What must I do to be saved?

Both in the Greek and English there are two words that are very similar in meaning – “jealousy” and “envy.” Here is a good explanation of the differences in the two words. “While often used interchangeably, envy’ refers to wanting something someone else has, while ‘jealousy’ is the fear of losing something one has.

God gave the nation of Israel a king because they wanted one rather having God as their king (I Samuel 8:6). He gave them Saul because he was the kind of king the people wanted. It wasn’t long into his reign until he disobeyed God twice (I Samuel 13; 15) and God took the kingdom away from him, even though God allowed him to continue to reign for a number of years.

Even while Saul reigned, God selected David to be the next King. At first Saul had a good relationship with David, but as David’s popularity grew, Saul became very jealous of David. After David defeated the Philistines the woman sang a song which said, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (I Samuel 18:7). This, of course, made Saul even more jealous of David.

The traits of jealousy he demonstrated can be found in any of us who becomes jealous of what others have. Note the traits of jealousy manifested in Saul that the Holy Spirit recorded in I Samuel 18. (They will be listed in the order in which they are found in the text).

    Anger – “Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him” (v. 8). He was jealous of the praise that the women were giving David. He wanted that kind of praise. A jealous person today becomes very angry when he or she sees another’s popularity growing. The jealous person wants others to see him or her as “the best.”

    Suspicion – Saul said, “Now what more can he have but the kingdom?” (v. 8). This text shows that in Saul’s mind he became very suspicious of David. His mind imagined all kinds of activities which would take attention away from himself. At this point David may not have even known that Saul was jealous of him.

When one becomes jealous of another, he sees every action of the other person as an attack on his or her popularity. Whereas the one who is creating this jealousy doesn’t even know his or her actions are even noticed by the one who is jealous.

    Fear – Because Saul had disobeyed God, God had rejected him but let him continue to reign. Because Saul was angry with David and suspicious of his every action, he now began to fear him. Actually, he was afraid that David might take from him his praise and  popularity. Saul saw himself declining in the eyes of others and David increasing in popularity. “Now Saul was afraid of David” (v. 12). He is not afraid David would physically kill him; He was afraid of losing his high status with the people. Jealousy makes anyone afraid of losing popularity with people. The one who is jealous wants to be “Number One” in other people’s eyes. Losing that popularity makes one fearful because he or she feels insecure.

    Dread – “When Saul saw that he (David) was prospering greatly he dreaded him” (v. 15). People who are filled with jealousy dread being around the one for whom they are jealous. They dread the feelings of losing people’s popularity. They dread what else they may lose to their opponent.

    Plot – Saul wanted to get rid of David so he told David that he would give his oldest daughter to him if he would fight against the Philistines, thinking the Philistines would kill David. That way, he would get rid of his source of jealousy, but not be guilty of killing him, himself.

Being jealous can cause one to do all in his or her power to get rid of the one to whom he or she feels inferior. That may be done through character assassination – spreading lies about that person. Pointing out his or her faults so that the person he or she is jealous of  will not look so good and at the same time make the one who is jealous look better.

    An Enemy Continuously – When nothing Saul did exalted himself and lowered David in the eyes of the people the text says, “Then Saul was even more afraid of David. Thus Saul was David’s enemy continually” (v. 29). After a long period of time of being jealous, one then cannot get that person out of his mind and so it is a continuous dread that fills the mind. By being jealous of another, he or she actually, mentally, makes himself a slave to the one he or she is jealous of.

The Answer to Jealousy

What can you do if you are the person someone dreads because he or she is jealous of you? There is probably nothing you can do to change the mind of the one who is jealous of you. But, what you can do is revealed in the text about David. “David behaved himself more wisely than all the servant of Saul. So his name was highly esteemed” (v. 30).

