Amazing Grace, Part 2

Frankly, we would never treat any other truth or science like we seem to treat spiritual truth. I mentioned last night. I never thought of going up to my math teacher and saying, look, could you give me credit for getting close?

The incarnate God said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to the father except by me. And that's the offensive nature of Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, because if he is the way that everything else is, not the way. If this is the gospel, that anything else is not the gospel. If Jesus Christ is right, then everyone else is wrong.

There's a universal question that most people of the world seem to be asking. What must I do to be saved?

As you know, the world offers all kinds of answers to that question. There are world religions that claim to have the answers people need. However, Jesus claimed to be the exclusive way to God, the one and only way to God. And if that's true, then all the other ways are lies.

It's critical to know and understand the true gospel and the salvation that God offers. That's what we're talking about today. This is wisdom for the hearts. And we have a lesson from our vintage wisdom library entitled Amazing Grace.

Here's Stephen with today's lesson.

Let's go back to this Midnite scene where the jailer asked the apostle Paul the most important question in the world at 16. Let's pick our story back up with verse twenty five. But about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there came a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were unfastened. And when the jailer had been roused out of sleep and had seen the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. Supposing that the prisoners had escaped, but Paul cried out with a loud voice saying, Do yourself no harm. We are all here. They called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him, together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds. And immediately he was baptized. He and all his household is household because Paul and Silas had brought them into his house and set food before them.

And they rejoice greatly, having believed in God with his whole household. Now, when we were together a few weeks ago, I felt compelled then and am today to to delve a little more into the meaning of the word believe. And I'm doing so because I firmly believe that there are people in this audience, as well as in our society that have been given an answer that is not biblical. There seems to be a lot of confusion about something that God wanted to be so clear. And so I want to just sort of put the brakes on as we go through the Book of Acts. And I want to dove into this word believe. And let's come up with an answer that can be substantiated by the word so that you can check. Yes, absolutely. And give a biblical answer. Why now? Because we are going through the Book of Acts. I want to just briefly address the last paragraph of this chapter, because after this, we won't be coming back to chapter 16. Look at verse thirty five. I may make a couple of comments and the war will go on. Now, one day came the chief magistrate sent their policemen saying, release those men. And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying the chief magistrates have sent to release you now, therefore come out and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have beaten us in public without trial. Men who are Romans and have thrown us into prison and now they sending us away secretly. The word secretly, by the way, is a key word you want to underline because it explains why, Paul. It does what he does.

Paul said no, indeed. But let them come themselves and bring us out of the words. Let the magistrates come and escort us out of prison. And the policeman reported these words to the chief magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans and they came and appealed to them. And when they brought them out, they kept begging them to leave the city and they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydian. When they saw the brother, they encourage them to depart.

Well, what's happening here is that Paul forced the hand of the magistrates to publicly acknowledge the innocence of Paul in silence. In fact, the the magistrates had to publicly acknowledge that they had broken the law and that Paul and Silas, they had been the law breakers. Why? Because they'd beaten Roman citizens and that was against Roman law. Phillip High was a Roman colony, which meant they had to adhere to Roman law. And if distant Rome would hear that they had beaten Roman citizens, the wrath of Rome could be aroused. And so these magistrates knew that their their position and tenure was a little shaky. And so they came. Now, Paul appealed to that simply because he didn't want to leave at ninety one to leave in broad daylight. In fact, he didn't want to leave the church in an unstable position.

He didn't want them answering questions about, hey, I heard to your founder was put in jail and then there was some kind of earthquake and he escaped. Does that right. He's a criminal in a well, Paul didn't want to do that.

And so he he stays long enough so that they escort him out in broad daylight and admit to the public that the magistrates themselves had broken the law. This put the church on good standing. In fact, I can help cannot but imagine that the magistrates would be a little extra cautious to even mess around with the church again after that. Before we leave this scene, I can't help but just look again at what an interesting church this was now as the flag of the church is unfurled on European soil. You have Lydia, a cultured, refined, wealthy woman. You have a slave girl.

You remember her, who was the voice of the python. She predicted the future under the power of demonic forces, adhered to the temple of Apollo.

And now you have the prison warden and his family. They're all celebrating the risen lord together.

What a manifestation of God's grace. That's what church is supposed to be all about.

Now, if you go back to verse 30, he discover the warden asking that question, what must I do to be saved?

Paul responds, Believe on the Lord Jesus. The word believe could be defined this way. It means to place your trust in the cross work of Christ as sufficient for salvation. In other words, it isn't Jesus, plus it isn't the cross. Plus it is nothing. Plus other than Christ alone. That Paul says, in effect, by believing you shall be say not.

