Lakewood Bible Study | Mark Greathouse

((music playing)) Welcome to Bible study. It's that time. And I'm glad that you're here. I hope you're glad that you're here. It's a time for us to come together and break the word of God so that our spirit man can be fed and we'll be nourished and we can do and become all that God intended us to become.

We're here and we're continuing our series on what does it mean. But before we jump in to that, I'm going to invite you to pray. I want to pray for you. And so I'm going to ask you to just begin to release your concerns unto the Lord as I am praying.

And I also want you to pray for me. Pray for our time together tonight. That the anointing of the Holy Spirit will be present and that our Lord will meet you right where you are and that he will be present with us here. And as we touch and agree that the miraculous will happen, that heaven will intervene and that we will see the manifestation of the glory of God, the presence of God in our lives tonight.

So let's just go ahead and invite him into this time. Lord, we thank you and we praise you. We exalt you as the king who is above every other king. You are the Lord above every other lord. Your name is higher than every name that is named. And so we approach you with honor and with reverence on this evening.

We're praying, Father God, that you would be among us and that the freedom that you have made available unto us, Father, will be experienced in every life, Father, when we may not be able to hold hands, Father God, but by faith we touch and agree right now. And I'm asking that your super will be, oh God, uh put upon our natural, Father God, so that the miraculous can occur tonight.

There are some who are in need, Father God, of healing in their physical bodies, healing in their souls, healing in their emotions, in their minds, and we're asking, Father, that you would touch them. Send forth as we send forth your word of healing, we pray that healing will manifest. those who are in need of resources, those who are in need of uh relationships to be mended, those who need, Father God, for you to just show up and just reveal yourself to them.

We're asking Lord tonight because your word tells us to ask. You said, "Ask and we shall receive. Seek we and and and it will be revealed to us. Knock and the door will be open. Seek, we will find." So that's what we do right now in our time together.

Touch my brother, touch my sister, touch everyone in their household. And we claim household salvation tonight in the name of Jesus. And father, we dare to believe that something good is happening right now in Jesus' name. It is so. Amen. Amen. Come on, right where you are. Say, "Something good is happening to me right now."

Oh, I dare you. I dare you to believe it. Something good is happening to me right now. Hallelujah. If you're in the room by yourself, call somebody in and say, "Come on. We going to get into this together because God's going to do something good." My faith is built up.

And I'm anticipating the inevitable supernatural intervention of God in our time tonight. Hallelujah. If you're riding on the street, let your window down a little bit and let somebody hear the good news about Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. All right, we're continuing the series. What does it mean?

And tonight we're going to talk about saved. Saved. What does it mean saved or uh parenthetically, let's put it like this. Why must I be saved? It's all throughout the New Testament. And we even see inferences of it in the Old Testament also. But the Greek word that we're talking about when we mention saved in the scripture, that's the word soo.

S O Z O. Soo. And it's used throughout. And the basic meaning of soo is to rescue one from from peril or to save. That's where we get the word save. Soo say save. To save, to deliver, to heal, to be made whole. Somebody shout to be made whole.

To be made whole. That's what soo talks about. It refers to a a a physically a physical salvation. It can be a spiritual salvation. And it can also work in our inner man. What we call our soul. Our souls can be saved. Our souls can be delivered. Our souls can be made whole.

So spiritually speaking, soo embodies the salvation of the soul or the salvation of our spirit man. He's delivered from sin and the is the uh and the entrance into eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. So being delivered from sin, our spirit man is no longer dead. He's delivered from sin and he's delivered into an entrance uh of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Then physically we can talk about soo. Soozo refers to healing from illness or deliverance out of danger and into safety or into a safe place. SSO also has an impact as we already said on the soul. We're in the mental, we're talking about the thinking, the emotional, we're talking about our feelings.

Come on, somebody. And human will, the decision makingaking processes are contained. And they are contained in our sooulish man. Man is a three-part be uh being uh body, soul, spirit, physical, emotional, and then our spiral spirit man. But overwhelming influences in both the spiritual and physical realms. These work to impact the soul, rendering it in need of rescue, in need of deliverance, in need of salvation.

And so we need to be saved and we see it throughout the New Testament. The scriptures repeatedly note the significance of being saved or the term salvation. However, it is not often understood in the times in which we live in our modern times. We we often times we gather as believers.