Wayne Burger

During 2020 (Covid year), one of the men here at Swartz Creek and I had some mock debates which we posted on the church’s Facebook page. We started with each point of Calvin’s Tulip. Calvin and his followers believe that God’s sovereignty is ultimate to such an extent that there is no free choice. Some Calvinist scholars say there is free choice, but humans can only choose evil. Then there are some Calvinists who believe that free choice is only an illusion. Man is so evil and corrupt that he cannot, on his own, make good choices.

The implication of this position is that God is responsible for all the evil in the world. Calvinists will deny that; they will agree that man is responsible for evil. But if God has chosen by His sovereign will all the events and actions and choices that man makes, then God is responsible for the evil choices which are made. You cannot get around the implications of the doctrine.

But, of course, the Bible teaches that man is free, to make good choices and to make bad choices. As Dr. Norman Geisler stated, “Forced love is rape.” Love allows choices, even if they are unpleasant choices. And sometimes our choices can conflict with God’s choices for us. The text that shows this point so very clearly is Matthew 23:37:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”

The NASV’s translation obscures the fact that Jesus’ “wanted” and the Jews’ “unwilling” is the same verb. Jesus wanted one thing; the Jews wanted something different. So human choice, human freedom, can work against God’s will.

So God gives man choices. Was it God’s will for me and the team of which I was a part to preach the gospel in Romania? Well, it is God’s will that men and women hear the gospel and obey it (1 Tim. 2:3-4). Things worked out for us pretty well while we were there. But we also came back to America two years before we had originally intended. Did we work against God’s will by doing that? The Bible does not give any indication that God has made plans for each one of us like that.

Was it God’s will for me to preach in Paris, KY? I chose to move there (nobody else offered me a job!). God blessed me and my family while we were there. Was it God’s will for me to preach in Swartz Creek, MI? I have been blessed since I moved here; but it was my choice. There is no biblical evidence that God speaks to men outside of the Bible and there is no Bible verse that says, “Paul must preach in such and such a place.”

If I were to move to Idaho, back to Romania, or Zambia, God would either open the door for such a move or close it. But either way, He would allow me to make my own choice. And He would bless me if I were seeking to honor Him in whatever I did (1 Cor. 10:31).

Paul Holland

The essence of “providence” in contrast with God’s miraculous works is that the latter were visible, associated with God’s spokesmen, and confirmed their word as of divine origin while the former is not visible in such a way. In other words, when God is working providentially, it is not possible to point to some act that happened and say, “God did this.”

While we were living in Romania, I received an email from a brother in Christ, J. C. Choate in Mississippi. He edited a Readers-Digest sized spiritual magazine called The Voice of Truth International (which I believe is still published). Some saint had left a copy of the VoTI on the train in Romania after their visit. A young man named Daniel, who had just finished college, was traveling back home from Bucharest to his village close to the Ukrainian border called Sighetu Mărmației. He found that magazine and read it with interest.

Daniel then wrote J. C. and told him he wanted to know more about the church of Christ. J. C. wrote me with Daniel’s contact information. I started sending Daniel Bible study material. We corresponded. When I learned he was in the Baptist Church, I sent him the copy of the Spiritual Sword issue on the Baptist Church and told him to ask me any questions. One Wednesday night after we returned home from Bible study, Daniel called and his one question dealt with the thief on the cross. I studied the question with him.

A week later, he called me wanting me to baptize him for the forgiveness of sins. It took a 13-hour train ride to get to him, and Eric, one of my coworkers, and I traveled to Sighetu Mărmației and we baptized Daniel for the forgiveness of his sins.

Was it God’s will that Daniel be baptized for the forgiveness of sins? Absolutely. The Bible teaches that. Was it God’s will that Eric and I be the ones to do it? Perhaps. It worked out that way, didn’t it? Was it God’s will that the Christian left a copy of VoTI on the train? Well, we know that neither God nor the Holy Spirit told the Christian to do that. Deity does not work that way. But it worked out well, didn’t it?

When Onesimus ran away from Philemon, he came into contact with the apostle Paul who taught him the gospel. Certainly it was God’s will that Onesimus obey the gospel. But even the inspired Paul himself said that “perhaps” Onesimus ran away and came into contact with Paul so he could learn the truth (Philemon 15).

