David Jeremiah - Salvation Pure and Simple
On May 26, 2013, 4:30 p.m., a massive ocean swell slammed into the Jascon-4, a tugboat towing a oil tanker off the coast of Nigeria. The waves sprayed sheets of water across the deck, cracking a piece of the hull and flipping the vessel over on its side. At the time, Harrison Okene, the tugboat's 29-year-old cook, was in the bathroom getting ready for the day. As the boat began to sink, he forced open the bathroom's metal door and was swept into a narrow passageway. When the boat finally landed upside down at the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, Harrison waded through the rising ice-cold water into a small cabin with a 4-foot air pocket. There he found two mattresses, made a makeshift platform to keep his head above water.
Now settled hopelessly at the bottom of the ocean, all he could do was pray. All around was just black. He said, "I was crying and calling on Jesus to rescue me. I was so hungry and thirsty and cold, and I was just trying to see some kind of light". Sixty hours later, seemingly beyond help, Okene's prayers were answered when he spotted a light. Then he heard the sound of rescuers and started banging on the steel walls of his cabin with a hammer. The Dutch divers who found him couldn't believe their eyes. As they reached out for the hand of a man they assumed was dead, the hand grabbed theirs, the only one of 12 on board to survive.
Okene has never forgotten that day, the day he was miraculously saved from certain death. He says, "The rest of my life is not enough to thank God for this wonder. It is incredible". The utter helplessness and hopelessness that Harrison felt is an excellent picture of our desperate condition apart from Jesus Christ. As lost sinners, alienated from God, we are helpless and hopeless, and there's nothing we can do on our own to fix our situation. We are going to be rescued, it will be the result of God's efforts, not our own.
What we're about to study in the book of Ephesians, what we're about to explore together, may be the best explanation of this truth in all of the Bible and the most concise presentation of the gospel in all of God's Word. In these verses, Paul explains to us the plain salvation message, plain and simple. If you want to know what it means to become a Christian, if you want to know what it means to experience the blessing of salvation, these verses are the place to look. You can go to a lot of churches and you might not ever find out what it means to be a Christian. We talk a lot about being a Christian. A lot of people don't know what it is, and I want to tell you this is not from me; this is from the Scripture. This is the Word of God.
If you listen carefully today, you cannot possibly leave here and not know what it means to be a Christian. And if you're Christians, you need to look back over your shoulder and remember what God has done for you. Remember what he saved you out of. Think about where you might be today if it were not for Christ. The passage in Ephesians chapter 2 begins with the reason we need to be saved, the reason for salvation. Why is it that we must be rescued by someone other than ourselves? I mean, why can't we as Christians be like other religions where we try to do our best and we hope that we're gonna make it, and maybe we're better than others, and we try to climb up on our good works and ultimately earn God's favor?
All of the other religions are like that. All of the religions of the world are an attempt to reach up to God, and Christianity is the truth that God has reached down to us. Paul answers these questions in verses 1 through 3. He's very blunt. He's very focused. Here's what he says. "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others".
Paul said, look back over your shoulder. This is where we were. This is what it's like before you become a Christian. As I mentioned, these verses are blunt and they're powerful. Paul takes us through five human conditions that are true of us before we become Christians. First of all, the Bible says we're dead. We aren't able to save ourselves because we are spiritually dead without Christ. "And you He made alive," said Paul, "who were dead in trespasses and sins".
According to God's Word, every human being who does not have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ is dead spiritually. You may be the most alive physical person you know, but without Jesus Christ, you are spiritually dead, dead toward God, dead toward the things of God, deaf to his voice. The Bible is foolishness to you. You are not spiritually alive. Paul said we were dead in trespasses and sins. There's a connection between those concepts. Sin and death are partners. Romans 6:23 says: "For the wages of sin is death". Apart from Christ, we are dead in our sins, and that condition begins when we're born. I know it's hard to believe that these beautiful, special, loving little babies are born with a sin nature. But if you're honest about it, you won't have any trouble coming up with illustrations pretty much along the way.
