Sunday Night
Sunday Night - June 23, 2024
Well, good evening to you here in the chapel, you who hereby internet and by other means. This is the first Baptist Church of Algiers. This is our Sunday night service. I'm glad to be back with you. And we've had a gracious day here, praise the Lord for the services and for the praise and prayer service. So let's start our service tonight in the Red Book number 21, "Come Thou Almighty King" verses 1, 2, 3, and 4. Let us thy name to sing, help us to raise, Father of glorious, for all victorious, come and reign over us, angel of days. Come Thou incarnate word, heard of thy mighty soul, the prayer of day. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. Amen, our Father, we thank you for bringing us back here. Thank you for all the services of the day, for all the blessings that you've given us. And Lord, I come now looking to thee one more time for this time here. Lord, that you'll give me grace to stand and lift up Christ one more time. Call centers to repent, call centers to seek the Lord. Have mercy on us, Lord, bless us. Bless each one here, Lord, each one that has come, we ask you for each one, we ask you to bless them, that you open understandings, that you open hearts and Lord, send thy Holy Spirit to make the words real to the heart. Help us, Lord. Help us, ask you for the Internet and all the means that the message goes out, Lord, that you use it according to thy will and for thy purpose. Help us, Lord. I do ask you for those on the prayer list, the sick, the afflicted, the bereaved, Lord, we just ask you to have mercy, Lord, you know each problem, each need. We ask you, Lord, for those that are here, crying out to be saved, Lord, we just ask you to have mercy, grant faith, bless, Lord, help, have mercy, guide us, keep us now. Bless us, Lord, according to thy will and ask it all in Christ's name, amen. So we have had some gracious times lately, today we, I enjoyed the funeral services for rather John Curtis and we're sad to see loved ones pass on, but we all know that's part of life and it's coming for each one of us. The Lord blessed, we had gracious time there at the funeral, there at the grave side and may the Lord use those times that, that breaking of the heart from the passing on, may the Lord use it, may it, may the Lord, you might say take advantage of the broken hearts, may we all realize that that's coming upon us, but I'm glad to be here, I do want to remind y'all that we have still have CDs, flash drives, booklets, all those things still available. The Voice of Truth magazine will be coming out, probably Lord Will and going to mail this week, brother Freddie is able to get it printed, so I'm hoping he will, hope the Lord will raise him up, y'all pray for him, but the Lord's blessing us, we can't say that the Lord has left us and I thank him for it, but let's get our red song book now turned to number 449, wonderful grace of Jesus, verses 1, 2, and 3. The grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin, how shall my tongue be striving, where shall his praise begin, taking away my burden, saving the spirit free, for the wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching His name, wonderful the match was grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of the Lord, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, reaching to all the Lord's, by the heaven of God, same as the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace, greater than the holy grace, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty holy grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus, greater than the holy grace of Jesus. Amen. The wonderful grace of Jesus. Can't be, you might say, searched, found out to perfection. We can't, we can grasp it just a little bit, but we can't, we can't get all of it. We're just not able. And I want to look tonight, I've titled it The Simplicity of Salvation. And so I want to look at it from a point of simplicity in how simple, easy, plain salvation is. And certainly whenever we consider the Bible says to forsake all, I'm not trying to say it's, it's, it's an easy thing to forsake all because I believe that's a difficult thing. And that's because the heart is set on it. We, we find that we grow into these things through our life and we set our heart on them gradually more and more and it becomes a difficult thing to forsake all that we have. And it's a difficult thing to seek the Lord. It's difficult. These things become difficult by nature. We hate God. That makes it difficult to do because it, what it amounts to is we have to do something that we hate. Don't like, don't want to do it. It's a difficult thing to come and reason together with the Lord because we have such pride and self-righteousness. Those things we think because of our self-righteousness, we think that God is unrighteous. We hold to our own righteousness and because it's contrary to God's righteousness, one has to be wrong, one has to go. And whenever we come before the Lord in our own self-righteousness, then that's the same as coming before God and saying, "You're wrong and I'm