SALVATION FROM A TO Z
Bob Marcaurelle
freesermons@homeorchurchbiblestudy.com
Website: Yahoo search homeorchurchbiblestudy.com bob marcaurelle
Copyright 2005 by Bob Marcaurelle
2014 Revision by Bob Marcaurelle
Message 4
CONVERSION, REPENTANCE AND FAITH
“Repent then and turn (convert) to God, so your sins can be wiped away. “ (Acts 3:19)
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
you will be saved.” (Acts 16:20)
“The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”
(Acts 16:14)
When people in the Book of Acts asked how to be saved, three instructions were given: Repent (Acts 2:3); turn (convert) from sin (Acts 3:19); and believe (Acts 16:31). These three go together like fire, heat and smoke in what we call conversion. Conversion is the human side of regeneration – new birth. As a new baby cries and breathes, so does a new Christian repent and believe.
We turn (convert) from a life controlled by what we want to a life controlled by the Lord and what He wants (Repentance).
We (convert) turn to Jesus Christ (by faith) believing His sacrifice made our forgiveness possible (Romans 3:24-27). We entrust to Him our sins to forgive and our lives to change and contol. We believe that when we do this He forgives us; changes us and will receive us into heaven when we die.
When we speak of someone “turning their life around” this is a perfect description of becoming a Christian. It is like an army marching in one direction and when the leader says, “To the rear march!”; it turns around and starts walking in the opposite direction. The difference is – it is the Lord who turns us around.
THE CONTACT
Led by a vision Paul went from Asia Minor to Philippi and there a woman from Asia minor believed the gospel and was saved. God placed her there and sent Paul there. He works out our circumstances to bring us in contact with the Gospel. Jesus says we cannot come to him unless the Father draws us (Jn. 6). Romans 3 says, “No man looks for God”. Adrian Rogers says a sinner no more looks for God than a mouse looks for a cat.
THE CONVICTION
John 15:8
“The Holy Spirit, when He comes, will convict the world about sin, about being right with God, and about Judgment.”
1 Corinthians 1:18 / 2:14
“(The gospel) is foolishness to those who are perishing / they cannot understand it / God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.”
Contact with the gospel is not enough. Because of our sinful nature we do not understand Christianity and don’t want to understand it. We care nothing about cancer treatments until we get cancer. We care nothing about the gospel until we know we are in trouble with a holy God.
Spurgeon said an unregenerate man can no more understand the gospel than a horse can understand astronomy. He says we are dead, and dead to the fact that we are dead. We are blind, and blind to the fact that we are blind.
When I was converted I began to criticize all the Pastors I had heard before; asking why they hadn’t preached the gospel. And if they did, I wondered why they didn’t make it plain and simple like the pastor who showed me the way. The truth is, they did. I had not been listening. I was thinking about sports, girls and cars; or sometimes cars, girls and sports.
It is God who “leads us to repentance” and our faith is “not from us, it is the gift of God.” (Hebrews 6 / Ephesians 2). God to most of us is like a spare tire to go to in emergencies. We don’t want Him in the driver’s seat. God puts the “want to” into our hearts. Interest in things of God comes from Him. The Holy Spirit uses the teaching or reading of the Word to show us the seriousness of wrongdoing and our need of salvation s as He speaks of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come.
We apply this personally. This can come from an inner fire that drives you to church; from a friend who witnesses to you; or from a mother who sang, “Jesus loves me” above your cradle.
It can come from good circumstances like the birth of a baby. Romans 2 says “God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance”.
It can come from bad circumstances like the death of a baby. The Scottish comedian Harry Lauder said when his son died, “For me it was alcohol, suicide, or God; and I chose God.”
THE CONVERSION
1. Faith
Faith is belief.