In the long history of the human race, there have been three basic views of human nature. Kent Hughes says those three natures are: "Man is well, man is sick, or man is dead". If the first one is right, the proponents of that view says, you're all right, just get on a diet, do a little exercise, take some vitamins, you'll be fine. The proponents of the second view agree that man is sick, maybe even mortally sick, but his situation is certainly not hopeless. But the biblical view is that man is dead in his trespasses and sins, and all his self-help will avail nothing for him. You can go to the Arlington Cemetery and play Revelry from morning till night, and I promise you, nobody's coming out of the grave.
And the same thing is true for those of us who may not know Christ. We might be good people. I'm not saying that we're not, but as far as God is concerned, that part of your life is dead. It's not active. It has no possibility. You understand what other people are talking about when they talk about their faith in Christ, but if you don't have faith in Christ, you don't have the frequency that you need to be on to talk with Almighty God in heaven and have a relationship with him. Paul's first blunt statement is, if you don't know Jesus Christ, you're dead spiritually. And then he says, you're deceived. We are deceived if we don't know Christ.
Not only are we spiritually dead before we encounter Christ, but we are deceived. We're living out a lie. Having already mentioned our trespasses and sins, Paul added, "'In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.'" Because we were dead in our trespasses and sins, according to Paul, we walk according to the course of this world. That means we walk within the guidelines and boundaries of the system that operates our world today. We're like zombies, dead men and women walking around, living our lives according to whoever the ruler of the world is and whatever it is they want us to do. And that brings up an interesting question.
Who is the ruler of this world? "Oh," you say, "Pastor, everybody knows that. God is". In a technical sense, that's the truth. But God is sovereign over the entire universe. He's the creator and sustainer of all things, which means he does have control over all things. On the ultimate level, he is in charge of our world. But on a practical level, as you know, Satan is in control. The demons are at his command, and he is the prince of the power of the air. Satan has a whole system of evil at work in the world today. In fact, when you read the book of Daniel, you get the impression that there are demons assigned to specific nations and regions all over the world.
So the system and the machinations of our world are currently ruled by evil forces, and we were a willing participant in that system before we became saved. Most of us didn't realize what was going on. We thought we were just living our lives, trying to do our best. But we were participating in a Satan-led rebellion against God. We were deceived. And then Paul says, not only are we dead and deceived, we're disobedient to God. At the end of verse 2, he mentions: "The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience".
Before we encountered Christ, we actively and willingly rejected often what we knew was right. Before salvation, we wanted to have it our own way, do everything the way we wanted to do it, including our eternal destiny. And that's why you still have people walking around today saying, "I deserve to go to heaven because I'm a good person. I am a good husband. I'm a good father. I give money to charity". Those who are outside of God's plan are desperate to create their own rules, and so they come up with their own plan of salvation. Unfortunately, it's not real. It's not true. When Paul talks about the sons of disobedience, he wasn't referring to our disobedience against God. He was referring to our failure to meet even our own standards.
See, the problem is you can say, "Well, I don't need God to go to heaven. I can go to heaven on my own. I'll just be good". Well, how good do you need to be? You need to be perfectly good. I like to tell people as often as I can, God does not grade on the curve. You have to be perfect. You have to be holy as he is. None of us can achieve that. Somebody says, "Well, I'm a good person". I remember a guy used to come here once in a while and preach, and he would take people through this little quiz. Have you ever lied? Yeah. Well, that means you're a liar.
Have you ever had an impure thought? Yes. Well, that means you're an adulterer. Have you ever taken something that wasn't yours? That means you're a thief. And he goes through that, and by the time you get done, you're kind of laying on the ground thinking, "Man, I'm a terrible person". All he's trying to do is help us understand that even if we try to live up to our own standards, we cannot do it. We don't have what it takes to do it. We cannot, not even for one day. The Bible says the heart is sinful above all things. Who can know it? And so if we don't have help from outside, we're like that guy laying in the bottom of that boat at the bottom of the ocean. We can't help ourselves. We're lost. We need something from the outside to enter into our lives.
And we know that that something is a someone who is Jesus Christ who reaches down to bring us up out of the misery of our sin. We're dead, deceived, disobedient, and the Bible even goes further and says we're defiled: "Among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind". Now, he's talking here not just about sexuality. Oftentimes, that's what we think, lust is just sexuality, but it's not that at all. It's throwing ourselves into doing whatever we want in any number of circumstances. How many people a day do you see living for themselves and caring only for their own selfish needs? That's the way we were until God got ahold of us. We didn't see life outside of ourselves. We saw only ourselves. But the worst part of this list that Paul makes in the first three verses of this second chapter is, we're doomed.
