"What We Don’t Or Do Know Can… (Help Or Hurt Us) (Sermon On Salvation)

For example:

(1) What we know can be helpful in our security.

For example, when you travel into certain countries it is very important that you know there are some parts of certain cities that you do not travel.

Illus: A preacher in South Carolina tells how that he and his wife were in a foreign country, and they decided to go sightseeing where they were lodging.

They hired this taxi driver in front of their hotel to carry them sightseeing and this taxi driver drove them into a very dangerous area of this city.

They were horrified later when they were told this was a very dangerous area to travel and was advised not to go there.

WHAT WE KNOW CAN BE VERY HELPFUL TO OUR SECURITY AS WE TRAVEL.

(2) WHAT WE KNOW CAN BE HELPFUL IN OUR FINANCES.

Life is filled with people who know things to invest in and not to invest in.

Illus: For example, in 1979 in the accident at Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Hershey, Pa. the stock crashed immediately. Of course, many of these investors in the nuclear plant was devastated when they heard the news that they had practically lost all of their investment.

However, an investor in Columbia, S.C. immediately invested 10,000 dollars in the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and within twenty-four hours his investment made him $40,000 dollars.

Some people KNOW how to make good investments.

What we KNOW IN LIFE can be very beneficial to us FINANCIALLY.

We all know the value of knowledge of certain things.

But do we know the danger of not knowing somethings can be devastating to us.

Illus: I think of a dear Christian woman who attended our church but has gone to be with the Lord.

She went to the doctor and found out that she had stage four cancer in her body. The doctor told her if she had known this a year before and if she had come to him, she probably could have been cured.

• What we KNOW can be very helpful to us

• What we DO NOT KNOW can be devastating to us.

I want to address in this sermon what WE DO NOT KNOW SPIRITUALLY CAN BE DEVASTATING TO US AS CHRISTIANS.

It is amazing what the Lord has done for us AND MANY DO NOT KNOW WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR THEM.

Illus: That reminds me of a man that was driving along in his old beat-up old Dodge truck, when suddenly it broke down.

• He was parked on the side of the road trying to fix it when a man driving a Jaguar pulled up in front of him and offered to help.

• After a few minutes the two men obviously weren't going to get the old truck going again, so the Jaguar driver offered to tow the Dodge to the nearest garage.

• A few minutes later the two had hitched up the old Dodge truck to the Jaguar, and they agreed that if the Jaguar driver was going too fast the man in the old dodge truck should do two things

(1) Blow his horn

(2) And flash his lights

To get him to slow down.

With that the two men got into their vehicles and the Jaguar driver started to pull away with the old beat-up Dodge truck behind him.

However, at the first traffic light, a Ferrari pulled up beside the Jaguar and started to rev his engine provocatively.

As soon as the light turned green the Ferrari and the Jaguar hit their accelerators and took off forgetting about the driver in the old dodge truck.

• Before long the two cars were racing down the road at over 120 mph.

• As the cars sped along, they passed through a police speed trap.

• The officer couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the two cars and the old dodge truck go by, and he decided that he couldn't catch them all by himself, so he decided to radio for help.

• He said, "You won't believe what I just saw! I saw a Ferrari and a Jaguar doing 120 mph side by side, and an old beat up old Dodge truck behind them flashing his lights and blowing his horn trying to pass them!"

We have that same kind of amazement when we look at the things the Lord Jesus has done for us.

(1)If the lost world could comprehend what we have in Christ, they would be running to the Lord.

But the Bible tells us in John 12:40 “He (Satan) hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.”

The lost world has no idea what they are missing out in life because Satan has blinded their eyes to what the Lord has done for them.