How Does God Call His People to be Saved? is a sermon teaching us that God calls His people through the Gospel, and that it is our job to give out the Gospel.

Key verses:
2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

I’m asking you to take your Bible and turn with me now to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We’ve been in that chapter a few Sunday evenings now, and Lord willing, we’ll finish it this evening. For most of this chapter, we were looking at prophecy – the prophecy of the coming of the Lord and a great deal about the one called the Beast that shall come, the antichrist, but in these last few verses, verses 13 to 17, I want to talk to you about how God calls people to salvation. So, I want us to read, if you will, just to give us a flow of thought verses 11 and 12. We are going to be looking at 13 to 17. Let’s read verses 11 and 12 to kind of give us a backdrop to go into these final verses.

2 Thessalonians 2:11: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:”

2 Thessalonians 2:12: “That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

I should have had you go to verse 10, but at the end of verse 10, it says, “because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” In verse 12, it says that they “believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” And for this reason, they are damned, they are condemned. It is obvious there that in those two verses, verses 11 and 12, and verse 10, three verses, that those who believe the truth are saved. Those who refuse the truth, who do not receive the truth, are lost. There is no question about that. We’re going to talk about that this evening.

The Call to God’s Service

We talked about those who are saved through the belief in the truth, but we talk about the “call.” Some people say that God has called people to be saved. He does call people to be saved, and that is very true. I wouldn’t argue that at all. There is a great deal of scripture that talks about that.

And Jesus said that no man would come to Him unless the Lord called him. But how does God call people? Well, I’m being a little silly here. He doesn’t ring you up on the phone, does He? No, that’s not how. It’s not anything like that, and I want to separate this from other types of calls. What do I mean? We are talking about the call to be saved.

There are specific calls where God calls people to His service. Now, every believer is called to serve the Lord. But people get specific calls to do different ministries in different places. For example, I believe people are definitely called into missions work. They go to the mission field; they go into the foreign field and work. Every believer is supposed to be spreading the Gospel. Every believer is supposed to bring people to Christ. But I think there is a specific call to go to the foreign field.

Where do I get that? I get that in the book of Acts when Paul and Barnabas were at the church of Antioch, and the Holy Spirit came and said, “Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work where unto I called them.” And called them out and really became the first foreign missionaries; in a sense, there were already people going out. But that was a clear case of a call to foreign missions. So, God does call people.

Let me help you with that. I already said every believer is supposed to be spreading the Gospel. Every believer is supposed to be giving it out. But how do you know if you are a person being called to go to Togo? T-O-G-O, to go to Togo. I know some missionaries in Togo right now. Stephen and Ruth Schaefer’s daughter and her family are there right now. And I know other missionaries who have gone to Togo. Now, how do you know if that’s where God wants you?

Well, number one, you need to surrender your heart, mind, and life to the Lord. After you are saved, you need to completely surrender to the Lord and let Him lead you. And you need to come to a point where you say, “I will go anywhere the Lord wants me to go, anywhere.” I will tell you this you will not know if you are called to go to the foreign mission field until you surrender to go.

If you don’t tell the Lord, “I’ll go.” If you are sitting here and saying, “I wouldn’t do that, I like it here. I’m not going,” then you’ll never know if God wanted you to go there or not because you have never opened yourself up to that possibility. And you’ve never given the Lord room to work in your heart and life. Now, you can surrender and say, “Lord, I’ll go anywhere you want me to go.” and the Lord may say, “No, I need you here.” That’s fine, but you need to let the Lord lead you, and He will. He’ll lead you.

I’ve said this many times, and I hope you don’t get tired of hearing it too much; you might. But if God had laid out a map of the planet Earth and said to me, “Pick the spot on Earth that you want to spend most of your life serving me – and I got to be honest with you, I don’t mean any insult or offense to anybody – I would not have picked Delray Beach. I wouldn’t have. It would not have been my first choice.