right." And that's, all these things are, are what makes salvation difficult. Salvation itself is not difficult, but getting to the Lord. It's striving, that working, getting to Christ. We don't see the truth of what we really are as the Lord begins to show us what we are, make it plain to us, cause us to realize it and understand it. Then we begin to forsake it. We begin to see it as it is. We begin to see the error of it and the Lord gives us grace to turn away, to forsake it, to look to Christ. And that's, that's the working of the Holy Spirit. That's, that's what the Holy Spirit does. He shows us what we are by nature and then He gives us grace to forsake it, to turn away from it. And once the Lord shows us, we'll then, because the, the inherent nature that we have, we all have some basic understanding of right and wrong. And when the Lord shines that light, then it all falls into place and we see it as right and wrong. It makes sense to us then to forsake it, it becomes easier to turn away from it. But salvation itself is not difficult. It's that journey. It's that journey through that straight narrow way is difficult. But I want to look at the story of name in the leper. They're in 2 Kings chapter 5. And I want to look at him and how the Lord worked curing him of his leprosy and, and kind of relating that to salvation. So let's read 2 Kings chapter 5 down to that 14th verse. Now, Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel, a little maid, and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, "Would God my Lord, there were with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his lepercy?" And one went in and told his Lord, saying, "Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel." And the king of Syria said, "Go to, go and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel." And he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, "Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his lepercy." And it came to pass when the king of Israel had read the letter that he rent his clothes and said, "Am I God to kill and make alive that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his lepercy? Therefore consider I pray you and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me." And it was so when Elisha, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, "Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel." So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot and stood at the door of the house of Elisha, and Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again unto thee, and thou shalt be clean." But Naaman was wrath and went away and said, "Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." Or not albana and parfar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel. May I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage, and his servants came near and spake unto him and said, "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather than, when he saith to thee wash and be clean?" Then he went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Now, this story of Naaman, his leprosy, being cleansed, leprosy is likened many times in the Bible to sin. Leprosy and sin can, you might say, share the same condemnation because there was no cure for either one, no cure for leprosy, no cure for sin, only God can put away sin, only God can heal the leprosy. But we find here, Naaman, we find he's one of God's elect. Naaman didn't know it at the time. He didn't know the Lord had chosen him, but God had chosen him before the foundation of the world. And God here causes his Word, the Word of God, to come to Naaman through this little Israeli made. Now, we think of the Word of God going out, fulfilling God's purpose, however it goes, the Lord has a purpose for it, has a place for it to go, a purpose for it, thing for it to do. This shows the power of God in calling his people from all over the world. He allowed this young girl to be taken a prisoner so that she could be brought into Naaman's house that she might speak of the Lord. Tell of the wonderful things that the Lord can do. The Lord used it to bring the Word to Naaman, and Naaman might be saved. We have to remember that when bad things happen, we think of them as bad things, but the Lord is all providence, is planned, is prepared, is part of the Lord's plan. Remember of Joseph how he was sold by his brothers, sold as a slave into Egypt, and how the Lord raised him up from a slave, even a prisoner, locked in prison for many years, and the Lord raised him up and made him a prince in Egypt, the second in command of the whole country of Egypt. And in doing so, he saved Egypt and the lands around Egypt from starvation during a famine part of the Lord's plan. I can't help but think that Joseph spending so much time in prison speaking of the Lord and the wonderful things of the Lord, we don't know what the Lord has done with that time in prison. We have that record of the baker and the butler, I think, and other than that, we have a little record of what the Lord did through Joseph there in the prison, but I can't help but think there was lots more. Maybe not, but that's the Lord's business. But look at Naaman. Think about Naaman, a leper, how he wanted to be cured of his lepercy. Think about it. Think if you were a leper, wouldn't you do just about anything to be cured of it? Anything that awful, contagious disease? Wouldn't you like to see it gone? I'm sure Naaman was thrilled at the thought that it could be put away, that it could be cleansed. But I want to look at one other thing. Naaman wanted his lepercy cured. He knew what lepercy is. He had it on his body, he hated it, he despised it. Every lost sinner goes about his life, wicked, sinful, and until the Lord awakens him, he's unaware of how awful sin is. Unaware. Now we think about Naaman there with his lepercy. How could he go about his life being unaware of his lepercy? And I'm not saying that he did, and I don't believe he did. I think he knew his lepercy when it came upon him. But a lost sinner doesn't realize their sinfulness, their wickedness. It's not plain before us. We don't realize it, we don't understand it. We don't count it as an awful thing like Naaman did. Every lost sinner goes about unaware. But when the Holy Spirit comes and awakens you, then that sin becomes like the lepercy. You know about it. It's there. You see it, you feel it, you understand it, and you hate it, it becomes awful to you. And a lost sinner, an awakened sinner, when the Lord's awakened you and you see the awfulness of sin, you'll be just like Naaman. Whenever you think about having it put away and having it gone, my sin can be put away. What a gracious thought. You'll find yourself like Naaman. He would do anything to be cured. And I'm sure that he was glad to hear that he could go to Israel, and the prophet there could cure him, heal his lepercy. He was thrilled. And I believe that a lost sinner is happy to know that Christ can put away your sin. When Naaman heard this, the king gave him a letter. He gathered his stuff up, and he took off. I don't believe he wasted any time at all. He was happy, eager, ready to go at the thought of being made clean. When the gospel goes out and a lost sinner hears that he can be saved, I believe that when an awakened sinner hears that he's happy. Now the thing is we've most all of us grew up with that knowledge. It's not something new. And I believe because of that, that joy has decreased. Our unbelief thrives. We don't believe. Naaman believed. He headed out. He got his stuff together. He headed to Israel. a lost sinner, an awakened lost sinner, one that sees his need, will be happy to know that Christ died for him, and he'll be like Naaman. He'll be thrilled at the thought. He'll be ready to go. He'll do whatever is in his power to find Christ, to get to Christ. When a lost sinner realizes that Christ died to save him, that lost sinner will do all that's in his power to get to Christ. Now look at Naaman. When we talk about being saved, look at old Naaman. And this is the obstacles that you have to go through, a lost sinner. That ninth verse it says, he came and stood at the door, the door of the prophet. Now he had been a leper for a long time. And he always thought, I believe he thought that he would die a leper. He never saw hope before. But now there's hope. I can be cleansed. I can be healed. Lepercy can be put away. Think about it. When he left Syria, he wanted to cover all his bases. He said, I'm going to take money, plenty of money. I'm going to bring clothes. I'm going to bring gifts. Whatever I can bring, to make things better, to make the prophet more willing, whatever I can do, I'll do it. He came with lots of money, lots of servants. He came in his pom, his military garb, his uniform. I believe his soldier, a bunch of soldiers with him. He was ready to see the prophet. He wanted to see the Lord work of miracle and heal his lepercy. Think about it. Name, and the Bible says, at first verse it says he was an honorable man. He was a mighty man in valor. He was a great man with his master. He was the captain of the host. A general, probably the top general in the Syrian army, highest in rank of any of them. Great man. Think about today, if a great dignitary from a foreign nation came. Think about how they come. When they come, when they travel, they dress in their uniforms or fancy clothes. They drive the big cars with flags flying, motorcycles leading the way. Think about Naaman. Think about the horses, the chariots that went before him, the soldiers, all those things. I believe there was a great company that went with him. Naaman came up to the prophet's house, stopped by the door as if to say, "Here I am. I'm Naaman. I'm the great general of the Syrian army. I'm not just some pauper. I'm a great man. I'm a mighty man of valor. High ranking officer. The king. Have the king's honor. The king's blessing. Know the king personally." And then on top of that, I brought a lot of money with me. Think about it. I was able to figure out, he said, he brought 10 talents of silver in today's money that equates to about $360,000, the silver. And I can't imagine the value of the gold he brought. I think it said 10,000 coins. What is it saying? 