Read: Romans 10:1-4

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. Romans 10:1

In Romans 10:1-4 Paul expresses his intense passion that many within the nation Israel would be saved. I do not think there is any word in the Christian vocabulary that makes people feel more uncomfortable than the word saved. People cringe when they hear it. Perhaps it conjures up visions of hot-eyed, zealous buttonholers — usually with bad breath — who walk up and grab you and say, Brother, are you saved? Or perhaps it raises visions of a tiny band of Christians at a street meeting in front of some saloon singing, Give the winds a mighty voice, Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Whatever the reason, I do know that people become bothered at this word.

I will never forget the startled look on the face of a man who came up to me in a movie theater. The seat beside me was vacant, and he said, Is this seat saved? I said, No, but I am. He found a seat across the aisle. Somehow this word threatens all our religious complacency and angers the self-confident and the self-righteous alike.

And yet, when you turn to the Scriptures you find that this is an absolutely unavoidable word. Christians have to talk about men and women being saved because the fact is that men and women are lost. There is no escaping the fact that the Bible clearly teaches that the human race into which we are born is already a lost race. This is why the good news of John 3:16 is that, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish — not perish — but have everlasting life, (John 3:16 KJV).

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Need to be Saved →

Read: Romans 9:22-33

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written: See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame. Romans 9:30-33

God says there is a way you can tell whether you are being drawn by the Spirit unto salvation or whether you are being permitted by God to remain where you already were, lost and condemned: The way you can tell is by what you do with Jesus. God has planted a stone in the midst of society. When you walk down a path and come to a big flat rock in the middle of the path, there are two things you can do. You can stumble over it, or you can stand on it, one or the other. That is what Jesus is — a stone planted by God.

The Jews, who determined to work out their salvation on the basis of their own behavior, their own good works before God, stumbled over the stone. That is why the Jews rejected Jesus, and why they reject him to this day. They don’t want to admit that they need a Savior, that they are not able to save themselves. No man is able to do this. But for those who see that they need a Savior, these people have already been drawn by the Spirit of God, and awakened by his grace, and made to understand what is going on in their lives. Therefore, their very desire to be saved, the very expression of their need for a Savior causes them to accept Jesus. They stand upon that stone. Anyone who comes to God on that basis will never be put to shame. God says that is the testing point. The crisis of humanity is Jesus: You can be very religious, you can spend hours and days or an entire lifetime of following religious pursuits and apparently honoring God, but the test will always come: What will you do with Jesus? God put him in the midst of human society to reveal those who he has called, and those who he has not. Jesus taught this very plainly: No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me draw him, (John 6:44); and all that my Father has given me shall come to me. Him that comes to me I will never, never cast out, (John 6:37 KJV).

Continue reading Ray Stedman – Why People Stumble →