“Why did you not like it?” It’s not that I didn’t like it. I knew where it was, I’ve been here, and I would not have picked it. I had my eye probably moving up to Central Florida. I was looking at a place up there I thought would be a great place to minister, and I have a burden for a camp ministry. I was already looking for some land for a camp ministry before we came. I really thought I would end up in Central Florida. I really did, but it didn’t happen. Why? Because I was surrendered to the Lord and let Him lead me. Does that make sense to you?

You know what? I’m not complaining. Looking back over the decades, I don’t think the Lord wanted me in Central Florida. I really don’t. But you will never know where He wants you until you surrender and let Him lead you. There are so many parts of our life that we need to give over to Him and let Him lead us a step at a time. But that’s the call to service.

Are you called to be a preacher? Everybody is called to spread the Gospel. Are you called to be a preacher? If you are called to be a preacher, there are different kinds of preachers. What do I mean, different kinds of preachers? Well, there are pastors and there are evangelists and there are church planters which have to be pastors and evangelists. There are different types of preachers.

You can be a preacher without being a pastor. I preached for many years before I was pastor. I was no less a preacher than I am now, but I was not a pastor. There was a difference between preacher and pastor. Sometimes I hear people refer to preachers as pastors who are not pastors. How are they not pastors? They do not have a congregation. If you don’t have a congregation, then you are not a pastor. It’s that simple.

The word “pastor” comes from “pasture” and is another word for shepherd. If you don’t have a flock to shepherd, then you are not really a shepherd, are you? You might have used to be a shepherd, you might be going to be a shepherd, but at that point, you are not a shepherd. Does that make sense to you? Okay.

So, surrendering to preach is one thing. Becoming a pastor is another thing – or an evangelist or going to the foreign field. These are all different areas. What about being teachers? God calls teachers. Not all teachers stand up on Sunday morning in the pulpit and teach from that pulpit. But they teach, and there are different places where they teach. There are so many different areas of ministry that people go into. God calls you, and God leads you where you are supposed to be.

Condemning Themselves

So, chapter 2, verse 12, again, speaks to those who didn’t believe the truth, “believe not the truth” and sealed their own condemnation, their own damnation because they chose to have pleasure in unrighteousness. They loved their sin so much that they didn’t want to be saved.

Now, did these folks understand that they may have their pleasure and sin here and now? They may enjoy it. They may have what they would consider a wonderful time. But do they realize that the years that they spend living in pleasure are so short and temporary in comparison to eternity, and in eternity they are not going to have that anymore? I seriously doubt that most of them think about it that way. I don’t believe they do.

I don’t believe that enters their thinking that, “I’m going to have 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, maybe 70 years of living in pleasure the way I see it, and then I’m going to have countless years living in darkness separated from God.” No, I don’t think most people think about it that way.

What do they think? Well, probably, they don’t all think the same way. Don’t you believe that would be fair to say? I don’t think they all think the same way. Some of them probably think, “Yeah, I’m living my own life, I’m living for my selfish pleasure, but I’m not such a bad person overall. So, I’m sure when my time comes, God is going to say, ‘Come on in.’” Probably not, folks. It’s not how God works.

Okay, how about this, “I’m going to live and live for all the pleasure I can live for, and when I die, it’s just nothing. I go to nothing, so it won’t matter.” I suppose there is a sense in which that would be correct. If you do die and there’s nothing after death, then yeah, go ahead, have a good time.” Well, you can’t because you are not going to nothing – it doesn’t work that way either.

I’ve said this to you many times, but it’s a fact, if there is no eternity, then there is no justice. There can’t be. If there is no eternity and you have your life, what is the purpose of your life? Is it to just have fun and live for all the pleasure you can live for? Is that the purpose of your life?

“No, I’m here to help others.” But there’s no eternity, so you are here to help others on their journey to nothing. It really doesn’t sound good, does it? It really doesn’t. Or “I’m going to be here to help others with their suffering, and so forth.” And if you’re wrong about eternity, you’re going to help them with their suffering here, but you are also going to help them suffer eternally. That doesn’t sound so good either, does it? No, there has to be an eternity. There has to be. This life cannot be all there is. You think about it.

