What must I do to be saved?

Alcides Moreno was a window washer in Manhattan. He rode platforms with his brother Edgar to wash skyscrapers. From there, he could look down to see the pavement far below where the people looked like ants. On December 7, 2007, catastrophe struck the Moreno family. The brothers were 47 stories up when their platform collapsed. Alcides and Edgar fell from the sky.

They did not land on a  passing airplane or get snagged by a flagpole like we see in movies and on cartoons. They fell 47 stories all the way to the pavement below. Edgar died from the fall. Alcides did not. He hung on to life by a thread for two weeks. But on Christmas Day, he reached out and touched the nurse’s face. A month later, an amazed doctor stated that Alcides would probably walk again.

No one of us have ever had a relationship with God like Adam and Eve did. None of us have ever walked with God like they did. And when they disobeyed God, their decision brought sin, death, and judgment into man’s world. And today, we still struggle against flesh and blood, weaknesses and temptations, wondering how we could ever get back into a relationship with God.

The message of the gospel is for everyone and it is made available and known to everyone through the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.

WE HAVE PEACE WITH GOD – 5:1-2:

There are two key themes that run through these eleven verses: the idea of reconciliation and the idea of “boasting” or “exulting.”

Having been justified, Paul writes, we have “peace with God.” When Adam and Eve sinned, when you and I sin, we create a barrier between us and God (Isa. 59:1-2); we put ourselves on a collision course with the wrath of God – notice verse 9.

In fact, consider how Paul identifies us – before we were washed by the blood of Christ – from God’s  perspective:

We were “helpless” (ver. 6)

We were “ungodly” (ver. 7)

We were “sinners” (ver. 8)

We were “enemies” (ver. 10)

WE EXULT IN TRIBULATIONS – 5:3-5:

This life is specifically designed to help us be conformed into the image of God’s Son. This life is designed by God to teach us and disciple us into loving God supremely and serving our fellowman sacrificially.

How do we know that God loves us? Notice that verses 6 & 7 both begin with the word “for.” How do we know that God loves us?

CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY – 5:6-10:

Christ died for us when we were weak, impotent to do anything for ourselves, and when we were still sinners before God.

“But wait, there’s more!” Once we have been justified, which Paul had stated back in 4:25; here he states we are “justified” by the blood of His Son, we can now be saved from the wrath of God through Jesus Christ. God’s wrath is coming. God’s wrath is coming against sin and all those who are still engulfed in sin and refuse to believe in God and obey the gospel of His Son. But there is deliverance; there is an escape – through the blood of His Son.

WE HAVE RECEIVED RECONCILIATION THROUGH JESUS – 5:11:

We are no longer God’s enemies, destined to experience the wrath of God, if we are washed by the blood of Christ and are God’s children adopted by Him in Christ. That’s the topic of chapter 6 and the subject of baptism, which we’ll study next month.

Christ reconciles us to God so that we can have peace with God. Be reconciled to God and exult in tribulations because Christ is preparing us to live with Him forever.

Paul Holland

I love Julie Andrews’ musicals, primarily I’m thinking of Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. According to Wikipedia, the first time the above word was used was in 1931. But the song was written by Robert and Richard Sherman for the movie Mary Poppins. The word is a compound word which means “above” (super), “beauty” (cali-), “delicate” (fragilistic-), “to atone” (expiali-), and “educable” (-docious). The song reached #36 on the American Film Institute’s top 100 cinematic songs. The word is now defined as “extraordinarily good, wonderful.”

In Ephesians 1:18-19, Paul writes to Christians, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might…”

Observe the contents of Paul’s prayer. He wants the “eyes” of Christians’ hearts to be enlightened with the result that:

1) They would know the hope of God’s calling them;

2) They would know the riches of the glory of His inheritance among saints;

3) They would know the surpassing greatness of His power toward Christians.

Specifically in that final verse, observe the pilling-up of words of power: surpassing greatness, power, working, strength, and might. More specifically, I want you to meditate on that word “surpassing greatness.” “Surpassing” translates a Greek participle which means “to surpass” or “to go beyond.” The word is related to our English word “hyperbole,” which of course means an “exaggeration.” So, this phrase means “greatness which goes beyond.”

The idea is related by Paul to the needs of Christians in Ephesians 3:20-21: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.” The word “far more abundantly beyond” has the same prefix in Greek (hyper-) as the participle I discussed above.

God can do exceedingly beyond all that we ask or think through the exceeding greatness of His power.