We assemble together and sometimes we follow through the processes and not necessarily fully understand what they all mean. You know sometimes it's like when we are children we we learn how to do things and later on in life we gather the full understanding of what we are doing.

You know we just learn to wash our hands because that's what our parents tell us to do. But later on we understand the significance of why we wash our hands right or we take a a a shower we bathe frequently. Why? We understand the benefits and the significance of those things.

Well, even as we come into the kingdom, there are things often times that we get involved with that we don't fully understand. And it's the lack of understanding that opens the doorway for confusion. And it also allows the enemy to come in for destruction. Oh man, the scripture even lets us know my people are destroyed.

Why? Because of the lack of knowledge. So that's why we gather together. That's why we come together on a weekly basis and we study the word of God. So this week we're talking, why must I be saved? You know, a few years ago, I think there was a movie movie released called Saved.

And you know, me, I'm I'm I'm kind of old-fashioned, if you want to call it that, or traditional. And I didn't go see it. You know, I fel felt that it was probably just something to make mockery of those who are saved. It may have been. I still don't know what it was about.

But being saved is something that even the world knows about. They've heard the word, but they don't understand the significance. So, how much more should you and I who are part of the kingdom understand what it means to be saved and why we must be saved. So during our time together tonight, I'm praying that by the end of of our session, we will both you and I will understand more of why must I be saved.

We also want to cover and understand from what am I being saved? If we're talking about deliverance and rescue, then I have to be being delivered and rescued from something. To what am I being saved? and what happens if I decide to not be saved. We're going to cover a number of things this this evening while we are together.

And I just want you to get ready. Brace yourself. We're going to get into the scriptures. We're not holding back. Hallelujah. Somebody say, "Don't hold back, Brother Mark." All right, I hear you. We're going in and we're going forward into this study tonight. And I believe it's going to bless you.

I believe God wants you here. Uh and it's not by accident. You're coming into the room right now. It's not by accident that you just happen to tune in. God wants you here because he wants you to know about his plan to save you. What it's all about and why you too need to be saved.

Hallelujah. So, why must I be saved? Why must I be rescued? Why must I be delivered? Why must I be healed? Or why must I be made whole? Hey, I'm a good person. You ever heard that? I'm a good person. I don't see why I need all of that.

Well, let's look at the scriptures and see what the scripture says about why you and I must be saved. The Bible declares that in the sight of God, now we're not talking about from your perspective. We got to understand that we have our own perspective. We have our own insights.

In in uh some respects, we've created our own kingdoms. But when we look at the scripture, we understand that the Bible tells us this. The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, the world, the system, and all of those who dwell in it. That includes you and me.

We're in this place. And the Bible says we are gods. But God declares, the Bible declares that in the sight of God, God's kingdom, God's domain, the place where God rules and reigns, and the earth is a part of that because he created it. And he sets up and he establishes the order of all things.

That's what a king does. The king's domain is the kingdom. And so the Bible declares that in the sight of God. So this is going to require a shift right now even in our thinking that it's in the sight of God that we're talking about we must be saved.

Not according to our own understanding. So we're going to get into our own understanding in just a few moments. But the Bible declares that in the sight of God, no one is good in and of himself or herself. No one is good. Come on. That's what the Bible declares.

In their own right and in their own strength, in their own ability, the Bible declares that no one is good. In the kingdom of God, we talked about God rules. And so, the only thing that's good in the kingdom is that which God declares good. You know, in in Genesis, it talks about how he created the earth.

He created the heavens and the earth. And then it talks about how the first six six days he went about and preparing things, setting things up for man to come in. Read that in your own time. But it says after everything that God created, he specifically mentioned something and he says, "And God saw that it was good.

And because God declared it to be good, then it was good." Hallelujah. How many of you know that sometimes even things that we can't even perceive and understand as being good, if God says is good, hallelujah, it is good. Come on, somebody. Come on. Agree with heaven to say if God says it's good, then it's good.

You know the Bible even talks about it says all things work together for what? Come on, Bible readers. All things work together for good to those who what? love God and are called according to his purposes. So, but the only thing that makes them good is because God calls them good.

Sometimes you and I, we have experiences and we go through hard times. We go through tumultuous times. We go through experiences, highs, lows, valleys, but we don't necessarily consider those experiences to be good. But the word of God says all things work together for what? For good. It's not because we call them good, but it's because God calls them good.

