Okay, let's pray.
Dear God, thank you for being amazing, for letting us live.
Thank you for being Who you are.
Help us to enjoy life, both now and eternally.
Thank you for writing us a Book.
Thank you for being our Friend.
Thank you for being close to us, for making us, designing us for a purpose.
Thank you.
Thank you for language, relationships.
Thank you for eternity.
Thank you for your …
Permission to live.
Thank you for the power You give us.
I pray you'd put Your hands over our hands on the steering wheel of life and guide us.
Give us the right motives, the right heart.
Clear our minds.
Give us peace.
Help us not live in fear.
Help us to trust You, believe in You, and activate faith.
Exercise our will to choose You in the face of options.
Give us clarity and good understanding of Scripture, and help us be better witnesses tomorrow. Amen.
Did you get to witness to somebody today?
I tried.
It was an open door, right?
Did you listen to the Holy Spirit when He guided you through what to say?
SPEAKER 1
I believe so.
SPEAKER 2
And so tell us just briefly, this lady was experiencing cancer with her father?
SPEAKER 1
Yeah, she was going through a really tough time, something that no one really likes to go through, which is, you know, the health deterioration of a loved one.
And it hurts a lot, especially, you know, to somebody, because I know what it feels like when you have something that you really want to do something about, like, let's say like her dad having cancer,
but she can't do anything about it.
Like, she physically has no power to do anything about it and she's in a state of hopelessness.
And so, I saw that state and I obviously can relate to that state to some degree.
And so, I chose to say, you know what, you know, not really chose but more got persuaded by the Holy Spirit, I believe, something has to be done about it because I know the answer and I want her to know the answer as well.
Yeah It's important that people feel compassion, you know, all of us reach moments in our life of desperation, confusion, Crying, anxiety.
I think you said it, hopeless and powerless, especially when it comes to our aging parents.
It's just such an emotional heartache.
But in that moment, people get soft and they listen and they seek God because there's no one really else that can comfort or provide answers.
SPEAKER 1
Yeah, that's true.
You get to a point where you feel empty and lonely and any materialistic thing that you have in that moment doesn't mean anything.
And something that always resonates with me is that during those times, especially when you feel like no one cares and no one is seeing your efforts, you become nonchalant, meaning that you don't really care or you act like you don't care.
SPEAKER 2
She was this dear lady.
She was highly religious.
We've known her for a while.
She's a really good repeat customer.
I've tried to witness to her.
She has a soft heart, I believe.
She's seeking after God.
She's trying her best.
She's following a religious system …
that's not going to lead her to eternal life.
And the Holy Spirit was guiding you to speak some words and you gave her a gospel tract.
We've got to keep it short because we want to do a Bible study.
But how do you think she received it?
SPEAKER 1
I think she received it with open arms.
And I think it was mainly for the case, for the reason that …
Because she was just going through a lot, and when you, like you just mentioned right now, when you go through those times, you feel like there is no hope, there is no answer, and when someone even comes remotely with something they would consider an answer, something even like abstract, you would say, I want to hear it.
And even if you've heard it before, you might have never heard it in that way.
SPEAKER 2
Right, the Holy Spirit has excellent timing.
So today, I just want to be thankful that we serve the God of salvation.
There is no other God that provides salvation.
And I love the words.
It said here in Psalm 98, “Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvelous things.
His right hand and His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory.
The Lord hath made known His salvation.”
I'm so thankful that God makes known His salvation.
“His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the heathen.”
I was the heathen and I needed salvation openly showed.
The righteousness of God compared to my righteousness?
It was openly showed in the sight of the heathen.
Verse 3.
“He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel.”
Here it is.
“All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”
How should we respond to knowing about salvation, verse 4, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth.
Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise.
Sing unto the Lord with the harp, with the harp and with the voice of a psalm.”
Lift it up, make some music, right?
Just explode.
“With the trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King. Let the sea roar [let the bass kick in], and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the LORD; for He cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness He shall judge the world, and the people with equity.” Salvation belongs to God.
If you look up the word salvation in your King James Bible app, the Blue Letter Bible, it says in Psalm 95 verse 1, “O come.”
The word O is a large container.