When you need God’s blessings, remember His exceedingly great power. When you have needs that only God can supply, remember His exceedingly great power. When you doubt what your future holds, remember His exceedingly great power.

In other words, the only way you can describe what God can do is to say: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Paul Holland

To the Architect, Jesus is the Chief Cornerstone, Mark 12:10.
To the Baker, He is the Living Bread, John 6:51.
To the Banker, He the Hidden Treasure, Matt 13:44.
To the Biologist, He the Life, John 14:6.
To the Builder, He is the Sure Foundation, I Cor 3:11.
To the Carpenter, He is the Door, John 10:9.
To the Doctor, He is the Great Physician, Mark 2:17.
To the Educator, He the Great Teacher, John 3:2.
To the Engineer, He is the New and Living Way, Heb 10:20.
To the Farmer, He is the Sower and the Lord of Harvest, Matt 9:38
To the Florist, He is the Rose of Sharon and the Lilly of the Valley, Song of Solomon 2:1.
To the Geologist, He is the Rock of Ages, I Cor 10:4.
To the Jeweler, He is the Pearl of Great Price, Matt 13:46.
To the Philanthropist, He is the Unspeakable Gift, II Cor 9:15.
To the Philosopher, He is the Wisdom of God, I Cor 1:24.
To the Preacher, He is the Word of God, John 1:1.
To the Sculptor, He is the Living Stone, I Peter 2:4.
To the Artist, He the Altogether Lovely One, Song of Solomon 5:16.
To the Servant, He is the Good Master, Luke 18:18.
To the Student, He is the Incarnate Word, John 1:14.
To the Sinner, He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, John 1:29.

THE CREATION MODEL

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So creationism asserts that before there was anything of a physical or material nature, there was God, an eternal, all-powerful spiritual being, who spoke the world into existence over the course of six successive days. (See also Ps. 19:1; Rom. 1:20; Col. 1:16.)

THE REASONABLENESS OF GENESIS 1

1. Does it make sense that a Supreme Being, far greater than creation itself, is responsible for the astonishing universe that we know? Or, does it make more sense that it all came from some microscopic speck?
2. Does it make sense that one kind produces after its own kind? That is exactly what the Genesis 1 teaches (see vv. 12, 21, 24). Isn’t that what happens in real life and isn’t that what real science teaches, too?

RATIONAL QUESTIONS TO ASK

1. Does a creation demand a creator? Does design demand a designer? A pencil is a very simple tool, yet all understand that it had a maker. What about the universe and all that is in it? Hebrews 3:4 says, “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.”
2. Can life come from non-life? Is that what we learn from real science? Or, does it make more sense that life came from an All-powerful, eternal God?
3. Did the human mind come from mindlessness?
4. What about the emotion of human love? From God, or from evolution?
5. Where does morality come from? Can there be such a thing as morality if there is no moral law giver? If evolution is true, why do most people everywhere consider some things to simply be immoral? If human life is no more than matter that is alive, what is right and wrong? Who decides?

The Nuremberg Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany following WWII as a part of the International Military Tribunal’s effort to prosecute crimes against humanity committed by Nazi’s. The defense of the Nazi’s on trial stated that the defendants had done nothing in violation of German law but only carried out the directives assigned to them.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, one of the prosecuting attorneys said this, “As an International Military Tribunal, it rises above the provincial and transient and seeks guidance not only from international law but also from the basic principles of jurisprudence which are assumptions of civilization and which have long found embodiment in the codes all of nations” [The Trial of German Major War Criminals (1946 b), Thursday, 4th July, 1946, (Vol. 18, Part 7 of 8).  London:  His Majesty’s Stationery Office].

The argument was that there was something higher than German law and higher than international law. It was a law that rose above the “provincial and transient.” The point is that the Nazi’s were not guilty of a violation of any nation’s system of law, but a law that transcends the laws of this world.

CONCLUSION

The word “all” in our question: “Where Did It All Come From,” is very significant. Where did all matter come from? Where did humanity come from? What about plant life? What about all of the celestial bodies? What about the things on a microscopic level? What about life, consciousness and morality?

Where did it all come from? Genesis 1:1 states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Daren Schroeder

According to research done by the American Psychological Association in 2015, two of the top five sources of stress for adults in America were “family responsibilities,” and “health problems affecting the family.” We all understand that keeping a family healthy, happy, and whole is a challenge of everyday life. That challenge is often complicated by a difficult family member – a cousin, aunt/uncle, parent, or sibling – who creates problems instead of solving them.

