In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that salvation cannot be earned through human effort or adherence to religious rituals. Instead, he highlights the incredible act of God's love and grace towards humanity. God sent His Son to live a sinless life and die on the cross to bear the punishment for our sins. By trusting in Jesus and His sacrifice, we can receive forgiveness and eternal life. The preacher also reminds believers that despite the troubling events happening in the world, God's ultimate plan is to establish His glorious eternal kingdom, and we can find comfort and assurance in His promises.

Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 1. For those of you that have been with us through Ephesians, we began a while back with an introduction looking at the first couple of verses and then in our last study we looked at verses 3 through 6 and we see in verses 3 through 14 the work of the triune God being opened up to us. We see that the Father is primarily referred to in verses 3 through 6 and then as we move from verses 7 through 13 we're talking primarily about the work of the Son on our behalf and then we come to verse 14 and there's where we find the work of the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working together as of course one God but three separate persons working together to bring about our redemption. And so we saw as we looked at the work of the Father that it is the Father who has chosen us to be in Christ before the foundation of the world. He's chosen us to be holy and without blame and we rejoice in that. We know that what God has chosen us to be, He's able to bring that about in time and in space. So it's going to happen, we're going to get to heaven, we're going to be there and we're going to be there blamelessly. And then we're told that He predestined us to be to adoption and that is speaking about as we mentioned that time when we will enter in fully to all that God has for us. He's predestined us to enter into that glorified state and then finally in referring to the work of the Father, we're told that He has accepted us. He has accepted us. We have complete and total acceptance with God tonight because we are in Christ and so He told us that we are accepted in the Beloved. Now referring to the Beloved, He now goes on to expound to us the work of the Beloved. That's a reference to Jesus Christ and so here is what Jesus now has done for us. God planned out our salvation and Jesus of course came into the world to carry out the plan by redeeming us and so He says in Him we have redemption through His blood. The word redemption tells us something about our state. It tells us that we were basically in a condition of slavery. We were imprisoned for the word redemption always speaks of delivering a person from a bound or imprisoned state and this is what Jesus Christ came to do. He came to redeem us back to God. It means to buy back. We once belonged to God when God created the world and He created man. He created man in a state of communion with Himself and yet man forfeited that relationship with God by submitting to Satan and when he submitted to Satan he actually became the slave of Satan and so man was imprisoned by his sin and we needed to be purchased back and so Jesus Himself you remember He said in Mark 10 45 He said the Son of Man came to give His life a ransom so He had to pay a price in order to win us back to God and the price for our redemption was nothing less than the blood of Christ. The human soul is the most costly thing in the universe. It can't be bought with money. You remember Jesus asked a question. He said what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? You can't give anything materially. There's nothing that has enough value to purchase a soul. Only the blood of Christ could buy back the souls of men and bring us back into a relationship with God and that's what Jesus came to do primarily. He came to shed His blood so we could be redeemed. When we look at the Gospels of course there are many things that Jesus was doing when He was here on the earth. He was teaching us by example who God is and what He's like. He was verbally instructing us on how we are to live to please God. He was going about doing good things and blessing people and as we're told in Acts He was delivering all those who were oppressed by the devil. He performed miracles. He did great healings and things like that but the main reason why Jesus came into the world was to shed His blood. That's what it was all leading up to. That was really the the primary issue that was at hand when Christ came. A few weeks ago I was talking to a young guy on the streets of New York City and he was he was a nice enough guy but he had he had just sort of developed his own system of belief and he had all kinds of interesting ideas all kinds of bizarre ideas actually. But you know as I talked with him I would listen to what he said and and you know try to be patient as he just rambled on with a lot of nonsense but I didn't want to you know be offensive to him. So I tried to be patient and listen to everything he was saying and then I would be praying as he was talking that God would give me wisdom on how to you know how to point him back to Jesus. And I kept bringing him back to the reality of the resurrection of Christ and how you know he went into this whole thing at one point you know I mean for about 10 minutes you know he kind of told me his whole philosophy. And when he finished I said you know that's interesting I don't agree with the word you said but you know I'm glad you told me where