What Must I Do to Be Saved

Content of the Gospel — Steve Gregg

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Eternal Security

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What Must I Do to Be Saved

Content of the GospelSteve Gregg

Discover the path to salvation and an intimate relationship with God through Steve Gregg's insightful exploration of the Gospel. Gregg emphasizes that salvation is not just an impersonal gift; it is a transformative experience that connects us to God. Drawing from biblical references, he highlights the importance of knowing and encountering God personally, rather than merely having knowledge about Him. By embracing a close relationship with God and obediently following His commandments, one can experience true salvation and become a faithful servant in His kingdom.

Transcript

Tonight I want to wrap up our series that has been in general about the content of the gospel. The gospel is the good news, and as I pointed out in our earlier series installment, it is more frequently than anything else called the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we looked at the implications of that label of the gospel in our first session.

It is also frequently called the gospel of the kingdom of God, the good news of the kingdom of God. We looked at the implications of that in our second session. It is also frequently called the gospel of salvation.

And so last time we talked about what salvation is. We never did get far enough to discuss how to get saved, or how to get there from here. But we have examined from scripture what salvation actually is, and it certainly is more than just getting a ticket to heaven.

It is being redeemed out of the bondage of sin so that we have a holy life, a life of walking in obedience to God, belonging to him as a slave, is owned by his master, as the Bible tells us. But how do we become recipients of the kingdom of God? How do we come into the kingdom? How do we come into salvation? How are we to respond to the gospel? It is clear that the gospel is good news, but although the gospel is preached, not everybody is saved. And it is clear that in order to be saved there must be some response to the gospel.

And exactly what that response is needs to be defined if we hope to be confident that we have made such a response as is required by God. When we stand before God on the day of judgment it would be a terrible thing We have spent our whole life thinking that we had become Christians and it turned out that we had never really responded to the gospel as the scripture instructs us that we must. And so tonight we will be talking about what must I do to be saved? How do I respond to the gospel in such a way as to enter the kingdom of God and to possess this salvation of which the scriptures so frequently speak? As you can see from the outline I have given you, we are going to talk about four general headings.

We are going to talk about what it means to have a saving relationship with God because salvation as we will find is nothing else but a relationship with God. We are going to talk about alienation from God which is the natural state of all people until we are saved and how to come from the stage of alienation to a point of reconciliation with God so that our relationship with God can be restored and can be intact. And finally I am going to plan to talk about this issue of once saved always saved the eternal security doctrine.

It was actually originally attached to the notes of last week's material but I simply did not have time to get to it. I hope that I shall do better this time because I know many of you are very interested in hearing about that subject. I would like to begin by pointing out that salvation is not simply an impersonal gift.

Salvation is a gift and many people think that since it is a gift God just gives it to me and he is not an Indian giver so once he has given it to me I could never possibly lose it. He would never take it back of course and therefore I have it no matter what I do. There are actually people, believe it or not, who think that you can become a Christian and then walk off and serve the devil the rest of your life and die in that state and still possess the gift of salvation.

As if that gift is something entirely independent from God himself. Now when I give gifts to my children for example what I give them in fact are gifts that are independent from myself. That is to say if I give my child a bicycle if I would die and no longer be in my child's life they would still have the bicycle.

If they would run away from home and take their bicycle with them they would still have their bicycle. They would still have the gift even though they would not have me. But the gift of God, salvation, is not that kind of a gift.

It is a gift that inheres in God himself and salvation is a relationship connected to God. And we can see this from many scriptures. First I would like to point out that in the scriptures salvation is in the Lord.

Salvation belongs to the Lord and is in the Lord. There are some scriptures I did not put in your notes that I could have. For example in Exodus chapter 15 I think it is around verse 10 or so.

When the children of Israel came out of Egypt and they were celebrating on the other side after they had seen the Egyptians wiped out in the Red Sea. That they were singing and celebrating and they said the Lord my God is my strength and my song and he has also become my salvation. He, God, has become my salvation.

He is my salvation. In Psalm 27 verse 1 a familiar verse David said the Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my salvation.

Did you know that the name Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. That is the meaning of the name. Of course it is Greek.

Jesus is Greek. It comes from the Hebrew word Joshua which is from two Hebrew words Jehovah Shua which means Jehovah is salvation. So even the name of Jesus tells us what we are suggesting right now that salvation is God, is in God.

He is our salvation. And in Jeremiah 3 verse 23 I have given you so many verses in these notes I am going to run through them rather quickly. I would like you to look up as many as you would like.

If you get left behind in the dust because I move too quickly and you cannot turn that quickly you at least have them in your notes and you may wish to look them up later. But in Jeremiah 3 verse 23 the prophet said truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

Salvation is in the Lord our God. In Revelation 7.10 the inhabitants of heaven are found crying with a loud voice saying salvation belongs to our God. Which sits upon the throne and unto the Lamb.

And it is an attribute of God. Salvation is one of his actions that is tied to his own nature and his own character. It is an activity that belongs to God alone because only he can save.

And salvation is found only in him. In 1 John 5 verses 11 and 12. John said and this is the record that God has given to us eternal life and this life is in his son.

He that hath the son hath life and he that hath not the son of God hath not life. Notice that having the son or not having the son is equated in these verses with being in Jesus or not being in Jesus. This eternal life is in the son and if you have the son then you have the life.

If you don't have the son then you don't have life. Now many Christians might think of this simply as people who have never received Christ. They don't have the son.

But what about a person who has the son and then becomes estranged to him. And walks away from him, denies him before men and so forth. Does that person still have the son? We'll talk about that later tonight in the issue of eternal security.

But suffice it to say that salvation is in Jesus and only as you have Jesus do you have this salvation, you have this eternal life. In Ephesians 1.7 Paul wrote in whom, that's in Jesus, we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

Now we have redemption, that's part of salvation as we saw last time. We have the forgiveness of sins, that certainly is an aspect of salvation. And it says we have these things in him.

In him we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. So salvation, the forgiveness of sins, redemption is found in Christ, in God. Now how is one said to be in him? How does one come to be in him? What does it mean to be in him? Well, one of the expressions the Bible uses synonymously with this is to know God.

To know him and that doesn't mean to know about God. Anybody who goes to church for very long will know about God, hopefully. Some churches maybe they go a long time and won't know very much about God.

But the fact of the matter is anyone who reads the Bible, reads decent Christian literature, listens to Christian radio, goes to church, an evangelical church, they're going to know some things about God. They might become experts about God. They might even go to theological seminary and know everything about God that anyone can know about God.

But that is not the same thing as knowing God. You can read every biography of Hillary Clinton that is published and learn just about every filthy little thing that is available in print about her and feel like you know a great deal about that person. But you don't know her.

You have not met that person. You are not acquainted with them. You have only information about them.

Likewise, many people mistake knowledge about God or knowledge of the Bible with knowing God. It is not the case that simply because somebody knows the Bible well that they necessarily know God. Actually, a friend of mine told me that he had a professor at the University of California in Berkeley who could quote the entire New Testament.

No, I'm not. Excuse me. The entire book of John.

I do know people who can quote the whole New Testament. But he was an atheist. So obviously you can have a great deal of knowledge about the Bible, even memorize it and not know God and not be saved.

Salvation is through knowing him to know him is eternal life. We just read in First John. God has given to us eternal life and this life is in his son.

Well, how does one come into it? And how does one experience this eternal life in his son? Well, Jesus put it this way in John 17, 3. As he was praying to his father, he said, This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. This is eternal life. Short of this is not eternal life.

What? To know God and to know Jesus. This is what eternal life is. To know him.

