Hi there, I'm Pastor Aaron Thompson from Sure Foundation Baptist Church, and I just want
to explain to you the most important thing you could know, and that is to know for 100%
surety that you're going to heaven when you die.
In Romans 3:10 it says, "As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one."
So that means nobody in the world is righteous, so there's only been one person that was righteous,
and that was the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Romans 3:23 it says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
That means God is way up here, he's holy, he's just, he's righteous, and we're down
here as sinners, and every person on this planet has sinned.
Now in James 2:10 it says, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in
one point, he is guilty of all."
So even if you've just broken one commandment, that makes you guilty before God.
And what is sin?
Well sin, according to 1 John 3:4, it says, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also
the law, for sin is the transgression of the law."
So that's the first point you have to understand is that you've sinned, and as long as you're
willing to admit that, you are on the road to being saved.
And the second thing that you have to understand is that we have a penalty for the sin that
we've committed.
The Bible says in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death."
And so one day we're going to die because of the sins that we've committed.
And a wage is something that you earn.
So if you work a job, when you work that job at the end of two weeks you're expecting a
paycheck.
But unfortunately the wages of sin is death.
And so it's not just talking about a physical death, it's also talking about a second death,
the death of the soul.
So the Bible teaches that death is going to hell and the lake of fire.
In Revelation chapter 20 verse number 10 the Bible says, "And the devil that deceived them
was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are,
and shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever."
So the Bible teaches that hell is an eternal punishment.
So just like heaven is eternal life, the opposite is true when it comes to hell.
Hell is eternal punishment in the lake of fire and it's torment and it lasts forever.
In Revelation chapter 20 verse 14 it says, "And death and hell were cast into the lake
of fire.
This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
So the Bible teaches that the second death is being cast in the lake of fire.
And these are the types of people that will be cast in the lake of fire.
Revelation chapter 21 verse 8 says, "But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable
and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters."
And these are bad wicked sins that you could commit and bad types of sinners.
But the Bible says, "And all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with
fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
So maybe you're not a sorcerer, maybe you're not a murderer, maybe you're not a whoremonger,
maybe you're not an idolater, but every person has got to admit that they've lied before.
And so that one lie is enough to put you into hell for all eternity.
You see, people will say, "Well, that doesn't seem very fair."
But God is holy, God is righteous, God is just, and He doesn't have to accept sin into
heaven.
So obviously, you know, you have to understand, number one, that you have sinned.
But number two, you have to also believe that hell is a real place and that is a place that
you will be sent for all eternity unless you get saved.
But God loves us and He doesn't want to send anyone to hell and He made a way for us to
escape.
And the Bible says in Romans 5, 8, "But God commendeth His love toward us," and that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
But before I tell everything about how, everything that Christ did for us, you need to understand
who Christ was.
And the Bible says in 1 John 5, 7, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one."
So God is a Trinity.
He's the Father, He's the Word, and He's the Holy Ghost.
And the Bible proves that He is God.
He's not just the Son of God, but He is God.
In John chapter 1 verse 1, it says, "In the beginning was the Word," which is Jesus, "and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
So Jesus Christ is the Word and He is God.
It says, "The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made."
And then in verse 14 of the same chapter, it says, "And the Word was made flesh."
And that's obviously talking about Jesus Christ, and it says, "And dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
So the Bible teaches that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh.
He's God and He's man.
So Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
He was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem.
His Father was God.
Jesus began to live His life and He was perfect in every way.
That means He never sinned.
And at 30 years old, He began His earthly ministry where He was baptized by John the
Baptist and He was filled with the Holy Spirit.
And after that, He went forth preaching the kingdom of God, getting people saved, and
also doing great miracles amongst the people.
And some of those miracles were the fact that He walked on water and that He healed blind
and deaf people, lepers, which was an incurable disease at that time.
He brought forth people from the dead and He preached the truth.
And when you preach the truth, you'll begin to get enemies.
And He had some enemies called the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
And they hated Jesus and went forth to try to kill Him.