you're coming from so now I can talk to you. And I started talking to him about the resurrection and my point was this you know okay this is your theory and it might be working for you right now but there's only one person in history who died and came back from the dead and I want to hear what he had to say because I think he's got a little more behind his message than you do or anybody else. So at one point he says to me he says you know I really appreciate this this emphasis you have on the resurrection I like that. He says you know people are always talking about the death of Jesus and the cross and you know to me that's not the important thing. The important thing is that he rose again or at least that you believe that he rose again. And I said well I said actually the resurrection was only possible because he died and the resurrection is of course important because if Jesus didn't rise then everything he said that he came to do he probably didn't accomplish. But the death of Christ is equally as important as the resurrection of Christ because it was by his death that he was able to purge us of our sin that he was able to take our sin upon us upon himself that he was able to actually redeem us back to God. That's why Jesus came. He came to die. He was born to die. He came to shed his blood because nothing else could redeem man. Satan had mankind in his grasp and there was no way that man could be freed. Nothing he could do to free himself. There was nobody able to come along and liberate him apart from God himself. And so it was through the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ that we now have redemption. We have been purchased, bought back, delivered from the slave market. The word redemption as I mentioned would be used when a person would go down to the slave market. Back in Roman times, slavery was part of the culture and one of the things that people would do is they would go to the marketplace to purchase slaves. And there were those that would occasionally go into the marketplace and purchase a slave and buy their freedom for them actually. That's what's being talked about here. Being delivered, having your freedom bought for you. You see we were bound to sin and because of our sin we were under the judgment of God. But Jesus came and he purchased our freedom for us by shedding his blood and providing us the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins. You know when we first get saved one of the things that we often experience is a lifting of a great burden from off of our shoulders. That's the burden of the guilt of sin that we've been carrying around with us. And I'll tell you I can remember back over 20 years ago when I gave my life to the Lord, I remember the burden of guilt being lifted from off of my shoulders. And to have our sins forgiven, to know that God has washed away my sins completely by the blood of Jesus. To know that God has nothing against me tonight. God's not angry with me. He's not holding me accountable for my past. To know that God has removed my sins as far from me as the east is from the west. What a glorious thing. God remembers our sin no more. We had a young lady call the radio program the other day and she said that some, oh I don't know how she referred to him, something like a professor or some really smart guy told her that God couldn't possibly forget anything therefore God couldn't forget her sins. And that really rattled her. That really rocked her. Because she was under the impression that God had forgotten her sins and she was resting in that reality that God had washed away her sins and didn't remember them anymore. But some smart guy came along and said, oh no, God is omniscient. He can't forget anything therefore he has not really truly forgotten your sins. Well that smart guy made a mistake. And the mistake was failing to realize that God can do anything he wants to do. And God said in his word that he has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. God said in his word their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. So if that's what God said then I'm going to stand on that. I'm going to rest in that. I'm not going to get caught up in some great philosophical gymnastic exercise over how an omniscient being could forget something. I'm just going to rest in the fact that God said their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. He's washed away our sins. I think it would be helpful for each of us occasionally, especially those of us who have known the Lord for a longer period of time, to sometimes just sit down and think about that fact. To think about the fact that our sins have been forgiven. To just remind ourselves of what a glorious thing that is. What a wonderful thing that is. Because as I said when we first come to the Lord we have that sense of deliverance and that burden being removed from us. But you know as time passes we can forget that great experience to some extent. It becomes a bit foggy in our memory. But to sit down and to think about what that was like or just to meditate on the fact that our sins are forgiven. What a glorious thing to know right now tonight that I'm accepted in the beloved. God has nothing against me. My sins are forgiven. When I stand before the Lord he's not going to say, now why did you do this? Or I'm going to have to punish you for that particular thing. He's not going to do anything like that. I'm accepted by him. You know quite a few years ago I had an experience that sort of brought back to me in a fresh new way. The blessing of forgiveness. I've shared this story a few times over