Let me say this.
There are hundreds of verses in the Bible that tell you what you have to do to be saved.
And it's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
The Bible says that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
The Bible says verily, verily, I say thee, he that believeth on me has everlasting life.
I mean, over and over again, when the question is asked in Act 16, the chapter right before
the one we're reading, what must I do to be saved?
They said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Now, you see, salvation is by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.
He was buried and three days later, he rose again from the dead.
Look, he did all the work for salvation.
We don't have to work our way in.
We don't have to do our own works.
We don't have to turn over a new leaf and stop sinning.
Look, we just have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.
Now, I got one more point.
All this sounds wonderful.
It's a gift.
It's eternal life.
It's forgiveness.
It's justification.
It's righteousness.
It's redemption.
What's the catch?
Now, I don't really like this term or this little phrase, but I want to put it out there
because I think it's important to think about this.
It's free.
What's the catch?
Well, here's number seven.
It's total commitment.
That's the catch.
There are a lot of people who want to have fire insurance.
And they go to church because they don't want to go to hell.
And they even do some churchy things.
But Jesus isn't the Lord of their life.
Let me read you a few scriptures and we're just about to Matthew 7.
Luke 6 verse 46 says, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say?
Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but do what you want to do?
Why do you even go through the motions, is what he's saying, because I'm not the Lord.
You're still in control.
And then Matthew 7, if you're there, look at verse 21.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.
That's pretty amazing right there.
Not everyone who calls me Lord is going to go to heaven.
But he who does the will of my Father in heaven, many, notice this word many, not a few, will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, notice again they call him Lord.
Now watch what they say.
Have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders
or miracles in your name?
And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
This is amazing.
He didn't say there are going to be a few people to say this to me.
He said there are going to be many.
Many are going to say to me, Lord, we prophesied.
We cast out demons.
Now, I just want you to think about something.
Where are these people that are saying this?
Just to be kind of clear here, they're probably not in the bars.
They're probably in church.
I mean where else do you prophesy and cast out demons?
Church.
These people.
So if many people who attend church aren't saved, many people who say Lord, Lord, they
say it.
They literally, they're not calling Buddha Lord, they're not calling Mohammed Lord, they're
calling Jesus Lord.
Yet he's going to say, I never knew you.
And here's the other thing.
Think about this.
How many people actively engaged in ministry are not saved?
How many more just attend church ever now and then?
You've never come to a place where you've given control of your life, Lord.
And listen, there are a lot, now I believe children can be saved.
My wife got saved at nine.
But it's still, it's the same thing for an adult.
It's submitting your will.
There are a lot of children who make a decision, but now you're grown up.
You have a choice.
And I want to know as a grown up, are you in charge of your life?
Are you the boss?
Because if you're, you say, well, how can I know?
How can I know if I'm really saved?
It's real simple.
Who's the boss?
Who makes the decisions for your life?
If you're still in charge, listen to me carefully, you're going to go to hell.
It says in verse 21 of Matthew 7, not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that do with the will of my father, which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in
thy name of cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works and then while I
profess in them, I never knew you depart for me that work iniquity.
Now in verse 22 there, are these people trying to justify themselves or what?
Or are they looking to Jesus Christ to be justified?
Are they looking to the blood of Christ?
Are they looking to the death barrel and resurrection?
Are they saying, hey, we believe salvation is by faith alone?
Not at all.
Because when they stand before God and they want to be justified, they're saying, look
what I've done.
I prophesied in your name and I name we've cast out devils and I name we've done many
wonderful works.
What are they trusting?
Their own works, things that they've done.
They're not even bringing up the Lord and the fact that he's the redeemer and the fact
that Jesus Christ shed his blood or anything of that kind.
But what's so funny about this is that people will literally point to this verse.
I literally think that I get an email about this scripture every week of my life and you
know what it proves?
Well, I get a lot of emails, but out of all the tons of emails that I get, I get an email
about this scripture.
What do you do with that scripture if you believe salvation is by faith alone?
What do you do with this scripture if you just believe that you just believe on Jesus
Christ and you're saved eternally?
What do you do with that?
That should just illustrate for you, my friend, how blinded the unsaved are to where they
can't even comprehend scripture at all.
I mean, they can just look at scripture and it just has no meaning to them.
It just goes over that.
How could anyone look at this scripture and say, this proves that faith alone doesn't
save you?
Are they out of their minds?
These people aren't even mentioning faith.
But what are they mentioning?
Works.
