Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Derek Prince with his
message, How to Enter In.
We've been dealing with the whole salvation of
God provided by the death of Jesus on
the cross.
I've suggested to you that everything that was
accomplished for us by the death of Jesus
on the cross is described by the single
biblical word, salvation.
We looked at a number of examples of
the use of the word, save, in the
New Testament which included a lot more than
merely having our sins forgiven or even being
born again.
I believe it would be practical to consider
now what the New Testament teaches about how
to enter into salvation.
Meaning, not just the forgiveness of your sins.
When I say just, I don't want in
any way to underestimate because it's a tremendous
miracle to have your sins forgiven.
But it's only a little part of God's
total provision in salvation.
Now you are familiar with many Scriptures that
speak about being saved, but probably you've never
applied them to this more full picture of
salvation.
So I want to take some of those
Scriptures and show you how to enter into
salvation.
I want to add that it's a progressive
experience.
It's not just a one-time experience.
Salvation is something that unfolds and becomes fuller
and richer the more you move into it.
The Scriptures that I'm going to take will
be familiar to many of you, but I'll
give them a slightly new application because of
the increased scope of salvation.
We'll turn first of all to Mark chapter
1 and verse 15, which is the first
public preaching of Jesus with which He opened
His ministry.
It says there that He said, The time
is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at
hand, repent and believe the gospel.
So the first two requirements, and these run
all through the New Testament, are repent and
believe.
Now, there is a kind of preaching which
leaves out repent and says only believe.
But it is not Scriptural.
I question whether it is possible to believe
the way the New Testament speaks of believing
without first repenting.
At least, you will find all through the
New Testament from the ministry of John the
Baptist onwards, through the ministry of Jesus, through
the ministry of Peter, through the ministry of
Paul, all the way through, that repentance is
the first step towards salvation.
On the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter
2, well, we might as well turn there
while we're about it.
Acts chapter 2, verses 37 and 38.
After Peter had preached the sermon declaring the
significance of the descent of the Holy Spirit,
it says about the unbelievers present, in verse
37, When they heard this, they were cut
to the heart and said to Peter and
to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, what shall we do?
That was a practical question.
And Peter immediately came up with a practical
answer.
Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let
every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins, and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit.
I understand that as God's unvarying reply to
the sinner who wants to know what God
requires him to do.
The church has truncated the message and in
some sense misapplied the message, but the message
remains the same.
And if I'm dealing with a sinner who
says to me, What am I to do?
It will always be my aim to give
him the full biblical answer.
Repent, be baptized, and then you are qualified
to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I don't believe God has ever changed His
program.
But I want to point out to you
that the first requirement is repent.
Now the Greek word to repent, I don't
think it does much good my writing Greek
words up on the board, but it means
primarily to change your mind.
In secular Greek literature you'll find almost invariably
it'll be translated to change your mind.
What I want to make clear to you
is repentance is not primarily an emotion.
It's a decision.
It's your will, not your emotions, that God
is after.
You've been living one way, now you change
your mind and you're going to live a
different way.
You've been living by your own rules, setting
your own standards, pleasing yourself, doing your own
thing.
Now that's all over.
Now you say, God, I submit to you.
Show me what to do and I'll do
it.
That's repentance.
Why do we all have to repent?
Isaiah 53, verse 6 is the answer.
Because we have all gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way,
which in one word I said was rebellion.
That's right.
And because we are all rebels, the first
step that cannot be bypassed is we have
to lay down our rebellion.
Repentance is laying down your rebellion.
You see, since the root problem of the
human race is rebellion, any form of religion
which doesn't deal radically with rebellion is ineffective.
And I have to say there is a
whole area of presenting the gospel that doesn't
deal with rebellion.
That's why I'm sometimes concerned when people glibly
say, I'm born again, or even I'm saved.
If I don't see the evidence that they've
laid down rebellion, I can't accept their claim
that they're saved.
It's very important to see this.
I mean, I'm thinking of all sorts of
people and situations that I know where they
have a form of religion, they use all
the language, but they're still doing their own
sweet thing.
They're still living by their own standards.
They do as much of what God requires
as they feel like doing.
God gave me a message once about the
behavior of King Saul when he was sent
to deal with the Amalekites.
He came back and told Prophet Samuel, I've
done what God said.
