SALVATION FROM A TO Z "The Doctrine of Salvation)
Bob Marcaurelle
freesermons@homeorchurchbiblestudy.com
Website: Yahoo search homeorchurchbiblestudy.com bob marcaurelle
Copyright 2005 by Bob Marcaurelle
2014 Revision by Bob Marcaurelle
Week 3
A BRAND NEW YOU AND ME
The New Birth
“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” (Matthew 7:18) “You must be born again. If a man is not born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of
heaven.” (John 3) -Jesus
Before Augustine became a Christian in the late 300’s AD he was a wild and immoral young man. Walking a street one day, a prostitute called out to him and he kept on walking. She caught him, turned him around and said, “Augustine, don’t you know who I am?” “I do,” he said, “but you don’t know who I am. The Augustine you knew is dead.”
Salvation involves not only forgiveness but a change of character that leads to a change of life. God never forgives a person unless He changes Him into a better, more loving, less selfish, human being. He never gets us into heaven in the hereafter unless He gets heaven into us in the nasty here and now.
Matthew Henry said if an unsaved man got into heaven he would pick the angel’s pockets. This is why Jesus told a good, moral, religious man named Nicodemas that unless he was born again he would never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
We are to humbly admit not only that we have done wrong and need forgiveness, but we have evil in our hearts that we cannot overcome. We cannot be and do what we know we should so we ask God to change us and control us and forgive us when we fail. This is true repentance, asking God to turn our lives around to live for Him and others not for ourselves. This includes faith because we give up all thoughts of being good enough for God to forgive us and trust in the cross for forgiveness.
New birth is one of many descriptions. Our change is called a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17); being made alive (Eph. 2:5); conversion (Acts 3:19) which means a turn around in life. We repent and turn from a life of wickedness and by faith we turn to Jesus; death to sin and being “raised to walk in a new life.” A. H. Strong says the repentance and faith we express at salvation is the lower side, the human side of regeneration.
THE NECESSITY
Being changed is necessary because Jesus said it. He who claimed to be God and proved it by rising from the dead is our authority (Romans 1:1-4). It is necessary because of our nature. God said through Jeremiah,
“The heart (human nature) is desperately wicked and deceitful. Who can cure it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
We can do good things but only God can make us good. The German industrialist, Schindler risked his life and spent all of his money to save hundreds of Jews from death. But he was also repeatedly unfaithful to his wife. The soldier who throws himself on a grenade for you, if he lives, might kill you later in a bar fight or have relations with your wife.
We may not do horrible wicked things but we all have the potential. Lutheran girls could type Nazi death lists of Jews and nice Lutheran children could laugh at the Jews being transported to the death camps. Spurgeon says human nature is like gunpowder, it isn’t always exploding but it is always explosive; just waiting for the right spark to set it off.
The root of evil is our selfishness. It is the most natural thing in the world. Take a toy from a child with a hundred toys to give to a child with no toys and you will see the devil in that child. Who of us can say we would not trample a child to get out of a burning building; or that inheriting ten million dollars would not change us? If you answer that quickly and easily you do not know your own heart.
It is necessary because we cannot change who we are. The world’s way to heaven is reformation (Trying to make ourselves good). God rejects this saying,
“By the works of the law (obeying God’s commands) no one will be justified (made right with God” (Rom. 3:20)
We will look at the why of this later but for now, we will say it is because no effort on our part can change our hearts, who we really and truly are on the inside. Jesus said “a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” (Matthew 7). God says:
“Even if you wash yourself with lye and a lot of soap, the stain of your guilt is always before Me.” (Jeremiah 2:22)
The heart, in Scripture, is not the fist shaped muscle in our chest. It is “Who we are” in the core of our being. It is the throne room of our souls. It is where we: think (Lk, 2:35); rejoice (Isa. 30:29; love (Lk.10:27); decide (Dan. 1:8); produce sins (Matt. 15:19) and produce goodness (Lk. 6:45). Our character becomes one that: (1) Knows God (2) Walks in God’s ways, and (3) Fears God (Jer. 24:7; Ezek. 11:19; Jer. 32:38).
Trying to make ourselves better people is like mopping a dirt floor. The harder we work, the dirtier we get. It is like putting talcum powder on cancer. It is like trying to purify the water by painting the pump.