The average person nowadays lives 70 years. Some of us are passed that. It used to be 65. You know that’s when they sent the social security agent after the ‘40s because people didn’t live much longer than that. The government kind of figured that they’ll have to pay them out the first two or three years, and that will be it. But people are living longer now. And because people are living longer, the government says, “Hmm, we didn’t count on this.” Well, people are living longer. I, for one, am happy about that. I think the rest of you are too.

But let’s say, as Moses said, “three score and ten, or by reason of strength, four score.” – suppose you live into your 90s or live to be 100 years old. Some years ago, I read a statistic that said at that point in the United States of America, there were over 1 million people who were over 100 years old. That’s a lot of people. But when you think the population of America is more than 330 million, 1 million out of 330 million isn’t all that many, is it?

What am I saying? I’m saying your chances of getting there are not zero, but they are not fantastic either. I’ve had people tell me that they are going to live to be 100. I hope they do, and I have known a number of people who have. But then what? Suppose you live to be 100, 105, 110. I read about a man the other day; I told you about it, he celebrated his 116th birthday. Well, that’s wonderful. But then what?

Preparing for Eternity

God wants us to prepare for eternity; more particularly, He wants to prepare us for eternity. And so, God calls us to be saved. But how does He call us to be saved? Take a look at it, verse 13. But let’s go back to 11 to get the flow of thought.

2 Thessalonians 2:11: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:”

Who’s that? Those who received not the truth, wouldn’t receive the Gospel.

2 Thessalonians 2:12: “That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Notice 11 and 12, they have a choice in the matter.

2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:”

“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord,” – We thank God for you. And folks, I do. If you have trusted in the Lord as your Savior, I thank God for you. I really do. That is the most important thing you could ever do.

“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation” – “That’s it, preacher. You Baptists have got it all wrong because the reformed theology teaches us that God has chosen people unto salvation and only the chosen are going to be saved.” OK, it does appear to say that here, doesn’t it? “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation” – it certainly does appear to be what it’s saying, but we didn’t finish the verse, and we are going to finish the verse.

Has God chosen you to salvation? Yes, that’s exactly what it says here, isn’t it? But how has He chosen you? “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit.” Notice that “sanctification of the Spirit” is capitalized. That is the Holy Spirit doing the sanctifying. It is not just the sanctification of your spirit. That is the Holy Spirit cleansing you and setting you apart for God’s service.  So, He “hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”

When does the Spirit sanctify you and cleanse you for God’s service? When you have believed the truth. Salvation comes through the belief of the truth. So, follow me carefully on this. Who does God call to be saved? He calls everybody to be saved. The Bible says He would have men everywhere to be saved, to come to the knowledge of the truth. Peter says, and we quote it here all the time:

2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

It is God’s will for everybody to be saved. I’m not talking about universal salvation. What is universal salvation? A lot of people believe in that. Well, everybody is going to be saved in the end. There’s only one problem with that. That’s not what God said. God did not say everybody was going to be saved in the end. Where did He say differently? Right here in this chapter, verse 10:

2 Thessalonians 2:10: “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

There are people who are going to perish because they did not receive the Gospel. So, no, not everybody is going to get saved. I build out on that one verse, certainly not. You can read that over and over throughout the scripture. I think one of the places that make it most clear is:

John 3:18: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

You haven’t believed. You haven’t believed in the only begotten Son of God. You are not saved. It’s that simple. And God said so. Look again at 2 Thessalonians 2:10. Look at so many other places in scripture. You believe, and you’re saved. If you do not believe, you are lost. Verse 13 again:

2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:”

God knows who is and who is not going to be saved. I was talking to a fellow one time. He said, “I used to be a Baptist but I’m not anymore.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “You know, that whole thing that anybody can be saved. I just can’t believe that God is sitting up in Heaven wringing His hands over who is going to be saved.” I looked the man in the eye and said, “That is absolutely absurd. God doesn’t wring His hands over anything.” God knows what’s happening. He knows what’s happening from before the foundation of the world. He knows it all. He lives in eternity; we live in time. He sees eternity and knows everything that goes on in time.