Samuel said, If that's so, why do I
hear the sheep bleeding and the oxen lowing?
Because he was told to kill them all.
Dead sheep don't bleed and dead oxen don't
low.
A lot of people are like that.
I've done everything that God told me but
the sheep are still bleeding and the oxen
are still lowing.
The evidence isn't there.
And as I was teaching that to my
students in Africa once, I said to them,
I'll tell you the lesson of this story.
And God interrupted me inwardly.
He said, I'll tell you the lesson of
this story.
The lesson is this, incomplete obedience is disobedience.
The people who only do as much of
what God tells them as they want to
do, have never repented.
They're still rebels.
They're sweet, religious, maybe tongue speaking rebels, but
still rebels.
Is it possible to be a rebel and
speak in tongues?
The problem with tongue speakers, and I'm one
myself, is that they think tongue speaking is
a substitute for repentance.
It isn't.
There is no substitute for repentance.
It's essential.
It's inescapable.
You have to lay down your rebellion.
All right.
Requirement number one, repent.
Requirement number two, believe.
There's no substitute for believing.
Turn with me, if you want to, to
Hebrews chapter 11 for a moment.
Verse 6.
Hebrews 11, verse 6.
But without faith, it is impossible to please
God.
It's not difficult, it's impossible.
For he who comes to God must, do
what?
Believe.
That's right.
There's no way around that.
What have you got to believe?
You've got to believe two things.
It's important.
Number one, you've got to believe that God
is, that God exists.
Most people believe that.
That's not enough.
You've got to believe that God is a
rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
And faith is having confidence in the character
of God.
It's believing that He's a just and a
faithful God.
Why unbelief is such a sin is it
imputes wickedness to God.
It implies that God won't do what He
said He will do.
So, it is required of us that we
believe.
Now, many of us have problems believing.
I have problems at times believing.
Let me tell you the solution.
Faith, you know how faith comes.
We've looked at this.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
Word of God.
Listen, dear brother and sister, if you're having
problems with believing, let me suggest to you
that you spend a lot less time in
front of the television and a lot more
time in front of your Bible.
It'll make a dramatic change in some of
you.
Faith does not come normally by watching the
television.
Now, there are some preachers on television, I
agree.
But if you really want faith, you've got
to do the thing by which faith comes,
which is, listen to the Word of God.
Hear it, give it your attention.
Faith comes by hearing.
I'll tell you something else.
We need to renounce unbelief.
We need to take an active stand against
unbelief.
If you turn back in Hebrews to the
third chapter, Hebrews 3, verse 12.
Hebrews 3, verse 12.
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of
you an evil heart of unbelief.
What kind of heart is an unbelieving heart?
What is it?
It's evil.
It's not a harmless weakness.
It's evil.
I think the majority of the professing church
treats unbelief as, you know, a kind of
harmless weakness that we're all exposed to.
One thing I've learned, and I think we're
going to do it, is it's important to
renounce unbelief.
Many times before we conduct a healing service,
one of the things we'll do is get
people to renounce unbelief.
Because, unbelief is a barrier between you and
salvation.
Not necessarily your initial experience of salvation, but
your ongoing experience of salvation.
I find it very helpful.
I'm a preacher, but I still need to
renounce unbelief.
Ruth and I were talking about this last
night, and she said something which rather stuck
with me.
She said, unbelief is like mildew.
When it first comes you don't notice it,
but it spreads and it grows and it
affects other people.
So, I'm going to suggest, and this is
optional, you don't have to do it, that
we just take a moment or two to
renounce unbelief.
All right?
And to proclaim faith.
See, it's very important what we say.
So, let's turn to the Lord for a
moment.
Now, I'll be the one that speaks, but
you're not dealing with me, you're dealing with
God.
You can close your eyes or keep your
eyes open, that's absolutely up to you.
But, I want to invite you to say
this confession after me.
O God, I confess that unbelief is a
sin, and I have been guilty of that
sin.
And I ask you to forgive me now,
and to deliver me from unbelief.
And God, I want to declare my faith.
I believe in You, God.
I believe in God the Father.
I believe in God the Son.
I believe in God the Holy Spirit.
I believe in the Bible, the Word of
God.
I believe it all.
It's all true.
God, I believe.