We believe the bad news that we are sinners and are in trouble with God. This does not mean we are the meanest people in our town; it means that we have chosen to run our own lives instead of letting God run them. We may do bad things or good things. The problem is we go to church and do good things for others if and when we want to. It means we live basically selfish lives. For most of us the most serious problem is not with the wrongs we have done, but with the good things we have failed to do for others. We say,
“My neighbor’s throat I never cut
His purse I never stole
But for all the things I have not done
God have mercy on my soul,”
The idea of standing before God to give an account of all the unhappiness and justice we allow is a troubling prospect. James says, "To the one who knows to do good and does not do it, to him that is sin." In two of the few times Jesus pictured hell, he talked about the rich man who ignored the needs of the beggar Lazarus (Luke 16) and of the people who did not feed and clothe the poor (Matt. 25)
Thank God we also believe the good news that God loves wrongdoers and came to this earth in Jesus Christ to die on a cross so we can be forgiven. The Holy Spirit shows us we need to go to the cross. Paul said, “I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) Augustine, in the 400’s AD said if he was the only person who ever accepted Christ, Christ would have died for him.
Bobby Richardson led his Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle to the Lord as Mickey was on his death bed. He had tried for years and Mickey was polite but had no interest in what Bobby said. Bobby and his wife had come to that town so he could witness to him. When he got back to the hotel room his wife found it was almost impossible to believe. She said, “Bobby, I have to go see this for myself”. She went to Mickey’s hospital room. After a few remarks, she said, “Mickey, are you sure you are right with God?” Mickey flashed that big Oklahoma smile and said:
“For God so loved Mickey Mantle, that He sent His only begotten Son, so if Mickey Mantle believes in Him, Mickey Mantle will not perish, but will have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Faith is also Entrusting (Committing)
It commits, just as we entrust our money to a bank. I love the story of the kid who watched a man walk on a tight rope across a roaring water fall. He did it blindfolded. He did it with two pigs in a wheelbarrow. The little wide-eyed boy was his PR man. He would yell at people passing by and tell them to come watch the amazing man.
The man turned to the lad and asked, “Son, do you believe I can push this wheelbarrow across with a person sitting in it?” The little boy said, “Mister, I know you can do it.” The man asked again, “Son, do you really believe it?” Hoping to see him push somebody across, he said, “Yes sir. I don’t have a doubt in this world. I know you can.” “OK,” said the man, “Get in the wheelbarrow and I’ll push you across.”
The little boy said, “It’s time for me to go home and eat supper.” And he took off for home. He had belief but not enough to entrust himself into that wheelbarrow
This was me for over twenty years. Like many today I was going to miss heaven by “12 inches” - the distance between my head and my heart. I always believed I was a sinner and that Jesus died for sinners. At conversion I did something about it..
Faith is not Believing All Conservative Teachings
Belief does not mean we have to all believe all that conservative Christianity teaches. Extreme conservatives believe this is necessary. One pamphlet, “Can an Evolutionist be a Christian” said “no”. When I used Mother Teresa as an example of faithfulness a lady told me I should not use her because she was not a Christian. I asked why and she said, “She believes that in the end, all people will be saved.” I am not an evolutionist, nor do I believe all people will be saved; but believing God used evolution to create or God saving everyone has nothing to do with a person’s salvation.
Such things put a barrier between us and God when we desperately want forgiveness and the power to be a better person. We come to Christ imperfect morally and we come imperfect mentally. We allow people to sing “Just as I Am” morally; so we need to allow them to sing, “Just as I Am” intellectually.
2. Repentance
The word repentance means a “change of mind” and in the context of salvation it involves not only the mind, but the emotions and the will. We are sorry for the harmful things we have done. We believe God takes our wrongdoing seriously and believe that Jesus is God's appointed Savior. Because of this, we commit by faith (entrust) our sins to him to forgive and our lives to change (repentance). 2 Corinthians 7:10 says:
“Godly (God given) sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation, but the sorrow of the world brings death.”
It is popular today to make repentance only a "change of mind" that has nothing to do with the commitment to live for Christ. In other words Jesus can be Savior but not Lord of our lives. Jesus told the people of his day who did not repent that the people of Nineveh would be better off at the Judgment because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. The Book of Jonah does not use the term repent or repentance. Jonah told them to "Turn from your wicked ways." (For more on this Google John Magarthar on repentance or the Lordship Debate)
The King James uses a different term when it says Judas repented and went out and hanged himself (Matthew 27:3-4). The term used and what he did is “regret”. Had Judas truly repented He would have gone to another tree, the cross, and he would have found full forgiveness.