the years. Maybe you heard it if you listened to some of the teaching on the radio. But several years ago we were living in Huntington Beach, Cheryl and I. And we I think we had just had our second child. And we had moved into a home over in an older neighborhood in Huntington. And we were fixing up the place. It was a fixer-upper. And Pastor Chuck of course one of the things he loves to do is help fix up old houses and things. And so he would come over on a regular basis and be doing you know different things around the house and around the yard and so forth. And he came over one time and he would park out in front of our house. And one day I was out mowing the lawn while he was in the backyard. I think putting a fence up or something. And as I was mowing the front strip of grass out there I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing exactly. And as I went by his car the little grass catcher on the mower just peeled the paint off of his car from the front fender to the back bumper. And you know I didn't even see it when it happened. But you know as I continued to mow I happened to glance over and I thought wow look at that scratch in Pastor Chuck's car. Wow I wonder how that happened. And all of a sudden I came to the realization that I had done it while mowing the lawn. And I've got to tell you I just my heart sunk and I just felt like the biggest idiot imaginable. And the last thing I wanted to do was to go in to the house and say Chuck come on outside and look what I did to your car. And thanks for all that you've done for us around the house here. I just didn't have the heart to tell him. So guess what I did? I pretended like it never happened. I didn't tell him a word of it. Well some time passed and about a week later Cheryl said to me you know my dad's a little down. And I said well why? She said well he just doesn't understand you know he's got somebody that evidently doesn't like him. I said really well who why what you know tell me what's going on. She said well he doesn't know but he found this scratch in his car. And he figured it was somebody who came along who maybe didn't like something he said you know from the pulpit and just took their keys and you know scratched the car from front to back. And you know she's telling me this and all of a sudden my heart begins to beat and I start to sweat. And you know I'm thinking oh no what do I do now? And you know I said well that's that's terrible you know. I boy I feel so I'm gonna pray for him. There's somebody out there out to get him scratching his car you know. So you know time went on and and you know he just couldn't seem to get over this. It just kept bothering him and he kept bringing it up every now and again you know. And every time I'd hear about it I would oh you know lord help. And I would just I just couldn't bring myself to confess it. I just I just felt so stupid. And so you know to make a long story short finally we're driving along and you know it's about a month you know since it's since it's occurred. And we're driving out I think the 55 one time. And and Cheryl just she brings it up again you know. She says poor dad you know. And the car the scrape you know. And he you know he's just not getting over this. And and finally the guilt was so heavy upon me. Finally I just said honey honey stop. I scratched your dad's car. And she looked at me she said you what? You scratched my dad's car? Why did you scratch my dad's car? She starts crying you know. Don't you like my dad all he's done for us? You know and I said no of course I like your dad. I didn't scratch it intentionally. And then I told her the story you know the lawn. I was mowing the lawn and with the lawnmower he gave us. And you know I while he was repairing the fence and I did it. So she says I'm gonna call him right now and tell him. And I said no don't don't tell him oh please. So she says look you either tell him or I'm gonna tell him. So I said okay I'll tell him. And you know I finally got to the point I got up enough nerve. And when we got back home I called him I said Chuck uh I need to talk to you for a second. Yes uh Chuck you know that you know that scratch in your car? Oh yes. Uh Chuck I'm the one who scratched your car. You know what he said? Praise the Lord. I said praise the Lord? Is that what? Praise the Lord. He said oh I'm so glad it was you and not somebody that was out to get me. And you know that was the end. Thanks for calling. No problem. And at that second I had sort of a reoccurring of that initial feeling I had of being delivered from guilt. Because the burden that I was carrying around for over a month was just suddenly lifted off my shoulders. And oh I was free again. I could I could look Chuck in the eye. I could you know I could talk with him. I could oh it was a great feeling of being delivered. And that's what's happened with us in regard to our sin. Through the shed blood of Christ God has redeemed us and he's forgiven our sin. And when we tell him we've sinned he just says you're forgiven. It's over. No more to talk about. We need to remember that. How many times have you confessed the same sin a thousand times over? I've done that. And you know sometimes you get in a sort of a mode of condemnation and you start bringing up the past you know you might go back years and years. Stuff that you confessed ages ago that you haven't even thought about but there it is. And there you are again confessing it. And you know the Lord is saying I don't remember this. I don't want to talk about this. This is gone. That's the kind of forgiveness we have from our God. He's removed our sins from us and he's done it because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross and that precious blood that he shed is able to cleanse a man from every sin. Not just some sins but every sin. Some people don't realize that. Some people think well you know if I sin after I become a Christian I somehow have to pay for it myself. No you can't. You can't pay for your sin. There's only one thing that can pay for sin. That's the Christ. The Roman Catholic Church has developed a whole doctrine based on how to deal with sin once you've been baptized and committed sin after your baptism. The solution they've developed is what they call purgatory. And purgatory is a place where you're purged from the sins that you've committed after your baptism or sins that you weren't able to confess you know in a confessional situation before you died. They recognize the ongoing problem of sin which we recognize as well but the solution that they've come up with is the wrong solution because it doesn't do any good because fire doesn't cleanse sin. Only the shedding of blood cleanses sin according to scripture and the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses us from every sin. And so that blood that was shed to redeem us provides us with the forgiveness of sin and even though I still sin as a believer that blood is still working tonight to cleanse me to keep me in a state of purity before God so I can live in a relationship with Him. That is great news. God's holding nothing against us because of our trust in Christ. Listen, in Him we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us. You say well how could God do this? He can do it by His grace. It's just something that He's pleased to do. It's something that He delights in doing because of what Jesus did. Jesus paid it all all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow and God delights. It's His pleasure because of what Christ did to forgive me of my sin. It's according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us. The grace of God is abounding toward us. There's not a small supply of grace but sometimes our concept of God would be one that would sort of make grace out to be just a limited thing available for brief periods of time occasionally but there could be nothing further from the truth. It's abounding toward us. Spurgeon many years ago wrote a book called Grace Abounding and that's how we need to think of grace. We need to think of it as floods of grace, torrents of grace, just all the grace you could ever need is available the moment we call upon the Lord to save us, the moment we call upon the Lord to deliver us, the moment we call upon the Lord to forgive us. The abounding grace is right there. It's overflowing. He's caused His grace to abound toward us. Now he goes on and he says in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself. So here's another benefit that has been brought to us through the redemptive work of Christ. Not only this abounding grace which provides us the forgiveness of sin but in all wisdom and prudence He's made known to us the mystery of His will. You know here is a glorious glorious fact. We have been let in on the universe's greatest secret. We know the end of the story. We know where things are headed. That is such a comforting thing. I would imagine it's always been comforting to God's people but I think it's particularly comforting today as we survey the situation that we find ourselves in as human beings living on this planet. We're living in a world that I think is definitely different than it's ever been in this one way. We're living in a world where we have the capacity to completely destroy ourselves. Not only do we have the capacity to completely destroy ourselves but there are certain people as we've seen recently who are actually thinking in very destructive terms and not afraid to do the most unimaginable things to bring about destruction. I was reading in the paper last night that the intelligence agencies in our country are saying that there is a 100 percent expectation that if we are to retaliate against the terrorists by attacking Afghanistan or by doing anything whatsoever that there is going to be more terrorism against Americans, against our country right inside our borders. A 100 percent expectation they say. And as we look around us and as we see it's interesting. You could easily conceive of a third world war with what's going on in the world today. The globe itself is in some ways being divided up for battle. And as I look at these things if I didn't know the end of the story I must say I would be worried. I would be frightened. But here's the glorious thing. In all wisdom and prudence he's made known to us the mystery of his will. We know how the story is going to end. We know how it's going to work out. We know that God is going to set up his glorious eternal kingdom and we know that the things that are happening right now are just further indicators that that reality is going to dawn on us in the not too distant future. So as we look at these things although they are certainly frightening from the point of view that doesn't factor God into the picture. When you factor the word of God into the picture and the promises of God and the declarations of God concerning the course of events that will lead up to the second coming of Christ. I can look at things and say it's right on schedule Lord. It's all coming together. You know several years ago when the Soviet Union fell apart and the whole communist thing sort of broke up in that part of the world there was suddenly after many