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How To Be Saved – The Basics

January 7th, 2010
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If you or anyone you know is wondering how to be saved, here's a great resource that will lay it all out for you.

Jessie sent me an email with this video from Tangle. This is probably the best presentation I've seen. In very simple terms, it tackles the most asked questions, including:

  • Why is there a Hell? Why would a loving God send people there?
  • what is the plan of salvation?
  • What are the "rules" to being saved?
  • Why was Jesus crucified?
  • What is grace?

Take a few minutes and watch this. It's done in a style that will hold your attention and does a great job of clearing up some basic issues about how to be saved and what that really means.

 

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Randy Reed Faith, Salvation , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Faith vs Works – Contradictions In The Bible?

November 30th, 2009
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In the class I lead every Sunday, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the Old Testament. It’s important to understand where our religion began and to know its roots. Christianity did not begin with the birth of Jesus Christ and the Old and New Testaments are not separate phases in our history.
 
The only difference in the state of man in the Old and New Testaments is the event foretold by the prophets, the coming and the sacrifice of the Messiah. We were under the law before the resurrection of Jesus, but the law did not provide our salvation. (I say “we” even though I am not, by blood, Jewish, because everyone who has accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah, has been grafted into the family of Abraham. Because of this, we are adopted and share the Jewish heritage.) Salvation was obtained under Old Testament law exactly the same way it is obtained today, through faith.
 
This is the point that Paul if trying to convey to the Jewish believers in Rome. The Jews living in Rome understood and believed that Jesus WAS the promised one, but were having difficulty with gentiles who had come to believe. All their lives the Jewish believers had followed the law and, since Christianity was not a new religion but a continuation of the same religion they had always held, they did not see any reason to stop practicing the traditions and laws they had been raised with. They also felt that the gentiles coming to the faith should also follow the same laws.
 
The biggest point of contention was the question of circumcision. Should the gentiles submit to circumcision in order to join the faith? Wasn’t it a condition of salvation? If not, was circumcision meaningless, a pointless tradition?
 
Paul puts their doubts to rest by affirming that the practice was, in fact, important and necessary.
 
Romans 3 (New King James Version)
1 What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? 2 Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.
 
Circumcision was a symbol of the covenant that God made with Abraham.
 
Genesis 17
4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
9 And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; 11 and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.
 
Paul points out that Abraham wasn’t circumcised when God proclaimed him righteous.
 
Romans 3

9 Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, 12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.
 
It was a way to remember the covenant that God had made with Abraham. It was not a requirement for salvation. Paul goes on to explain that this applies to all aspects of the law, not just circumcision.
 
Romans 3
13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.
16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
 
Circumcision began with Abraham, but the law was given to the people through Moses. Abraham, the father of the nation, was the great-grandfather of Joseph, who brought his family to Egypt. The Hebrew nation lived in Egypt for 430 years before Moses led them out.
 
If the law was how you got saved then Abraham was lost. It wouldn’t even be available for several hundred years.
 
So what was the purpose of the law? Are we still under the law? Jesus addresses this issue in the sermon on the mount.
 
Matthew 5
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
 
The law held the people accountable and served as a reminder that in order to have your sins forgiven, a price had to be paid. Under the law a sacrifice was brought to the temple and the high priest acted on your behalf, offering the sacrifice as payment for your sins. It wasn’t the actual spilling of animal blood that bought forgiveness. It was merely a symbol, a shadow, of the price that was to be paid by the Messiah, when he came.
 
If you obeyed the law prior to the crucifixion, that was good. But if you BELIEVED that God would forgive you while you performed the sacrifice, THAT was great! The sins of the people living before Jesus paid the price could not be washed away until the real sacrifice was made. Because of this, everyone who dies prior to the crucifixion went to a place called “The Bosom Of Abraham”. It was a place of rest until the sacrifice of Jesus made it possible for them to enter Heaven.
 
Nothing is different between the Old and New Testaments. The process and the requirements remain the same. Salvation has always been obtained through faith, not works.
 
But wait! What about “faith without works is dead”?
 
James 2
18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without you] works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?] 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”]And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
 
This is the scripture that was used when I was growing up in the Mormon church to prove that the “born agains” were wrong and headed for hell. I have to admit, it was very difficult for me to come to grips with the concept of salvation through faith after all those years of indoctrination.
 
So how does this all fit together? Is this one of contradictions in the Bible that people love to throw at you?
 
