Baptist Distinctives: A Journey Through Scripture and Salvation

Amen. Thankful for the love of God, aren't you? If you would in your Bibles tonight, turn to first Timothy, chapter two. One Timothy chapter two.

We continue our series on Baptist distinctives. Again, by this we mean a collection of biblical truths unique to Baptists. And by that we mean that as Baptists, it's a collection of truth.

These collections of truths are unique to us. Not that each individual truth doesn't apply and is not adhered to by other denominations or other groups.

But these 12 together are unique in that all of them Baptists believe a historic Baptist faith. By the way, the historic Baptist faith is Bible faith. If I didn't believe that, I would be something else.

I wouldn't be a Baptist, I'd be something else. I believe Baptist to be the closest to the first century church.

I believe the Baptist, historically speaking, historic Baptist faith is as close doctrine of the Bible as any other sect or faith or denomination or whatever. Again, or else I would be one of them. Amen. I mean, that's pretty simple. And I haven't said this in a long, long time, but I'm gonna say it tonight.

It's kind of abrasive, but somebody has to be right, somebody has to be wrong. And I want to be right. And the way to be right is to be to line up with the Bible is to line up with the Bible. What does the Bible say?

And take it for what it says. Not tradition and not some prayer book or somebody's opinion. But what does the word of God say? All right, first Timothy, chapter two.

Look with me in verse five and six. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and man. The man Christ Jesus. I'm thankful for our mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless the word as it's being spoken tonight. May you work in hearts. May we remember and keep the faith.

May we again adhere to it, may we apply it and then may we pass it on to the next generation. Again, we love you and we thank you. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. And so tonight we're going to cover the subject of salvation.

I know this is for some of you, be simplistic, but hopefully, because I've rewritten this and taken it from various, various sources, maybe something tonight will be a blessing to you. I hope. By the way, Warren Wiersbe said in one of his commentaries, he said, preaching deep truths, preaching salvation.

In other words, if you want to know the deep things of God, then salvation is the deep things of God.

And it's just continue to learn more and more and more what we have in Jesus Christ, what the benefits are and all the things that go into our salvation. Of course it's Jesus Christ, but various aspects of it.

All right, so the Baptist distinctives again, second Timothy chapter two, verse two, says the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Again, we are to pass the truths of the Word of God on to the next generation. We ought to be teaching others these truths.

The things that thou hast heard the same those things that Paul said, the same things that I taught you are the same things you should teach to those to others. And so we covered the first distinctive.

The first distinctive was this scripture is and as the singular, absolute, fully sufficient and final rule of faith and practice. So the Word of God is the final rule of faith and practice. That's Baptist distinctive number one.

We believe the Bible to be the infallible, inerrant word of God. This is God's word to man and we believe that emphatically.

And so not only is it God's word, but it's also the rule of life and our guide, our gps, if you would. And so tonight is number two, and that is without the word of God or number two is salvation.

That salvation is by grace, by faith, through grace alone. Alright, let me, I'll state that again here in a moment. But I do want to remind you that without the word of God there can be no salvation.

First Peter 2, first Peter chapter 1, verse 23 says, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. So without the word of God there would be no salvation. The Word of God is the one.

It's the Word of God that gives us the faith to believe, the faith to trust in him. And so tonight again we think about salvation. What does it mean? What does it mean? I think about salvation.

It means again to again, salvation means to be saved. It means to be rescued.

Again, the Bible makes it clear that it's by faith, by grace, through faith, solely in the person, life and work of Jesus Christ. Salvation from the wrath of God is solely in the person work of Jesus Christ, his life, his death and his resurrection.

Salvation again means to be rescued or delivered from harm, from harm. Again, what is the harm? The wrath of God upon mankind's sin.

Alright, so we are rescued from the wrath of God solely by grace, through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Amen. That's it. Solely. That means it's the only way. And Jesus made that clear in John 14:6. I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man cometh to the Father but by me. Jesus did not say he was the best way. He did not say he was part of the way. He said he was the only way.