And I would suggest to you that although the verse may not be, may not intend to imply this, I believe the Bible would indicate that as to know him is eternal life, to know him better is to experience, and to know him more fully is to experience more full and deeper life in him. I believe that the knowledge of God and your experience of eternal life is proportionate. Now, when I say experience of eternal life, I don't mean in terms of duration.

All eternal life is the same length. But I mean in terms of personal enjoyment of it, being enriched by it. I think there are people who have eternal life whose lives are very poorly lived.

I think they're sincere, I think they're saved, but I believe that they don't enjoy much victory in their lives. I think they don't have much joy in the Lord. There are many things about eternal life that can be had through knowing God more intimately, more deeply.

And to know him, to be acquainted with him, that is what eternal life is. So one must know God. That's a relationship word.

To know somebody. One needs to have a relationship of some kind with God. We'll explore in a moment what kind of relationship that is, because there's many kinds of relationships.

But what Jesus is saying is, this is eternal life, that one has a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. To know him. In Jeremiah 31-34, which is in the midst of the most famous Old Testament passage about the new covenant.

The new covenant, of course, is the means by which we have been saved and relate to God today. In Jeremiah 31, verses 31-34, it talks about how God will make a new covenant and he'll write his laws on their hearts and so forth. And it says, as one of the results of people being in this covenant with God, it says, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me.

From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Now that's obviously talking about salvation, forgiving their iniquity, remembering sin no more. This is related to knowing him.

Now when he said, they shall no longer say to every man his neighbor, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, what he means by this is that all those who are in this covenant will know him directly. Whereas under the old covenant, which Jeremiah and all his contemporaries lived under, which was established in the days of Moses, under the old covenant, only the priests had real access to God in any sense that we would take for granted as Christians today. Only the priests had the scriptures.

There weren't printed Bibles yet. There weren't printing presses and scriptures were very expensive and time consuming to produce. And the priests had the scriptures and every seven years they were to read the scriptures to the assembled multitude so that the people could get some idea of what the scriptures said.

So that the people were to come to the priest. It says that in Leviticus chapter 10, that the people should come to the priest to be taught what the word of God says. Furthermore, only the priests were able to go into the tabernacle where communion with God could be had.

So that in Israel under the old covenant, only the priests had the privilege of really knowing God and the other people, at least in the ceremonial sense of knowing him, which was a prefiguring of the real that we experienced. But the rest of the people knew him by hearsay. The priest would teach them and the priest would go represent God for them and represent them to God and so forth.

But under the new covenant would not be that way. The congregation of the people of God under the new covenant would not have to learn about God from each other. They would all know him personally.

That was part of being in the new covenant that each would have a personal relationship with God. Now you might say, well, then Steve, what are we doing here? Are we teaching us about God? Well, yes I am. But even though I believe there is a gift of teaching, I think there is value in it, I also believe what John said in 1 John, that you have no need that anyone teach you, but as that same anointing, the Holy Spirit dwells in you, abides in you.

He teaches you all things. And I don't really think that I can teach you anything of value unless the Holy Spirit is teaching you through me. And as far as that goes, the Holy Spirit can teach you without me and does so, I am sure.

He teaches you directly. He can teach you directly. He can also teach you through other believers.

Teaching is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, so presumably it is one of the ways the Holy Spirit teaches us, through gifted teachers and hopefully we have some around. But at the same time, we don't depend on these teachers for our personal knowledge of God. Maybe they can help us dot a few I's and cross a few T's a little better than we would otherwise be able to do, but knowing God is a personal matter.

The preacher doesn't do it for you. And that is what Jeremiah was saying, that is what God was saying through Jeremiah. In the New Covenant, they are not dependent on one another for knowing God, because they know God Himself, themselves.

They shall all know me from the greatest to the least of them, because I forgive their iniquity, I will remember their sins no more than others, there will be no obstacle anymore. The sin being taken care of, there is no obstacle that would keep them from being able to come to God. Them, meaning us.

Of course, we are the ones who have received this New Covenant. In Jeremiah 9, verses 23 and 24, God said, Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight, saith the Lord. This is what there is to glory in, that you understand and know God. You know, Paul paraphrased this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. He actually condensed it.

He said, As it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That is how Paul took this verse from Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24, and he quoted it, or kind of paraphrased it, condensed it, where Jeremiah says, Let him who glories glory in this, that he knows and understands me, saith the Lord. Paul just summarized that, Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.

Knowing God, in this sense, is being in him. Having this relationship with God is to be in him, and in him is salvation. This relationship is salvation.

In Philippians 3, chapter 8, I mean, verse 8 through 10, Paul, in the earlier verses, catalogs many of the things that he thought he had had going for him when he was a Jewish Pharisee. Before he knew the Lord, he listed some of the credentials that would have dazzled his contemporaries, and did, apparently. He was impressive among the Pharisees, but then he got saved.

And having done so, he says in Philippians 3, 8, Yea, doubtless, and I count all things, he means all these things he had going for him before when he was a Pharisee, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, that is, to know Christ. For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ to be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. This is how he wants to be found in Christ.

I want to be found in him, not having my own righteousness, I want to be counted as having his righteousness. It's his righteousness that I want to be found in. And this I obtain by knowing him.

I've given up all my credits as a Pharisee for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. I count everything else dung so that I can know him and be found in him. You see, knowing him.

You know that Paul is not talking about theology here. He's not talking about getting to know more about God. Paul was the supreme Christian theologian of his generation.

He wrote the textbooks that the theologians used to use. Now they use other textbooks written by textbook writers. But Paul wrote the textbook for all true theology.

And he was not saying, I really want to get a handle on this Trinity doctrine. I really want to figure out this free will and predestination business. That's not what he says, that I might know him.

It's not that I might know more about theology, not that I might know more. Now let me make something clear. I am for theology.

I don't want to become the champion of those who are against theology. I think theology, everybody is a theologian. Because theology is just the study of God.

Even an atheist has an opinion about God, that's his theology. He believes God doesn't exist. Every Christian has a theology.

It might be a bad theology, it might be misled theology, but it's a theology. And certainly if we're going to know God, we need to know properly about him. At least in many respects.

There are some things about him we have to live with the fact we don't know and understand about him. Where did God come from? I don't think he came from anywhere, but if he came from anywhere, I don't know where it was. I don't have to know that.

You know, how can God be three in one? I don't know. I don't quite understand that myself. I don't think I ever really will.

Fortunately, that's not one of the things I have to know in order to know him. What does he want me to know? Him. What is it about him that I need to know? Well, what it says in Jeremiah.

What does it say in Jeremiah? That he understandeth and knoweth me that I exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth and in these things I delight. I want to know the character of God. I want to know what kind of God he is.

What kind of person he is. Why? Because my life in Christ is a relationship with a person. I want to have personal knowledge of him.

Friendship with God. Acquaintance with God. Closeness to God.

Intimacy with God. That is the relationship we're talking about. That is salvation.

Of course, this intimacy exists at varying degrees. Some people have very little. Some have a great deal more.

But as I said, to know him is eternal life. To know him more fully, more deeply, is to have a deeper and a fuller life in him. Obviously, to know him as well as possible is desirable.

Paul said that I might know him. I've given up everything. I want to know him in the power of his resurrection, but I also want to know him in the fellowship of his sufferings.

That's the costly way to learn, to know God, is through suffering. But certain things you can't really be intimate with a person who has suffered a great deal if you've never suffered. I mean, you can be intimate at a level.

But when you've gone through the same thing, you talk to two people who are in Auschwitz together, and you'll find people who can relate with each other at some levels that you can't relate with either of them. And that is so with Christ. Christ suffered immensely.

