========================================================================
  SALVATION OBJECT LESSON
  by Duane Troyer
========================================================================

Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding the
mystery of salvation, focusing on the need for repentance, abiding in
Christ, and bearing good fruit. It contrasts the false teachings of
salvation by faith alone with the biblical truth of faith accompanied by
obedience and works. The object lesson of the bowls and water
illustrates the concept of turning to God, abiding in His grace, and
producing fruit through faithful service.

Duration: 1:10:31 Topics: "Mystery of Salvation", "Faith and Obedience"
Scripture References: Colossians 1:24, Psalm 139:23, John 15:4, Romans 5:1, Habakkuk 1:13, John 15:1, Revelation 3:15, Ephesians 3:3, Habakkuk 2:4, Psalm 127:1

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding the mystery of
salvation, focusing on the need for repentance, abiding in Christ, and
bearing good fruit. It contrasts the false teachings of salvation by
faith alone with the biblical truth of faith accompanied by obedience
and works. The object lesson of the bowls and water illustrates the
concept of turning to God, abiding in His grace, and producing fruit
through faithful service.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grace be with you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. I too am very blessed to be back after having been gone. There's
just no place quite like home.

I'm thankful to see everyone and not that it wasn't a blessing to be out
and about. It was a blessing to be with brothers in Phoenix area and all
that, but it's good to be back. Let's stand for a word of prayer.

O God in heaven, we thank you and praise you for your goodness and
mercies that are new every morning, for taking thought of us, for your
wonderful works to the children of men. We thank you. We just see and
believe that salvation is only found in you and for this we thank you
that while we were yet sinners you died for us.

Thank you for the beautiful day. Thank you for the place to gather.
Thank you for people to gather with and meet.

We pray Lord that your presence would be here and that you would just
speak to us and and help us understand and walk in your ways. In Jesus
name we pray. Amen.

I guess we'll be rich in object lessons today. I'd like to do a little
object lesson today. The object lesson is going to be about salvation.

I'm going to start by reading in Colossians 1. Verses 24 to 29. Now I
rejoice in my suffering for your sake and in my flesh I do my share on
behalf of his body which is the church. In filling up what is lacking in
Christ's affliction of this church I was made a minister according to
the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit so that I might
fully carry out the preaching of the word of God that is the mystery
which has been hidden from the past ages and generations but has now
been manifested in his saints to whom God willed to make known what is
the riches of the glory of his mystery among the Gentiles which is
Christ in you the hope of glory.

We proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all
wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ for this
purpose also I labor striving according to his power which mightily
works within me. I especially wanted us to hear Paul is talking about
his duty to preach the word of God and he talks about this mystery that
has been hidden for ages but is now revealed and it's manifested and he
says the mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you. So, in the
old covenant there were elements of salvation, some that are pretty much
the same.

In the old covenant you could have faith, you had to have faith. You
could know what the Lord's commandments were, what God's commandments
were for them. You could obey those.

You could have forgiveness for your sins. I don't know where it ends but
there's a lot of those things that you could have but one thing you
couldn't have is you couldn't have you couldn't have Christ within.
Christ had not yet come.

The Lord had promised something that would come that would be a fullness
that the people of the old covenant didn't know of and now Paul is
saying this thing that had been hidden in ages past is now here. This
mystery is manifest. And he may be specifically even saying in this
passage, he specifically may even be saying part of the mystery is that
this is available to the Gentiles not just the Jews.

And so, it is God with man is a part that was not that the men of old
could not have. It is to be born of the Spirit of God. It is Christ in
us that though these old men accomplished great things with faith,
through faith, as it says there at the end of Hebrews 11, they died and
they accomplished much in the faith but they did not have the perfection
that we did.

I'm stalling on the exact wording of that. You can find it real quick.
All these having gained approval through their faith did not receive
what was promised because God has provided something better for us so
that apart from us they would not be made perfect.

There's a part in salvation in which God does and there's a part of
salvation in which we must do. You know, from the dawn of Christianity,
Christians have always believed that salvation is from the Lord, that
salvation is in the Lord. They have always believed that it is God doing
a work in man, that it is by grace that we were saved, that it is not on
the basis of deeds that we have done but by his mercies that he saves
us, and that we cannot do enough good to outweigh the bad and thereby
earn salvation.

