Not for Ladies - Just for Men
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"My Anchor Holds!" | September 2020
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Terry Kendrick is a full-time evangelist out of Walls, Mississippi.
“Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Hebrews 6:17-20) We have an anchor, and that anchor is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is anchored in God Himself. Our life today is like a ship that is on the sea that we are on called the world. In this world we are like that ship and the sea is troubled. We are tossed to and fro many times. The lost know nothing about the promises of God, but many, many Christians, I’m afraid too many, stagger at the promises of God instead of not staggering and trusting the promises of God. Many of us are weak in the faith to say the least. A large percentage of who is sitting in our churches are carnal at best, instead of spiritual. The reason for that is because we don’t yield ourselves to the Spirit of God. We yield to the flesh. Because of that, we pay more attention to our flesh than to our spirit, or the Spirit of God. Because of that, at most, we come to church on Sunday morning and we feel the Spirit of God in the singing, and we feel the Spirit of God in the fellowship, and we feel the Spirit of God just walking into the house of God. I mean it is a joy to be here. Once you get here, isn’t it a joy to be in the house of God? Don’t you just get strength from walking in the door? That strength is short-lived, for Monday morning you are right back where you were. That is not the way it is supposed to be, my friend. That goes to prove that we have a carnal life instead of a spiritual life. So today at best we are carnal, and we need to have the Spirit of God upon us for strength that will stay and remain. Do you think Abraham wanted to take his son to the mountain to sacrifice him? No, and God didn’t ask you if you wanted to serve Him either. He asked you to give your life a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. Yet we don’t do that and that is why we don’t have any strength when we leave the church building. Instead of having that strength that will carry us across and believing when we get into the ship of this world we’re not going to sink out in the middle, but we are going to go to the other side. To have that strength, we have to yield ourselves to Him. Go back over there in verse 17, and I want you to see what it says: “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,...” What does that word immutable mean? That word immutable means not susceptible to change. His promises are not going to change. His promises are incapable of change. They cannot change. You mean if I do something wrong they are not going to change? No. You mean if you don’t serve Him they are not going to change? No. The promises are not based upon what you do, but what He has done and what He is going to do and what He said He would do. Whatever your life turns out to be doesn’t have a thing to do with whether God’s promises will ever change or not. Whatever your circumstances are in this life, whatever you go through, whatever storm or trial that you endure is not going to change His promise, not one iota. It’s going to stay the same no matter what. Do you know what that is? That’s an anchor! It never changes. I don’t have to worry about God changing. I don’t have to worry about Him changing if He gets mad at me. I may have to worry about His whipping, His chastening hand for His disobedient child, but I don’t have to worry about Him because He is not going to change. Do you know what that is? That’s an anchor. It is something yo can trust in. It is something that is always going to be here. It is something that is never going to change. It’s always going to be as strong as it ever was. It’s never going to change. That’s an anchor. Stop and think about that. You let your mind ponder on that for awhile. Our lives are the vessels on this storm tossed sea, the comfort, the peace, the joy, the love, the expectation of life is the precious cargo upon this ship. Heaven is the safe harbor for which we sail, and it isn’t going to change either. It’s always going to be there forever. You don’t ever have to worry about somebody dropping an atomic bomb on Heaven and causing it cease to exist. You don’t have to worry about any dictators taking Heaven over and changing it. It is always going to be there. “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2) Boy, what an anchor! The trials, the temptations, the struggles, the pain, the sorrow is the storm of life that beats against our vessel. It threatens shipwreck. We have need of an anchor. If you don’t have that anchor, you’ll be shipwrecked. If we don’t have that anchor, it will all be over. If we don’t have that anchor, you have nothing to trust in. If you don’t have that anchor, your ship is adrift on a storm tossed sea and no hope lies within. This old world needs an anchor. It is being battered by sin and the devil, and it is sinking fast. Many a ship has already been lost because it has no anchor. We see the devil in every way. I could stand up here and spend the rest of my time telling you about how the devil is battering our ship. I’m talking about a godless education program in our public schools. I’m talking about a government that is kicking God out of everything, even trying to take In God We Trust off the money, taking God out of the courtrooms of our land, even trying to remove the law so they don’t have to look at it in the Ten Commandments. That is not including the pornography crowd, the homosexual crowd. That is not including Hollywood, the perverted crowd. I’ll guarantee you today if