6,000. 6,000 pieces of gold. I don't know. No idea what a piece of gold is, but it's likely that the gold was worth as much as and probably more than the silver. So it wouldn't be far off to say that he brought close to a million dollars there to the prophet. And we can't imagine the clothing. So, name and thought, "I'm somebody." His pride went before him as if to say to the prophet, "I'm not just anybody. These old peasants that maybe want to bother you all the time, you may not want to heal those, but I'm somebody. I'm worth healing. I got money. I can give you lots of money." And all these things, how his pride went before him, how he presented himself there before the prophet. And I think that many of us want to come before the Lord in such a manner. We come thinking, "I'm worthy of salvation." Not that we would say that as such, but we come to the Lord. We think, "Well, I'm not a bad person. I don't smoke and I don't drink and I'm not a dope head and I go to church every Sunday and I've done that for years and I'm a good person. I go to work. I take good care of my family. I have a good job. I have a decent life. People like me all around. I ain't never been in jail and all these things." And we hold that up before God as if to say, "I'm worthy of salvation." But I want to tell you that's nothing but pride, nothing but pride, speaking to God. But you're going to say, "Oh, I'm not proud. I ain't coming to the Lord like that." But are you? Are you? Think about it. God hates pride. God hates it. Look at the scribes and Pharisees there in the time of Christ. They were the most religious of all the people they could boast more than anybody else of their righteousness. Their righteous living, yet they went about trying to kill Christ. How are you different? There's a deception somewhere. You don't have a clear picture. Whenever a discrepancy comes up in the Bible, we have to understand there's no error in God's Word. If there's a problem, if something doesn't line up, it's not with the Bible. It's not God's Word. The problem with you and me. Now, I can imagine that Naaman would maybe have said, "Oh, well, I'm not a proud man. I just want to be treated with some respect." But isn't that pride? Ain't that how we want to act? Naaman was expecting something. He had his own ideas of how the Lord would heal him or how the prophet would come out just like you and me. Coming to the Lord, we have our own ideas of what the Lord's going to do, how he's going to bring us, how he's going to awaken us, how he's going to give us faith, how he's going to save us. We have our own ideas. We've already got it worked out in our mind. But I want to tell you, however you've got it worked out, it's wrong. It's always wrong. It's wrong because we have a depraved nature and that depraved nature will always take us down the wrong road. That depraved nature doesn't think like God. What was Naaman thinking? Did he deserve something from the prophet, from God? Maybe he thought his rank in the army had value to the prophet. Maybe he thought the money that he brought would influence him to heal him. Maybe he thought he had something that would please the Lord. Maybe he thought he was acceptable in the eyes of God because of all of his life and his rank and his money and all those things. What are you thinking? What are you thinking? What's going through your mind? We find that man has nothing that God wants. Nothing at all. Nothing that God will accept even if you try and to push it off on him. God don't want it and he won't have it. Everything that we have is polluted and corrupted by sin. In the eyes of God, the only thing that a man can call his own is his sin. Everything else that we have, God has given it to us, permitted us to have it. And the only thing, the only way you'll ever be accepted by God is in Christ. Being covered by his righteousness, washed in his blood, made accepted in the Beloved. Only in Christ. Look at name and he expected the prophet to come out to talk to him, to wave his hand over the spot that was with the leprosy. Call on the Lord, make a big show, work a miracle. What are you expecting the Lord to do when he saves you? What do you think it's going to be? Name and say, "Surely he'll come out for me." Surely he'll come out. I'm somebody. What do you think the Lord's going to do for you? When the Lord saved me, there was no palm, there was nothing, just a quiet, peaceful revelation to know that Christ died for me. That's all. Nothing else. Wasn't what I was expecting. Naaman, because of his pride, his rank in the army, and surely it took him a long time to work up to that rank that he held. Because of his position in society, he knew the king personally. And back in those days, it was a great thing to know the king, to be able to speak to the king. It was a great thing. It made you high ranking in the town and society. People respected you simply because the king noticed you, respected you, spoke with you. Just knowing the king, if he had nothing else, made him a great person in society. But he had the king's ear, he had the rank in the army, he had all his