Does Faith Save? Stuart
Brogden Dec 2001
Philip
Yancey has described salvation with a vivid word picture that warrants
scrutiny. I’ve added a bit to it as I
reflected on several things recently.
Let’s
begin with a baseline on a couple of issues with scripture. These aren’t the only verses that address
these issues, maybe not even the best ones – but they are His words on the
topic.
1.) Galatians 3:24 tells us
“…the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith.” The purpose of the
law is not save us, but to show us that we cannot save ourselves.
2.) In John 6:65 Christ tells
us “that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my
Father.” In our natural, sinful
condition we are unable to seek after God – He pursues us.
3.) Acts 3:19 says “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out”. The call to salvation requires a change of heart, as no heart of flesh can inherit the Kingdom of Christ.
4.) Ephesians 2:8&9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Nothing we can do can cause God to love us more or love us less.
5.) In Acts 4:12, Peter –
speaking of Christ - tells us “there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved.”
No cheap substitute can pay the price to gain you and me admittance to
heaven.
6.) Finally, consider John
10:27-29: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I
give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all;
and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.” A guarantee that we are sealed by God unto
life eternal.
Keep
these truths in mind as I paint this picture, from Yancey’s book.
You
are in your 6th floor apartment, where you live a comfortable,
carefree life. Everything is fine, your
problems are minimal; you have no need of a savior – no need at all which you
cannot meet.
Suddenly,
you hear a fire alarm and, as you open your door, you discover your entire
floor in engulfed in a raging fire! You
cannot make it to the stairs; so back into your apartment, you rush. Not so safe and carefree any more. Frightened, anxious, unsure of how – or if –
you will survive.
The
fire shows us our need for a way out of our circumstances.
In
the midst of your fear, you hear a voice calling you to the window. As you peer through the opening, you see the
firemen on the street below, urging you to jump!
You
know that jumping from the window of a sixth floor window is normally
suicide. Before the fire, your
apartment was luxurious, comfortable, safe – you had no sane reason to
jump. You would never have considered
it! But now your apartment is a
dangerous place where you will surely die if you don’t get out. Jumping may be worth the risk. Moreover, the firemen are telling you that
you must jump if you want to save your life.
As
you look out the window, you see that the firemen are holding a safety net for
you to jump into. The firemen look
professional, the net looks strong. But
it’s a long way down from your window.
Can the firemen and the net be trusted?
If you jump and the net turns out be made of brown paper rather than
canvas, you chose wrong and are dead.
If you jump and the firemen are sadistic or untrustworthy and yank the
net away or let go of it, you chose wrong and are dead. Only if the fireman who’s calling you to
jump is trustworthy and his net strong can you be assured of survival.
Yet
no matter how strong the net, how reliable the firemen – you’re dead unless you
jump. No amount of knowledge about the
net or the fire brigade will keep the fire from consuming you. The fire demands you to choose. The fireman calls you to jump.
You
consider the situation. It’s not
fair! You didn’t cause the fire, yet
your life is wrecked. The fire has caused
all the vermin that inhabited the apartment with you – unseen, unnoticed – to
come out into the open seeking escape.
You had no idea so many nasty bugs were in your walls! The fire didn’t cause the bugs to live with
you; the fire simply forced them into the open. The fire revealed the filth of your environment, the squalor of
your life and forces you to look elsewhere for life itself.
You
can’t escape on your own – you have to trust someone telling you to jump 80
feet into a net! Your own reasoning
tells you to lay low until the danger passes; that the fire isn’t all that
dangerous and will soon be put out. But
hotter and louder it roars and you know it will consume you. If not for the fire, you might not have ever
known you were living in filth.
So
you jump – knowing that jumping won’t save you. Jumping is worthless unless those firemen and that net are there
and do their job. Will they? You won’t know that unless you jump. So you jump.
And
the firemen are all they claimed to be and the net was strong and sure. You were in danger of losing your life to
the fire, but were saved by the firemen and their net after you heard them
calling you and jumped from your “safe” apartment, falling securely into their
grip.
One
more thing about jumping out of the window – once you jump, you can’t go
back. Having trusted the firemen and
the net enough to jump out of the window from 80 feet up, there’s no way for
you to un-jump and get back into the fire even if you wanted to.
So
our lives are here in the flesh. Often
comfortable to the extent that we fail to recognize the dangers of evil. Living
with all sorts of hidden evil, trying to manage our sin in the same way that we
manage ants and roaches – with a superficial treatment to eliminate the
evidence.
Then
comes the law, exposing what was in darkness and driving us to the knowledge
that we are dead and in desperate need of a savior. Faithful to His promises, almighty God calls you to accept what
makes no sense – another died that you might live. All you need do is answer His call and fall – jump out the window
– into His safety net of saving grace, held tightly by Christ Jesus – the One
who will never let go.
As
with the fire, the law doesn’t save you – it convicts you that are sinful and need
Christ. As with your jump, your
faith isn’t what saves you – it’s the One in whom you place that faith that
saves. Christ saves to the
utmost, beyond what man can imagine, beyond what man or Satan can affect or
undo.
A
fire is sweeping across our country and the world. Filth is being exposed.
People are looking for answers, seeking security. Tell them about Jesus! He saves!
Tell your neighbors – Jesus saves!
No other name in heaven – ain’t no name on earth or in hell that saves –
only Jesus. And Jesus saves completely,
beyond all your sin, beyond all the enemy’s accusations, beyond your wildest
dreams. You can trust Him – we must
trust Him completely or be consumed in the fire.