If we never suffer, we can know about his sufferings, but to fellowship with him in his sufferings is not going to be possible without us suffering too. Paul said, if that's what it takes, that's how I want it. I want to know him in the fellowship of his sufferings, because I want to know him, and that's all that matters to me, is to know him.

Now, this relationship with God. Salvation is a relationship with God, but what kind? There's a lot of different kinds of relationship with people and with God. It probably will surprise you to hear me say this initially, but it won't after you hear what I mean.

Everybody in the world has a relationship with God. Everybody does. It's a creator-created relationship.

It's a creature-creator relationship. Everybody stands under God as their judge, as their creator, and therefore, everyone has that kind of relationship with God. So does the devil, by the way.

The devil has that kind of relationship with God. No one gets saved by having that kind of relationship with God. That is news to many modern people.

Many people think that God is such a nice God, such a good God, and he loves all the creatures that he made, that he simply couldn't ever send any of them to hell. Therefore, you know, they don't believe in justification by faith. They don't believe even in justification by works.

They just believe in justification by death. You die, and since you're human and God made you, you're one of God's kids, and you go to heaven. There's a lot of people who just assume that's the case, because certainly God is too good to damn any of the creatures that he created.

Well, that's not entirely what the Bible says. God is good. That's a fact.

But goodness is not in contrast with damning certain creatures. Both can be true, and both are true. To have a creator-creature relationship won't save anyone, just as it won't save the devil.

He has a creator-creation relationship, too. He's a creation of God. There are a lot of people who talk about Jesus being their friend or their pal.

And they talk real light about him. There's a lot of country songs and stuff about... A lot of secular people talk about God as the man upstairs, somebody up there. He must be looking out for me or something.

Jesus, my friend. A lot of country western singers like to talk about Jesus like he's their friend, and live as if they're his enemy, according to Scripture. To call Jesus your friend... And by the way, there is a place for that in Scripture.

But to call Jesus your friend is only for certain people who qualify. You have to qualify to be one of his friends. You don't just have to have warm, fuzzy feelings about Jesus, as many people do, in order to be a friend of him.

Only one person in the Old Testament was ever called a friend of God. Who was that? Abraham. Abraham was called a friend of God.

And how did he become a friend of God? Well, he left his family. He left his home. He set out... He left wealth and comfort and urban calvaries, and he went out wandering in the desert.

And he did that for a hundred years, following God. And in the course of that, he lost at least one son. He had to separate from.

He lost his wife. And at one point, he had to come to the point of almost sacrificing his other son. And he thought he was going to go through with it.

And this is the kind of person that is called the friend of God. A man who is sold out to God. A man who has left everything for God.

A man who will sacrifice his most priceless possession without answering back to God. This is the friend of God. It's amazing how many people would say, Jesus is their friend.

God is my friend today. And they don't in any sense resemble Abraham in terms of their relationship with God. They just assume that friendship apparently is one-sided.

God is friendly to everybody, even those who don't really invest in that friendship at all. Well, biblically, there are some very clear definitions of the kind of relationship that saves, as opposed to the kinds that do not. I've given you a list of several of them in your notes.

And these are, if I'm not mistaken, they might be listed in... No, they're not quite listed in order of their frequency, but they're all very frequent in Scripture. The first I'd like to consider has to do with the gospel being the gospel of the kingdom of God, which we considered a few weeks ago. And that is that God is the king.

If you come into the kingdom of God, you have a king. That's what a kingdom is. It's the domain of a king.

And we don't really understand as well as most generations past what a king is all about, but a king is a supreme authority. A king is what some presidents think they are, but they aren't. Because in our society, we have never had a king.

In fact, our society was engineered specifically to avoid having a king, so that everyone could pretty much be free to do their own thing. And frankly, I'm glad I was raised in a country with that kind of freedom. But at the same time, we don't have the natural awareness that earlier generations who lived under kings did have of what it means when it says, God is a king.

It means I'm a subject. It means he's the supreme, autonomous, sovereign authority. And unless he is my king, he is not going to be my savior.

There's a number of scriptures I've given you in the notes, so we could have multiplied them, but the ones I chose were largely ones that connect his kingship with salvation. In Psalm 74, verse 12, it says, For God is my king of old, working salvation in the midst of earth. In Isaiah 44, verse 6, it says, Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, The Lord of hosts, I am the first, I am the last, and beside me there is no God.

Notice, Jehovah is the King of Israel and his Redeemer. If you have a Redeemer, you have a king. The same one who is the Redeemer is also a king.

It is the Lord, my King of old, who works salvation in the midst of the earth, the psalmist said. In Zechariah 9, which is a prophecy about Jesus, obviously all Christians recognize it as such. In Zechariah 9, 9, it says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming unto thee.

He is just and having salvation. Here comes the one who is bringing salvation. Who is he? Oh, he is the King.

Your King is coming to you. He is just and he has salvation with him. He is lowly, riding upon an ass and upon the colt, the foal of an ass.

The King is the one who brings salvation. Salvation comes in a king-subject relationship with him. If he is a king, you are a subject and subject means subject to him.

In Matthew 25, 34, where Jesus is giving the parable of the sheep and the goats, on the day of judgment, it says in verse 34 there of Matthew 25, Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come ye, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Now, inheriting the kingdom is what salvation is all about, right? Those who inherit the kingdom are saved. Those who don't aren't.

And it is the King who invites his subjects to come into his kingdom. To have salvation requires a relationship with God. And the way the Bible talks about that relationship with God is it is a king-subject relationship.

It is not equals. It is not pals. It is hierarchical.

He is in authority. He is the total potentate. And we are like slaves of the King, rightly so.

In Acts 17, 7, it is interesting that the apostles when they preached in Thessalonica were accused of preaching this message. This is how the heathen understood the gospel preached by Paul. They said that Jason has received these men, meaning Paul and his companions, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

The heathen who were hearing Paul preach summarized his gospel this way. He is saying there is another king. This guy Jesus, he is another king other than Caesar.

And you know what? He is right. That is exactly what Paul does teach. That is what Jesus taught.

That is what all the apostles taught because that is the truth. The gospel message is the gospel of a kingdom and a king. And how do you respond to a message like that? You surrender to the King.

According to Scripture, man's soul is at war with God and is subject to another king, Satan, until the time that we come to Christ. But when we come to Christ, we come to him as a king and we trade kings. We had a king before, we have another king now.

Another king, one Jesus. Another very important relationship label that we find in Scripture that is tied very closely to the issue of a saving relationship with God is that of a lord and a servant. And there is not really very much difference in the nature of these relationships.

The difference is, of course, a king is a political leader, whereas a lord might be just an owner of slaves, just a free man in the Roman Empire who owns slaves. But a lord had slaves. He is an owner of other people.

Those people were called slaves and those slaves had no rights. Those slaves were property of their master. And they had to do what the master said.

If they did not do what the master said, they were subject to severe penalties. And every citizen of Rome in the days when the New Testament was written knew that. In fact, people in almost every country in the world knew that until America.

In the past hundred years, we have not had slaves. We did earlier than that. And therefore, we just cannot imagine somebody saying, I have no rights, I am owned by this master and what he says I have to do.

But that is exactly what was taken for granted when the analogy of slave and master was used in the ancient world. And when the Bible used that term, that is exactly what it was seeking to convey. We sometimes think of the word Lord as sort of a religious name for God.

Dear Lord, Good Lord. I mean, when people say things like that, they are using the word Lord as sort of a stand-in word for the word God. And rightly so, the Bible does use the word Lord to speak of God.

But most people who use the term do not know what the word Lord means. But to them, it is just another name for God. It is just another name you use for God you do not use for anyone else.

But as a matter of fact, the word Lord has information content like every word does. And the particular meaning was an owner of slaves is a Lord. And when the Scripture says that God is a Lord, it means that we are owned by Him.

