Once again, today we are turning to the third chapter of the Gospel of John. John chapter 3. As Mr. Murray said, we have been considering the 16th verse in each of these services, and we will, in the will of the Lord, so continue today. John chapter 3 and verse 16. With God's Word open before us, let's come together in a word of prayer. Our Eternal God and our Father in Heaven, once again we have the privilege of bowing before the throne of the Eternal God in the name and with the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing from Thy Word, even as we have read it together a moment or two ago, that we have confidence in Thee and in Thy promise, and that Thou wilt hear us. Our God and Father, it is our humble and honest desire that this day we may have the presence of the Lord, that we may have the message of the Lord. Once again, we pray, save us from sermons. Save us from the thoughts of man and grant us the clear, pure exposition and application by the Spirit of God of Thine own Holy Word. Our Father, we pray that to this end Thou wilt now cleanse this human vessel of every earth-gathered stain and of every fleshly obstacle. Hide man behind Christ's cross. May he alone be seen. We pray, our Father, that Thou wilt give to every hearer a hearing ear, a receptive and a responsive heart. O God, let Thy Word run in our midst today. with the flow and force of a mighty river. O God, let it run today and may the current of divine grace sweep every soul heavenward. O God, bring the lost to Christ and bring Thy people to understand afresh the beauties of the Savior and go out of this place rejoicing in the truth that Peter taught us. Unto you, therefore, who believe, He is precious. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. John's Gospel, Chapter 3, what I have described in former meetings as perhaps the greatest 25 words in all of English literature. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Last night as we looked at this text of Scripture, we noted that God's salvation is received by faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the subject of last evening's message was a hugely important one. It is important against the backdrop of what has been developing in evangelical churches over the last number of years, as more and more people have drifted away from the biblical reality and the biblical revelation of what it is to believe. I cannot say much of what the current state of opinion in Scotland is, But I can tell you that multi-faithism has rocked America, has invaded even the strongholds of what was until recently the Bible-believing church. Nowadays we have even Christian preachers talking in fuzzy terms about people of faith. The big thing is to have It doesn't really matter what you believe, just so long as you believe. This is the current state of much of public and church opinion. The natural result of this is a downplaying of Christian doctrine, a demeaning of the great theological statements of the Bible, and the exposition of them in the great councils and creeds of the Christian Church, so that if men believe, it matters not whether they believe in the God of the Bible or the Christ of the Bible, faith itself is what counts. We even have Christians rejoicing as if it were a confirmation of the Word of God that some medical scientists have claimed to find a faith gene. There is something about faith that helps people to heal better. And so therefore, in hospitals around America, you may have chaplains, you may have Roman Catholic nuns, you may have spiritists, you may have anything or anybody coming to tell you that just have faith They will go through all sorts of hookery and crookery along with this so-called faith, because faith in itself is what counts. Of course, it is from beginning to end a satanic delusion and a diabolical lie. Saving faith is peculiarly biblical. Let us understand that. Last night, I sought to expound from the words of the Saviour in John chapter 3, the nature of saving faith. Saving faith is a hearty acceptance of the message of Christ. And by the way, I do not say the message of Christ to distinguish that from the vaster message of the Word of God. As if you had the Gospel, but you could say, I don't believe in Moses, for example, or I believe the New Testament, but I really don't hold on to the old. That's not my meaning. The message of Christ encompasses it all. Saving faith starts off with a hearty acceptance of the message of Christ. It proceeds to an honest reliance upon the merit of Christ and that alone to be right with God. And the result of that is a humble assurance of the mercy of Christ. Now it is to this subject of assurance and Christian security that I would like us now to return. Nothing causes more problems to believers than this. In almost half a century of preaching, I have discovered that wherever I have gone, whatever the makeup of the congregation, of whatever denomination they may be. I have found that behind many a smile, behind the great congregational singing and the fellowship that is in joy, there is many an aching heart. And I have to say that I have never, in my experience, addressed a congregation