But that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and offered
salvation. They have always believed that but they did not believe that
without also believing that we must do something in order to be saved,
that we must believe in him, that we must repent of our sins, that we
must be baptized, that we must choose to live in obedience to Christ,
that we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. From
the birth of the church at Pentecost, the Christians have always
believed that God gives his spirit to enable us, that he gives his
spirit to empower us, that he gives his spirit to indwell us, that he
gives his spirit to give us guidance, to give us direction, and to keep
us from falling.

And that without that, no man could endure to the end and withstand all
the vices of the devil. However, they didn't believe that without also
believing that we must strive to follow him, and that we must put forth
all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength, and
that we must walk in light, that we must walk in obedience, in holiness,
in sanctification, in order for his spirit to remain in us. And that if
we deny him, he will also deny us, and that if we are lazy servants, he
will cast us out.

If we are an unfruitful branch, he will cut us off. If we are lukewarm
water, he will spit us out. And that what we do is directly tied to us
being eternally saved or eternally lost.

They used to believe that universally. It wasn't until the reformation
and in the 1500s when people like Martin Luther and John Calvin
concocted an entirely different construct of theology about salvation.
It has had such far-reaching effects that even in our day, 500 years
later, if you grew up in church, if you grew up in the Protestant church
and you even never heard of Martin Luther or John Calvin, it's likely
that you already have been indoctrinated to some extent what it means
when it says, for we are saved by grace through faith and not of
yourselves.

It is a gift of God. Somehow that influence that those men had has so
penetrated evangelical Christianity that unless you grew up without
church and you just grabbed the Bible and started reading or were taught
by somebody who has a good grasp on it, there's already, unknown to you,
there's already these voices telling you when you read Romans and
Ephesians, Galatians, what some of these things mean. Martin Luther did
a lot of good things.

He translated the Bible into German so that the common people could read
it. But once we know some other things about him, a lot of what he did
doesn't sound as great anymore after all. He didn't only translate the
Bible to the common people's language, he had the audacity to make a
hierarchy of the New Testament books.

And so he wrote this long preface in front of the New Testament,
declaring which ones, which books are higher up than others. He writes
that John's gospel, Paul's epistles, especially Romans, and the first
epistle of Peter are the true kernels. And John's gospel far surpasses
the other gospels.

And these are the ones, these books I mentioned, are the ones that
really show you Christ. And it is all that is necessary for you to know,
even though you were never to see or hear another book or doctrine. He
says James' epistle is an epistle of straw.

It has nothing of the nature of the gospel. He says Hebrews seems to
stand against Paul's epistle. And he says about the book of Revelation,
I cannot detect that the Holy Spirit produced this book.

My spirit cannot fit itself into this book. There is one sufficient
reason for me not to think highly of it. Christ is not taught or known
in it.

Those are some of the things he wrote in the preface. So now put
yourself in the 1500s. And the scriptures have been in Latin, in Hebrew,
in Greek.

And the common people have not read them. And finally, here comes a
German Bible in your language. And you can read it.

But before you ever get to the first book, you read this long preface
that Martin Luther wrote. And you already have this opinion put into
you. So I'm going to find the truth in John, Romans, and some of his
other epistles.

Once I get to James, I got to be careful. Revelation, it may not even
be... Really? I mean, who and how does somebody have the audacity to do
that? Luther was even willing to change the text in Romans 3.28 where it
says a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the flesh. He
wrote a man is justified by faith alone.

In the German translation, he put the word allein in there, which means
alone. And when some Catholic scholars noticed it and called him out on
it, they sent somebody over to call him out on it. And he sent a note
back.

It was a lengthy note. But in it, he said, This is the central figure of
the Protestant Reformation. And this is his attitude about scripture.

And this is how willing he is to put his opinions into the minds of
people before they ever get to decide what scripture has to say. And so
these theologians, whose theological framework is still being built on
by most evangelical Christians today, would say things like, We are
justified by faith and faith alone. Even though the scriptures say in
James 2.24, a man is not justified by faith alone.

These people would say things like, To believe obedience is essential to
salvation is not grace, but works righteousness. Even though the
scriptures say in Acts 10.35, In every nation he that fears him and
works righteousness is accepted by him. They would say things like, Once
you've been saved, you can never be lost.

Even though the scripture says in 2 Peter 2.20, For if after they have
escaped the defilement of the world by the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last
state has become worse than the first. Those beliefs went hand in hand
with the idea that we have no free will, which was not one of Luther's
strong points, but John Calvin came along with a very strong teaching
that we have no free will. That God predestines us to do good and evil.

