Adrian Rogers: You Are Saved By Grace Not By Religion

Most of us have had all the religion we can stand; what we actually need is a personal, vital relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In this message, Adrian Rogers shares how to stop enduring religion and start enjoying salvation.

YouTube is a free video and audio streaming service which may utilize ads that Love Worth Finding Ministries neither controls nor endorses.

For press or copyright information please contact us using the information above.

Now most people in America don’t need religion. Uh, we’ve got enough religion.
What we need is a personal vital relation relationship with Jesus Christ, the son of god, through salvation with joy, Chandra Water.
From the wells of Salvation.
What a wonderful, wonderful lesson there is for us here today.
Profound truth simply stated. This is love worth finding with pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers.
Turn with me, please, to John chapter 7, and I begin reading in verse 37, John chapter 7 and verse 37.
I’d love to hear the Russell of those pages. Sounds like angel wings fluttering.
When I hear you turning those pages, that’s that’s wonderful.
And get significant more out of any message if you keep the Bible in front of you.
In the last day, this is verse 37, In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried the same.
If any man thirst Let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture had said, out of his belly, that is out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water, but this spakey of the spirit which they that believe on him should receive.
For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified.
Now four simple steps, I want you to see what they are First of all, you’ve you’ve got to understand who the subjects are that he’s speaking to.
To whom is he speaking? He’s not speaking to everybody. He’s speaking to thirsty people.
He’s there’s a big if here. Look at it.
Jesus stood in Christ saying, if any man, first, That’s all prefaced by this?
Are you thirsty? When you say god knows I’m empty, I didn’t ask if you were empty.
I asked, are you thirsty? My car has been empty many times. Never once been thirsty.
I mean, I’m talking about the the gas tank. Uh, are are you are you thirsty?
Are you simply satisfied? You see, there are not a lot of thirsty people today.
There are people who come to church on Sunday morning, like they’ve done god a wild favor, but they don’t come seeking god.
They don’t come with a burning blistering thirst. All some might have a shallow thirst.
Those have a shallow thirst to get a shallow satisfaction.
Many are not thirsty at all because they feel with the stagnant waters of self love and whirliness.
But I’m gonna tell you this.
I don’t know how much of god you have.
I’ll tell you you have all you want.
It’s not your job to persuade god to fill you.
He wants to fill you. Jesus said, bless, are they wish to hunger and thirst?
After righteousness, for they shall be filled. You don’t have anymore. It’s because you don’t want anymore.
It’s not because god somehow has neglected you, you’ve neglected god.
And if you’re not thirsty, I would suggest that the very first thing you do is to analyze your life and pray that god would help you to get things in order that god would help you to see things in reality, that god would give you big picture that god would give to you and grant to you a burning blistering thirst.
That you would say I’m done with religion.
I won’t reality. I am thirsty today for that, which is real.
The subjects the thirsty ones, something else you need to understand.
You need to understand the sauce Jesus said, if you thirst, come to me, he was talking of himself You come to the lord Jesus Christ.
Now folks, don’t come to religion. You don’t come to rituals.
You don’t come to rules. You don’t come to resolve.
You don’t even clean up your life and then say, lord, here, it is. Fill me.
This is one of the biggest mistakes we make.
Sometimes we get the idea that we want more of god.
We want that fullness of the spirit We want that living water. We want that reality.
And we think, well, you know, if I can just clean up my life, if I can just get right, if I can just somehow disciplined myself enough, pray enough, study enough, work enough, leave, live, clean enough.
Then I’ll be a candidate for the blessing. All that is is a work’s righteousness.
And you’ll never ever make it. You’re like a man in quick sand.
The more you struggle, the deeper you sink.
If I’ve ever learned anything, and god helped me not to forget it and to keep on learning it.
And come up close. If you don’t hear anything else in this message, I want you to listen to this.
Holiness is not the way to Christ.
Christ is the way to holiness.
Write it on your heart right now.
Holindness is not the way to Christ.
You don’t work your way to the way he is the way. Get on it.
I mean, don’t get the idea that if you if you could live right, god would fill your Holy Spirit.
You can’t be you can’t live right until you are filled with Holy Spirit.
I mean, if if if you could do all of those things in order to be filled, why do you need to be filled anyway?
Do you understand what I’m saying? Like the banker. You wanna borrow money?
You know, how how you can get a banker to to loan your money?
Just go down there and prove to him you don’t need any. Then he’ll loan you some.
Well, friend, god’s not god’s not that way. I mean, it is grace.
We come to Jesus. To Jesus.
Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.
Holy lamb of god, I come to the I come. Come you, sellers?
Poor and meaty. Weak. And warned, come to Jesus.
Come to Jesus. Don’t wait till you’re better. Don’t wait till you’re stronger.
Bring to him your weakness. Bring to him your fears.
Bring to him your failures, bring to him your heartache, bring it all to Jesus.
Jesus throws open his arms to you today, and says, are you thirsty? Come to me.
Come to me. Hope we could only learn that.
I’m not saying that you come clinging to your sin.
I’m not saying that you come to him with your fingers crossed behind your back.
I’m not saying that you come to him and at the same time intend to cling to Satan in this world, oh no.
Let go of everything, but come come to Jesus.
If you’re enjoying this message from Adrian Rogers and would like to dig a little deeper into today’s topic, download this free companion bible study.
Use the link above to get yours.
The subjects, the thirsty ones. The source Jesus Christ himself.
The secret come to me and drink. Look in verse 37.
That last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood in Christ saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
Now what what what does that mean? How do you drink? You drink by faith?
The ver next verse explains it. He that believeth on me. He that believeth on me.
You you you take the the you you drink him to Christ, you appropriate, assimilate Jesus by faith, come and drink.
You must appropriate that which god has for you and you do it by faith.
Drinking is not passive It is active.
There comes a time when you take the lord Jesus Christ by faith and say, yes, he is mine, I claim all that you have for me, lord Jesus.
I believe in you. I do. People come to church on Sunday morning.
With no more intention of doing what the minister asked them to do than obeying what they saw portrayed in television on Saturday night.
Sort of a something they watch.
It it it’s sort of a uh, it it’s something they they just come and sit and watch Folks, there comes a time when you need to dri n k drink.
There comes a time when you need to believe him and say, my heart is thirsty for the blessing.
I will receive the lord Jesus I take him now, I take him by faith, I appropriate, I assimilate, I believe, I receive come into my heart, lord Jesus.
I receive you. I drink into you. I do. And I do right now.
Now we’ve talked about the subjects and the source and the secret. Let’s talk about the supply.
I love this part. Listen, verse 38, he that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his innermost being shall flow, rivers, of living water.
Not only will there be an income, there will be an outflow.
Bear will be springing up in you a river of revival, a river of blessing.
Now here’s the problem. Here’s the problem.
The Bible says, as the scripture has said, Jesus is quoting the scripture.
Did you know that you can get your concordance and try to find the scripture in the Old Testament?
You can’t find it. That’s interesting.
Jesus said, as the scripture has said, out of his belly, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.
And yet, you don’t find that verse in the Bible. Does that mean that Jesus was wrong?
Of course not. He’s never wrong.
Uh, what he’s referring to, I believe, is not a verse, but he’s referring to a number of verses, and that’s the sum total of the found in ezekiel chapter 47.
So just turn to ezekiel chapter 47. Now if you got a Bible like mine.
That’s page 1101. Other than that, you have to find it for yourself. Ezekiel chapter 47.
Now I want you to turn to this.
Because all that Jesus is saying is is is based on this as the scripture has said.
Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.
Jesus is saying that that when you are filled with the spirit, when you’re saved and filled with the spirit, your life is going to be overflowing with joy.
It’s going to be overflowing with praise. It’s going to be overflowing with testimony. It’s going to be overflowing.
With service. Are you a normal Christian?
I didn’t ask if you were an average Christian. The average Christian is not a normal Christian.
He’s subnormal. Boy, we need to make a difference between average and the normal.
You’ll find the normal in the Bible, you’ll find an average on Sunday morning in church.
Are you a normal Christian? What is a normal Christian?
A normal Christian, one who stopped enduring religion and started to enjoy salvation, is one not only who is having his own needs met, but is able to meet the needs of others.
He has not become merely a reservoir. He has become a river.
Now most folks come on Sunday just thinking, boy, if I can just get a blessing.
I mean, if I if I just have my needs met, Well, how how wonderful it would be if I could just have my thirst assuaged.
How many of us So, oh, god, I wanna be a blessing.
I want I want the outflow of my life to be a river revival.
I want out of my animals being to flow a river of living water.
Well, let’s see if we can learn the secret in ezekiel chapter 47.
Here’s a prophecy, I believe, of what we’re talking about. This passage is very interesting.
Here’s a vision that ezekiel saw, and I believe that Jesus was talking about here, after what he brought me again to the door of the house.
Now the house that he’s talking about is the temple of god.
And every Old Testament temple or the temple in the Old Testament was a picture of prophecy of the believer today.
The Bible says that we are temples of god.
Now remember this, in the old testament, god had a temple for his people.
In the new testament, god has a people for his temple.
That old testament temple, just like that old testament, uh, feast of tabernacles, it’s a picture of things to come and of spiritual things.
And so after what he brought me again to the door of the house, the temple, and behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under the right side of the house at the south side of the altar.
Now notice the the mysterious source of this river, It’s coming out of the temple.
Out of the temple.
There comes a mysterious river and it flows right past the altar.
It always does. It always does. The altar speaks of Christ crucified.
And if you want that river of living water to flow out of you, it will always forever flow past the altar.
