Salvation

The story is told of a young girl who accepted Christ as her Saviour and applied for membership in a local church. “Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your life?” inquired an old deacon. “Yes, sir,” she replied.

“Well, are you still a sinner?”

“To tell you the truth, I feel I’m a greater sinner than ever.”

“Then what real change have you experienced?”

John Dyer, a Welsh poet and pastor from the 1700s once wrote, “A man may go to Heaven without health, without riches, without honors, without learning, without friends; but he can never go there without Christ.” Today our world is filled with people who are seeking some other way to God than the one found in the blood of Jesus and His precious name, but all such efforts are doomed to failure. Jesus is the only Way to Heaven.

Source: Forty Thousand Quotations, Charles Noel Douglas

As D. L. Moody walked down a Chicago street one day, he walked up to a man and asked him if he were a Christian. The fellow raised his fists and angrily exclaimed, “You mind your own business!”

“This is my business,” replied Moody.

“Well, then, you must be Moody,” the man responded.

A chaplain was ministering to a soldier in the hospital and said, “You have lost an arm in the great cause.”

The soldier replied, “I didn't lose it—I gave it.”

Jesus did not lose His life either. He willingly gave it for us so we could be reconciled to God.

Source: The Minister’s Manual, Gerard Benjamin Fleet Hallock

Albert Einstein was traveling from Princeton on a train. When the conductor came down the aisle punching tickets Einstein reached in his vest pocket; he could not find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn’t there so he looked in his briefcase, but still could not find it. He looked in the seat next to him, but it was not there.

Someone asked an elderly Christian lady, “Does the devil ever trouble you about your past sins?” She answered, “Yes.” When the inquirer asked what she did then, she replied, “Oh, I just tell him to go east.”

“What do you do if he comes back?”

“I tell him to go west.”

“And when he comes back from the west, what do you do then?”

She said, “I just keep him going from the east to the west.”

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12

When native converts of the island of Madagascar used to present themselves for baptism, it was often asked of them, “What first led you to think of becoming Christians?” The answer usually was that the changed conduct of others who had become Christians was what first arrested their attention.

The average cost of a heart transplant including the need for immunosuppressant drugs after the surgery is $864,700. Yet, the best heart transplant a man can receive costs him nothing and the new heart will never fail.

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

Source: The New York Times, May 16, 2010

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

“The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns. It is one thing to say, ‘Christ is a Saviour’; it is quite another thing to say, ‘He is my Saviour and my Lord.’ The devil can say the first; the true Christian alone can say the second.”—Martin Luther

Source: Annotations upon Popular Hymns, Charles Seymour Robinson

Longfellow could take a worthless sheet of paper, write a poem on it, and make it worth $6,000—that’s genius.

Rockefeller could sign his name to a piece of paper and make it worth a million dollars—that’s capital.

Uncle Sam can take gold, stamp an eagle on it, and make it worth $20.00—that’s money.

A mechanic can take material that is worth only $5.00 and make it worth $50.00—that’s skill.

An artist can take a fifty-cent piece of canvas, paint a picture on it, and make it worth $1,000—that’s art.

Once a man told D. L. Moody that he was worried because he did not feel saved. Moody asked, “Was Noah safe in the ark?”

“Certainly he was,” the man replied.

“Well, what made him safe—his feeling or the ark?”

“How foolish I’ve been!” the man said. “It is not my feeling; it is Christ who saves!”

Source: The Speaker's Quote Book, Roy B. Zuck

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A Brooklyn man was once arrested for burglary and sentenced to several years in the state penitentiary. A few years into his sentence, the man escaped from prison and disappeared. Police detectives spent hours searching for him, following leads, and analyzing his escape, but to no avail. Although many detectives gave up on the case after several years, one young detective never gave up. Bit by bit, he tracked down every clue and kept searching for the escapee until one day, many years later, he finally found the escaped criminal.

While crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner, F.B. Meyer was asked to address the first class passengers. At the captain’s request he spoke on “Answered Prayer.” An agnostic who was present at the service was asked by his friends, “What did you think of Dr. Meyer’s sermon?” He answered, “I didn’t believe a word of it.” That afternoon Meyer went to speak to the fourth class passengers. Many of the listeners at his morning address went along, including the agnostic, who claimed he just wanted to hear “what the babbler had to say.” 

A preacher was speaking from the text, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Suddenly he was interrupted by an atheist who asked, “How can blood cleanse sin?”

For a moment the preacher was silent; then he countered, “How can water quench thirst?”

I do not know,” replied the infidel, “but I know that it does.”

“Neither do I know how the blood of Jesus cleanses sin,” answered the preacher, “but I know that it does.”

“Professor Drummond once described a man going into one of our after-meetings and saying he wanted to become a Christian.

‘Well, my friend, what is the trouble?’

He doesn’t like to tell. He is greatly agitated. Finally he says, ‘The fact is, I have overdrawn my account’—a polite way of saying he has been stealing.

‘Did you take your employer’s money?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘I don’t know. I have never kept account of it.’

‘Well, do you have an idea you stole $1,500 last year?’

‘I am afraid it is that much.’

In 1988, Anissa Ayala was sixteen years-old and diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. The doctors said that if she did not receive a bone marrow transplant after chemotherapy and radiation treatment she would die.

Neither her parents nor her brother was a match, and they could not find a donor elsewhere. Her parents, both in their forties, conceived another child and hoped that its bone marrow would be compatible with Anissa’s.

A man in Ireland was convicted of his sin and was on the verge of trusting Christ when the devil raised the oft-repeated objection: “If you believe, it won’t last. What about tomorrow?” The worker dealing with him pointed to a water mill nearby. “What turns that wheel today?”

“The stream.”

“What will turn it tomorrow?”

“The stream.”

“And the days after?”

“The stream.” The man was led to see that there was abundant grace to save, keep, and meet all needs.

The Baptist preacher Dr. George W. Truett accepted an invitation from a church to preach the dedication sermon for their new building. He arrived at the church about ten minutes before the service started, and was told that the church needed to raise $6,500 by the next day in order to finish paying for the building. The church officers told him that they were depending on him to raise the money.

Dr. Truett preached the sermon then said, “These men bid me to tell you that you must give $6,500 in cash, which is all due tomorrow. Will you provide it?”

A Russian countess accepted the Lord Jesus as her Saviour and was open about her testimony. The Tsar was displeased and threw her into prison. After 24 hours with the lowest level of Russian society, in the most miserable conditions imaginable, he ordered her brought into his presence. He smiled sardonically and said, “Well, are you ready now to renounce your silly faith and come back to the pleasures of the court?”

Gaylord Kambarami, the General Secretary of the Bible Society in Zimbabwe, tried to give a New Testament to a very belligerent man. The man insisted he would roll the pages and use them to make cigarettes. Mr. Kambarami said, “I understand that, but at least promise to read the page of the New Testament before you smoke it.” The man agreed, and the two went their separate ways.