Remember, Jesus paid a price, His blood. Remember, the Bible says we have been bought with a price, we are not our own, we are owned. Well, it is in this relationship of Lord and servant, this kind of relationship with God is salvation.

You do not have salvation if you do not have a Lord. Because the only Savior that exists is Jesus and He is a Lord and Savior. You have Jesus, you have a Lord and a Savior.

You do not have Jesus, you do not have a Lord or a Savior. Both offices come together, He is not two people, you do not get one now and His twin brother later. He is one Jesus, two offices.

He becomes your Savior at exactly the same time that He becomes your Lord no sooner, according to Scripture. We will see that in Scripture here. In Psalm 86 verse 2 and then in the same Psalm verse 16, Psalm 86 2 and 16 says, Preserve my soul for I am holy.

Could you say that to God? Holy means set apart for God. O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee. O turn unto me and have mercy upon me.

Give me thy strength unto thy servant and save the son of thy handmaid. David always referred to himself as God's servant, so did Solomon. Even though they were kings in their own sphere, politically, they saw themselves as slaves of God.

And this is the way it was in Israel, because Israel was a theocracy. Even though after the days of Samuel they had an earthly king, the king was still subject to God as king. And so even the king, David, referred to himself as thy servant, thy servant.

And the word servant meant slave. He saw himself as God's slave. Now, people might talk that way religiously without knowing or thinking about what it means, but David knew very well what a slave and a servant were.

There were servants in his domain. In fact, everyone in Israel was his servant. But he was the servant of Jehovah.

In Psalm 119, verses 124 through 125, it says, Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes. I am thy servant. Give me understanding that I might know thy testimonies.

Do you want to know God? Do you want to know God's ways? Do you want him to show mercy toward you? Well, be like this writer, his servant. A servant is one who receives the protection and the care and the provisions of his master. Is cared for.

Is saved when he's in trouble. In Matthew 24, verses 45 through 46, Jesus said, Who then is a faithful and wise servant? He's describing the normative Christian waiting for Christ to come. Who then is a faithful and wise servant or slave, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household? Here's a servant who has been made a ruler over the household by his Lord.

He's a lord over others in the household, but he's still a servant of his own master. To give them meat in due season. Blessed is that servant when his Lord, if his Lord when he comes, finds him doing so.

Now he goes on to say, the servant that doesn't do what his master said will be cut in pieces and given his place with the hypocrites. So it's not like, you know, you can be something in between. You can either be a faithful servant or you can be an atheist or there's something in between there that you're saved but not a faithful servant.

The unfaithful servants, the servants that don't do their master's will, are in Jesus' teaching, punished. Here's the classic description of our relationship to God given by Jesus in Luke 17, verses 7 through 10. In Luke 17, verses 7 through 10, Jesus said, But which of you, having a servant, meaning a slave, plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by when he is coming from the field, Go and sit down to me.

And will not rather say to him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird yourself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward you shall eat and drink. Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. Likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.

We have done only that which was our duty to do. This is a much neglected passage from the teaching of Jesus. He says, Servants don't expect to be thanked.

They work all day with the cattle, or they work all day in the field, and then they come in, and they don't sit down to a nice meal and put their feet up and say, Well, I've been working all day, feed me. No, they come in from the field where they've been working for their master, and they come into the kitchen and start working for their master. And the master says, Well, feed me something.

After I've eaten and drunk, and after your work is all done, then you can have something to eat. Now you might say, That's not a very nice way to treat people. Is that what Jesus is teaching we should do to people? No, he's not teaching that people should treat their servants that way.

He's speaking of what all people knew masters generally did to their servants. The servant did not expect privileges. He was owned.

He expected that he would serve and serve, and then when he was done doing that, he'd serve some more. And it was only after there was no more service to do that he got his food at the end of the day. Now Jesus said, That's the way you should think about yourself.

After you've done everything you've been commanded to do. Now I know a lot of Christians aren't even trying very hard to do what they're commanded to do. They're hoping to get saved without obedience.

They're hoping they're going to go to heaven even though they don't have any concern about obeying God. They know the commandments of God, but they ignore them, and they still think they're going to be saved. But Jesus said, Even if you do keep every commandment ever given to you.

Ever met anyone yet who's doing that? Well, if you ever do, if you ever get there yourself, here's what you're supposed to say to them. Well done, unprofitable servant. If you do everything that you've ever been told by God to do, if you do it perfectly, that's when you can say, I'm promoted to unprofitable servant.

Actually, the newer translations say worthless servant. I'm a worthless servant. Boy, the teachers of self-esteem don't read that passage very often.

What we are told to think about ourselves is, I'm a worthless servant. And even after I've done everything I've been commanded to do, which by the way, I haven't done yet. I'm not there yet.

But when I get there, I can only say, I've only done what I'm commanded to do. And that's what a servant is expected to do. Falling short of that is criminal.

You don't get some kind of congratulations because you did everything you're supposed to do. You were supposed to do it by definition. When you do what you're supposed to do, you were supposed to do it.

If you didn't do it, then you get demerits. You don't get special brownie points when you do what you're supposed to do. And so, this is the relationship that Jesus himself and all the scriptures teach us is the normative, saving relationship between ourselves and God.

Of course, a more common relationship in the teaching of Jesus that he alludes to is the father-child relationship. And of course, when we move from master-slave relationship to father-child, we move into an area somewhat more comfortable. Some people have not had very good fathers, and they don't feel very comfortable about father-child relationship either.

But for the most part, most of us feel a little better about having a father. God's my father, my daddy, my Abba. Than having a Lord.

But really, we have to understand that in biblical times, a father was an authority figure. He was a loving father. I mean, he was a loving authority.

Even master and slave doesn't suggest there's no love. A master could love his slaves. Read how Abraham treated his slaves in the stories in Genesis about him.

A person can be benevolent and kind toward his slaves, but we are not only in a master-slave relationship with God, we're in a father-child relationship with God. And that brings in, of course, a lot more of the notions of affection and so forth from the father and toward the father. But it does not diminish one bit from the notions of authority.

Because the father was the supreme and sovereign authority in his home. And certainly it is by having a relationship with God as father that we become children of God and are saved. In Psalm 2710, David said, When my father and my mother forsake me, I'll go to a counselor.

No, he said, When my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. In other words, God's a great surrogate parent when your natural parents are no longer doing what they should be doing. Maybe they never did.

Maybe they were even abusive. But David never considered that was some excuse for not getting along with God. A lot of Christian psychologists type people, they say that if you didn't have a good relationship with your father, you're going to have problems in your relationship with God.

Well, that sounds logical, doesn't it? It sounds logical. The trouble is, it's unbiblical. The Bible doesn't say that if you had a bad relationship with your father or if your father was not a good example, you're going to have problems in your relationship with God.

David said, Not me. If my father forsakes me, that's not what fathers are supposed to do. They're not supposed to forsake their kids.

But if my father and my mother forsake me, he's not even talking about being an orphan. He's talking about being thrown out of the home. They're forsaking him.

They're not dying and leaving him bereft. Here are parents that neglect and reject their child totally. He says, Well, God will take me up.

It's a cheering thought. And it is. That's what he was cheering himself up with, that realization.

God's not like them. God's a better father than that. He doesn't do those kind of things.

He doesn't reject me. In Psalm 68, 5, David said that God is a father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows. God, in His holy habitation, He's a father to the fatherless.

If you want to be saved, you need to be one of those that He's a father to. You need to be one of His children. In Psalm 103, verse 13, David wrote, Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.

God pities His children. Like a father pities his children. If you want God to pity you on the day of judgment, you better be one of His children.