I wish I knew who originated this, but I don’t. I heard somebody say one time, “Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurred to God?” God never said, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming. Never expected that.” He is all-knowing, He is omniscient. He knows who will and who will not be saved. So, yes, “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:”

Which comes first, sanctification of the Spirit or the belief of the truth? It reads to me like they come together. What do you think? Look at it, “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”

Called By Our Gospel

2 Thessalonians 2:14: “Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What does “whereunto” mean? The belief in the truth. Do you want to understand what somebody’s saying in a conversation? Stay with the context of the conversation. If somebody says something and the last topic was, let’s use this as an example, the last topic was the belief in the truth. And then they take a breath or pause a second, and then they go on and say “whereunto,” they’re still talking about belief in the truth. How do we know it is supposed to be that way in the conversation? Well, at the end of verse 13, there is a colon which means the beginning of verse 14 is the same sentence. The same sentence is part of the same thought. Does that make sense?

“Whereunto he called you” – oh, he called you. Yes, the Lord calls people to be saved. How does He call them? That’s our topic tonight. “Whereunto he called you by our gospel.” He calls you by the Gospel to be saved, and God wants everybody to hear the Gospel. How do we know that? He said so. Where did He say that? Multiple places. In Matthew 28 18-20, He said:

Matthew 28:18: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”

Matthew 28:19: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”

Matthew 28:20: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

He told us to go and teach all nations. What are we supposed to teach? How to be saved. And then the second thing we’re supposed to do is baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then to teach them again, “all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” So, we are supposed to teach, baptize, and continue to teach.

Well, if you taught them the Gospel and how to be saved, what are you supposed to do next? We’re supposed to baptize them. What do you do after you baptize them? Then you are supposed to teach them everything that the Lord has taught. Why? So that they can grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ so that they can become more like Him, and they can be better fit vessels for His service. That is called spiritual growth. By the way, that is the purpose of the church to teach the Bible, to baptize believers, and to continue to teach them everything else that the Lord has taught. In Matthew 28, Mark 16, He says:

Mark 16:15: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

“Every creature” – who does that leave out? Nobody. It doesn’t leave anybody out. We go to preach the Gospel to every creature. God wants everybody in the world to hear the Gospel.

Some years ago, I suppose close to 20 years ago, maybe longer than that, we had a service here one Sunday morning, and after church, I was out front by the door as I normally am, and a lady who was a visitor here came to me and said, “Pastor, I have wonderful news for you.” Well, I like to hear good news, don’t you? I said, “What’s that?” She said, “It’s done.” I said, “It’s done?” She said, “The Gospel going to everyone in the world. It has happened. It has already happened.” I said, “Really? How did it happen?” She said, “I heard it on television. I heard a preacher on television say that through their ministry, the Gospel has gone out to the entire world.”

I didn’t argue with the lady. What was she talking about? I really couldn’t say. I couldn’t remember if she named it, but whoever that was who claimed to get the Gospel to everybody in the world, I guarantee you they haven’t.

How can I say that? I can say that because I meet people all the time who have never heard the Gospel. That’s how I can say that – all the time. Well, I must be going out to foreign countries all the time. I have gone out to foreign countries but not recently. Well, I guess we did last year; Cathy and I did. But we haven’t in a while. No, I meet people here all the time who never heard the Gospel. I’ve met people right down this street, down Lake Ida Road here, and shared the Gospel with them, and they said they never heard anything like that in their life, and they haven’t. You don’t have to go very far to find them.

