| |
|
 |
|
A Bible
Study Web Site for Children, Teens and College Students |
|
Bible Question #3 |
 |
Is it true that
WE CAN'T DO A THING
FOR SALVATION?
(this was adapted from audio message MC42-1456, Reversionism
series, Part 29 by Pastor-teacher Robert R. McLaughlin of Grace
Bible Church, Somerset, MA
www.gbible.org
)
That's true! For a person to be born-again, God does
all the work... we can't do a thing! Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us
God has placed a desire for that which is eternal in the heart of
every human being who is born into this world, and if God didn't
do that, we would never have a desire to know Him. |
When God placed Adam and the woman in the
Garden of Eden, they were physically alive, and they were also
spiritually alive. Every day they had an opportunity to have that
desire fulfilled; however, they chose against the plan of God and they
died spiritually ... they no longer had fellowship with the Lord.
All of us are descendants of Adam and the woman, and we
were born physically alive, but spiritually dead. Your life began when
God, not your parents, gave human life to your soul, and Adam's
original sin was imputed to your biologically formed old sin nature.
Every one of us is born with a sin nature.
The moment we came forth from our mother's womb, the
Bible says we were wretched. When a little baby is born, he may appear
to be sweet and pure, but in the eyes of the Lord that baby is a
sinner and needs to be saved. At birth we are helpless in two ways no
first, we are under spiritual death, which means we are totally
helpless to do anything about a relationship with God. There is
nothing within us that goes on a search for God, and that's why we
need to be born-again! We must be born of the Spirit of God, because
we don't have a human spirit. Secondly, we are born humanly helpless,
which can be resolved through help from our parents, teachers, family,
friends and the culture in which we live.
No information resides in our brain at birth, but as we
grow and find ourselves in an academic environment, we gradually
overcome our helplessness through education. People are finding out
that our I.Q. can even be improved through education. The point is
that as we grow physically, we should become independent and not have
to rely on others to help us.
We can improve our physical helplessness, but we cannot
solve the fact that we are spiritually dead, which means we are
totally depraved. What is depravity! By definition, it means that
because of Adam's sin, nothing man can do will give him a relationship
with God. Never at any time in your life did you go searching for God.
(Psalm 14:1-3) God always comes searching for us! Therefore, mankind
is blind, deaf and dead to the things of God. In fact, Jeremiah 17:9
describes what we are like: "The heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked, who can understand it!” In that scriptural
reference, God is not talking about the cardiovascular system, but He
is referring to our brain ... where we do our thinking. Man is born in
bondage to his evil, sinful nature, and that is why, in grace, the
Lord placed within the heart of every man a desire for that which is
eternal. If God didn't give us a desire to know Him or to know why we
are here, none of us would ever even consider it. We would be just
like the animal kingdom ... not concerned about the future.
The fact is, all of us have a void ... something
missing in our lives that only God can fulfill. God fills that void by
showing the Tree of Life to the unbeliever ... that tree is the cross
on which Jesus Christ died as a substitute for the sins of mankind. In
the case of a Tree of Life for a believer, the Lord provides Bible
Doctrine so that he can grow spiritually.
God had to put a desire to know spiritual things within
us, because without it we would never get to know Him. If you went to
a graveyard and tried to communicate with someone in a grave, they
would neither hear nor respond to you, because they are physically
dead.
Being spiritually dead does not mean we have a little
spark within us, and God fans that spark, and it becomes a fire. That
idea is untrue. We were born spiritually dead, and if God didn't do
something about it, we would never have a desire to know Him. The
apostle Paul tells us in Romans 3: 1 0-18, "It is written, there is
none righteous, not even one. Their throat is an open grave, and with
their tongues they keep on deceiving. The poison of asps is under
their lips, and their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their
path. The path of peach they have not known, and there is no fear of
God before their eyes." That, my friend, is a description of you and
me without the help of God. It is a picture of the entire human race,
and if God did not put a desire to know Him within our heart, we would
self-destruct.
A fool is described for us in Psalm 14:1 which says,
"The fool has said in his heart, there is no God". According to God's
Word, an atheist is a fool, because he has to deny that there is
something within him that desires to know eternal things. He has to
squelch that thought, and eventually he comes to a place where he has
hardness of the heart and scar tissue of the soul, and he cannot even
receive the things of God. The Psalm continues, "They are corrupt.
They have committed abominable deeds. There is not one who does good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there
was anyone who was seeking after God, but they have all turned aside.
Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good . . .
not even one”.
The point is, we will not and we cannot please God in
the spiritual realm. God does everything for us at the point of
salvation, and if He didn't help us, there would be absolutely no way
a person could be saved.