We are so totally depraved, they say, that even the good things that we
appear to do are just like filthy rags. That it's only by trusting that
what Jesus did satisfied the wrath of God, therefore he imputes the
righteous deeds that Jesus did as ours. In other words, he overlooks our
evil because we trust in what Jesus did and sees Jesus' righteousness
instead of our unrighteousness.

These are theological beliefs that by and large didn't exist before the
Reformation. If little fragments of them were even here and there,
people might have made little comments with sort of that idea. It was
far from a central focus on what the gospel is.

We here, I believe and I hope all have been convinced that these are, to
put it mildly, skewed and disproportionate ideas and thoughts that have
understandings that produce a false gospel. We've come to these
conclusions either through reading the scripture, church history, logic,
reason, or simply observing the fruit of such theology and maybe the
combination of all of them. It's a false gospel.

It produces lawlessness. It produces false humility. It is, I don't want
to call it a gospel.

It's a message that appeals to the flesh. And I think that's partly why
it spread and bounded. But even Martin Luther toward the end of his
life, he thought he uncovered a new theology about salvation, but even
he at the end of his life lamented about the life of the people in his
church and said people sin worse than they did before.

The morality is worse than it was. It didn't produce what he thought it
would produce. He didn't really change this.

I don't know that he changed his opinion about it, but he lamented about
the state of his church. In the past, we here have described this in
various ways of how salvation is not God doing everything and that that
is all that there is to salvation. And we've described that in various
ways and in ways that it's more like a partnership.

It's more like God partnering with man for the salvation of man. Jesus
said, take my yoke upon me. Get into this yoke with me.

Buddy has mentioned multiple times about he wants to garden with us and
there are some parts that we can't do. We can't make a seed. We can't
make it rain.

We can't make the sunshine, but we can till the soil. We can remove
rocks. We can pull weeds.

We can partner with him to make something fruitful. And today I want to
do just another object lesson. And I thought maybe it'd be kind of
helpful and fun for something the children could remember.

And I want to bring out how God does something and we do something. Not
all object lessons are all inclusive or maybe perfect in every way. And
I'm sure this one is not unlike those.

But so I wish I could do this on the floor, but I think it'll be too
messy and I don't think everybody can see very well. Can everybody see
half decently? I can make this table higher. I was wishing I could get
it a little higher.

But these bowls are people, okay? And they move around at will. They can
do whatever they want to. They can turn around.

They can move around because they have free will. That doesn't mean that
God can't intervene. The fact that they even can move around is because
God gives them the ability to move around and so he can stop them in
that sense.

But still, nevertheless, there are people who move around however they
want to and do whatever they want to. You'll notice that they're all
turned that way. That's because they have all sinned and fallen short of
the glory of God.

And it's dark inside these bowls. It's really dark. And in Genesis, it
says, the imagination of a man's heart is evil from his youth.

And Jesus said, within, out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts
and fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetousness, wickedness,
adultery, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. He
also said that if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is
that darkness. Okay, so it's dark inside here.

Inside here is all this wickedness, the envy, the foolishness, the lust,
and all these things. And the darkness inside there is great. This
pitcher, I'll fill it with water.

And this, this is what God pours out. And I don't even want to try to
compartmentalize this. This is, this water is God's grace.

It's his love. It's his mercies. It's salvation.

It's his word. It's God's spirit. In short, it is Jesus Christ and
everything that he brought to earth and man.

That's, that's this water. I'm going to read a little bit of Titus
chapter 3. Starting in verse 1, Remind them to be subject to rulers, to
authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign
no one, to be peaceable, gentle, show every consideration for all men.
For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved
to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy,
hateful and hateful, That's what these bowls are full of right now.

All these works of darkness. But when the kindness of God, our Savior,
and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of
deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercies,
by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he
poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being
justified by his grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life. This is a trustworthy statement.

And concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently so that
those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds.
These are good and profitable for men. So, I wish I could just have a
steady stream of water pouring down here, but I don't have an unlimited
source of water.

Neither do I want to create a flood over here. So, if you can just
imagine that this water that is flowing down here, there's a continual
stream. I'm going to have to put it down for a little bit, but if you
can imagine a continual stream of water there.

These bowls are going about their life and they hear about this. They
notice and they hear about this water. Some of them want nothing to do
with it.

