SALVATION

Scripture read - Exodus 20:1-17 - And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God , which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.

This is as you may know what is referred to as the ten commandments. There are many other doe's and don'ts we find in the Bible but these are the basic standard of conduct we all should live by in our lives.

It is also call the moral law.

It is called the moral law because they tell us how to restrict our lives where we understand and accept that certain acts that we could and would do are not acceptable to God and His code of conduct even if they may be acceptable to ourselves.

All our standards of law and order should be built around these ten commandments and if they were and everyone abided to this standard then our life here on earth would be so much more pleasant.

If everyone obeyed and lived by these standards we would not have the wars we have, or even one person stealing from another, or one person hurting or killing others.

Why? It only stands to reason that if every one loved his neighbour (the 2^nd commandment) as we should then no one would steal from them, or harm them in any way, especially kill them.

But the trouble is, not many people of our age lives anywhere near the standard laid down by even these basic rules of sane, sound lives.

Then there are others who do try at least to live by these standards at least to a certain extent.

This is good of course, the closer we live to the standards of the law the better - it only becomes wrong when we try to achieve our entrance to heaven by this method - keeping the law.

You see, another problem soon arises. The person, as hard as one may try just can not obey every jot and title of these commandments every minute of every day of one's life which God demands we so if we hope to achieve our goal of getting to heaven by our own attempts of keeping the law.

We read this in scriptures like - James 2:10 - for who-so-ever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point is guilty of all.

This soon shoots down any notion that we might have of trying to achieve that goal of our salvation on our own for who would be foolish enough to say we have never sinned one time in our lives?

Sin is when a person breaks one of God's commandments - therefore he becomes a law breaker - a sinner - and once we have broken one law and become a law breaker we can never undo that and become innocent again - therefore we become condemned law breakers for ever throughout eternity and the penalty for being a law breaker of God's commandments is eternity in hell.

UNLESS - unless we become acquainted with someone who has kept that law and is willing to turn his righteousness (awards of right living) over to you.

There is such a person - His name is Jesus Christ the son of God. He kept the law and fulfilled all requirements God has laid down and all it takes is for us to put our trust (believing with all our hearts) in this works of Christ in lieu of our own efforts.

If we do put our trust in Jesus' works of righteousness Jesus will impute His righteousness to us and have our sins imputed to Jesus which would leave us free of sin or the guilt and penalty we should suffer for them. Impute means to turn over something that belongs to you to someone else, both the object as well as awards - good or bad.

This promise is given to us in John 3:16 -- as well as other passages but lets look at

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten sone, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

But you may ask - why did God give us the law if He knew we could not keep it according to His standards?

That is a good question and one that should be answered - and is answered in - Romans 3:20 - Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The law does at least two things -

a) it teaches us right and wrong according to God's required standard He requires of us so that there is no excuse we can use to get out of our accountability - such as - "I didn't know."

b) We find out very quickly that in our sinful, depraved human nature that there is no way we can live up to those standards God requires even if those standards apply only after we were saved, so that if we can not live to these standards we must seek someone who already has.

That is the trouble, those standards apply back to the time we were born which means we have lived for many years breaking those laws - and we have to account for those years. So we were already condemned lawbreakers long before we ever came to realize it. So it is much to late for any effort of our own to rectify the matter.

So our only way out now is to forget any effort of our own and put our trust in what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Jesus kept the law to God's satisfaction and will give us the credit and awards for His right living if we will put our trust (believe in) those things Jesus did for us. And of course we must never forget the second thing Jesus did. He carried our sin debt - the "awards" of our sins and was punished for those sins that was taken off our charge and laid against Jesus instead.

When asked what we should do in order to be assured of a place in heaven the early Church preachers always gave this answer - but first lets understand this fact found in -

Acts 4:12 - Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

As long as we think we can find salvation any other way - including something we can do we will not turn our salvation over to Jesus and the works he completed for us.

Now lets read about the eunuch at the water hole in the desert as he asks this question - Acts 8:37-38 - Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest (be baptized) and he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Believe - put your trust in the works Jesus Christ did for you is the only way of salvation.

The first of the commandments states we are to believe in God with all our heart. We can not do this ourselves but with the Holy Spirit in us we can - unto salvation

I trust everyone here will be of those that believe in Jesus and His works for us, to the saving of your soul which is the only entrance to heaven.

God bless.