Dear reader, this text speaks of an irresistible offer of salvation for a sinner, who for himself is under the curse of death and is awaiting the sentence of eternal damnation which separates him from the presence of the living and just God. It speaks of the mercies of God in Christ Jesus and his sure salvation.

Let us in the first place consider that the salvation of the sinner is the Father's will.

In the second place that the salvation of the sinner is Christ's mission.

In the third place that the sinner receives an assured salvation for his soul.

We shall consider in the first place that the cause of salvation is the Father's will. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Ps. 110:3a). God the Father is the sovereign creator of the universe, the omnipotent and almighty Father who in His sovereign will has chosen His people from eternity, making a distinction between His creatures; "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:11). In His unsearchable righteousness and love He speaks to His people in 1 John 3:1. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God, therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not."

He has chosen to Himself a peculiar people, a people equally fallen and guilty of the sin of our father Adam, dead in trespasses and sin. But the Father in His foreordained love speaks to this people; "This people have I formed for Myself; they shall shew forth My praise" (Isa. 43:21). The Father knows who are His, and who He has chosen and loved in the counsel of redemption to life eternal. He has an eternal love for His own. This we find in these words: "The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jer. 31:3).

Man is but a finite creature, a mere creature who speaks of having a free will, to choose or to reject the DIVINE inscrutable purposes of the Father. Man by nature has no knowledge that he has sold himself as a slave to Satan, and that he is totally dead in trespasses and sin, unable and unwilling to choose the Divine inscrutable purposes of God the Father. The Father has stated that He loves one above another. As it is written: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. 9:13). He is the sovereign God, who will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth – Rom. 9:18. This saying is hard for man in his unregenerated state. And in his enmity he rejects God's sovereignty, disputing with His maker: "Thou wilt say then unto Me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?" (Rom. 9:19). But the Lord answereth: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?" (Rom. 9:20).

In His justice He has cast Satan and all the rebellious angels into hell. For them there is no salvation offered at all. Justly God could have passed by all of His creatures, but in His Sovereign mercy He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy: "For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" (Rom. 9:15).

Fallen man shall never be able to perform any good in the sight of God. "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom 3:11, 12). God has created man as His image bearer in true knowledge, righteousness and holiness. In this state he could have served the Lord in obedience to His will; fallen from this state the Lord God still demands perfect obedience, and in doing so there is no unrighteousness in Him. Man under sin is spiritually impotent to satisfy God's Holy law, even the most righteous cannot make intercession either for himself or for another: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). The Lord cannot forego His justice, and man not being able to satisfy His demands has come to a totally lost state and condition in himself, therefore the Father in His mercy has provided a Mediator and a Deliverer who is indeed very man and perfectly righteous God, the man Christ Jesus. God's justice required that the same human nature which had sinned, should likewise make satisfaction for sin  Rom. 5:12.

This brings us towards our second consideration that the salvation of the sinner is Christ's mission. That Christ from eternity is very God, we find in Prov. 8:22, 23. "The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." Adam broke the covenant of works with His Maker. In eternity God the Father, in the covenant of peace, provided salvation for His people in the Son of His bosom, Christ Jesus the Lord. He came in the fulfillment of the promise – Gen. 3:15. He is the MESSIAH who was to come. He was fore­ordained and appointed according to both His divine and human nature. He was anointed spiritually, that is, with the Holy Ghost. He is the Mediator, who was to redeem Adam's lost sons and daughters from their deep fall in their covenant head, Adam.

He was anointed with the peculiar gifts of the Holy Ghost: wisdom, power, and holiness. In His wisdom He knew for whom He came into the world. In His power He was able to deliver the most rebel­lious out of Satan's possession, and in His holiness He was able to satisfy the Father's justice with His active and passive obedience. In His offices He was likewise anointed with the special measure of the Holy Ghost, as prophet, priest, and king.

