So Great A Salvation
Pastor Debbie Bentley
Part of Pastor Debbie Bentley
July 25, 2021

NOTAS EN ESPAÑOL

We can know for sure that we are saved.

1 John 5:13 “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

Many Christians are unstable in their salvation experience and their relationship with God because they are depending on their good works. Even those of us who know not to believe that still tend to fall into that way of thinking. If we do good God will accept us, but if we don’t we’ll be rejected.

We view God as a Santa Claus figure, who’s making a list and checking it twice. Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice. And if you’re naughty you’ll get coal in your stocking.

Therefore we cower before a God who we are afraid of. We find ourselves feeling that we just haven’t done enough to please Him.

Paul explained his struggle to obey God’s law this way.

Rom. 7:19 “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”

So what is the truth about salvation?

Are we saved by works? James 2:24 says this, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Or are we saved by grace through faith? Eph. 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

What exactly is God’s plan of salvation?

Let’s go back to the beginning.

When God made Adam and Eve, He made them in His image. He made them with the same capacity to love and react to things in the same way that He did. We were made to have fellowship and communion with God.

Rev. 4:11 “…for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

God created man and woman with a free will, able to choose the direction they would go. And He set them in a beautiful garden named Eden, in which there were many plants and trees from which to eat. But there was one tree in the midst of the garden that God said, “Thou shalt not eat of it, lest ye die.”

Why did God do that? There had to be a test in order to give Adam a choice or he would have been just like a robot programmed to do whatever God said.

But God didn’t want robots. He wanted willing beings able to choose Him because they wanted to.

Of course we know the story and what happened in the end. There was a snake in the garden. Eve listened to the Devil who was speaking through the snake and she ate of the fruit of that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She gave to Adam and he also ate of it. At that moment sin, sickness and death entered the world.

But this was not God’s plan. Fellowship with God was broken and they had to leave the Garden of Eden destined to work and sweat and get sick and die. However, God immediately set in motion a counterplan to redeem His fallen creatures.

But how was He going to do it?

God spoke to the Devil, who was in the serpent.

Gen: 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

God had given His word to Adam and Eve that if they ate of the fruit they would die. He couldn’t go back on that word. The only way God could be just and keep His word and yet forgive and redeem is if someone else could die in man’s place. But that someone else had to have never sinned in order to qualify.

James 2:10 “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

Adam’s disobedience brought a sin nature or tendency to sin to his children and their descendents.

Rom. 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So none of Adam’s descendents, of which we all are, could be a savior. God knew that the only way to save mankind was to do it Himself.

Rom. 5:19 “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, volunteered to become a man in order to save man.

John 1:14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

So God’s plan was set, but not everything on earth was ready for that to happen yet. Some things had to be prepared. There had to be a family and a nation for Jesus to be born into who would know God and His ways.

God began to look for a man and He found him in Abraham. He spoke to Abraham and led him away from his family of idol worshipers to a new land where he could develop that relationship with Him. Over the years and centuries that followed God was establishing the nation of Israel, so that when Jesus was finally born at the appointed time He would be trained and taught in the things of God.

Through the Law of Moses He showed them what His requirements were and instituted a system of animal sacrifices to cover sin. Because the penalty for sin was death, something or someone had to die for it. Animals died, but they were not adequate, because they were not human.

Heb. 10:4 “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.”

They were only a temporary fix until something permanent could be implemented. They were a picture of God’s perfect sacrifice.

Heb. 10:10“…we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

So what do we have to do to have this great salvation? BELIEVE IT AND RECEIVE IT!

Rom. 10:9-10 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Is that too easy?

We want to make it complicated. We want to have to do something else. But God says we cannot boast. Jesus paid it all.

Therefore we are justified by His shed blood. When God looks at us it is just as if we never sinned. He only sees that we are covered by Jesus’ blood. So when we stand guilty of sin before the Judge of the Universe we have an advocate (lawyer) who has taken the penalty for our sin which was death and its punishment so that we can go free. So if you are free why are you unsure about your salvation?

If you have decided to follow Jesus and have been born again by the Spirit of God you are His child. You can be secure in that.

But this is where we get confused. What if we sin after we are saved? Do we lose our salvation and have to get saved again? NO! Do we as parents disown our children when they make mistakes or misbehave? NO! Neither does God disown us. When we sin and are convicted by the Holy Spirit, we confess our sin and we are cleansed.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Does that mean we can do whatever we want even if it is wrong, because God will forgive us? NO!

Rom. 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

Even though we aren’t saved by good works, we are saved to do them.

Eph. 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

We are saved to have fellowship with God and the more you do that the more like Him you will become. Doing good works will be a natural by-product of your relationship with Him. We do good works because we love God and want to please Him.

Is it ever possible to lose your salvation? I believe it is possible, but it is not as easy as you think.

Heb. 6:4-6 “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”

2 Pet. 2:20-22 “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again: and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”

You have to make a conscious decision to turn your back on Christ and walk away from Him. Where does that happen? God only knows if one has crossed that line and He will give that one over to a reprobate mind.

The Holy Spirit will stop dealing with that person and he won’t want to ever come back.

Most of the time when one has backslidden as we say and fallen into sin, it is a struggle that they are going through and God will do everything He can to draw them back and to seek them out.

How do you know you haven’t done that unpardonable sin? As long as you have a desire in you to repent and come back to God you haven’t gone too far. Jesus is there waiting for you to return. God’s ultimate desire is to show mercy to people.

The Prodigal Son

Luke 15;11-32
What was the reason Jesus told this story? All the publicans and sinners were coming to hear Him speak and He was criticized by the Pharisees for hanging out with them. So Jesus told several parables as a rebuttal.

  1. The Parable of the Lost Sheep
  2. The Parable of the Lost Coin
  3. The Parable of the Prodigal Son

We all know the story so well. It is one of Jesus’ most well-known parables.

Luke 15:11-32
A certain man had two sons and one of them decided he wanted his inheritance now. So the father gave him his share and he left home and went to the ancient equivalent of Las Vegas and wasted his money on extravagant sinful living. When he ran out of money his friends left him high and dry and he had to go and find a job. The only job he could find was feeding pigs. He was so hungry by then that he actually thought about eating the pigs’ food. Scripture says he finally came to his senses and realized that his father’s servants had it better than this. So he decided to go back and ask his father if he could be one of his servants. Of course, when his father saw him he ran and embraced him and reinstated him as his son and had a big celebration. His older brother was angry because it seemed he should have been at least punished for his reckless actions. But his father was just glad to have his son back. It was like he had been raised from the dead.

Why was the older brother angry? Because he was looking at things the way we do so many times. His security and position was based upon what he did and what he didn’t do, not on a relationship with his father. He looked at his father as the hard disciplinarian and not as the loving father that he was. His father had told him “Thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine”, yet he didn’t receive the benefits of being his father’s son even though he lived in his father’s house. His relationship was not secure because he didn’t really know how his father was.