#5 We Believe In Man’s Need For Salvation Series

Sometimes we need to step back and re-examine what it is that we believe. Many take our faith for granted, we tout the cultural narrative and claim we have read the Bible when in fact all we do it quote other people who claim to quote the Bible and we fail to have read it for ourselves. We claim to believe in God, and we even throw in Jesus for good measure. Our prosperity have clouded our eyes to our real need for Him.

I often hear from religious people, “All people are basically good.” That one statement alone tells me that person has not read their Bible. The fact is the Word from God says just the opposite. The fact is, according to scripture, mankind is sick! Mankind is going off the deep end. Mankind needs saving. If you don’t believe me, and you don’t believe the Bible, believe the evidence. Have you seen the news lately?

The fact is everyone needs to be saved. Saved from sin, saved from the world, saved from themselves. We are talking about salvation from condemnation.

I was going to title this message “We Believe in the Depravity of Man” but I soften it with “Man’s need for Salvation.” All of mankind is included in that statement.

It is easy to believe in a heaven, the place where God resides, the place of eternal bliss, eternal rest, and eternal life. Yes we believe in heaven.

But we do not want to talk about the place of condemnation, the place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:24); the place where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48); place of eternal torment (Revelation 14:11); The place we call “hell.” The fact is we cannot believe in heaven without believing in the place of eternal punishment called hell. I believe in hell.

Because I believe in hell, I also believe mankind needs deliverance from Hell because we all deserve to go there, all needs salvation. The focus of this message today is our need for salvation.

Romans 3:9–18; Romans 3:23, Romans 7:14–8:2

We all need salvation, because we all transgressed the commands of God. None of us are innocent. None of us are clean. None of us are free from sin.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

But it was not always that way. Man was created innocent and blameless. You know the story, Adam and Eve had the whole Garden of Eden at their fingertips and God only made one rule:

Genesis 2:16–17 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

But because God is high and holy, any transgressions to the command of God brought a penalty – death: “for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Death, right from the beginning was penalty for sin. Well you know what happened. The serpent tempted Eve; Eve ate the forbidden fruit and passed the fruit on to Adam, then along came God. God asked:

Genesis 3:11b Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you not to eat?”

Then both Adan and then Eve played the blame game and did what people have done ever since – failed to take responsibility for their actions. Adam indirectly blamed God:

Genesis 3:12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”

And the Eve blamed the serpent:

Genesis 3:13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

You can blame your sin on whoever or whatever you want, you can fool others and even fool yourself, but you cannot fool God. God knows all. God knows who is responsible for your sin. Both Adam and Eve paid the penalty. They died and death and sin has been with us ever since. You see that has been the condition of human race ever since.

Those who say people are basically good has never read the Bible to see what God has to say on the subject. The fact is, man is inherently prone to do bad. We all have inherited a sin nature from Adam. Think about it, you don’t have teach a baby to misbehave, be bad, to be selfish, to be self-centered. Skip forward to the days of Noah – This is what God had to say about mankind so far in history, up to the time of the flood: