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 The promise of salvation 

All attempts to save mankind apart from God are doomed to fail, the reason being is they deal with symptoms, not the problem. 

Only Christianity deals with the real problem of humanity, humanity. Someone once asked GK Chesterton to write an article about the problem with the world, he thought long and hard about what to write, and he sent in his article that was entitled “The problem with the world” he wrote the following in the article “GK Chesterton”. 

If you want to know what’s wrong with the world, all you must do is look in the mirror. Every evil deed that you can think of leads us back to the human heart. 

Jesus said this concerning human heart “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Mat 15:19). 

The reason we have all those things that Jesus mentioned is because our heart is wicked. 

 Things we do to solve our problem.  

Education 

One of the common misconceptions in society at large is we think that education will rescue humanity. We tend to see education as if it was a virtue, and because of this we think that if you are educated, therefore you are virtuous.

 However, we look at history we see a different story. 

Look at Nazi Germany under Hitler, these people weren’t uneducated; in fact, they were one of the most educated societies in the history of the world. 

Their education didn’t stop them from perpetrating one of the most horrific tragedies in history. People don’t become moral through the gaining of knowledge, if that were so then the people that were the most educated would be the most moral… we know by history that is not the case.       

 Government 

When we look at what government has done over last hundred years and how it has failed time after time, it makes me wonder why people put their hope in a government program to save mankind. 

The problem with government is that it is run by people, and anything run by people is doomed to fail. 

 Let’s look at two competing types of government. 

  • Socialism leaves us longing for a future that we will never experience. 
  • Capitalism chains us to the hamster-wheel of keeping up with the Joneses. 

Both systems leave us crushed and without hope   

 Religion 

When we try to solve the world’s problems with religion, all we get are rules that are only capable of covering the symptoms. Listen to what Jesus said about the religious people of His day. 

Matthew 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. 

The illustration that Jesus is using here is kind of funny

Let’s say you buy the fanciest coffin money can buy, one of your loved ones dies and you burry them in it. No matter how dressed up your coffin is, its still got a dead body in it. 

None of the things that we just mentioned can fix what’s wrong with the world, and it’s because of this that we find ourselves without hope. 

And the reason for this is because none of these things deal with the problem, the heart. 

  • Education
  • Government
  • Religion

can only modify behavior but they cannot change anyone’s heart. They may be able to make us tolerate one another, but they cannot make us love one another. 

Because love begins with the heart, and only Christianity offers a way to transform the heart. At best all they can say to us is “thou shalt put up with thy neighbor”, or “try not to kill your enemy.”

they cannot tell us to love our enemy because they no power to command, they have not power to command because they have no power to transform. 

What separates Christianity from all of these other things is its ability to transform. What we should all be in awe of is not God’s ability to crate out of nothing, rather His ability to make sinners into saints.   

That’s what the promise of Salvation is, the promise of transformation. This leads us to two questions: 

  1. who can be saved?
  2. How can we be saved?

 Who can be saved? 

Rom 10:11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Rom 10:12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Rom 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.   The question of “who can be saved” simple, anyone! 

 Any race, 

notice that Paul says there is no difference between Jews or Greeks. Meaning it doesn’t matter what race a person is God offers salvation to everyone. 

 Any gender, 

Gal 3:26  For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:27  For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Gal 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 

All of chapter 3 of Galatians is about who a person is saved, what Paul doing in vs’s 26-28 is saying that with regards to Salvation there is no distinction between meal and female   

 Any class of person 

 Again, Paul says, slaves or free persons are saved the same way 

 How are we saved? 

  1. We must hear the gospel 
  2. We must beilieve the gospel

 We must hear the gospel! 

 Rom 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Rom 10:15  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 

 The gospel is first of all information; it’s a set of facts that must be understood. The way a person becomes a follower of Jesus is by hearing those facts. The facts of the gospel are found in (1st Co 15:1-4) 

  1. Christ died for our sins (Rom 3:23-25)
  2. He was burned (Luke 23:50-53)
  3. He rose the third day (Rom 4:24)

No one is saved through osmosis or proximity. Meaning sadness doesn't just rub off on us and we are not saved by hanging around other saved people. 

No, we must hear the gospel. It is our to tell people the facts of the gospel   

 We must believe the gospel. 

It’s not enough that we hear the gospel, we have to believe it; there is no middle ground, you either believe it, or you don’t.

The reason why salvation is by faith alone; is so that salvation can be completely unmerited. The bible says that it is “by grace that we are saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it is a gift of God”. 

If we had to do anything other than trust, then salvation would not be by grace anymore. 

For instance, if God gave us grace based on our ability to keep the commandments, then our keeping the commandment is a meritorious act, in other words, we have earned something by our deeds. 

The whole point of grace is getting something that you don’t deserve, the smallest work that we can think of; will destroy grace, thus destroying the gospel. 

When we add work to the gospel, it stops being the gospel, what I mean by that is this… the word gospel means good news, if we tell people that they have to earn their way to Heaven by doing things like going to church, and giving money to the poor, we are not giving people good news, we are giving them good advice; there’s a difference. 

If told you to study for a test, that’s good advice, but if I gave you the answers to the test, that’s good news.