Hope so. Not think so. Not. I'll give it my best shot. Not I'll get to the gate and please. I wanted to get in.

He says you shall be safe. There isn't anything more important than that. You know that you can answer the first question with. Yes, absolutely. I know.

And here's why I found it interesting to read the story of Joseph Napp, who is the founder of Metropolitan Life Insurance, Wealthy Beyond Words. His wife was a believer, so caught up with the truth of insurance beyond the grave that she was the one who wrote the music for a poem that her dear friend Fanny Crosby wrote the poem that says Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

How can you have that kind of assurance? What does it mean to believe?

Well, the word believe appears and we're just kind of go into several passages of scripture, but it appears more often in the gospel of John probably than any other book. So I want you to turn to the Gospel of John to a passage chapter three, where the word believe appears seven times in just nine verses.

John was passionate that you would know that you had this eternal assurance. In fact, by the time you get to John, chapter 20, verse 30.

John informs the reader that he has written these things that you might believe. There's the word again that Jesus is the Christ. In other words, God has inspired me to give you assurance that you're on your way to have it. In fact, first, John, Chapter five, the same author. His first epistle, he says, these things that I've written unto you that you may want, that you may know that you have eternal life. You get the idea that if he got around John for five minutes, he would be asking you about your divine eternal insurance.

And it's no different in chapter three. Let's take a closer look at what he's saying there. John, chapter three. Jesus Christ here is being visited by Nicodemus, who wants to know how to inherit eternal life. Maybe you know the story. We studied it several years ago together.

It was to Nicodemus that Jesus Christ uttered those incredible words that all of us have probably memorized or most of us when we were little kids. Stay with me for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now, Jesus said to Nicodemus a lot of things in Chapter three. I want to give you three statements. The first one is this. You and I were born into the wrong family. He's going to tell Nicodemus that two like Nicodemus were born into the wrong family. And you're talking about my mother and father? Not really.

Paul amplifies that in the Book of Romans in Chapter five. Or he says, therefore, just as through one man's sin entered into the world and death through sin. And so death spread to all men, for all men sin.

He's telling us here that we were born into the human family and that's the wrong family to be born into.

If you ever hope to have eternal life, because our father, Adam, is a criminal and he was given the sentence of death, you say, but that sentence isn't mine all.

You'll prove it by dying one day and so will I.

We're all condemned because of sin.

The sentence is the same as it was delivered to Adam and Eve when they were told not to eat the fruit of aid. The food they would surely what die.

Was God telling the truth? Yes. How do you know they died?

How do you know that you're related to the sentence of Adam? That only the nature of Adam. But the sentence of Adam.

You'll die and I'll die.

That's part of the bad news. In fact, if you look at what John says and in Jesus says John Records in Chapter three for 17, God did not send the world into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. We say Steven Leonard says, you know, Jesus didn't come into the world to judge the Rosa White man. So Judge Metal, the word sins is the word of a Stella, which gives us our word apostle.

That means he is said with a mission. He's been given a message to deliver and the message is not a message of judgment.

Why verse 18? He who believes in him is not judge. And he who does not believe has been judged already. In other words, Jesus didn't bring a message of judgment into the world because the world was already under judgment. Why condemn an already condemned human race?

The world needs a savior. When Jesus was born, his birth was announced to the outcasts of society. Those religiously unclean men, those shepherds. And the news was given first to them. Under you is born this day, the city of David, a what?

A judge, a teacher, a healer, a philosopher, a moralist.

The founder of a new religion.

A savior.

The world is perishing. Every member of the human race will die unless the rapture occurs while we're living. We will accomplish in our bodies the sentence of our father, Adam. We need a savior. Now, look back at verse three there where Jesus tells Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he'll not inherit the kingdom of God.

Why? Because the first birth placed you into the wrong family. So you have to be born again to be birthed into a new family. This time, the right family. That's what he's telling Nicodemus here. And that leads me to the second statement. Something must happen that rebirths you into the right family. Notice verse five. Truly Jesus answer. Truly, I say to you. Unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now that all that helps. But then it also kind of confuses. What does it mean of water? Jesus is talking here about being born again.

In other words, in order to get into the kingdom, you have to be born out of this family, into a new family.

And he gives us commentary, by the way, on that. What that first and second birth order in verse six. Sometimes you just keep reading the Bible. Commentates on itself. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. You can circle the word flesh. Draw a line up to the word water and verse five. And there you have the explanation. That's the natural first birth. First birth. And that which is born of the spirit is spirit. That's the supernatural second birth.

So in Jesus's analogy here, the fleshly or natural birth corresponds to being born of water.

The Greek words of water are X or X who did tost, which could be literally translated out of water. It's interesting that the Hebrew verb for to give birth actually could be translated in respect to the rupturing of the membranes or the water sac.

First five is referring to that you must be born physically active, tossed out of water. You say that's too obvious. Everybody knows that in order to go to heaven, you have to be born. Whether you're thinking like a good Jew, the Jew said, all I have to do is be born into the family of Abraham and I'm in Jesus is OK. You have to be born. That's true. But that first birth is not enough even for the Jew.

You have to be born again into the family of God.

Always fascinated me to read and study of other religious systems that have sought to answer the question of how to be born again, how to be saved. And it's interesting to me how there are kernels of truth surrounded by a lot of religious jargon and a lot of other stuff that eventually doesn't lead people to heaven. It leads people, unfortunately, to hell. Buddhism, which is sort of becoming the religion of the elite. You're seeing movies about Buddhism and you're hearing Buddha quoted and supposedly the compassion of religion, of tolerance, which is perfect for our society today. They have also addressed the issue of rebirth. They just have many of them, they call it reincarnation. The Greeks who live before the time of Christ had created what was called the mystery religions that seem so close to the truth. It would be revealed in Christ. And yet so far away, you can see how Satan was counterfeiting the truth even before Christ came. The mystery religions built around the idea of rebirth. In fact, they would call the initiate into a mystery religion, a twice born individual in the Phrygian mystery religion.

They would take the initiative had gone through all of the inductions, and after he was completed, he completed his initiation. They would give him a cup of milk to drink, signifying that he was, quote, a newborn baby.

A fellow by the name of Purely as a Greek went through the initiation of one mystery religion and later wrote. We still have his manuscript extant. He says he underwent a voluntary death.

Therefore, he attained his spiritual birthday and was reborn. One of those fascinating Mr. Religious ceremonies was the Tara Billiam, I believe it's pronounced. This is where the candidate was taken into a pit and covered over to the top of this pit would be latticed strong lattice work. And they would slay a bull. They would lay the bull down on top of the latticework in the blood from the bull would drip into the pit and the initiate would literally be bathed in the blood of the dying bull. He would emerge from that pit and he would be considered, quote, reborn for all eternity.

Who do you think's behind all that deception?

You bring it up to current time. And religion has done nothing more than confused by adding, adding, adding, adding, adding to the simple words of Christ. Somebody handed me a newspaper last week published by the Greek Orthodox Church, which is the east version of the West's Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism follows the Pope as their leader. The East believed that Rome should have moved to Constantinople as the new city of God. So they had their own religious system and their own patriarch is called the Ecumenical All Holiness Patriarch and hails. Those fulfills what the pope does in the West. Basically the same religious system. And I found it fascinating to have an entire article here and it says this. Tell me, father, what is the right way to salvation? You can imagine that I sat down, I read this whole thing. And let me give you the answer. What is salvation? It is the beneficial extrication of man from sin and its consequences, which is the eternal removal from the fellowship of God. This is achieved by true belief in Jesus the Savior. So far, so good. And completion of good deeds. Oh, religion just gotten away. Well, how can we be saved? That's the question. And then let me give you some of the abbreviated answer. First, we must profoundly believe then, through the mystery of holy baptism, we enter into the time and space of the Kingdom of heaven. Then the sacrament of Chris Nation and the newly illuminated with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then Holy confession cleanses, relieves and assists the sinner and Holy Communion. The great gift of God to man unites us with him and gives to us the provision for eternal life. Then the mystery of holy unction grants the salvation of body and soul. Which one is it to all of them? The correct faith, the works and the grace of the sacraments of the church.

Lead us forward spiritually and purrfect man and lead him to salvation. In other words, it's a process. You hang on until your last breath because you might not be in. If you mess up along the way, as the Holy Fathers say, those who love God here and showed and prove their love by man are word and deed. We'll continue to love him and enjoy being near him. So if it good enough, you get to be by him.

Our lifestyle, therefore, on Earth plays an important part in our salvation. Follow this. We should not depend exclusively on a merciful God.

I do totally.

Because if it were not for the mercy and grace of God, every waking moment I would have violated the holiest of God and I would be condemned to hell.

Something has to happen. Jesus calls it a new birth.

The incarnate God said I am the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to the father except by me. And that's the offensive nature of Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, because if Jesus Christ is right, then everyone else is wrong.

If he is the way that everything else is, not the way. If this is the gospel than anything else is not the gospel. If this tells you how to get to heaven, then any other way is the way to hell.

