Bristol Conference 1964 (Apostasy) - Part 7 — William MacDonald

Peter’s Prophecy of Scoffers and the Coming Judgment

2 Peter chapter 3 for our last study in this epistle. 2 Peter chapter 3. I think we'll begin with verse 3 tonight. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 3,. Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.

For by the world that then was being overflowed with water perished. But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us, were not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless, and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrecked, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Ye, therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. As we've noticed in our outline, this epistle has to do with false teachers, and in the third chapter we find this special aspect of these false teachers, that they're scoffers.

Uniformitarianism and the Flood as Divine Intervention

They're scoffers. They arise in the last day, and they scoff at the whole idea of the coming of the Lord. They say, we can live it fast and loose, we can play both ends against the middle, there's nothing to worry about, and they base their loose living and their scoffing on what we called last night the doctrine of uniformitarianism.

That is that all things continue the same from the beginning. There have been no changes. Everything works according to natural law, and the world is just going to go on indefinitely. And the idea of God stepping in and bringing this world in which we live to a climax, they just scoff at that whole idea.

And we noticed last night that this doctrine that they teach, the doctrine of uniformitarianism, is the basic doctrine of evolution. It's the premise upon which all evolution is based. The fact that God doesn't intervene, that there is no God, of course, but that he doesn't intervene in a miraculous way, and there have not been any great catastrophes or cataclysms in the history of the world.

And that brings us to verse 5. Verse 5 says,. For this they willingly are ignorant of, willingly are ignorant of, but that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.

Peter refutes their doctrine by saying, look here, God did intervene in the history of the world. There was a great cataclysm that took place, and that cataclysm was the flood, and that destroys the whole idea of the theory of evolution.

Now notice what it says. It says that the world before the flood was stored with the seeds of its own destruction. I think that's the most interesting thing. There was water above the earth, just as there is today, the clouds.

You know, the clouds, in a sense, are storing tons and tons and tons of water above this earth of ours, and for some reason the law of gravity doesn't take effect. Or some other power overweighs the law of gravity.

You know, it's a good thing all that water doesn't fall on us at once. We'd all be crushed to death. We literally would. And so this is what Peter is saying here, that there was water above the earth, and then there's water under the earth.

And do you know that water under the earth, it's under a certain pressure. Every once in a while you go along and you see springs with water bubbling up out of the earth. But there is a force that keeps the water down.

But apparently in the days of the flood, God released the restraint, and the water that was above came down, and the fountains of the deep were opened up. And this tremendous flood took place, and was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, cataclysms that the world has ever known.

Now it's an interesting thing to me that in our day, and in evangelical circles, a new theory has been propounded, and that was that the flood wasn't a universal flood at all, that it was just a local flood.

And it's interesting how all of the things we've been studying in 2 Peter are the very things that are being brought into doubt, doubts are cast upon them today. And so you're really not in the theological swim today, unless you're participating in this gigantic debate as to whether the flood was local, or whether it was universal.

But I want to tell you, if that flood was local, that was a greater miracle than if it was universal. You'd have to picture a gigantic body of water with vertical walls and nothing holding them up in the little place around that area of the world.

The whole thing is preposterous. And yet this is what men are saying today. They have to attack the universality of the flood in order to get on with their man-made theory. Now what Peter is arguing is this.

You say all things continue the same since the Father slept, but actually they haven't. God did intervene once in the affairs of the world, and he sent this worldwide flood. Now he said God is going to do it again.

He did it once, he can do it again. And he's going to do it again, only this time he's not going to do it with water, he's going to do it with fire. And so he says in verse 7, "...but the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.".

God’s Patience and the Call to Repentance

Now he said in the verses above that in the days before the flood, this world of ours was filled with the seeds of its own destruction, the water. Well now it's an interesting thing that in this atomic age, man has come to realize that the world is also filled with the seeds of its own destruction, namely atomic energy.

And they've been able to take and split the atom, and man has been able to take and cause these tremendous atomic explosions. And man is invading this whole area of matter, and how matter is held together.

And well, it's kind of a mystery, how is matter held together? They know that when they can break that, there's a tremendous explosion. And for the want of a better name, they say that matter is held together by cosmic glue.

Well, that's one word for it. Another word for it is God. And what this passage of Scripture is saying is that someday God is going to release the restraint that's holding things together. And I want to tell you, it won't be a man-made atomic explosion.

When this explosion takes place that Peter is talking about in this verse of Scripture, it'll make an atomic explosion sound like a firecracker, like some of the lady singers we used to shoot off when we were kids.