Some of them flee as far away as they can. They want nothing to do with
this water. Some of them who learn about it and who would really like to
appear clean before men, they move in underneath this water.

And they want to learn more about it. They'd like to be clean on the
outside. But Jesus called this guy a hypocrite.

He said, you like to appear clean before men, but inside you're still
full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filthiness. Oh, but you know,
in order for these people to have this mystery that Paul talked about,
to have Christ within, what's got to happen? They've got to turn around.
They've got to repent.

That's what repentance means. It means turning around. It means changing
our way of thinking.

And if we were going one way, we have got to go the other way. That's
turning around. So these bulls need to turn around if they want Christ
within them.

But here's what happens. A bull starts turning around. And what happens?
There's light that comes in there.

And that light starts exposing that darkness. And men love darkness more
than light because their deeds are evil, right? Jesus said in John, men
love the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. For
everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light
for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

And most of these bulls love their sins. And it's embarrassing and it's
hard on their pride to be exposed, to expose everything that's in here,
to expose it to God and these other bulls or to expose it to the picture
in these other bulls. That's pretty hard on these bulls' pride.

And not only that, if these bulls try to, you know, try to give alms and
do all kinds of things in this state, you know, it's just a hollow sound
like Paul says in 1 Corinthians. But let's say this little guy right
here, he has been thinking about this. He has been observing what
happens and he comes to the end of himself and he realizes that there is
only one way that this water is going to benefit him and that's if he
totally turns around.

If he totally repents, if he is willing to expose it all, to turn
around, to repent, it's the only way it's going to do him any good. And
so, he starts believing and he's willing to expose everything and he
moves in underneath this water that's flowing and he actually gets
filled up. Not only he gets filled up, that water keeps pouring and it
overflows.

The richness and the glory that he receives is beyond what he even
expected and he finds out that things are as the Lord had promised, that
if any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink and he that believeth
on me as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow forth
rivers of living water. See that? Out of this own bull's belly start
flowing rivers of living water. Now, keep imagining a continual flow of
water here and this bull, it stays here, it stays underneath this flow
and it's refreshing.

It abides in God's love. It still has the free will just like it did. It
can move around.

It can go wherever it wants to go. It can flip itself around again. It
can do whatever it wants to do but it realizes that when it moves out
from underneath this water, something happens.

Something becomes stale. Something becomes not right. No longer out of
itself flow forth fountains of living water.

It quickly realizes that he's no longer fruitful if he doesn't abide
under the water. He realizes that as Jesus said in John 15 that it is in
keeping Christ's commandments that he abides there. That's what keeps
him here.

He has to go out to be disobedient. It's in obeying that he comes in
underneath Christ and keeps getting filled. He is very grateful for this
water.

It keeps him fresh. It keeps him productive. It keeps him fruitful to
God.

And he realizes and can humbly acknowledge that by grace he was saved.
This was not his doing. If this water was not flowing, he could not be
filled up.

There's no way. And he can easily and humbly say it is by grace that I
am saved. He soon realizes what Tertullian had said that we are as close
to the ears of God as we are to the commands of God.

He also realizes these other bulls, this bull as it's overflowing, it
wants to share this with others. It moves over and it tries to overflow
into others. It tries to help clean other people's lives up.

And these other bulls harass it and they want nothing to do with it. And
all the tribulation that he goes through just drives him closer and
closer and keeps him there. And so he starts rejoicing in tribulation
because it keeps him there, right? And so this bull here, it lives its
life in this obedient, love, faith relationship with this pitcher.

It has a connection with this pitcher. It totally has something to do
with this pitcher and its pouring water. It totally has something to do
with what this bull does.

Ironically, all these other bulls are accusing this one of turning
things upside down. They don't realize that he actually turned things
right side up, but they're accusing him of the one that goes around
turning everything upside down. Okay, so we're just going to put this
guy aside and we're going to take another bull.

This bull here basically goes through the same procedure. It realizes
the only way it benefits is if it turns around and it comes underneath
and it gets filled up. And it learns about this water.

But this bull, for a while, it's all excited. For a while, it bubbles
over and is all rejoicing in this newfound life, in this newfound light,
in this washing. But this bull is a little lazy.

It lacks diligence. It's slothful. It moves out from underneath this
flow of water.