I look at my relationship with Jesus in the same way I look at my marriage. In fact, the Church is “the bride of Christ”. I am legally married to an amazing woman, and I would never do anything to jeopardize that relationship. I don’t play around and I work everyday at making her happy (I’m not always successful, but I try J). But its not the legal documents that make me want to please her, it’s because I love her.
 
If I would tell her I love her then go out and play around, it would make what I said meaningless. How could someone possibly love someone else if they are fooling around on the side? This is the “works” part of the marriage.
 
Saying that you believe in Jesus doesn’t mean anything unless you are doing something about it. You aren’t saved by sitting in church every week. God doesn’t take roll. You aren’t saved by a confession of faith followed by nothing, a continuation of the life you lived before.
 
You are saved by REAL faith. The kind of faith that motivates you to work toward a stronger relationship with Jesus. Faith that drives your works, not empty faith, not empty works.
 
It’s important that the works you do are done out of your desire to please God. If you find yourself going through the motions because this is what you are supposed to do… stop! This is how you cross the line into legalism. Get back to the reason you started doing whatever it is in the first place.
 
Faith without works is dead, and so is works without faith.
 
 
  
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Randy Reed Faith, General Notes , , ,

Unconditional Covenants – Part 3

July 22nd, 2009
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It’s been a bit of a break, but I’d like to finish out the discussion on covenants. The first two parts were on unconditional covenants. This post will cover conditional covenants, one in particular.
Just a quick definition:

  • Unconditional covenants are made from God to man with no terms. These are promises given by God that can’t be negated by anything man does. Examples we covered are the Abrahamic and Land Covenants.
  • Conditional covenants, on the other hand, depend a great deal on our willingness to step up and meet those conditions. There are examples all through the bible and I’ll cover a few later, but the main one is the promise of salvation.

So, what exactly is this covenant? In short, it is way in which we can go to Heaven. Easily said, but what does that mean? What is Heaven? Are we all just going to sit around playing harps like in the movies? Why would I want to do something for eternity that I don’t want to do now? How boring is that? It’s sad to look at our world and see how the media has sculpted our beliefs. I’m not talking about violent, slasher or sex films. Those are easy to dismiss as “bad”. The biggest problem is the films and tv programs that seem to be religious in nature that, by trying not to offend anyone, give the viewer a skewed idea of what life, death and salvation is really all about. Even “The Passion Of The Christ”, which I really liked, never explains what the reason behind all that suffering really was. TV programs have portrayed friendly angels helping people in times of need, but never explain man’s greatest need. The best way to destroy your enemy’s credibility is to pretend you are one of them.
If we were to base our beliefs on what we’ve seen in the media then we don’t really need any “saving”. After all, good people go to Heaven and bad people go to hell, don’t they? If that’s all there is to it, then hell would be pretty empty. Even the worst of us will tell ourselves that we’re really a good person. After all, isn’t hell just for murderers and rapists? (Enough of my opinionated ranting, back to the subject)
The subject of hell is too big a subject to cover here, maybe I’ll do another post on it later. But let me say this, hell was not created to punish man. It was created as a prison for Lucifer and his followers (angels that fell with him). Unfortunately, if you aren’t spending eternity in the presense of God, there is nowhere else for you.

So, what does it mean to be in the presense of God and how do we get there?

I don’t think we really have a firm grasp on what it means to stand in the presence of God. The Bible paints an amazing picture of just what that means. Look a Psalm 68, especially at verse 2.

Psalm 68 (New King James Version)

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. A Song.
1 Let God arise,
Let His enemies be scattered;
Let those also who hate Him flee before Him.
2 As smoke is driven away,
So drive them away;
As wax melts before the fire,
So let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
3 But let the righteous be glad;
Let them rejoice before God;
Yes, let them rejoice exceedingly.

Notice it didn’t say God did anything to “melt” the wicked other than just being there. Psalm 68 shows that the earth, itself, is effected by His presence.

Psalm 68 (New King James Version)

7 O God, when You went out before Your people,
When You marched through the wilderness,  Selah
8 The earth shook;
The heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God;
Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

Psalm 5 (New King James Version)

4 For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness,
Nor shall evil dwell with You.
5 The boastful shall not stand in Your sight;
You hate all workers of iniquity.

Psalm 5 says that even the boastful can’t stand in front of Him.

