Salvation Quiz

And other people are out doing other things, and so I thought, well, what should we do tonight? Anytime the pastor asks that question, there's usually an answer, and that answer comes in the form of a handout.

And so we have a quiz tonight, congregation. And I want to engage you, and I want to talk a little bit about the greatness of the Savior's work at Calvary. This morning we looked at the substitutionary aspect, those 11 aspects of Isaiah 53, and how Jesus died in our place on our behalf.

And tonight I want to look at some other words. You know, Machen once said, everyone uses big words at work, but when it comes to the Bible, no three-syllable words, nothing but monosyllabic words. We don't want to hear justification, propitiation, all these big words.

We want it just watered down. But tonight we're going to have an experience of looking at what the Bible says using these big words. God wants you to know. And if you do know them, you will see the facets of the diamond of salvation much better.

This may be a review for some, but you can always be reminded, even if you know these words in Greek, that we have a great Savior who paid the ultimate price to give us wonderful salvation. So my goal tonight is not for you to hand these in, but for you to just be reminded again how great God is and what He provided at Calvary.

You'll see that the handouts first have a set of words there, and I gave you the first letter so you would get an idea. There's one that you could use two words, but then there's true and false at the bottom.

My goal is not for you necessarily to know them all immediately, but by the end of the night so you might know them. These are all words and all discussions of true and false regarding salvation and what happened at Calvary, maybe some man-centered, maybe some God-centered.

So why don't you just take a moment and go ahead and see if you can fill some of those out and then we'll look at the Bible and what it says about each one. My goal tonight is for you to better understand and then have an increased thankfulness for God's saving you.

If you're not a Christian, my goal would be for you to see what greatest salvation it would be for you to be saved and for you to bow your knee and no longer spit in the face of God and deny Him His ownership in your life.

Go ahead and take a minute to do this. I'll give you a few minutes. Before I came up to do this, Kim asked for the answer key and I did not give it to her. Oh, they're not working? I just pulled them out of the secretary's office.

The only ones I'll collect tonight are from the elders and they better have 100%. It's open book, sure. That's the great thing about seminary and the great thing about the church is if you have a Bible, it's open book.

We do quizzes about once a year here on Sunday nights and I'm always interested to know who the visitors will be as they come in and say, this is a quiz for Sunday nights. Bill, can I tell the story about you and your first time here at the church?

Bill and I were painting the house last night and just talking, having good fellowship and Bill said, I knew this church was for me because the first time I attended Bethlehem Baptist Church, elders excommunicated a man who left his wife and he said, I want to be at a church that if I sin, the elders will come after me.

He said, that was my first day here. I thought, praise the Lord. You need some more time? How are you doing? Alright, a couple more minutes and we can kind of go together on some of this too. Scott Goddard, I'd like you to write them down in Greek, please.

I can just hear your friends now. Did you watch the Super Bowl? No, I had a Bible class. I had a quiz. Alright, maybe let's just do one more minute. Even if you're not finished, we'll go ahead and wrap it up.

Lord willing, once we get into this new home, we're going to start a Bible study at our home on one of the weeknights and I'll probably do quizzes almost every single time we get together just because it helps you learn.

It's one thing if I'm just up here speaking, it's kind of one way, but when you're actually involved and yes, I got that right or no, I didn't, I think that's a good way to learn with this question and answer quiz style.

Alright, well, let's just stop now and let's just work through this. I'm going to do this almost like a question and answer time where I'm going to ask the congregation the questions and you can formulate some of the thoughts.

I'll rough the edges out a little bit or smooth them over rather and we can work through this together. Again, my purpose tonight is I want you to make sure you understand the glory of our salvation. Isn't it true when you first get saved, you understand Jesus died for me.

I'm a sinner, Jesus died for my sins at Calvary and he was raised from the dead and God confirmed that. Then you become more and more of a Bible student and you become deeper in your knowledge of that very fact.

Wow, Jesus was treated as a sinner even though he wasn't. God treats me like I was righteous even though I'm not and you start understanding that. You understand all the different facets and you, I think, if you're the average person, you'll be more thankful as you understand these ideas.