Because fathers pity their children. In Proverbs 3, verse 12, it says, For whom the Lord loveth, He correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delights. Correcting a child is a sign of loving Him and delighting in Him.

And God is a father and corrects us. In John 1, verse 12, John said, But as many as received Him, meaning Jesus, to them gave He the power to become the children of God. To receive Christ, to enter into a relationship with Christ, is to become a child of God, as Jesus is a child of God.

He becomes the firstborn of many sons, the Bible says. And so to be saved requires that we be children of God. Being children means you have to have a father.

A father is an authority figure. What I'm trying to get at here is that all of these images of God that the Bible uses, all of these relational types that are given as examples of our relationship with God, they're all authority and submission kind of relationship. They're all hierarchical.

There's no egalitarianism here. How about Hebrews 12, verse 9, it says, Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? Notice the relationship here.

You're in subjection to God the Father, and you will live. You'll have life. That's what salvation is, having eternal life.

You will live if you are in subjection to the Father. Just like you reverenced your earthly father. Or maybe you didn't do that very well, but you better do it better with God.

You have to be in subjection to Him. The relationship that saves is a relationship with God and it's a relationship of subjection to God. Like subjects are subject to a king.

Like a servant is to his master. Like a child is to a father. Or as a wife is to a husband.

Now you can see that some of these images we're losing here in our society. We no longer have a society that assumes that a wife is subject to her husband. Or even very much that a child is subject to their parents.

These days children can sue their parents for divorce. That is, they want to divorce their parents from themselves. I only know of one case where it happened in America so far.

But once you've got a legal precedent, presumably it could happen. But it's ridiculous, of course. And the devil is attacking all the institutions, all of the relationships on the human level, that are images of our relationship with God.

So that we will lose the ability to appreciate the meaning of this. When we say, God is my father. Well, my father abused me.

I guess that kind of ruins it for you, doesn't it? It doesn't have to. You know that fathers aren't supposed to be abusive and God isn't that kind of a father. When we say that God is like a husband to his people.

Nowadays it's not even assumed anymore that wives are subject to their husbands. It was assumed throughout history, in every society, and throughout the whole of the Bible, even in our society until a few decades ago. But now suddenly it's no longer the case.

Wives are not ipso facto subject to their husbands just because they're wives. Well, that's too bad. Because the Bible indicates that they are subject to their husband as the church is to Christ.

Our relationship with Christ is to be depicted by the relationship of husband and wife. This is true even in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 31, 32, this is in that passage where God is talking about, I'm going to make a new covenant, I'm going to write my laws in their hearts.

He said, this covenant is not going to be according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. In other words, it's not like the covenant he made at Mount Sinai in the days of Moses. And speaking of that older covenant, he says, which covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them.

In other words, he saw that covenant that he entered into at Mount Sinai as a marriage covenant between him and them. And he was a good husband, but they weren't good wives. They broke off the covenant.

But notice right from the very beginning, when God chose a people, he chose them to be in a role with him like a wife to a husband. And he was a good husband. They just weren't a very good wife.

In Hosea 2, 20, God says, I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord. Notice, knowing the Lord is like being betrothed to him, like a bride to a bridegroom. And if someone says, well, let's talk about Israel and God the Father.

What's that got to do with us today in the new covenant? Everything. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3 or 4, that he says, I have betrothed you to one husband, even Christ. So it's the same thing, you know, the same policy.

God saved Israelites the same way he saves people now. It's just that now our relationship is toward, is Christ directed. Back then they didn't know about Christ so much and they related more directly to the Father.

But the point is this relationship with God of husband, wife, parent, child, these kinds of relationships are all hierarchical relationships. One party is the leader and the governor of the relationship. In Ephesians 5, 22 and 22 through 24, Paul said, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Notice he's the head and savior. How do you get saved? You get saved by having a savior.

And what is the savior? He's also a head. These things are always connected in the scripture. You have a savior when you have a head.

He is the head of the church and the savior of it. And in verses 31 through 32 of the same chapter, he says, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and they too shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

When God instituted marriage and the relationship of man and woman in marriage, it was a mystery that was to depict the proper relationship between Christ and the church. Now, these things are not popular in our modern day and they're not even popular in the modern church to say. That's never bothered me.

Being popular is not one of my ambitions. But to be faithful and I stand before God in the day of judgment is my chief ambition. And therefore, if teachers have a stricter judgment, James said, I've got to say those things, even if they're not very popular.

And it doesn't matter how unpopular they are. You have to answer to God for these things. It's quite clear that all of the relationships in scripture that that are models of our saving relation with God are always the relationship where he's the one in charge.

We're the one subject to him, obedient to him, owned by him, following him. Now, I was teaching in where was it in Seoul, Korea many years ago for I was actually over there for youth with a mission. But they had me speaking at a meeting of Campus Crusade.

I think it was now in Seoul, Korea. They have the four biggest churches in the world. So Campus Crusade and all the Christian organizations are huge in this huge.

I've never spoken to such a huge group before. It was thousands, thousands of people. Never seen such big crowds that I've been speaking to.

I don't usually speak to big crowds, but I just gave a message about the lordship of Jesus. You know, the gospel. And one of the guys who was a staff member at Youth with a Mission was writing after after the message.

He was riding in the car back to the base with me. He said, I thought your message was interesting. We talked about being like slaves of Jesus.

Besides, I've always kind of preferred the idea of being a friend of Jesus. I said, well, I could see how you could prefer that. And I even think I know where you get that.

You probably get that from John 1515. Because Jesus said in John 1515, I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends. And that was, of course, what he was referring to.

He didn't much like to talk about Jesus as a master, me as a servant. It's more like he's a friend. Like we're kind of equals.

That's really how a lot of Christians think about God. He's kind of my equal. You know, when he says something that's not too, it doesn't pinch too much.

It doesn't crimp my style too much to do what he says. I'll do it. But when I have a different idea, I think I've got right to do what I want to do, too.

Not if you want to be saved. You don't. Yes, Jesus said, I don't call you slaves anymore.

But I call you friends. But notice what kind of friends he's talking about in John 1513. Greater love have no man than this that a man laid down his life for his friends.

Verse 14. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. How many of your friends require that of you? How many of your best friends say you can still be my friend if you do everything I tell you to do? That's the kind of friend he is.

In other words, even though he doesn't call you a slave anymore, he calls you a friend. All the elements of being a slave are still there. You still have to do everything he said.

It's just that now you are a servant who has been made a friend by his master. He's been befriended by his master. Actually, the way this reads should be understood.

There's a Hebrew idiom found in much of Scripture, which is called the Hebrew idiom of the word. Found in much of Scripture, which is called a limited negative, where you'll find a passage of Scripture is not this, but that. And in the Hebrew, what it really means is not only this, but also that.

Jesus said, don't think I, he said, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. But he did come to bring peace, didn't he? Didn't he say to his disciples, my peace I give unto you? Isn't the fruit of the spirit peace? Why did he say I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword? It was the Hebrew idiom. It means not only that I can bring peace, but I also came to bring a sword.

It's called a limited negative. This is one, too. I don't call you servants, but friends.

Really, what it means is I don't only call you servants, but also friends. You are still, of course, servants. But you are servants who I have now brought into my intimate friendship.

An owner can do that with his servants if he wants to. And that's what Jesus says he does. But it doesn't take away from the servant relationship.

Now, a lot of people, when they talk about their relationship with Jesus, they get real romantic. Women do this probably more than men, especially since Jesus is a male. That maybe makes men feel a little awkward.

Or maybe women are just kind of more feeling oriented. I don't know. But I know that there's a lot of romantic language in some of the worship songs that comes up.