And that's exactly what it says here, is it not? The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word, this is the revised version, have been stored up for fire. Isn't that interesting? Stored up for fire.

If you told that to an atomic scientist today, I don't think he'd be too surprised. Twenty years ago he might have been, but not today, or at least thirty or forty years ago. By the same word, are stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

And so Peter teaches us here, I think I explained last night, that the heavens here don't speak of the dwelling place of God. Scripture speaks about three heavens. It speaks about the atmospheric heavens, that's the blue expanse above us.

It speaks about the stellar heavens, the location of the stars, and then it speaks about paradise, the third heaven, the dwelling place of God. This, when it says here that the heavens and the earth are going to be destroyed by fire, it refers to the atmospheric heavens and to the stellar heavens as well.

All right, then in verses eight and nine, Peter gives the reason for God's delay. The discoverers have been saying, ah, you're always talking about God coming in in judgment, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Everything's gone along, and evolution will continue to take its course, and the world is going to go on indefinitely. The idea of a climax ever coming is ridiculous, preposterous, and absurd. And so Peter takes us by the spirit of God behind the scenes, and he said, well, why the seeming delay?

And so in verses eight and nine he says,. But be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but as longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Now this is interesting. Peter tells us in the eighth verse that God doesn't live in a sphere of time. This is hard for us to understand. We think in terms of time. Well, we think 1964 years. Year of our Lord, 1964.

Nineteen hundred and sixty-four years approximately since the birth of Christ. But that's only because we live on this earth, and time is made because of our relationship to the sun. That's what creates time.

It's the relationship of the earth to the sun that makes us think in terms of days and months and years and millennia. But God doesn't live on either the earth or the sun. He's above the reach of all that, and there is no time with God.

And so it says here a thousand years, or as a day with God, and a day is a thousand years. We look back and think to the beginning of creation up to the present time, and we think, by, it's been a long time.

A long time, yeah, but it's not a long time with God. God can crowd into a day with ordinarily, you'd think, it would take a thousand years to do, and he can stretch out in a thousand years long suffering mercy that might have been executed in judgment in a single day.

Isn't this a wonderful picture of God? God lingering in loving kindness over this earth, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And I can't help wondering as we come to verse nine of this chapter tonight, if there's somebody here in the audience, and God has spared you, and God's wrath has been withheld, and time and again he's spoken to you to come to his son's savior.

I wonder what it's going to take before your stubborn will will be broken, and you'll bow in confession at the pierced feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a picture of God bending over this scene tonight, souls in the balance, God's mercy and longsuffering being extended so that you might be saved.

It reminds me of the Lord Jesus when he was up there on the top of the Mount of Olives, looking down over the city of Jerusalem, and weeping over it. I wonder if he's weeping over some soul here tonight.

The poet said he wept alone, and men passed by the men whose sins he bore. They saw the man of sorrows weep, they'd seen him weep before. They asked not who those tears were for, they asked not whence they flowed.

Those tears were for rebellious men. They asked not when, their source, the heart of God. The eye of God is downward bent, still ranging to and fro, where 'er in this wide wilderness there roams a child of woe.

And if the rebel chooses wrath, God mourns his hapless life, deep breathing from the heart of God, I would, but he would not. What a tremendously solemn thing. What a picture of the heart of God to get in the third chapter of Peter's epistle.

Longsuffering. He's not slack concerning his promise. He hasn't forgotten the promise that he's going to step in and bring sin to a climax. He hasn't forgotten that, but in the meantime he's lingering with longsuffering and love and grace, not willing that any should perish.

The Day of the Lord and the End of the Present Creation

Then it says in verse ten, But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Now here we're introduced to an expression, the day of the Lord, and I'd just like to say a word about that tonight. Last night we talked about the coming of the Lord, and we mentioned that the coming of the Lord, instead of being a single event, was really a period of time with various phases.

A beginning, a course, a manifestation, and a climax. Now the same thing is true, in a sense, of the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is not a single day of twenty-four hours. It's not even a single event.

But the day of the Lord is an expression used in the Bible to speak, to describe any period of time in which God punishes his enemies and marches forth to victory with his people. Let me say that again.

The day of the Lord is any period of time in the history of the world in which God steps out in punishment on his enemies and in victory for his people. For instance, in the Old Testament, when the armies of Israel would march forth to battle, the people would say, the day of the Lord.