Even if you're not more thankful, you still need to understand what God has done at Calvary with all the different terms. Propitiation is in the Bible, redemption, reconciliation, justification. They're all in there and God wants you to know them.

We don't want to be biblically illiterate people. We want to know the depth and joys of salvation. So let's go through these. I'll ask you some questions for those of you who might be new Sunday night.

If you'd like to just raise your hand and I'll call on you, we'll do it that way and then we'll look to the text. New Testament terms that summarize our salvation. There's a variety of those and I just picked out a few.

Number one, when the sinner stands before God as accused but is declared righteous, that is what? Justification. Justification. What does that really mean, justification? There's an easy way to remember what it is with a children's kind of rhyme but it's not very complete and it's not that biblical.

Justification we teach kids, what do we say? Just as if I've never sinned. The only problem is what happens the next time I sin? And so I don't know if I ever use that with kids. If I do, I say it and then I expand it a little bit more.

Who could tell me what justification is? What kind of picture? Is this a farming picture? Is this a church picture? Yes, Dave. Okay, so if we were thinking about a TV show, I would be thinking about Perry Mason.

We're here, this is a judicial scene, a courtroom scene and something's going on and the judge has the authority to say you're guilty or not guilty. Steve, you were going to say something? Okay, I'm going to use that for something else.

Let's hold that off but that's excellent. Let's turn to Romans chapter three and see this legal act where God takes the gavel, He slams it down and He says what? Not guilty. You're justified. I declare you with my authority and with my rights and my privileges of God of the universe based on my son's life and death, you are acquitted.

And this is certainly by the grace of God. It's something that is done to us. You will notice that many, many things that happen tonight are not things that we do. Salvation is outside of us. In Latin, that would be extra nos.

It's something outside of us. We are passive in salvation. We are recipients of salvation. We don't come up with it. Even when you give your testimony, maybe tonight would be helpful if you remember these words so you might give God glory.

When you give your testimony and you say, not when I repented, the day I believed, you could say when God saved me, when God justified me, when God came into my life and He's the one that redeemed me from my sins.

I think that is more honoring to God than this is the day that I figured out my salvation, whatever we might say. Look at here in Romans 3 .21 to set it up a little bit as we see this declaration of righteousness.

By the way, there's a big war going on out there in evangelical circles. What does justification mean? And you'll see a lot of people attacking this very doctrine and I think they do that to their harm because it is very important.

And this is part of the key to the gospel. But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. How righteous is God? Very righteous. Being witnessed by the law and prophets. And here we come to the central place of the epistle and of the whole Bible, Luther said.

Calvin said, there's not probably in the whole Bible a passage which sets forth more profoundly the righteousness of God in Christ. I mean, we're boiling it down here to the very essence. Even the righteousness of God, His righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.

Certainly, he's thinking Jew and Gentile distinctions here. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the very interesting thing, to give you a little primer on Greek, when I say it's a present tense in Greek, that means it's a habitual thing.

It's something that's continual and that's exactly that word here. They've fallen short. They keep falling short. They habitually fall short. You're going to stand down at, is it Woods Hole? And try to jump to Martha's Vineyard.

You try once and you try 1 ,000 times and I might be a better jumper than you guys are. I used to do the triple jump in junior high. Hop, skip and jump or whatever you do and I can go farther. But all of us are going to meet the same end.

It's going to be cold and we will not make it. And this is habitual. This is why God has to do something for us. Being justified, and there's that word, to be declared righteous as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

Here on the basis of what Jesus has done, His perfect life, His merits, His righteousness, His saying yes to God's law in every case, with His mind, with His heart, with His soul, with all His actions, we have this justification.

Verse 25, and God's made it very obvious. I'm almost getting into some other big words that I don't want to, but I'll just read this verse anyway. Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. He was very kind as He would hold back the floodgates of His wrath that we so deserved.

I've got a question for you, class. Does justification change you on the inside? Does it make you more holy, in other words? Answer, no. That would be Roman Catholic justification, which somehow on the inside, it affects us.