Belief in the bad news of sin and the good news of salvation and sorrow for the way we have lived leads to a decision and a commitment with God’s help to live for Him. When the people asked John the Baptizer what they had to do to show the “fruit” of repentance, he told them to share their possessions with the poor; to be honest in business; to be kind and to be content with their wages. (Luke 3).
The song of faith is:
Jesus paid it all / All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow
The song of repentance is:
I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back, no turning back
The world behind me the cross before me
No turning back, no turning back
We must remember that the decision and commitment to live for God is willingness not ability. We cannot promise God we will never use profanity, be unkind, tell lies, etc., again. We can’t lose weight, much less promise to live like Jesus. But we can want it, and we can trust Him to change us.
When a person joins the Marines with long hair, rings in each ear, and an undisciplined life; the minute he signs on the dotted line, he is as much of a Marine that he will ever be. He is not a good one. That comes later. But he has committed to becoming a good Marine.
The same is true of marriage. When we stand at an altar and say, “I do”, we do not know what we are getting into. But we have committed to becoming a good husband or wife. And my wife will tell you I am still working on it, just like I am still working on being all that God wants me to be.
3. Conversion
We are born again the moment we commit to Jesus our sins to forgive (faith) and our lives to control and change (repentance). We do this by praying. The dying criminal hanging beside Jesus, prayed, and Jesus told him that very day he would be in heaven with Him. (Luke 23) The sinful tax collector in Jesus’ parable humbly cried, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke 18) and Jesus said he went home right with God. The Bible promises, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, will be saved.” (Romans 10)
4. Delay
It is not right to believe you can get right with God “any time you want to.” The truth is we don’t want to unless God is dealing with us. And a frightening truth of the bible is that God will get to a point where He no longer deals with you.
Hebrews 6, says of some who turned away from the church, “It is impossible to bring them to repentance again.” (Hebrews 6:6). In Genesis six as God was about to send the flood He told Noah: “My Spirit will not always strive with an.” (Genesis 6)
Six blackbirds were sitting on a fence and four decided to fly away. How many are left? The answer is 6. To decide is not to do. The old saying is right, “The road to hell is filled with good intentions.” The most tragic people at the Judgment will be those of you who “always meant” to get right with God but put it off until it was too late.
I was only “under conviction” three times in my life. The first two times, I came to the brink of a public decision and made some excuse and backed away. The third time, after I prayed beside the road for salvation, I made an excuse the next Sunday in church not to publicly commit, as I had done twice before.
The feeling came over me that this was my last chance, if I didn’t do it then, I would probably never do it. I don’t know if that was true but I know now that the Bible says God’s Spirit will not always wrestle with us (Genesis 6) and God says through Isaiah, “call upon the Lord while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)
Nothing could stop me. I almost went before the Pastor ended his sermon. It was not the public decision or the baptism that brought salvation but the act of obedience was the fruit of my salvation, Had I refused I do not believe my prayer by the road was genuine.
It is not that God does not love us or want us to be His child. It is that He has done all he needs to do for us and we have “hardened” our heart (Hebrews 3:7-8). The term means “callous”. We can say “No” to God so many times that His voice and touch are no longer heard of felt. There is a point where God can go no further and leave us free to choose. An old hymn says,
There is a line by us unseen
That crosses every path
The hidden boundary between
God’s patience and His wrath.
Dr. W.A. Criswell speaking on Revelation 3:20, where Jesus is knocking on the door of our hearts, said Jesus humbly stands patiently wanting in but out of respect for human personality will not barge in uninvited. Not only do we lose forgiveness, a good character and heaven, but God loses us. In Luke 15 God is pictured as the shepherd who loses his sheep, the woman who loses her money and the father who loses his son.