Help me, I pray, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now just thank Him for a moment.
All right, some of you will find it
easier to receive from now on.
Okay, the second thing you have to do
is believe.
The third thing is confess.
Now, I know that in some cases there's
been what I would call an excessive and
unscriptural emphasis on confessing.
But the fact of the matter is, confessing
is still very scriptural.
You can abuse anything.
You can carry anything to extremes and people
regularly do.
But don't let the fact that some people
have maybe abused this truth, keep you from
enjoying it.
All right, let's turn to Romans chapter 10,
verses 9 and 10.
That's the middle of a sentence.
One of the problems with Paul was he
wrote such long sentences.
But we won't go into the whole of
it.
We'll just start in the middle of it.
Romans 10, 9 and 10.
That if you confess with your mouth the
Lord Jesus, it's better to say Jesus as
Lord, and believe in your heart that God
has raised Him from the dead, you will
be, what?
Saved.
That's right.
That means total salvation.
Everything that we've looked at.
What do you have to do?
What two things do you have to?
Believe in the heart and confess with the
mouth.
And then in the next verse Paul changes
the order.
He says, for with the heart...
I'm sorry, in the previous verse it was
confess with the mouth and believe in the
heart.
Now he changes it and says, for with
the heart one believes to righteousness and with
the mouth confession is made to salvation.
The Greek preposition is into salvation.
With the mouth confession is made into salvation.
How do you get into salvation?
You believe with the heart and you confess
with the mouth.
It is not enough to believe in the
heart.
Nor is it enough just to confess with
the mouth.
We have some people who sincerely believe but
they don't have the courage to confess.
And we have other people who put on
the act of confessing but they don't really
believe.
And neither of them get what God has
promised.
Because to get what God has promised you
have to believe in the heart and confess
with the mouth.
That's the way into salvation.
Whatever area or aspect of salvation you have
in mind, the way in is believe with
the heart, confess with the mouth.
Now, we need to be clear as to
the Scriptural meaning of the word confess.
For many people, especially with a background in
the Roman Catholic Church or other liturgical churches,
confession means confessing your sins.
But that is only a small part of
what the Bible means by confession.
The word confess is derived from a Latin
word which we won't go into, which means
to say the same as.
It's the translation of the Greek word which
means to say the same as.
So confession is saying the same as.
Now, saying the same as what?
The answer is saying the same as God
has already said in His Word.
Or, to say it another way, it's making
the words of your mouth agree with the
written Word of God.
That's confession.
It's extremely important.
I'd like you to turn to Hebrews for
a moment and study what the epistle of
Hebrews says about Jesus Christ as our High
Priest.
The unique revelation of Hebrews is the High
Priestly ministry of Jesus.
It is not really revealed anywhere else in
the New Testament.
But, you'll find as you study Hebrews that
the High Priestly ministry of Jesus on our
behalf in heaven is directly connected with our
confession on earth.
Turn to Hebrews 3, verse 1 for a
moment.
Hebrews 3, verse 1.
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling,
consider the Apostle and High Priest of our
confession, Christ Jesus.
Jesus is called two things there.
The Apostle, the High Priest.
As Apostle, He was sent forth from God
the Father to do the work of redemption.
As High Priest, He's returned into the presence
of the Father to represent before the Father
those who have received His work of redemption.
So He's both the Apostle and the High
Priest.
But the writer of Hebrews calls Him the
High Priest of our confession.
That's vital.
His High Priestly ministry is directly related to
what we confess.
When we say with our mouth the same
as the Bible says, Jesus Christ acknowledges us
and stands behind our confession with His authority
in heaven.
If we say nothing, we frustrate the ministry
of our High Priest.
Do you understand that?
So, in a sense, His ministry as High
Priest on our behalf is limited by the
extent of our confession.
If you turn to the next chapter of
Hebrews, chapter 4, and verse 14 and following,
Seeing then that we have a great High
Priest, praise God He's a great High Priest,
who has passed through the heavens into the
immediate presence of God, Jesus the Son of
God, let us hold fast our confession.
So first of all you confess, and then
what do you do?
You hold fast your confession.
You don't change it.
You keep on saying it.
You don't give up.
But that's not all.
If you go to Hebrews 10, and we'll
just read from verse 21, which is again
the middle of one of these long sentences.
