This sermon by Derek Prince Ministries focuses on the concept of complete salvation and how many Christians may only experience an incomplete version of what God has provided. The speaker emphasizes the vastness and depth of God's salvation, urging believers to fully embrace and comprehend its width, length, depth, and height. Through various biblical examples, the sermon highlights the importance of not limiting God's salvation and the ongoing process of being saved in different tenses: perfect, simple past, and continuing present.

Derek Prince Ministries, proclaiming the inspired Word of God around the world. Derek Prince is an internationally recognized Bible teacher and author. Through books, audios, videos, and radio broadcasts, Derek seeks to reach the unreached and teach the untaught. In over 50 years of ministry, Derek has reached over 100 nations in more than 50 languages. And now, Derek Prince. My theme this evening is complete salvation and how to receive it. And I want to emphasize the word complete because I believe so many Christians who have experienced salvation have experienced only an incomplete salvation. They're living in a little corner of a house somewhere whereas there's a great, big, wonderful mansion which God has prepared for them. In fact, I don't believe that there's any Christian on earth today who has experienced the completeness of all that God has provided for salvation. And I include myself. I thank God that I have a lot more than I had when I was saved in 1941. But I think there's much, much more for all of us in salvation. In Hebrews 2 and verse 3 the writer says, How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? This is not a little salvation that God has provided for us through Jesus Christ. It is a great salvation. And one of our great dangers is that which is stated here in Hebrews that we would neglect it. Not reject it. Not refuse it. But just not really enter into it. Just accept it as a theological fact, a doctrine but not embrace it in its fullness in our experience. In Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 18, the apostle Paul is praying for the people of God. And remember that includes you and me here. All these wonderful prayers of Paul for the church, let's make them personal. Let's not just accept them as general prayers but let's make them very specific. Paul prays there in verses 17 and 18 of Ephesians 3, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height. Paul is saying this is not a little salvation that we've come into. To me it's a picture of somebody that walks into a tremendous mansion with many corridors and different types of rooms prepared. And we look first of all at the width and it stretches out as far as our eye can see in every direction. And then we look ahead at the length and again we can't see to the end of it. And then imagine yourself standing on some grand staircase in some wonderful mansion and you look down and you can't see all that's beneath you. And finally you look up and again it stretches beyond what you can actually take in with your eyes. So Paul prays that we will not just get isolated in some little corner, but that we will be able to comprehend, to embrace, to take in, all the scope of this salvation. Its width, its length, its depth, and its height. In the Old Testament, in fact throughout the Bible, the word salvation has a very wide application. For many people it just means having your sins forgiven and being, as somebody said, a prepackaged soul for heaven. But there's a lot more to salvation than that. It's interesting if you read through the Bible in almost any English translation. If you're looking for the word religion, you have to read and read and read. In fact, in most translations you don't come to it until the epistle of James. There it says pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the orphans and the widows and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Which is a different definition of religion from what many Christians would offer today. How many Christians are actually visiting the orphans and the widows? But that's just a side thought. But when you look for the words save and salvation, it's all through the Bible. I just want to turn to one passage in the book of Psalms. Psalm 78, verses 21 and 22. This is describing the Lord's dealings with Israel in bringing them out of Egypt and then taking them through the wilderness. It states why the Lord got angry with His people. If I were to put it in my language, He was angry because they had such a small picture of God and His salvation. I believe sometimes we anger God by the littleness of our comprehension of His salvation. So it says, Therefore the Lord heard this and was furious. So a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also came up against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His salvation. What angered Him? The lack of faith in God's salvation. And if you analyze that passage, salvation is the all-inclusive word for every blessing and every grace and every provision of God from the time that they sacrificed the Passover lamb until they entered their inheritance. It includes protection through the blood of the lamb from God's judgment. It includes supernatural passing through the waters of the Red Sea. It includes the supernatural presence of God coming down upon them in the form of a cloud. It includes being fed every day with manna from heaven. It includes God opening those rocks and living streams of water gushing out. But all that is included in salvation. Included in salvation is the fact their shoes never wore out. Their clothes never got old. When they were sick, God provided healing. At night when it was cold, and believe me I've traveled through the Sinai Desert. It gets cold at night. It's hot in the day and cold at night. But God had provision for both. Because in the heat of the day He covered them with a cloud and in the cold of the night He provided the warmth and the light of a fire. And all that total provision is summed up in this one word, salvation. And God was grieved because they didn't comprehend the extent of His salvation. And then a little further on in the same psalm it says in verse 41, Yes, again and again they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. I have to confess many times I myself have limited God in my concept of salvation. I've had a need and I've thought to myself can I really trust God for that need? I think most Christians today set limits to what they think God will do. Which are not scriptural limits. They're just the limits of how big we can imagine God's salvation to be. But we need to bear in mind that this grieved