Some people, their O is about the size of a thimble or the size of a small cup.
If you expand your O to hold greater capacity for emotional expression of thankfulness and joy towards God, you'll have a better relationship.
If you trade in your little cup …
for a bucket, and trade in your bucket for a bathtub, and trade in your bathtub for a swimming pool.
You'll enjoy God more.
“Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord, make a joyful noise unto the Rock of our salvation.”
Then if you do a word study on salvation in just every verse that mentions salvation, read it and let it resonate.
Psalm 96 verse 2, “Sing unto the Lord.”
That's the proper response
for having received the knowledge and having received belief in the gospel.
“Sing unto the Lord, bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to day.”
Let's skip down here.
Psalm 118 verse 14, “The Lord is my strength and my song and has become my salvation.”
Amen.
You got a Bible verse that has to do with salvation or the identity of God?
I think you wanted to talk about who He is, right?
Yeah.
So, Isaiah.
SPEAKER 1
Isaiah 43:10.
It reads, “Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My Servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me.”
SPEAKER 2
Wow.
So that verse ties into this verse, right?
SPEAKER 1
Yeah.
All right, go with that one.
Isaiah 44 verse 6 says, “Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts.
I am the first and I am the last.
And beside me there is no God.”
SPEAKER 2
Wow.
So He's the singular God and He's the singular Savior.
Wow.
I'm just scrolling through.
Psalm 119 mentions salvation several times.
It says, “I have longed for Thy salvation, O Lord, and Thy law is my delight.”
Psalm 140, “O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.”
Psalm 149 verse 4, “For the Lord taketh pleasure in His people, He will beautify the meek with salvation.”
One of the key elements to receiving salvation is humility, coming to God on God's terms.
Just letting God set the rules for how salvation happens.
Trust the Son.
Let go of all my other beliefs.
Isaiah 12 verse 2, “Behold, God is my salvation.
I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song.
He also is become my salvation.”
Amen.
Isaiah 12 verse 3, “Therefore, with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
It's a pretty deep reservoir.
Isaiah 26:1 “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah, we have a strong city.
Salvation will God appoint for the walls and bulwarks.”
Isaiah 33:2 “O God, be gracious unto us, for we have waited for Thee.
Be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.”
Isaiah 45:17, “But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.
Ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end.”
SPEAKER 1
What do you got over here?
I'm looking at a verse right now, it says Isaiah 54 verse 5 says, “For thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall He be called.”
Note it says, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, Redeemer.
SPEAKER 2
It just seems like there's no real alternative.
You know, I saw, I heard a quote this weekend, actually in Sunday school and adults, all, everybody should go to Sunday school.
And it said, the devil is the ultimate deceiver.
We know that.
Here's the illustration.
A wise thief prints counterfeit money, not on orange paper, but on green paper.
So, the devil is a mimicker.
He takes that which is untrue and he makes it look close to the truth, right?
So that the counterfeit will slide by.
That's what he likes to do with salvation.
He likes to put in counterfeit alternatives.
However, if a person pauses to consider, there is no major belief system in the world that provides a suitable alternative for salvation.
No other belief system out there even has a reasonable, fake Savior.
Like there is no fake Jesus or even a character that provides or claims to provide salvation in _____________ religion.
There's no other religion out there.
You fill in the blank.
Buddha, Islam, anything.
SPEAKER 1
No one else has a savior.
You know what's crazy?
I was watching a video the other day and it blew my mind because obviously some of these things you kind of know but you don't put it together until someone puts it together for you sometimes, right?
And it said this, right?
I'm paraphrasing.
It said, this guy, he came to faith in Jesus over one thing.
He said, I was looking for what was the way, right?
I was looking for the Truth.
You know, I was looking for, you know, what was right.
And he said, I looked at every religion and every religion mentions Jesus.
Every religion mentions Jesus as one of the ways or part of the way, right?
Oh, like, you know, Muslims, even they think Jesus was a prophet.
Buddha mentions Jesus.
Everyone mentions Buddha.
The Buddhists think that Jesus was some type of Buddha.
You know, every religion mentions Jesus.
SPEAKER 2
It's almost like He's unavoidable.
SPEAKER 1
Right.
