Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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Sister Sheila Puckett listened to this old sermon of mine from June 1, 1997, was blessed by it, and typed it out. I was reminded by reading the following excerpts of that sermon that no man can even desire the salvation that God has in store for His people without being helped by God to do so. There is nothing in man that desires the kind of salvation that is in Jesus. There is nothing in man that can even believe it exists, much less strive to attain to it.
God has a peace to give us that the world knows nothing about. You hear about the American army in different parts of the world "keeping the peace". That's mere propaganda. If there was peace in those places, those people wouldn't need an army to help "keep it". Armies don't keep peace; rather, with the threat of violence, they make people behave as though there was peace.
I was sitting in my house this past week, and the Lord showed me a picture of Jesus and me. In the vision, Jesus was taller than I, like a father and a son. I saw Jesus gently put his arm around me, and we were turning to walk away, together. The feeling of the scene I was watching was what impressed me. It was a revelation to me of what real salvation is. It is a forgetting, an eternal leaving behind. It is the permanent absence of all care. I felt something in that vision I have never felt before.
What I felt was a willingness, a heart-felt willingness never to think about this world again. Never. Not my past, not my successes, not my dear wife, not my beloved children, not anything. And the distinct feeling was, as Paul said in one place, "This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus." That is what salvation is. When Jesus puts his arm around you and takes you where he's going to take you, there is no irritation and no care that will ever be permitted into your life ever again. It will be so far removed from your life that you won't even know that it is not there. You won't even be aware of its absence! If you were aware of it, you would have to think about it. The Bible says that God's going to "wipe all tears from your eyes". That doesn't mean He's going to stand there with a handkerchief, and when a tear runs out of your eye, He'll wipe it from your eye. What it means is that you will be in a place where you will never have a reason to weep. You won't even remember the evils that you left behind.
Look at Isaiah 65:17. The prophet told us, "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind."
That doesn't mean that God will forget; He will remember, but you will not. You will not remember the United States of America; you will not remember relatives who perished in their sins. You will not remember the ancient Greeks and Romans; you won't remember sickness; you won't remember heat or cold, or anything else of this world. God won't allow it because it would disturb your rest.
Jesus said (Jn. 14:27), "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." This is the peace Jesus gives now, but it is only a foretaste of the peace to come in that new world God has promised.
"I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." You won't remember the stars, you won't remember the sun, you won't remember the oceans or the mountains of earth, you won't remember storms or sunny weather. None of these things will be allowed to remind you of this world.
When I saw Jesus put his arm around my shoulder to take me to that land, I felt a willingness to leave this world that I'd never felt before. I felt willing to completely forget the ones I know and love, if they go the other way. When you get to this place spiritually, men cannot turn you away from the right path. How can they have that power over your heart, when you are willing to forget them forever?
Until this week, I never understood what the "cares of this life" were, but now I do. The "cares of this life" are caring for this life, caring about this life beyond what's holy and temperate.
Psalm 37 tells us something about salvation's peace I want you to notice. Verse 10: "For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be." There's not a single person on that New Earth who will remember the names of Cleopatra, Muhammad, Julius Caesar, or Adolph Hitler. No one there will even know that such men and women existed, nor will they remember any of the infamous villains of history, or the dictators who were cruel to their own people, such as Joseph Stalin or Saddam Hussein. Nobody on that New Earth will even remember that famous men and women of earth existed; if you did, it might disturb your peace. It will not be allowed into that world! Never! But let's continue reading this Psalm:
"Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be. Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace . . ." Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace." You'll know when God's salvation is come when there are no wicked anywhere; wicked people disturb the peace.
None of us has ever yet been to a place where nothing bad could happen. Everywhere you've been in your life, you've found wickedness or danger. Everywhere on earth you have been, disappointment was a possibility. Somebody's stolen from you in this life; somebody's misled you; somebody's let you down. The mind of man cannot imagine what life is like in a place where those evils never happen. But within you, the holy Ghost is excited about taking you to that country, a place Jesus has prepared for you. "They that are led by the Spirit" are on their way there. That is where the Spirit is leading you. When you look around, and the wicked are nowhere to be found, you will be there. You will then be what so many are unwisely claiming to be already: a saved person. As long as you are in a world where the wicked also live, you are not yet saved.
We prove our hatred of this vain life by our zeal for the things of God, by our zeal for the word of God, by our zeal to do the will of God. You demonstrate hatred of sin by keeping the commandments of God.
If, in your heart, you are really willing to forget gluttony forever, you'll never overeat another time. If you're really willing to forget about liars forever, you'll never tell another lie. Sin has no dominion over you when you're really willing to forget sin forever. You won't be influenced by unclean spirits when your spirit desires to forget them. Sin does not have dominion over you anymore, nor does anything else in this world, when your heart is willing to forget about everything here.