And I'm not quoting a commentary, I'm not quoting a person, I'm quoting Jesus Christ. John 14, verse 6. And that's not politically correct. You know, our society for the most part believes that all roads lead to heaven.

If you are a Muslim and that road leads to heaven. If you're a Buddhist, that road leads to heaven. If you're a whatever. All these roads lead to heaven. It's just the same God, just different names.

And that's not true. That's not what the Bible says. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me.

Jesus said again, emphatically, dogmatically, the only way to heaven is through him, through Jesus Christ our Lord, the only available through Christ. And then so that salvation from the wrath of God. What is the wrath of God? Well, John 3:36 says the wrath of God abideth on them that believe not.

Abideth on them that believe not. The wrath of God. So think about this for a moment. The justifiable. So what is the wrath of God?

The wrath of God is the justifiable anger God has because of man's anger. Sin. The justifiable anger God has because of mankind's sins. Well, God is holy. He's holy other.

And because of his holiness, his righteous anger is put forth to those all mankind, not just to those, but all mankind who break his law. To break his law. The Bible says for the wages of sin, sin is breaking the law of God is death.

Revelation chapter 20 says, and death and hell were cast in the lake of fire. This is the second death. So the wrath of God upon sin is hell, eternal hell.

Now again understand that the wrath of God upon sin, that hell does not satisfy God's wrath. God doesn't look over hell and go and be satisfied. No, he said he looked down upon His Son who gave his life for us and was satisfied.

It was the sacrifice of his son that satisfied God the Father now. And that's why, because the proof behind that is that hell doesn't satisfy God's wrath, is because they burn eternally.

If it satisfied God's wrath, then they would burn and then it would stop at some point, say, okay, you paid the price. We're good, we're all good. That's not the case. Only Christ, only Jesus Christ could satisfy God's wrath.

And so because of God's holiness, it is the justice. It is because of justice he must exercise punishment. Again, we think about. The Bible makes it clear that God is love. And aren't you glad of that?

I'm thankful. God is love. In fact, he makes it very clear that he loved us before we ever loved him. He's a God of love, but he's also a just God.

That means he is a fair God. It also means the Bible says he is a God of wrath. And so the Bible says again that he told the Israelites, they're on Mount Sinai.

He gave them the Ten Commandments. Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, he says to the children of Israel, here are the Ten Commandments. Will you keep them? And they all said, we would.

We'll keep them. They were a little naive. Not just a little bit naive, a whole lot naive.

Jesus Christ of the New Testament summarizes those laws for us when he said, whatsoever you would that mentioned unto you, do ye even also to them. For this is all the law and the prophets.

So as I preach to our church, many, many times, it really comes down to Jesus summarizing all the Old Testament laws down to one, that you should treat others as you would want to be treated. And you have to ask a question. Can you love everyone in the world as you love yourself or the time?

Because the only way you can be perfectly holy is if you can love everyone in the world as you love yourself all the time. And no one can do that. No man, no human born of a woman and a human man can do that. Why? Because the Bible says we're all sinners.

We're all born selfish by nature. You do not have to teach a child how to be selfish. They come. It comes natural to them. My toy, you know, it comes natural to us adults too.

My ice cream. I love it when the kids are growing up. You know, you go to Dairy Queen, go through the drive through. Everybody orders theirs.

As the lady or the man hands you the ice cream through the window, you take a Bite and pass it back. Little kids in the back crying. And I always just tell Caleb and them, I'd say, you got to pay taxes. Might as well get used to it now.

So they're used to that, you know, dad, Daddy made him pay taxes. We're all selfish by nature. We're all selfish by nature. And I use the illustration with kids all the time, but we adults are selfish by nature.

Think about your spouse and the marital problems and things. What does it all come down to? Marital problems come down to selfishness. I want my way, right? So we're selfish by nature, people.

Mankind does not go to hell because they took a piece of candy from the candy store. It's the motivation behind taking the candy that's the problem. It's because as a child or as an adult, whatever you took, you took.

Not thinking about the owner, not thinking about the grocery store owner. You're not thinking about them and the loss that they're going to incur. It's only about me and satisfying what I want. Stealing is selfishness.