As a prophet He is wisdom Itself: "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord" (Is. 11:2). He is wisdom also for those who are called out of darkness: "But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God," (1 Cor. 1:24). Even His enemies, the officers being so astounded at His teaching, answered the Pharisees: "Never man spake like this man."

In His priestly office He was the great high priest who was to come: "Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 110:4). He has an unchangeable priesthood: "For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, Who is consecrated for evermore" (Hebr. 7:28). In His priestly office He alone maketh intercession for His people: "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people" (Hebr. 2:17). Thus Christ in His priestly office executeth it both in His active and passive obedience to the Father: "Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God" (Hebr. 9:14). As a compassionate Physician He suffered, being tempted of Satan, and rejected by His own brethren who believed not in Him. He suffered especially the anguish of hell in the garden of Gethsemane, sweating great drops of blood, submitting Himself to the Father's will: "Saying, O MY FATHER, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt" (Matt. 26:39). And in Gabbatha before Pilate's judgment seat He was delivered unto death, while His enemies cried out; away with Him; "His blood be on us, and on our children" (Matt. 27:25). But especially on the cross, at the ninth hour of His crucifixion there Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). Thus Christ submitted Himself unto the will of the Father in full consciousness that He suffered all this for His elect people. In His death He reconciled His church with full satisfaction to the glorious attributes of the Father: "And that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby" (Eph. 2:16). And in His ascension He perfected forever them that are sanctified: Hebr. 10:14. And now as the High Priest in heaven He maketh intercession for His own, pleading upon His own merits: "Father I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am" (John 17:24).

In His Kingly office He rules and governs His church by His Word and Spirit: "O send out Thy light and Truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy Holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles" (Ps. 43:3). Christ has a Spiritual Kingdom: "He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:33). He protects His people from all their temptations they will encounter here upon the earth: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

Let us now briefly consider the promise the Lord has given in the text. "And him that cometh, I will in no wise cast out."

Are you a sinner? That's a serious question. It's important to know the answer. Sin is the transgression of the law of God. Sin is the depravity wherein we have lost the original righteousness and holy affections towards God. Sin is also the corruption of our moral nature and our inclination towards all evil. By sin of nature we think of inborn sin, but there is still a greater guilt when we have allowed the sin of nature to cause us to commit acts of personal transgression. It is not sufficient that you assent to this, for your self-righteousness will not save you. The question is do you have knowledge of your sins; the heights, the depth, and the breadth thereof, against a Holy and a righteous God, and are without God in the world? If you have no knowledge of the power of the Holy Spirit's conviction you are still an enemy of God. The power of God works a penetrating conviction: "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight" (Ps. 51:4). It is unto such who know the sorrows within their heart, that they have sinned against a Holy and Righteous God, and unto those who tremble at His Word. Unto such He gives the assurance that He will not cast them out. "For a broken and a contrite heart O God, Thou wilt not despise". Being taught to hate and abhor themselves because of their inward corruption and enmity against a good and Sovereign God, realizing that they have broken all His commandments, and are not able to keep one of them, they flee under the powerful conviction of the Holy Ghost, as the law condemns them, it cannot satisfy; they plead for mercy unto Christ, with the prayer: "Give me Jesus ere I die." These exercises must be known in the soul. The Lord knows for whom He died, and in the invitation of the gospel He calls them as from the ends of the earth; "COME SINNER COME!" What? is it possible that Jesus Christ has spoken these words unto a vile creature as I am? Yea, COME unto ME, and be ye saved: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Is. 1:18). The gates of heaven are open for sinners, day and night.

In the work of regeneration the Lord has given His people three jewels; Faith, Hope, and Love, which are sustained in His hands: "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19). However deep and stained your sins are; the blood of Christ Jesus washes and cleanses from all sin. Read Hebrews 11, and behold His great grace in the most desperate conditions, even the murderer at the cross at His right hand found forgiveness at the last hour. For his name was written in the Lambs book of life, and he was not cast out. For such Christ shall be all in all. And there they shall boast in God, and praise His name for ever – Ps. 44:8.