There are a lot of Americans who think they know the Gospel, but they don’t. They think the Gospel is something like this: If you go to church and maybe do some rituals, and that’s it. That’s not the Gospel, it isn’t. Nowhere in the Bible do you find the words to go to church and do rituals. You don’t find it anywhere. What do you find? You find – believe and be saved. How are you going to believe if you haven’t heard?

So, He called you by “our gospel.” Why does he say our gospel? Because Paul, in Galatians, we looked at this some time ago on a Wednesday night, talked about another gospel, a different gospel, a gospel of works. Paul says here, “he called you by our gospel” or “the gospel” – what did he call you to? Look at it carefully, verse 14:

2 Thessalonians 2:14: “Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What are you doing when you believe the truth? You are believing; you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what being saved is. It’s trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Called By Our God

Someone said to me that I need to go to Romans chapter 8. I’ve been there many times. In Romans 8, people are called. What are they called to do?

Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” – that promise is not made to everybody. The Bible doesn’t say that all things work together for good for everybody. It doesn’t. It says, “all things work together for good to them that love God.” And then it says, “to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Oh, them who are the called. That’s Romans 8:28.

Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:29: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

“For whom he did foreknow” – God knew them ahead of time. He did, “He also did predestinate.” There it is, preacher. They are predestinated. Yes, but predestinated to do what? Listen to the verse.  “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son,” – that is what you are predestinated to do. You are predestinated to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

How are you going to do that unless you have been born again? You can’t. God is not playing some kind of trick on you. He calls you to be saved. You trust Christ, and then you are predestined to be conformed in the image of His Son. To “grow up into Him,” Paul says in another book, Ephesians.

2 Thessalonians 2:15: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”

“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions” – let’s talk about that a minute, not the traditions of men. Don’t hold the traditions of men. That’s not what he is talking about. Jesus had a constant battle with the Pharisees because they held their traditions above the law of God. When it came to studying the Word, they studied the Word. They knew what the scriptures said. Not the New Testament scriptures because they weren’t written yet. But they knew what the Old Testament scriptures said. But if the scriptures came into any conflict with their traditions, the tradition won out.

You know what? They are not alone in that. There are so many religions in the world that do that. They are no different than what the old Pharisees did. “Yes, yes, the Bible says this, but we have a tradition and our tradition, you must…,” and Jesus said to take your tradition and put it in the trash can and follow God’s Word. He didn’t phrase it just like that, you understand. But that’s what it comes to.

We have traditions in our church. We have traditions, and you know what? Traditions are not written in stone. What does that mean? When God gave the law to Moses, on what medium did He give it? Stone – literally written in stone. Why? Because it is God’s Word forever. When you hear that phrase “written in stone,” that’s what it means – unchangeable, written in stone. Traditions are not. And if you change a tradition, some people are going to get upset about it, but you haven’t changed God’s Word. God gives His absolutely inspired Word, and He gave it to mankind so that mankind could know the mind and will of God.

The preacher, Raymond Barber, is still preaching, as far as I know. He’s up in years, but last I heard, he’s still preaching. But I heard him on a number of occasions, and he said, “When you open the Bible, you are opening the mind of God.” That’s a pretty good way to say it. You want to know what God has to say. Here it is; it’s in this book. And so, verse 15:

2 Thessalonians 2:15: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”

“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions” – what traditions? Not the traditions of men, “the tradition which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” “Whether by word,” in other words, when we were with you in person, we were preaching to you and teaching to you, or by “our epistle” as in 1 Thessalonians. You hold to those traditions, the things that we taught you.

We who? Paul and the others who were with him. The apostle who was inspired by God to write roughly half of the New Testament. You listen to what he told you because he told you what God told him. So, hold fast to tradition, not men’s traditions. The key statement is the traditions of the Word of God.

And then verses 16 and 17:

2 Thessalonians 2:16: “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,”

What is he saying here? He has given us everlasting consolation. You can be comforted, you can trust Him, and you can know that you are going to be saved for all eternity. You can know that you have a home in the dwelling place of God. No question about it.

“Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us,” – that’s what we sang this morning, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!” Foretaste, we’re getting a taste of it now and the fulfillment of it later. “What a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God,” – that’s what he’s talking about here.

2 Thessalonians 2:16: “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace.” Through grace, He’s comforting you.

Called to Work

And He’s doing this:

2 Thessalonians 2:17: “Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.”

The Lord wants to establish you in the Word, and He wants to establish you in the work. What is the work? The work that God has called you to do. What is the work that God has called you to do? That’s what we’ve been talking about this morning. Take what you have learned and teach it to others so that they can teach it to others so they can teach it to others and keep it going. It is the Lord’s will that everybody should hear the Gospel. It’s not going to happen if God’s people don’t do it. He has commissioned us with that responsibility to go out and preach the Gospel.

I’m going to say this to you and then we’ll close. There are more churches in South Palm Beach County than there have ever been churches long before this church has been here. There are churches in this area that are over a century old. They are not all the same. That’s one of the reasons we have so many churches. New churches are starting all the time. I know right now of three churches meeting in the same building. One has been there for years, and the others are new churches just starting. Three churches meeting in the same building – so, more churches than ever.

Do we need more churches? Well, we need more witnesses. We need more people giving the Gospel – need that. I am for anybody and everybody that’s giving the Gospel. It does not mean I agree with them on everything, but if they are giving the Gospel, I’m for them.

Let me tell you this. I had a man come here years ago. Maybe this story will help you, and then we’ll close. He came and said, “I do not understand.” In fairness to him, he was a new believer. He had recently come to the Lord, and he was excited and zealous. He didn’t get saved here. He got saved somewhere else, and that’s fine.

I tell people all the time, “You get saved. You do not have to get saved here.” Why am I telling you that? Because I know churches that say if you didn’t get saved in that church, then you didn’t get saved. There’s a great theological term for that, it’s called hogwash. If this were the only place where people could be saved, mankind is all lost. Wouldn’t you agree? It’s just not right.

This man said, “I don’t understand why we can’t get all the churches in the area to work together.” Well, that sounds good, and I told him that. I said that it sounded like a great idea. He said, “Yeah, I think so.” I said, “But let me ask you a question. When you were saved, were you saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?” He said, “Yes, absolutely.” I don’t doubt this man’s salvation.

I said, “Do you think churches should preach salvation by grace through Jesus Christ?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Then how can churches that preach salvation by grace through Jesus Christ work together with churches that teach unless you do good works, unless you keep the law, unless you keep traditions, you cannot be saved? How can we work together at all?” He saw it. It’s just not going to work. If you do that, then you are going to work against yourself.

I’m not trying to be unkind to anybody. I’m not trying to be ugly to anybody. I’m trying to help you understand truth. Either we are going to preach the Gospel as God gave it, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Or we are going to compromise with those who say, yes, you can believe in Jesus, but you have to follow their traditions. You have to be baptized, and you have to go through this ritual and that ritual or other ritual. Or, you have to keep the law in order to be saved. If you don’t keep the law, you lose your salvation, and all the other things they come up with have come up with for millennium.

The difference is this simple. The Gospel brings people, and calls people to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Any other teaching that is contrary to the Gospel is teaching people: you do your work, and you will be okay. And what they are doing is lying to people and literally leading them to Hell. Sorry, but that’s the fact. So, people who are trying to lead people to Jesus and lead them so Jesus can take them to Heaven cannot work with people who are leading people to Hell. Does that make sense?

So, how does God call people to be saved? Through the Gospel. That’s it. It is our job to give out the Gospel.

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Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for blessing us. Lord, it is our earnest prayer that you would help us to be faithful and be faithful witnesses to the Gospel. Telling a lost world that they might be saved. Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. He was buried and rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures. The Bible says whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Heavenly Father, help us to be faithful servants of yours. Heads are bowed, and eyes are closed. We are going to sing a hymn of invitation. If God has spoken to your heart tonight, we need to respond. This is the time. Father, move in this time of invitation. We do pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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