Why? Because they're working in us. As the scripture says, a reward of far exceeding more eternal weight in glory. God sees the process from the beginning to the end. And so he says even that period in between oh the process I'm calling it good because it's working out my will.

So in and of ourselves though we can't be good. Romans 3:10 says it like this. Just as is as it is written I'm reading from the New English New English translation. Just as it is written there is no one righteous not even one. And I want you to go pause right now and say get the uh get the uh download download the outline tonight because I know I'm not going to get to it.

I've got about nine page seven six pages of notes. We're not going to get to all of them. We're going to highlight some things and open the word of God and we're going to eat tonight, but some of this you're going to have to eat on your own.

You're going to have to take, you know, a little snack back uh with you [laughter] and eat some of it on your own. Hallelujah. Download this. So the Bible says there is no one righteous, not even one. So he lets us know we're not good in and of ourselves.

Psalms 14 1-3. I'm going to read that from the New Living Translation. This expounds this. This is where the Romans uh passage comes from. Ro uh Psalms 14:es 1-3 says this. Only fools say in their hearts there is no God. We hear that a lot today, don't we?

All right. They are corrupt and their actions are evil. Not one of them does good. H the Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race. He looks to see if anyone is truly wise. If anyone seeks God, but no, all have turned away. All have become corrupt.

No one does good. Not a single one. So sometimes we think we're doing good because it feels right to us. And because we feel as if we're doing good, we feel that we're right and that we are because we feel that we're right, we feel that we are righteous.

Hallelujah. But the Bible declares this. We're talking about what the Bible says. We're coming away from our own understanding and how we perceive things things and we're going to elevate ourselves. We're going to elevate our thinking tonight to rise up to what God wants us to be. You know, God doesn't want us to be beneath.

He want He doesn't want our thinking to be on base level. He doesn't want it to be stuck on our sensual things. But God wants us to come up higher and be led by the spirit. How are we led by the spirit? We're getting into the word of God.

And he exalts his word and we get into that word. We learn it and we understand it. and we're being transformed day by day. So, the Bible also declares this. What? That everyone has sinned. Why do I need to be saved? That's what we're talking about. Because in in God's sight, not one of us is even right.

The Bible declares that everyone has sinned. Everyone has missed the mark. Everyone has fallen short. Everyone has transgressed. Everyone has been involved in iniquities or abominations. That which depleases uh displeases God. That which is an abomination unto him. So Romans 3:23 says, "Everyone has sinned." Come on, say that out.

Everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. That's in the New Living Translation. Let's read that again. Everyone, I'm going to say my name, Mark. Hallelujah. You call your name out. Hallelujah. You don't just put it all on me. Call your name out there. Mark has sinned.

Mark has fallen short of God's glorious standard. Hallelujah. But then the Bible declares that we are dead as a result of having trespassed against God. That's why we need to be saved. Why? We've all sinned. Why we're not good enough in our own right, in our own righteousness.

And so the Bible declares that because of that we are dead as a result of having trespassed against God. Ephesians 2:es 1 through the first part of verse 5, it says this. Although you were dead in your offenses and sins in which you formerly lived according to this world's present path.

What did it say? You were dead in your offenses or your offenses and sins. Let's come on down. It says, "According to the ruler of the domain of the air," we know who that is. It's talking about the accuser of the brethren, the devil, Satan, the ruler of that spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature Yeah.

By nature, that's what we were, children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, verse four, hallelujah. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead, somebody say, even though we were dead. Even though we were dead, hallelujah, God being rich and mercy, even though we were dead in offenses, he reached out to us.

So we were dead because of our nature and our nature was one of sin. Our nature was one of depravity. We were totally depraved of God of God's standard. We couldn't reach it. That's why you and I must be saved. Also, the Bible declares this. The Bible declares that all were made sinners because of Adam.

So, in Genesis 2:15, let's go back really quick and get it back up to speed. The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. That's Adam. But the Lord warned him, "You may freely eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden.

Except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die." That's why we are considered dead. Adam died spiritually. He created a distance or separation from God and he was ush he ushered in iniquity by his decisions. Adam died in his soul.

He created a distance in his soul between he and God. He opened the doorway to fear and other things that he had not experienced before. He opened the doorway to uh idolatry where he exalted his own will above God's. That's pride. We know somebody else who did that.

Someone else who said, "I am going to be like God. I'm going to have them worship me." And the Bible says, "Iniquity was found in that being." And we know that being named Lucifer who was kicked out of heaven. He was kicked out because iniquity was found in him.