God demands a “pure heart” (Ps. 24). You would not eat an omelet made with 19 good eggs and one rotten one and neither will God accept us because of the rotten places in all of us. If we have to live by the Sermon on the Mount to go to heaven we are all doomed to be damned. Most of us have trouble keeping two New Year’s resolutions for a week.
THE NATURE
“I will give you a new heart (Inner nature) and will put a new spirit in you. I will put My Spirit in you and cause you to follow My laws.” (Ezekiel 36:26-28)
1. A Miracle
The descriptions of the New Birth – born again; raised to new life; a new creation; etc. make is a miracle. It is the work of God the Holy Spirit. We can no more create ourselves; birth ourselves; make ourselves alive; or raise ourselves from spiritual death than we can pick ourselves up with our shoe laces.
It took a miracle to put the stars in space
Buy when He saved my soul
Cleansed and made me whole
That took a miracle of love and grace
2. A Change of Character
God does not “cause” us to obey Him with external pressure. He does it by an inner change. It is like Him telling us we have to love our grandchildren to make it to heaven. It is our nature to do that.
3. Not Necessarily Exciting
Paul was struck blind when He was converted it (Acts 9); but Timothy accepted Christianity from his grandmother as a child. (2 Timothy 1) Nicodemas didn’t know he was born again until three years later when he stood up against his friends and gave Jesus a decent burial. (John 3; 20). The great C.S. Lewis said he got on a bus an atheist and got off a Christian and has no idea how it happened. For some it is an emotional upheaval and for others it is a simple decision. When Jesus talks about false teachers in the church he says we will know them by their fruits- the character they have and the lives they lead. He adds: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” (Matt. 7)
W.T. Conner says it is not how high we jump when we get salvation that proves new birth; it is how straight we walk when we come back down.
4. Not Necessarily Remembered
The new birth is not necessarily a particular, identifiable experience we remember. I remember my conversion, and there are some who will tell you that without that salvation is not real. That is not right. Baptists program conversion by associating it with walking an aisle, making a public profession and being baptized. Throughout church and in most denominations today, there are not invitations like this. Most people grow up having a multitude of experiences with the Lord- in church, in private prayer, at retreats, etc. and cannot pinpoint the particular one where they crossed the line from death to life.
Billy Graham’s wife Ruth, reared a devout Presbyterian, did not remember any one experience; but Billy says, “she was the finest Christian he ever knew.” Spurgeon says some conversions are like a bolt of lightning, and others are like the coming of the dawn, when we cannot pinpoint the exact moment night becomes morning. Adrian Rogers says when you fly from Georgia to Texas you don’t know exactly when you crossed into Texas, but you are there.
Looking for an experience is damaging. If you doubt your salvation today it is an exercise in futility to look back and try to determine if you were “really” converted. Trying to conjure up some “born again” experience is equally frustrating. The thing to do is to pray and give Jesus all your sins to forgive and your life to change and control. Whenever doubt comes, do it again.
THE NEW LIFE
Where there is birth there will be life. Spurgeon said for God to save us and leave us the same kind of people would be like healing a leper and leaving him in his leprosy. Jesus (Matt. 7) and Paul (Gal. 5) call the new way of life “fruit”. James calls it “works”. He does not mean the ceremonial works in the OT, but the moral and ethical. The one term that sums up the Christian life is “love”.
Romans 13:.9
“The commandments, ‘do not commit adultery; do not commit murder etc… are summed up in the one idea - Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”
Jesus said this in Luke 10 and gave the Parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate what love is. The term agape may include our idea of love (a warm affectionate feeling), but whether or not we feel that way towards a person, we see his needs, do with we can to help him and expect nothing in return.
5. Not a Personality Change
When we become Christians, we do not lose our unique humanity and personality. Simon Peter is the same brash, quick to act, slow to think, human being, all the way to the grave. We don’t become look-alike, sound-alike clones. If we liked baseball before salvation, we will probably like it after salvation; but we will be nicer to the umpires.
6. An Increasing Awareness of Sin
One strange thing about conversion is that as we read the Bible, pray and associate with strong Christians we begin to see the evil in us. When Isaiah saw God in the temple he called himself “unclean” (Isa. 6). J. C. Ryle says the growing Christian often believes he is not growing because he sees his sinfulness more than ever before. God makes us aware of our uncleanness so we will confess it, forsake it and overcome it. Warren Wiersbie says,
“A growing Christians sins less and less and confesses more and more.