Same thing with murder. When I kill someone, I murder someone. I'm not taking into account their family, their life over my life. Now I'm talking about murder, not kill.

We can go into that conversation. I'm thankful Jesus. I will. I'm thankful. Jesus Christ helped us. And he clarified what Exodus, chapter 20, the Ten Commandments, says.

When thou shalt not kill. Jesus said in the New Testament, when the Old Testament said, thou shalt not kill, he said, that is thou shalt not murder. So he clarified it.

I'm thankful. Scripture interprets. Scripture helps us. Cross referencing helps. But again, I don't murder because I wouldn't want to be murdered.

I don't steal because I wouldn't want to be stolen from. That makes me so mad. Somebody steals something from you. I'll never forget. I lived out in Springtown, out in the country, close to the clarks.

We had 11 acres out there. One evening, a guy came by and he ran out of gas right in front of our house. I mean, we're on a country road.

Back then, there was hardly anything out there. Now there's lots of houses. And so he came up to the house. Of course, he knocked on the door. I met him at the door. He said, hey, I'm out of gas.

Do you have any gas? And I said, yeah, I'll help you. And went into my barn and got him some gas and went out there, put it in his truck, and he drove off.

Wasn't just a few days later that all my tools got stolen out of my barn and out of my garage. All of them. You say, well, how do you know it's that guy?

Well, they caught him, took a little while about, I don't know, two, three weeks later, they caught him with some of my stuff he had pawned all of it except a little bit and a bunch of other stuff from other people he had stolen. But it was the same guy that I helped get gas who stole from me. Motivation behind that was selfishness. He's a druggie. Selfishness.

We're all selfish by nature. And therefore God is just means. He's justified. His anger is justified, his wrath is justified. And therefore must, must be met if he would.

Or it must be met out. It must be put out. So again, we've used this illustration a thousand times too. A lot of liberal judges in America today.

How many times have we seen a liberal judge? You know, some. It was recently over here and I don't remember all the details.

And I used this illustration about a year ago where some teenage, rich, very wealthy teenage boy from a wealthy family wrecked and killed two or three people and got off. Didn't even go to jail. Didn't even go to jail because of a liberal judge. And it was some kind of rich people's disease that he had.

He'd been pampered so much. The judge says he don't know what he's doing. He'd been pampered so much. There's actually a name for it and I forgot what the name is called.

Crazy, isn't it? We'd be mad at that judge, wouldn't we? And that judge is flat out wrong. That kid should be in. Not a kid, he was like 20 or something.

He should be in jail the rest of his life. He should never see the light of day. And we scream and holler about that. Well, he killed somebody. He murdered somebody.

He killed them and you could say murder. At least it was at least first degree anyway, you know, when we get mad at the judge.

But how often do we think about, well, what we do and the law we break of God's we think, oh yeah, but God should just love everybody and everybody should get off scot free. And there should be no penalty. No, no, there is a penalty. There is a penalty of breaking God's law. That penalty is the wrath of God, which is hell.

And so that's where we're at. So salvation from the wrath of God. From the wrath of God. And that wrath of God is just, it's fair and then number three.

Salvation from the wrath of God is by grace, by grace, freely given favor of God, even unto enablement. I'm thankful for the grace of God, aren't you? I'm thankful that my salvation is not based upon what I do, but what he did for me. Right?

He died, he was buried and rose again in order that I might have eternal life. Freely given.

And by the way, since he freely gave it, that means he gave it without reluctance, you know, he didn't forgive us and go, well, I'm just not going to like you, but I'm going to forgive you, you know. No, he wasn't reluctant at all. Freely given favor.

Salvation was gladly given by God in view of what Christ did for us by way of his life, his death and his resurrection. Again, grace is part of every area when the sinner comes to God.

So every area of salvation, all the details behind it, all those areas are covered by grace. The grace of God, we don't deserve it. God's freely given favor, as we said Sunday night as well, that it's not just by grace that we're saved.

We're to live by grace as well.

