Some Folks Think Salvation is

There is a lot of confusion today, friends, on what true salvation is, and the water has gotten pretty muddy. Some folks think salvation is baptismal. They believe in baptismal regeneration.

All you have to do to be saved is to be sprinkled or dunked in water. Some folks think salvation is decisional. You make a decision for Jesus.

The power to be saved is in your hands. You pretty much save yourself. Other folks think salvation is in church membership, that when you go forward and join a church, then you are saved.

Other folks think salvation is in believing a text, that if you agree with John 3.16 and believe it, if you believe it to be true, you will be saved. Some folks think salvation is repeating a prayer, like saying what is known as the sinner's prayer. It's like a little mantra that you repeat and suddenly you are saved.

Some folks think salvation is in walking an aisle or doing a physical act, like raising your hand to accept Jesus, and they can look back on the time they made some kind of physical response to a preacher's invitation and believe themselves saved. Some folks think salvation is in doing good works. They believe that good people go to heaven and they do good deeds to show they are good people and that they are good enough to get into heaven.

Now, I believe, friends, I have covered the ground pretty much that most folks in most churches today hang their hope of heaven upon. But sadly, for each and all of these, will result in a false security from a false faith in the wrong things. And if you fall into this category, friend, your hope of heaven is nothing more than a hole in the wall.

All you have to hang your hope of salvation on is an empty religious profession. And when it comes time for you to die, you'll die in your sins and you will close your eyes to this world and open them in a region of outer darkness and burnings. The sad reality is that one of the remedial judgments of God upon a strain and sinning people is the removal of true prophets in the land.

The result is you can go for miles and miles and visit church upon church in just about every denomination and come away from that church just as ignorant of the way of salvation as when you came in. Very few preachers today are saved themselves. Very few men are in a God-called ministry.

And fewer still know how to preach the full counsel of God, which rests upon the four doctrinal pillars of ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration. If you go visit most Reformed churches today, you will hear a lecture on Calvin and creeds, but I seriously doubt you will hear the pastor warn you of a burning hell and God's demand for repentance. And if you stumble into a Arminian church, you will most likely hear a feel-good message and an only-believed gospel, no mention of sin, no mention of judgment, no mention of hell.

They won't warn you of your duty of repentance and your utter necessity of a work of grace upon the heart, which is the supernatural work of God in regeneration. It used to be about 150 years ago in this country, when the churches were still sound and before the denominations fell into spiritual decay, that if you wanted to join a church back in those days, you had to demonstrate to the church officers credible evidence of regeneration. Now we don't even preach it.

The great British evangelist George Whitefield was preaching in the open air on Boston Common to 20,000 people, which at the time represented one-third of the population of Boston. A minister approached Whitefield after his sermon and asked, Mr. Whitefield, since you've been among us, how many converts have you had? To which the grand itinerant replied, I don't know, sir, but I shall return to these parts in a year or two, and I will look for the evidence of their salvation. We have ignored the teachings of Jesus Christ in regard to what true salvation is and have replaced his teachings with our own methodologies and our own preferences.

Jesus taught two doctrines and they were the pillars of true faith in him. One was repentance and the other was regeneration. Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

And that means if you say repentance is not necessary to salvation, you'll end up in hell. And Jesus said, except the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. If you have not experienced a supernatural work of grace upon the heart, you were still dead and if you die in that natural condition, that is a damning condition that will cast you into hell fire.

We don't want to be honest with folks today because we don't want to ruin our reputations. We don't want to warn them of their great danger of dying in their sins because we don't want to say anything that will upset anyone. We'd rather just talk about the glory of God and the doctrine of election.

We'd rather just talk about the love of God and the easy way to receive Jesus and get to heaven. We don't want to have any bricks thrown at us by the good deacons so we smooth out our sermons to please as many folks as we can. And in the process, people fall off their seats one by one through death and perish in their ignorance of what true salvation really is.

And we end our ministry with their blood all over our hands. Listen to me, friend. If you get saved, it's because God saved you.

He is the one who gives saving faith. If you want to stay out of hell, then you better repent and come clean with God and get your sins under the blood of a crucified blood-stained savior. And if you want a hope of heaven, then you must be born again.

And that is something God does. He is the only one who can take the heart of stone and turn it into a heart of flesh. There is a coming judgment for all mankind with a righteous judge who sits upon a great white throne, a holy throne.

And if your name is not found written in the Lamb's book of life, it will be hell to pay as you are cast into a lake of fire. Now I speak plainly to you because I care about your souls and I don't want your blood on my hands at that judgment. Exercise repentance toward God, friend, and faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Salvation is Christ. If you miss Christ, you miss heaven. Let us pray.