Salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future.
When everything is dark, when we are surrounded by despairing voices, when we do not see any exits, then we can find salvation in a remembered love, a love which is not simply a recollection of a bygone past but a living force which sustains us in the present. Through memory, love transcends the limits of time and offers hope at any moment of our lives.
Is it not wonderful news to believe that salvation lies outside ourselves?
The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation.
Without "ethical culture", there is no salvation for humanity.
If you give them a God made in their own image, I guarantee they'll accept Him. But He won't be the God who saves.
Tell them that everything in their life is going to have to bend to His will. Repent and believe.
Does our Gospel presentation make men excited about what God can do for them on this earth, or about whom God is?
The question is not, "Do you know you are a sinner?" the question is this, "As you have heard me preach the Gospel, has God so worked in your life that the sin you once loved you now hate?"
You go up to the devil and ask if he knows he's a sinner and he'll say, "Well, yes I am! And a mighty fine one at that!"
Don't touch the ark of God! It is the God of Israel who is wounding people with regards to their sin. Do NOT comfort the soul that God is breaking.
Next, they'll say, "Do you want to go to heaven?" Have you ever had anybody say, "No, I'd rather go to hell." My friend, understand this, everyone wants to go to heaven. They just don't want God to be there when they get there.
The question is not, "Do you want to go to heaven?" The question is, "Do you want God?"
"But I got saved that way!" No, you got saved in spite of that way not because of that way.
A man is saved only by faith ... only by faith.
In that moment of salvation, of belief, they are opening their lives to the person of Jesus.
It [salvation] is not this flu shot mentality of an invitation of the Gospel.
We call men to repent and believe. And if they repent and believe, truly in that moment they are saved in that moment. But the evidence is more than just the sincerity of a prayer. It is a continuation of the working of God in their life through sanctification.
It is absurd to think that a man can believe in Christ, with his heart, and it not have a radical affect on the rest of his life.
If someone is truly converted, they will publicly confess Christ in word and deed. That does not mean presenting them in front of the church on the night of their supposed conversion.
We have taken that truth, that if you truly believe and you confess Christ even if it costs you your life ... we have taken that beautiful truth and reduced it down to, "If you pray a little prayer before a bunch of people in a church in America, you can be guaranteed you were saved if you think you were sincere."
Again, the moment a person calls on the Lord he is saved. But the evidence is not that one time in their life they were sincere when they prayed a prayer. The evidence of their salvation is ... is there genuine repentance? Is there faith? And do both those evangelical graces continue on in their life and grow?
The evidence of justification by faith is the ongoing work of sanctification through the Holy Spirit.
The evidence that a person has truly opened their life to Christ is continued fellowship with Christ.
It was in His flesh that Christ walked among us and it is His flesh that He has given us to eat for our salvation; but no one eats of this flesh without having first adored it . . . and not only do we not sin in thus adoring it, but we would be sinning if we did not do so.
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