be no true doctrine of Christian assurance. If it's up to the will of men whether we're going to be saved or not, then you don't have any ground at all to be assured of your salvation, especially since there's nobody out there that can tell you when you cross over the line from being saved to being lost. How can any believer attain to the full assurance of faith described for us in Hebrews 10 and verse 22 if he is in danger of losing his salvation? If we can be saved one day and lost the next, then you don't have any ground at all to have confidence that you will ultimately arrive in eternal glory. But you just have to hope that you're in a state of grace when you come down to die. But the Scripture does not present assurance in that way. And in fact, it would never talk about assurance if salvation went in that way. Because nobody could have assurance except maybe when they're on their deathbed. Now those who do teach the idea that true believers can fall away from grace will come right here to Hebrews 10, and after the glorious description of Christ's atonement and its perfect sufficiency, will go to verses 23-31 and say what Paul is saying, that these true believers can fall away from grace. But a careful examination of that passage, which we don't have time to make right now, you will find that Paul is warning against the false confidence of those who do not have a true saving faith. A faith that will not abide the fire, but they will cast it away and trample, as it were, the blood of the Son of God underfoot. It is a false faith. It is a faith that was never coupled with good works. And it is a faith which does not hold out to the end. And such a faith is not the true saving faith of the real child of God. Now one reason you can be sure that this interpretation of that very frightening passage in Hebrews 10, one reason we can be sure that it is talking about false professors is because in the very last verse of chapter 10, He says, we are not of them who draw back unto perdition. He's been describing the people who draw back unto perdition, but these people that he's writing to, he's writing to the true believers, and he says, we, you and I, are not of those who draw back unto perdition, but we are of those who believe to the saving of the soul. So he makes a clear distinction right at the end of the chapter between those who possess a true saving faith and between those who have a false faith that they will abandon and go away back into the world. It is a false and transitory belief that does not save the soul. The faith of God's elect is a saving faith, not because of its own merits, but because Jesus himself is the author and finisher of that true faith. And it looks for its acceptance not upon the power of our own will, but it looks for acceptance based upon the sacrifice of Christ. And that's what Hebrews 10 is here to teach us. is that we don't want to have faith in anything except the merits of Christ's atonement, His intercession for us at the right hand of the Father. That's what Paul, who I believe wrote the book of Hebrews, it doesn't say so within the text, but I will credit it to Paul because I do believe that he's the author of this epistle. But this is the argument that he's making in the first portion of chapter 10, the thing that leads up to that grand declaration of full assurance of faith down in verse 22. He begins this chapter by showing the inadequacy of the Levitical sacrifices to truly do away with sin. And he makes the point that these Levitical sacrifices never actually put away sin, and that's why they had to be made over and over and over. The Great Day of Atonement was not just a one-time thing. But they had to do it every year because the people were still sinning and the atonement was only representative. It did not actually and truly put away their sin, but it pointed them to the method by which God would, at one time, pay for the sins of all of His people. Another way we may know that the Levitical sacrifices were inadequate to truly pay for the sins of ungodly men is because in the Old Testament you will numerous times find God telling the people of Israel that He preferred their humble obedience to the offering of their sacrifices. Now if those sacrifices were truly doing away with their sin and making expiation for their guilt, then I don't believe He would have said that. Here in the New Testament, although we are frequently enjoined to holy obedience, just like the old covenant saints were, yet we are never told that our good works trump the sacrifice of Christ. God told the Old Testament believers that He preferred their holy obedience to their offerings that they would make at the temple or in the tabernacle, but He never tells us that our good works are more important to us than faith and the atonement of His Son. He's never said that in the New Testament. Instead, we have the doctrine of verse 10 where he says, by the which will, the will of God, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So we are sanctified or set apart to God through this one time offering of the body of Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary. Then, down in verse 12, we see that Christ did not need to offer Himself over and over. He didn't need to keep going back to the cross next year, next week, next month, because His one-time atonement was perfectly sufficient to save everybody that it was intended for. And again, this is something that Protestant preachers and theologians have gone to time and time again to show how the Roman Mass is an abomination against the atonement of Christ. Because they say that they keep offering Christ's atonement over and over and over. While the Apostle Paul says in verse 12 that this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. There are no more atonements for sin, and anybody who's making another atonement for sin is insulting and spiting the one atonement that Christ made. Christ did not need to offer Himself over and over, because He had done what He intended to do, and what the Father had sent Him to do, and that's why He was accepted and received back up into heaven by God the Father, and given a place of royal honor at the right hand of God. It was due to nothing less than the perfect sufficiency of His atonement. If His atonement had been inadequate, He would not have been given that place at the right hand of God. But because God accepted His atonement, because the sins of His people were all paid for, He has that place of glorious honor which He will have until the Father sends Him back to earth to return the second time. Then in verse 14, he says, by one offering, that one offering that he made one time on the cross, he perfected forever them that are sanctified. And then he goes into that great prophecy that Jeremiah made back in chapter 31 of Jeremiah. And he proceeds to quote that passage at length, but the atonement of Christ in particular fulfills the words, their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. The reason God does not remember our sins and iniquities is not because we became so good that He was able to forget about them, but it was because Christ put them away. He removed them, as it says in one place, as far as the east is from the west. And as it says in Micah, they are