Salvation

Dr. Harry Ironside taught that salvation was like Noah inviting an unbeliever to trust God’s Word and board the ark. Some believe that salvation is like Noah putting a peg on the outside of the ark and saying, “If you just hang on through the storm, you’ll be saved.” God holds onto the Christian—not the other way around.

“My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” John 10:29

Source: Unknown

The last paragraph of Patrick Henry’s will says, “I have now disposed of all my property for my family; there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had this, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich, and if they have not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.”

The thief had nails through both hands, so that he could not work; and a nail through each foot, so that he could not run errands for the Lord; he could not lift a hand or a foot toward his salvation; and yet Christ offered him the gift of God, and he took it. He threw him a passport, and took him with Him into Paradise.

Source: Day By Day With D. L. Moody, D. L. Moody

At the end of World War II a young Bible college student in Illinois met Ira Hayes on the streets of Chicago. In an effort to offer him hope, Bill shared John 3:16. Ira stopped him, “Do you remember Iwo Jima? I’m the man who put the flag on Mt. Suribachi. They’re building a monument to us. I don’t need God.” Three months later, national papers carried a story of a 32 year old man who died of alcoholism and tuberculosis. His name was Ira Hayes.

Source: Unknown

During an edition of the news program 60 Minutes, Dan Rather interviewed Jack Welch, the outspoken former CEO of General Electric. At the end of the interview, Rather asked Welch, “What’s the toughest question you have ever been asked?”

Welch replied, “Do you think you’ll go to Heaven?”

“Saving faith may thus be defined as voluntary turning from all hope and grounds based on self merit, and assuming an attitude of expectancy toward God, trusting Him to do a perfect saving work based only on the merit of Christ.”

Source: True Evangelism, Lewis Sperry Chafer

John Newton’s epitaph reads:

John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.

Grace did not free him to serve no master, but a new Master.

Source: Amazing Grace in John Newton: Slave Ship Captain, Hymn Writer, and Abolitionist, William E. Phipps

A lady arranged the cremation of a body she believed was her son. He turned up alive the next day.

Greater Manchester Police said the confusion began when the body of a man in his 30s was discovered in Manchester, northwest England, on Oct. 12. He was identified as Thomas Dennison, 39, by a care worker who knew him. Officials contacted Dennison’s mother, Gina Partington, 58, who identified the dead man as her son.

There is an old story of a king and his clown or “jester” who sometimes said very foolish things. One day the jester had said something so foolish that the king handing him a staff, said to him: “Take this, and keep it till you find a bigger fool than yourself.”

“Some years later, the king lay on his deathbed. His courtiers were called: his family and his servants also stood round his bedside. The king, addressing them, said, “I am about to leave you. I am going on a very long journey and I shall not return again to this place: so I have called you all to say goodbye.”

Money will buy a bed but not sleep; books but not brains; food but not appetite; finery but not beauty; a house but not a home; medicine but not health; luxuries but not culture; amusements but not happiness; religion but not salvation; a passport to everywhere but Heaven.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

Tom Brady, quarterback who led the New England Patriots to victory in three Super Bowls, told 60 Minutes, “Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, ‘Hey man, this is what is.’ I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think, it’s got to be more than this. I mean this isn’t, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be.”

“What’s the answer,” asked interviewer Steve Kroft.

“I wish I knew,” Brady replied. “I wish I knew.”

Normally the flight from Nassau to Miami took Walter Wyatt, Jr., only sixty-five minutes. But on December 5, 1986, he attempted it after thieves had looted the navigational equipment in his Beechcraft. With only a compass and a hand-held radio, Walter flew into skies blackened by storm clouds.

If our greatest need had been information,
God would have sent us an educator;
If our greatest need had been technology,
God would have sent us a scientist;
If our greatest need had been money,
God would have sent us an economist;
If our greatest need had been pleasure,
God would have sent us an entertainer;
But our greatest need was forgiveness,
so God sent us a Saviour.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A marshal in Napoleon’s army who was devotedly and enthusiastically attached to him was mortally wounded in battle. As the last struggle drew near and he lay dying in his tent he sent for his chief. Napoleon came. The poor man thought his emperor could do anything. He earnestly pleaded with his leader to save his life. The emperor sadly shook his head and turned away. But as the dying man felt the cold, merciless hand of death drawing him irresistibly behind the curtain of the unseen world, he was still heard to shriek out, “Save me, Napoleon!

Just before the death of actor W. C. Fields, a friend visited Fields’ hospital room and was surprised to find him thumbing through a Bible. When he asked what he was doing with a Bible, Fields replied, "I’m looking for loopholes."

There are no loopholes in the Bible; either you accept Christ or spend an eternity in Hell.

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

A lady once came to Governor Nash and said, “Governor Nash, I have come to speak to you on behalf of my poor boy who is soon to die in the electric chair. Governor, I have not come to ask for justice but for mercy, not for his sake but mine. He is my only son and support. Governor, if you can do anything, do it for my sake.”

A young student once asked the discoverer of the anesthetic property of chloroform, Sir James Simpson, what he considered his greatest discovery. The man of science and the man of God answered, “The greatest discovery I ever made was when I discovered that I was a great sinner and that Jesus Christ is my Saviour.”

Source: Unknown

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

In 1982, ABC Evening News reported about a new invention—a chair affixed to a shotgun. It was to be viewed by sitting in the chair and looking directly into the gun barrel. The gun was loaded and set on a timer to fire at an undetermined moment within the next hundred years. The amazing thing was that people waited in lines to sit and stare into the shell’s path! They all knew the gun could go off at point-blank range at any moment, but they were gambling that the fatal blast wouldn’t happen during their minute in the chair.

In 1997 Chinese firefighters succeeded in putting out a 400 year old fire. The fire in the Baiyanghe coalfield started in 1560. The fire consumed over 127 million tons of coal before it was extinguished.

Four hundred years is a long time, but it is nothing in view of eternity. The fires of Hell will never end or be put out.

Source: Reuters News Agency, 11/29/1997

Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College

D. L. Moody visited a prison called “The Tombs” to preach to the inmates. After he had finished speaking, Moody talked with a number of men in their cells. He asked each prisoner this question, “What brought you here?” Again and again he received replies like this: “I don’t deserve to be here.” “I was framed.” “I was falsely accused.” “I was given an unfair trial.” Not one inmate would admit he was guilty. Finally, Moody found a man with his face buried in his hands, weeping. “And what’s wrong, my friend?” he inquired.