S- S is for Salvation

Salvation (crosS: Acts: 10-12)

Salvation came over and over to the people of Israel. It came first when they cried unto God in Egypt as slaves and He heard them. Then God performed the great miracles of the Bible and His people were delivered. You would think that they would have gotten it when it came to worshiping the true God, but the people rejected the Promise Land that God had brought them to, because they saw the giants that lived there. Everyone twenty years old and upward, except Joshua and Caleb, never entered that land and wondered 40 years in the wilderness. The people once again complained, and God sent fiery serpents to bite the people. God gave them a commandment that was not good and told Moses to fashion a brazen serpent on a pole for the people to look at and live. This was to show us our depraved heart in worshiping even the Devil in order to save our life in this world.

Then came the judges. Because Israel would not obey God in destroying the people that lived in the land God had given them, the people once again mixed with devil worshipers of the land. God said if you didn’t worship Jesus, you are worshiping devils.

Revelation 9:20 – And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Judge after judge brought salvation to Israel, but then the people wanted a king like the nations around them. God said:

1 Samuel 8:7 – And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

Over and over again God brought salvation to Israel. Then there was 400 years of silence from God following the book of Malachi until God enters the scene once again as God in the flesh. We call Him Jesus. Jesus begins His ministry by healing the sick and possessed, opening the eyes of the blind, causing the lame to walk and the dumb to talk, and some are raised from the dead! After all this, the Jews once again rejected Him and hanged Him on the Cross. Now Jesus is salvation, not only to the Jew, but to the world.

Can you imagine living your life here on earth, thinking you’re on your way to heaven, and then hear these words from Jesus, “I know you not!”

Luke 13:25-28 – When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: 26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. 27 But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 28 There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.

Reading these verses should frighten you, but we still try to do it our way. Jesus tells us just that.

Proverbs 16:25 – There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

What will it take for us to understand the CROSS? It’s so simple, yet it is the hardest thing we will ever do. Salvation is of the Lord. He draws us. He gives understanding. He opens our hearts. He saves us. Until we surrender all to Him and believe that He is who He says He is, we will struggle. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father, but by me.” Some get it. Most don’t!

Matthew 7:13-14 – Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

There will be at least one more revival when Jesus brings salvation to the Jewish nation. This will happen when the world moves against them. My hope is that there will be one more revival before that happens. We will see.