And he's less concerned about bearing fruit for God. He's less concerned
about being fresh and profitable. He's less concerned about the fact
that there's nothing flowing out.

No river is flowing out from its belly. He's not really troubled to be
out and about and basically doing about the same things that these bulls
are doing. It doesn't bother him so much because he remembers what
happened one time.

He's been deceived into believing that he can't lose his salvation. He
frequently mentions his pet verses about no man can pluck me out of my
Father's hand and that it's not going to happen. It all has to do with
what God did and He that begun a good work and you will perform it until
He returns.

These other bulls, this bull here, he notices this bull and he's
concerned about it like something doesn't quite seem right. He can't
deny that it's turned the right way. He can't even deny that there's
some water in there, but something doesn't seem right.

But whenever this bull here mentions something to this bull here about
his concern, you know, this bull here is just telling that bull, this
bull number two is telling bull number one, you're just trying to make
me doubt my salvation. And he always points back to that moment that he
experienced God and how glorious it was. He says he still prays, but he
doesn't know the proverb that says he that forsakes the commandments,
even his prayer is an abomination.

Some of this water evaporates and what does remain in there gets stale
and stagnant because it doesn't abide under that flow. When the Lord
returns, you see, when the Lord returns, He's going to require something
of us, right? Well, when the Lord returns and He tests this guy's water,
He spits it out because it's lukewarm. And He says, take this bull and
bind it hand and foot, cast it into outer darkness where there will be
weeping and gnashing.

This bull is unprofitable to me I have no use for it. It is no good. And
so in salvation, there's something that God does and there's something
that we do.

God pours out salvation and it's not His will that any should perish.
It's not His will that any of these bulls should perish, but that all of
them would come to the knowledge of truth. Our part is to believe, to
repent, and to abide.

That is what we need to do. You know, in that parable of the talents,
Jesus gives His servants, or in the parable, it's the landlord or
whatever gives His servants talents, something He's not giving to the
citizens, right? The citizens say, we don't want this man to rule over
us. He's not giving the citizens talents, but He gives the servants
talents.

And then He leaves and He comes back and now He wants those talents
again, right? The thing which He had gave them, He wants it back with a
profit. And that servant that comes back to Him and says, here's your
talent. I went and hid it.

I was afraid of you. He says, take that unprofitable servant. Throw him
out.

He's no good to me. In Psalms 127, it says, Except the Lord build the
house, they labor in vain that built it. Except the Lord keep the city,
the watchman waketh but in vain.

In this object lesson, we could say, except the Lord pour the water, the
bulls in vain turn around. Except the Lord fill the bowl, the vessel
worketh but in vain. How be it? The bull still needs to turn around,
right? The bull still needs to work works of righteousness, right? I'm
going to close here in just a little bit.

I've got a quote here from a man in the 19th century, I think. His name
was Ignatius. Let us take all care, brothers, to become doers of the
commandments of the Gospel.

When death will come is unknown. We may be suddenly called to judgment
when we are least expecting it. Blessed are those who have prepared
themselves for their passage to eternity by a life in accordance with
the Gospels.

Woe to the easygoing, the careless, the self-willed, the self-
opinionated. Woe to those who have not broken fellowship with Satan. Woe
to those who have not entered into fellowship with God.

And greater woe to those who have entered into fellowship with God and
then abandoned it. Let me just close yet with Romans 5. A few verses.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our
introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exalt in
hope of the glory of God.

And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing that
tribulation brings about perseverance and persevere in proven character
and prove in character hope and hope does not disappoint. Because the
love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the
right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

That's all I have to share. You can open it up for comments. Feel free
to offer more ideas to this object lesson if you had any.

Yeah, feel free to comment. Sounds different. Sounds different.

Yeah, that's good. Yes, I sure want to say amen to these messages. Even
these object lessons, like Duane had said, we have to imagine some of
it.

It's even hard to discover the breadth and the height and the depth of
God's outpouring love and compassion and kindness and all these things
that come out of His picture. But still, I really, really appreciate it.
I just want to say thank you very much.

As far as an addition, I think you were speaking out of when you were
talking about talents out of that Luke 19 passage. It seemed like that
bull number one could represent the ones that took the talents. And when
the Lord came back, they were able to present it back to Him in an
overflowing way.

Like, look, there's been profit. Not that they would maybe say that, but
in observation, the Lord could see that, yes, this one took what I gave
Him and it worked with a relationship with me and it made it better. But
then maybe bull number three and four, they would be like the citizens.