years of anticipating a Russian invasion of Israel there was suddenly a rethinking of the interpretation of Ezekiel's prophecies and many people began to say well I guess it wasn't Russia as was thought and we'll have to wait for further developments to see you know just which nations were actually being referred to and so forth and Russia seemed to be no longer a candidate in the minds of some people to invade Israel in the future and now as you know 10 years or so have gone by we've seen things that have occurred that sometimes seem that you know maybe that's true maybe Russia won't play a part in it but then other times well you know maybe they will have some involvement but it's interesting to me to see what's going on with the current situation and reading again just the other night that the Russians just made an agreement with Iran to sell them 1.2 billion dollars worth of arms we know that Iran is a terrorist nation we know that they have great animosity toward Israel we know that one of the reasons why they're not anxious to join in a coalition with the United States is because of our ongoing support of the Israeli government and even though the Russians have sort of come on board and said we you know we'll be part of this anti-terrorist thing it's interesting to me they turn around a week later and strike an arms deal with the Iranians but as you look in Ezekiel 38 as you look at the prophecy of Gog and Magog and as you look at the nations that join them in this northern invasion of Israel the first nation that's listed there is Persia and Persia is Iran and so it's very intriguing to see how the mystery of his will that we know the final outcome of is slowly but surely unfolding before the eyes of the world and we can look back in the ancient prophets and see their words being fulfilled in the activity going on around us today but thank God we know the end of the story we know what's coming in the future so God has made known to us the mystery of his will and notice according to his good pleasure which he purposed it was just the pleasure of God to save us and to make us his people and and then to reveal to us the truth to reveal to us the future this is all something that God just simply delighted in doing he wants us to know what he's about and what his plans are and so Paul is just as he's going through this he keeps as he mentions the great things that God has done he keeps going back and just reminding us that you know God is just doing this because he's good notice back in verse 5 according to the good pleasure of his will in verse 7 according to the riches of his grace here in verse 9 according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself verse 11 according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will this is glorious why did God do any of this why did God decide to save us in the first place why did God go about redeeming us why did God the father come up with a plan to redeem the human race why did God the son implement that plan by shedding his blood on the cross why is the holy spirit come to visit us here on the earth and to bring us into this relationship why did he do it some people say well he saw that there was a spark of goodness there within the human race and he knew that if he just fanned that little spark it would grow into a glorious flame in the future no that's not why he did it at all it had nothing to do with us because there was no spark of goodness because the scripture says that we're sinners all we like sheep have gone astray the heart of the human race is deceitful above all things and incurably sick but God took pity on mankind and because of his abounding heart of love and compassion he just decided this is what I'm going to do at a great cost to himself I might add at a great cost to himself but it was his good pleasure to do it and so according to the good pleasure which he purposed in himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him so this is this is what everything is leading up to the mystery of his will is this now the word mystery doesn't mean mystery like we would generally think of it today the the greek word mystery it means something that could not be known apart from divine revelation so in other words this is stuff that man never could have figured out himself this is stuff that man never could have come up with you know when I think of the gospel itself here's one of the things to me that just affirms to me the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ the gospel is so unlike anything man could ever dream of you look at the long history of the human race you look at the literature of humanity you look at the religions in the world and you find that not one of them ever even got close as I was talking to this fella different fella a few weeks back he was a muslim guy and I really started talking to him about the grace of God and how the grace of God is unique to christianity no other religion in the world knows anything of the grace of God as I was just you know talking to him about that that unique element of christianity you know he he actually said to me he said that that is unique that you know he he locked onto it and he he understood for you know a brief moment the uniqueness of grace and and then he thought for a minute he said but the problem with grace is this he said the problem was with grace is if God just forgives people's sins then that will lead them to think that they can just go on and keep sinning and that was a very perceptive a very perceptive statement and I said you know I understand how you came to that conclusion