And yet unsaved people all day long will point to this scripture and say, see, you have to
do works.
Are we reading the same passage?
The people who are trusting in their works are the ones who are damned here.
And they'll say, well, but yeah, but it says there in verse 23.
You know, you have to do the will, or I'm sorry, in verse 21 it says you have to do
the will of the Father.
Yeah, except look up what the will of the Father is.
Every time Jesus talked about the will of the Father, he said, this is the will of the
Father that everyone that believeth, everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on him might
have everlasting life and he shall raise him up at the last day.
That's the will of the Father that they would believe on Christ and be saved.
But these people are doing it in their own righteousness.
I'm telling you today that it takes total commitment to receive this free gift.
Hebrews says it this way, there's a covenant and the covenant is not in force until both
people die.
Jesus already died, it's time for you to die.
I'm not talking about physical death, I'm talking about you die to yourself in your
spirit and your soul and you say, no longer will I live my life to please me, from now
on I'll live my life to please you.
My life is not my own anymore, it's yours from this day forward.
And if you haven't made that decision in your will, you're going to go to hell unless you
make that decision today or at some point before you die.
I've had people say, but it says believe, well let me just explain that.
Satan believes, he believes and trembles.
He really believes, but he's not going to heaven, you want to know why?
Because he won't submit his will to the lordship of Christ.
Now when you look at the word believe in scripture, it's often associated with the word trust.
Because sometimes people misunderstand the word believe, sometimes people try to intentionally
twist the word believe.
Some people will say believe means do works, just because they're just trying to teach
work salvation.
I've had people say that.
If you go back to the Greek, believe means an obedient faith, obeying all the commandments.
No that's works.
We have some successful businessmen that are on their way to hell, because you won't give
control over it.
You must, must, must yield control.
He is either Lord of all, or he's not Lord at all.
He doesn't take second place, he doesn't play games.
Now I want to tell you something about lordship that may shock you, because we look at this
as a path or journey that we're on.
I want to encourage you to not see this as a chronology of the Christian life.
In other words, I don't want you to think about this as a, that this is a, some sort
of a time series.
In other words, that you know, you get saved, you're beginning God in one to three years
or whatever, then you're close to God, and God's here.
The reason I don't want you to see this as a chronology is I don't want you to think
okay, you know, I've been saved now ten years, so I am automatically God-centered.
Because that's not true.
Also you can go backward.
And I want to tell you something that's going to shock you.
We're doing that lordship now, now listen carefully.
This is where you began.
I know you think it's beginning in God, but it's a relationship, and it is.
But when you got saved, you were God-centered.
Jesus was the Lord of your life, or you didn't get saved.
We accept Jesus as our Lord and our Savior.
And you know what?
I can stand here tonight and be humble and say my salvation has nothing to do with any
of my righteousness, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ.
The righteous which is of God, by faith, and I am not having anything to boast of tonight.
Nothing.
I'm not going to boast to you tonight about how I gave up this and I quit this and I joined
you.
No!
It's all through Jesus, he gets all the glory.
I am nothing.
I have nothing.
Oh, I gave my life to Christ.
No!
He gave his life for us.
You got that backwards.
I didn't give him anything.
I have nothing to give.
You can't come to Christ and say, oh, if you give your life to Christ, you'll be saved.
He gave his life for you.
Your life's not worth enough, you know, to get you in the door.
And I want to ask a very special question for some of you here.
While all of those who know God are receiving from him, you may be here and you have not
yet made Jesus the Lord of your life.
You haven't taken that first step of looking to Jesus, looking to the cross, and saying,
I need to be saved.
I want Jesus to be my Lord and you want to make that decision this morning.
It's the simplest thing.
All you got to do, I want you to encourage this, raise your hand and say, I want to make
Jesus the Lord of my life.
I give him my life.
I'm turning away from my sin.
The way I've been living my life isn't getting it done.
I'm turning my heart towards him and instantly you are saved.
Instantly you are born again.
Instantly you're on your way to heaven and there's nothing that can stop it.
So if that's you this morning, would you just raise your hand?
Just raise it real high and say, God, I give you my life.
And that's what God offers you this morning.
So if that's you, if you've never made Jesus the Lord of your life and you would say today,
I want to make Jesus the Lord of my life, I'm ready to turn my heart towards him.
I'm ready to stop living my life the way I've been living it and I want to walk with him.
Would you just raise your hand and say, I'm ready for Jesus to be the Lord of my life
and say, God, I give you my life, Jesus, I turn my life over to you.
