Simplicity of Salvation

Adrian Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances. And you'll hear that in today's message.

Now, let's join Adrian Rogers. Take God's Word and find 1 John, not the Gospel of John, but 1 John 5 and verse 13. I've been working on my memory work a little bit, so I want you to look at it. I'm using the King James version of the Scripture. You look at it, and I'm going to step off over here to the side and see if I can get it right. So you check me out, okay? 1 John 5, verse 13.

Are you ready? These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may hope that you have eternal life. All right, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may guess that you have eternal life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may wish that you had eternal life. What word is that that I'm missing? Oh, I see.

All right. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may, K-N-O-W, know that you have eternal life. Now, folks, God wants us to know it.

Amen? I don't want to talk to you about a hope so, maybe so, wish so, salvation, but a know so, salvation. Somebody said if you could have it and not know it, you could lose it and not miss it.

Truth of the matter is if you have it, you ought to know it, and if you do have it, you can't lose it. And so, therefore, we need to understand what this thing called salvation is because John said, I wrote the whole book of 1 John that you might know that you have eternal life. I hear some people say, well, you just can't know that you're saved. You just have to hope that you're saved, and when you die, you'll find out, I don't want to wait till I die to find out whether I'm saved or not.

I mean, after it's too late to do anything about it, you need to have that sweet, wonderful, blessed assurance. A Christian needs to be an exclamation point, standing up straight, not a question mark, all bent over, saying, I just wonder if I'm saved. I want you to have an absolute know so, salvation. Now, in order to know that you're saved, two things are necessary. Number one, you have to know what God said to do to be saved.

That's the reason why John said, I wrote it. These things have I written unto you, okay? You have to know what God said to do to be saved.

That's the first thing. The second thing is you have to do it. All right, know what God said to do to be saved and do it. Now, if you don't know what God said to do to be saved, of course, then how are you going to know whether you've done it or not? And if you know what God says to do to be saved and you don't do it, what right do you have to say that you're saved? Here, our Lord is talking to us about being saved. Now, what do we mean by being saved anyway? What is salvation? Well, salvation is a personal relationship with God that brings the pardon of our sin. You know, the Bible says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.

We're justified. That means our sins are buried in the grave of God's forgetfulness. And then number two, to be saved means that we have peace with God. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that doesn't mean you have a peaceful feeling.

That's not the idea here. We're talking about a war, and we're enemies of God, and we're in trouble. But the Bible says that Jesus, by the blood of his cross, made peace, and that sin, that enmity, that warfare against God is canceled out. And the peace with God is that God is now the friend to us, and he is the benefactor, and he is the father. No longer is he the judge and our enemy. Because of our sin, we have peace with God. It means, folks, pardon and peace, and it means power.

We're not alone. He comes in to us. The apostle Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

That word literally means dynamite. You see, God doesn't just forgive your sin and say, now, it's up to you. He's a savior, not a probationary officer. He doesn't just say, now, I've forgiven the past.

It's up to you for the present. It's not a new start. You become a new creature. Now, there is this pardon. There is this peace. There is this power. There is this presence. When a person is saved, the Holy Spirit of God comes into him, and the Holy Spirit of God lives in him. He's never alone.

The darkest night, the most lonely road. God is with him. Jesus said, I will send the Holy Spirit that he may abide with you forever, always, never to leave you. That's one of the reasons I believe that once you're saved, he keeps you saved because the Bible says clearly and plainly that the Holy Spirit will abide forever, and to be saved literally means that God gives you perfection.

Now, that doesn't mean you're gonna sprout wings and get a halo. It doesn't mean you'll never sin again. It doesn't mean that you'll never have another evil thought, but in God's sight, in God's sight, when you get saved, the Bible speaks of the spirits of just men made perfect. You will be perfect in God's sight, every sin buried in the grave of God's forgetfulness, never, never, never, never, ever to be brought up against you again. God demands perfection. God doesn't grade on the curve, and therefore, without the precious blood of Jesus that provides in God's sight that perfection, you could never, ever hope to go to heaven. Now, all of that is by way of introduction. Let me talk to you about the nature of human nature. Well, 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23 says this, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.

That means W-H-O-L-L-Y. That means completely, wholly, every part of you, and I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ's soul. You are spirit, soul, and body.

Now, let's talk about you. First of all, you are a body. You have a body. You live in a body. You're sitting there in a body, right? Right. Okay, you've got a body.

That's the spacesuit you wear while you're on Spaceship Earth. So you have a body. You live in a body. That's obvious. None of us would doubt that.

Now, the second thing is not quite as obvious. Paul also spoke of a soul. I pray, God, your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Greek word for soul is the word psyche.

