Collection of Biblical Sermons

In our consideration of great words in the gospel, we have been arrested by such words as propitiation, forgiveness, redemption, justification, reconciliation, and sanctification. All the words have to do with what is called by the writer of Hebrews, "so great a salvation," each one presenting a different aspect of that salvation. For example, propitiation refers to the satisfying of all the righteous claims of God, forgiveness (or remission) refers to the sending away of sins and the subsequent deliverance from them, redemption presents the price that was paid and the release from bondage that was affected when that price was paid, and justification refers to our being cleared from every charge of guilt. Reconciliation presents to us a change in a relationship. When reconciliation occurs, peace prevails where once alienation and enmity existed.

Perhaps there is no difficulty for you in this matter of prayer. But for many, there arises a flood of questions which challenge faith and overwhelm reason: Why pray if God already knows everything? What good is prayer if God's will is going to be done anyway? Who am I to tell God anything? I'm already doing what He wants me to do. Why do I need to pray about it? God is more concerned about me than I can ever be, so I will just leave it with Him. It is likely that most believers, if not all, have faced these and similar questions at one time or another. But set over against this, who cannot testify that prayer is the most natural and native activity of Christian life? To deprive a believer of prayer would be to remove the very life-line, a spiritual "pulling-of-the-plug" which would signal the end of spiritual life. Yet these and similar questions must be faced. Young believers, in a skeptical and scornful world, are confronted with them by classmates, professors, and an educational system which analyzes and rejects all which does not fit into water-tight, convenient, cause and effect answers.

Speaking of grace, it is important to emphasize that we are not only saved by grace but sanctified by grace. Works cannot save the sinner (2:16), nor sanctify the saint (3:1-5). The law stands absolutely powerless to sanctify us as it did to save us, it was given to show us our need of a Savior. That sanctification, not salvation, is the main subject of our text is apparent from 5:7 ("You were running the race beautifully. Who cut in on you and stopped you from obeying the truth?" ISV). These believers had not fallen from salvation, yet Paul does write that they had "fallen from grace." What does he mean? Perhaps the best way to seek an answer to this question is to ask another one.

At least 30-35% of the adult population is currently living the single life. In the Old Testament there was a clear stigma to being an adult single, this was to be avoided at almost any cost. The perception was that happiness and God's blessing could not be found outside of marriage and children. While marriage is still God's plan for the majority, He does call some to live a single life temporarily or permanently. It is not because God "has it out" for some believers relegating them to a second-class life of drudgery and dreaming. The New Testament clarifies the Old Testament mindset and perhaps a traditional western cultural mindset as well. Single believers can have useful, fulfilled, and completely satisfied lives for good reasons.