on the subject of assurance and the security of the believer without there being one or more Christians to whom God was very specifically, directly and personally applying the message. And I doubt that this will be any different today. There are many of God's people who live yet with the dread that they may be finally lost. Many of God's people are like the disciples in the ship with the Lord Jesus Christ crossing the Sea of Galilee, The Savior had said to them, let us go to the other side. They obeyed the call of Christ. They got into the ship. They went with Him in the journey to the other side. They should have known. They should have known. That when the Saviour said, we are going to the other side, they were going to the other side. And nothing would change that. They ought to have known that. But there came a storm. The Saviour was asleep in the back of the ship. The storm was raging. It whipped the waves of the sea up into a frenzy. The little boat was tossed hither and thither. And these intrepid fishermen were scared for their lives. And they turned to the Saviour, Carest thou not that we perish? Here were people on a journey with Christ. They had the Saviour with them. They had the Saviour's statement, we are going to the other side. And yet, in the frenzy of their fear in that moment, they were overcome with doubt and they cried, Lord, we are perishing and you don't seem to care. There is a parallel in the lives of many people. who have obeyed the call of Christ by faith, as it were, have got into the boat, have heard the Saviour's voice, let's go to the other side and reach the glory shore. But amidst the many afflictions, troubles and trials of life, especially tempted and attacked by the devil, they wonder, Am I not perishing after all? The Savior's response, by the way, to those disciples was very enlightening. His first word was a question. Where is your faith? Now, I'd better stop there, for I'd be very tempted to expatiate on that question. Where is your faith? If it's in the sacrament of baptism or the Lord's Table, you may well worry about perishing. If it's in the church, you may well worry about perishing. If your faith is in your faith, if your dependence is upon the strength of your faith or the sincerity of your decision, and I trust, of course, that your trust in Christ is entirely sincere, but if your faith is in the sincerity of your decision, or the tears that you wept, or the depth of your conviction, or the clarity of your evidences, you may well fear that you will yet perish. Because the Bible never commands you to believe in yourself. It commands you to believe in Christ. And if your faith is in Him, you will never perish. Watch how the Savior puts it in our text today. And let us follow this, because what I have to say in this is, I trust practical, but at the same time, it is deeply, profoundly theological. There's no contradiction between being practical and being doctrinal. God so loved the world. In what manner? How did God love the world? With what purpose, aim or intention did God love the world? God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son in order that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here is a glorious truth. Mark it, learn it, meditate upon it, digest it, Stay with it until God burns it into your heart and it becomes part of your way of thinking. It is the purpose of God the Father and the mission of His Son to ensure that every believer in Christ will enjoy eternal life. and will never perish. It is the purpose of God the Father. It is the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ to ensure that every, every believer in Jesus Christ will enjoy eternal life and will never perish. We will start at the beginning. The eternal purpose of God will not leave a single believer to perish. The Gospel story is the outworking in time and in history of an eternal plan. If you turn with me to the 17th chapter of John's Gospel, you are brought into the holy of holies. You are brought into the Savior's personal, private communion with His Father not long before He went to the cross of Calvary. This is called His great high priestly prayer. But you should remember that this prayer was prayed while He was yet on earth. This is before the cross. Now in verse 2 he says, Thou hast given Him, that is the Son, power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. Verse 6, I have manifested Thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me." Verse 9, I pray for them. Let me stop off for a moment and advise you in a course of Bible study. Last night I referred to the work of Hugh Martin on the atonement. One of the most valuable insights of that work is how it links the actions of Christ, our great high priest. In this he follows the lead of the great prince of Puritan divines, John Owen, showing that Christ not only died for his people, but he intercedes for those people. and there is a direct correlation and connection between the atonement and the intercession. To use Puritan language, don't stumble over it, I will explain it. Between the impetration and the application, between the obtaining of redemption and the applying of redemption and it's all dependent on the personal activity and virtue of our great high priest. But that is by the way, you study that and you'll find it a rich vein of biblical truth and instruction. He says, I pray for them. Verse 9, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine." Verse 11 and 12. Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name. Those that Thou gavest Me, I have kept, and none of them is lost but the Son of Perdition, that the Scripture may be fulfilled." Now, when you look at these verses, you find that the Word of God here is giving us a glance into the secret counsels of the Godhead. This is taking us back before time began. Taking us back beyond the foundations of the world, as the 90th Psalm puts it, before the hills in order stood our earth, received her frame in the great everlasting eternity of God. Here we have the dealings of God the Father with God the Son. And in the council chambers of eternity, God the Father gave to His Son a people. And He gave to His Son a work to do in the fullness of time to save those people. And then He gave Him a promise that on the completion of that work, He would save and receive those people. Those were the terms generally, of the covenant of redemption. In the light of which the Apostle Paul could write to the Ephesians in chapter 1 verse 4, according as He hath chosen us in Him, that is in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." Writing to the Thessalonians, in 2 Thessalonians 2.13, he says, We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, Beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Now, I have labored this point deliberately. There is a purpose that is eternal. And what I want to emphasize is that the purpose of God, according to what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, was choosing a people to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Now that purpose cannot fail to be accomplished. Stop for a moment and think. What could cause the purpose of God to fail to be accomplished? What could possibly overthrow the purpose of God? Is there some flaw in the original plan? Is there some lack of power in God to carry out what He had planned and purposed? Is there some lack of resolve in the will of God to do what He had purposed? Is there some lack of suitability in the means that He appointed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or could it be that God has suddenly changed? He who says, I am Jehovah, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. You see, my friend, when you ask such questions, you realize that the purpose of God according to election will stand. It will stand. Christians love to quote Romans 8, 28, and I agree with them. When we are in trouble, there is no sweeter statement in all of Scripture. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God. But why stop there? to them who are the called according to His purpose. How can we possibly say that? We look at a world that seems at times to our puny little brains to be spinning out of control. We look at circumstances that are deeply hurtful and afflictive. We are like those disciples in a boat that is storm-tossed and that seems headed for the bottom of the ocean. until we remember that we have Christ in the vessel. We have God's purpose behind us. He says we are going to the other side. We know therefore that all things, including the storm that rocks our boat, including the circumstances that grieve our souls, including the things that drive us like Job to a place where we feel we cannot find an answer. Even then, we know that all things work together for good. To them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose, because whom He did foreknow The word foreknow is defined for us in Acts chapter 2 verse 23 by a necessary rule of Greek grammar. You have the divine definition given there that God's foreknowledge is His determinate counsel. Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate, and never forget the next word, I hate people making a philosophical football out of the doctrine of predestination. It is predestination to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified, them he also glorified." And you'll notice the glorifying is in the past tense just the same as all the others. This is God's purpose that cannot fail. But listen, the proof of our personal interest in this eternal plan is faith in Jesus Christ. Acts chapter 13, verse 48, puts it in the bluntest and plainest of language, as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. Now follow me carefully. What I am about to say is of primary importance and especially to those who love the doctrines of grace, who have grown up believing these great truths of Romans 8 that I have been reading from God's Word. I will introduce what I am about to say with an experience I had many years ago when I was a minister in Northern Ireland. I was invited to go out to a little village called Balnamore, outside of Ballymoney, to visit in a home where a young woman was in deep distress. She could not come to any knowledge of salvation. And when I went there, I found a young woman who said she