As has been stated in past series, God’s Biblical “headlines” proclaim “WHAT” relative to the promises God has made to mankind and recorded in His Holy Scriptures. His Biblical “fine print” proclaims “HOW” those promises are appropriated by those who believe both the WHAT and the HOW and react accordingly. The outcome (end result) of knowing and believing a promise such as “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” will be the promised salvation only IF the specific conditions, such as “Go and sin no more,” “… obey the Law” and “… do whatsoever I command you” are met. Both the promises and the conditions will remain in effect until the return of Jesus Christ to earth. At that time He will resurrect those who, beginning with Abel, have met His conditions and will call them up to where He and His angels await in the clouds. From there Christ, His saints and His angels will descend to earth where He will create the Kingdom of God in the area of the Middle East that is now called the Promised (Holy) Land. The capital of God’s kingdom will be New Jerusalem. Read The Kingdom of God and Entering Jerusalem. Key words–Kingdom and Jerusalem respectively.

The above Truths involve faith and salvation, the main themes put forth in this series. Therefore it is important to understand exactly what the terms mean relative to both the present and the eternal future. With that in mind we will remind ourselves of the meaning of faith, then go into a more detailed explanation of salvation.

Faith, we are told in Romans 10:19, is taking God at His Word by assuming the truthfulness of the Holy Bible as it is written. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus tells us that, in order to receive salvation we must live by every Word written in the Bible. To drive home how important His Words are to Him and to us relative to salvation, He warns us that we will be judged by every one of them in John 12:48. To understand how important His Words are to Him, read verses 44 through 50 along with Luke 10:16. Faith is believing every Word found in the Law (Genesis to Revelation) and obeying that Law, which He condensed into the Ten Commandments, which He wrote in stone and placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Man must have total faith in the Words of the Lord. For those who are “in (obedient to) Him,” every promise in His Word is “Yea (yes) and amen” (so be it). True, Christ-level faith is knowing that what is written in the Holy Scriptures is true, even when all observable evidence tells us the opposite. Scripturally, this is known as “the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Now let us examine the end result of Christ-level faith–eternal life.

The subject of SALVATION has been greatly misunderstood by those within professing Christendom for most of her existence. Like so many other promises from God, man has not only changed the final product (the “WHAT”–salvation) into what he wants it to be, he has also changed the process (the “HOW”–conditions) that must be met in order to receive the promise. In this way Satan, through his surrogates (human beings) has maintained control of both the product and the process. Only a “few,” Jesus prophesied, would recognize the devil’s salvation switch, would reject it, would search for, find and enter the strait gate leading to His true church and walk His narrow way to the kingdom of God. On the other hand, “many,” Jesus said, would blindly enter Satan’s wide gate and walk his broad way to destruction (Mat. 7:13,14). Many, the Lord warned, would be called to obey Him, but few would be chosen for having answered His call (Mat. 22:14). Salvation awaits only those who search for, find and enter His church, then walk the prescribed path to God’s Kingdom by following in the spiritual footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth (1 Jn. 2:6). Let us be among those chosen few.

For the vast majority of salvation seekers, SALVATION simply means going to heaven immediately following death or at the time of the “rapture,” whichever comes first. Read The Rapture, Life After Death and Next Stop, Heaven. Key Words–Rapture, Death and Heaven respectively. The dictionary definition for salvation is “the saving of man from the spiritual consequences of sin; specifically man’s deliverance from sin and eternal damnation.” This definition has a firm Biblical foundation. Note the correct use of the word “FROM” relative to sin. Biblical salvation will be the reward of those who, at the time of their respective justification (removal of all of their PAST sins–Rom. 3:25), were spiritually SAVED FROM SIN, not ACCEPTED IN SIN, as the church masses contend. Being removed from sin entails 1) removing all sin FROM the former sinner and 2) replacing sin with HOLINESS (absence of sin). Those who remain in that condition and endures the hatred of Catholics and Protestants to the end of their lives will (then) be saved. So said Jesus in Matthew 10:22. This rule applies to both the Lord’s apostles and those who follow them along His narrow, restrictive, His way or the highway path leading to God’s kingdom.