Fortunately, the Christian has the Word of God and the people of God to rely on when facing challenges within the family. Even though we may face sickness or disunity, we are not left without support. God designed the family and He designed the church. He built both on the same foundation and framework. Ultimately, both rest on His authority. To be successful they both must rely on His Word. Here are four features of God’s family as revealed in His Word.

1. Through Jesus there is one spiritual family. This oneness involves both unity and singularity. God has only one spiritual family and that family must be united. Paul emphasizes both of these features in Ephesians. Ephesians 2:17–19 speaks to the unity of God’s family regardless of race and background. Ephesians 4:4 says “there is one body.”
2. God is the one Father of the one family. In Matthew 23:9, Jesus tells his followers to call no man father, “for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” God the Father provides for and leads His spiritual family, just as He instructs human fathers to do.
3. Jesus is the one Son. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” As the only Son, Jesus possesses all the rights to His Father’s inheritance. Yet, He has chosen to share that inheritance with…
4. Christians have been adopted into the spiritual family. The Father sent the Son to die for all people. Those who obey the Gospel, God adopts into HIs family. According to Romans 8:16–17, the Holy Spirit testifies within the Christian that we have been adopted into God’s family. What a beautiful design God has for the family, including the spiritual family we know as the church!

Clay Leonard

In one of his last great discourses, Jesus told his disciples, “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.” Just in my lifetime, and since World War 2, America has been in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, The Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has seen the Seven Day war, the Yom Kiper war, and now the war with Gaza.

But Jesus continued his statement with these words, “See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end (Mt. 24:6). No war is a sign of Jesus’ return. Jesus added other things that would happen in the world: disciples would be killed, there would be famines, tribulations, false prophets would arise, and hate and increased lawlessness (Mt. 25:8-13).

But here was the point of Jesus’ lesson, as he concluded: “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved” (Mt. 24:13). We live in a troubled world, true. These are difficult times for Christians around the world, many of whom are suffering and dying in these wars. We cannot end the killing, the famines, the hate, all of which we see on the evening news. But we can remain faithful to the Lord! We can be victorious over this troubled world if we endure to the end!

-Dennis Doughty

Life was significantly disrupted a few weeks ago in Athens, Greece.  Work was proceeding on a major construction project when a 500-pound bomb from World War 2 was unearthed.  Everything came to a stop as experts were called in.  For the next two days people were instructed to not travel in that neighborhood, and apartment buildings were evacuated.  On October 26 the bomb was defused without incident.  No explosion was involved, and everything turned out well.

Was it really necessary to cause such disruption in the lives of hundreds of residents?  Absolutely.  The bomb represented the potential for destruction had it been detonated.  True, seven decades had passed since the bomb was dropped from an aircraft, but it still possessed the power to destroy.

Earlier this year scientists in Europe set out to solve the massacre of 34 people whose remains from 5,000 years ago were found in a cave in Germany.  They constructed crude weapons, such as have been associated with “Stone Age” times and used the weapons to smash artificial skulls.  Though the weapons were simulated to be very, very old, they still had the power to be lethal.

To change the subject slightly, have you heard of the not in the devil’s tale?  “Tim, don’t you mean, ‘the knot in the devil’s tail’?”  No, I spelled it correctly, for in Genesis 3:4 Satan added the small word “not” to his tale to Eve.  Though God had warned that eating from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden would lead to death, Satan argued “You will not surely die.”  That old lie is still lethal.

This is an ancient weapon used by Satan to destroy good lives.  Isaiah 5:20 frames the problem with these words: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”  Such tactics will cause many to be lost.

An important principle to engrave on our hearts is this claim from Psalm 119:160: “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”  What does that mean?  That the words of God found in the Bible are true; they do not change over time.

The world commonly rejects what God has taught in favor of what their flesh desires.  “How can this be wrong when it feels so right?” in a song made famous by singer Barbara Mandrell in 1972.  That’s the problem in a nutshell; people will trust their feelings more than they trust God, and a bomb is detonated.  Behind it all Satan is whispering, “It is not wrong!  Go ahead; enjoy.”

Can we trust Jesus in John 10:10 when He rips the mask from Satan’s face to expose him as a thief, a murderer, and a destroyer?  On the other hand, Jesus stakes His own claim: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

The choice is ours to make: Do we trust the ancient words of the Son of God who gave His life for us, or will we turn instead to the “not” in the devil’s tale?  Choose wisely!

