A sermon on salvation anxiety, arguing that salvation comes through grace and faith alone, not works. The speaker addresses fears about the rapture, the unforgivable sin, and Romans' "vessels of wrath," explaining how these teachings can be twisted to create doubt. Trusting Christ's finished work, not your own performance, is what matters.
If you're not sure about your salvation, there's a simple cure for that anxiety, and that is to understand that salvation comes by grace through faith. Now, many have misunderstood this message to mean that once you're saved, you can go on sinning, doing whatever you want, and that there will be no consequences. That's not at all what the Bible teaches. What the Bible does teach is simple. If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the scriptures tell us, anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced. Now, I used to have this real severe anxiety around biblical themes. So, for example, when I would hear people preaching on the rapture, I would think, oh, I'm going to get left behind. Someone talked about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I thought, surely I committed that sin the other day and now I'm condemned forever. Or when I read of vessels of wrath in the book of Romans, I thought, well, maybe that's me. Maybe I'm a vessel of wrath and God designated me as one who would be condemned no matter what I do. This is the enemy twisting the scripture to cause fear and anxiety. When you are born again, it's because you've placed your faith in Christ. It's you saying, it's you recognizing, I can't do this on my own. I've sinned against God. I've broken his law. There's nothing I can do to make up for that, even if I tried for the rest of my life, even if I lived in perfection the rest of my life, which we know is impossible. But even if you did that, still the sin that was committed is deserving punishment. Well, when you recognize that he finished the work, he said, it is finished, not you take it from here, then you begin to realize That we do good works not to be saved. We do good works out of gratitude to God because he saved us. We recognize that we are secure in him. We can trust in him. And I already know as I'm talking about this, maybe even popping into your mind is Matthew chapter 7. Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? But think about that. In that particular portion of Scripture, the people who were crying out to God, they were shocked by the way that they weren't accepted. They tried to get in based upon their works. They didn't say, Lord, but we put our faith in you, Lord, but we believed on your finished work. No, they said, didn't we prophesy, do works, miracles? Didn't we cast out devils? In other words, they were separated from God because they were relying upon their own works. Once you recognize that you trust in his perfection, that's when the fear of the lack of assurance of salvation goes away.