Sure, the water was right there. It splashed on them. They had all that
opportunity, but there they stayed hidden and concealed in their little
dome, keeping an angry fist like, no, we're not going to turn this up.

What does it say? I'm right here. I should read it. It's the very last,
no, not the last verse in that chapter, but 26.

And those who use what is well are given even more than they were given.
But those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.
Verse 27, And for those enemies of mine who didn't want me to rule as
their king, bring them in and execute them right here in front of me.

That could be bull three and four that didn't respond at all. Well,
yeah, maybe they responded, but they didn't repent. They did not change.

In this object lesson, maybe flipping would be another way of repenting,
like it's completely turning over, flipping. So anyhow, I also I want to
say ironically, but maybe divinely kind of have another little thing. My
daughter likes to read stories.

She's just getting to that point where it's just so fun to read. So
she'll take the liberty to say, can I read this? Can I read this? And
then this morning, she read Ezekiel 37, the story of the vision that
Ezekiel had of the Valley of Dry Bones. And that is just, that's a
blessing.

I'm not going to read it, but it's just, it's like a salvation message
for Israel. Ezekiel beheld, and there was a whole Valley of Dry Bones.
And these dry bones were dead, and there was no life in them.

And the vision continued, something like that. Can it be that life can
be restored? And the answer was something like yes. And then from there,
Ezekiel beheld, and there was flesh becoming attached to the bones, and
the bones started moving, and the flesh continued.

And then there was maybe a cry or a shout from the four winds, it says,
from the four directions, and the Spirit came and put life back in them,
and they became a mighty army. And that's just a good prophetic vision I
could say that Ezekiel had that resembles this object lesson today. So,
praise God.

Yeah, I'm just thankful to be here as well. And both lessons have had
their point in being diligent and being fruitful and continuing on in
this life as we strive to enter in. And I'm just thankful for all the
encouragement, and may God bless us.

Yeah, I think about those things a lot. I think I didn't grow up in an
evangelical household, but I went to Bible college and just had all of
these false ideas just pounded into me. And so, coming to the truth, I
had to rethink all these bad teachings and twistings of Scriptures.

It's just like one thing, like you said, there's the part that God does
and the part that we do, and I feel like evangelical Christianity really
likes to focus on what God has done and just leaves out what we need to
do. And it seems like the whole reason his son came was to tell us what
we need to do, not to come tell us how much God has done or like that. I
was actually just talking about this with Esperanza yesterday.

I think it was yesterday. Was that yesterday? In the last couple of
days, I think it was yesterday, but we had a video of the Pilgrim's
Progress, like an animated video of it. And my family really likes that
story.

So we have like audio versions of it and video versions of it. I was
hearing, I guess at the end, Christian was writing his wife a letter and
I was like, what? John Bunyan? And it was just, it's all this, it's all
this modern evangelical twistings of scriptures. And I realized like the
people that produced this thing added this element.

John Bunyan didn't write that. It was not his doctrine, but the people
that did it were like, oh, this is a Christian classic and let's make a
cartoon out of it. But man, if somebody watches this, they might really
get the idea that you have to be faithful to inherit eternal life.

We better, we better straighten that out. And so they add this part at
the end of him, him writing his wife and saying, but don't think work
save you and don't, you know, don't get, and just basically, it's
supposedly to his wife, but really it's to the viewer. Like they don't
want you to get the, they knew you could hear this story and come away
with the idea that that God wants us to do good works.

This just, it's just an all out war. The devil is at war against
faithfulness. He doesn't want people to be faithful to him.

You do this thing called get saved. And then once you're saved, there's
nothing you can do to be unsaved. Except there's like one, there's only
one thing, the only thing that you can do anything bad and that won't,
nothing bad you do.

Will make you unsaved. But the one, the one thing that, that make you
not saved is if, is if you believe that there's something you have to do
to be pleasing to God. Like as long as you have to, you have to utterly
abandon the idea that what anything you do pleases God, or that God has
any requirements on our actions.

Basically there for them to stamp you saved is when you reject that. And
you, you tell them, God doesn't want me to do anything. And they say, oh
you're saved.

And if you start thinking God wants you to do something, then you're not
trusting in him. And then you're not, I mean that's like the only thing.
It's the, it's the, it's the polar opposite.