Live by grace through faith, trusting in him that grace is not just grace and enablement for salvation, but that grace is an enablement to live the Christian life. To walk with Jesus daily, to live a Christian life, to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ, to be a representative of him and to the world.

To be a light in darkness. Each of us living during the week as we ought to live in order that Christ may be glorified in all that we say and do. How do we accomplish that?

We can't do that on our own. We're selfish by nature. How do we do that? We do that by grace, through faith, humbling ourselves before God. Lord, I cannot save myself. Lord, save me.

Remember, at the moment of salvation. Same thing when it comes to living the Christian life. Lord, I can't live this life as you intended me for to live by the way.

Jesus said, be holy, for I am holy. That's tough. That can't be accomplished on your own. It can't be accomplished in our own energy and our own strength.

We need the grace of God in order to do that. And that grace of God is given to us freely as Christians to enable us and empower us to live and walk with Jesus every day.

To be the light again in darkness. God influences us to see our lost condition because of our inability to keep the law.

In other words, when it comes to salvation, not only does he offer salvation? But it's the Holy Spirit who convicts us. It's God who influenced us to understand and to see our sin for what it is. Everybody understand that, right?

It's not just that he saves us, but he also brings us and influences us to the position of seeing our need for salvation. Isn't that amazing? So he's not just offering us candy, he's just showing us our need for candy. I'm just kidding. Isn't that amazing?

I mean, really, honestly, why would he need to do that? Why would he? He doesn't have to do anything. He's God. He loves you that much. He loves me that much. He loves mankind enough.

Loves us so much that not only did he give his life for us, shed his blood for us, die and was buried and rise again, but when it comes to salvation, grace covers every part of it, even to the point of bringing us to the understanding of our need for salvation by way of the law. Understand? It's God who helps us, to influence us that we sorrow over our sins and desire to live right. Now, get this one.

Because we have certain even call themselves Baptists who don't believe in repentance. Or they believe that repentance is a turning from a false religion unto true Christianity. That's not repentance.

Repentance is a change of mind about my sin, myself and God.

True repentance again, is that sorrowing over my sin and desiring though I cannot, but desiring to live right, repenting of my sins, a change of mind towards sin again, self and God. John the Baptist preach repentance again.

There is a sect out there, the Steve Anderson crowd, who are a cult, by the way, who teach that repentance is a turning from false religion unto true religion. That is not the biblical definition. That has never been the biblical definition.

You're smarter than Spurgeon? You know, I haven't met anybody smarter than Spurgeon.

Repentance is a change of mind really, about everything. It's a change of mind. When it comes to my sin, I See myself exceedingly sinful. I see myself and my sin as putting Jesus on the cross.

And I sorrow because of, causes me grief. And I want to change. I can't change on my own, but I want to. Repentance again is a change of mind about myself, about God and my sin.

Repentance, repenting, repenting. Repentance is a part. Repentance and faith are, you know, it's like a two sided nick, you know, two sided coin. They go hand in hand.

Just like faith and trust and faith and belief. And then not only is there again through faith, grace by grace, through faith, faith, ascribing credit to Christ for who and what he has done.

Again, faith, faith is that which again we transfer our trust from anyone and anything else to Christ and Christ alone. So it's trusting, trusting God, trusting Jesus Christ as our Savior, believing on him and then again faith in him, acting upon that trust.

And again it's a two sided coin. Faith and belief. Belief is trust. Belief and trust are synonyms. Pretty well everybody with me. Belief and trust is.

I believe this chair will hold me if I jump up in May not because I'm not going to do it. They're supposed to get me some videos that when I say stuff like this they can just show it instead of me doing it. It's a good idea.

Like the cartwheel thing. Belief and trust is. I believe and trust that this chair would hold me. Faith is me jumping on top of it.

Okay, so I put my faith, I put my trust in Jesus. I believe that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again. And then I put my faith in him. I act upon that belief. I act upon it.

There are those who believe that Jesus exists. There are those who believe that God exists. But does that save them? No, you have to put your trust in him and then you have to act upon that trust.