Here is the point… when it comes to God’s providence, we ask the question: “What is God doing?” And we have to answer, “We don’t know, not exactly.” But He sure works in order to bless His children and bring the truth into the hearts and minds of those who desire to hear it.

Paul Holland

In 18th century France, the writer Voltaire despised his religious heritage and believed that common people should not read the Bible. Ironically, after his death, the house he lived in while at Geneva was sold to Colonel Henri Tronchin, who was a lay president of the recently founded Evangelical Society of Geneva and reportedly used part of the house to store Bibles and other religious materials.

While the atheist and the skeptic reject the Bible as the outdated imaginings of uneducated nomadic peoples, the Scriptures serve as a proof for God’s existence. In Romans 1:20, Paul says God’s invisible attributes are seen in the creation. From a logical perspective, if the characteristics of God may be shown from creation, and one of those characteristics is that the God who exists is a personal God, then this God should communicate since communication is essential to personality. The Bible serves as a record of this communication.

Just as Psalm 19:1–6 provided the first reason to believe in God, Psalm 19:7–11 offers the second reason to believe. God has revealed Himself in His Word. David refers to the Word in several terms: law, precepts, commandment, fear, rules, and testimony. This last speaks to the Word itself being a witness of, from, and for God. Since the biblical authors repeatedly claim their message is not their own but is from God, the Bible should demonstrate characteristics in keeping with those that may be discerned about God by looking at the creation.

The Bible speaks of God’s limitless power to create and records how He created all that exists. It records His perfection in knowledge; the wisdom and intricacies of design, evident throughout the creation, reflect these characteristics. From the creation, one may deduce that the God who exists is not limited to a particular time or place. The Scriptures also attest to these characteristics. In short, the revelation of God in the world and the revelation of God in the Word agree in their testimony.

There is a God! Believe He exists. He has revealed Himself in the world and in His Word.

Clay Leonard

One of the major philosophical debates in the world centers on the nature of truth. One side argues that truth is objective. It is discovered through rational observation and collection of data that is then processed according to established principles of logic. Since it is objective, it may be known by anyone willing to make the effort to pursue it correctly.

On the other side of the debate, some argue that truth is subjective. It is knowable only through personal experiences that are then filtered through one’s own emotions. Since it is subjective, there may be multiple “truths” in a given situation, each one equally valid, even if logically they contradict one another.

The sides of this debate weigh heavily on the discussion of God’s existence. Can a person know God exists? If it is true that God exists, is that truth subjective (possible to know personally but not universally) or objective (universally knowable)?

The inspired writers offer many reasons to believe in God. For the majority of those living throughout history, belief in God was assumed universally. “Atheism” as it exists today did not really appear in ancient cultures. The Bible’s writers present their belief in God in ways that appeal both to logic and emotion. Biblical faith in God involves accepting objective truth, but that does not mean biblical faith is impersonal.

Having established that biblical faith rests on objective truths, here is the first of seven reasons to believe in God: He has revealed Himself in the World (Psalm 19:1–6). In Psalm 19, David points to the natural world as evidence or proof of God’s glory. David’s point is not so much that God exists (this he already assumes), but that the heavens and the celestial bodies within them (sun, moon, and stars) fulfilling their purposes announce God’s glory. In Romans 1:20, Paul explicitly argues that God’s attributes, and thus His very existence, are revealed in the creation.

There is wisdom in beginning with creation when proving the existence of God. Many people do not accept the Bible as inspired. They do not believe God exists at all. Looking at the world provides an opportunity to discuss God’s existence outside of the many debates surrounding the Bible.

Order, beauty, and balance – these are but a few of the attributes of God reflected in the creation. Additionally, there are entire classes of argumentation for the existence of God that find their foundations in appealing to the creation or aspects of it. These include cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments for the existence of God. God has revealed Himself in the world; believe in Him!

Clay Leonard