In Romans 5:8 and 10 Paul reminds the saints that they WERE at one time SINNERS, during which time they were GOD’S ENEMIES. True saints do not sin (1 Jn. 3:6,8,9) and are therefore not God’s enemies. They are, instead, His FRIENDS for whom He died. He identified His friends as those who “… do whatsoever I command you (them) to do” (Jn. 15:13,14). He speaks to them through His Holy Spirit which abides within them. Only those “who are led by the Holy Spirit are true sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). The Holy Spirit does not lead the saint to sin, but rather to obey the Lord’s commandments (Law). By obeying His Law we prove that we love Him (Jn. 14:15,13). Obedience to His Words also proves that one is His disciple (Jn 8:31). In Matthew 19:17 and First John 2:5 Jesus equates loving Him, keeping His commandments, receiving eternal life and having God’s perfect love within us. Each part is an essential element of the salvation process. Salvation awaits those, and only those who take those spiritual steps. These are they who will rise to meet Him in the air upon His arrival. Read The Process of Salvation. Key word–Process.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is a positive correlation between holiness and eternal life (salvation). The latter is totally dependent on the former. In Romans 5:21 and 6:22 the Lord, through the Apostle Paul, plainly states that the END RESULT of righteousness and holiness is salvation, that those virtues are absolutely essential if one is to receive eternal life. Believing in Jesus is not enough. We are told by salvation peddlers that holiness/righteousness is not only not necessary, it is impossible for a human being to achieve. Recall my telling you about something that happened many years ago when a local (East Texas) television pastor told his local and t.v. congregation: “Don’t even try to be righteous, you’ll just make yourself sick. You are nothing but a society of sinners.” The Lord arranged for me to hear Satan’s false prophet utter those Satanic words. I was walking past a room from whence those words came. They literally stopped me in my tracks. I had “accidently” heard words that, hundreds of years earlier, had become the universal, though unspoken motto of Catholicism/Protestantism. God was alerting me to the attitude professing Christendom had embraced relative to sin and salvation. Since that day so long ago the church has drifted farther and farther away from the Lord she thinks has saved her. The world, led by the Institutional Church, is now in the final (Laodicean) age of her existence. The Great Tribulation Period is approaching rapidly. The Lord will not be arranging a “rapture” to save those in “the church.”

There is a negative correlation between salvation and sin. Like oil and water, they do not mix, as Jesus made abundantly clear in His letter to the Laodicean (final) era of the church as recorded in Revelation 3:14-20. In this passage and many others, the Lord condemns sin because it robs one of the possibility of receiving salvation. Which brings us to Romans 3:23.

In this passage Paul writes: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Everyone past the age of accountability has sinned by obeying Satan’s seductive voice telling us to reject God’s strict rules of behavior and to embrace the devil’s softer, gentler, more self-gratifying version of Christianity. In other words, to sin in the belief that, due to Christ’s death, we can get away with it. Which brings up the question: What is sin? The answer is one of the most rejected and reviled truths found in God’s Holy Scriptures: “To transgress (break) the Law is sin, FOR SIN IS THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW” (1 Jn. 3:4).

Which begs the question: What is the Law? The second part of Romans 3:20 answers the question: “… FOR BY THE LAW IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN.” God’s Law defines sin. The Apostle James describes the Lord’s spiritual Law as a spiritual mirror (1:22-25). God’s true saints look into that “mirror” to determine if we are a reflection of it as we are commanded to be. If the Law says one thing and we are doing something else, we must change our life so that it matches the Law. WE MUST DO WHAT GOD’S LAW TELLS US TO DO IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR SALVATION UPON THE RETURN OF CHRIST. BELIEVING IN JESUS CHANGES NOTHING UNLESS WE BECOME LIKE HIM, UNLESS WE “… COME TO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE OF THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST” (Eph. 4:13).

The penalty for breaking God’s Law is death (Rom. 6:23). If we have all sinned,” and if “the wages of sin is death,” then in order to spend eternity with the Godhead, we need to be “saved” from death. There is only one Scriptural way for this to be done. SOMEONE MUST DIE FOR US. SOMEONE MUST PAY THE WAGES EARNED BY OUR PAST SINS SO THAT WE CAN BE JUSTIFIED (have all past sins forgiven).

Those wages (penalty) for our past sins was paid by Jesus Christ, “Whom God sent to be the payment through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of our PAST SINS ….” (Rom. 4:15). Now let us do some in-depth reasoning. If the Law defines sin, and the law was nailed to the cross, then there is no sin. If there is no sin there is no penalty for sin. And if there is no penalty, there is no need for someone to pay it. If the church is right, man does not need a Savior. This means that JESUS OF NAZARETH DIED FOR NOTHING. But sin still exists and still carries a death penalty. Therefore we do need a Savior. Which proves that THE LAW STILL EXISTS AND IS IN FULL FORCE TODAY.

Do not let the salvation hucksters lure you into Satan’s religious eyes-closed, head-down, “repeat my ten-second prayer and you’re saved” counterfeit Christianity. Approach salvation with your eyes open and your head up, looking directly into God’s Holy Word where you will not find the perverted gospel that comes from the world’s pulpits, street corners, town squares, beaches, television sets, radios, etc. Concerning public preaching, witnessing, etc. the Scriptures tell us that His voice was not heard in the streets (Mat.12:19). You will not find the Lord by joining a televised prayer session or consulting a salvation app on you hand-held life source.

By looking into the Holy Bible you will find are these words spoken by Jesus Christ: “When you pray, enter into your closet, and when (after) you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in SECRET, and your Father which sees in SECRET sill reward you openly” (Mat. 6:6). In verse five He says about those who pray in public, “… they have their reward.” IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT WE THINK ABOUT WHAT WE DO, ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHAT GOD THINKS ABOUT IT. “But I do it because ….” is irrelevant. When we do what God tells us not to do, or fail to do what He tells us to do WE DELIBERATELY COMMIT IDOLATRY by placing ourselves above Him. This in spite of His command: “YOU WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE (BESIDE) ME. L.J.