A Search For Salvation Series

TITANTIC sank: passengers traveled some with simple accomodations while others had very expensive. Extreme difference between but when tally came into NY office it had two catagories: SAVED & LOST Some people are going to hell in first class.

LITTLE BOY in school: teacher asked, ‘what is the opposite of LOST, SAVED!, not it is ‘found’, not what God says. Live by the dictionary or the Bible.

*Probably not a more uncomfortable word in the Christian vocabulary. ‘Is this seat saved? No, but I am!’ See where they end up sitting

(1) Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.(they be saved).

*Of Whom do you feel this concern?

a. Desire is evidenced by constant prayer.

b. Pray for many things: good job, nice home, safe car, good friends, SALVATION.

1) Legs on those prayers: Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God.(17) Invest God’s Word in their lives.

2) VISION: Word of God in people’s lives(children & adults-boy’s salvation Wed night) Radio – preach through the Bible verse by verse(power and clarity of context)

c. My ‘hearts desire’ is a genuine salvation

PILGRIM’S PROGRESS: Christian on path to celestrial city when he encountered along the way Presumption & ___________ ‘How did you get here?’ We jumped over the wall. But Evangelist said you must come through the narrow gate. What’s the difference, if we are in we are in. Soon they went astray and fell into a ditch where the blind leads the blind. Encounter along our path wheat & tares.

J.V. McGee estimates that 75% of the members of the average church might not be genuinely saved.(religious club) Billy Graham states that 80% of those who make salvation decision in his crusades are already on a church roll somewhere.

YOU CAN BE RELIGIOUS AND LOST. World is filled with religious people some who are as busy as termites, it is human nature but is it a genuine relationship with God the Father through the merits of God the Son.

Q-Have you accepted the righteousness that God offers in Christ Jesus?

DANGERS OF A FALSE CONFIDENCE 10:2-5 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by that righteousness.(10:2-5)

*Paul, under oath, his assessment of the Jewish people.

1. THEY ARE A VERY COMMITTED PEOPLE zeal for God

a. That is not a charge that could be made against most professing Christians. I look at the lives of some who have been professing believers for ten to twenty years and have seen little growth in their lives and even less passion.

b. Gentiles are unique in that they often compartmentalize their relationship with God. Confine it to a place and time. With Jews & Muslims it effects every aspect of life. No passionate Jew would ever allow some of the rulings we have seen in this country: School prayer and such. We have a casual attitude towards the things of God. It is part of life but not the center.

MAYOR in Jerusalem: some time back beaten by zealot Jews because of a ruling regarding the Sabbath Day. He only shut down certain sections of the city and allowed cars to be driven in other sections.

WAILING WALL: little box(phylacteries) bound to their foreheads, prayer shawl, bobbing up and down as they go through intense prayers. zeal

TULSA YWCA: Dropped me off while shopping. Finished and walked out to a street corner and sat down to read my Bible(read while on treadmill). A car with two women stopped, one got out and walked over, ‘Are you reading a Bible?’ An hour passed as we discussed issues like: false prophecy of Jesus coming in 1914, 192?, 1933. False teaching that Jesus is Michael the Archangel, 144,000 who are Jews and not Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mistranslation of John 1 and other passages by so-called scholars none of which knew Greek. VERY ZEALOUS WOMAN BUT

2. THE HAVE A COMMITMENT WITHOUT TRUTH they have a zeal for God, BUT not in accordance with knowledge.

COLLEGE TRACK team in Mexico City: On of sites we visited was a very large catholic church. We got off the bus and walked for ½ mile. Passed people doing something I have never seen in all my life in Baptist churches: making their way to church on their knees(people of all ages)

MUSLIMS: 3-5-7 times a day life stops to pray/False teachers on TV and who hold crusades who fill stadiums with fanatical listeners/follow Jim Jones, a David Karesh, commit suicide at the coming of a comet.