you are without that anchor, your ship is adrift and you have no hope whatsoever in this life without that anchor. We as Christians have an anchor for the soul. That Blessed Hope is our Anchor. He is our Blessed Hope. Every decision in your life, what is it based upon? Is it based upon your flesh and what you think and how you feel and what the world does? Or is it based upon this blessed Book right here? Is it based upon Him today? The decisions of your family, of your job, and of your church, and the way that you live your life and what you do with your children, is it based upon this Book right here, or is it based upon what somebody else said -- Dr. Spock, some book or TV show, or some heathen? What is it based upon? If you’ve got the anchor today, that anchor will never fail you. You say, “Well, it looks like it failed,” but that anchor has never failed. It is always there. It will never, never, never fail you. It’s there. I’ll prove it to you from the Word of God. My life, me standing here today, is the proof of an anchor. Had it not been for that anchor when my life was battered and torn and shipwrecked, I wouldn’t be standing in this pulpit. I know wherein I speak. I have an anchor! The anchor holds! When you are doubting, the anchor holds. When you are depressed, the anchor holds. When you are discouraged, the anchor holds. When you are defeated, the anchor holds. When you’ve lost a battle, the anchor still holds. When you are sick, the anchor still holds. When you are financially in trouble, the anchor holds. When all of your plans and your dreams have vanished, the anchor still holds. It always holds. Thank God, I don’t hold it. It holds me. You can be in a ship and hold that anchor all day and it isn’t going to do you a bit of good, but when you throw it out and let it grab ahold of the rock, then you are no longer holding it; it’s holding you. The only way it is going to work is when it holds you. Quit trying to hold onto the anchor and let it hold you. Why don’t you give up trying to hold onto the anchor? You are trying to hold onto your finances, trying to hold onto your job, trying to hold onto your children, your marriage, your family, your ministry. You are trying to hold onto every thing around you. Why don’t you just let the anchor hold you for awhile? That takes some faith, doesn’t it? Like the preacher gave an illustration about salvation. He said that a little boy was hanging on the side of a cliff, just hanging by a branch and the branch was cracking. He said, “Oh, God, help me.” A voice came out of nowhere and said, “Do you want Me to help you?” He said, “Yes.” He said, “Then turn loose and let Me help” That’s what God is going to ask you to do is turn loose and let the anchor hold you. You can’t hold the anchor, it won’t do you a bit of good. “Preacher, I thought that is what I was supposed to do.” No, you are supposed to let it hold you. That’s faith. You holding onto the anchor takes no faith, but you turn Him loose and let the anchor hold you. That is the faith God is trying to get you to understand. You can’t do it yourself. It’s that faith. Why does this anchor hold? #1. my anchor holds because of that special work God does in my soul. Hebrews 6:1-2 says, “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.” God gave me eternal life when He saved me. I didn’t truly have a life till He saved me. All I had was disaster and trouble and heartache and pain, and one trial and trouble after the other. But when God saved me, He lifted me up out of the miry clay and put my feet upon a rock, and He established my goings. He gave me a life. I don’t have to lay that foundation anymore. Now I need to leave that foundation and move on. Some of you have never left that foundation. “What do you mean, Preacher?” You are still worried about your salvation. You still don’t know 100% for sure whether you are saved or not. You still doubt every time you come to church, there is that little bit of doubt in your mind and heart. “Am I truly saved?” Every time the invitation is given, you’ve got something stirring in your heart. Let me tell you something. You’ll never, never, never trust the anchor until you’ve got the foundation sure. After you’ve made certain that you have turned from sin and turned to Jesus Christ as your Savior and only hope of Heaven, then you need to go on. You need to grow. You need to mature. You need to have faith and trust the anchor. You need to step out. Launch out into the deep. You don’t need to just hang around the foundation. You need to grow. What kind of house would it be if you just walked out there every day and looked at the foundation? “I got me a foundation.” Great, what are you building on it? “I don’t know, but I got me a foundation.” Six months later, when are you going to build that house? “I don’t know, but I got a good foundation. You ought to come and look at that thing.” You say, “That guy is nuts.” We are too, if we don’t go on after we’ve laid the foundation because we miss out. We don’t get to live in the house and enjoy it. We don’t get to enjoy using it as the family home. We don’t get to enjoy nothing if we are just hanging around the foundation. Jesus gave me a solid foundation. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (I Corinthians 3:11) I’ve repented of my sin and all those dead works. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6) Like the maniac of Gadara and the woman at the well and Zacchaeus up in the tree, God saves from the uttermost to the guttermost. God saves those who think they have everything and got a chip on life, and God saves that one right out of the gutter -- the drunkenness and the vomit and the stench. God saves them both the same and gives them both the same foundation. All the ground is level at Calvary. I love that song, “He came to me.” What a song! “That’s why He died on Calvary, When I could not come to where He was He came to me.” You think, “Preacher, I’ll get saved when I get ready to. Don’t push me. Don’t try to drag me down the aisle.” It wouldn’t do any good. Many folks think they’ve gotten saved like that because they came down and said a prayer and they read some Scriptures that some personal worker showed them and told them if they would bow their head and say the words they would be saved. They did it, but their life never changed. Nothing ever happened. Do you know why? There’s got to be a real transaction between you and the Lord Jesus Christ. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:...” (John 6:44) Only the Spirit can open your eyes, and only the Spirit can enlighten your mind, and only the Spirit can show you that you are a lost sinner, depraved and ungodly. He alone can do that, nobody else. Momma can’t do it. Daddy can’t do it. I can’t do it. Preacher can’t do it. Nobody can do that but God Himself. Once He opens your eyes and you see that you are a depraved sinner and on your way to Hell without God, nobody will need to drag you down the aisle. You won’t care who is watching. You won’t care where you work or how much money you’ve got. You’d flood down that aisle with tears down your face and say, “Oh my God, I’m lost. I need to be saved.” Jesus came to me. He sought me first. He did a great work in my heart and raised me spiritually from the dead. He created a new heart in me and gave me a new desire. He grafted me into the vine. He nourished me and is helping me to grow into His likeness. He has done a great work in me that I could not do myself. Neither can you. You can join the church, get baptized, take communion. It’s not going to help you. It’s not going to take you to Heaven, soothe your conscience. It might give you some good feelings, but as far as giving you eternal life, you are just as far from it if you have never put your trust in Jesus Christ to save you. “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” My hope is not built upon the church. My hope is not built upon the preacher. My hope is not built upon the fellowship here. My hope is not built upon what I’m doing here. My hope is not built upon anything like that. My hope is built upon what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary and that hope lies within my chest and that is my anchor. It’s that blessed hope. My hope lies within the One Who came and died for me. It doesn’t lie within me, or my baptism, or my good works, or church membership. My hope is in Jesus Christ, the One Who birthed me from death unto life, and did a great work in me. You say, “Preacher, how do I know I’ve been birthed from death unto life?” Old things are passed away. Behold all things become new. “How do I know, Preacher?” Because He said that His Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a son of God. “How do I know, Preacher?” Because I can’t live that old life I used to live. I just can’t do it. Something burns within my breast every time I sin against God. Something grabs ahold of me and won’t turn me loose till I get right with God. I mean something is different. It’s not the same as it use to be. It’s different. You can’t tell me that Somebody as big as the Holy Ghost of God comes into your life, and your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit and you don’t know it? I just don’t understand that. Many are sitting in our churches today hoping, thinking, praying. “I hope so. I think so. I’m pretty sure.” God gave us a know-so salvation. If you are not 100% sure that Heaven is your home and you are God’s child through the new birth, you better make today the day that you get it settled. #2. My anchor holds because my sin debt has been paid in full. Hebrews 6:3-6 says, “And this will we do, if God permit. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” My Bible says you can’t lose it. You are birthed, born. You can no more lose your salvation than this lady down here could ever say that child is not her son. You say, “Well, she can deny it.” She can deny it all she wants to, but that child came from her womb, is her flesh and blood, and he is going to be her child no matter what he does, how he turns out, or what happens in his life. That will always be her child. It’s already settled. If you have been saved, you are birthed into the family of God. You are a child of God. You can’t lose it, but if you could, He said you can’t. Do you know what that is? That is an anchor. Jesus paid it all. The sin debt has been paid in full. All to Him I owe. Sin has left a crimson stain, but He washed it white as snow. Praise God for that. “...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;...” (Isaiah 1:18) No man has ever been saved twice. I’ve heard people say it. “Well, the first time I was saved...” No, no, no, the first time was the only time. There is not any other time. You may have doubted it and prayed for reassurance, but you are only born spiritually one time. Let me say this to you, and I don’t want to make you doubt your salvation over this. This is me. Ever since the day I got saved, I never wanted to be saved again. It took care of it. Now before I got saved, I was constantly under conviction. Every chapel period I went into, every time I went home, every time I was under the preaching, something in my heart was grabbing hold of me saying, “You are going to Hell with your eyes wide open. You’ve had every opportunity.” I’d hold on to that pew and think, “I ain’t going. I ain’t going. Everybody thinks I’m saved. I’m not going down there. I’m