Thy mercy, my God, is the theme
of my song. Each time that we read of salvation
in the Scriptures, we find that it is speaking of something which
is certain, provided by the Lord, and not in any wise left to chance
or the free will of men. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have sent thee to be a light of the Gentiles,
that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified
the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. Yet when we hear the prevailing
message of this present age, which purports to be the preaching
of the gospel, we hear salvation set forth as an open-ended opportunity
or proposition, which is offered and made available to all men
to take advantage of, and in the process to make a bargain
with God, which will result in their deliverance from an eternal
hell. Anyone in his right mind would desire to escape the horrors
of the pit of destruction, which is described as outer darkness
and a lake of fire, if he comes to believe in its reality. In
order to know what salvation is, one must first know what
it is that men need to be saved from. While there is a pit of
destruction which is prepared for the devil and his angels,
and for all of those whose names are not recorded in the book
of life, the sons of God, who are the objects of salvation,
were never appointed unto this display of the wrath of God.
For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation
by our Lord Jesus Christ. And they are therefore not properly
spoken of as saved from hell. Having said that, we are quite
certain that all men, even the elect, are in and of themselves
worthy of this same destruction, since all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And in that measure, we can indeed
speak of having been delivered from this destruction by the
blood of Christ. Just as surely as He has seen
fit to make us subject unto the vanity of this world, He has
seen fit to deliver us from it. And Jesus Christ has come into
the world to pay the debt of sin which His people owe as members
of the human race. He would be both just and the
justifier of those who are manifested as the sons of God by believing
in him, becoming sin for them that they might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Sin is an attitude of rebellion
against God and is ingrained in the very flesh of the natural
man. That salvation which is wrought by Christ for the sons
of God deals with that very problem. The Lord came to save His people
from their sins, not just from the punishment which was rightly
due to them as lawbreakers, but from the very attitude of sin
itself. He told His disciples that it was necessary for Him
to go away that He might send unto them another Comforter.
He said this comforter would lead them into all truth and
would reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
It is this very operation of the convincing or reproving us
of our sin that stirs up the heart to continually cry out
to Him for mercy, even as the publican in the temple. It is
the same Spirit who teaches us of our own innate depravity,
even as the Apostle Paul lamented, O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then he exalted,
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So what is salvation? It is the work of Christ in redemption
wherein he has delivered his people from their sin. It is
an external work wherein he has forever satisfied the claims
of the law against them as lawbreakers, that is, the soul that sinneth
it shall die, imputing to them his righteousness and taking
upon himself their sin as a substitute. It is also an internal work wherein
he does deliver them from the bondage of sin, which primarily
manifests itself as an attitude of open rebellion against him.
While they are still left in this world and engaged in the
trials of their corruptible flesh, they are nonetheless made new
creatures to whom all things are become new. Whereas once
sin reigned in them without rival, the Spirit of the living God
does dwell in them, causing them to will and to do of His good
pleasure. The old man is crucified with
Christ, and the new man is made alive unto God. Paul said, I
am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. So to whom does salvation belong?
David knew the answer as he fled from the armies of Absalom, saying,
Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. He had no other confidence,
most certainly not in anything he could accomplish by his own
hand. Even as Jonah declared in the belly of the great fish
which the Lord had prepared to swallow him, Salvation is of
the Lord. It was as this revelation came
to him that the fish vomited him out on dry land. Upon whom
does your salvation depend? If you would like a free transcript
of this broadcast, email us at forthepoor at windstream.net.