This awareness makes us more tolerant with others. John Wesley and a friend heard the bell ringing to announce an execution. Wesley’s eyes filled with tears and his friend asked him if he knew the person. Wesley said no, “My eyes filled with tears because of the gratitude of my heart because if it were not for Jesus I could be the man being executed. God’s change is motivated by love for the unlovely. Adrian Rogers says:
“God does not change us so He can love
us ; He loves us so He can change us.”
7. The Desire to Do Right
When God showed “Paul” to Paul and he got a good look at his sins, he tells us about it in Romans seven. He says he “delights” in the law of God and obedience is what he “wants to do”. He says disobedience is “doing the thing I have”. As Dr. Conner says, righteousness becomes the dominating passion of the soul. As He begins the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” (Matt. 5)
8. Inability to Live in Constant Sin
The controlling power of wickedness and disobedience is broken. In Romans 6:1-13 describing new birth as dying to sin and being raised to walk in a new life, Paul says we go from being “slaves to sin” to being “slaves to righteousness.” (Romans 6). He says, “Sin must no longer rule over your bodies”.
We still do wrong but sin does not rule it intrudes. We commit acts of sin but do not live in it as a way of life. If we do we are not true Christians. First John says,
“No one born of God will continue to sin because God’s seed remains in him sand he cannot go on sinning because he is born of God.” – 1 John 3:9
A Christian can do bad things from time to time, but that no more makes him bad that doing good things from time to time makes a non-Christian good. The Amplified Version brings out the meaning of the present tense verbs. John is not talking about isolated acts of sin. He has already told us in 1:7-10, how a child of God deals with his sins. He also says there that if we say we have no sin, we are liars. He is talking here about living in sin as a way of life.
As a teenager I was fishing with some friends in a boat when a storm came up. As we were rowing in one of them turned to me and said, “Man, quit taking God’s name in vain, it’s lightning. (That’s how lost people think!) Cursing was so natural with me and the fear of God was so far from me, when I was lost, that I didn’t even know I was cursing.
It is no longer that way. If I get up to answer a phone at night, stumble over my shoes and run my head through my TV picture tube, I cannot promise you I won’t backslide and take God’s name in vain. I hope I wouldn’t. But if I did I would immediately be ashamed, would ask God to forgive me, and would search my heart to see why I did it so I would not do it again.
Billy Graham says if a cat falls in the mud it will get out as quickly as possible for that is the nature of a cat. If a hog falls in he wallows in it. That is the nature of a hog. When we fall into sin we cannot wallow in it for several reasons:
(1) Sin Causes Shame and Pain
We cannot stay in sin for a long time because of the shame and pain it brings. David said when he did not confess his wrongdoing- his bones wasted away – He groaned night and day – He felt God’s heavy hand was on him – his strength was sapped away (Psalm 32). Shame drives us back to God. We say:
I don’t want to come to the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I’ve done
(2) Sin Creates Fear
Another reason we cannot linger long in sin is fear. We come out because we don’t want to be spanked. Hebrews says:
“The Lord corrects everyone He loves and punishes everyone He accepts as a son (child).” Hebrews12:8-11 (TEV)
Proverbs 16:6 says, “Because of the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.” This is not the cringing fear of some cruel tyrant, but the healthy fear a child with good parents has when he does wrong. God will punish us fro wrongdoing.
Jonah ran from the will of God; ran into a storm and spent three days in the stomach of a great fish. It spit him out when the stomach enzymes had finished their work on his body. The children’s story book I read to my children puts it this way with the picture of him lying on the shore:
“And the fish vomited Jonah up on the shore and then Jonah did what the Lord told him to do.”
This doesn’t mean horrible things will come on us right away. God took David’s baby (2 Samuel 11-13) and the people at Corinth became sick and some even died because of irreverence at the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11).
Such harsh actions by God are few and far between. God woos us with His love; and if that doesn’t work He warns us. Our wrongdoing begins to hurt us and those we love. His last resort, like that of every good parent is to whip us.
When horrible things come and we know we are in the will of God it is good to know these are not punishments, but just the life blows that come to us all. But if we are outside of His will and something horrible like cancer comes, we will always wonder if it came because of our rebellion.