What I see from the descriptions in the Bible is a being so powerful, so pure and so righteous that nothing can stand to even be in His presence without self-destructing, unless… that person is as pure and righteous as God, Himself.
But, according to Jesus in the sermon on the mount, that’s not possible. The law said that it was a sin to kill. Jesus said that if you hate you have committed an equally serious sin. I think I can be pretty safe in assuming that if ANYONE looked at the list Jesus gave us, and was honest with himself, that nobody could ever claim to be righteous enough to stand in the presence of God.

Matthew 5 (New King James Version)

20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

In Matthew 5 Jesus doesn’t say “as righteous as”. He says that unless your righteousness exceeds the Pharisees…

The Pharisees were obsessive in the way they followed every single nuance in the law that Moses passed to them. And, yet, Jesus says they will “by no means enter the kingdom of heaven”.
So, bottom line is… No matter what you do, no matter how good you are, there is absolutely no possible way that any of us could survive standing in the presence of God. Except one.

Enter the Covenant

I don’t have time to go into what it meant when Jesus went to the cross. After all, 95% of the Bible talks about just that. Forget for a moment the whole issue of original sin. Forget about Adam and Eve. These are important parts of the price paid on the cross, but just for now put those issues aside and think about yourself. Unless you are as pure and righteous as God, Himself, there is no way you can stand in His presence.
So how do you become as righteous as God? I don’t know about you (although I bet I could guess) but there’s no way I could.

The righteousness of God had to be given to man. He couldn’t become righteous enough on his own. Here are just a few verses that show that the righteousness of God is given to man through Jesus Christ.

Philippians 3 (New King James Version)

8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith

2 Corinthians 5 (New King James Version)

20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Matthew 6 (New King James Version)

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness

So what does that mean? Man is able to stand in the presence of God because he is made as righteous and pure as God through Jesus. This is not just a New Testament idea. There are many places in the Old Testament, but Isaiah is especially clear. Notice the wedding reference.

Isaiah 61 (New King James Version)

10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Okay, so righteousness is transferred to man from God. This makes it possible for man to enter Heaven and live in the presence of God. But there’s a catch. Remember, this is a “conditional” Covenant. That means there must be something WE have to do be able to receive God’s righteousness. We’ve already seen that no matter how hard we try, there’s no way we can make ourselves clean enough through our own thoughts and actions. What kind of impossible hurdle has God put in front of us to earn His righteousness?

Romans 10 (New King James Version)

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”[a](that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

It’s as “simple” as that. Believe it and speak it. I put “simple” in quotes, because this is the hard part. You have to actually believe. But it all comes down to believe it and speak it. The most impossible feat since the creation of the universe is accomplished by believing and speaking. But the key is the believing part. You can say it all you want, but if you don’t believe it, it’s meaningless.

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Randy Reed Bible Covenants, Faith

Praying But Not Believing

June 23rd, 2009
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We didn’t have Sunday School this week because of Father’s Day and a church campout. Originally, I had planned to put together a post here that would go along with the subjects we are covering in the class, but I was handed something I liked even better. At our men’s breakfast every Friday morning our main man, Lloyd, always has a great thought for the group. This Friday was no different and I thought I’d pass it on to you. The text below is exactly as he wrote it. The only thing I would say about it is to ask you to sit back after you’ve read it and do a little self analysis. How would you truthfully answer the questions he asks?

Acts 12:14-15 (New International Version)

14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate. 15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind! ” But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept saying, “It is his angel. “

We can say prayers in our mind but doubt in our heart. At times God will answer such prayers as He did when Peter was in prison, scheduled for execution. The believers in Jerusalem were powerless to free him, so they prayed. When God released Peter, their reaction revealed the doubt in their hearts. They argued that Peter could not possibly be free, even as he stood outside knocking on the door!
Is it possible to be a “person of prayer” and yet not have faith? Is it possible to fool yourself into believing that God will help us when we pray, do we have faith in His ability to meet our needs? Is our faith so weak that you are surprised when God answers our prayer? As children of God, we ought to expect God to answer our prayers. Do we ask God to do something without adjusting our life to what we are praying for? If we are praying for revival, how are we preparing for its coming? If we are praying for forgiveness, are we still living with guilt? If we have asked God to provide for our needs, do we remain worried and anxious?
We need to ask God to increase our faith, and then begin living a life that reflects absolute trust in Him. Out of His grace, God may choose to respond to our requests despite our lack of faith, but with lack of faith we will miss the joy of praying in faith.

(Thanks Lloyd, great way to start the day. I’d like to throw in Mark 11:24. I won’t post it here. Take a moment and look it up and remember: there’s a difference between believing IN God and BELIEVING God.

Randy)

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