Come to the light God offers!  Study His word, the Bible.  Worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24).  Get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss these ideas further.

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Copyright, 2023, Timothy D. Hall.

A WORD ABOUT SCIENCE AND RELIGION

True science seeks to (or, ought to) take into account all of the evidence available in order to draw only warranted conclusions. That’s what real science does. Christians are not at war with real science… Christians are at war with bad science. They fight against accepting unproven theories taught as absolute truth.

Many times people of faith are viewed as weak and intellectually lazy. They are said to have invented God in order to feel better about themselves. They supposedly don’t know the scientific answers, so they are accused of just filling in the gap with God. They don’t know the scientific answer so they say, “God did that.” This is what many atheists call “the God of the Gaps.”

But it seems pretty ironic that atheists would use the word “gaps,” since there are so many gaps within the unsustainable theory of evolution. Sometimes people tend to accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of.

There is gap after gap after gap in the fossil record concerning intermediate states showing how one species evolved into another. Of course, if there is such a thing, why is the fossil record so profoundly distinct concerning specific species? It takes a lot of “faith” to believe that no intermediate states survived. If this slow process of evolution was true it would be preserved in an incredible fossil record showing a slow blending from one life into another. But strangely, the best we have is very artistic renditions of how it supposedly occurred!

While we are talking about the supposed transitioning of one kind into another, we should recognize that there is another insurmountable problem here. It is simply scientifically impossible for one kind to evolve into another. How would this incredibly slow evolution occur over periods of millions of years and not kill the organism in the process? How do body systems evolve and sustain life during the evolution? How did we obtain the functioning of the heart that we have today? How was life sustained when it was one fourth developed? How did it work together with other developing body systems and sustain life at the same time?

There are huge, insurmountable gaps that exist in the theory of evolution. We’ve only mentioned a couple.

THE EVOLUTIONARY MODEL:

The evolutionary model, in simple terms, states basically that around 13.8 billion years ago, there was a tiny, microscopic singularity that exploded and eventually gave rise to everything we now know, as well as everything we don’t know. Life itself began with the amoeba, and over millions of years slowly evolved into other more complex life-forms including human-beings that came on the seen about six million years ago.

Now, let’s ask just a couple very simple questions about this theory:

1. Where did the tiny, microscopic singularity come from? Evolutionists go back millions and billions of years because they think that makes a very unscientific theory seem more plausible. But if nothing existed 14 billion years ago, real science would tell us that nothing would exist today. Where did that singularity come from? They go back billions of years but when they get there, they have the very same problem they have now. Where did it come from?
2. Is this tiny singularity an adequate cause for what we see and know of this world today?

Think about what would come forth from this microscopic speck that supposedly existed in the beginning. Everything we see and all of which we have not yet discovered would have come from this speck. The sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the trees, the grass, the water, the animals, and mankind. All of these, and so much more, from a speck smaller than a grain of dust! That takes a lot of faith to believe!

Next time we will briefly plan to consider the biblical model of creationism as well as finish our thoughts on evolution.

Daren Schroeder

Does religious nourishment week to week matter? Many attend and many worship with other saints from home online or watching a religious service on television. We prefer worshiping in person and wish everyone could and would.

Gallup recently released a poll that the people who worshiped regularly were the only group that did not show mental decline during this crazy year of pandemic, social, and political unrest. In fact those who worshiped regularly actually reported an increase in mental well-being over the year 2019! While on average only 34% of Americans said their mental health was excellent, 46% of weekly worshipers said their mental health was excellent, an increase from 42% in 2019. Interestingly, weekly worshipers were the only group who reported that their mental health was excellent saw an increase during 2020!

Those who seldom/never attend worship, however, dropped significantly from 42% (2019) to 29% (2020) who rated their mental health as excellent.

Weekly spiritual nourishment during hard times actually brings better mental health.

Americans’ Mental Health Ratings Sink to New Low (gallup.com)

Phil Sanders

Nearly everyone is amazed when they see an old car, or an old piece of furniture restored to its original look. What can happen in the physical realm can also happen in the spiritual realm. From time to time, churches need to compare where they are and what they look like as compared to what the New Testament church looked like. We have had two thousand years pass since Christ established His church. During those years traditions have been bound, man-made doctrines have been enforced and human, fleshly desires have replaced God’s pattern. This has happened because churches have gotten away from the Bible, the standard that should have guided them. Therefore, churches look different, worship different, and take on different works than the church Jesus established.