How do I act upon the trust? By putting my faith in him. Lord, I know I'm a sinner. Lord, I am unable to save myself. Lord, I believe you live, died and rose again.

Lord, please save me. I cannot do it on my own. I understand that. Lord, save me. It's putting my faith in him and not myself.

It's putting my faith in him and not the Baptistry. It's trusting in him and not my good works. Putting it all upon him.

He carried his manager on his back across it. He took wheelbarrows across it. He carried furniture across it. He carried a stove out to the middle of it, cooked eggs and ate breakfast on this.

I'm not exaggerating. Go read about it. So he became more and more and more famous.

And then one day he was on the side, he was about to cross again and great big old crowd there and he had a wheelbarrow with him. And they all just were clamoring at how great. And boy, they trusted him and they knew he could do it again. And brought on.

And he finally asked the crowd, he said, who will get in the wheelbarrow? He didn't get one volunteer. They all believed he could do it. They all trusted he could do it. But they didn't have faith enough to act on it.

They wouldn't get in the wheelbarrow. And that's what happens spiritually when it comes to the Lord and to salvation. There are many people who trust and believe but never act on it.

Never act on it. We only truly believe in something when we act on it. Somebody has said it this way.

We only believe as much of the Bible as we practice as we act upon. Christ alone is the only qualified Savior. What uniquely qualified Jesus to be our Savior. And this is it.

His person, his in that he was God in the flesh. God became man and dwelt among us, the Bible says. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten, the Father full of grace and truth.

He was man. Just as much man as though he'd never been God and just as much God as though he'd never been man. He was the God man. He was sinless.

Never one time had a simple thought. Never one time did a simple deed. He was sinless in disposition, desire and deed. The only man who ever lived a sinless life.

That's why I pointed out a while ago that it was humans. Humans cannot. All humans are sinners. And then of course, his work. And that is, he died and was buried and rose again. The Gospel, the good news.

Why did you do all that? To put the New Testament into force. Old covenant done away with. New Covenant put in place. Old Testament done away with.

I'm talking about the contract and the new contract. Put in place. It's an amazing thought. Put our faith and trust in Jesus.

There's some false views out there about salvation, and most of you would know these, but one false view is that there is no hell, that all mankind is God's children and everybody gets to go to heaven. That's not what the Bible says.

There's another view on salvation, that if you're mostly good, that, you know, if your good works outweigh your bad works, you get to heaven. St. Peter will be there and he'll have a little scale. Put bad works on one side and good works on the other.

And if your good works outweigh your bad works, you get to go to heaven. He'll open the key. He has the key. Apparently, Peter don't have the key. The church has the key. Open the door. No, that's not how you get to heaven.

Salvation is not by your good works outweighing your bad works. Then there's a large majority of churches that teach, well, we do believe it's through Jesus Christ plus baptism.

They say, well, you know, you got to be saved. Yeah, you got to trust Jesus Christ as your savior. Put your faith in him, his life, his death and resurrection, and be baptized.

You know, you just add to it a lot out there who believe that. That's what the Bible says. Baptism doesn't save you. It's not Christ plus something or anyone.

There's some out there who believe that the church has been entrusted with grace. And you can eat a piece of bread or you can drink a little grape juice, and that conveys grace to you. I'm talking about the Catholic Church.

No, that's not what the Bible says. That's tradition of men. And we're not saved by tradition of men.

We're not saved by silver and gold and tradition of man, but by the what, precious blood of Jesus Christ as a land without spot and without blemish. Salvation is in a person. That person is Jesus Christ, who had an infinite capacity to take all God's wrath. Understand? He had to be God, man.

Because only God can take all God's wrath. Again, I just pointed out that those in hell do not satisfy God's wrath. God's wrath is infinite. So only God could take all God's wrath, you say?

Well, preacher, I can't figure that out. The tri unity of God is not something you figure out. It's something you put your faith in and believe.

The life of Christ, the person of Christ, the perfect life of Jesus Christ from the womb and to the tomb from the womb to the tomb. Christ was mankind's representative. He lived that perfect life. He died for us. He died in our place. He was buried and rose again.

