Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Imperative of our calling from Acts 4:12

 Acts 4:12 - And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

I absolutely love that verse.  It becomes even more beautiful when you open it up to its broader context and read the first 3 chapters of the book of Acts.  As you see Peter's boldness before the one group whom we would have expected to have intimidated him.  He proclaims to the Sanhedrin there that it is Jesus who is the truth and the life and the way.  In Him and Him alone is salvation.

With verse 12 (among others) Peter slams the door to the universalist thought that all paths lead to God.  There is no other Name under heaven by which anyone is ever saved.  Only through Christ!  And Christ is defined as the Stone that the builders rejected, that God has made Him the cornerstone.

In other words, God has built His true church upon the Cornerstone of Jesus Christ.  The Biblical Christ is the only Christ in whom lies salvation.  We do not get to define who Christ is to us, He is who He is and who He is is revealed in Scripture.

However, because this is such an amazing Scripture that declares the Sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation... I think we may overlook the imperative that is contained there as well.  There is an imperative in verse 12 as well.  Jesus isn’t just the Name by which we can be saved… He isn’t just the Name by which we should be saved… He is FAR more than that…

No, Jesus is the Name by which we MUST be saved.  People MUST be saved and that salvation only comes through Jesus Christ!  Solus Christus!  Through Christ alone!

We need, desperately, to see the urgency and imperative nature of the need for salvation that Peter makes clear in our text.

People must be saved.  It is the basic need of all mankind that they be reconciled to the God whom they've sinned against.  It is as necessary as oxygen is to the lungs, but sadly many many are dying every day without even so much as having heard of the Jesus who has died to save filthy rotten wretched sinful people.  No one is too sinful to be saved by the blood of Christ.  We are called to go and preach the Gospel.  God has ordained that through the foolishness of preaching (1 Corinthians 1:18) He makes His Word known to the lost and dying world, dead in their trespasses.

Let us see the necessity of salvation and be diligent to preach the Gospel in boldness no matter what persecution may come.  Further, let us seek to make persecution a means by which our trust in Christ grows stronger and the message of the Gospel is spread to every corner of the world.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

God's grace in saving a life...

I post a great deal of videos and other links and such to pro-life materials.  Trying to educate people and get the word out to them that God creates life and that abortion is most definitely murder.  As a result of course I receive, as many of you do who've taken up this mantle as well, many angry criticisms to my inbox complaining that I have no right to say such and that I am anti-women's rights and a bunch of other non-sense.

Well, as many of you know, there are times when you just feel like you absolutely want to just give up.  You feel like nothing you are doing is accomplishing anything and you are just spinning your wheels.

I've been there, then one day about 2 years ago I received an email from a young lady I had known several years prior but had since lost contact.  To give you some background, she was a teenager when I had last been around her, some of her friends attended youth group at the church where I was youth pastor and she didn't come there regularly (she had a different church home) but she had come to a few of the discipleship events we had done. So I knew her as an acquaintance.

Here is the email.
"I wanted to share something with you that really touched me. I recently found out i was pregnant and am only 19. I was not planning on having a baby or even making that a part of my life. I had college and to much fun on my hands or so i thought to be bringing a baby into the world. My parents have raised me in church and I know abortion is wrong but i also knew it was my choice. I thought very hard and actually considered abortion and cried many nights over what to do. Ive been noticing you publishing things on facebook about abortion here lately and watched the video you published today, i really believe that was meant for me from God..to show me what i need to do and follow him. God works wonders and i wanted to share what you and God have helped me with without you even knowing."

I haven't heard much from her in the last year or so, but I do know that she DID give birth to a happy, healthy baby boy and they are doing very well.

So the encouragement to you brethren is to keep fighting the good fight.  Keep proclaiming truth, keep proclaiming the Gospel, and keep doing so in love.

Every time I think about that child I can't help but be humbled at how God used what I thought was not accomplishing anything at all to save a life.  By God's grace, that child is alive and that mother avoided that sin and I am humbled and honored that God would use me and allow me to have any part of that at all.

If you are feeling that what you are doing is pointless... don't give up... press deeper into the grace of Christ and lean more upon His understanding.  His grace is sufficient.  His Word, His truth, will NOT return void without accomplishing what He sends it to do.

If you have a similar story, I'd love to hear it.  Feel free to post it in the comments section below!

Soli Deo Gloria,
j