Trying to think, I think like, there's this, so there's that, that
title. I mean it's, it's a scriptural word to be saved, but it, it, they
stick all these implications on there. Like saved is a done deal, and
you're in, and you're going to go to heaven.

Whereas like, I mean there'd be different ways to say it, but I, I think
like, like with Dwayne's, the bowl that turns, like one of the ways to
maybe describe that is like recognizing like, oh I'm supposed to be
serving God. I'm supposed to be one of his servants, and here I've been
serving myself, or here I've been serving somebody else. And to repent
and like, no I, I get it, I need to serve God.

And we devote ourselves to his servants, to his service, and we're
saved. But, but then like, we're going to be judged on the faithfulness
of our service. And even those who, who turned themselves to God's
service, he's going to judge their, their faithfulness.

And many will be found, many will be found unfaithful, even those that,
that were saved by the knowledge of turning to him. That they, they just
want to put, I believe that it's true that it's not our works that save
us, but our, but our faith. And, but there's such a, the, the, the enemy
makes it, finds it so important to really stress that.

Want you to, and though that's true, like what, where does that come
from? We never, we never see, we never see any of Jesus' teachings, what
he's saying. But don't get the idea that, don't get the idea that I need
you to work. Don't, don't be trusting in your works.

Don't, don't think that your works please me. I just want you to, I just
want you to believe some things and have, just change your mind. Like
you, all of his teachings are, are what happens to the, those who, who
are not faithful and, and do not produce works.

That you said abide, Dwayne. We abide in him and then we bring forth
fruit. And I've, I've heard it said like, you can't, he didn't tell you
to bring forth, he didn't tell you to bring forth fruit.

You can't bring forth fruit. It's something that just happens when you
abide. The thing he told you to do is abide.

And they, they try to make that into like, the fruit is, is works. So
don't try to do works. Just try to abide, whatever that means.

It's like this nebulous, just abide and, and the good fruits will just
come. But it's not for you to try to, it's not for you to try to have
good fruits. The only thing you try to do is abide.

And it's, it's just a misapplication, like the idea that the fruit is,
the fruit is the works. And I, I would say, no, the, the abiding is the
works. Like, when I, when I'm in any situation, I have the opportunity
to forgive or not forgive.

The only way to abide in him is to, is to forgive, to, to suffer wrong.
Like in any, in any circumstance, obeying him is abiding. And when I, I
can't, I can't make myself have just patience, let's say.

But if I do the things that he said, if, if one does the things that he
said, eventually they will, they will become, you'll become more
patient. The more you suffer wrong and, and, and apply his teachings,
the, the fruit will come. It only comes from abiding.

But anyway, that's one example I thought of. And anyway, I, I really
appreciated that, Dwayne. Thank you.

Thank you, Brother Dwayne. And we missed you a lot when you were gone.
But it is a good lesson, more doctrinal, I guess.

And appreciate Atney's comments and Walter's and Buddy's. And yeah, I
would throw in the obedience of faith. Yeah, that's the obedience of
faith.

The author of Eternal Salvation all obeys faith that works. But, okay,
my little comments. Brother Atney said, Ezekiel 37, just four chapters
before, it says that, as I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in
the death of the wicked.

I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. It's, you know, what,
what, this, such a satanic doctrine to, to believe in predestination.
And, and Augustine started it.

I mean, Augustine was the first. Calvin was a copycat. Luther was, and,
and it's just perversion to the nth degree.

I think one of the things you said, Dwayne, you started out in the
mystery of Ephesians. And you mentioned, well, now that the Gentiles are
grafted in. Sure, where the, where the Gentile dogs were grafted in.

That's a mystery. Christ anew, the hope of glory. But I think also, and
correct me if I'm wrong, the mystery could be from the beginning of
eternity, it said.

When God created Adam and Eve, that was bliss. That was great. But they
sinned, right? And so then Moses come along and wants to make a temple.

God basically was going to be, we were going to serve as priests of Adam
and Eve, our father's mother, priests in the temple, but they sinned.
And then Moses come along and said, he was told to make a temple,
according to the blueprint. And we know that Israel, and after that the
kings, they were wicked, most of them.

And, and God gave them up, most of them like that, the, the followers of
Moses and et cetera. And then Jesus comes along and says that he is the
temple. He is the temple.

And we are part of the temple. He said, Dejohn's snickering, but he said
that the temple, he just said, destroy this temple. And now, you know,
it took you seven years to do it.