So that means they're supposed to be willing to quit drinking.
No.
Willing to quit fornicating, willing to quit life, willing to live a Christian life, willing
to join a church, willing to get baptized.
Those are all great things.
Those are all things we should all do.
We should all go to church.
We should all be baptized.
We should all read our Bible every day.
We should all pray.
We should repent of stealing.
We should repent of lying.
We should repent of fornication.
We should repent and repent and keep on repenting of our sins, but that will never get you into
heaven because that is the works of the flesh.
And you will not be justified by the fact that you have turned over a new leaf.
Only the faith of Jesus Christ can save you and nothing else.
And so those are great things to do.
Hey, it's great to do works.
We're created on two good works, which God has before a day that we should walk in them.
But works do not save and are not necessary for salvation because we are saved by faith,
not of works, lest any man should boast.
What is lordship salvation?
Well, I think it's unfortunate that the term has come to take on the meaning it has.
The way it's used today is that lordship salvation means that in order to have everlasting
life or eternal salvation, one must yield their life to Christ.
One must submit their life to Christ, must pledge to serve him.
He must be Lord of my life.
Sometimes people say if he's not Lord of all, he's not Lord at all.
And so they'll say sometimes you can't accept Jesus as your savior without also accepting
him as your Lord.
In my estimation, the term lordship salvation is really a good one.
In my view, nobody could be born again apart from the fact that Jesus is Lord.
Only the Lord God of the universe, the sovereign, the second member of the Trinity, only he
could fulfill the promise he who believes in me has everlasting life.
But that's not what people mean when they use the term lordship salvation.
They mean you must surrender, you must follow.
In fact, the three letters I remember it are C-O-P, cop, like a policeman.
You must be committed to Christ, you must obey Christ, and you must persevere in your
obedience to Christ.
So according to lordship salvation, and there's two kinds, one is reformed or Calvinist lordship
salvation, the other is Arminian lordship salvation.
But according to both of them, only the committed are going to get into the kingdom.
Only the obedient are going to get into the kingdom.
Only the persevering ones are going to get into the kingdom.
And in my view, that's legalistic, which fits with the acronym COP, because it's tied in
with law, right?
They're law enforcers.
And lordship salvation, I believe it's extremely well-intentioned.
You can go on our website at www.faithalone.org and see an article by Dr. Charlie Bing called
Lordship Salvation, Good Intentions Aren't Enough.
And he wrote his doctoral dissertation on lordship salvation, and the point is, there
are good intentions there, because they want to improve the quality of people in the church.
But I remember I heard Dr. Howard Hendricks, we used to call him Prof at Dallas Seminary,
speaking in chapel one time, and he said, the church today is miles wide and a quarter
inch deep.
And he said, because of the fact the church has a lack of depth and has all these spiritually
immature Christians, he said some people have started to front-load the gospel.
That's what he called it, front-loading the gospel.
Well, that's really what lordship salvation does.
It doesn't like the quality of people in the church, so it raises the entrance requirements.
If you want to be a Christian, you've got to be committed, obedient, persevering.
Unfortunately, Hendricks says you can't do that, because if the way to get into the body
of Christ is by believing in Jesus, not by commitment, obedience, and persevering, then
this lordship message won't even get people born again, unless, of course, they happen
to believe that simply by faith in Jesus, they're born again before they get sucked
into this message.
But then they get thrown into legalism, and they start evaluating their assurance based
on their works.
You know, the Bible's really clear on salvation.
It's not based on how good you are.
A lot of people think they're pretty good, you know, and yeah, they're going to get to
heaven because they're pretty good, but the Bible says, for all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God.
The Bible says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.
I'm not righteous, you're not righteous, and if it were our goodness that would get us
into heaven, none of us would be going, because the Bible even says in Revelation 21, 8, it
says, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and sorcerers
and whoremongers and idolaters, and listen to this, and all liars shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
I've lied before.
Everybody's lied before.
So we've all sinned, and we've done stuff worse than lying, let's face it.
We all deserve help, but the Bible says, but God commanded his love toward us in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
And so Jesus Christ, because he loves us, came to this earth.
The Bible says he was God manifest in the flesh.
God basically took on human form.
He lived a sinless life.
He did not commit any sin, and of course, they beat him and spit on him and nailed him
to the cross.
The Bible says that when he was on that cross, he himself bare our sins in his own body on
the tree.