It's the word we get psychiatry from, psychology from, psychological, psychic. All of these words, they refer to the soul. The soul is the you.

That's your personality, your idiosyncrasies, your intelligence, your sense of humor, all of those little proclivities that make you the uniquely wonderful person that you are. That is your soul. Roughly speaking, your soul is mind, emotion, and will.

You live inside this body. You have a soul, okay? Now, what is the spirit? You know, I used to think that soul and spirit were about the same thing.

Six of one, half a dozen of another, just the invisible part of a person. But the Bible clearly makes a distinction between soul and spirit. Remember our verse? And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Put in your margin, if you're making notes, Hebrews 4-12. For the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder between soul and spirit. Well, what is the difference between the soul and the spirit? Both the soul and spirit are invisible. Both the soul and spirit are inseparable, but they are not the same. The spirit is that part of you that makes you unique, different from any of the animals or any of the plants. God did not give to animals a spirit. God gave to man a spirit. It is that quality in human nature that enables you to know and worship God. For the Bible says, and I know you know this verse, many of you, God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him how?

In spirit and in truth. Or the Bible teaches that when we get saved, God's spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. These plants have a body, but they don't have a soul. Animals have a soul.

Animals have mind, emotion, and will, but they don't have a spirit. Only man has a spirit. Only man can worship God.

Only man can pray. Only man can conceive of eternity. So God, when he made Adam, made Adam healthy in his body, happy in his soul, and holy in his spirit.

That's the way the first man was made. Healthy, happy, holy. Healthy in his body. You see, with your body, you know the physical world, the world beneath you. With your soul, you know the psychological world, the world around you. With your spirit, you know the spiritual world, the world above you.

When your body is right, you're healthy. When your soul is right, you're happy. When your spirit is right, you're holy. That's the way God made you to function.

All right, now that is the nature of human nature. Now, what does it mean to be lost? You know, we talk about being saved. Well, who needs to get saved?

Well, those who need to get saved are those who are lost. And why did Jesus come to earth? Did Jesus come to earth to feed the hungry? Did Jesus come to earth to heal the sick? Did Jesus come to earth to educate people?

No. Why did Jesus come to this earth? For one reason. He tells us what it is in Luke 19, 10. Do you see it? For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Now, that's the condition of every man, woman, boy, and girl without the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, again, I want to remind you how man was meant to function. There's his body. The body houses the soul, and there is God in the human spirit.

Now, here's the way to function with unction. You see, God's Holy Spirit comes into our human spirit, and the Bible says we know the things that are given to us of God by the Spirit that he's given to us. So the Holy Spirit down in the very deepest precinct, the Holy of Holies of man, that is the Holy Spirit of God.

He is there telling us what to do intuitively in the Spirit. Now, the Spirit is to speak to the soul, the mind, the emotion, and the will, and the Spirit gives the mind discernment. The Spirit gives the emotion impulses. The Spirit gives the will impulses, and so the Holy Spirit in the human spirit speaks to the soul, the mind, the emotion, and the will. Now, what does the soul do? The soul speaks to the body, the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears, the body. The soul motivates the body, and what does the body do? The body moves out into the world. Now, whose life is being manifested? The life of God.

God, the Holy Spirit, and the human spirit through the soul to the body out into the world, and so we're just showing the life of God. Does that make sense? Nod your head. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, you understand what we're talking about so far.

Here's the way a man is supposed to function with unction. Now, we're going to talk about what it means to be lost. Remember that God made Adam healthy, happy, and holy, and God was living in Adam's spirit. The Bible says God walked with Adam.

Why? Because he was in Adam, and he walked with Adam, and Adam was there with God in the Garden of Eden, but Adam sinned, and when Adam sinned, do you know what happened? God moved out of Adam. God will not live in a dirty house.

God is a holy God. Remember what God said to Adam in the Garden of Eden and to Eve? He warned them about the forbidden fruit, and God said, in the day that you eat, in the day that you eat of this forbidden fruit, you will surely die. In the day, in the very day God said, you're going to die.

Well, question. Did Adam die that day? Well, if you read your Bible, you'll find out that he went on operating for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, and yet God had said, in the day that you eat thereof, you'll die. Well, did he die? Yes, he died. He did not die immediately in his soul. He did not die immediately in his body.

Where did he die? In his spirit. Now, what is death, precious friend? Death is not the separation of the soul from the body. Death is the separation of the spirit from God.

Now, have you got that? Death is the separation of the spirit from God. Adam died immediately in his spirit. Adam died progressively in his soul.

Adam died ultimately in his body. Now, about Christmas time, you go out there and buy a Christmas tree. You say, we're going to have a live tree this year. Yeah, let's get a live tree this year. I want a live tree. So you go down there and buy one of those trees that's been cut. You call that a live tree. You wait until New Year's. Now, folks, that's not a live tree. It just looks live. But you see, it's been cut off from the source of life, and what happened when it was severed will show up about New Year's, you see.