And in fact, some of them are so romantic that if they weren't sung in a church, you'd think they were singing in a church. And I know that some of them are so romantic that if they weren't sung in a church, you'd think they had nothing to do with God. They just had to do with boyfriends and girlfriends.

You can hear a lot of this on Christian radio. I don't know if you notice it, because maybe you're acclimated to it. But I grew up at a time where Christian songs were more distinctly Christian, where you could actually tell that it was about God from listening to the lyrics.

And there are, of course, those kinds of songs today, too. But there are also a whole lot of songs out there that if you didn't hear it on a Christian radio station, you'd figure someone was just singing about their boyfriend or their girlfriend or something. It's just like, God is my lover.

Jesus is my lover. And I think people get some justification out of the Song of Solomon for that. Because, of course, Song of Solomon is thought to be, of course, the scripture doesn't say that it is, but it's thought to be a picture of Christ in the church.

And obviously there's tremendous lover imagery in that book. But it should be pointed out that the lovers are married in the Song of Solomon. Therefore, it's not just a lover, it's a husband-wife relationship.

Yes, husbands and wives are lovers. And there is a dimension of a husband-wife relationship that doesn't exist in other relationships, that is a desirable and pleasant relationship at its best. And there is supposed to be an analogy to that in the Christian life.

But it's not just Jesus my boyfriend, the one I'm infatuated with. It's Jesus my husband. And so, I mean, I don't want to take away from the fact that he is the lover of our soul or that there might be even some appropriateness of thinking in the way of a husband and wife are lovers and say, well, there's some spiritual counterpart to that in the Christian life.

What is the spiritual counterpart to that anyway? What is the spiritual counterpart of sexual love between a man and wife? Between a man and God or a woman and God, what is the counterpart to that? Now, don't get embarrassed, God's the one who invented it. But I think that the spiritual counterpart to that is intimacy with God. I'm going to even add this to it.

I think worship is. And the reason I say so is because when God told Israel not to worship other gods, he said he'd take that to be adultery. And Israel, especially from David's time on, found tremendous ecstasy, or at least were encouraged to do so, in their worship.

They were told to clap and whatever. They were told to play the music and party, you know, for worship. Now, I don't mean party in a carnal way.

I'm just saying to really celebrate and really rejoice in worship. I really personally think that when God made the intimate relationship between a man and wife, he made it to be a picture of worship between himself and his people, which is why he's so jealous over those who worship other gods. The same as a husband would be jealous over a wife who went and had that kind of intimacy with another man.

Anyway, the point is, all the relational pictures of God and man in the Scripture are hierarchical, vertical relationship. And that means that salvation comes through a relationship with God which is vertical. I am under him.

He is above me. He is my Lord. He's my king.

He's my husband. He's my father. He's also my Savior.

Only when he is those other things, not in addition to or at some other time or later on when I get really committed. Now, this relationship with God is what salvation is about. But most people aren't saved.

Why aren't they saved? Because they don't have a relationship with God. Most people are alienated from God. Alienation is a disrupted relationship.

And this alienation from God comes because of man spurning God's authority. The right relationship with God has God in the position of authority. When people reject the authority of God, they are alienated from God.

They can't have him on their own terms. If you will be saved, you will be saved on his terms. Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, Good Master, what good thing must I do to be saved? It turned out the man had been very law abiding, very religious.

He kept the Ten Commandments from his youth. Now, don't you think that he'd be a good guy to have in the church? Check it out. He was rich.

We're told he was rich. He was a ruler. He had social status.

And he was a religious guy, moral, very moral. Great testimony in the community. He'd kept all the laws from his youth up.

Wouldn't most churches be eager to bring that guy in and put him on, make him an elder or something, you know, so that everyone can see we attract the winners. Of course, Paul said, look around at your calling, brethren. There are not many wise, not many noble, not many great men among you.

God chooses the foolish things and the weak things of the world to confound the wise and the strong. But the point is, this is just the kind of guy that the average pastor, average evangelist would want to hurry this guy into the kingdom without any obstacles. This is a guy who'd be quite a catch.

We could put this in our newsletter. This rich young ruler got saved this week. Well, Jesus said, well, there's one problem you've got.

And that's that you need to sell everything you have and give it all to the poor. And then you have to come and follow me. And we read that the guy didn't like that.

He was grieved because of great possession. So he went away sorrowful. And did he ever come into relation with Jesus? Not on the record.

The record does not show that he did. And if he did not, he wasn't saved. And Jesus didn't say, wow, I just let the big one get away.

I better go out there with some better bait. He didn't go out there and say, well, you know, we can negotiate this. Why don't you come now? Just accept me as your savior today.

Later on, when you come to appreciate me more and when you're maybe more spiritually mature, then maybe you'll want to make me be your Lord. Jesus didn't offer it on that term. The man could not come on his own terms.

You come on Jesus terms. You don't come at all. And that's why so few are saved, because man does not want any authority over himself.

God asserts his authority, but man spurns it. In Deuteronomy 13, for God said, you shall walk after the Lord, your God, and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice. And you shall serve him and cleave to him.

Well, that's a strong, that's a strong commission. What am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to walk after God, fear him, keep his commandments, obey his voice and serve him and cleave to him. That's that's God's assertion of his authority to us.

In Jeremiah 7, 23, God said, but this thing commanded I them saying, obey my voice and I will be your God. And you should be my people and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. You want to be my people and maybe your God, he says, then obey my voice, keep all my commandments.

I'm in charge. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus closed the Sermon on the Mount with this illustration. Matthew 7, 21 through 23.

Actually, there's a few more verses after that, but. He said, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name we have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works.

And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity. Notice they're not saved.

Why? Because he never knew them. They have no relationship with him. Well, they certainly had some dazzling indicators of a relationship with God, prophesying, casting out demons, doing mighty works.

Apparently you can do those things without having a relationship with God. A lot of people have done it. Apparently said many, not a few.

This was not an exceptional case. Many in that day are going to say, Lord, Lord, we were yours. Don't you see all the things we did? He says, but you didn't do the will of my father.

And that's all that matters, isn't it? It's not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my father in heaven. Now, if that doesn't sound close enough to what Paul preached for you. And therefore you kind of write that off and say, well, I don't have to listen to that.

I'm saved by the Romans road. But we're getting there. We'll get to the Romans road.

But let me tell you something. If Paul preached any other gospel different than Jesus did, then Paul is a false apostle. Paul was sent by Jesus to preach the same gospel that Jesus preached.

Paul didn't preach a false gospel. He didn't preach a different gospel. He preached the same gospel.

It's just that Paul's statements are read and enjoyed more by Christians than Jesus statements are, because Jesus puts it pretty bluntly. So does Paul sometime. But we think more in terms of Paul's statements about grace and faith and things like that, which are all true.

But that's only part of the picture. If you if you say, I like these verses from Paul, I don't like these verses from Jesus. Well, take your chances.

Jesus is the one who told us what it'll be like for those who don't do the will of the father. He'll say, I never knew you. OK, so I mean, I'm only passing along what Jesus said.

That's the important thing. Luke 646. Jesus said, why do you call me, Lord, Lord? And you do not do the things that I say.

Obviously, he expected it to be done in Acts 529. Peter summarized his obligation as a Christian this way when he was before the Sanhedrin. He said with the other apostles, he answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than the devil.

And that is the Christians job description to obey God. OK, so God asserts his authority, says, obey me, keep my commandments. You need to do the will of my father.

We need to obey God. That's what God tells us. But man rejects God's authority.

Most people on the planet reject it. If they've if they've heard the gospel, they have not received it in most cases. In Matthew 22, verses two through six, Jesus tells a parable.