the Lord. When His people did not trust in His salvation and when they set limits to what He could do it grieved the Lord. So let's make a resolve in our hearts that we will not set limits to what God can do. That we will believe in this all-inclusive, comprehensive salvation which God has provided. Turning on to the New Testament, to the New Covenant in the epistle to the Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 14. We have a statement of what was accomplished by the death of Jesus on the cross. And we must remember that Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice. His death was a sacrifice foreordained by God. A sacrifice on behalf of the whole Adamic race. And it says here, Hebrews 10 and 14, For by one sacrifice He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Now at one time I was a teacher of English as a second language to African students. And one of the things that I discovered was that you have to teach people the significance of the English tenses. Maybe some of you are not even quite clear what a tense is. But a tense is the form of the verb that shows the time of the action. And in this we have two tenses and they're very significant. The first one is called the perfect tense. And it says, For by one sacrifice He has perfected forever. You could say it's perfectly perfect. It's completely complete. By one sacrifice. After this, or just before this as a matter of fact, the writer of Hebrews says, The Old Testament priests always stood offering again and again the same sacrifices which could never take away sin. Then speaking about Jesus he says, But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down at the right hand of God. You see, the contrast is between the Old Testament priests who stood and Jesus who offered His sacrifice and sat down. Why did He sit down? Because He was never going to have to do any more. He had done it all. Whereas the Old Testament priests, their job was never finished. Because their sacrifices were not adequate to deal with the real problem. And so going back to verse 14, By one sacrifice Jesus has perfected forever. As far as what Jesus has done, it's complete, it's perfect, it never has to be added to. Nothing can ever be taken away from it. It's forever. That's the perfect tense. But then speaking about those of us who are appropriating it, it says He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. That's what we call a continuing present tense. What Jesus has done is perfect. Our appropriation of it is continuing. It's ongoing. As we are sanctified, as we are more and more set apart to God, as we draw closer to God and appropriate more of God's provision and promises, we are entering more and more into the provision of the sacrifice. So, there's one all-inclusive sacrifice which is the basis of our whole salvation. You see, this interests me because I was a philosopher before I was a preacher. I observed that the Bible is the only book that accurately diagnoses the cause of human problems or any other book based on the Bible. The cause of human problems is stated in one very short word, sin. But no other book except the Bible diagnoses the nature and the effects of sin. No other book tells us the remedy except the Bible. So if we had to deal with a problem in our own wisdom or strength, it would defeat us. The remedy for sin is a sacrifice. This is the message of the whole Bible from beginning to end. Wherever there has been sin, there has to be a sacrifice. But all the previous sacrifices were just prefigurings. They were shadows and types of this one glorious, final, all-sufficient sacrifice which Jesus made on our behalf on the cross. And you remember that before He died His last triumphant cry was, It is finished! In the Greek of the New Testament that's one word, tetelestai. And it's the perfect tense of a verb that means to do something perfectly. So my interpretation is, it is perfectly perfect. It is completely complete. That's the sacrifice. Now, our appropriating the benefits of the sacrifice is progressive. I don't believe there's one person here this evening, myself included, who has appropriated as yet all that's been made available to us through the sacrifice of Jesus. And we need at this point to make a rather important distinction between the new birth and salvation. Let's look for a moment in John chapter 1 about the new birth. John 1, verses 11, 12 and 13. Speaking about Jesus. John 1, 11, 12 and 13. He came to His own place or own home and His own people did not receive Him. Thank God for the word but, you know. Thank God that that's not the end. There are some wonderful buts in the Bible. What about Romans 6, 23? The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And here, His own did not receive Him. Thank God that's not the last word. But, as many as received Him to them gave He the right, I prefer to say the authority which is the word, to become children of God. Even to those who believe on His name who were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God. Born of God. That's the new birth. What's the key to the new birth? Important that we all know this and are able to state it simply. In my life, thank God, particularly in street meetings in the city of London and other similar places, I've had the privilege of leading hundreds of people into the new birth. And I say to them, if you want to be born again there's one thing you have to do. You have to receive Him. As many as received Him. You've got to open your heart personally and welcome the Lord in. He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door I will come in. What a blessing it is to assure people if you've invited Him in, He's kept His promise. He has come in. But, the new birth is just a one-time experience. And in a certain sense, much of it is potential. We receive authority to become children of God. Now authority is useless if you don't use it. So what we will become depends on how much we use the authority that we've received. But receiving Jesus, being born again in itself is a one-time experience. I don't believe a person ever needs to be born again twice. On the other hand, salvation is an ongoing process. It's not a one-time experience. And when you grasp that fact, it will give clarity in your thinking. Yes, you are born again, thank God. But as for salvation, how far have you come? Maybe not very far. Salvation is an ongoing process. And let me come back to tenses. It's in three tenses. And we've got examples of each in the New Testament. It's in the perfect tense, in the simple past, and in the continuing present. The perfect tense, look for a moment in Ephesians 2.8. Ephesians 2.8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. That's the perfect tense. Actually, if you were to translate it literally, By grace you are having been saved. It's perfect. You've never got to add to it. But that's not the only tense. You turn to Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. So, this is what Titus 3.5 says. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He, God, saved us. That's the simple past. At a specific moment in time, God saved me. About midnight on a Friday evening, late in July 1941, God saved me. Every one of us has got to have more than just the perfect. We've got to have the moment when we entered into salvation. Then in 1 Corinthians 1.18 we have the continuing present. 1 Corinthians 1.18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. That's the continuing present tense. To us who are continually being saved. So, we have an experience, a one-time experience, in which we say God saved me. Through that experience we've entered into a perfect salvation which is already complete. We are having been saved. But at the same time that salvation continues to work in us, we are continually being saved. Now I found a very simple, vivid way to illustrate this was Noah's Ark. Because Noah's Ark, well every ark in the Old Testament is a picture of Christ really. There are two main arks. The big ark of Noah and the little ark of Moses. The big ark speaks of me in Christ. The little ark speaks of Christ in me. But each of them speaks of Christ. Well, let's take the ark of Noah, the big ark. Salvation came through entering into that ark. At a certain point Noah and his family entered into the ark. They were saved. But the ark was already complete and perfect. It was built exactly according to God's instructions. It never had to be repaired. It never had to be adjusted or improved or recalled. It worked. Thank God it did because it would have been too bad if it hadn't. And that's perfect salvation, you understand? So the single moment they entered into the ark, they entered into a perfect salvation. But all the time they were in the ark, the ark was continually saving them from the water that raged all around them. So if you have a difficulty in, what should I say, distinguishing the three tenses, each of which applies, think in terms of the ark. The one time experience is entering into the ark. The ongoing experience is being continually saved by the ark from the flood. But the complete salvation is the perfect ark in which you already enter. It's interesting that both Noah and Jesus were carpenters. And each of them provided a vessel of salvation. Noah's was physical, Jesus' is spiritual, but it's perfect. Now, I want to draw your attention to something which probably is not familiar to most of you because it does not come out in any translation of the Bible that I know. But there is in Greek, and remember the New Testament came to us in Greek, there is one word which is the word for to save. And putting it in English letters it's s-o-z-o, sozo. That's not exactly right but it's near enough. Now, in some places in the New Testament this word is translated saved, most often. But there are many other passages where it's translated heal, make well, make whole, preserve, and so on. So these other translations conceal from us the fact that all of this is salvation. Do you understand? It's not a little salvation. I think it may get very vivid for you. I'll give you eight examples from the New Testament of the use of this word sozo, where if you didn't have access to the Greek you would have no way of knowing that that's the word that's used. Let's turn first of all to Matthew 14. Matthew 14, verses 35 and 36. This is part of the ministry of Jesus. And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent out into all that surrounding region, brought to Him all who were sick, and begged Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched were made perfectly well. That's the translation I'm reading. But what the Greek says is they were thoroughly saved. It's the word sozo with a preposition in front which means to do something thoroughly. So every person who was miraculously healed according to the text was thoroughly saved. Do you understand? In other words, healing is not an addition to salvation. It's one part of salvation. It's salvation applied to the physical body. Then in Luke 8, verse 35 and following, we have the record of what is known as the Gadarene demoniac. This man who was totally possessed of demons. He wouldn't wear any clothes. He was always in the tombs, naked, cutting himself, shouting out day and night. But when Jesus came, He did one tremendously significant thing. He came and worshiped Jesus. Now my experience in deliverance, in helping people to be delivered from evil spirits, is that they have to be willing to submit to Jesus. Otherwise they don't qualify. He did all He could. That was absolutely all He could do. After that the demons took over and spook out of Him. But He had come to Jesus. And Jesus saw that in that man's heart was a desire for Himself. So Jesus began to speak to the demons and they said, We are legion, because many of us have entered in. You remember that? Then they pled with Jesus, Don't send us into the abyss. Let us go out into this herd of swine here. Jesus permitted it. There'll be a lot of interesting speculation as to why He did. Let me give you my opinion because we don't have to dwell on it. I think it would have been terribly hard for the man if the demons had gone out unwillingly. So Jesus gave them an option that they were prepared to accept, to go into the swine. You remember what happened to the swine? They immediately ran down a steep slope and plunged into the sea and were drowned. It's interesting that one man could contain enough demon power and keep it under control, the same demon power that could destroy a herd of two thousand pigs. That gives you some idea of the power of human personality. I've many times in deliverance, when I've heard a person's story, I've been overwhelmed by the fact that a person could live with what they have to fight inside them. Anyhow, the man came. Jesus cast out the spirits and we read this. Well, the people who kept the swine went and told it in the city so everybody came out to see what had happened. And this is what it says in verse 36. Well, 35. Then they went out to see what had happened and came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in His right mind, and they were afraid. They also who had seen it told them by what means he who had been demon-possessed was healed. Guess what the word is? Saved. So deliverance from demons is not an addition to salvation, it's a part of salvation.