Saved – Saved From What?
Romans 10:1-13
Often we use terms that we assume others know exactly what we are talking about. One of these words is “saved”. We ask people “Are you saved?” expecting them to understand what we are talking about. When asked, the response we get might be “Saved? Saved from what?” What does it mean to be saved? If we are saved, from what are we saved?
I. Saved - What does that mean?
A. The word "saved" comes from a Greek word sode'-zo. Its basic definition is “to deliver or rescue”
B. It is used in a number of ways
1. to save one (from injury or peril)
2. to save a suffering one (from perishing), that is, one suffering from disease, to make well, heal, restore to health
3. to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save or rescue
C. In the biblical sense the word speaks of the redemptive work that takes place when an individual turns from his life, which was alienated from God, to Christ as Lord and Savior.
D. Romans 10:9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
E. Salvation is the supernatural act of God whereby God enables sinful man to realize his sinfulness in light of God’s holiness, and through acknowledgment of Christ’s lordship surrenders the ownership of His life to Christ. The result of which the individual receives both forgiveness and deliverance. That moment by God’s grace he has been saved.
F. But... Deliverance from what? Saved from what?
II. Saved from the Wrath of God
A. John 3:36 “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides (remains) on him.”
B. God's word clearly teaches that those outside of a saving relationship with Him through Christ are presently under wrath.
C. The word that is used does not refer refers to a sudden outburst of rage but of a teeming or swelling anger fixed and controlled that one day will be released.
D. The wrath of God is not just taught in the Bible, it is a prominent truth in the Scriptures as A. W. Pink calls attention to in his book: A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.- Bob Deffinbaugh, The Wrath of God
E. Arthur W Pink wrote in his book “The Attributes of God” of the Wrath of God that, “The wrath of God is His eternal detestation of all unrighteousness. It is the displeasure and indignation of Divine equity against evil. It is the holiness of God stirred into activity against sin. It is the moving cause of that just sentence which He passes upon evil-doers. God is angry against sin because it is a rebelling against His authority, a wrong done to His inviolable sovereignty. Insurrectionists against God’s government shall be made to know that God is the Lord. They shall be made to feel how great that Majesty is which they despise, and how dreadful is that threatened wrath which they so little regarded.”
F. Isaiah 13:9-13 “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold,a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger.
G. “O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in; it is a great furnace of
wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as many of the damned of hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder…” – Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God
H. Romans 5:8-10 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
I. The only way to be saved from the wrath of God, is to be saved from it by faith in Christ.
J. 1 Thessalonians 5:9 “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,”
K. Christ bore the wrath of God against sin that we deserve. The punishment He suffered was sufficient to satisfy the justice of God and procure salvation for all who will receive Him by faith.
L. Are you under God’s wrath or have you been saved and therefore are under His grace?
III. Saved from a Burning Hell
A. II Thessalonians 1:8-9 “in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.”
B. More and more "religious people" are rejecting the Biblical doctrine of hell.
C. The Bible clearly teaches that life does not end at the grave, that all individuals will spend eternity in one of two places either in the presence of God or in a place of eternal torment away from the presence of God.
D. There are over thirty repeated references to the existence of Hell in the Old Testament alone. In the Gospels, Jesus speaks of Hell more than of Heaven. Revelation gives us the description of the end of all who have not been redeemed by Christ.
E. Revelation 21:7-8 “He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
F. Many are living under the assumption that God would never really send anyone to a burning hell. They are fooling themselves and in for a rude awakening. Hell is real – Hell is eternal.
G. But those who know Christ have been saved from a burning Hell.
H. John 5:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”
IV. Saved from Satan’s Control
A. When you are lost, the heart is occupied and controlled by Satan.
B. Ephesians 2:1-3 “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 lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
C. 1 John 5:19 “...the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one
D. Hebrews 2:14-15 “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
E. Jesus Christ, through His redemptive death and victorious resurrection, has overcome the power of Satan.
F. When a person is saved, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and assumes control of your life. There is no place for Satan. Satan is defeated enemy because of Christ's blood, and the saved have been dedlivered from bondage to him.
V. Saved from an Unfulfilled Life
A. In an interview with Swedish film critic, Stig Björkman, Woody Allen said: “I think that at best the universe is indifferent. …so we create a fake world for ourselves, and we exist within that fake world. …a world that, in fact, means nothing at all, when you step back. It's meaningless. But it's important that we create some sense of meaning, because no perceptible meaning exists for anybody.”
B. Woody Allen actually echoes the sentiments of Solomon as he looks at life from the prospective of the natural man and cries out in Ecclesiastes2:17, “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.”
C. Ephesians 2:12 “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world
D. We live in a world of spiritual death where people live empty, hopeless, and spiritually meaningless lives. There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every unsaved individual. Life is meaningless without Jesus.
E. When you are genuinely saved, you belong to God and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart. You do have a new reason to live; you have the hope of eternal life and the promise of heaven.
F. 1 Peter 1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you”
G. Colossians 2:10 “...you are complete in Him.”