Right? Frankly, we would never treat any other truth or science like we seem to treat spiritual truth. So I mentioned last night. I never thought of going up to my math teacher and saying, look, could you give me credit for getting close?

Let me make one more statement. Salvation is not a process or a combination of good works and faith, but a transaction that takes place once for all.

Between you and the savior, how do you make that transaction where we could spend so much time? But let me try to be as clear and brief as I can at the same time. Good verse 14. Jesus gives us an illustration, which is wonderful because we kind of hang our hats on stories. Can we?

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes may in him have eternal life? Something happened in the Old Testament where the Israelites were rescued from certain death. And Jesus says. That was an illustration of me.

Now let's go back to numbers 21, shall we? We'll go a few minutes over time, but I hope you'll be forgiving numbers. Chapter 21, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers, numbers twenty one five.

And the people spoke against God and Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness for there is no food and no water. And we loathe this miserable food. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they beat the people so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned because we've spoken against the Lord and you intercede with the Lord that he may remove the serpents from us. And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole or a wooden pole or standard. And it shall come about that everyone who was bitten. When he looks at it, he shall live. And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And it came about that if a serpent bit a man when he looked to the bronze serpent he lived. Why not develop some medicine? Why not give him the formula for an antidote? Why not tell him to have the Israelites work a little bit? They deserved it because of the way they bellyache.

Why not give them something to do which would satisfy the natural instinct of men and women everywhere to work on behalf of their own cure?

Three hundred million people follow this.

There is something natural about wanting to help God provide the solution.

In fact, we're told they were not told to make an antidote for the snake bite, which is indeed indicative of the greater fact that there is no human remedy for sin. None that we can create. Religion works. In fact, religion and human nature have a hard time admitting that. Right. Donna Gray Barkhouse writes about this passage. Some interesting words. He said, In the religious fashion of our day, had the serpents come in our day.

There would have been a rush to incorporate the, quote, society for the extermination of the fiery serpents. There would have been badges for the coat lapel, cards for district workers, secretaries for organizational branches, pledge cards and mass rallies. There would have been a publication office and a weekly journal to tell of the progress of the work. There would have been photographs of heaps of serpents that had been killed by the faithful workers, all of them feverish, trying by human effort to overcome the serpent's bite of sin.

Let us accompany one of the Zellous workers as he might take a pledge card into the tent of a bittern man. The man had been bitten in the poison, had already affected his limbs. He lies and feverish agony. Deglaze of death already coming to his eyes.

The zealous member of the Society for the Extermination of fiery Serpens tells him of all that has been done to combat the serpents and urges the man to join the society. The dying victim fumbles in his pocketbook for money and then takes a pen in his hand. His fingers are held by the worker, who helps him form his signature on the pledge and membership card. And the man signs in fall and then dies.

That is a classic illustration of religion, ladies and gentlemen. My friend, you can join us society. You can join a church in go through Bible lessons catechisms, give money, get baptized when you're young, middle aged, old, and die without God.

You and I have been bitten by sin and it is a mortal wound. Is there hope?

Yes. You look up at a hat, a wooden pole, and you see dying there, paying the penalty for all of your sin. Jesus Christ. And you shed any self sufficiency or ambition or good things about you. And you look to him alone. And in that look, when you discover maybe today you are that you cannot work your way to his acceptance. You cannot be good enough. You can't join anything. You are stricken with this thing called sin. You must give yourself to him.

And he offers you eternal life freely at that moment. Latest job once for all.

You experience personally the amazing grace of God. You are born again.

All of us either can or have received God's gift of eternal life given to us as a result of God's amazing grace. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davy. We're in a series from our Vintage Wisdom Library out of the Book of Acts. We're going to continue through that series on Monday is broadcast tomorrow. As we do twice each month, we take a break from our normal Bible teachings so that Stephen can answer questions that have come in from listeners. We do that on the first and third Friday of every month. If you have a question that you'd like Stephen to answer, give us a call at nine one nine eight zero eight nine three eight four. That's our Bible question line. And we'd be happy to hear from you with your question about the Bible or the Christian faith. That'll be tomorrow's broadcast between now and then. We'd like to hear from you. And we'd especially like to tell you about our newest resource. Heart to Heart magazine. There's some very interesting and helpful articles in addition to a daily devotional guide to keep you rooted in God's word every day. Heart to Heart magazine is our gift to our wisdom partners. But we'd be happy to send it to anyone who wants three complimentary issues. Give us a call today at our office number, which is eight six six forty eight Bible. That's eight six six four eight two four two five three.

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