not making a fool out of myself.” If somebody would ask me, “Brother Terry, are you saved?” “Yeah, I’m saved.” That is the way you do if you are trying to fool everybody. That is what they say at the door while they are holding that Budweiser in one hand and Winston in the other, “Yeah, I’m saved.” That isn’t the salvation I got. Buddha might have saved you. Hare Krishna or Allah might have saved you, but Jesus didn’t save you if it made no difference in your life and your desires. When He saves you, He takes it all. He didn’t just cover your sin; He took it. I could understand if He covered it, how it could show up again, but He didn’t cover it. The blood of bullocks, lambs, and goats covered it, but when He came and paid in full, He took it and it is not there anymore. When you get saved, your salvation is settled. Why? Because sin has been paid for. Wouldn’t I look stupid walking into a suit store and say, “I want to buy this suit.” He says, “Fine.” So I take out my wallet and I dish out the money for it and give it to him. I walk outside. I walk back inside and walk up to him and say, “I want to buy this suit.” He said, “You just bought the suit.” “Well, I want to buy it again.” He’d say, “Go get those fellas in the white coats and tell them to come quick. Something is wrong with this fella.” I paid in full and when I bought it, it was mine. I wore it. I put it on. It clothed me in righteousness. It covered my filthy rags. It covered all my self-righteousness. Now when God looks down upon me, that new suit that Jesus bought for me, He doesn’t see any sin. All He sees is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that I’m clothed in. That is my anchor. Hebrews 1:3 says, “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;” He, Himself, Jesus Christ, not Allah, not Buddha, none of the rest of this mess. He, Himself, not the blood of bulls, goats, and lambs. He, Himself, died for me and purged my sins, made me white as snow. That’s what the Bible says. I want you to know when Jesus stretched out His precious hands on the cross of Calvary and the blood was dripping from His brow and His body, He cried out, “It is finished,” and it was finished. It was paid in full. You might say, “Preacher, I just don’t believe that.” Then you can believe a lie and cause yourself to be damned to Hell, if you don’t want to believe what God’s Word says. It’s your choice. Believe a lie and go to a devil’s Hell or believe the Gospel and be saved and born again as a child of God. I’m glad my anchor holds today. I’m glad I’m not holding onto God, but that He is holding onto me. #3. The anchor holds because it is secured by God Himself. When it comes to God’s promises, He could swear by none greater than Himself. Look at Hebrews 6:13. “For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself,” There is none greater than Him. That’s an anchor. If you are looking for somebody greater, you are wasting your time. There is none greater. “But, Preacher, you don’t know how hard I work for God and serve Jesus.” There is none greater than you can swear by than Himself -- the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no surer foundation than that of God. God said, “I’m going to secure you, Abraham, and I’m going to give you everything I said I would give you.” You don’t have to hold on or pray through. You don’t have to wonder if He remembers the day you got saved. The Bible says in II Timothy 2:19, “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his...” He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:” (John 10:27) He knows which ones are His. All He has to do is speak and you come running when you are His. There aren’t too many that come running when He speaks. You say, “Preacher, you are not trying to say that most of the people in this auditorium are lost, are you?” I’m just preaching the Bible. “As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it also be in the days of the coming of the Son of man.” He couldn’t even find ten righteous. As it was in the days of Noah, the coming of the flood, there wasn’t anybody but Noah and his family, the rest of the known world was lost and died and went to Hell. You say, “Do you think you are the only one saved?” I think the only ones saved are those who trust in the finished work of the cross of Calvary. Those are the only ones that are saved. The Lord knows those that are His. He can call them out by name. There may be a lot of peoples’ names that you do not know who pass through this church, but there isn’t a one that God doesn’t know. He knows their names, their hearts, their thoughts, their prayers. He knows what they act like. He knows what they believe. #4. The anchor holds because it is stuck in The Rock. Jesus is the Rock of my salvation,. He is what I trust in. He’ll never, never move. He is that anchor. “Upon this rock, I will build My church.” Our text says, “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;” Verse 19 says the anchor is sure and stedfast, and He entered into the holy place into the veil. When He went behind the veil, He secured us on a rock. Thank God this Rock is Jesus. Yes, He’s the One. This Rock is Jesus, the only One. Be very sure your anchor holds and grips the solid Rock. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. That house that was built upon the Rock, the winds came, the waves came and tried to knock it down, but the Bible says it stood. Do you know why? Because it was on the rock. “I don’t understand, Preacher, how the storms can come into a home and cause divorce and havoc, and it is supposed to be a Christian home.” I don’t understand it either, but I know what the Bible says. The Bible says that if it is built upon the rock, it will last. It will not be destroyed. Maybe something was wrong with the rock you built upon, and it wasn’t built on Christ. Some of you think you have an anchor, but the trouble is your anchor never gripped anything. When the tragedies came, it didn’t hold. When the winds blew, it didn’t hold. When the trials came, it didn’t hold. You need something that will hold. That is that anchor that is anchored in the Rock. In Romans 8:33-39, the Bible says that nothing shall separate us from the love of God. It gives you a long list of things and then it says nothing shall separate us from the love of God. My anchor holds and nothing shall separate me. Three questions and I close. #1. Have you got an anchor? I didn’t ask you if you had church membership. I asked you if you had an anchor. I didn’t ask you how many times you read the Bible through. I said, “Do you have an anchor?” I didn’t ask how much money you gave to the church. I didn’t ask what position you hold in the church. I didn’t ask you if you’ve been baptized. That is always the first answer I get when soulwinning. “Well, I’ve been baptized in such and such a church.” I didn’t ask you that. I asked if you had an anchor. Do you have an anchor today? I know your ship is being battered. My ship is being battered. These young preacherboys, their ships are being battered. Do you think the devil just lets them to go out and preach the Word of God and take a stand for God without a battle, without a fight? Do you think the devil wants your household to be a godly home that uplifts the Lord Jesus Christ without a battle? Do you honestly think that is going to happen? When people whine and cry, they say, “Oh, Preacher, it is just so hard.” Do you know what they are telling me? They don’t stay in the Bible. Because if they stayed in the Bible, they would have found out that all the disciples, every one of them was martyred and put to death for their faith. Not a one of them had an easy life. God never promised you roses, but He did promise you that He’d take you to the other side. Your ship isn’t ever going to go down if He is in it. You aren’t ever going to lose as long as you are in His army, because He hasn’t ever lost a battle. I want to be on His side. That sounds like a pretty good anchor to me. Have you got an anchor? #2. Does your anchor hold anything in place? “Preacher, you don’t know anything about my house, my wife, my children. You don’t know anything about my financial problems. You don’t know anything about my sickness. You don’t know what I’m going through. Preacher, you don’t know how afraid I am because I’m getting elderly and all the problems with Social Security. You have no idea, Preacher, what I’m going through right now.” No, I don’t, but I do know that this world is battering your ship. There isn’t but one way you are going to make it to the other side, and that is with the Lord Jesus as your Anchor. You’ve got to put your faith in Him. Anybody can say they have an anchor, but does it hold? You’ll be beaten and battered on life’s sea until your ship goes down without this blessed hope -- Jesus Christ. Moses went on the backside of the desert and came back to lead three million Jews to the land God promised. Do you know how he did that? Because he had an anchor. Abraham took his son up on the mountain, drew that knife out of that sheath, drew it back ready to plunge it into his heart. God said, “Do thy son no harm. There is a ram caught in the thicket.” God provided the sacrificial lamb and Abraham went back down the mountain rejoicing. Before he did that he the faith to say, “God will provide a sacrifice.” Do you know how he knew that? Because that was his anchor. Those Hebrew boys came out of the fire. Do you know why they came out and nothing was burnt but the ropes? Because there was a Fourth Man walking around in there with them, and He was like unto the Son of God. That was the anchor. That is why they came out. Daniel, the old king ran back the next day and looked down in that lion’s den and said, “Daniel, are you still there?” He said, “Long live the king. I’ve been fellowshipping with the anchor and I’m still here.” “What about Jonah?” He backslid and got away from God, but he couldn’t get away from the anchor. That anchor caused that whale to spit him up on the shore and he took off running and had revival. Do you know why? Because of the anchor. Do you know why there was enough there at Zarephath for that widow woman? Because they had an anchor. Do you know why Job went to the bottom and came back up? Because he had an anchor. “I know that my redeemer liveth.” Jesus went to the cross, died, and rose again to prove that He is that anchor. Today your only hope is that anchor. I know your ship is being battered. The waves are high sometimes. It just overwhelms, and looks like it is about to go under. How many times has my ship looked like it was going to go under? All of a sudden, the Master shows up. He looks out and says, “Peace be still.” My old ship pops back up like a cork and floats on across the sea. There will be other storms, but as long as I’ve got that anchor, that is all that matters. Some of you don’t have the anchor today. You wished you had it, but you don’t. You are afraid. Every time you close your eyes at night on that pillow and the lights go out, you are afraid of death coming, and not waking up again tomorrow. You know in your soul that anchor is not there in your life. Get ahold of the anchor. Get anchored in the Rock -- Jesus. Put your faith and trust in Him for salvation and forgiveness and an eternal home in Heaven. That is all that matters. Friend, I’m so glad I can say that my anchor holds! |
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