Now, at this point in the message, I can imagine you might be feeling discouraged, maybe even upset. Maybe you're thinking, "I didn't come to church to have you tell me I'm dead, deceived, disobedient, defiled, and doomed". I understand that. And the very good news is that you and I are none of those things if we're Christians, not any longer. Remember, Paul was describing what the Ephesians, and by extension, what we were, before we experienced the blessing of salvation. Why is he doing that? He wants people to understand why it is they need to be saved. My father was a pastor, and he used to tell me all the time, "David, the hardest thing about preaching is getting people lost first so you can get them saved".
So many people come to church and they think they're okay, you know? We used to ask this question when we would talk to people about their faith. If you were to stand before God today and he were to say to you, "Why should I let you into my heaven"? what would you say? And I've asked that question probably thousands of times. And the answers are almost inevitably the same. A long list of everything we think we have done that gets us into heaven, which might be good if you could get to heaven by doing good works, but you can't. And even if you're the best of good workers, you can never be perfect.
And the Bible says if you break the law in one place, you've broken the whole law. The law's like a chain. Take one link out of it, and it all falls apart. What Paul has to help us understand, what we all need to understand, if you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ, you say, "Well, I'm in a program". Well, good luck with that. The program won't get you anywhere. You need a personal Savior who can come and live within your heart and lift you up above all of that. Because the Bible says that without Jesus Christ, this is who we are. We're dead. We're lost. We're without hope. Whenever you feel tempted to take pride in the fact that you're a Christian, remember where you came from.
Look over your shoulder and look at what you once were and thank God for what he's done for you. Some of us may have grown up in good families, Christian homes, and we became Christian. Thank God for what you've been saved from. That's the reason we need to be saved. That's the reason for salvation. But now, it's the good news. You know, the good news always comes after you understand why you need the good news. Ephesians 2:4: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love has loved us". In your Bible, if you mark your Bible, circle the words, "But God". I love the way Paul starts this section of his letter.
In verses 1 through 3, he's described all the reasons why we have no hope apart from Christ. We were afloat on an ocean of our own sin with no way to get ourselves back to the shore. We were done. "But God". In many ways, these are the two greatest words in the scripture. You could say these two words summarize the entire theme and message of God's Word. Adam and Eve were lost forever because of their sin, but God. Noah deserved to be drowned along with the rest of the world, but God. Jonah did nothing to deserve a second chance, but God. Humanity deserved complete and total wrath after crucifying the Savior of the world, but God.
You see, take any situation you want, as bad as it is, insert God in the middle of it, and everything changes. But God. The late James Montgomery said, "If you understand those two words, they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life". God is the difference-maker. In the situation we're in, apart from God, there's only one answer. You need God. You need Jesus Christ.
It says in verses 4 through 9, "But God, who was rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast".
Now, I'm gonna give you a quick little tutorial on what it takes to be a Christian. That's what Paul does next. He uses phrases that we know, but he puts them in the right progression. Here's the first one: Rich mercy. Say that with me: "Rich mercy". "But God, who is rich in mercy". The first ingredient in God's recipe for salvation is mercy. Paul reminded his readers that God is rich in mercy. He's got enough mercy for everybody. Here's the wonderful Psalm that speaks of that.
Psalm 103, verses 8 through 12: "The Lord is merciful and gracious. He's slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us". What is mercy? Here it is. Mercy is God withholding from us what we really deserve. I hear people all the time say, "Well, I just want justice". I don't want justice. I need mercy. If we got justice, we would get just what we deserve. But God is rich in mercy.
I like what Pastor Dane Ortlund says about this. He said, "The Bible says that God is not tight-fisted with mercy. He's open-handed. He's rich. Not frugal, but lavish. Not poor, but rich. That God is rich in mercy means that your regions of deepest shame and regret are not hotels through which mercy passes, but homes in which mercy abides. It means the things about you that make you cringe the most make him hug the hardest. It means his mercy is not calculating and cautious like ours. It is unrestrained, flood-like, sweeping, magnanimous. It means our haunting shame is not a problem for him, but the very thing he loves most to work with. It means our sins do not cause his love to take a hit. Our sins cause his love to surge forward all the more".