So every sin you've ever done, every sin I've ever done, it was as if Jesus had done it.
He was being punished for our sins, and then of course, they took his body.
When he died, they took his body and buried it in the tomb, and his soul went down to
hell for three days and three nights, Acts 2 31.
Three days later, he rose again from the dead.
He showed unto the disciples the holes in his hands, and the Bible's really clear that
Jesus did die for everybody.
It says that he died not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
But there's something that we must do to be saved.
The Bible says, it has that question in Acts 16, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
And that's it.
He didn't say join a church and you'll be saved, get baptized and you'll be saved, live
a good life and you'll be saved, repent of all your sins and you'll be saved.
No, he said believe.
And even the most famous verse in the whole Bible that's written on the bottom, I mean
the reference is written on the bottom of the cup at In-N-Out Burger.
I mean it's so famous, everybody's heard of it, John 3 16.
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.
And everlasting means everlasting, means forever.
And Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
The Bible says in John 6 47, verily verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath
everlasting life.
So if you believe on Jesus Christ, the Bible says you have everlasting life.
You're going to live forever.
You can't lose your salvation, it's eternal, it's everlasting.
Once you're saved, once you believe on him, you're saved forever, and no matter what,
you can never lose your salvation.
Even if I were to go out and commit some awful sin, God will punish me for it on this earth.
If I went out and killed somebody today, you know, God's going to make sure I get punished.
I'm going to prison or far worse or the death penalty, whatever this earth punishes me and
God's going to make sure I get punished even more.
But I'm not going to hell.
There's nothing I could do to go to hell because I'm saved.
And if I went to hell, God lied because he promised that whoever believeth in him has
everlasting life.
And he said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
That's why there are a lot of examples of people in the Bible who did some really bad
stuff, yet they made it to heaven.
How?
Why is it so good?
No.
It's because they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their sins are forgiven.
Other people who may have lived a better life in the world's eyes, or maybe even really
they lived a better life, they don't believe in Christ, they're going to have to go to
hell to be punished for their sins.
And let me just close on this one thought.
One thing that I wanted to be sure and bring up today is that there was a question that
was asked to Jesus by one of his disciples.
And that question was this, are there few that be saved?
That's a good question, right?
I mean, are most people saved?
Or is it few that are saved?
Now who here thinks that most people are going to heaven?
Most people in this world are going to heaven.
Yeah.
Guess what the answer was.
He said, in Matthew 7 for example, he said, enter ye in at the straight gate.
He said, because wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and
many there be which go in there at, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way
which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.
And then he went on to say this, he said, not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord
shall enter the kingdom of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven, many will say to me in that
day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils
and in thy name done many wonderful works.
And then while I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity.
And so you see, there are people out there, first of all, the majority of this world doesn't
even claim to believe in Jesus.
Thankfully, the majority of this classroom claims to believe in Jesus, okay.
But the majority of the world does not claim to believe in Jesus.
But God warned that even amongst those who claim to believe in Jesus, even amongst those
that call him Lord, many will be saying to him, we did all these wonderful works, why
aren't we saved?
He's gonna say, depart from me, I never knew you, that's because salvation is not by works.
And if you're trusting your own works to save you, if you think you're going to heaven because
you've been baptized, or if you think you, well, I think you have to live a good life,
I think you have to keep the commandments to be saved, I think you have to go to church,
I think you gotta turn from your sins, if you're trusting in your works, Jesus is gonna
say to you one day, depart from me, I never knew you.
You have to have all your faith in what he did.
You have to put your faith in what Jesus did on the cross, when he died for you, he's buried
and rose again, that's your ticket into heaven.
If you're trusting all the things, oh, I'm going to heaven because I'm such a good Christian
and I do all these wonderful things, he's gonna say, depart from me.
And notice what he said, depart from me, I never knew you, not I used to know you.
Because once he knows you, remember I mentioned this earlier, it's everlasting, it's eternal.
Once he knows you, you're saved forever.
But he's gonna say, depart from me, I never knew you.
Because if you go to hell, it's because he never knew you.
Because once he knows you, he knows you.
It's just like my children will always be my children.
When you're born again, when you're his child, you'll always be his child.
You may be the black sheep of the family, you may be somebody who gets disciplined by
God heavily on this earth.
You can screw up your life down here, but you can't screw that up, you're saved, it's
a done deal.
And so that's the main thing that I wanted to present to you about the end times.
And we do have just a few minutes for questions about either salvation or about the end times.
Thank you.