This is about Israel, but it really resembles what mankind does in general. Says the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son. And he sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding.

And they would not come again. He sent forth other servants saying, tell them which are bidden. Behold, I have prepared my dinner.

My oxen and my fatlings are killed and all things are ready. Come unto the marriage. But they made light of it.

And went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants and entreated them spitefully and slew them. This is how God's assertion of his authority is often reacted to.

People take it lightly. They make light of it. You know, there's two ways that people could respond to God that make a little bit of sense.

And the third way that doesn't make any sense at all. The one way that makes a little bit of sense is to say God doesn't exist. I don't think it makes a lot of sense because there's far more evidence that God does exist than one could marshal for a position of atheism.

But still, if someone says God doesn't exist, they could convince himself of that and live like a pagan. Or, of course, the other position say that God exists and we're subject to him and we need obey him. That's a sensible position to take.

The position that's not sensible is to say there's a God that exists and we're subject to him. That's a sensible position to take. The position that's not sensible is to say there's a God, but I'm not taking him seriously.

And they make light of it. That doesn't make sense to me. Deny God, but don't take him lightly.

I'm not telling you to deny God. You should submit to God. But if you're not going to submit to God, then hope that you can deny he exists for a while.

Because to take him lightly is to acknowledge his existence and to spit in his face and say you're not really that important. You're not really so big. You're not really so tough.

You're not really all that significant, God. And that's how most people in this country, at least, most people believe there's a God, but they make light of him. And they spurn his authority.

In Nehemiah 9, 17, summarizing how the Israelites in general responded to God's authority, it says, They refused to obey. Neither were they mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them. But they hardened their necks and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage.

But notice this, but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. And you did not forsake them. We'll talk about that great kindness in a moment.

Right now, I want to talk as we are about man's refusal to acknowledge God's authority. In Jeremiah 2, 31, God said, Oh, generation, see the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel, a land of darkness? Wherefore, say my people, we are lords.

We will come no more to thee. Well, that's it. Everybody has a Lord.

It's either going to be God or the devil or some man or yourself. It may be your own Lord. These people say, we don't need to come to you, God.

We don't need any lords. We got one. We're it.

We are lords. We will no longer come to you. That's the human condition of most people.

Jeremiah 22, 21, God says, I spoke unto thee in my prosperity, but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obey not my voice. In the New Testament, Paul says this in Romans 1, 21, Because that when they knew God, in this case, he means they knew about God, he had revealed himself to them.

They glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. And in verse 28, it says, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. People don't like to retain God in their knowledge.

He cramps their style too much. And part of rejecting God's authority is seen in the violation of his commandments. In 1 John 3, 4, it says, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law.

For sin is the transgression of the law. If you sin, it is breaking God's law. And of course, Romans 3, 23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

All people have broken God's laws. That's what sin is. When you talk to people about the need to be saved, many of them don't have any sense that they need to be saved for anything.

I mean, they may be aware that they're not really close to God, or they're not being as good as they could be, and some people are probably better than them, and they probably figure that Mother Teresa would be a little higher than them in heaven, but they don't figure that they've done anything really bad. Why shouldn't they be saved? Especially if they've never murdered anyone. I mean, maybe they live kind of selfishly, but if no one ever really got hurt by them, why should God care about that? Well, you need to communicate to such people that there is a God who asserts His authority, and He says, Obey My commandments.

And in many cases, it's useful to present the commandments of God to an unbeliever. Say, Do you feel that you need to be forgiven for anything? Do you feel that you and God are on good terms? And if they say, Well, I feel okay about God. I think He's a good God.

I think He'll overlook things. Then say, Well, have you kept His commandments? Do you know His commandments? Do you know that God said, Thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do that, and so forth? And when they begin to realize that they have broken His commandments, then that brings to their attention the fact that they are rebels against God. People don't feel that they're rebelling against God when they're not mindful of His commandments.

Now, no one's going to be saved by keeping His commandments, and we're not calling people to acknowledge that they broke His commandments, and now to start keeping them and get saved that way. You don't get saved by keeping commandments. By the works of the law, no flesh will be justified.

But certainly by the breach of the law, all will be condemned, unless they receive grace and forgiveness. So this state of alienation from God comes from spurning God's authority. Man who is alienated from God is described in a number of ways in Scripture.

First of all, alienated from God means you're an enemy of God. It's not just that you're kind of a wandering little sheep out there in trouble. You are that, but you're also an enemy of God.

You can't be neutral. Jesus said, Whoever is not for me is against me. If you're not for Him in the sense that I am following Him, He's my King, then you are an enemy because He claims you as part of His kingdom, as one of His subjects, and you're rejecting that.

You see, Jesus said, before He ascended, He said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. That means the rule over everybody is rightly His.

Every unbeliever is under God's authority, and He claims it. And anyone who doesn't surrender it is fighting against God, is making war against God. They may not feel like they are, although sometimes they do feel like they are.

But whether they feel it or not, it's happening. If a person is not surrendering to God's authority, they are warring with God over the territory of their own soul. He's claiming it, and they're claiming it.

That's a state of a tug of war. You're an enemy of God if you're not surrendering to Him as King. Paul said that about us before we were saved.

In Romans 5.10, he says, For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, so much more being reconciled, we should be saved by His life. In Romans 8.7, he says, Because the carnal mind, and by that he means the natural man in the flesh, the carnal mind is enmity against God. That means a state of being an enemy.

He's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can he be. In Colossians 1.21, Paul says, And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled. We were enemies before.

We weren't neutral. In Philippians 3.18-19, Paul says, For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and who glory in their shame, who mind earthly things. If a person is minding earthly things as a standard state of mind and lifestyle, he says they're enemies of the cross of Christ.

They're enemies of the cross of Christ. James 4.4 said, You adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Whoever will be a friend of the world will be an enemy of God.

That's what James said. So those who are not saved are enemies of God. And as enemies, they are condemned.

They're condemned as lawbreakers and enemies. In John 3.18, it says, He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. What is he condemned to? What's the sentence? Well, the sentence is death.

Everyone knows Romans 6.23, For the wages of sin is death. The alienated person from God is condemned to death. Ezekiel 18.20 says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

And what's worse, that person in that condition is in no condition to change himself. A person who is not in Christ has no power to change and has no hope apart from Christ. In Ephesians 2.12, Paul said that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world.

What a bleak situation we're in, especially now. You know, our society has been pretty comfortable lately. Our society has been pretty prosperous lately, but I think a lot of people are starting to realize, hey, this is kind of a scary world we're living in.

There's some things happening right now as I speak that are kind of scary. In fact, our way of life may be disrupted. Maybe never to return.

Who knows? I wouldn't want to be ever, even in a prosperous world, I wouldn't want to be in the world without God, without hope. But the world is a scary place at times, and those who don't know God have no hope and no power to change. And Romans 5.6, it says, for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

The unbeliever is without strength to change, cannot help himself, cannot save himself, is without hope apart from Christ. Of course, all these statements are made in the context of what Jesus has done when we're in that situation. But prior to considering that, we need to remember that those who are alienated from God are under His wrath.

God is an angry God. The Bible says it. In Romans 1.18, it says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

That's who suppress the truth, who hold it down. People who know the truth and suppress it, God's wrath is hot against them. How hot? Well, in 2 Thessalonians 2, 10-12, Paul says, and with all deceivableness the man of sin will come.

Of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. That they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

This is how angry God is with those who reject the truth and who suppress the truth. In John 3.19, John says, and this, or Jesus might be speaking, it's unknown. And this is the condemnation, this is why people are condemned.

That light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, Paul said in Romans 1.18, but how is it revealed? Well, he tells us later on in Romans 1. In Romans 1.28 he says, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. That is, God's wrath is seen in the fact that he gives them over to a reprobate mind.