And then when you look at, okay, well, if every, this is what they all have to say about Jesus, but what does Jesus say about himself?
And then you look at John chapter 14, verse 6, and
SPEAKER 2
the Way … wait wait, did you just say you're the Way? No I'm THE Way! He says “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” … exclusive deal … you want you want an exclusive deal? “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Then later in John 10 He says “I am the Door”
In Revelation He says, “I have the keys of hell and of death.”
He's the Ticket, He's the Water, He's the only, He's the Good Shepherd, He's our Guide, He's our Guarantee, He's our glory to God.”
SPEAKER 1
So this guy, essentially he said, I came to believe and trust in Jesus because I use logic.
If everyone mentions Jesus, right, there's like, you know, in the Muslim religion, they're not going to mention Buddha, right?
In the Buddhist religion, they're not going to mention Allah.
You know, they're going to have their own God, their own little identity for who God is or whatever.
But everyone seems to want to mention Jesus.
I wonder why.
SPEAKER 2
Well, “I find no fault in Him.”
Pilate examined Him and said, there's nothing.
There's nuthin’; Judas even said, “I have slain [betrayed] the innocent blood.”
The Only One Completely Innocent.
Now, we've known some good... I've got to meet some pretty decently good character people in my life.
Have you ever met a good... From your perspective, what appears to be a good-hearted person?
SPEAKER 1
Yeah, I've met a few.
SPEAKER 2
Yeah, there's some few good-hearted people.
They're really trying sincerely.
They genuinely go out of their way.
But I've never met a genuine Christ.
Now, I've met some people who Christ seems to be flowing through them, like the Spirit of Christ is eminent.
He's their obvious Captain, He's their, they're trying to follow Him, they're trying to serve on His level, but they're Christ-powered people.
SPEAKER 1
Right, yeah.
They're not, they have characteristics of Christ, but you can't confuse them with Christ.
SPEAKER 2
It's almost like that song, “Christ liveth in me.
Oh, what a salvation this that Christ liveth in me.”
Yeah, we can walk in Him and talk in Him and He can be our companion.
Alright, I'm going to read a couple more verses on salvation here in a second.
We left off in Isaiah.
Isaiah 52 verse 10, God's going to flex.
Daddy's going to get out His muscle shirt.
Ready?
“Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment and do justice, for My salvation is near to come and My righteousness to be revealed.
Boom.
Isaiah 52:10, “The Lord hath made bare His holy arm.”
There's the flex.
“In the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see the …” boom.
“Salvation of our God.”
He's mighty to save.
He's able to rescue not just eternally but also physically.
He's able to rescue us.
I mean it's just amazing what God put in the Bible.
says here Isaiah 61:10 “For I will greatly rejoice in the Lord my soul shall be joyful in my God for He hath clothed me with the garment of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels.” That's how we're supposed to wear our salvation from God as a fresh clean robe of righteousness like jewels
and Ornaments and a Fresh Suit.
SPEAKER 1
Alright, what you got?
So I got one.
It's kind of interesting.
It says in Isaiah 57 verse 15, it says this, “For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy,
I dwell in the high and holy place with Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
SPEAKER 2
See how he double mentioned contrite and humble?
That's who God chooses to mention.
Did you know, just pop quiz, Bible trivia, that's the only verse in the entire Bible that mentions the word eternity?
And God inhabiteth eternity.
“Where do you live?
Where's your address?”
It's not one infinity loop.
It's eternity, all of it.
He dwells in the present at all times.
Pretty kickin'.
All right, we're moving ahead.
We got Zechariah 9:9.
This is foretelling the coming of the Savior.
It says, “Rejoice greatly!”
I view that as high-volume team sport.
Everybody get on board.
Let's sing in the choir for a while.
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee.
He is Just.”
First thing out of the bag, first thing I want you to notice about this guy, he's just.
The Holy One and the J, capital J, Just.
“And having salvation”, he has it.
It's His possession, He's full of salvation.
“Lowly and riding upon an ass and upon the colt, the foal of an ass.”
He says He's coming in on a baby donkey.
Do we know who rode into town on a donkey on Palm Sunday?
It was the Man, the King,
“He is just and having salvation.”
Super awesome.