soldiers with him, he had the money, and he thought it would get him something. But your rank, your money, your status in the world doesn't mean a thing to the Lord. You don't mean a thing. Naaman would not accept the fact that he deserved nothing from God. He deserved nothing. And every law center is in that same condition you deserve nothing. The only thing you deserve, the Lord's holding it back from you because you deserve judgment, condemnation, hell, that's what you deserve and the Lord's withholding it. He's putting it off. His long suffering is giving you another opportunity to come and be saved. Won't you come? God knows the thoughts and the intents of the heart, your heart, my heart. God knows. And he says, come and reason together. He says forsake your thoughts because he knows your thoughts and he knows how wrong they are. He calls you to come. He tells you simply believe, just like he told Naaman, go and wash. Did you ever think about Naaman there? It seems that he came with all his entourage and his chariot and his soldiers and all his servants and whatever he had. And he rolled up to a stop in front of the prophet's house and suddenly a man busts through the door, runs up to him and says, go wash seven times and you'll be clean. And I can just imagine old name and go, what? I didn't even tell him why I'm here yet. And now he's telling him to come out and talk to me, just automatically knows. But what about the money I brought? What about the clothes I brought? What about the letter I brought from the king? He says, let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts. forsake him. Let him go. God's ways are not your ways. Naaman's pride almost prevented him from obtaining a cure. He went away Roth. What about you? You're not going away Roth, are you? Are you angry about what the Lord has told you? Your pride, is it going to prevent you from obtaining salvation? Is it? The Lord gave Naaman faithful servants. People that cared about him came up to him and said, Father, Father Naaman, don't be so angry. If he would have asked you or told you to do some great thing, you'd have jumped right on that. But he just told you to go and wash. I mean, that's an easy thing. Anybody can do that. Go and wash. The Lord sent him faithful servants to reason with him and has not the Lord sent you here, faithful pastors and preachers and others to gently reason with you and to tell you Christ died for you. Don't go off. Don't throw it away. Don't feel like it's an impossibility. I can only imagine that Naaman, when he said, go wash seven times, and old Naaman said, man, look, I've washed a thousand times, and it ain't never did a thing for me. Unbelief. And you've been told a thousand times to come to Christ, to believe, and you're just like Naaman. Unbelief rules in you. But I want to urge you one more time, come on to Christ, call on him, plead with him. He can't lie, and he says, ask, and he shall receive a simple, plain, easy to understand, but we won't believe it. We won't believe it. We say, well, will I ask one time way back, and the Lord didn't do anything? Have you asked just one time? When we look at God's Word, we find the examples. The examples show us that it's not just one asking. It's a continual coming, begging, pleading, I won't let you go, except you bless me. That's what the Lord expects. You're going to have to come with the resolve. I must have Christ. I must have Christ or I die. What do you say? For sake of all, even your own life also. And you're going to have to forsake everything in the world and seek the Lord with your whole heart and don't take anything for it to push you back. Don't take no for an answer. I've got to have Christ. I must have Christ. I must have Him or I die. Old name and came there with his own thoughts, his own ideas, his own works. I believe every example of how a law center can come is represented there in name and came with his pride, his self-righteousness, his money, everything. However, a person can come outside of the will of God. That's how He came. And the Lord told him, "Go wash. How simple could it be? How simple?" Just go down there, wash seven times. You'll be clean. And how simple when the Lord says, ask, you'll receive, believe, and you'll be saved. How simple, how plain, what more could you expect? How simple and plain, yet how unable we are, plead with the Lord. Call on Him. Ask, and He shall receive. Lord, help us. Our Father, I thank You for this time. Thank You for Thy word, for Thy examples to us, for Thy promises. Lord, for the blood of Christ, the washes, wider than snow, for His sacrifice. Lord, thank You. Thank You for saving just an old center like myself. And Lord, I do plead with You. Have mercy on our people. We do ask You for Shirley, for Linda, for these here, for Brother Harvey, Brother Ronnie, all these Lord that come here outside of Christ, we ask You for them. Have mercy on them, Lord. Turn their hearts, cause them to be concerned, cause them to look to Christ, help us, Lord. Bless us, guide us, keep us, go with us, Lord, through the coming week, and ask it all in Christ's name. Amen.