Almighty God is rich in mercy. I wanna tell you that today. Whoever you may be, whatever you think is beyond the pale of God's ability to touch you, here's what the Bible says. The Bible says God has got so much mercy, nothing you could ever do would keep you from that supply. God has mercy. He keeps from us what we deserve. And then the Bible says he has great love: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love". Why has God given us his mercy? Because he loves us.
Why does he love us? Because God is love, not because we've done anything to make him love us. Remember, it's not because of what you do, it's because of what he's done. You and I don't deserve to be loved, not by God, but he loves us anyway. Scripture makes that clear. The world's most famous Bible verse, everybody pretty much knows: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life". And Romans 5:8 says: "But God demonstrates His love toward us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". And 1 John says: "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son into this world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction for our sins".
You see the reason why we aren't stuck in our death and disobedience and defilement? No, we aren't stuck because God's got a lot of mercy and God's got a lot of love. Here's the third one: He's rich in grace. Now, let me just show you the difference between mercy and grace. It's real simple. Listen to this. Mercy is God withholding from us what we deserve, and grace is God giving to us what we don't deserve. That's what happens when you become a Christian. He covers your sin with mercy, and he gives you eternal life, which you don't deserve, which I don't deserve. That's God's grace. Ephesians 2:5 says: "By grace you have been saved". In verse 7: "That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace".
Denise Banderman helps us to understand what grace is. She tells the story of taking a final exam at Hannibal-LaGrange College in Missouri. When she arrived at class, all of the students were anxiously doing their last-minute review. The teacher arrived and told the nervous students that they were responsible for everything they had covered in class and everything they had read in the book. And the class began to shake. Denise knew she could never achieve. Then the teacher handed out the test face down before instructing everyone to start.
To Denise's amazement, when she turned over the test, every answer on the test was filled in. Her name was even written on the exam in red ink, and the bottom of the last page said this: "This is the end of the exam. All the answers on your test are correct. The reason you passed the test is because the creator of the test took the test for you. All the work you did in preparation for this test did not help you get the A. You have just experienced grace". And many of us are wondering, "Where do I go to that school," you know? Then the professor said, "Some of you learn from lectures, some things you learn from research, some things you can only learn from experience. You have just experienced grace. One hundred years from now, if you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, your name will be written down in a book, and you will have had nothing to do with writing it there. That will be the ultimate grace experience".
Those of us who are Christians, we love to sing the song we sing almost every week here, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me". Paul helps us understand what that wretch thing means. He tells us that's what we were before we came to Christ, but it was the amazing grace of God that came into our lives and lifted us up out of that mire of sin and set us on a solid rock. Listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy. He said, "Although I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and an insolent man, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus".
Rich mercy, great love, rich grace, and number four: free gift. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God". I know it sounds too good to be true. I know we've been told over and over that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the reality remains the same. God has offered the gift of salvation to any of us who will receive it, including you and me. He has offered it to us for free. An ad for the U.S. Marines pictured a sword and beneath, the words: "Earned, never given". The message: If you want to become a Marine, you have to earn it through sacrifice, determination, and hard work. But if you want to become a Christian, you have to flip the script. You have to switch the first and third words of the Marine slogan.
You see, the message of the gospel is: Given, never earned. You cannot earn your salvation. It's a gift. Becoming a Christian is not like becoming a Marine. You can't save your soul through sacrifice and determination. This is not a medal to be earned. It's a gift to be received. Have you received a gift? So how do we accept it? What does that look like? Well, God's remedy for our lives is rich mercy, great love, rich grace, free gift through faith. We receive the gift of salvation through faith. We cannot receive that gift by works, by our own efforts.
Paul went to great lengths to explain that truth to the Ephesians. He said, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and it is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast". Well, you say, "Dr. Jeremiah, that's all great, but what is faith? How does that work"? That's coming to a place, if I can use these words carefully, that you bet your life on Jesus Christ. There's a little acrostic I used to explain what faith is. It goes, "Forsaking All I Trust Him".
That's what faith is. Faith is turning away from anything else you might hope to be putting your faith in to go to heaven. Realizing the only hope you have to go to heaven, the only hope you have to be saved, is in Jesus Christ. It's not Jesus Christ plus this. It's not Jesus Christ in a catechism. It's not Jesus Christ and do the best you can. It's only Jesus Christ, nothing less, nothing more. Faith.