believed every doctrine of the gospel, but she could not lay hold of Christ. She could not pray The sinner's prayer, I am a sinner, vile and unclean, and I cast myself on Christ for saving grace. Cover me with the merits of the Savior and rightly relate me to God. She could not come to Christ in simple faith because she had no way of being sure that she was among God's elect. And until she could know she was among God's elect, how could she ever believe for surely the promises are for God's elect. I reasoned with her from scripture and I have to say to no avail. And I think it's so tragic that people take The sweetest revelation of grace, which is given by God to be a support and strength of faith, and they turn it into an obstacle. And that is sin. It's an excuse. And for all her apparent sincerity, and possibly for yours as well, The reality was I was dealing with a young woman so entrenched in her own foul, wicked, self-righteousness that she was unwilling to have Christ on God's terms. Now, here what I have to say. Can we start by saying we believe that book? I feel a wee bit like the old woman who was talking to an apostate or modernist minister, and he said, you don't really believe that book. You don't believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. She said, sir, I would believe if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the whale, never mind that the whale swallowed Jonah. I believe that book. I even believe the cover. It says it's Holy Bible. I believe it from cover to cover. And I make no apology for that. Let's start from there. If you don't believe the Bible, then of course you're in trouble. But if we believe this Bible, I have read it again and again and again and again from cover to cover. And I can say this with absolute certainty, there is not a single place in this book where God ever commands a man to find out if he is God's elect before he believes on Christ. There is not a single shred of truth that you must find out if you are elect before or as a condition of believing on Jesus. In fact, the very opposite is true. You are commanded to believe on Christ And as soon as you believe on Christ, you have the assurance of the Word of God that you are of God's elect. Because, as we have read already, God has chosen you through believing on Christ. Belief in Christ is the greatest single proof of God's purpose and of God's grace in a man's life. I said last night that it grieves me to no end that people take the simple, straightforward statements of the Word of God and they turn them into mind games and theological puzzles impenetrable to any man. When God has not done so, God comes to you as He did to Nicodemus. You must be born again. How can a man be born? How can I contribute to my new birth? I can't. I can't. That's a work of God. But that's not the only aspect of salvation the Savior revealed. He revealed Himself as the sacrifice lifted up upon a cross, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. As I said last night, those perishing men and women in Israel, with the poison of the serpent running through their veins and death staring them in the face, did not have to work out theologically, philosophically, logically, or any other way. How is it that looking at a serpent will save me? How is it? They didn't need to work it out. That was God's business. I like the way Dr. Paisley put it when somebody tried to make him understand the eternal counsel of God. He said two things, things like that I can't understand. If I could understand that, the Trinity would no longer be a Trinity, it would be a quartet. God is a Trinity and I'm not a member of the Trinity. But he also said that's God's business and you leave God's business to God. and remember your business. What is your business? Repent and believe the gospel. That was the first real sermon the Lord Jesus is recorded as having preached. Repent and believe the gospel. And for one believer in Christ to perish would defeat the entire purpose of God. It would overthrow the throne of God. It would stain the perfections of God. It would destroy the very being of God. Such a thing is impossible. God has purposed that every believer in Christ will enjoy eternal life and never perish. So God's purpose brings a perfect security to the believer. But I've got to say that the nature of God's love will not allow a single believer in Christ to perish. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth, simply that the believing one in Him shall never perish. but have everlasting life. You think of this great love of God. It's an eternal love. Jeremiah 31 verse 3, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea! That's a word of assurance. Yea! Listen, this is God's Amen. This corresponds with what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that in Christ the promises of God are yea and amen. This is the yea and amen gospel. God is coming to you and saying, look at Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God's great yes to sinners. He is God's great yes. God is not the master of the great no. God is not the great rejecter. of any man or any woman who is honestly willing to have Christ as He is offered in the Gospel. He is God's Yes. And the Father says, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. When did God start loving His people? God so loved the world that He gave. When did that love begin? I cannot trace its beginning in time, for it predates time. I go back into the great eternity of God. It's an everlasting love. When will it ever end? What can ever make it end? Paul raised this at the end of Romans chapter 8. Who can separate us from the love of God? Can tribulation or despair or peril or persecution or peril or sword? What can separate us? He says, in all these things we are more than conquerors. For I am persuaded That neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. Is that wide enough? Does that take in everything in the created universe? In all of time, past, present, or future? He says, I am persuaded that none of it. can ever separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Listen to me, my friend. If one single believer in Jesus Christ could ever perish, God would be languishing forever over that soul in hell. For He says, with an everlasting love. The thought is impossible. God's love is an effective love. It always gains its goal. I think it was R. A. Torrey, the famous American evangelist who told the following story. A true story, by the way. If it wasn't Mr. Torrey, I'm sure in the glorified state he'd forgive my bad memory, but I believe it was he. It was a broken-hearted American mother whose son had become very prodigal. He had left home and she couldn't bear the pain. The thought of this boy going mad into sin and into danger and into death, tormented and broke a mother's heart. With the love of a mother, she finally set out to trace him and try to retrieve his life and bring him back. It seemed a foolish escapade to many. But with a mother's love, she sat in her way. She didn't know where to go. She went from city to city, spending all her substance searching for her son. First, she would go to the police station. She would ask for anyone of this name, anyone with a record. She would go to the hospitals. She would inquire if anyone had been admitted. She would go to the places where down and outs would be. She would search every den and every dive. No place was too challenging. No price was too big to pay. Until at last, poor, worn out and dying herself, she was led in a hospital bed. A Christian nurse came by to see her. And that dying mother grasped the nurse by the hand, gave her the name and the story of her son. And she said, if you ever find him, tell him tell him his mother never ceased loving him and searching for him. A moving illustration of a mother's love and yet her love was a noble failure. She gave all, but it was not enough. She loved, but ineffectually. Oh, her love was real, But ultimately, it was powerless. But that is not so with God's love. Our Savior was sent as the gift of God's love, and God's love is an effect of love. In Luke chapter 15, I read of the Savior setting forth as the Good Shepherd And he went and he searched until he found his sheep. If you go back to the book of Ezekiel, the 33rd chapter, you will find how the Shepherd of Israel has a series of I will, I will, I will, I will. And that sovereign I will of God informs the love of God. It is an effective love. The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Bless God, the nature of His love will not allow a believer to perish. The great steps that the Father has already taken will not allow a believer to perish. He has taken steps to save believers already. And they preclude the idea that those for whom He has taken those steps will yet perish. You go to Bethlehem. I said the other night, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. If you want to see the meaning of the giving, then look at the incarnation. Go to Bethlehem. See the mighty God now in human form. See the second person of the Trinity taken to union with Himself, a true humanity that was developed from the substance of the Virgin Mary, from a single cell through all the embryonic stages to become a being that was led in a feeding trough. In a Judean stable, see that. The mystery, the majesty of the incarnation of the Son of God. What a step. I say it again, the greatest action God has ever taken in the history of the world. The greatest step that eternal deity could ever take. An incomprehensibly great distance from the glory of heaven to the shame of life on earth. and even the death of the cross, but look at Bethlehem, see Him there. Why did He do it? Why did He do it? 1 John 3, verse 8, For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Tell me, despite that, can Satan triumph in the damnation of the very people for whom he did it? Go to Bethlehem and find what God has already done to save believers. Go to Galilee and Judea. See and hear our Lord Jesus Christ. See the deep humiliation. Hear the words of love. Would Christ endure such contradiction of sinners against Himself and find that it was all in vain and the people for whom He did it were damned despite it. And of course, go to Calvary. Go to Calvary. The old hymn writer said, Jesus, keep me near the