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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/larry-steers/saved/
We'll read two brief passages of scripture. The first in Acts chapter 4. The fourth chapter of Acts, and both of these verses are well known by everyone here. Acts chapter 4, and we'll read verse 12. Peter is speaking.
Acts chapter 4 and verse 12. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Notice the expression, we must be saved. Second passage in Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2, and we're going to read again a familiar verse, two verses, and so we will read from verse 8 of Ephesians chapter 2. And verse 8, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
For by grace are you saved through faith. That's all that we're going to read. We have heard some very interesting things tonight, and I would suggest that we should take very careful note of what we have heard, because you will have noticed that all of the men who told how they got saved came to a particular verse of scripture that is well known, and I could probably identify 40 of them, that the Spirit of God is used in the conversion of many, many souls.
It's been my responsibility and privilege to sit down on a good number of occasions and listen to young people and occasionally older people tell how they got saved. I want to emphasize that word saved for a few moments tonight.
I'm listening for two things. I heard them both tonight in the testimonies that were given. I'm listening to hear someone tell me how they were convicted about sin and how they were troubled about their sin.
Sin trouble is real trouble that comes before a person gets saved. And I'm listening secondly for the person to tell me what they think of the Lord Jesus Christ. They must get to Christ. They must get to the cross to be saved.
At a large reception, two of us were sitting together, and a young, well, I suppose a middle-aged woman had said that she got saved. We hadn't had the opportunity to speak to her. She was coming through the auditorium where we were sitting, and the other man who was with me, we summoned her over and asked her to tell us what had happened.
She took 30 minutes, not five minutes like the brethren were given tonight. She took 30 minutes. And at the end of the 30 minutes, the two of us looked at each other, and we said at the same time, we never heard anything about sin.
And we never heard anything about the death of Christ and what the death of Christ meant to that woman who was trying to tell us, trying to persuade us that she was saved. I have to come to the conclusion that she knew nothing about the grace of God.
She was not saved. And so my question tonight, and I'm not occupied with a sermon tonight, but my question very pointedly to you tonight is, are you saved? That's a scriptural word, saved. You'll find it 371 times in your Bible, over and over and over and over.
God emphasizes the word saved in the Bible. So are you saved? Can you go back in your life and over the experiences of life, and can you tell us, like you've heard tonight, of a moment when you were saved, when your sins troubled you, when you realized that you were not going to heaven, and you were not saved?
And you can tell us about the moment that you realized for the first time that the Lord Jesus died for me on the cross at Calvary. And at that moment, you were saved. Do you have a moment like that in your life, in your experience, when you can say that you were really saved?
And so let me ask the question again. I might repeat it a number of times tonight. I'm going to end my few remarks tonight with a little different story of conversion. But I want to ask you tonight, all of us here, can we go back to a moment when we were saved, when we realized that there was a danger that was implied, that was very imminent.
In the scriptures that I have read, there's a danger that is implied in this word saved, that there's a disaster that is imminent, and there's a deliverance that is immediate. In a moment of time, a person can be saved.
The Apostle Paul said here when he was writing to the Ephesians, and he's taking them back. He has done this a number of times. He's taking them back to a moment when they were not saved. And in the beginning of the chapter 2, he reminds them of what they were in their sins, troubled by their sin outside of Christ, going on to eternity, not saved.
Danger that was very imminent to lose their soul. You've been hearing tonight solemnly, and I want to remind you again that this is not a matter to drink lightly. This is a solemn matter to go out into God's eternity not saved and to lose your soul for eternity, never to have another opportunity to hear the gospel, never again to have the privilege of sitting in a meeting like this and hearing words whereby you might be saved.
Peter made it very clear when he was speaking on the occasion that we have read in Acts chapter 4, neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
And the same expression was used by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. There's no salvation in any other, and it's not of yourselves.
It's not of some work that you can do salvation is found only in Christ. When the Apostle Peter was writing his epistle, he penned these words, Christ also hath once suffered for us the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.
I needed a sinless Savior. I was born in sin, so are you. I traveled the road of eternity in my sin and so are you. And my sins demanded punishment, and that punishment to die without Christ would be to be in the hell and in the lake of fire.
The rich man in hell cried that he was tormented in this flame. That is real. That's not make-believe. That's not made up. That is real. And so we are reminded in the verse that we have read here in Ephesians chapter 2, not of yourselves.