Past the cross. What is the cross? It is a gigantic eye crossed out.
No longer I but Christ.
Out of my innermost being, out of the house of god, which house I am, out of the temple will flow a river.
That’s the mysterious source of it. I’m I want you to notice the marked course of it.
Look verse at verses 2 through 6.
Then he brought me out of the way of the gate northward.
And let me, by the way, onto the outer gate, by the way that look at the eastward.
And behold, there ran out waters on the right side.
And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a 1000 cubits.
And he brought me through the waters.
No waters were to the ankles, and he measured a 1000 cubits and brought me through the waters.
The waters were to the knees, and he measured a 1000 and brought me through.
The waters were to the loins after when he measured a 1000, and it was a river that I could not pass over for the waters were risen waters to swim in a river that could not be passed over.
What a mysterious river. It keeps getting wider and deeper, and it has no tributaries.
It just it just keeps rising up. This is the course of the river.
In five hundred yard increments, first of all, the waters, Needy, our ankle deep, then it’s knee deep, then it’s waist deep, and then it’s water that engulfs and overwhelms water to swim in, And then the writer of this passage of scripture says in verse 6, son of man has now seen this Is there a river revival flowing out of you at first, ankle deep, They’re needy, then up to the waist, and then a current that picks you up and sweeps you along.
You’ll never get more of a spirit, but he needs to get more of you.
I mean, some of us this morning are ankle deep. You’re satisfied?
I hope you moved to knee deep. Some are knee deep. You’re satisfied.
I hope it’ll move up to your loins.
Some of you have seen this up to this far.
But I pray god today, there will be a river flowing out of your life that will engulf and sweep you and all that comes with it along with it.
There’s the mysterious source of this river.
There’s the marked course of this river.
There’s the mighty force of this river, and I wish I had more time for all of these, but I want you to see what happens when this river begins to flow.
Look, if you will now, in verses 7 through 9.
And when I had returned behold at the bank of the river, were very many trees.
On the one side, and on the other.
And he said, unto me, these waters issue out toward the east country and go down into the desert and into the sea, which brought forth, which being brought forth into the sea, the waters will be healed.
Now those of you who’ve gone with me to, uh, to Israel, you’re gonna be blessed right now because this is gonna make more sense to you than anybody else.
But if you were to go to the Temple Mountain, and if you were to stand and face the east, I believe I’m facing east right now, you would be looking out to the desert, and you would be on the Mount, uh, Mount Mariah, 2700 feet above sea level.
And then the terrain would begin to drop down, down, down, down, down, down, down, to sea level.
But it would keep on dropping down, down, down, down, down to the lowest bottle of Earth, 1300 feet below sea level.
The dead sea. With its dead, legend waters. Now this is what he’s talking about.
He said, I saw the temple. I saw a river come up.
It flowed past the altar and it began to go down through the desert, down through the wilderness down, down, down, down, down, to the Dead Sea.
That’s what he saw.
And I believe that Jesus Christ Was talking about this when he said, as the scripture said, out of his innermost being, will flow rivers of living water.
And what he is saying is this, and please listen, there will be life where there was once death when the river begins to flow out of you.
And then look, if you will, in verse 10, Look at it now in verse 10, and it shall come to pass that the fisher shall stand upon it from I’m getting even unto Angalem and their show and and they shall be a place to spread forth nets.
Their fish should be according to their kinds as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.
There’ll be as many fish in the dead sea as they are in the Mediterranean.
There will be life where there is death.
There will be success where there is failure. How many of us have wanted to be fishers of men?
But we’re fishing in dead and letting waters, and the problem is not with the debts see the problem is with us because we might pour it into it.
A river of living water.
Thirdly, there’ll be fruitfulness where there was barrenness Look if you will in verse 12.
And by the river upon the bank thereof on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat whose leaf shall not fade.
Neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed.
It shall bring forth new fruit according to his months because their waters, they issued out of the sanctuary.
Is your life a fruitful life or barren life?
Galatians 5 verse 22 speaks of the fruit of the spirit, love, joy peace, long suffering gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance?
Is there a river flowing out of you?
That causes fruitfulness where there was once barrenness.
And last of all, There will be health where there was one sickness.
Look in the last part of verse 12, and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and belief thereof for medicine.
Well, I’m telling you this old sick deadly world, this barren dillard, meets life.
It needs the fruit of the spirit.
It needs healing. Folks look at your pastor now.
Our world is sick. There is a death sea out there.
And Jesus said, if you first come to me and drink, And you’ll be satisfied.
But more than that, Well, being you, a river of living water.
And whether it was death, there’ll be life.
Whether it was failure, there’ll be success, And where there was barrenness, there’ll be fruit, and where there’s sickness, there’ll be health, son of man, have you seen this?
Let’s Oh, god.
Seal the message to our hearts.
And I pray today that many thirsty souls will come to Jesus and bring.
Amen.