In fact, that's what the writer of the hymn, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, had in mind. Just that same idea. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

And that whole hymn is based on the idea of the day of the Lord, that any day, any battle, when God is marching forth with his people and crushing his enemies. So in the Old Testament, for instance, in Joel 1 .15, and in Ezekiel 13 .5, which we're not going to turn to, Joel 1 .15, Ezekiel 13 .5, those expressions are used for past historical events, the day of the Lord.

But this expression, the day of the Lord, will also apply to the tribulation period. After the Church is taken out of this scene, there will follow a tribulation period of seven years, and this is the day of the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 5, you might like to look at that. 1 Thessalonians 5, and verse 2, it says, For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. And it goes on to describe this terrible period when God is going to pour out the vials of his wrath on a Christ-rejecting world, the day of the Lord.

Then thirdly, the day of the Lord applies to the millennial reign of Christ, the day of the Lord's victory, the day when he will have subdued his enemies, and when he reigns as a king in Jerusalem, sitting on the throne of David.

That's going to be the day of the Lord. If you'd like to see that, you might turn to Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah chapter 11, and we'll just read a few verses there to give you the picture. It's a picture of the millennial reign of Christ, and it uses that expression, the day of the Lord.

Isaiah 11, verses 10, first of all, says,. And in that day, and if you go back in the chapter, you'll find it's the day of the Lord he's talking about. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an instant of the people.

To him shall the Gentiles seek, and his resting place shall be glorious. It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people.

This is the regathering of the remnant of Israel, which shall be left from Assyria and Egypt and Patras and Cush and Elam and Shinar and Hamas and from the islands of the sea. And then verse 16,. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria, like as it was in Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

Now this is a picture of millennial conditions when God gathers his people from all over the world, the Jewish people, back to the land again. And verse 12 gives you further millennial themes. It says,.

And in that day, and it goes on to describe what it's going to be like in the millennium. And so the day of the Lord is, first of all, in the Old Testament, any time when the armies of Israel went forth to battle and the Lord defeated his foes and brought victory to his people, the day of the Lord.

The day of the Lord, the tribulation period, still future. The day of the Lord, the millennial period, the thousand year reign of Christ. And then finally the day of the Lord here in second Peter chapter three.

This is the destruction of the heavens and the earth at the end of Christ's thousand year reign. And so he says the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. That idea of a thief in the night has two thoughts connected with it.

A thief comes to steal, to take, to rob, and a thief comes unexpectedly. If you knew the thief was coming, you wouldn't like the house to be broken into. And this speaks of the terrible loss that will take place and the unexpected character of this day of the Lord.

Notice what's going to happen. The heavens shall pass away with a tremendous explosion, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat. Once again I say God doesn't have to use atomic energy to do this, but all he has to do is release the restraint that he is now holding on this universe of ours, and every created thing will just dissolve with a gigantic explosion and with a tremendous burst of heat.

Holy Living in Light of Coming Judgment

Now, notice what Peter, the exhortation he bases as a result of that. The believer's conduct and attitude in view of the day of the Lord. He says, verse 11, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?

I'd like to just take those words, all these things shall be dissolved. All these things shall be dissolved. Look about you in the world today. Look at every created thing. Think of this country of ours and of the world of ours.

The Washington Monument, the Merchandise Mark in Chicago, all the buildings in the world. Look at them all and write under them this epitaph. All these things shall be destroyed. The man who lives for material things is living for passing bubbles.

Somebody has said, a fool is a man all of whose plans end at the grave. A man who's lived for what he can touch and handle and taste and feel. For the word of God is ever trying to draw us from material things to that which is eternal, to spiritual reality.

May the Lord speak to hearts tonight through this verse of Scripture. All these things shall be destroyed. It should speak first of all to those of us who are Christians that we won't go through life hugging material things, but that we'll go through life with a vision of that which lies beyond.

It should speak to those who are making their nest in this world, unsaved people who are making their nest in this world. It's all going to be destroyed. One day Spurgeon was walking down in a park in London, and he saw a bird building its nest in one of the trees there, and he came back at four o 'clock in the afternoon, and the axemen were hacking away at the base of the tree.

In the morning the bird was making its nest there. In the afternoon the tree was about to be felled. People who are living for this world, who don't trust Christ, who don't live for eternity, they're like the bird building its nest in a tree that's soon to be destroyed.

And so he says, all these things shall pass away. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Just think of it. Just think of it. Every person in the room tonight is going to stand before God.

