and believers. And so how wonderful to have someone who is qualified and able to face Almighty God and answer for me and have my sins, who I deserve to die and bear the punishment of my sins. But those sins were placed upon one who never sinned. If ever a person had a right to live, the Lord Jesus did. If ever a person had the right to die, I did for my death. But here, the one who had a right to live took the place of the one who deserved to die, that I who deserved to die because I had sinned against God might live and live forever. What a wonderful salvation we have in Christ Jesus. Salvation means when a person is saved, I found a substitute. Christ also at once suffered for sins. He that just for me the unjust that I might be brought to God. That's a wonderful thing. That's what the gospel is. And also I have found mercy. one who is saved hath found mercy. And that's the cry of the repentant, the public, and God be merciful to me, the sinner. And when a person is really saved, he's going to heaven, it means he has found mercy. Before a merciful God, it's wonderful to know that I have found mercy. Also a saved person, A person who has God's salvation has been redeemed, redeemed by precious blood. You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. Therefore you can glorify God in your bodies and your spirit, which are his. Jesus paid the fair. He paid the price. He redeemed me. Spirit, soul, and body, I am his. That's what God's salvation means, the one who has it. I am redeemed. Another thing it means a saved person has been forgiven, forgiven of all his sins. That's a remarkable statement, but that's what the Bible says. God has forgiven us all iniquities. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from A-L-L, all this. How wonderful is the blood of Christ. It can reach back into the past and apprehend my first sin. It can reach on into the future and lay hold of my last sin, and all my sins were laid on deep. Jesus bore them on the tree. God who knew them laid them upon him, and believing I am free. All my sins are forgiven. That's true of a born-again Christian. Your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. He says in the first book, your sins are forgiven. Before you say, Does that mean I can get saved and then do as I like? Well, I got saved and I do as I like. I've been doing it for fifty years, studying my Bible, serving the Lord, trying to win souls to Christ. That's what I like. I certainly am doing what I like. I'm seeking to know more about my Bible. I'm seeking to see people want to Christ. and seeking to help God's people. Every day I'm doing what I like. Before I was saved, I did what I liked. I liked to go and have a big time, go to dances, play hockey and fight and things like this. I did what I liked. That's what I wanted to do. But when I got saved, I started doing what I liked now as a Christian, a born-again Christian. Every day I do what I like. You say, Brother Wilson, don't you like to drink? Heavens, no. Unless it melts. Don't you like to caution swear? I should say not. Well, you mean to say that you get along without those things? I certainly can. I tried them. And they didn't satisfy me. The fellow by the name of Sam Ellis, he was well-to-weight champion, and we used to run around, and he was fighting together. And one day after I was saved, he came over, and I was drinking at the faucet in the railroad shop where we both worked. And I didn't know that he was standing behind us until I got through taking my drink of the faucet. And it was water. And so... He said, Pidgey, he used to call me that when I played hockey, Pidgey, because they couldn't win me. He said, when are you coming back with us? I said, what do you mean, sir? When are you coming back? Let's go to some dances. I said, Sam, seeing you're right here at the water, I'm going to quote what the Bible says. Who shall drink of this water shall thirst again? I said, Are you going to take a drink now, and that'll last you for the rest of the month? Poor little man. He said, I'll go back here every hour. Well, that's what it was when I used to run with you. I wanted the same thing night after night, day after day, week after, same old thing. But I said, when I found Christ, I found living one. Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could take a drink of this water in this pocket, Sam, and it would last you for a month or maybe the rest of your life? Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but says Christ, Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. Sam, I got a drink of something that satisfied my heart forever. I got a peace the night I found the Savior when my father appointed me to the Lord in the kitchen of our homes. That peace has never left. It's there. And I love it so much. I don't have any desire to go back with you. And Sam, I've tried both sides. I've tried what you've got. Yeah, he says, I know he has. In fact, I introduced him to the young lady who became his wife. I introduced him to all of Banyan that are down. I hope he never had it against me. But I know what it was to run with him. But I said, Sam, I've tried something else. I've found Christ. And Sam, I hope and pray that someday you will join me. But don't you ever expect me to join you? I've tried what you've got, and it didn't satisfy me. I found Christ, and he does satisfy. And so that's it. When you find Christ, you are saved, really born again, and your sins offer you. But you say, supposing after you're saved, you're not perfect, don't you sin? Yeah, I have a wicked old nature in here that does. I still have that old man hanging around, the old nature. And he still wants to cut up and have his way. But I've got a new man, a new nature. They that are in Christ, our new creature, old things pass away and all things become new. And the new life. is what helps to keep the old life where it belongs. The old life used to be king. Now he served subjects. The new life. The life in Christ is Christ himself. When he's on the throne of your heart and he's given full sway, sin has to be a subject in subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ. An old devil sometimes, he uses that old nature to try and rob the Christian of his joy and his pleasure. Sometimes he doesn't. Well, then what happens? Well, then whenever a Christian allows the devil to go in between him and Christ, that Christian unhappiness. Now the devil can't keep you from going to heaven, but he'll make you mighty miserable on the way. He'll do his best to upset you and rob you of your joy in the law. If the devil can cause a Christian to sin against Christ, he's delighted. He wants to bring this honor on the name of Christ. And so what does a Christian do? Just like I did when I sinned against my father, he would lay down the law. later to be followed by the strap. And when I disobeyed my father, I didn't cease to be his son, nor did he cease to be my father. But I did some things when I disobeyed him that I wished I hadn't. For he was one who lay on the board of education on the seat of understanding. And I'll tell you, he better. He believed in patting his children on the back, low enough, hard enough, but often enough. Disciple. And if you were a born-again Christian, you really been saved, and you start disobeying God's words and bringing disgrace on his name, and he with you. And if he doesn't, then are ye not children? You're not born again. It just means it. When a cloud comes over the sun on a bright day, does the sun cease to shine? No. But you are in the shade. Something's come between you and the sun. When a Christian sins after he's born again, God still shines, and God still loves his child. But a cloud has come between you. and the smile of the Father, and you're the one that's suffering for it, the cloud doesn't affect the Son. It affects you. And when a cloud comes over your life as a Christian, comes between you and the Son, the S-O-N, you're in a cloud. You're not enjoying the smile, the radiance of the presence of the Lord. And when you confess that, and really confess it, he said, I'll brought out as a thick cloud thy transference, and as a cloud thy sin return unto me. Your sin that caused the Jews committed, that caused you to lose fellowship, that true was under the blood. For there's only one purgation for sin, and that's the blood of Christ. Whether it be in the past or the future, the blood of Christ is the only cleanser for sin. Your relationship with God has not changed when you're born again and after you've paid, but your fellowship has changed. And it's not God's fault. It's your fault. A man and his wife, there they are. They've had their honeymoon. They're saved as that relationship, husband and wife. But I tell you, they don't always get along like honeymoon days. The relationship of Christ. but communion is often broken. Fellowship has been broken. The only remedy for that is to confess, to fault one to another in the presence of God, to get this thing reconciled and go back and enjoy that fellowship, that relationship again. And so it tells us what the Christian has. He's found a substitute. He's got mercy. He's redeemed. Sins are all forgiven. He's on the way to heaven. How wonderful. Are you on the way to heaven a happy Christian? Or are you on the way to heaven an unhappy Christian? Out of fellowship with the Lord. A young fellow said to me when I first came to Albany, he said, I'm a Christian, but he said, I have doubts. I have doubts. All you do. You read your Bible every day? No. When did you read it last? You can't tell it. Well, do you pray every day? Well, no. You can't say it. Do you witness for the Lord? No. Do you go to church? Prodigy? No. You say you have died. I have a big one. I doubt you're even saved. You're doing the very thing to prove that you're not a Christian. After a person's sake, you, ladies who've had your children, if you had a baby born to you, and it didn't want any food, it refused to eat, and it went on day after day and week after week, you'd be calling in the doctor. There's something abnormal about this child that doesn't have an appetite. about the first time it opens its mouth and hollering for something. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. When a person is born again, they are born with an appetite, an appetite for the Bible. The Bible is the food, it's the milk for the born again Christian. It means this, a Christian has an appetite. a desire to read this book and know something about the author of this book. Well, I have a friend, you know, some of you know, George Hollingsworth from Augusta. When I was up there New Year, he was planning on taking a trip. Well, he's on one now. He's gone out to Hong Kong, Far East. That man goes, I went with him into the travel agency. He got every bit of literature he could find on where he was planning to go. He transferred to this country. He was reading everything. He was trying the man in charge of the agency. There were all kinds of information about where he was going. He wondered where all he could about it. Saying when I got saved, I want to know a whole lot about the place I was going to heaven. And especially when my father died. I tell you, I love my dad, but I wanted to be sure. I want to know all about this place called heaven. And then when my mother died, oh, I want to know all about this place called heaven. Will we know loved ones there? What will life be like? Friend, that's the normal condition of a Christian, a love for this book. To know more about Christ, you see, to know more about heaven. the place I'm going to spend each earth. And the more the Christian is taking up with the next world, the less he'll have a desire for this world. That's what Paul says. Set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth. It's a wonderful thing. Just to be occupied. With that which satis, satis, you've got to give it up anyway. and every passing day brings it near, when we'll fall victim to the undertaker's layaway plan, and it'll all be over. Why not live without your sacrifice? And then the Christian not only has sin forgiven, he's cleansed. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleansed us from all sin, the righteous, than the driven snow. Then you have peace. You're saved, you've got peace. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have. Not we're going to have. We have it now. We have peace with God, our Lord Jesus Christ. How wonderful to have peace. Peace that floweth as a river. Peace. Deep in the human heart of the one born again is a calm. There's a holy calm that the storms that rage on the surface of the ocean can't interfere with us. Deep in the bed of the ocean, they say, those who go down to these depths, there's a holy quietness. There's no ripples there. It's a world so different to on the surface. There's a holy quietness. There's a holy stillness down deep in the bed of the ocean. That's like the peace of God in the human heart. Peace, divine stillness, holy quietness. Heavenly tranquility is what characterizes God's throne. God's presence is not in any way affected by the storms that rage on earth. There's nothing else but divine stillness there. The more we know of that God, that source of all peace, the more we're going to have that inner peace. Peace is, and know that I am God. What enables us to navigate life from water, meeting all these storms that rage, physical, financial, and violent otherwise, it is to know deep down within there is a peace. An inner peace. A holy peace. A peace called the peace of God. When you think of God being upset, then you think of God being disturbed. No. Christ is my peace, give I unto you. If some man come up to me or some woman, their life was a stormy one, they say, well, I want to give you some my peace. Thank you. Keep it. When the Lord Jesus says, My peace, give I unto you. Thank you. That's the kind of peace I want. That's the peace I want, the peace of God. My peace, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled. He believed in God, but he also in me. And here's the text for those who have heart trouble. It's a good cure. Let not your heart be troubled. He has the answer. And so the Christian has peace. The Christian also has nearness. They were able to draw an eye to God. In the Old Testament, they couldn't draw an eye to God. Under the law, when the law was given, they had to stand at a distance. A fence was put around the mountain. They couldn't pass that fence, or they'd be stricken kids, even an animal. Yes, the law made man stand at a distance because man couldn't keep the Ten Commandments. It condemned them. But on Calvary, instead of man being kept in an abeyance at a distance, he can draw near. I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. You don't have to be afraid to come to Christ. The little children came near and sat at his knees. There's nothing offensive or repelling about the Son of God. He loves you too much. I care not how greatly you sin. I care not how deep you have sunk. The Lord Jesus, He wants you to come in. He wants the rest. The rays of the Son are never defiled. The rays of the sun can shine on the worst test pool on the face of the earth. Millions of germs and malaria in every drop of that water is. The rays of the sun can shine on it. And the rays of the sun are not in any way decided. The Lord Jesus Christ can shine on the violet heart. He is not affected by that heart indeed. The Lord Jesus wants you to come near. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He wants you to come near. Don't be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then liberty is another thing. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. All the liberty Christians have in Christ. Liberty. not liberties of sin, but liberty from the bondage of sin. Liberty to do the will of God. What a wonderful liberty this is. We enjoy the liberties of our country. Yes, we're not living behind the iron curtain where they persecute you for having a Bible or trying to meet with other Christians. We have wonderful liberties in this country. Friend, the liberty that we have in Christ is more wonderful still. A liberty that yours. Don't try to be legal. This liberty makes you free. Free from sin. Free from this wicked ungodly world. Yes, what freedom the Christian has. A freedom to go into the presence of God by faith. Freedom to approach unto a holy God and have communion and fellowship with. What a freedom. The born-again Christian has all these things. That's what it means, do you say? All these things belong to the one who is safe. They're all yours by genuine faith in Jesus Christ. He says this. If you don't enjoy these things, then... you have believed in faith. Your faith is empty. It's mere vanity. That's what he's talking about. So we've spoken on it last week. What the gospel is not, then what the gospel is. Now, I only expected to just make that opening remark what the gospel is, and I've been at it for about thirty minutes already. what their gospel is. But I don't make any apologies for letting Christians know what their gospel is, nor the unfairly saved person finding out what their gospel is and what it means to be saved. How wonderful. Now notice some other things. Our subject is frustrative vanities or a variety of vanities. Vain faith. Vain faith. Then you have another thing that's vain. In Galatians two-twenty-one, he says, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If righteousness is obtained by keeping the Ten Commandments, then Christ died in vain. His death was a terrible tragedy. His death was a big mistake. If man could be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, For if man could be saved by doing right, his own righteousness, then God made an awful mistake in sending his son into this world. And the Lord Jesus Christ unnecessarily went to the cross and suffered that ignominy of death if man could save himself. It's when man could not save himself by keeping the law or his own righteousness. Then God gave his Son. When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungod. The death of Christ was absolutely in vain, an empty, meaningless way that man could be his own safe. Man couldn't buy it, he couldn't earn it. He couldn't manufacture it. Man's a lost sin in it. Only one could take this place and pray for his sins and save them and take them to heaven. And so he's talking about a thing righteous. It says if righteousness come by the Lord, then Christ is dead. He died in death. Our old friend, he didn't die in death. Millions of people are now in heaven. and ninety millions more are on the way to heaven because Jesus died. He did not die in hate. And this very world is going to be blessed in the future because Jesus died. All God's groaning creation is going to be delivered from a bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the people of God. There will be a new heavens and a new earth. We're in perithracism. We're all the regimes of all ages. We'll rejoice together. Because Jesus Christ did not die in pain. His death was a glorious success. That's right. But this picture is righteousness come by the law, by keeping the same commandments of Christ, died in death. O Son of God, that virgin birth of life, that perfect sinless life, and the blood drops of Gethsemane, beneath the shades of those olive trees, the anguish of hearts, the torture at the hands of his enemies, when they put the crown of thorns on your head. They gave you a mocking robe. They plucked the hair from your cheek, they spat in your face. They fouled the knee and mocked it. They took you out to nail you to a cross and dropped that Roman gibbet into the ground before your bones were out of joint. And for three dark hours the wrath of God was poured out upon your holy soul to their glory. It was all in days. Man should have saved himself. No. It wasn't in days. Those sobs and sighs and sufferings of the Son of God on God's office is made it possible for us to be saved today in this universe to be established in righteousness. There's absolutely no hope for the human race. No hope for the world. apart from the sufferings and death of the Son of God at Calvary. He didn't die in vain. His death was necessary, and thank God his triumphal and his triumphal. Everything God said man would receive and enjoy, and what this world will receive and enjoy, what the new heavens and the earth will be like. is the outcome of Calvary. He did not die in vain. Another thing in vain, he tells us over in Second Corinthians, six one, you have received the grace of God in vain. It's not talking about you received and then you lost it. No. He's talking here about the opportunity. the privileges that God has given man to be saved, allowing