I want you to see the relationship between
confession and the High Priestly ministry of Jesus.
Having a High Priest over the house of
God, let us draw near with a true
heart in full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, our bodies
washed with pure water, let us hold fast
the confession of our hope without wavering.
Does that tell you something?
First you confess, then you hold fast your
confession, and then you hold it fast without
wavering.
What does that tell you?
You're going to encounter opposition.
There'll be all sorts of situations and circumstances
which could cause you to change your confession.
But, the New Testament says, confess, hold fast,
hold fast without wavering.
It is an essential part of salvation.
It's not something added on.
Salvation comes to those who believe in the
heart and confess with the mouth.
For with the heart one believes to righteousness,
but with the mouth, confession is made into
salvation.
In other words, you come into salvation in
the sense in which we're talking about it,
by believing and then saying it.
Let's think for a moment what we will
say.
We're talking now about what Jesus accomplished by
His death on the cross.
So, I say, this is one of our
standard confessions, and it puts together Isaiah 53,
4 and 5, Matthew 8, 17 and 1
Peter 2.24. It's totally based on Scripture.
Jesus Himself took my infirmities and bore my
sicknesses and with His wounds I am healed.
That's my confession.
When Ruth and I conduct a healing service,
we usually require the people to make that
confession.
Because that qualifies them for salvation.
Do you understand?
Now, when you say that and you've got,
let's say, a problem in your kidneys.
I don't know why I think of that,
but I do.
So you say, Jesus Himself, and remember the
emphasis on Him, took my infirmities, bore my
sicknesses, with His wounds I'm healed.
And you've still got the problem in the
kidneys.
So what do you do?
You hold fast your confession.
You've still got the problem in the kidneys,
so what do you do?
You hold fast the confession without wavering.
That's right.
Can you understand?
This is a battle.
Believe me, and I know from experience, pressing
your way into healing can be a tremendous
battle.
The writer of Hebrews said to the Hebrews
Christians, he said, you have not yet resisted
unto blood striving against sin.
We're used to the idea that we have
to strive against sin, but we also have
to strive against sickness.
We have to fight.
We are soldiers.
We do not lie down and let the
devil walk over us.
That's not glorifying to God.
Now, I'm not going to focus exclusively on
physical healing, but it's a thing that touches
most people where they're at.
What about our financial needs?
Well, Ruth and I have already demonstrated that,
but we'll do it again.
Come on.
And I mean, for us, this is important.
I mean, this is not just a ritual.
This is our way of releasing the treasures
that God has in His storehouse for our
ministry.
You understand?
God spoke to us and told us that
He had made full provision for everything He'd
asked us to do.
But to obtain the full provision, we have
to believe and confess.
You understand?
What are we going to say?
God is able.
All right, we make it personal.
You understand?
This is 2 Corinthians 9.8. God is
able to make all grace abound toward us,
that we always, having all sufficiency in all
things, may abound to every good work.
Amen.
Don't go.
While we're here, we'll do a little more.
We have so many.
And I think it'll just kind of— why
don't I say, take some of the pressure
off you if we do a few more.
We do one from Deuteronomy 33, verse 25
and following.
It's in the NIV, which is the version
Paul used.
But you know that.
All right.
Now, we make it personal.
You understand?
It says you, we say we.
Where are we now?
Deuteronomy.
Yeah, the bolts.
The bolts of our gates will be iron
and bronze, and our strength will equal our
days.
There is no one like the God of
Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help
us, and on the clouds in His majesty.
The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath
are the everlasting arms.
He will drive out our enemy before us,
saying, Destroy Him!
Amen.
Glory to God.
Thank you.
Wait a minute.
We'll do one more.
I feel so much better.
The thing is, I don't want to cheat
you people out of it.
Now, we do, what is it, 2 Corinthians
2, 14.
We do it in two versions, and we
sometimes get a little mixed, so be patient.
We'll do the old King James first.
Now, thanks be unto God, who always causeth
us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest
the savor of His knowledge by us in
every place.
You notice it's always and in every place.
That leaves out no time and no place.
Okay?
Now we'll do the NIV.
But thanks be to God, who always leads
us in triumphal procession in Christ, and through
us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge
of Him.
And we add one more verse to this
one.