Regeneration affects us, but justification is just a declaration. Mike Abendroth, wicked as he may be, is right in my eyes. He's from God's perspective. That's why I said, as we look at this viewed manward in your handout there, man has sinned and broken God's standard.

Man was in need of receiving the righteousness of God to enter into fellowship with Him. Basically, God says, you have my son's righteousness, I declare you not guilty. All right, let's go to the second one.

The sinner stands before God as a slave and is granted freedom by ransom. What's that R word? Redemption. What do we have right up the street? Is there a little, read the redemption rock. That's exactly right.

Who can tell me about redemption? Who could paint the picture? If you're going to teach an eighth grade class, how could you do that? How would you describe redemption with some kind of other models of redeeming people?

We're gonna go down to the redemption center and bring all our two liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew down there. Excuse me, polar soda. All right, go ahead. Great, that's a great way to think about it.

Remember last week in Hosea chapter three? Hosea had to go buy Gomer out of a slave market. Can you imagine? Most likely, she's standing there naked. She has chains on, and he's sitting there saying, five shekels.

And some other man says, no, six shekels. And he's like, ten shekels. And another guy says, 14 shekels. And he says, 15 shekels. The other guy says, 20 shekels. And finally, he says, 15 shekels of silver and the equivalent of barley.

And then no one else outbids. And so here we are, slaves to sin. And how can we get out? Everything we do is tainted by sin. And how can somehow we get out of our own skin? We cannot. Can you think of a good Bible verse to look up where it says we have redemption?

We've been redeemed. We've been bought with a price. Yes, great. And what's the reference there? Excellent, let's go there, Ephesians 1 -7. You didn't think I was gonna preach from Ephesians today, did you?

You thought I was preaching part two. But let's look at Ephesians. This is wonderful. We were slaves and God has granted us freedom. You can think of all the stories of John Newton being actually a slave himself and also being taking care of slaves, if you can call it that.

And he's been on both sides of it. And here we have people we have been purchased out of a marketplace. This is amazing. Ephesians 1 -7, it says, in him we have redemption. Redeemed slaves, you think about in the old days, in the Civil War and all kinds of other things.

But if you were a Jew and you heard the word redemption, what would come into your mind more than anything else? Remember, we've gotta have that Jewish mindset as we look at the scriptures. You were a Jew and you heard the word redemption.

It was a paradigm for salvation and you would think of one thing and one thing only, and that would be the Exodus. You have been redeemed. God redeemed you out of there. Listen to Deuteronomy 7 -8. But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh of Egypt.

I think of Boaz, redeemed the land belonging to Naomi's husband. I think about a slave unable to free himself, but he could be freed by a relative. And why did Jesus have to become a human being? Because in a sense, he would be our relative.

He would be a human who could redeem someone from his own family. Now, this word here, redemption, in Ephesians 1 -7, basically means, well, let me ask you the question. What does it mean to redeem? Can anybody tell me generally what that means?

Excellent. It comes from a root word, literal, and it means to obtain release by payment of a price. What was the price? What was the currency? What were we using to trade? What were we using to buy out?

Monopoly money? Christ's blood. Could he have just bled? We're just going to go ahead and bleed into a pool like that old Charlton Heston science fiction movie, Omega Man, and as long as you got the blood, you were okay from that disease.

Just his blood? What does blood mean? His life. And by Christ's sacrificial, vicious death, he has redeemed us. And you'll notice the passage here, in him we have. I don't want to re-preach you Ephesians 1, but it's an ongoing thing.

We have that. New Testament redemption. Titus 2 -14, he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. 1 Peter 1 -18, knowing that you were redeemed not with precious things like silver or gold, but with precious blood.

By the way, do you notice it says in him, there's no redemption in anyone else, not yourself, not other people, not Buddha, not Confucius, not Gandhi, not you fill in the blanks. If you notice on your sheet, this word is viewed sinward.