Eventually, Judas, his own disciple, betrayed Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And then they captured Jesus and began to hurt Him and mock Him.
And they spit in His face.
They ripped His beard out.
And the Bible says His face was marred more than any other man.
That means His face was brutally beaten.
He had a crown of thorns placed upon His head.
He was whipped.
And He had to carry His own cross to His own execution.
They nailed His hands and feet to that cross and He shed His blood for the sins of the
people.
In Peter chapter 2, 24, it says, "Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on
the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye
were healed."
And so Jesus Christ, His sacrifice on the cross is what pays for our sins.
In 1 John 2, 2, it says, "And He is the propitiation for our sins."
That means like the appeasement for God's wrath.
And it says He's the propitiation for our sins, and not only ours only, but also for
the sins of the whole world.
So He paid for the sins of the whole world.
So everything you've ever done that's sinful, everything you ever will do, was paid for
by Jesus Christ on the cross.
And all you have to do to get that is believe on Christ.
So not only did Jesus Christ die on the cross, but He shed His precious blood for our sins.
And the Bible says that when He died, that His soul went to hell.
The Bible says in Acts chapter 2 verse 31, it says, "He, seeing this before, spake of
the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did
see corruption."
So when Jesus died, if His soul was not left in hell, that means His soul had to have gone
to hell.
And we're not saying that He is still in hell.
He rose from the dead, and He defeated death, and the fact that He resurrected from the
dead is what allows us to be able to resurrect from the dead also.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 3, the Bible says, "For I delivered unto you first of all
that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that He was seen of Cephas and of the Twelve.
After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part
remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
After that He was seen of James, then of all the apostles, and last of all He was seen
of me also as one born out of due time."
So the Apostle Paul is explaining the fact that Jesus died according to the Scriptures.
He was buried, He rose again the third day, and He was seen of multiple people, even five
hundred people at once saw Him.
And then the Apostle Paul says that He actually saw the resurrected Christ, so He was a witness
of the resurrection, as were many others.
So now we know what Jesus did to purchase our salvation.
He died, He was buried, He rose again the third day.
But how are we saved?
Well, the Bible says in Acts 16, 30, it actually asks this question one time.
It says, "And brought them out and said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'"
That's a good question, isn't it?
And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house."
So the Bible teaches that simply believing on Jesus Christ is what saves us.
It doesn't say believe and go to church.
It doesn't say believe and repent of all your sins.
That's impossible.
It doesn't say believe and keep all the commandments, that's also impossible.
Jesus kept all the commandments for us so that we could be saved.
So the Bible simply teaches we just must believe.
John 3, 15 says, "That whosoever," that means anyone, "Believeth in Him should not perish
but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
So the Bible's very clear in multiple scriptures that all we have to do is believe.
That means put our faith in Him, put our trust in Him, and He will save us.
And it says He'll give us eternal life.
It says He'll give us everlasting life.
That means a life that never ends.
In John 3, 36, it says, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life."
That means you have it when you believe.
And He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on Him.
So there's basically two types of people in this world.
Those that believe and those that believe not.
And those that believe not have the wrath of God abiding on them.
They will go to hell for all eternity.
But those that believe, they will go to heaven for all eternity.
So now we understand that salvation is purely by faith alone in Jesus.
But we also need to understand that salvation is a gift.
And a gift is not something that you pay for.
It's something that somebody else pays for.
And also, that gift we don't get by working for it.
Someone else worked for it.
Jesus Christ paid for the gift of our salvation.
In Ephesians 2, 8, 9 it says, "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not
of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast."
So just to break that down for you, grace is something that you don't deserve.
We don't deserve salvation, but God wants to give it to us anyway.
And it's through faith.
And that not of ourselves, it's not the good works that we do.
It's not repenting of all of our sins.
It's not keeping all the commandments, although those things are good in and of themselves.
But that's not what saves you.
What saves you is what Jesus did for you.
And it's not of works, lest any man should boast.
