Dead or Alive

Salvation

is of the LordJonah 2:9

3 KINDS OF DEATH

• Death of Spirit

• Death of Body

• Death of Soul

Death of Spirit

Person has no relationship with God. Death is the cessation (cut off) of its communication with God, spirit lost its sensitivity towards God.

17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.“ Genesis 2:17

15Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:15

12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— Romans 5:12

Death of Body

Spirit departs from the body

2 for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Ecclesiastes 7:2b

4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Psalm 146:4

5 Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. Job 14:5

Death of soul

Soul is separated from God for eternity

Revelation 20:13-1513The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If there is no acknowledgement of sin – who needs the Gospel?

If one does not need salvation, who needs a Savior?

I believe that the present church does not lack great Evangelists who can preach, rather we lack condemnation of sin and understanding of its venom which kills the soul.

SINFor the wages of sin is death …

SALVATION… but the gift of God is eternal life inChrist Jesus our Lord.

To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing from making it alive: man can do the one, but only God can do the other.

Jesus illustrates spiritual hypocrisy in Matthew 23

“You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” (v.27)

“Salvation is of the Lord.”

Jonah 2:9

Salvation is the work of God. It is He alonewho quickens the soul “dead in trespasses and sins,” and it is He also who maintains the soul in its spiritual life.

Quicken – {dzo-op-oy-eh-o} to revitalize; make alive; give life.

If I am prayerful, God makes me prayerful, if I have graces, they are God’s gifts to me; if I hold on in a

consistent life, it is because he upholds me with His hand. I do nothing whatever towards my own

preservation, except what God himself does in me. Whatever I have, all my goodness is of the Lord alone.

Wherein I sin, that is my own; but wherein I act rightly, that is of God, wholly and completely. If I repulsed

the spiritual enemy, the Lord’s strength nerved my arm. Do I live before men a consecrated life? It is not I, but

Christ who lives in me.

Charles Spurgeon

3 KINDS OF LIFE

• Justified Life

• Regenerated Life

• Sanctified Life

JUSTIFICATION18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. (Romans 5:18)

Jesus accomplished our salvation through justification while the Holy Spirit applies our salvation through sanctification.

REGENERATION

Two factors:

The human soul destitute of spiritual life, and the Holy Spirit who quickens it

“Ye must be born again.” John 3:7

Regeneration is a subject which lies at the very basis of salvation, and we should be very diligent to take heed that we really are “born again,” for there are many who fancy they are… who are not.

John 3:8 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” For the name of the Christian is not the nature of a person; and not on the church of a person, not on the home of a person, or not on the professing person, unless there is something more added to it – a change which is felt andknown: felt by a gracious experience and knownby the works of holiness. A change which no man can perform for himself, the transformation is infused, which works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects the person’s entire being: “the old is gone, the new has come”. (2Cor5:17)

Work of the Spirit

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18)

"It is the Spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profitethnothing" (John 6:63)

It is an act of creation (2 Cor. 5:17). It is a Divine "workmanship" (Eph. 2:10).

All the Divine operations in the economy of salvation proceed from the Father, are through the Son, and are executed by the Spirit. Quickening is His initial work of the elect. It is that supernatural act by which He brings them out of the grave of spiritual death on to resurrection ground. By it He imparts a principle of grace and habit of holiness; it is the communication of the life of God to the soul. The quickening of the spiritually dead into newness of life is therefore an act of amazing grace: it is an unsought and unmerited favor. The sinner, who is the chosen subject of this Divine operation and object of this inestimable blessing, is infinitely ill-deserving in himself, being thoroughly disposed to go on in wickedness till this change is manifested in him.

Parable of the Sower

The ground must be changed before it could be fertile. Nor is it the seed which changes the soil: what farmer would ever think of saying, The seed will change the soil! Make no mistake upon this point: the Holy Spirit must first quicken the dead soul into newness of life before the Word obtains any entrance.

Men are not "quickened" by the Word, they must be “made alive” in order to receive and understand the Word. "And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God" (Jer. 24:7): that statement would be quite meaningless if a saving knowledge of or experimental acquaintance with God were obtained through the Word previous to the "new heart" or spiritual life being given, and was the means of our being quickened.

SANCTIFICATION1 Peter 1:2 “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit”

"The purpose of His (Holy Spirit) working is our sanctification, which he accomplishes by applying, so to speak, the redemptive activity of Christ in our Life.“ Martin Luther

Sanctify – Greek word \hag-ee-ad’-zo, to make holy, purifiy or consecrate, separated (from this world)

Instrument of Sanctification

John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your Word is truth.

Luther indicated that the practical avenue for victory over carnal lust is not with abstinence, he offers a solution: "desires of the flesh are overcome . . . only by the earnest meditation of the Word of God and invocation of Christ.“

• Though the flesh cannot be eradicated it should be bridled and subdued. We should “Walk in the Spirit that ye obey not the flesh” (Gal 5:16)

• Invocation – prayer, supplication, request, petition

We believe in the biblical doctrine of perseverance of the saints; that is, Jesus will not lose one that the Father has given Him (John 10:28-29), and we who are Christ's will persevere to the very end (1 Timothy 4:16). It is a great comfort to know that we are, indeed, held in God's hand and cannot be taken out (John 10:29) or separated from His love (Romans 8:39) because we were chosen before the foundation of the world by Him (Ephesians 1:4).

However, we also understand that there are some who will believe themselves to be Christians who may not actually be born again (Matthew 7:21-23). These people may have a profession of salvation in Jesus Christ, but the fruit of their life, that is, their believing of lies that result in bondage to habitual sin, should cause them to question whether or not they are truly saved. It is indeed possible to be saved and to simply have fallen into a sin trap (Galatians 6:1), yet there is also ample biblical evidence to suggest that one who is truly captive to habitual sin may not be saved.

Warning of eternal punishment if sanctification is neglected by the Christian:

Therefore, brothers…For if you live according to the sinful nature you will die. Romans 8:12-13

Therefore, dear friends…be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the errors of lawless men and fall from your secure position. 2 Peter 3:17

There are two types of men according to Martin Luther:

One who is provoked by flesh but is not willing to yield to the flesh, not willing to the lust and desires of carnality, but walks after the leading of the Spirit, thereby resisting the flesh.

The other who assents (concur, agrees) to the flesh, and without all fear or remorse to perform, and fulfill the works thereof, and to continue therein, and yet not withstanding (resisting), to counterfeit holiness and to brag of the Spirit. This second man is the one who is in danger of losing the eternal inheritance.

SALVATIONIf you have an accident, you are

qualified for an ambulance. If you have a cancer, you are qualified for a hospital. If you are a sinner, you

are qualified for a Saviour.

Hear me my brothers and sister,You want to be a Christian but at the same time you want to remain an adulterer, a fornicator, a drunk, a thief. Today, let me remind you that our Lord Jesus Christ has earned us not only gratia (grace) but also donum (the most precious gift of God), the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we might not only have the forgiveness of sins, but also stop sinning.

2Cor 6:2 For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

You and I are alive only because Salvation is of the Lord.