Mankind was in bondage to sin and is in need of release from bondage and slavery to sin. You'll be blessed by this quote by Wheeler. If I had the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of John, the meekness of Moses, the strength of Samson, the obedience of Abraham, the compassion of Joseph, the tears of Jeremiah, the poetic skill of David, the prophetic voice of Elijah, the courage of Daniel, the greatness of John the Baptist, the endurance and love of Paul, I would still need redemption through Christ's blood.

It's true. We have to have redemption from that slave pit of sin. Okay, good. So far, how are you doing? Two for two. This is not like salvation where you have to obey the law perfectly. There is grace here.

All right, number three. The sinner stands before God as a debtor. We owe, we've done sin, we've done the wages of sin, and the debt has been paid for and is forgotten. What do we call that? Forgiveness, that's exactly right.

Here again is a legal act, forgiveness. Can you think of a Bible verse that talks about forgiveness for all our sins? There's a man who's on the radio, a very destructive ministry. His name's Bob George, and he believes that once you ask God for forgiveness at salvation, you no longer need to ask for forgiveness every other time you sin.

And I would tell you that that is not only unbiblical, but just try it. You will not be able to function in life going around never asking for forgiveness. Where's one of the best passages on forgiveness, where you think God has forgiven every sin, past, present, and future?

They're all gone. That's a great one, I like that one. That's not the one I was thinking of. That's excellent, yes? 1 John 1, 9, that's a good one too. All right, the one I was thinking about, and since I'm the one behind the pulpit, we'll go to the verse I picked, Colossians chapter 2.

Let's look there. Here we have forgiveness, and we have this great debt. We have worked hard to sin. Sometimes the Bible speaks about evil people who will not go to bed unless they sin. People sweat to sin.

They work to sin. They toil. They love their sin. By the way, sin is fun for a season, but then it's anti-uptime. Colossians 2, 13, when you were dead in your transgressions, in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven.

Does anybody remember there what the root word is, forgiven? He's graced us. The root word there has the root word of a favor, our grant, our grace. He's graced us all our transgressions. It's all of God's grace, 100%.

He's forgiven us all of our sins. Can you think of any kind of sins? I wrote down a few. Ignorant, high-handed, original, from Adam, actually that we've done, past, present, future, with our thoughts, with our words, with our deeds, sins of omission, sins of commission.

I mean, they are gone. Can you imagine just when Pilgrim, when he looked at the cross finally, and he had the burden of all his sins on his back, it just was that relief. It was that release. Psalm 32 says, verse 1, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

And I'll tell you, I lived long enough as an unbeliever until I was 29 years old, and I would do anything for my conscience just to be kind of balmed and soothed. And I don't care if it was alcohol or drugs or whatever it was, just soothe my conscience.

I knew I was sinful. I just didn't want to say, yes, Lord, I want you to be my Savior, but I don't want you to be my Lord. And the last time I checked, Acts chapter 2 said that the Father has made him both Lord and Savior.

Okay, so we've got forgiveness, we've got redemption, we've got all these other things, by the way your sheet says, quote, this is viewed manward, man had sinned and needed to have his sins dealt with and removed.

There's all kinds of other words for forgiveness. It just kind of, to go away is another word. Micah 7 .18 says, who is a God like thee who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession?

What other God does that? I'm used to having these wicked gods back in the New Testament time and the Old Testament time, the Canaanite gods who would exact punishment and, you know, here we go again.

That one Star Trek episode where there's that big, huge dragon and they have to come over and bring it fruit baskets when it's mad or have to bring it young virgins and girls, you know, somehow don't get so mad.

What kind of God have you ever came up with in the universe? Zeus or Hermes or anyone else who says, you know, I'll forgive you and I'll forgive you because I'll punish my own son. Who made that up? Nate, I have to tell you the story about Nate since this is a family time.

I've been always discussing 2 Peter chapter 3 about how God will melt this world with a fervent heat and a roar, remember? And that word there, the new heavens and the new earth, it's not new out of new material, it's new out of existing material.

So, God will take this globe and he will burn it and purify it with fire and make it new. And by the way, then that's when heaven will come down and all that stuff and land on this earth, but that's new.

And so, Nate said to me the other day, he said, that's just like that Star Trek number three where it's the Genesis effect where that one thing happens and just burns it all. So, those of you who know Star Trek know it.

