WORDS OF LIFE
Questions people ask...
What is the most important thing in life?
It’s important to have health, but it’s not of maximum importance, because some time in the normal course of events we will all have to die.
It’s important to have money and possessions, but they are not enough. Some day we will have to leave them all behind.
It’s important to have pleasure, but even that doesn’t last forever.
In view of the shortness of time and the length of eternity, the most important thing is to know that our eternal destiny is safely assured. It is to know that our afterlife will be spelled H-E-A-V-E-N and not H-E-L-L.
Jesus asked this crucial question: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul” (Mark 8:36,37).
If good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell, then what do I have to worry about?
The premise is wrong and therefore the conclusion is wrong.
The premise is wrong. It is not true that good people go to heaven. According to God’s standard, there are no good people. “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
The only kind of people who go to heaven are sinners saved by grace.
Because the premise is wrong, the conclusion is wrong. If you are not saved by grace, you have plenty to worry about.
What do you mean when you say saved by grace?
Grace is God showing favor to those who don’t deserve it, but who, in fact, deserve the very opposite.
It is closely linked with the idea of a gift. You do not earn a gift. That would be wages. You receive a gift and say “thank you.”
Grace and works cannot be mixed. It has to be one or the other.
Grace must be distinguished from justice. In justice, you get what you deserve. In grace you get favor that you don’t deserve.
What do I need in order to be saved?
You need to be born again. Jesus said it tersely, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’“ (John 3:7). Unless a person is born again, he will never see or enter the kingdom of God.
What do you mean by being born again?
The new birth is a marvelous, miraculous, supernatural work of God that takes place when a person repents of his sins and receives Jesus Christ by faith as Lord and Savior. Your first birth was physical; the new birth is spiritual.
Isn’t the gospel too easy? too cheap?
It is easy to be saved—so easy that it is available to all.
It is cheap for the sinner—without money and without price (Isaiah 55:1).
However, it wasn’t cheap for the Savior. He had to leave Heaven’s glory, come down to this jungle of sin, suffer, shed His precious blood, die a horrible death in order to purchase our pardon (1 Peter 2:24).
If all you have to do Is believe, then can’t you go out and live any way you want?
When you are saved, God changes your wants. You no longer want to sin. You lose your fierce appetite for sin. You don’t want to go on in that which caused the death of your Savior. You have a love of holiness. The Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If I sin after I’m saved, don’t I lose my salvation?
Jesus said that no sheep of His will ever perish (John 10:27-29).
All who are justified will one day be glorified (Romans 8:30b).
Salvation is a birth (John 3:3,5). A birth is final and unchangeable.
Salvation means eternal life (John 3:16,36). Eternal is forever.
Nothing can separate the believer from the love of God (Romans 8:38,39).
You say that when a person is saved, he receives forgiveness of sins. But what about sins committed after he is saved?
When a person is saved, he receives forgiveness for all his sins as far as the penalty is concerned. When Jesus died, He died for all our sins, past, present, and future. At the time He died, they were all future. He died for them all. Now God, the Judge, cannot find any sins on the believer for which to punish him with eternal death because Jesus bore the punishment on the cross of Calvary. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
Sins committed after salvation have several results:
• They break fellowship with God. This fellowship remains broken until the sin is confessed and forsaken. However, although fellowship is broken, relationship is not. Fellowship is a tender thread; relationship is an unbreakable chain.
• They break fellowship with our fellow believers.
• They hinder our prayers from being answered.
• They make service for Christ unfruitful, if not impossible. They seal our lips. {pb17}
• They bring dishonor and reproach on the Name of the Lord.
• They rob us of joy.
• They cast doubt on the reality of our conversion. J. I. Packer said, “The only proof of past conversion is present convert-edness.”
• They hinder spiritual growth.
• They invite God’s discipline.
The unbeliever receives judicial forgiveness of sins by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a once-for-all forgiveness.
The believer receives parental forgiveness by confession. It is something we need as long as we are in the body.
You say that Christ died for all. Why then aren’t all saved?
The death of Christ was sufficient for all the sins of all people of all times. But it is only effective when a person receives Christ by faith.
God doesn’t save people against their will. He isn’t going to populate heaven with people who don’t want to be there.
If God is all-powerful, why does He allow wars, tragedies, suffering, and sorrow?
All these things are the result of sin having entered the world. God is not the originator of any evil. All sickness, suffering, sorrow, and death come from the devil. God permits it, but then overrules it for His glory, for the good of His people, and for the outworking of His purposes.
How I can be saved and sure of it?
First, you must acknowledge before God that you are a guilty, lost sinner and that you deserve the punishment of eternal death.
Also you must abandon any idea of saving yourself or even contributing to your salvation by good character or good works of any kind.
Next you must believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died as a Substitute for you, paying the penalty that your sins deserved.
Finally, by a definite act of faith, you must receive Him as your exclusive Lord and Savior, your only hope for heaven.
When you do this in utter sincerity, you can know on the authority of God’s word that you are saved for time and for eternity.
Here is God’s promise: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
You have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Will you believe? Right now?