For we are to God the aroma of
Christ among those who are being saved and
those who are perishing.
Thank you so much.
Now, we have a repertoire, but this is
not a religious exercise with us, you understand.
This is part of a warfare that we're
in.
We are shortly going on a ministry trip
that will take us to Tapua New Guinea,
Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Now those are countries where there are tremendously
powerful forces of darkness.
But we have said, God will drive out
our enemy before us, saying, destroy him.
Now if we only said it with our
mouths, it wouldn't work.
You have to believe it in your heart.
But if we only believed it in our
heart, we wouldn't get the full benefits.
We have to believe with the heart and
confess with the mouth.
Now you can go down the list.
I haven't prepared this, but let's consider.
You're having a struggle with condemnation.
The devil is accusing you of all sorts
of things.
But you turn to Isaiah 53.10 and
2 Corinthians 5.21 and you say, Jesus
was made sin with my sinfulness that I
might be made righteous with his righteousness.
Listen, devil.
You can accuse me as much as you
like.
But it's a waste of time accusing the
righteousness of Jesus.
That's what you're up against, you see.
But, it will not really be yours if
you just think it.
Or even just believe it.
You have to say it.
When the devil came against Jesus in the
wilderness, Jesus answered three times, It is written.
He spoke it out.
He proclaimed the Word of God.
All right.
The next thing you have to do, and
we're back with our outline after a little
detour, is act.
Turn to James for a moment, chapter 2.
We read a few excerpts from this passage.
James 2, verse 20.
But do you want to know, O foolish
man, that faith without works is dead.
Faith without corresponding actions is dead.
Was not Abraham our father justified by works,
by his actions, when he offered Isaac his
son on the altar?
Do you see that faith, working together with
his works, and by works faith was made
perfect?
And then we go on to verse 25.
Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified
by works when she received the messengers and
sent them out another way?
For as the body without the spirit is
dead, so faith without works, without corresponding actions,
is dead.
So, once you've repented and believed and confessed,
at some point you're going to have to
act your faith out.
That's the acid test.
Will you act it out?
Now, just to go back to something I
said yesterday, you remember how I described how
I received healing in the hospital by going
to Proverbs 4, 20 through 22.
My son, attend to my words, incline thine
ear unto my sayings, let them not depart
from thine eyes, keep them in the midst
of thine heart for they are life to
those that find them and health or medicine
to all their flesh.
So I decided to take God's Word as
my medicine.
Being a medical orderly or a hospital attendant,
I knew how people take medicine, three times
daily after meal.
So that's what I did.
I took God's Word as my medicine, three
times daily after meals.
And I was healed.
You see, it's important to get out of
being passive.
Passivity is a tremendous spiritual problem.
I didn't work this out, I didn't understand
the principles the Holy Spirit prompted me, but
I didn't just lie there in the hospital
and say, I believe God is going to
heal me.
I said, God, I'm taking your Word as
medicine.
Three times every day I acted.
And that's what changed me from being passive
to being active.
So at some point, whatever line of faith
you're following, whatever area of salvation you're moving
into, you're going to have to act.
Let me warn you, very rarely, although it
may be sometimes, is a negative action an
expression of faith.
I've met many people who say, I believe
God is going to heal me, I'm not
going to the doctor.
Well, generally speaking, not going to the doctor
is not having faith.
Do you understand?
Some people don't go to the doctor because
they're afraid of what the doctor would tell
them if they go.
Faith is positive.
I believe it's possible to have faith and
go to the doctor, let me say that.
It just depends how the Holy Spirit leads
you.
We can't tie the Holy Spirit down to
one system.
God healed me that time by taking His
Word as medicine.
Other times He's healed me other ways.
The Holy Spirit is the one who shows
us what we have to do.
But sooner or later you're going to come
up against this principle.
You've got to act your faith out.
All right, you believe God is going to
provide for you.
That's wonderful.
They're taking a missionary offering and the Holy
Spirit says, put in your last one hundred
dollars.
Okay, that's your act of faith.
Are you going to do it or not?
We're not going to take an offering, don't
get nervous.
But you see, at some point, you've got
to pass out of the passive, I believe
attitude into an attitude where you actually act.
A man came to me once in a
church.
He said, I'm sick.
I want you to anoint me with oil.