That was fulfilled in the New Testament.
Luke 1:69, this is the prayer of, I believe, Zachariah when he was super excited about the coming of the Messiah.
When he first learned about it, he said, “And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David.”
Jesus came in the lineage of David.
He raised up the horn of salvation.
Luke 1:77, “To give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins.”
Man, that's just a no-brainer, brain-dead, dumb deal.
If someone says, I can remove your sins, and you say, sure, how?
Right?
Did you want all of your penalty evacuated and placed on Someone else?
Ah, how does that work?
Luke 2, verse 30, “For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”
Whoops, sorry, that's Zechariah.
Luke 3, verse 6, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Acts 4:12, you can do that one.
Oh, Acts 4:12?
Yeah, look that one up.
That one's super fun.
I'm going to do Acts 13 while you're looking it up.
Verse 47, “For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have sent thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.”
The Light Shining to the Ends of the Earth.
You'll notice the earth has ends there, which means it's a definitive boundary, which we don't want to get into conspiracy, but the Bible clearly defines there is an end to the earth.
SPEAKER 1
All right, go ahead, Acts 4:12.
It says, “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
SPEAKER 2
And can you back up to the verse before it?
Because some people don't know who that Name is.
Like, can you give us the context?
SPEAKER 1
“This is the Stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the Head of the Corner.”
Go back one, go back another.
SPEAKER 2
Yeah, back it up a little bit because he's giving the names of God.
One of them is he's the Head of the Corner and the Builders was a reference to the Masons in that time.
Right.
The fake spiritual demonic Builders.
All right, go ahead.
Who are they talking about here?
SPEAKER 1
It says, “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” and make sure it said “of Nazareth” so you know who Jesus is, not just random Jesus, “Who ye crucified”, who died on a cross, “Whom God raised from the dead”, he is alive today, “even by Him doeth this man stand here before you whole.”
SPEAKER 2
They just healed a man and they're like, whoa, how are you doing that?
By what power?
And he's like, well, I'll tell you by what power.
His name is
Boom!
Jesus!
Yeah, and by the way, you can't get salvation in anybody else.
None other name.
And what happened at the end?
When they heard this, what did they do?
What was the response, the invitation there?
While he looks that up, I'll go to Acts 28:28.
“Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.”
Fine.
You resist it.
You reject it.
You don't want it.
You had the opportunity.
It's going to go to the hungry people, those that will hear it.
Now we get into Romans.
The fireworks start going off.
We've got to stand up.
We can't sit down when you read Romans.
Romans 1":16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it, [the gospel] is the p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p power of God unto Salvation.” The word power there is the word dynamos, which means the explosion of gunpowder in the heart that just rips to shreds anything that is NOT gospel.
“For I am not ashamed of the power
of the Gospel of Christ for it, [the gospel] is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”
We offered it to the Jews first, they didn't want it, and now we go to the Greek and the Gentile, to anybody.
It's now open and available to everybody.
All right, what do you got?
SPEAKER 1
Okay, so you want me to finish off
SPEAKER 2
Yes, we're back to 4:12.
We're playing Spaghetti Brain.
SPEAKER 1
So it says, now, this is the response of the people that were hearing the speech, right?
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, [right, because they're seeing something different], and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled.
And they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.
And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.”
SPEAKER 2
Because it was Jesus.
It was so obviously Jesus.
Now there's a couple reasons why it was Jesus working through them.
Number one, our pastor would say, these were contrabumpkins.
They could hardly stitch together a sentence.
They're getting up there.
I'm all fisher, man.
But they were speaking such courage and such Spirit was flowing out of them.
They're like, these guys are talking like … Jesus.
It's almost like Jesus is flowing through them, right?
And they couldn't say anything about the miracle because it was obvious that a great miracle had been done, and that was just done by the power of God.
Here it is, Romans 10:10.
Now, you ought to do Bible studies, word studies, on certain keywords so you can get some clean doctrine down in your belly & bones.
Ready?
Romans 10:10.
“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
And with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation,” Which means I exchange my filthy, disgusting non-righteousness for His true righteousness.
I admit that His righteousness is clean and mine is unclean, and with my mouth I confess that I need salvation.
