Episode 1023: Who can be saved and how?

Hello everyone. In today’s Bible study we continue our journey through Revelation 2 & 3 reading the letters given by the Lord Jesus to the apostle John to the seven churches located in Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey.

The last time we were together we had seen exactly what the Lord meant when He says He blinds the sinner.

Today we look at another aspect of the blasphemy of the Jews as they deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would they do that? Were they not looking for the Messiah?

Well, yes, they were however they were looking for a Messiah of their own making not the One that God declared He would provide. This caused them to totally miss God’s Messiah, King, and Redeemer in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus.

How is that possible? The Jews had the correct scriptures, they had the correct God, they had the correct religion. How then could they possibly miss the fact that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, the King of the Jews, and the
Redeemer of the world?

Very easily my friend. When you and I substitute our beliefs and manmade religion for the truth of God’s word, there is no other recourse besides believing a lie. You can either believe the that the scriptures are God’s word and absolute truth or you can determine that what you think and believe about God’s word is absolute truth.

However, you cannot believe that both are truth. Whichever one you determine is truth is how you will believe. That is exactly what happened to the Jews and is exactly what is happening in the “church” today. May I say with all the compassion that can be mustered within a person, that my heart breaks for this generation as there is so much error being taught. People are being deceived by false doctrine wrapped up in Bible covers which is a travesty. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the people want.

Will you listen to the word of God.
Isaiah 30:8-13 (NKJV) A Rebellious People
8 Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and note it on a scroll, that it may be for time to come, forever and ever, 9 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the LORD, 10 Who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us right things; speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits. 11 Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” 12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perversity, and rely on them, 13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant.
You say, oh, well that’s the Old Testament. Now you all know better than that as I always take the whole counsel of the word of God and I don’t pull verses out of their context.

Here’s the New Testament equivalent.
2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NKJV) Preach the truth irrespective of what people want to hear.
1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

How are the people of God supposed to respond to peoples desires?
5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Today’s study 1 hour and 21 minutes in duration. I have broken it into nine segments. This is segment 7 of 9 titled Who can be saved and how?