Are you willing to let go of your desire for the praise of men? When you really are willing to forget it, you'll lose a whole lot of it. You'll lose a whole lot of it. When the dark spirit that is in this world senses that you desire to live in a world where it cannot live, it will hate you. And the people who are provoked by that carnal spirit instead of by the Spirit of God may at times behave toward you in cruel ways. Forgive them; "they know not what they do." They do not know that their actions are inspired by an evil being. Be thankful that you are being persecuted instead of persecuting others.
In Amos, chapter 5, we find one of the strangest warnings in the Bible. In verse 18, the prophet said to God's people, "Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD!" There were thousands upon thousands in Israel in Amos' time claiming to desire the Day of the Lord, just as there are millions upon millions now saying, "Oh, I wish Jesus would come back! I wish Jesus would come back!"
I have never felt what I felt when I saw Jesus in that little vision turning me away from all that is in this creation, forever. Looking at us both walking away, seeing him taught me something about myself, and I'll tell you about yourself in a few minutes. But the vision reminded me of a truth that I had known but didn't altogether understand; to wit, there is and always has been much vain talk about wanting Jesus to come back.
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! To what end is it for you? The day of the LORD is darkness, and not light, as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?"
One cannot desire the return of Jesus until he desires the end of this kind of life on earth because that's what salvation is for: to take us forever away from it, to destroy it eternally. As long as there is an attraction in your heart to this life, you cannot really want the day of Jesus to come because he is going to bring this kind of life to an utter end, with not even a memory of it remaining. No memory! Is that what you really desire? Are you really willing to forget, forever, your favorite person who does not believe? Are you really willing to forget, forever, your favorite past time? Are you really willing to forget these sunsets, your childhood home, all the pleasant memories of earth, forever? That's what "desiring the Day of the Lord" really comes to. It is an eternal forgetfulness. Are you willing to leave all this life behind and never look back, to be thoroughly satisfied with nothing but God? This is what salvation is! If you are unwilling to forget everybody and everything that you know in this world, pleasant and unpleasant, you don't really want to be saved because that's what God's salvation is. You're not really longing for the real Jesus to come unless in your heart you're willing to forget.
It hurts to remember. Think about it, right now. Some of your mothers and fathers went to their graves with no hope in Christ. There's a day coming in which you will forget them, forever. Their memory will not torment you anymore. It is the promise of God.
While you live on this earth, you will never experience the salvation I saw in that vision from God because everywhere you go, you're going to be reminded of wickedness. But you can have a foretaste of God's salvation in your spirit. You can be without sin on the inside. Sinlessness is the foretaste of salvation that the apostles preached. Without that foretaste, a person cannot even imagine what I am talking about.
Different religions have different definitions of what eternal salvation will include. Muslims teach that men who enter into paradise will be serviced by beautiful female servants as they recline on luxurious couches. Buddhists imagine an eternity of nothingness, no feeling, no thought, no desire, etc. Their salvation is no more than becoming a worthless stone.
The carnal mind of man invents its own definition of salvation according to its own ignorance and lust. But do you want what the real God has in store for those whom He will save? This is what the Lord said to me this morning: GOD'S SALVATION CANNOT BE DESIRED IN THE FLESH ANY MORE THAN GOD'S HOLINESS CAN BE DESIRED IN THE FLESH. Desire for God's salvation must be inspired by the holy Ghost just as a desire for God's righteousness must be inspired by the holy Ghost. As long as your fleshly desires are in control of you, you cannot desire what God's salvation really is. It is not a part of your world.
I don't want to be one of those people in the Lake of Fire screaming out names of people who no longer even remember me. I don't want to be in that place of eternal damnation, forgotten by all of you saints here today. Do you want to be in the number of the forgotten damned, to suffer anonymously in burning torment forever? I'd rather be among the ones who will have all of this world erased from their mind. I don't want to be forgotten. I am willing to be among those who forget!
"Look to the rock out of which you are hewn, look to Abraham, your father. I called him alone and blessed him alone." Abraham forsook the comforts and security of his home, leaving his father, his mother and his kindred, and he didn't even know where he was going. He only knew that he was following God.
Understand that, apart from Jesus, your "heart is deceitful above all things". It does not want the salvation of God. The heart of man loves the things of this world and does not want this world to end. You must forsake your "comfort zone", your way of doing things, in order to obtain the salvation of Christ.
God wants you to realize what is in your heart. The ungodly ways you once depended on in the flesh to "get you by" in this world must be forsaken so that you will be allowed to forget about it later.
The salvation of God, the real thing, not the salvation that ignorant men claim to have already, is the hope of every person who has received the holy Ghost baptism. No one else on earth has hope of God's salvation. If you have this golden gift, value it! It is a gift that the world despises, Satan envies, and the Father loves to give. If you do not yet have the holy Ghost, the wisest thing you can do right now is to seek it with all your heart. Jesus is coming, and "his salvation is with him".