Charles Spurgeon described it this way. He said: "Our condition is like that of a child in a burning house, who, having escaped to the edge of the window, is hanging on by the window seal, and the flames are pouring out of the window underneath, and the poor child would soon be burned or falling, be dashed to pieces. He therefore held on with the clutch of death. He did not dare to relax his grasp until a strong man underneath said, 'Boy, drop, drop, I'll catch you.' Now, it was no saving faith for the boy to believe that the man was strong. That was evident. That was good help toward faith, but he might have known that and still have perished. It was faith when the boy let go and dropped down into his big friend's arms. There you are, sinner, clinging to your sins and your good work," said Spurgeon.
"The Savior says, 'Drop, drop, into my arms.' It's not doing; it is leaving off from doing. It's not working; it's trusting in the work which Jesus has already done. Trust, that is the word, simple, solid, hearty, earnest trust. Trust, and it will not take an hour to save you. The moment you trust, you are saved. The moment you let go of all of the things you've been trusting in before and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, you become a Christian. That is our remedy for salvation".
Those are the ingredients: rich mercy, great love, great grace, all wrapped up in a free gift that we receive through faith. As you can see, salvation is all about God. Purchased by him, offered by him, and our only part is to receive it. Can't do anything to earn it. Can't do anything to merit it. You just receive it.
Max Lucado sums up the message of Ephesians 2 when he makes this application to a story we all remember. It was the fall of 2010, and billions of people around the globe were captivated by the story of the Chilean miners. Trapped beneath 2,000 feet of solid rock, and 33 men were desperate. The collapse of a main tunnel had sealed their exit and thrust them into survival mode. They ate 2 spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk, and a morsel of peaches every other day. For 2 months, they prayed for someone to save them. On the surface above, the Chilean rescue team worked around the clock, consulting NASA, meeting with experts. They designed a 13-foot-tall capsule and drilled, first a communications hole, then an excavation tunnel.
There was no guarantee of success. No one had ever been trapped underground this long and lived to tell about it. Now someone has. On October 13, 2010, the men began to emerge, slapping high fives and leading victory chants. A great-grandfather, a 44-year-old who was planning a wedding, then a 19-year-old, all had different stories, but all made the same decision. They trusted someone else to save them. No one returned the rescue offer with a declaration of independence: "I can get out of here myself". They all stared at the same stone tomb long enough to reach the unanimous opinion: We need help. We need someone to penetrate this world and pull us out. And when the rescue capsule came, they climbed in.
I wonder if you wouldn't like to do that today yourself. You say, "What do I have to do to be saved"? Just trust him. Just open your heart and say, "Lord Jesus, I've been trusting in all the wrong things all my life. I've been trusting in my own good works. I've been trusting I can be better than somebody else when I realize what I really need is I need help from above. And you've promised it to me if I will just put my trust in your Son, Jesus Christ".
Jesus Christ is the rescue capsule, and you have to get in. That's all you have to do, just to get in. Just believe it. You say, "Well, Pastor, do I have to come to a class"? No, just believe it, and he will change your life. He will change everything about you. We were in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Had our "Turning Point" rally there. It's a long weekend, and when those things are over, we're pretty well spent. We were in the elevator going back to our room at the hotel, and Donna had a copy of the program for the night, and on the front of it, it said something about a night with David Jeremiah.
This guy got on the elevator and he said, "David Jeremiah, is he here"? And I said, "I'm right here". And I thought the guy was gonna have a heart attack, you know? He said, "I wondered if I'd ever get to meet you. Let me tell you my story. Thirty years ago, I was in a mess in my life trying to make things right, and I started listening to you on the radio, and I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. My wife is saved, my family is saved". He's the head of an attorney bureau in Orlando, and he told the story of how Jesus Christ had changed his life.
You know, that's not an isolated story. Whenever Jesus Christ comes to live within your heart, he changes you from the inside out and makes you the person God created you to be. I want to ask you today: Are you willing to trust him? You say, "Well, let me think about it". No, there's nothing to think about. Either you'll trust him or you won't. You say, "Well, I'm not going to make a decision today". If you don't make a decision today, you have made the decision. Make the decision to trust him. There's never going to be a time like this.