cross. In my ministry, I seek never to stray far from Calvary. In my own prayer life, I seek never to stray far from Calvary. I never want to lose the vision of the cross I never want to lose the luster of the love of God in the blood-shedding atonement of our blessed Savior. There's a mystery in the cross. Men did their worst. They crowned the Savior with thorns. They lashed His body till it was a bloody mass of flesh and gore. They hung Him upon a tree. They pierced His side. Men did their worst and stepped aside. Devils entered the fray and all hell let loose the fury of Satan and his legions against the Holy Lamb of God. They bruised the Savior's heel. When devils and men had done their worst, God shrouded that cross in preternatural darkness. And Jehovah dealt with His Son as the bearer of the sins of all His believing people. Jehovah bathed His sword awake. O Christ, it woke against Thee. Thy blood the flaming blade must slake, Thy heart its sheath must be, All for my sake, my peace to make. Now sleeps that sword for me. Men and women, at the heart of the mystery of Calvary is that God made Christ to be sin for us. A sin offering, yes. But more than that, the very embodiment of all our sin, the object of His wrath and curse, the hell that I should bear He bore in the inestimable and infinite sufferings of the cross. After He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, is it possible a believer could yet perish for those very sins? Can the God of infinite justice justly inflict the punishment of my sins on Christ and then inflict the punishment for those sins on me? Payment God cannot twice demand, first from my bleeding surety's hand and then again at mine. Go and see what He has already done for the salvation of believers and then ask, is it possible in the light of all this for a believer to perish? And when you've gone to Bethlehem and you've gone to Galilee and you've gone to Judea and you've gone to Calvary, then go via the empty tomb and look at God's right hand where Christ is now enthroned in glory. And remember the words of Paul, if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being or having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Can Jesus Christ live forever in vain? Can He live forever a failure? The very words are ludicrous. What did the Lord Jesus say as He climaxed His great high priestly prayer, John 17, 24? Father, Father, I will. I will. This is the sovereign desire of the Christ of God. Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am. I said yesterday, In the covenant of grace, God deals with Christ and His people as head and body. Is it possible that there is a mutilated Christ at God's right hand? Is it possible that there is a Christ with a member missing? No, sir. It is a glorified body, both in the physical and in the mystical sense. It is Christ with all His believing people. What God has already done precludes the very idea that the believing people for whom he has done it would ever be allowed to perish. You think of the value of Christ's sacrifice. That would never allow a single believer to perish. He satisfied the law of God completely. He put away the wrath of God. Didn't leave a gram of it behind. He paid the price of the broken law. He didn't pay part of the price. He paid the entirety of the price. He purchased His people. He defeated Satan. So unless the value of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ can be taken from Him, Unless that sacrifice can be evacuated of its intrinsic worth, not a believer in Christ can perish. But what are they singing in heaven today? What are they rejoicing in? They are singing a song of celebration of the infinite value and merit of the blood of Christ. They have no doubts about the power of the blood of the Lamb. I think I could honestly say, for one believer in Christ to perish would silence heaven's song forever and would set hell in high carnival. And it will never be. I have one last word to say. A very simple word. But very important, the promise of God will not allow a single believer to perish. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him, that the believing one, that's the simple translation of the text, that the believing ones should never perish. And that makes a wonderful promise. You see, God's intention is the statement of a divine and solemn undertaking. That's God's intention. God's intention is actually a promise upon which we can stake our whole eternity. If I may give a brief allusion to a personal testimony. I remember going through in my teenage years, because of sin, because of compromise, because of the fear of man more than anything else, as a boy from a very ordinary working class home I had the privilege of being sent to one of Ireland's foremost schools, surrounded by the sons of the rich and the great And I was rather overwhelmed. I'd always suffered from some inferiority complex, and I tell you, this made it a whole lot worse. The result of all that compromise and fear of man was a loss of any assurance of a saving interest in Christ. I remember days terrible mental, spiritual turmoil. I remember times of prayer, of crying to God to give me