He did all that in our place. He was our representative. He was our substitute Christ. The works of Christ. He was our sin bearer. And then he died for those sins.

And then the third day, he rose again from the dead, securing our salvation. Now, there are many examples in the New Testament, and we won't go through all these tonight.

Many examples of the New Testament, of those who very clearly were saved by grace through faith and nothing else. The woman at the well. Paul. Especially if you believe that Paul was saved in Ananias house and not on the road to Damascus.

That's a whole nother subject. Who else was saved and not well, the Ethiopian eunuch.

You could go through on and on and on throughout the New Testament and have testimony after testimony of those who were saved, who were rescued, who were born again by putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone and nothing else. Lydia, the thief on the cross. Repentance with the new birth in view. Again, the conversion as a result of accepting Christ as their Savior.

I love the old hymn. Grace, grace, God's grace Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. It's a wonderful grace, isn't it?

Wonderful Grace of Jesus. Amazing grace how sweet the sound. So thankful for the grace of God, aren't you? Because we can't earn salvation.

We can't do anything good enough to earn salvation because Jesus Christ did all the work for us. Again, the Baptist distinctive is a collection of biblical truths that make Baptists distinct from other groups. I'm thankful for other churches.

I want to make this clear, too. I'm thankful for other churches and even other denominations who teach salvation by grace through faith.

I'm thankful that I have friends who I may not exactly agree with on everything, but I am thankful they're preaching the gospel and seeing people get saved. I always, again, say it. I say it pretty often. I'm independent Baptist. I'm just not mad about it. I'm thankful for other groups.

I say when we get to heaven, we're all going to be shocked that there's not just Baptists up there. That guy's a Lutheran. What is he doing up here? I don't know how he got here. No, he got here the same way you did. Salvation by grace through faith.

Oh, that's a Catholic over there. I remember him from whatever. No, some Catholics. Absolutely. Salvation by grace through Faith. Amen. Now, be careful.

I'm thankful for those in other churches and other denominations who teach the gospel and preach the gospel. But I am absolutely 100% sad and mad that most churches do not preach and teach a clear gospel message. It does not happen.

And that's a sad state for churches in America. And honestly, around the world.

I don't know how many times I've dealt with people who've been in other denominational churches who have never said, preacher. I've never heard that before. When I give them the gospel, they say, I've never heard that before.

Like, how could you be in church most of your life and never hear the gospel? I used to have a friend who was a Methodist preacher here in town, and him and I became pretty good friends.

And I asked him one time, I said, hey, I know the. Because usually in a Methodist church, the Methodist preacher gets moved around pretty often and said, hey, they've kept you here a long time.

Why have they done that? He said, well, he said, first off, I graduated from Southwestern Theological Seminary.

He said, some of my congregation, after I get done preaching and they walk out of the the building, shake my hand and say, preacher, that was a good Baptist message this morning. Now, he would dunk or sprinkle. He was a good man, preached the gospel. I said, well, what's the deal?

He said, well, preacher, I'm only one of three Methodist preachers that he knew of that preached the gospel. Only three that he knew of. That's sad, isn't it? That's sad.

So I just want to clarify, too, that I'm sad and mad that there are churches out there who do not preach a clear, concise, cool, make it so appetizing so that someone would accept Christ as their savior. Amen. All right, let's all stand. We'll have a time of invitation Almost said Let's be dismissed. Hymn 350. Wherever he leads, I'll go. Great hymn. After.

We pray, Lord, we thank you for salvation. We thank you for the wonderful gospel. We thank you for the sacrifice you made on Calvary for us, that we might have eternal life.

I do pray there's someone here tonight, maybe here tonight, who doesn't know you as their personal savior. Lord, I pray they might get saved tonight. I'm thankful, Lord, we don't have to work for it. I'm thankful it's free.

I'm thankful that you give it to us gladly. And I pray, Lord, that you would continue to help us to be a light to those around us. Help us to share the good news to those around us. Thank you.

We love you. In Jesus name, amen.