Amen.
There are so many deep and rich sentences in Scripture that have to be parsed down to just enjoy them.
Here in Ephesians chapter 1, it's one of the longest sentences in the Bible.
We're going to pick up right in the middle.
“ … that we should be,” Do you know what you should be?
“That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ.”
That means we originally got it,
that “in Whom also ye trusted.”
Who do we trust in?
Christ.
Yes.
So it's all, that's the emphasis.
“After that you heard the word of truth.”
Who provides the word of truth?
God.
Christ.
God.
Exactly.
Here it is.
“The gospel of your salvation.”
Do you need the gospel to have salvation?
Yes.
Absolutely.
Here it is.
Watch this.
It's a colon after that.
So you trusted in Christ, you heard the word of truth from Christ, the gospel of your salvation, in Whom?
It doesn't say in what, it says “in Whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”
So when we get salvation, we get Christ, and we get Christ, we get His Holy Spirit, we get sealed on the inside.
Yeah, which is the earnest of our inheritance unto the praise of His glory.
You've got to love this verse if you've got the Holy Spirit inside of you.
2 Thessalonians 5:9, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath.”
If you back it up, that means I used to have an appointment with wrath.
I had a designated space.
I had a reserved parking in the wrath of God.
“For God hath not appointed us to wrath.”
He put a parenthesis there, which is obviously what I deserve.
“but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Wow.
That's just, that's wow.
Where do we get this knowledge of salvation?
2 Timothy 3:15 “and that from a child that has known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
So we get the knowledge of the salvation of God through saturating our cranium in the words of the Scripture, trusting the words, trusting the Author, trusting the structure, trusting the meaning, and reading the words, letting the words soak into our soul.
If you want to know, here it is again, “and that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
The implication is those who reject salvation are unwise.
For the grace of God, Titus 2:11, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men.”
You got a verse?
What do you got?
SPEAKER 1
1 Peter 1:5 says, “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.”
SPEAKER 2
Yep, we're getting close to the end of the Bible here.
Jude chapter 1 verse 3, “Beloved,”
I mean, imagine this is people he genuinely loves.
This is his family in the Lord.
“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation.”
Common.
Simple.
Clean.
Available.
Common.
Everybody ought to know.
The Common Salvation.
“It was needful for me to write unto you and to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith.”
Which faith?
Well, the faith in the gospel that results in salvation, right?
Earnestly contend for the faith.
What should we contend for?
Keep it clean, keep it common, keep it pure, keep it available, right?
Don't change the message.
“That you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
What was delivered?
That which produces the results of salvation, the message of salvation, right?
If we back it up and read it, he says, We should contend for what was once delivered.
It was needful for me that I write to you and exhort you to earnestly contend.
Why?
I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation.
We need to protect and promote salvation.
As we have received, so we should deliver without changing any of it.
Revelation 7:10, “and I cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”
If your God cannot provide salvation, He's not worthy of singing to.
Right?
Can you list someone that does not provide salvation?
Who is a fake Savior?
Can you think of one?
It's sad, but we need to call them out.
There's a lot of fake saviors out there.
An anti-Christ is “in the place of” Christ, of the vicar.
The word “vicar” means the replacement for Christ.
Some people think that they can go to Christ through a man.
The Pope is not the earthly representation of Christ.
He is a non-Christ.
You can go directly to Christ.
Trust, believe, call on the name of the Lord.
You know, there are no saints that have special connections.
We are saints and priests with God directly.
We do not need to go through a system.
Anyway, I love Mary.
I think she's amazing.
I think she's a good lady.
She was the mom of the earthly father, sorry, the mother of the earthly Messiah.
But she is not a Savior.
Mary needed a Savior herself, right?
In the Magnificat, she prayed and said, I need a Savior.
“I thank God my Savior.”
You don't need a Savior unless you're a sinner.
I hope all of us are present in Revelation chapter 1:9, we hear a great choir standing up to sing in heaven, the celestial city.
“And after these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God.”
He deserves all that, right?
I don't have salvation.
He does.
He's the source.
I'm excited that He extended salvation to me,
and therefore I ought to sing and share and think about it and tell somebody.
Amen.
Salvation Meditation