but here's something you have to realize God when he pours his grace on a person simultaneously he does this he regenerates them and in regenerating a person he gives them a new nature which delights in pleasing him and no longer pleasing themselves and so you don't have a person abusing the grace of God who truly receives the grace of God because regeneration takes place and there is now a delight to do God's will and he was pretty impressed with that answer uh no thanks to me it was just that's the truth that's the gospel that's what God has done we could have never figured this out ourselves we could have never invented such a thing that God would come down and die for sinful creatures and expect nothing from them except to believe what he did you can't find a religion on the planet that teaches anything like that every religion teaches that you've got to do something christianity says no God did everything you just believe it and you can be part of what he did so this God has revealed this and this is what he's revealed that in the dispensation of the fullness of times now a dispensation is a period of time in which God works in a particular manner some people have looked at history from a theological standpoint and they've divided history up into dispensations and they are known theologically as dispensationalist and so they look back to the beginning of creation and their man was created and they say that back in the time before Adam and Eve fell that that was the dispensation of innocence and then they fell from their relationship with God sin entered into the world and so now a new dispensation began and with the coming of the flood and the destroying of the earth and then the repopulating of the world through Noah a new dispensation began there and then with the coming of Abraham a new dispensation began there and then Moses came and the dispensation of the law came through Moses and then Jesus came and the dispensation of grace came along with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and there's some there's some validity to that thinking process there we are presently then according to that particular view we're presently living in what we might call the dispensation of grace but there is a dispensation yet in the future there are actually two more dispensations there is a dispensation of wrath which will come in what we commonly call the tribulation period but then there is the dispensation of the fullness of times and this is where everything's going and the dispensation of the fullness of the times is when he will gather together in one all things in Christ both are both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him so this is where everything is leading up to this is the mystery of his will that we've been given insight into that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back he's going to come back to this earth and he is going to reconcile the earth to God he's going to bring heaven and earth back together again like they were originally in I think it's the second chapter of Acts or maybe the third Peter's preaching and at one point he refers to Jesus he said whom heaven must hold until the time of the restitution of all things or the restoration the the word that's used there is a word that actually means to bring things back to the original intent and that is what we have to look forward to in the future God is going to bring things back to what he originally intended what we have been experiencing on this planet for the past several thousand years however many thousands of years man has been here what we have been experiencing on this planet is not what God intended God did not intend the misery God did not intend the sorrow he didn't intend the pain he didn't intend the suffering he didn't intend the death the destruction this is not part of God's plan this all came about as a result of man choosing to disobey God and bringing the consequences of separation from God upon himself and his descendants but God is going to restore it he's going to bring it back to its original intent and that's what Paul is talking about here there is coming a future dispensation in which heaven and earth are going to be brought back into harmony and the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray will then be fulfilled thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven that is what we as the people of God are anxiously looking forward to reconciling heaven and earth those who are in heaven those believers of course who are in heaven will then be reconciled with the believers who are here on earth and there will be one harmonious glorious eternal kingdom of God that is what God through his good pleasure decided to bestow upon us and now he says in verse 11 in him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will now we talked about predestination in a previous study when we looked at verse 5 and remember that the predestination is to adoption so when he speaks here of this inheritance that's the end of adoption it's the inheritance it's entering in to all that God has actually promised us that's that's what he's talking about we have these promises but there's coming a time when we're going to realize the promises they're they're no longer going to be promises they're going to be the reality for us they're going to be fulfilled isn't that a wonderful thought isn't that a glorious thought to think that one day it's all gonna be here it's all going to be the reality that we experience we worship the lord we pray we seek him through his word we seek to expand his kingdom we serve