Just think of that. To make some of the things we're living for today look pretty sick, doesn't it? Pretty worthless. Every one of us is going to stand before God. Reach down and feel your knee. That knee is going to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Feel your tongue in your mouth. That mouth of yours, that tongue, that speechbox is going to confess Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father. The Bible tells us if we don't do it willingly down here, we'll do it in utter subjection when we stand before him.

It's our privilege to come to him now and trust him as our Savior. If we don't do it, we'll bow the knee to him as our judge, and that tongue of ours will be forced to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Then it says in verse 12, looking for, eager expectation, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.

Now you say, why should a believer be looking for and earnestly desiring the day of God? Here's a day when this universe, the way we know it, is just going to go up in a puff of smoke, and the Bible says we ought to be looking for it and earnestly desiring it.

When all the wicked will be destroyed and cast into everlasting perdition, the Bible says we ought to be looking for it and earnestly desiring it. Why? Well, we ought to look at things for a while from God's standpoint.

God's been putting up with sin and immorality and degradation and rottenness for centuries. And that the day coming when God's cause is going to be vindicated, God has allowed men to shake their fists in his face and to say all manner of evil blasphemies against him, and the heavens have been silent.

But I want to tell you that the day when God is going to emerge victorious in this scene, and when God is going to have the last word, and everyone who has divine light in him should be looking for that day and eagerly desiring it, that the name of our Lord might be vindicated throughout all this universe, and that sin might be put down once and forever.

Now that's the glorious day that Peter is speaking about. Now, some people translate this verse looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God. But you know, that's quite a mistake. You can't hasten the coming of the day of God.

By lives of holiness and by lives of dedication and by lives of consecration, it won't hasten the coming of the day of God one bit. The day of God is fixed in God's eternal purposes, and our lives won't hasten it, but we should be hastening or earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God.

Now, I notice that three times in this chapter, the Apostle Peter speaks about the heavens and the earth being destroyed by fervent heat. Why three times? Well, a threefold cord is not easily broken. In the mouths of two or three witnesses shall everything be established, and I think the Spirit of God is purposely repeating this over and over again to show the solemnity of it all, to write it deep in human minds and hearts, that this world, this world is going to be destroyed by fervent heat.

The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Dear friends, when that day comes, there'll be only one thing that will really count, and that will be, what have you done with the Christ of God?

Nothing else will be of importance in that day. He says in verse 13,. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. This is the theme where the Lord Jesus Christ will have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, that God the Triune God might be all in all.

This is the eternal state that Peter is speaking about in verse 13, the eternal state, a new heaven and a new earth. Now, a lot of people want to know, well, what's the difference between the new heavens and the new earth, and who will dwell on the new heavens, and who will dwell on the new earth?

Well, a lot of Bible teachers suggest that, that saved Israel will dwell in the new earth for all eternity, and that the church will dwell in the new heaven. Well, it's an interesting thought, but I'm not sure you can prove it.

I think it's just enough to accept the fact that there will be new heavens and new earth, and God will be all in all. Well, then in verse 14, we learn that we should have as believers a zeal for peace and spotlessness and blamelessness in his sight.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless. Now, every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and has a positional standing before God where he's without spot and blameless.

But this is of the believer's practical condition, and it tells us that we should be looking for the coming of the Lord, and that our hearts should be in a state of peace in the midst of turmoil and changing circumstances and rising and falling kingdoms.

And it also tells us that practically our lives should be without spot and blameless in his sight, so that when he shall appear, we might have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. It's all too possible for a Christian person to be saved by the grace of God, and yet go home to heaven in a very real sense with stained garments and with a wasted life as well.

Persevering Against False Teachers and Growing in Grace

Then the apostle Peter tells us also that we should understand the reasons for God's delay. An account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation. That means that we as believers are just to understand that the reason for God's delay is that salvation might go out to men and women throughout the world.

And that doesn't mean that we should just sit back passively and see it take place, but that the Lord should use us in seeking to win others to himself during this day of God's wonderful patience. Now Peter says that Paul had written to them in a similar vein according to the wisdom given to him, and he had said the same thing as in all his epistles, speaking in them of those things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction.

He says, I'm not the only one that says this to you. Go and read the writings of Paul. He says the same thing. And in all the other scriptures, they have a united testimony. And incidentally, it's nice to see that Peter here puts Paul's writings on the same basis as all the other scriptures, the scriptures of the Old Testament.

He says that the writings of Paul are divinely inspired, just as the writings of the Old Testament are. And then in verses 17 and 18, you have closing exhortation and benediction. First of all, you have the negative, don't be led astray.

He's been speaking about the false teachers that would be abroad in the last days, and he says now, don't be led astray by them. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.