We'll do it and Jesus was speaking of himself, right? That he was the
temple. He's the temple. And we are the temple also.

He's members of the temple for what it's worth like that. But I mean,
that's, I think the mystery also, Dwayne, is part of the, that we have
the church, is the church, Ephesians three is talking about the church,
the meaningful wisdom of God in the church, the mystery that's been
held. And, okay, Max, I mean, you heard me the other day.

Thank you for calling up. And I was saying that everyone believed the
Apocrypha was God's word, you know, Orthodox, Catholics, and even all
the Protestants to the 16th century. It's a given.

There is no question about it. Why did the scribes and the Pharisees not
accept the Apocrypha? One reason, the Septuagint. And the Septuagint is,
you know, is, well, okay, you could say Luther took it out.

Because it gave credence to purgatory and Maccabees. Okay, Maccabees,
prayer for the, and Maccabees, no, they twisted, Catholics never
believed you could pray, Maccabees never said that. It's basically, I
can tell you the story of Maccabees.

But anyway, that's how we have the perversion, why we don't have the
Apocrypha anymore, because the Protestants took it out. It was always
the scripture. Always was, always will be, Orthodox, Catholics.

And they still have it, but Luther took it out. It's in my peanut brain,
took it out. And one last point, I mean, I can go on.

But okay, what Brother Lloyd said about fruit. Okay, there's rotten
fruit in certain groups. And a tree is known by its roots, and you judge
him by the fruits and fruits like that.

Can someone stay, remain in a rotten tree? I think it was clear what
Jesus said, and Lloyd was quoting him, that you have to come out of it.
And so we know people, Catholics, Orthodox, whoever, they're trying to
remain in a rotten fruit. And they are basically contributing rotten
fruit to it.

They think they're going to change it. You can't do it. The seven
churches of Asia, Ananias and Savira.

And they quote, of course they quote, nowhere in the ark, the clean and
the unclean, the weakened tears, come out of it and be separated. And we
can't, we must have that danger put up, send up the warning that we
can't be part of a rotten fruit. And are we going to contribute? What
can, you know, they're contributing to more rotten fruit.

And they think they're going to change the system from within. But
anyway, that's just by their fruits, you know them. And so God help us
not to have rotten fruit.

And to follow the master, not just the sermon and the mount, but all of
his teachings. And thank you for listening to my little sermon. The Lord
be magnified.

One is just extra thought. You know, in Habakkuk it said, God's eyes are
purer than pure. He can't behold sin.

But all Calvinists and Lutherans and Augustinians, you know, holy war,
original sin and all the other poison. But they believe, the Calvinists
believe, the Augustinians and Lutherans believe, that every bad deed
that we do, God ordained it to do. Every sinful thing that, quote,
someone who was saved, God made him do it.

Like, for example, if David committed adultery with Bathsheba, God made
them do it. And God's eyes are purer than pure. What a heresy.

The Lord be magnified. The Father love thee, so I have loved you. Now be
hardly through words I have spoken.

Living in thee was true he shall bear. Dwelling in you my promise
unbroken. Glory in heav'n with me he shall share.

I am the lion, ye are the branches. I am the vine, be faithful and true.
As what ye will, your prayer shall be granted.

The Father love thee, so I have loved you. Yes, by your fruits the world
is to know you. Walking in love as children of day, follow your guiding
passage before you.

Leading to realms of glorious day. I am the lion, ye are the branches. I
am the vine, be faithful and true.

As what ye will, your prayer shall be granted. The Father love thee, so
I have loved you. No turning back, no turning back.

No turning back, no turning back. No turning back, no turning back. No
turning back, no turning back.

No turning back, no turning back. I know that my Redeemer lives in the
land of the earth. I know that my Redeemer lives in the land of the
earth.

I know that grace and power are in His hand. I know, I know that Jesus
lived and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know that grace and
power are in His hand.

I know His promise never fails. The Word He speaks in heaven and on
earth. I know that my flesh shall save and I shall see Him by and by.

I know, I know that Jesus lived and on the earth again shall stand. I
know, I know that grace and power are in His hand. I know that my flesh
shall be prepared and where He is, there I may be.

O wondrous love for me He bared and He at last will come for me. I know,
I know that Jesus lived and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I
know that grace and power are in His hand.

========================================================================
Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/v_uusKOiXeg.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/duane-troyer/salvation-object-lesson/
========================================================================