mercy. I reached a stage where I didn't know what to pray, and the devil had me like a stupid little puppy chasing its tail. Sounds so ludicrous when I think of it and put it in words now, but I came to the place where I said, I don't even know what to pray. If I pray, God save me and I'm already saved, that's a stupid prayer. It can't be answered. If I pray, Lord, restore my backslidden soul and I've never been saved, then that's not a proper prayer. How can I even pray? A church, a little church in Mount Marian, just in the outskirts of Belfast, had a men's prayer meeting every night, or should I say every week, on a Friday night. The men would start to pray about nine o'clock, and if the spirit of prayer was upon them, they may pray through to three or four o'clock the next morning. I'm talking about half a dozen ordinary working men at the end of a long week getting alone with God. Those were precious times, and that Friday night, if my memory's right, the early hours of the first day of February 1958, they were in great liberty. enjoying the presence of God at the throne of God as I was in deep bondage and anguish of soul. And as I languished, the Word of God came with power to my heart. I have always loved to point people to this text of Scripture as the result. In John 6, verse 37, it starts with the mystery of God's decree. And it ends with the simplicity of God's promise. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. I cannot understand that, but I rejoice that it's true. But here's what I can understand. Jesus said, Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. A little later I found from a preacher who knew Greek. At that time I was happy to know enough English to understand it. But this preacher said, it simply means, I will not, it's a double negative, I will not, no, I will not cast him out. I will in no ways, under no circumstances. And I remember that Early morning, about three o'clock in the morning, crying to God, God, I do not know which end of me is up. I do not know my soul's need. I cannot know even how I ought to pray. But one thing I know, and that is that thy dear Son is not a liar. I know that He is absolute truth, and I know that He says, Him that cometh, He will in no wise cast out. Lord, I come. Whatever my need, however deep and dark, however great my incompetence even to pray, I come, I come, and I have the Word of the God who cannot lie. I will not cast you out. God's promise is that He will save believers. He has obliged Himself to do it. He has obliged Himself to deal with every difficulty and remove every obstacle, and His Word guarantees the security of the believer. Some of the old evangelists used to say, remember, it is the blood of Christ that atones. It is the Word of Christ that assures. As Paul put it in Titus 1 verse 2, we can say that believers live in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie hath promised before the world began. Men and women, here is the ground of the Christian security. It is well founded. It is not the dream of some presumptuous enthusiast It is the sober certainty of a man or a woman, a boy or a girl who receives the message of the Gospel and abandons himself entirely to the merits and promise of Christ. The Savior said, and I leave you with this word, John 10, 28-29, The Saviour said, I give unto them that is my sheep, who are my sheep, those who hear my voice, those who believe on Him. They are all equivalent terms. I give unto them eternal life and they shall, not they hopefully will not, Not they probably will not, but they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Here is the ground of the believer's security. I trust today that God has had a word for your soul. There is security in Christ. So get to Christ. If you stay out of Him, even if you make the excuse, I'm waiting to be convinced of my election, If you refuse to get to Christ, not only can you never have security, you can't have salvation. There is no salvation for those who refuse to come to Christ in God's terms. But there's the absolute guarantee, however weak you are, however frail your faith, it's not the strength of faith that saves. object of faith who saves. Jesus saves. Spread the news o'er every land. Jesus saves. May God write his word upon our hearts to our edification and comfort or to the salvation of the lost. Let's bow together in prayer. Eternal God and Father in Heaven, in the stillness of this moment we pray that Thou wilt write Thy Word upon every heart. And after the feeble, faltering voice of man is silent, gracious God and Father, we pray that Thou wilt speak on to every soul. Speak, O Lord, to convict those who are out of Christ. Speak, O Lord, we pray, to bring to faith those who have been staying away from the Savior. Speak, Lord, to those who have been battling with assurance. Give them a clear sight of the person and value of Christ and His work. Give them, O Lord, the grace to cast themselves entirely upon the promise of God, that Word which cannot fail, for Thou art the God who cannot lie. Bless Thy Word, O God, and produce a fruitful harvest, we pray, giving Thee our thanks. In Jesus' precious name, Amen.