They don't know what's right and wrong anymore. They're spiritually dull. They're not aware of their condition.

This is the wrath of God seen in unbelievers when they no longer even feel conviction about their guilt. In Romans 11.8 it says concerning the Jews, but they're just other unbelievers, it's not only true of the Jews, it says, according as is written, God has given them a spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear even unto this day. The wrath of God is manifested in making people blind to their condition.

I personally believe that there are at least four or five major disasters looming on the horizon in our society right now. I don't know which of them will hit. I'm not saying they all will hit.

But we are in grave danger. Now Christians have nothing to fear. Not because we have no danger, but because even if we die, it's okay.

But those who don't have Christ are in grave, grave danger. And yet it would appear to me that they live every day for the most part as if they knew nothing about it. It seems that there's a blindness over the nation.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's under the judgment of God. But there is a day of wrath where God's wrath will be manifested finally in the damnation of the lost. It says in Romans 2.5-9, but after the heart, thy hardness and impenitent heart, do you treasure up unto yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds? To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.

Isn't that interesting? I thought it was by faith alone. Wait, is this from the Old Testament or something? Oh, that's Romans of all things. Romans 2. To them who by patient continuance in doing right seek for glory and honor and immortality, they will receive eternal life.

But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Interesting, Paul would say something like that. Sounds a lot like Jesus.

In Luke 19, Jesus said this is a parable of the minas or the parable of the pounds. When the master comes back, which represents Jesus coming back in the parable, he says this in Luke 19, 27. But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me.

This is what the king who represents Jesus in the parable does. When he comes back, he says those people who wouldn't let me reign over them, bring them here and kill them. The wrath of God on the day of wrath when Jesus returns will be a day of death and damnation and condemnation to those who did not want that he should reign over them.

There is nothing here about didn't accept me into their heart. It's those who would not let me reign over them. That's Jesus.

That's Paul. That's the New Testament. That's the Old Testament.

That's the whole Bible. There's not two different ways of being saved in the Bible. It's always the same way.

And it's interesting how some of the most important elements of it get obscured sometimes in modern preaching. But God has offered a way of reconciliation. When people are alienated, they need to be reconciled so they have this relationship with God.

In Romans 5, 6 through 8, it says, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet for adventure for a good man, some would even dare to die.

But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 2 Corinthians 5, 18 through 19 says, and all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them and have committed to us the word of reconciliation.

God in Christ reconciled the world to himself and did not choose to impute sins against them. That is, if they would receive Christ now, he could pass over their previous sins. In Romans 10, 6 through 9, Paul says, but the righteousness which is of faith speaks this way.

Do not say in your heart, who shall ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down from above. Or who shall descend into the deep? That is to bring up Christ again from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near to you, even in your mouth and in your heart.

That is the word of faith which we preach. That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, notice, confess that Jesus is Lord, and shall believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. You are saved upon the confession of Jesus as Lord.

He is not a savior before he is a Lord. He is not a savior without being a Lord. Okay, well, it is very necessary to repent in order to be saved.

Repentance means turning around, changing your mind. It says in Amos 3, 3, can two walk together except they be agreed? Man is alienated from God. God thinks one way, man thinks another way.

God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways. As high as the heaven is above the earth, or as the heaven is high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. We are not agreed with God.

We have to turn around. We have to repent. We have to change our mind.

We have to come around to God's way of thinking about things. That is what repentance means. We cannot walk with him if we are not agreed.

In Mark 1, 15, Jesus said, repent and believe the gospel. He called people to repent. In Luke 13, verses 3 and 5, he said it twice, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

In Luke 24, 47, when Jesus was commissioning the disciples to go out and preach, he said that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Repentance was to be preached to all nations. All nations are called to repent.

So Paul said to one of those nations, Greece, in the city of Athens, in Acts 17, 30, he said to the Grecian philosophers, in the times of this ignorance, what a thing to call the philosophers ignorant. They thought they were smart. He said they were ignorant of God.

In the times of this ignorance, God winked at, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent. Paul told the elders of the church of Ephesus in Acts 20, 21, that he had been going about testifying both to the Jews and also the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul's message was one of repentance and faith.

Repentance is necessary. In Acts 26, 20, Paul said that what he had done when he first began his ministry, he said he began to show first unto those of Damascus and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coast of Judea and then to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works fitting for repentance. Now think of that.

How would you have summarized Paul's message? His gospel? If someone said, well, in a nutshell, what was Paul preaching to people? They would say, well, didn't he say that we should just believe in Jesus and accept him in our heart and go to heaven? No. When he summarized his message in one sentence, he said, what I'm telling people is this. They need to repent and turn to God and do works that are fit for repentance.

I'm teaching them repentance toward God and faith toward Jesus Christ. I'm teaching them that God has commanded all men everywhere to repent. Is that the gospel according to Paul that you had heard from the pulpit? I mean, didn't you think Paul had a different gospel than that? Well, let's trust him on this.

He's telling us the truth. This is the gospel he preached. It's a gospel calling people to repentance.

That means you turn from your sins. You turn from your rebellion against God. You turn to God and become a follower of his.

Even the Old Testament has a very beautiful picture of repentance in Isaiah 55, 6 and 7, where God said, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return to the Lord.

And he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Will God have mercy on sinners? Will God abundantly pardon? Yes, he will. On what conditions? If they forsake their wicked ways and they forsake their wicked thoughts and return to the Lord.

That's repentance. And nothing short works. In 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, Paul described the reputation of the Thessalonian Christians this way.

He says, people are talking about you. They tell us what manner of entering we had unto you. He says, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living God.

Turning is what repenting is. Turning around. Changing your mind.

Turning to God from idols. Now, faith is an important part of it. We're not going to get into once saved, always saved.

I'm going to have to do that next week. Or sometime coming up. Sorry, Mike.

We're going to have to extend this series. That once saved, always saved just keeps slipping off into the future, doesn't it? We've got to talk about faith and we're going to be running out of time real quick. In fact, we may be out of time now.

We are saved by faith. We are justified by faith. We saw that already last time when we talked about salvation.

But why faith? Because faith is the basis of relationships. You can have a relationship with someone you don't love, but you cannot have a relationship with someone you don't trust. You won't do business with someone you don't trust although you might do business with someone you don't love.

You probably won't stay married to someone you don't trust. Well, you might stay married to someone you don't love. In fact, it's unfaithfulness.

It's breaking that kind of trust that the Scripture seems to give as the only occasion for divorce. But the point is, a relationship is based on trust, on faith. And therefore, to have a relationship with God requires that we have faith in God.

We need to turn from having trusted in ourselves or in nothing at all or in something else and say, God, I have sinned in not putting my whole trust in you. From now on, I'm trusting you in all respects. Why is that important to God? Well, it says of Sarah, for example, in Hebrews 11, 11, Through faith Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

That's what faith is. Faith is judging God faithful. It follows then that if you don't believe Him, you're judging Him unfaithful.

In fact, the Scripture says that in 1 John 5, 10, He that believeth on the Son hath but witnessed himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar. You don't believe what God says, you've made Him a liar.

You've judged Him to be a liar. You believe God, you've judged Him faithful. It's that easy.

Faith isn't anything else but a judgment you make. You make a judgment call about God. Is He a liar or is He trustworthy? Faith is simply judging Him trustworthy.

Faith isn't something you get, it's something that you do. You judge, you make a judgment of God. Do you choose to believe God? Do you choose to account Him as being faithful? If so, then that's what faith is.

If you choose to distrust God, you are essentially suggesting He may well be a liar. It is faith that is the means by which grace comes to us.