I needed a perfect Savior. I was disqualified. Know what these hands have done? See these hands? They are sinful hands. They sinned. They disqualified me from God's salvation. If I was ever, and if you're ever going to be in heaven, you need a perfect Savior, a sinless Savior to take your place and to willingly bear the judgment and the penalty of your sin that you might know your sins forgiven and that you might know that you're saved, not for a short time, but for an endless eternity saved.
So are you saved tonight? That's the issue. That's the question. Do you know Christ tonight? I'm going to take you, I've referred a few times already to the tent meetings this past summer. I'm going to take you back to those tent meetings for a moment.
A young woman by the name of Alexandria, in some ways a very commendable person, but in other ways, Alexandria was born and raised in a place that is a very difficult place and a sinful place next to a large military base and all of the sinful practices that are found practiced in military bases.
She was exposed to all of that. She never had a Bible. You have a Bible. She didn't have a Bible in her hands. You have one. She never sat in a Sunday school class. You sat in a Sunday school class. She never had that privilege.
She never sat in a gospel meeting. She never heard the gospel. And you've had that privilege. I had the opportunity on three occasions to have a meal with Alexandria, to sit at a table. There were a number of others there, a number of other young people, and Alexandria was sitting there.
Alexandria had heard sufficient of the gospel that she wanted to be saved. Never having heard what you've heard, never having had the privileges that you have had. I've mentioned one night in the tent meeting, I made my way to the back of the tent, and Brother Murray Pratt came back to me and said, Alexandria is weeping.
Have you ever wept over your soul? Have you ever longed to know your sins were given, and there were tears? That was what Alexandria was doing in the back of the tent that night. She was weeping. And Brother Pratt and I sat down beside her, and I can tell you that there were two gospel preachers who were weeping too.
There's nothing that stirs my soul more than to sit down beside a person who wants to be saved, and they're in earnest, and they mean it, and they're weeping because they want to know their sins were forgiven.
I'm not concerned with the crowds, not very many in the tent, but one weeping soul who wanted to be saved. After a very brief conversation, and it might have been that she was saved before she got to the tent, I don't know.
But after a very brief conversation, I remember that dear woman in tears, looking at the two-row chart that we had up in the front of the tent, and saying, I'm on the narrow way. She could tell you about her sins.
She knew that. She didn't have to sit in a gospel meeting like you have sat in to be convicted of her sin. She knew that her life was out of order. She found Christ. We're sitting beside a young woman who that night, perhaps I said before that night, but that night it became real to her who was on the way to heaven saved because she had discovered that there was a man who went to a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem, and that that man had suffered for her sin, and she had received that man as Savior.
She realized at a moment of time, He died for me. Those who are saved here tonight, that's all they have. A moment of time when their eyes are open, and they are receptive to the gospel, and they realize in that moment of time, He died for me, suffered on the cross, His precious blood was shed, and they can say, I'm saved.
I'll tell you that's what makes preaching of the gospel worthwhile. When a soul passes out of the darkness of their sin, and into the light of life in Christ, saved, how sad. Sad, sad the day when sinners turn away from light, and love, and life, and everlasting day.
It's just going to be a night when you're going to realize for the first time that the Lord Jesus died for me, that He bore the judgment and the penalty of my sin upon the cross. Are you going to leave the meeting tonight?
And you said, in an uncertain world, life so uncertain, never knowing for certain that tomorrow's sun is ever going to rise, that your eyes are going to see another day. You will not be the first one who has left the gospel meeting before the next morning has been an eternity in their sin.
And so the word of Scripture is known that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider the latter end, that they would trust Christ tonight, that they would be saved. It says, neither is there salvation than any other, for there's none other name other heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
For by grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. We'll pray. Our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, there have been solemn issues that have been touched here tonight.
What a joy to our own souls to hear of various individuals tell how they got saved, to look into the faces of men who were in their sin, but now they're in Christ and they're on the way to heaven. And we know that there are others here tonight, many who know the Savior.
They know for certain that at the end of life's journey, they will be at home with the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we would pray for any tonight who are not saved. And when the question is asked, are you saved?
They have to answer quietly in their own soul. I'm not saved. My sins are not forgiven. I'm not ready to meet God. But our Father, we pray that whatever thoughts of the eternal things that they might have been occupied with for a few moments tonight may not be taken away.
That God will have mercy upon them and that there may be souls that will be saved. We give thanks in our Savior's name. Amen.