POST 23 - How To Be Saved.

by William W. Orr, A.B., M.A., Th.B., D.D.. Pastor and Teacher.

     Here is the difference:  When a person is genuinely saved, then death is merely the door to a new life of indescribable rapture which, unbelievable as it may seem, will never end.  But to the unsaved the moment of death is the pathway to horrors of eternal hell.

     How can an individual be saved?  Actually, the experience of salvation is so simple, one is amazed at its straightforward uncomplicated sincerity.  The truth is that salvation is the masterpiece of God's own planning, offered to needy human beings on the most elementary terms.

     We begin  with mankind's desperate need.  All men are sinners and are therefore under the condemnation of a just God.  The soul that sins will die (Ezek.18:4), for the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).   Every candidate for salvation must admit that he is a sinner.

     But there is good news, the most glorious news in the world.  Since man is under the sentence of death and since man can do nothing to save himself, being already dead in trespasses and sins (Eph.2:1), God Himself made possible man's salvation.

     Coming from God's own heart of love, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, entered into the world, lived a sinless life, and died a substitutionary death for and in behalf of sinners.  He Himself took the place of every sinner and paid the price of his sin by His own death on the cross of Calvary.  So complete was the sacrificial death of  Christ that God has fully accepted the transaction and now offers salvation to any sinner who believes and trusts in the death, burial and resurection of Christ (John 3:16).

     In fact, there is nothing for the sinner to do personally except to believe.  This belief must be deep, sincere, and complete.  It is not a mere intellectual assent to the historical fact of Christ's death, but an entire commitment to Christ for both time and eternity.  There must be utter reliance upon Him for salvation, which is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8).

     To anyone who so believes, God brings to pass a mighty transformation.  The person is saved!  His sins are all forgiven.  He becomes part of the family of God.  The peerless gift of eternal life is now his.  He is a new creature in Christ with new aims, ambitions, power, wisdom, friends, and ideals (II Cor.5:17).

     Not the least of the new blessings inherent in salvation is the victory over death.  No longer must a Christian look forward with dread to the moment of death.  Christ has taken our death;  it is robbed of its terror.  Death is swallowed up in victory (I Cor. 15:54-58).

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