him to live and continue to live, that he might be saved. God says all that grace is in vain. It hasn't accomplished what I had hoped it would. I've waited long. I've stripped up your heart's door knocking. patient. All in days. All in days. Sometimes in the paper you read about someone living to be a hundred years, hundred and five. I met old Mr. Mark Nopping Green, for he lived a hundred and ten years. I told you about that. I went out to see him. As I hear him shaking hands, of the man ten years younger than Moses. He lived a hundred and twenty years. And he was absolutely in the dark about salvation. I asked him what he was depending upon to take to heaven. He says, well, just do the best you can and be good to your neighbor. The next week, he was arrested for going to shoot his neighbor's neighbor because he allowed his dog to come down and chase his children. And he was good to his neighbor. That was depending on what heaven was. He's not going to make it. The poor old fellow didn't know Christ. At a hundred and ten. The grace of God to that man was in vain. God gave him a hundred and ten years to accept his son, and he didn't live. These are things that are in this. We haven't time to grin to another world's sake for that next week in James one, twenty-six. That man's religion is in vain. Vain religion. And there's another one. In vain you do worship me, teaching for doctrines and commandments of me. Vain religion. Vain worship me. Yes, there are a lot of vain things. In the sight of God they mean nothing. They're just empty. They're gapers. Their vanity. Over against these vain things, you have the reality. The real thing. in a person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He never changed. He was saved yesterday, today, and forever. How wonderful to know Christ. How wonderful to say he's mine, all mine. And if you like, I said it before. I look upon myself as a little sheep of a great shepherd. And he gives me as much time and attention and care as if I were the only sheep he has. You can go out and look at the Son. You can say, I've got a whole Son to myself. You sure have. A Christian can look at Jesus Christ and say, I have a whole thing to myself. No matter what time of the night and day I come to him, he's listening. No matter what time of the day or night I need help, he's helping. That's the kind of sage in that. This goes far beyond church membership or doing your good life or living your good life to be saved. Salvation and preservation in that salvation and satisfaction in that salvation is in a living, loving person. And he can do everything. I have everything. All things in Jesus I find. Friends, why don't you want him this morning? What have you against the Lord Jesus Christ that you don't want? Have you ever done your heart to me? He's all together loved. He's more wonderful than I ever dreamed when I accepted him at nineteen years of age. I only touched the hand of the garment of his glory and beauty. And today, as I study my Bible after fifty years, I'm like a child paddling on the beach of a mighty ocean with its depths and its depths. This book is all about that blessed one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing vain about him. Nothing empty about him. He's reading. He's reading. Do you know him? In that sense of reality this morning. If not, why not? The Lord Jesus loves you. He's proved it in language unmistakable. He's proved it at the cross. He loved you so much. He went to that old rugged cross. And he faced God for Lester Wilson. Oh God, Lester Wilson's sin. He deserved to go to hell and he sure did. I'll take his place, put all his sins on me, and I'll suffer for him. I'll bear them. I'll receive a punishment, punishment for him. And if he accepts me, all the sins are gone, and I'll take him to heaven to be with me and light me forever. That's what happened to the thief. The thief hung beside the Savior. One repented the other day. That poor repentant thief he turned to the sea. He had no life to commend him to God, no works that would give him merit. He couldn't live a good life in the future because he wasn't going to live long enough to do that. His nails held his feet hand in hand. He couldn't walk into a baptismal tank. All he did was look at that man on the middle cross with something unusual about him. And he said to his companion, We received our duty awards. We received justice. We received the duty awards of our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss of it. He says, Lord, remember me when you commend your deeds. Lord, the Lord didn't say you're a dying thief. You come into my kingdom, you wicked wretch. Look at the way you've lived all your life. You took my name and did. No. When that thief says, Lord, remember me when you come into my kingdom. Can you see a smile break over the face of the son of God today? Shall thou be with me in paradise? You'll go with me sweeping through the gates of paradise. That's the Savior we preach and present this morning. Will you receive him? Will you receive him now? Shall we pray? Our Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into thy presence, how we thank thee for thy Son, thy Holy Son.