Those of you that don't, I'll get an F in homiletics for tonight. But which God does that? Baal doesn't do that. Ashtaroth doesn't do that. All right, number four, the sinner stands before God as an enemy and becomes a friend.

I mean, this is amazing too. It's stuff we all know. My prayer tonight for my own self and for you is, this would hit us again and we would be reminded. We should be the most thankful people alive. Peace with God is made.

Is it an irreconcilable difference between sinful man and God? Not when Christ is there. What do we call this? Reconciliation, that two people were enemies, they were at odds, they were fighting, and now they become friends.

And we're not the initiator, of course, we are the recipient. Fellowship has been restored. Why don't we turn to Romans chapter 5 and take a look at this, that we have been justified and we've been forgiven, we've been redeemed.

And now let's look at this passage where we have reconciliation. By the way, beloved, if you'd like to preach the gospel to someone and you want to use the Roman's road, great. If you'd like to use these words, this is a good way to preach the gospel to someone.

And you tell them, look, my friend, one day you'll stand before the court of God and you'll have to answer for your sins. And if your sins have been paid for by Christ, God declares you not guilty. By the way, my friend, you are at odds with God and you have a bad relationship with him and he's mad at you, he's angry with you, and there's a way to become friends with God.

Do you know, my friend, that you are a slave to sin even by your own life? You might out a minute, but you are in a slavery to sin and you can have that slavery broken by having God redeem you out of that.

And you can just work through this as a great way to preach the gospel. Look at Romans chapter 5 verse 9. This is what we call an argument from the greater to the lesser. Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Not only this, but we exalt in God through the Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

The primary focus isn't on reconciliation, but it is on this. If God loved you when you were an enemy, how much does he love you now as a friend? Can you imagine? God loved me when I would kill God if my arms were long enough and my biceps were big enough.

And he loved me then. Do you think he loves me more now? He says much more. Having been reconciled, we'll be saved by his life. That's why when people try to tell me, I think I can lose my salvation. You don't understand God's long arm.

You don't understand salvation that if he loved you while you're an enemy, the next time and you're a Christian now, the next time you sin, he's going to go bumming me out. You're out of here. No, he wouldn't do that.

We've been reconciled. Side note, I don't struggle with it that much anymore. Some days, it goes through my mind, but have you ever struggled with assurance of salvation? Am I really a Christian? If you haven't, you're probably not a Christian.

Everyone struggles, and those that don't, I always have to wonder. You know, I've only met two people in my life who have said, I've never struggled with my assurance, and I struggle with their lack of struggle.

But it's like, you know, the boys in the cart there with the horse cart in the old days in Amish country or whatever, you know, and they said to the church-going boy, all the wicked rebels said to the church-going boy, you know, if Satan were to get on this ox cart right now and try to get after us or you, who would he get?

He said, well, he'd attack me because he's already got you, and so what does Satan do? I think he attacks the assurance of believers, of course. Our own sin makes our assurance go down, but this is the kind of stuff that I would study if I were you, if you're having problems with assurance.

I don't go to 1 John when I struggle with assurance. Do you know which book I go to? It may sound clinical. It may sound not very spiritual, but I go to the book of Galatians because Galatians says it is Christ's death at Calvary and nothing else that grants you salvation.

So it's not Christ's death plus I really had good devos this week, devotions, Christ's death plus, you know, I really didn't pray like I should this week, Christ's death plus, you know, I didn't confess my sins as fast as I should and I fell back in that same pattern.

No, it's the death of Christ and only the death of Christ, and if I add anything else, it's a false gospel. And I say, would I stake my eternal life and my kid's eternal life on the doctrine of salvation and substitution?

Yes, I would. I believe that and that my assurance comes zooming right back. It's the same thing with Spurgeon where he said to people who were always running around for assurance, oh, I'm losing my assurance.

He said it's like a dove and you're trying to get that dove. Ever try to catch a dove? You can't catch that dove. If you just leave that dove away of assurance and focus on Christ and His work and His person and the Calvary, lo and behold, that dove just comes right back on your shoulder.