buried in the depths of the sea, never to be found brought up again against us. Our sins can never again be visited upon us if we have true saving faith, because they were visited once for all time upon the person of Christ when He was crucified at Calvary. His is the blood with which we sprinkle our defiled conscience, and His is the blood that cleanses us from all sin. when our only hope is in the sufficiency of that great atonement. If this is the only confidence we have that our sins can ever be put away, then we can rightly attain to that full assurance of faith. And truly, His work does save all of His people from their sins. This is how it's done, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. That's how He removed the penalty and the curse of our sins. And then He sends the Holy Spirit to regenerate us and to save us from the dominion of sin in our lives. The same line of argument is used by Paul to comfort the saints in the great golden chain of Romans 8, 28 through 39. And that passage was already used today in the first service, so I'm not going to read the whole thing to you, but just point out some of the main things and show how this This contributes to our assurance of salvation. If we are trusting in Christ alone as the Savior and the Redeemer, the one who did away with the curse of sin and the wrath of God against us, then we can rightly appropriate this passage to ourselves and have great confidence that God will never cast us away and we cannot lose that salvation that Christ merited for us. Lest the believer fear that when he sins, God will suddenly visit him as a furious judge, the Apostle Paul reminds us of our justification in verse 33, and then cries out, If God be for us, who can be against us? And again, as it was mentioned in our first service, if we could be saved and then lost, then there is something or somebody who can effectively be against us. But Paul says it's impossible. Nobody or no thing can effectively fight against the child of God and destroy their hope of salvation. But he does not stop there, but goes on, proceeds to prove that God is for us. He proves his question that God is for us. And he does this by reiterating the astounding fact that God spared not His own Son in order that no good thing would be withholden from those who were predestinated, called, justified, and glorified. Some of you may remember a few years ago in the meeting how Brother John Shulls preached on the subject of God spared not. And he began there in 2 Peter where it said that God spared not the old world, but destroyed them with the flood. And then went on to Sodom and Gomorrah. God spared not that wicked city, but rained fire and brimstone on them from out of heaven. But then he came over here to Romans 8 and verse 32 and concluding his message where it says, God spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. The people of the Antediluvian world did not deserve to be spared. The people in Sodom and Gomorrah deserved the destruction that was rained down upon them. But what can we say when the Scripture says that God spared not His own Son? God's own Son did not deserve any judgment or wrath from His Father, and yet God spared Him not because it was the purpose of God to save His people. It pleased the Lord, Isaiah said, to bruise Him. Not out of some sadistic, malevolent pleasure, but it pleased God in order to save His people to lay our sins upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, in verse 34, the apostle demands, who is He that condemneth? Who can bring an accusation against us in the court of God and make it stick? There are many who would condemn the children of God. The world condemns them and sometimes kills them. But that doesn't do anything to change their acceptance in the court of heaven. Many times our own consciences will condemn us, but the Apostle John gave us the remedy for that. He says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Whoever is accusing us, whether it's the devil or whether it's our own conscience, you don't silence their accusations by trying to heap up good works and do better or maybe buy indulgences from the church. You do it by looking to Christ and His work. That's the thing that cleanses your conscience is the great work of Christ. Reminding yourself and looking with the eye of faith to Christ and saying, I have sinned and yet Christ at one time hung on the tree and was cursed by His Father in order that I would not have to suffer the penalty for that sin. And so I know that God is for me because this is my whole confidence for salvation. This is the ground upon which Paul would comfort God's people in every age. Christ dying, Christ resurrected, Christ ascended and glorified at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us. When you have all of these things on your side, then how can you possibly argue that a child of God could ever be lost? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. And I say to you that the devil himself would not go into hell or into heaven and try to accuse one of God's children in the face of such a powerful force arrayed on our side. The devil himself cannot accuse us when we have Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, Christ's ascension, and Christ's intercession arrayed on our behalf. That makes the devil flee, and that's what this is for, is for us to quiet the accusations of our conscience and the accusations of the devil. There is no excuse for the doctrine and the concept of falling from grace as long as this passage stands in the Scriptures. There are suitable explanations, reasonable explanations to cover every passage, such as you find in Hebrews 10 or Hebrews 6, those passages which seem to suggest to our minds the idea that a true believer can be lost. If you look carefully into those passages and read them in their context, you will find a suitable reason to believe that this is talking about people who never were truly renewed and transformed by the Spirit of God. But I say to you that there is nothing that can reasonably controvert the fact that Paul is here arguing for the eternal security of every believer in Christ. You cannot make an argument that even begins to sound reasonable in the face of the doctrine of this passage. From verses 34-39, in case somebody would try to overturn it, Paul goes on to list anything that could possibly be imagined, which might, by themselves or in combination with some other force, try to snatch us out of the love of God. He lists everything, and then at the very end, in verse 39, in case he forgot to mention something, he says, any other creature. There's nothing in the whole creation that can snatch us out of the love of God. And so because of Christ's glorious work, the work which He accomplished in His death and resurrection, and this work of intercession that is being performed for us at this very moment at the right hand of God, the true believer, the true child of God, He who has been transformed by the Spirit of God, He whose sins are paid for, that believer is secure for time and for eternity. And so I say in closing that Jesus Christ has, in truth, fulfilled the great prophecy of the angel, and the promise of God remains everlastingly certain. He shall save His people from their sins. Amen.