Then he said, but I don't know if
I have any faith.
I said, brother, you're coming to be anointed
is your faith.
You understand?
It's the act that is the faith.
You've all heard of Smith Wigglesworth, I'm sure,
the pioneer Pentecostal evangelist.
I came to the Lord through people who
were the fruit of his ministry.
I never knew him personally.
But he was, before he got saved, he
was a plumber.
He couldn't even read the New Testament.
I'm not suggesting that plumbers can't read the
New Testament.
But he had a very low level of
education.
He was one of those English people, of
whom there are a good many, who put
in the H where it doesn't belong and
leave out the H where it does belong.
He was preaching one day to people and
he was trying to get them acting their
faith.
He said, faith is a act.
He said, they're not believing it.
They need to hear it twice.
So he called the other preacher up, who
happened to be a teacher of elocution, and
said, now you stand there and I'll stand
here.
I say, faith is a act, and you
say, faith is an act.
So the teacher of elocution copied him exactly
and after that everybody knew that faith is
a act.
Do you understand?
But it's true.
At some point you've got to get off
the sitting posture or the lying posture and
do something.
It often doesn't matter what you do.
I think about the ministry of Elisha.
I think he just did anything that came
into his mind.
They said to him, this spring is no
good.
The water is bad.
He said, bring me a bowl of salt.
Threw the salt in and said, thus said
the Lord, the waters are healed.
They've been healed ever since.
You can go to Elisha's spring today.
It's still healed.
Another time, the Bible school students said, I've
lost the head of my axe.
It went down into the waters of the
Jordan.
If you've ever been in the Jordan, you
know it's about three or four inches deep
in mud at the bottom.
You'll never get an axe head back.
Elisha said, took a piece of wood, threw
it in and said, come up.
And the axe head came up.
You understand?
If you study the ministry of Elisha, if
it ever demonstrated anything, it demonstrated what I
call the simple act of faith that releases
the miracle working power of God.
There are many, many different ways.
In my ministry, one of the things that
God has given me to do is check
people's legs.
As I hold their legs, if they're unequal,
the short leg grows out.
That doesn't necessarily heal them all over, but
it releases faith.
You understand?
It brings them in touch with something beyond
the natural.
All right, we need to move on.
Otherwise I won't get through it in time.
What is the simplest single act of faith
that you can make?
We can all make.
If you can't do anything else, there's one
thing you can do.
Give thanks.
That's right.
It's really the purest expression of faith.
I always like the story of Jonah.
You turn to Jonah chapter 2 for a
moment.
You can find him.
Now Jonah is in the belly of the
fish.
I imagine it was very cramped and he
had few movements that he could make.
But, he needed faith.
If you read the second chapter, he prayed
about eight verses and nothing happened.
Then, in verse 9, he said, But I
will sacrifice to you with the voice of
thanksgiving.
The fish couldn't hold him any longer.
So when you've got nowhere by praying, start
giving thanks.
If you turn to the New Testament, to
John chapter 6, one of the greatest miracles
of Jesus was feeding 5,000 people with
five loaves and two fishes.
How did He do it?
What released the miracle-working power of God?
If you look in John chapter 6, verse
11, And Jesus took the loaves, and when
He had given thanks, He distributed them to
the disciples.
He didn't pray.
He just gave thanks.
And this must have made a real impact
on John because in the same chapter, chapter
6, verse 23, John says, Other boats came
from Tiberias near the place where they ate
bread after the Lord had given thanks.
So it really impacted John that he didn't
have to pray.
What released that miracle?
Giving thanks.
And in John chapter 11, it's interesting how
different writers pick up different themes.
John chapter 11, When Jesus was outside the
tomb of Lazarus, verse 41, You know the
story, He'd been there four days dead.
Then they took away the stone from the
place where the dead man was lying.
And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said,
Father, I thank you that you've heard me.
And that's all He did.
That tremendous miracle was released by that simple
phrase, I thank you.
In closing this, let me give you one
other piece of advice.
We're talking about appropriating total salvation, which is
everything that was accomplished by the death of
Jesus on the cross.
You need to bear that in mind.
One other very important thing is keep your
eye on Jesus and the cross.
In John chapter 3, verses 14 and 15,
Jesus is teaching about the purpose of His
sacrificial death.