him and and all of these are blessed and glorious things that we are privileged to do during this present time but these things are all leading us somewhere they're leading us into the reality one day of the presence of christ for all eternity and that is the glorious future that paul is talking about here the inheritance that is awaiting us when we arrive in heaven and then he says in verse 12 that we who first trusted in christ should be to the praise of his glory in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation paul is a jew and here at this point he makes reference to that when he says that we who first trusted in christ he's talking about the fact that the jews were the first ones to embrace the messiah and then it became clear shortly after that that the gentiles were to be included in god's great plan god's great redemptive plan through the messiah and so that's what he's talking about verse 12 and he says that we who first trusted in christ should be to the praise of his glory in him you also trusted so talking about how all of us together have become recipients both jew and gentile become recipients of the goodness and the grace of god in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation the gospel of your salvation that's what the gospel is and you know it's the gospel of everyone's salvation because there's not a person on the planet that christ didn't die for there's not a on the planet that can get to god apart from jesus christ i didn't see this myself but i've heard it from a number of people so i'll pass it on you might have seen it evidently franklin graham was being interviewed recently and he you know he had a lot of involvement in what went on a couple of weeks ago and was hosting cnn at one point and you know god's really done some interesting things to sort of put him right before the public and from from what i hear just a few days ago when he was on another one of these programs someone mentioned to him something about um you know the variety of gods that were being worshiped or something and evidently they said it in a positive sense isn't it so wonderful that you know they're worshiping their god and you know there are so many gods and so forth and apparently franklin said well you know there are many gods but there is one true and living god and only one savior and that's the son of god jesus christ he's absolutely right that's reality that's what the scriptures say that's what all history testifies to the gospel is for everybody it's not just for some people and all of those muslim people they need to know christ they don't have a relationship with god and whether it be muslims or buddhists or hindus or jews or whoever else it might be or of course people who don't believe anything at all the gospel is their salvation as well and of course we need to pray that god will open their eyes that they might embrace that salvation but that's how we've entered into this we've trusted in christ having heard the word of truth the gospel of our salvation and as i said a few moments ago this is the glory of christianity it's not here let me give you this list of 613 things that you can do to win god's favor or let me give you these five pillars that if you diligently adhere to these five pillars if you perform them then you can in the end expect that god will have mercy upon you that's not it no it's let me tell you what god has done for you god saw you in your sin he knew you were hopeless he knew you could never save yourself and there's nobody around that could save you so what god did is he sent his son into the world he lived a sinless life he died a criminal's death your sins were placed upon him he bore the punishment that you deserve he died in your place he shed his blood to redeem you and to provide you forgiveness of sin and if you will trust him to do what he came to do if you'll trust him to forgive your sin and to save you and to give you eternal life then you'll be saved that's the greatest deal on the planet right there you can't beat that you trusted that's that's all that's all we're called to do and of course as we trust god brings us a new life by his spirit and he puts within us the desire to do his will and so we go on and we live for his glory but this is the gospel it's the message of what god has done and our responsibility is to do this thing that paul did and those other believers in the first century and many million cents is you trusted the word of truth the gospel of your salvation i trust that you have trusted him tonight and if you haven't trusted him i trust you will let's pray father we thank you for the redemption in christ we thank you that we have our sins forgiven lord that you have nothing against us tonight oh how we thank you for that and we just rest in your love and your abounding grace lord we thank you that you've made known to us the mystery of your will we thank you lord that we know the end of the story we thank you that you're going to bring things back to the way you intended them to be and we thank you that we're going to be part of that simply because we've trusted in the word of truth the gospel of our salvation and lord if there happen to be some with us tonight or maybe some listening on the radio that haven't yet trusted you we pray that you'd help them to do that help them lord to make that decision to give their lives to you and to enter into the glorious blessed life that you have for them here and to give them that hope of that glorious eternal life that awaits them in the future thank you lord for your goodness in jesus name we bless you amen