And so we can't boast before God with our good works.
The only thing that we can present to God is the precious blood of Christ that covers
all of our sins.
Romans 6, 23, where I started in our second segment, says, "For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
So the gift of God is eternal life.
That is salvation.
And the only way we can get it is through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And it's a gift.
It's not something we can earn.
It's not something that we have to try to keep.
It's given to us for free, no strings attached, simply by faith alone.
So even if we didn't have any works to present before God, as long as we put our faith in
Jesus Christ, we are saved.
The Bible says in Romans 4, 5, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
Even as David also described with the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works, saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, that's past, and
whose sins are covered, that's present.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
That's future.
See, all of our sins are covered by the blood of Christ, and we cannot lose our salvation.
So you can literally go to heaven without having any of your own works, as long as you
have faith in Jesus, that's what matters, and it's a free gift.
So once you receive salvation, you receive eternal life, and that means a life that never
ends.
Everlasting life is what it says in John 3, 16.
That means a life that lasts forever, and there's nothing that you can do to lose it.
Although a lot of people teach that, it's not true.
In John 5, 24, it says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and
believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life."
That means you have it right now, and shall not come into condemnation.
That means you cannot be condemned, but is passed from death unto life.
And if you believe the gospel, but you say, "I don't believe that it's eternal life.
I don't believe that it's something that lasts forever, that you can't lose it some
way," well, the Bible disagrees with you.
In 1 John 5, verse 10, it says, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.
He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God
gave of his Son."
And so the Bible is about to tell us what this record is.
In verse 11, it says, "And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and
this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that
you may know you have eternal life."
See, God wants you to know you have eternal life, and it says that you may believe on
the name of the Son of God.
So if you say that you can lose eternal life, the Bible actually says that you're not believing
the record that God gave of his Son.
In Titus 1-2, it says, "In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before
the world began."
So if God promises to do something, he's going to do it, and the Bible says he cannot lie.
And so people will say you could lose it, but the Bible does not teach that.
In John 10-28, it says, "And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."
So nobody's able to pluck you out of God's hand, including yourself.
There's no sin that you could commit that would make you lose eternal life, because that
just flat out does not make sense even logically.
If it's a life that lasts forever and you lose it for any reason, then it was never
eternal life in the first place.
And the Bible teaches that you get eternal life.
And the thing is, people say, "Well, are you just saying that you could do whatever you
want and nothing ever happens to you?"
No, I'm not saying that.
We will be punished on this earth for the sins that we commit, but yet we will escape
the fires of hell because Jesus promised us eternal life, and this life is in him.
In Hebrews 12-6, it says, "For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth."
In verse 9, it says, "Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh that corrected us,
and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live?"
So the Bible's teaching us this principle is that once we become a son of God, then
he will chasten those that are his on this earth.
In John 1-12, it says, "But as many as received him, to them gave you power to become the
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."
So once you believe on his name, you become a son or daughter of God, and no condemnation
will happen to you.
You can't be sent to hell, but God can punish his children and he does punish his children.
So you're not going to get away with the sins in this world that you commit while you're
living this life, but you will escape the fires of hell because you put your faith in
Jesus and that's what it takes to be saved.
In Acts 4-12, it says, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
John 14-6 says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the father, but by me."
So Jesus Christ is the only one that can save you, and so if you'd like to be saved, all
you have to do is just simply call upon Jesus, ask him to save you, and he will.
And it's not the mere words that save you, it's what you believe in your heart and the
fact that you believed on Jesus that saves you.
So if you would want to pray this simple prayer, and you could just repeat after me in your
heart and your mouth, then just bow your head with me and pray, "Dear Jesus, I know that
I've sinned.
I know that I deserve hell.
I know that you died for my sins on the cross and that you were buried and that you rose
again the third day.
I believe that eternal life is something that I get as a gift that I can't lose.
Please take me to heaven when I die.
Please save me right now.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen."
If you prayed that prayer and meant it in your heart, then the Bible says that you are
saved.
God bless you.