Be on your guard, he says, to these Christian believers. The last days are coming. They're going to be days of darkness. You're going to see your friends drift off into some of these evil doctrines and evil practices.

Be on your guard. See it doesn't happen to you. And then the positive side of it, the growing grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the way he began the epistle, telling us that the knowledge of God is what's really important, and this is a safeguard of God's people in a day of apostasy and declension.

And then I'm especially pleased with that last of the last verse. The way he closes it, he says, to him be glory both now and forever. To whom? Well, the preceding words tell you our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

He says to him be glory both now and forever. Now, you know, if the Lord Jesus Christ were not God, it would be blasphemy to say that, because God has decreed that only God is to be worshiped. Only God is to be reverenced and homage done unto him.

And here is Peter saying to Jesus Christ, be glory both now and forever. What does it mean? He believes in the absolute deity of the Lord, Jesus Christ. What a wonderful thing, an epistle dealing with false teachings in the last days, that Peter's closing note should be the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Urgency of Salvation Before Judgment

That's the cardinal truth of the Christian faith, and that's one of the truths that the false teachers are hacking away at today. Now, in the closing moments, I'd like to speak especially to those who might be here without a Savior.

This is a very solemn chapter of the Word of God, and it's to my shame and to the shame of God's people that we can even speak about it without tears in our eyes. But I want to tell you it's a solemn thing to think of living souls, living souls, perhaps in our meeting tonight, men and women, born for eternal glory, and yet by deliberate choice, refusing the Son of God and plunging down to eternal fire.

And I'd like to tell you, as simply as I know how, what it would mean to you tonight to trust the Son of God and to go out one of those doors as saved as God can make it. We have a young fellow at our school, some of you know him, his name is Larry Smith, and he was down at Fort Bragg, he was a paratrooper.

And one day he was in my office, and I said to him, tell me about your first parachute jump. He said, I'll do it. He told me about this plane flying over the countryside in North Carolina, thousand feet above the ground.

Two doors open at the front of it, one on either side. The fellows are sitting there, the command comes for them to stand up, and Larry moves toward the front door. And there's the plane, and it's way above the North Carolina countryside, and he's standing there with his hands against the side of the door.

He's got his parachute, his main parachute, on the back and his reserve on the front. And he's standing there at the front door of the plane, and the noise is deafening, the noise of the engines and the noise of the wind hissing by the door.

He has to wait for a green light to go on. The green light goes on above him, he doesn't even see it. But the man behind him sees it, and gives him a slap on the side. And when he gets that slap, he hunches his head forward, and he jumps out of the plane and starts down.

And he counts 1 ,000, 2 ,000, 3 ,000, 4 ,000, he looks up, and there's a great canopy of the parachute billowing out above him. And within just a few seconds, he sees the ground racing up at him. And he prepares, and when he hits the ground, he does what he calls a PLF, a parachute landing fall.

And he's down safely in the ground, and then he's on his feet watching his friends come down. You know, it was an act of faith. It was a real act of faith. Do you know that when that young fellow did that, he trusted himself, every bit of him, to a piece of silk?

That's what he did. He said, I believe that that piece of silk will operate, that it'll save me, that it'll bring me down to the ground in security. What do you think of that? Listen, there's more to it than that.

I don't know how many of you have ever been in the service, and have ever come in contact with parachute riggers, but I've been in contact with them. We had them at our base in the Navy. I never knew any fellows who drank more heavily than they do.

And you know, that day, Larry Smith trusted himself to a parachute rigger whom he had never met. He didn't even know who he was. And for all he knew, that fellow was just a sock, just a drunkard for all he knew.

But never mind, he trusted himself to him, he hunched his head forward and jumped out of the plane and went down. You know, men say, I wish I could trust the Lord Jesus. You tell them your testimony of faith in Christ, they say, I wish I could believe like you believe.

Listen, that's just an excuse. They can trust a piece of silk. They can trust a parachute rigger whom they've never met, and who for all they know, might be a deep-dyed drunkard. They can trust him, but they can't trust the Son of God.

And my dear friends, when you've come before the Lord, that you acknowledge the fact that you are a sinner, when you're utterly broken at Calvary, so that you don't have a good word to say in defense of yourself, and you take that step of faith and say, Lord Jesus, I trust myself to thee, spirit, soul, and body, the best way I know how.

I commit myself to thee for the saving of my soul. The minute you do that, God saves your soul, and you're as saved as God can make you. God saves you on the basis of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary's cross 1 ,900 years ago.