And you may decorate it. Now, a lot of folks come to church and decorate themselves on Sunday morning, but they're dead. They're dead.

Why? They're spiritually dead. Their mind, emotion, and will is operating.

Their body is operating, but they are minus God in the spirit. What do you have to do to be lost? Rob a bank? No. Commit murder? No. Commit perversion?

No. I tell you what you have to do to be lost is just nothing because you are lost by nature. We are born with a depraved nature. The Bible teaches that we are by nature the children of wrath, and we inherited that nature from Adam, and God told Nicodemus, a better man outwardly, morally, religiously than any man, woman, boy, girl in this building. He had to be born again in order to see the kingdom of heaven. So what does it mean to be lost? It just simply means to be minus God. Now let me tell you what salvation is. Salvation is not primarily getting man out of earth into heaven.

It is getting God out of heaven back into man. Now let's talk about what it means to be saved. Now, you know, sometimes people mock us and ridicule Bible believers for talking about being saved to them. It's, you know, if Hollywood wants to ridicule a Bible believer, they will find some preacher talking sometime about being saved, and he'll be talking about heaven and hell and all that. They think that is so funny.

They think that is ridiculous. But, folks, I want to tell you the Bible says in Luke 19 and 10, we've already seen that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. And when Paul talked to a Philippian jailer one night after an earthquake in that jail, and that jailer was so scared that he was about to commit suicide, he asked Paul and Silas, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

You see, here's the situation. Up in heaven is holy God. Down below now is sinful man, and sin has separated us from a holy God. There's a wedge, a chasm between holy God and sinful man. Man is never satisfied.

Animals can be satisfied, but not man. Man's riding motorcycles, climbing mountains, acquiring money, planting flowers, inventing things. Man has a void. He's seeking.

You're trying to find, friends all around me, you're trying to find what the heart yearns for by sin undermined. Man has an empty void. St. Augustine said, Thou hast made us for thyself, O God, and our hearts are empty, restless, until they rest in thee. So man is constantly trying to reach God. Now, you may not even know that it's God he's trying to reach, but there's a void.

There's an emptiness. But he keeps bouncing off of that sin barrier, for the Bible says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Let me give you the best definition of sin that I know of. It's coming short of the glory of God. Do you know what sin is? It's just everything in us that's not like God, and there's a lot of it, isn't there?

There's a lot of it. I mean, don't go strutting your stuff. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, don't you stretch yourself out in the gutter alongside some old hypocrite and say I'm longer than he is.

So what? I hear people say, Well, I'm just as good as those folks down there at the church. I'm looking for a man that's honest enough to say I'm just as bad as those folks down there at the church.

Hey, listen, folks. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All, A-double-L. That means me. That means you.

That means us. That means every mother's child. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You say, Well, I don't want to go to hell for Adam's sin.

Okay, you'll go for your own. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And so man is trying to reach God, but he keeps ricocheting off of this sin barrier. You see, God looked down at us, and God loves us while we're sinners. The Bible says God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The fact that we have sinned and that sin has separated us from God has not stopped God from loving us, and God moved in mercy by the pitiful plight of sinful man and said, I will do something. And so this time God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit planned our salvation, and God the Son, the Lord Jesus, left heaven, came out of those ivory palaces down to this world of woe.

In your mind, just say Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. A baby was born, born of a virgin, as much God as if he were not man at all, but as much man as if he were not God at all. He had to be a man to pay sin's price.

Our domain, our legacy was forfeited by man. The Bible teaches that through Adam, all die, but in Christ all are made alive. He had to become a man to redeem our lost estate, and so God took human flesh, and the infinite became an infant, and he was born there on Christmas Day. That man's name is Jesus, Jesus.

And what did the angel tell Mary? Thou shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus died upon that cross, and now with the rough-hewn timbers of a cross, he has constructed a bridge between man and God. Now, man tried to cross that chasm and bring himself to God, but he keeps bouncing off the sin barrier, but Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.

Be reasonable, folks. Don't get the idea that Jesus is a good way to heaven. He is not a good way to heaven. He is the only way to heaven. Acts 4-12, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

I want to ask you this question. If there were some other way to heaven, wouldn't you think God would have taken it? Do you think God would have let his darling son die upon that cross in agony and blood?

Had there been some other way? That's the reason the apostle Paul says in the book of Galatians, if righteousness come by the law, Christ is dead in vain. If you could be saved by being good, pray tell why did Jesus die upon that cross? He didn't die as a martyr. It wasn't an accident. He was crucified before the foundation of the world.