To be able to restore anything one must know what the original looked like. It might be pictures of old cars or furniture or maybe there is a description of what the original looked like. That same principle is true when one restores the New Testament church. Fortunately, we have the inspired Word of God which tells us about the original church (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Traits Which Need to Be Restored

    First, churches must restore their authority. All “Christian Churches” claim that the Bible is their authority, but nearly all denominational churches have a creed book or some source to guide them in addition to the Bible. Someone has said, “If a creed book says more than the Bible it says too much; if a creed book says less than the Bible, it doesn’t say enough; if a creed book says the same thing as the Bible, it is not needed.” If churches are going to be the New Testament church they must get rid of all other authorities and let the Bible be their only authority. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). With this authority churches can determine how they are to worship, how they are to be organized, what they are supposed to do, and how the members should live.

The greatest principle for biblical restoration is found in Colossians 3:17. “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” “In the name of” means that we must have authority from Christ to do whatever we plan to do in and through the church. In other words, God must tell us what He wants us to do. We do not have the right to do whatever we want to do. Just because we like something does not mean that God accepts it. We only know what God wants in all aspects of the church, by finding a verse that commands us to do something. Lacking God’s authority for what churches do has been the major reason churches have drifted away from the New Testament pattern.

    Second, churches must restore the kind of government they have. Nearly all denominational churches have a “Pastor” who is in charge of the church. Modern-day churches call their preachers “pastor.” In the Bible, just because one preached, did not make him a pastor. In the Bible those who preached were called “ministers,” “evangelists,” and “preachers.” The New Testament churches were overseen by a group of men, not one man. That group was called “elders,” “shepherds,” “pastors,” “bishops.” God never intended for His people to be governed by one man who was called a “Pastor.”

According to the New Testament, when a church was established, it was the Lord’s church (His spiritual body) in that community. That group of Christians was the body of Christ. They were autonomous which means that they were their own “boss” to determine, according to the Bible, how they were to carry out the work God assigned the church to accomplish. They did not answer to any authority except God and the Bible. Today, most churches have some earthly headquarters that govern the local congregation. That is an unauthorized form of government!

    Third, churches must restore the kind of worship that is to be offered in the assembly. Most people have come to believe that anything one wants to offer to God is acceptable in His sight and He is pleased that we do it. No, that is not what the Bible teaches. God only accepts worship through the avenues He has authorized. We see the seriousness of doing only what God commands from an Old Testament event. When God began His authorized worship with the activities of the tabernacles, two priests were to take a certain fire and put it on the altar. They decided to get fire from another source. What difference would that make – fire is fire. But it did make a difference. One was authorized by God, the other was not authorized by Him. “Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD” (Leviticus 10:1-2). The word “strange” simply meant that it was unauthorized by God. God then explained why He killed those two men. “By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored” (Leviticus 10:3). When we offer worship which God has not authorized, we do not recognize His holiness and do not honor Him!

New Testament churches, offered worship, only through what God authorized! They sang without the use of mechanical instruments of worship (Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 5:19). They remembered Christ’s death by partaking of communion (The Lord’s Supper) each Sunday (Acts 20:7; Luke 22:19; Acts 2:42).  They studied God’s word (Acts 2:42; 20:7). They prayed together (I Corinthians 14:15). They also gave free-will offerings to support the work that the church is to accomplish (I Corinthians 16:1-2; 2 Corinthians 8-9). Many churches today have become business organizations and raise their funds through businesses rather than free-will offerings.

Through the years, man-made churches have added more and more musical instruments until many of them have full-blown bands. Rather than worship coming from the hearts and mouths of individuals to honor God, worship has become a place of entertainment. Man has become the focus rather than God being the one to be honored.

Our Purpose

As most of you know, Weezie and I, along with Mac Graham and C Jay Martin, have come to Littleton, New Hampshire to restore the New Testament church. There are many different kinds of man-made churches in the area, but they have departed from that New Testament pattern. We are here to call men and woman, who are truth-seekers, back to the Bible and to be the church that Jesus established (Matthew 16:13-19; Acts 2). We are calling on man-made Christians, to become New Testament Christians and to become part of Christ’s church. We ask for your prayer in our effort of sowing the seed of the kingdom among the 90,000 people who live in Grafton County.

Wayne Burger