I thought that's exactly right. So when you struggle with assurance, these are some of the things that you study. Number five. Well, let me just read at the end of number four. This word is viewed manward.

This is right out of N's Moody Handbook of Bible Dictionary or Bible Theology. Man was the one that had moved out of fellowship because of sin and man needed to be reconciled to renew the friendship. Number five.

You could use this word starting with an A if you'd like or I put S here. The sinner stands before God as a stranger and has made a son. A would probably be better. What adoption? You've become a son.

Maybe politically correct, we'll use adoption so people don't think sons and daughters and all that stuff. Ephesians chapter one, verse five. Let's go there and look at adoption. I mean, it still rings in my mind when I think of Scott Farrer, when he said to Doug, I said in Ephesians one, six years ago, whenever we were in Ephesians one, you know, and is it true, Scott, that you said when you looked at Doug, anything it takes to get that boy, to adopt that boy.

Anything it takes. It's the same thing here. Look at adoption. He predestined, he carved out us to adoption as son through Jesus Christ to himself. Who does the adoption? Doug, do you remember how old you were when you got adopted?

Can't remember? Around two. So you didn't, when they came, did you say, I choose those parents? I'm sorry. I don't want to embarrass you. But the idea is Scott and Cindy chose. Doug was the recipient of adoption and all the benefits.

And in those days, if you were adopted, the first thing they would do is you would change your name. Did you know what they would also do is all your old debts that you had to pay were gone and taken care of.

And you can now start thinking spiritually from the spiritual aspect. All my old debts were gone. Why? Because somebody else paid for them. I've been adopted as a son. I can say to God, Abba, Father, I'm an heir to the new estate.

Your old life was gone. You know how people steal identities these days through the computer and stuff? This is the positive side of the stolen identity. Your old identity has been taken away and now God has given you a new identity.

And I always would think about that when I was a kid and you see the old movies and they've got a bunch of checks and somehow they put the magnetic marker at the bottom of the checks and it's your check.

And people would go into the savings institution and there's all the deposit slips and you'd have all your magnetic markers on there. So when they would deposit any money, it would all go into your account.

Wow. You could tell, see, I was depraved as a kid too. And here all the spiritual bank account is everything that your father owns. It's yours. Doug, do you know one day when your mom and dad die, you get it all.

Oh, excuse me, divided by six. Zero divided by six is how much again? What was that? You just think adopted with all the rights and privileges, love like your own son. And it is true because John chapter 10 teaches it.

Jesus is loved by God with the same love that God loves us. In other words, God doesn't love you any less than he loves his own son because he loves us in his son. We're adopted right into the family.

And that's pretty amazing considering we used to have a different daddy and our daddy had a different name and his name was what? Diabolos. That's my dad. Can you imagine? And now we have the father, the glorious father, the triune God.

It's amazing. Harry Ironside said, so dear, so very dear to God, more dear I cannot be. The love wherein he loves his son, such is his love to me. So near, so very near to God, near I could not be, for in the person of his son, I am as near as he.

All right. Let's go to number, yes. As a sonship or adoption? Either one. All right. Number six. How we doing for time? All right. Number six. Number six. What do you have there? Propitiation. Don't you just like the way that rolls off your tongue?

There's two great words around this church. One is sacerdotalism and the other is propitiation. This is a better word. Sacerdotalism is something that we don't endorse. Propitiation we do. And it's a shame that I think the NIV translates it satisfaction many times.

Propitiation is a little bit better. But what is propitiation? Who could tell me? Anyone? Bruce. Okay. Excellent. Did you all hear that? Good. Let's go to Hebrews chapter two for a verse you might not be familiar with and just take a look at it.

Where again, salvation is from the Lord and Jonah knew that. Salvation is started by God. It's worked out by God. It's finished by God. It's all of God. He gets all the credit. And what's the difference between you and your neighbor?

God. That's the difference. It's not you. It's not your repentance. It's not that you're better. It's not that you tithe. It's not that you had a friend who preached the gospel to you. It is God and God alone.