It is interesting to note how inconsistent believers
can be, because if you asked, "Does God do all the work in
salvation?", they would have to say 'yes' if they really believe in
the grace of God and in His Word. We read this command in Colossians
2:6: "'Just as you have received Christ, so walk in Him" ... that is,
we receive Him through faith, therefore we must walk by faith. If you
are a believer, you must realize that when you were born-again, God
did all the work.
After salvation, God should still be doing all the work
in our lives, but what do we find in many Christian circles? LEGALISM
... being told you can't do this or that, and you can't go there,
because you have to make yourself holy and righteous. EMOTIONALISM ...
people living by their feelings rather than by a consistent intake of
Bible Doctrine by a prepared pastor-teacher who knows the original
languages of scripture. We see all of this nonsense taking place when
people try to impress God with their human good works. God is never
impressed with anything we do in the flesh! He looks at the entire
human race as being totally depraved and totally corrupt.
We can only please God if we operate by faith in His
Word and rely upon God the Holy Spirit to teach us and guide us so
that proper changes may be made in our lives through His power ... not
our own. When a believer relies on the power of Go<land the Word of
God and allows Him to make all the changes in his life, he can begin
to operate in faith, which is the only way he can please God. No one
has ever gone on a search for God. You may think you came to a point
in your life when you said to yourself, "I think I'll search for God",
but it was always God reaching out in grace to you, and it all began
when He placed that desire for eternal things in your heart. You would
be unable to understand the message of salvation without the effectual
ministry of God the Holy Spirit going into action and making Gospel
information clear to you so that you could make a decision from your
own free will about Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is our teacher who
makes the Gospel understandable to a spiritually dead person. Even
that information is given to man by the grace of God. The point here
is that God has to do ALL the work or no one would ever be saved.
In 2 Corinthians 6:1, the apostle Paul wrote, "And
working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace
of God in vain. God says, ‘at the acceptable time I listened to you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is the
acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation’." How did God
help us? The remainder of the verse says, "Now is the time to accept."
Here's where we must be careful, because someone might say, "Aha...
you have to accept 'Jesus into your heart," but that's not what the
verse is saying. It is true that we have to accept something before
salvation, but it is an acceptance of information that is given by God
the Holy Spirit regarding faith in Jesus Christ as the way of
salvation. God the Holy Spirit is the one who does all the work in
salvation, and if He didn't do it for us, we would not respond to the
Gospel even if we had a desire to do so.
If a person who is totally corrupt expresses a desire
for eternal things, he will be given information from God the Holy
Spirit showing him he is a sinner and needs to be saved, but he still
doesn't have enough faith to believe; therefore, the Holy Spirit takes
that little faith of the spiritually dead person and makes it good
enough for that individual to be saved. That is the acceptance before
salvation, so when we read in John 1:12, "But as many as received Him,
to them gave He the power to become sons of God.” (notice, they
received HIM) Whom did they receive? Did they receive Jesus Christ as
their Lord and Savior? NO... because they are not yet sons of God.
They received the ministry of God the Holy Spirit telling them about
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross so they could be saved.
Power is given to become a-child of God when that person believes in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the point of salvation, we find three categories of
grace:. The first category is called common grace, which means God
gives every one of us a chance to be saved. In common grace, God the
Holy Spirit makes the Gospel understandable to an individual at the
point of God consciousness. It doesn't matter who the person is or how
old he is ... everyone is given an opportunity to be saved while they
are still alive on this earth. He may have had only a 3rd grade
education or be a graduate of a fine university, or be someone who
lives in a very primitive tribe in the jungle, but no matter who the
individual is, he needs God's help when it comes to understanding the
Gospel message.
The second category of grace is the Divine call, in
which God the Father says, "I'm going to give you ... a corrupt member
of the human race ... totally depraved, and with a sick head and a
deceitful heart ... I'm going to give you a new nature so that you may
have eternal life. " That is how God extends His invitation to man to
be saved... not man asking Jesus into his heart, but God the Holy
Spirit telling man he must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and he
will be saved:. That truth is stated more than 115 times in the New
Testament scriptures.
By the way ... there is a time when God stops calling
an individual, and that is when he no longer will listen to the call,
and then he becomes totally reprobate.
The third type of grace is called efficacious grace, and it is when
the Holy Spirit takes your faith at the point of God-consciousness and
makes faith alone in Christ alone effective for salvation.
Don't miss this! Who did all the work at salvation? God
did! After placing a desire for eternal things inside of us, that
desire made it possible for us to respond to the divine call and
listen to the Holy Spirit reveal the Gospel message.
Whether it is God calling us and making the Gospel
understandable and making or faith effective for salvation, the point
is:YOU CAN'T DO A THING!
GOD DOES ALL THE WORK
|
|
   |
|
 |
|
|