World's Biggest Lie — William MacDonald

The Lie of Salvation by Good Works

Most people in the world believe it. Name any country you want. The majority of people have swallowed it whole. These people are sincere. They bet their whole future on it. They are convinced because it seems so reasonable, and they're hard to change.

Their mind is made up. What is the lie? It's the falsehood that when you die, God weighs your good works and your bad works in a scale. If your good works outweigh your bad ones, you'll go to heaven. If your bad works are heavier, you'll go to hell.

That is absolutely false. One of the most common versions of the lie is that salvation comes by keeping the Ten Commandments. So let us list those commands and see how we do. They're as follows. Number one, you must have no other God.

This means that God must come first in your life. Two, you must not worship idols or even make them. Three, you must not take the name of the Lord in vain, that is, in profanity. Four, you are to set one day of the week apart for worship, service, and rest.

Five, you must honor your parents. Six, you must not commit murder, either in thought or an actual deed. Seven, you must not commit sexual immorality, either in lust or in the act itself. Eight, you must not steal.

Nine, you must not lie. Ten, you must not covet. Coveting takes place in the mind. The Tenth Commandment calls for a clean thought life. Now let me tell you what the Bible teaches about the Ten Commandments.

The Law Reveals Human Sin

No one born of human parents has ever kept them. No one can keep them perfectly. The law requires complete, not partial, obedience. To break one commandment is to break all ten. God never intended the law to be a ladder to heaven.

The purpose of the law is to show us that we are all sinners. By the law is the knowledge of sin. The consistent testimony of the Bible is that we are all sinners. Listen. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Romans 3 .23. There is not a just man who does good and does not sin. Ecclesiastes 7 .20. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah 17 .9. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me.

There is none who does good. No, not one. Romans 3 .12. Because we are sinners, we are unfit for heaven. God is holy and cannot look on sin with any degree of approval or tolerance. Sin must be punished and the penalty for sin is death, that is, eternal separation from God.

Before anyone can be sure of heaven, his sins must be forgiven. So far we have seen that the Ten Commandments are not the passport to heaven. They expose us as guilty and unfit to go there. Now, before we get to God's answer to man's dilemma, let us list some other versions of the biggest lie.

Religious and Moral Alternatives Cannot Save

Just obey the Golden Rule. And just as you would men do to you, you also do to them. Luke 6 .31. Or, just be confirmed. Or, just be baptized. Just join a church. Just take Holy Communion. Just do penance for your sins.

Just depend on prayers, tithing, and fasting. Just give to charity. Just turn over a new leaf. Just do the best you can. All variations of the lie have this in common. You earn or merit salvation by doing good works or by living a clean life.

But doesn't this seem reasonable? It may seem reasonable, but it's utterly false. The Bible says, There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death. Proverbs 14 .12 and 16 .25.

Christ's Substitutionary Death and the Call to Repentance

Now then, if you don't get to heaven by doing good works, how do you get there? How can you be sure of going to heaven when you die? Let me explain. God sent His Son to earth to die as a substitute for sinners.

On the cross of Calvary, the sinless Savior shed His blood to pay the penalty for man's sins. He died for the ungodly so that they might spend eternity with Him in heaven. When you repent of your sins and believe on Christ as your Lord and Savior, God saves you.

Your sins are all forgiven. You receive eternal life. The moment you trust Jesus Christ as your only hope for heaven, you're as saved as God can make you. What do we mean by repent? It means to acknowledge to God that you're a guilty sinner and that you don't deserve to be saved.

But you do deserve to go to hell. Acts 17 .30. You'll never be saved until first you know you are lost. The next word is believe. If one thing is clear in the Bible, it is that salvation is by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith in Christ Brings Eternal Life

Listen to these verses. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3 .16. There's enough in that one verse for a person to be saved for all eternity.

He who believes on the Son has everlasting life. And he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3 .36. This tells that there are only two possibilities.

You either believe or you don't. You're either saved or you're lost. He who believes in me has everlasting life, Jesus said. John 6 .47. So simple. Has everlasting life. Has it now. You don't have to wait till you die.

He who has the Son has life. 1 John 5 .12. Salvation is in a person, and his name is Jesus. If you have Him, you're as saved as God can make you. There's one other passage of Scripture that summarizes all that we have said.

Grace, Faith, and Good Works in Ephesians 2

It's Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Now let us examine the passage step by step. For by grace. This means that we don't deserve to be saved. It's completely unmerited. For by grace you have been saved. Clearly it is possible to know that you're saved.

The Ephesians, to whom Paul wrote, certainly knew. He says you have been saved. Through faith. Faith is believing. Saving faith is believing Christ. And that not of yourselves. We cannot save ourselves or contribute to our own salvation.

It is the gift of God. Salvation is a gift which we receive when we believe. Not of works. We cannot do any meritorious works to save ourselves. Lest any man should boast. There is no room for boasting in God's plan of salvation.

We do all the sinning. Christ does all the saving. For we are His workmanship. Every believer is a new creation. In Christ Jesus. That means in union with Him. For good works. This is important. Good works are not the means of salvation.

They're the result. They're not the root. They're the fruit. We're not saved by good works. We are saved unto good works. Which God before prepared that we should walk in them. God has a blueprint for every life.

Assurance Through God's Word and a Transformed Life

Our responsibility is to discover and do it. How does a person know when he is saved? He knows it first and foremost by the Word of God. If he repents and believes, the true and living God says he will save that person.

God cannot lie. As time goes by, the believer knows by changes in his life. He has a desire to obey the Lord. He has a desire to do good works. He has a new love of holiness. He has a new hatred of sin.

The Urgency of Trusting Christ

He loves the Word of God. He has a love for prayer. He desires to share the good news with others. He loves his fellow Christians. You ought to trust Christ. A life of fulfillment depends on it. You ought to trust Christ.

An eternity of blessing is at stake. You ought to trust Christ now. Life is uncertain. You are not promised tomorrow. You ought to trust Christ now. This is the day of salvation. To reject the Savior is tantamount to saying to him, You haven't done anything for me that makes it appropriate for me to make you my Lord and Savior.

To refuse God's invitation is to call him a liar. He who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his Son. 1 John 5 .10. It's a decision between life and death.

Choose life, won't you?