Why? God came to earth that we might go to heaven. He became the son of man that we might become sons and daughters of God. He was born of a virgin that we might be born again. He carried my sin, your sin, our sin to the cross.

Now what must I do to be saved? And they said, listen to it, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I'm glad he didn't say everybody want to be saved, run around the block.

Some little children crippled can't run. I'm glad he didn't say everybody wants to be saved. Read the Bible through. Some people can't read. I'm glad he didn't say everybody wants to be saved. Give $1,000.

Some folks don't have $1,000. But there's one thing anybody can do and everybody must do in order to be saved. And the same thing that Paul told that Philippian jailer is what I'm going to tell you today.

What must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Now a Christian is not somebody who merely believes intellectually that Christ died for his sins. The devil believes that. A Christian is somebody who has invited Christ into his life. Now remember our scripture that says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That word believe is a Greek word that literally means trust. Trust. Now you can believe an airplane can fly, but you must trust it in order to fly on it.

You must get on it. Now if you're not willing to make him Lord, he can't be Savior. He comes in to take control of your life. And when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, he begins to take control of your life and make you the person he wants you to be. But your life doesn't have to be an absolute perfection for you to go to heaven.

You must trust Christ as your personal Savior. That moment you are eternally saved, eternally secure, and God now begins to work on you. Remember what we said about Adam and how Adam died?

Listen, Adam died immediately in his spirit, progressively in his soul, ultimately in his body. When you get saved, you're justified immediately in his spirit, sanctified progressively in your soul, and glorified ultimately in your body. One day you're going to have a resurrected body. You're not going to be hauled into heaven by the wrecking crew.

You're going to have a body like the Lord Jesus Christ, glorified ultimately in his body. Now let's see this verse, Revelation chapter 3 verse 20. The Lord Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice and will open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.

Now I'm hoping today that you're hearing his voice because I have prayed that as I speak that God the Holy Spirit will be speaking through me. Now you must hear his voice and then you must open the door and invite him in. Folks, it's not enough to slip an offering under the door.

It's not enough to whisper a prayer through the keyhole. You open the door. You say, come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

That is the act of faith. You open wide the door. You say, now come take control of my life.

Begin now to make me the person you want me to be. The Bible says, Whosoever will may come. Does he want to save you? He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

Some of you have kept him knocking for a long, long time. He loves you. Now, how do you know that you're saved? Well, if you do what he tells you to do to be saved, then you can have the assurance of your salvation. I love John 5, verse 24.

That's almost a spiritual birth certificate. Here's why Jesus said, He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me. The word believe is used some 99 times in the Gospel of John. Believe, trust, believeth on him that sent me.

The God that sent the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Savior God sent, believeth on him that sent me. Half, now notice this, half everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation. That means come into judgment. That means to die and go to hell shall not come into condemnation. But he is past, not will past, he already is past from death unto life. Folks, when you give your heart to Jesus, it is settled, it is done, it is finished. You have passed from death unto life. You don't get eternal life when you die.

You get eternal life the minute you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Verily, verily. You know what the word verily, verily means? It means pay attention, pay attention. This is true.

This is true. Listen, listen, verily, verily. I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, half everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is past from death unto life. Therefore, how do I know that I'm saved? Not by my feelings. Remember the verse I started with, 1 John 5 verse 13, these things that I have written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know. If I depend upon my feelings, I'll never have the assurance. But I have his word.

Verily, verily, I send you he that heareth my word, my word and believeth on him that sent me, half everlasting life. Folks, those are facts. I'm talking to you about Bible facts. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, Acts 16 verse 31.

That's a fact. And when you began to put your faith in God's facts, then it dawns on you. Hallelujah, it is true. I am saved. And then the experience, the joy of knowing the Lord Jesus. I'm going to lead you in a prayer in just a moment and remember what salvation is. Salvation is not just simply getting out of earth into heaven. That's a byproduct. There is a heaven. Hallelujah.

But that's the byproduct. Salvation is getting God out of heaven, back into man. And Jesus is standing at the heart's door knocking, wanting to come in. You are to open the door by faith. And if you will do so, I promise you on the authority of the Word of God, he will come into you. He will begin to change your life as he did mine over a half a century ago. He will come into your life and save you and keep you.

Now, if you know that you need to be saved or if you're not certain that you have been saved, this is your time to get it settled. I want you to pray this prayer after me. Lord Jesus, thank you for dying for me. Thank you for taking my sins to the cross. I now turn from my sin, open the door of my life, step down off the throne of my life and put you, Lord Jesus, on the throne of my life. Take control of my life and begin now to make me the person you want me to be. And Lord Jesus, help me never to be ashamed of you. In your name I pray, amen. .