The humorous story is told of a baseball manger who decided to play a rookie in right field one day. The regular fielder wasn’t happy about it and loudly makes it know from the bench that it was a big mistake to play the kid.
As it turned out the rookie was so nervous that he messed up big-time. He made a couple of errors and misjudged several other fly balls that should have been called errors. Each time he messed up, the veteran complained loudly from the bench.
Finally, late in the game the manager replaced the rookie with the veteran, mostly to shut the veteran up. Not long after, the veteran mishandled the first ball hit to him for an error. As he came off the field at the end of the inning, everyone on the bench got very quiet so they could hear what he would say.
The manager was waiting for the veteran, but before the manager could address the man, the veteran ballplayer slammed his glove down in disgust and said, “Skipper, that kid has right field so messed up nobody can play it.”
Far too many preachers and pastors have messed up the doctrine of salvation. In our text we have salvation in simple language that the everyday person can understand.