And He says, As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have
eternal life.
So He takes an example from the story
of Moses and the serpent of bronze in
the wilderness.
Now, this is very briefly related in Numbers
chapter 21.
Let's turn there for a moment.
We'll read from verse 5 through verse 9.
And the people spoke against God and against
Moses.
Why have you brought us up out of
Egypt to die in the wilderness?
For there is no food and no water
and our soul loathes this worthless brain.
Now they were complaining.
How many of you realize that complaining is
a serious sin?
So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the
people and they bit the people and many
of the people of Israel died.
Bear in mind, it's dangerous to complain.
What's the alternative to complaining?
Giving thanks and praising.
That's right.
Therefore the people came to Moses and said,
We have sinned, for we have spoken against
the Lord and against you.
Pray to the Lord that He take away
the serpents from us.
So Moses prayed for the people.
Then the Lord said to Moses, Make a
fiery serpent and set it on a pole
and it shall be that everyone who is
bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.
So Moses made a bronze serpent and put
it on a pole and so it was,
if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Now, the phrase, he lived, means two things.
He was physically healed and his sin was
forgiven.
Actually the emphasis is on the healing, not
the forgiveness.
Jesus said, As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so also the Son of
Man must be lifted up.
In other words, to accomplish what was accomplished
through the type of the bronze serpent, which
was forgiveness and what?
I didn't hear you.
You really convinced of that?
Make all the difference for the rest of
your life if you are.
It's such a clear example.
Now what did the people have to do?
Well, according to God's instructions, Moses made an
emblem in bronze of the thing that was
the cause of their problem, which was the
snake.
Bronze in the Bible is usually a type
of judgment.
So when he put the bronze snake up
on a pole high up, it spoke of
God's judgment on the sin that had caused
them to be bitten by the snakes.
And when they looked at the sin judged
on the pole, they lived.
That's all they had to do.
They didn't have to say a prayer.
They didn't have to go through some ablution
with water.
They just had to look.
And everyone who looked lived.
Now in the National Gallery of Great Britain
in London, there's a celebrated painting by the
Dutch artist Rubens of this scene.
And he must have been gripped by it
because there is the brazen serpent on the
pole and various groups of Israelites all around.
But in the forefront there is a mother
with a little baby, sick baby in her
arms.
And she is—it's made so clear— she's doing
everything she can to get the baby to
look at the serpent on the pole.
And it's such a vivid illustration of the
fact that no one else can look for
you.
The mother can't look for a child.
The husband can't look for his wife.
Each one has to look individually.
Now, the application, I think, in the light
of what we've studied is very clear.
We have to look to Jesus, crucified, and
see in Him our sicknesses, our poverty, our
sin, everything in Him.
And because it's in Him, we don't have
to bear it.
See how simple that is?
Now we've come almost to the end of
our time.
I want to give you a little immediate
practical application.
I want you to look at that list
that's in front of you of the different
changes, the exchange that took place.
And I want you to come up for
yourself with some phrase of thanksgiving by which
you express your faith and appropriate what God
has done for you.
All right?
Each one of you, just for a moment
or two.
Like, I thank you, Jesus, that you have
made sin with my sinfulness, that I might
be made righteous with your righteousness.
All right?
And you don't need to say it very
loud, but just say it out loud enough
to hear yourself.
Address the words to Jesus.
You're looking away from yourself.
You understand?
There's no solution in you.
The more you talk about your problems, generally
speaking, the deeper you are in them.
All right?
Anybody want to volunteer?
Stand up and say what you see.
Anybody.
You've got just a moment.
All right?
Say it out loud so that everybody can
hear.
Stand up.
Turn around so that people can hear.
Praise God!
Amen.
That was a really good one.
That was original.
I think we've got time for one more.
Anybody?
That's a wonderful application, brother, because that's making
your sin specific.
Anybody else want to volunteer?
Yes.
Stand up and turn around so that people
can see you.
Praise God!
Amen.
Do you people have wives?
Your wives are going to be happy for
a moment.
Somebody else?
You've been listening to From the Pulpit and
the Classic Sermon Series.
This week you heard Derrick Prince with his
message, How to Enter In.
Tune in next week for another powerful message
from God's Word on From the Pulpit and
Classic Sermons.