And so he did the same thing with Adam. Deceived Adam to usher in that same thing. He also Adam ushered in disobedience. He disregarded the essence of the glor of God's glory. God's tangible manifested presence was there with him. And by him exalting himself, he totally disregarded the glory of God.

That's why we were ushered into a life of sin, a life of away from God. Adam died physically. It wasn't immediate, but death was set in motion. it. No, he no longer remained in continuous fellowship with God. He no longer was in the glory. He was no longer there where God's presence was there.

He had to be ushered out of the garden where God's presence was there. You remember how the Bible says God would come down in the cool of the day and talk with Adam. Well, once Adam sinned, Adam had to be moved out of the garden. Now we look and see that God said, "Let's put him out unless in the state that he's in, he eats from the tree of life."

So the tree of life was there for him to eat always, but once he had sinned, God being gracious said, "Let's put him out because if he eats in that state, he's going to be eternal, eternally lost." So God already had a plan back there for him, for man to be restored unto him.

So here in Romans 5 12 and 14 even speaking of Adam this is where how all of us were made sinners. Romans 5:12 says this. Therefore just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and thus death spread to all men because all sin yet death reigned like ruled.

Death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam, who is a type of the coming one, transgressed. So you might say, "I didn't do what Adam did." But because Adam set things in motion, it hit everyone in his lineage afterwards.

You know, the sins of the father being passed down to the third and even to the fourth generation. That cycle continued and continued. So you may say, "I didn't do it. Why am I responsible? Because Adam set it in motion and it became a part of all of our nature.

So Romans 5:15 says says this, the first part, for if by one man's offense, many died. And I'll let you read the rest of that passage later on. It says, by one man's offense, many died. Verse 16, the second part of that says, "For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation."

Verse 17, the first part of that verse says, "If by one man's offense, death reigned through the one," I'll let you read the rest of that. And then verse 18 and 19, the first part of those verses, it says this, "Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation."

Verse 19, for as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So why must we be saved? Because we were born in sin. We had a sinful nature when we were born into this earth. We were set against God, the nature that was in us. And so we must be rescued.

We must be delivered. We must be safe. Soozo, we must be made whole because of that offense. 1 Corinthians 15 says this, verses 21 and 22, the first part of those verses. For since death came through one man, for just as in Adam all die, so we were all set in motion.

So the Bible declares then that because of all that, being good by our own standards is insufficient. It's not enough. We can't do enough to make ourselves right. The Bible says this in Isaiah 64 and6. We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.

Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall and our sins sweep us away like the wind. He says any good thing we think we could do, it's all filthy rags uh before the Lord. It's insufficient. It's not good enough. Even though we say I'm a good person, I mean, I don't do any wrong.

I help this. I do that. All those things we consider good. But that does not that does not determine our status with God. Our status with God is that we are in need of someone to make us right because all men have sinned. So Proverbs 16:25 says this, there is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death.

Man is always coming up with something and thinking this is the right thing. even the tower of Babel that man thought, "Well, I since God I'm not in the glory of God anymore, I'm going to build a table a a a tower and I'm going to make my way my own way to heaven.

I'm going to reach God since God isn't here with me." And God says that way is foolishness. And God destroyed it. God uh confused their languages so that they could not accomplish this. Why? because it was a way of man man trying to obtain rightness on his own.

Hallelujah. But there [laughter] the end of us trying to obtain that and be righteous in our own efforts. The Bible says it leads to death because it's in insufficient. It is inept. It is powerless to accomplish the thing that we want to accomplish. So, what am I being saved from?

The Bible declares that we are being saved from eternal death. And eternal death, we're talking about eternal death. We're talking about separation eternally from God. Romans 6:23 says this, "The payoff of sin," the King James version would say, "The wages, your earnings for sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The Bible declares that God's wrath, come on, will come in will come in judgment against unrighteousness and sin. So what are we being saved from? We're being saved from eternal death, eternal separation. We are being seed from the coming wrath of God uh against judgment uh on unrighteousness and sin.

Romans 1:18 says this, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness." All right. Ephesians 5 3-6. I know we're going through scriptures fast, so if you got your manual Bible, [laughter] come on and flip it real.

It should be smoking by now. Ephesians 5 3-6 says this, "But fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, let it not be named once among you." Paul is writing the church at Ephesus as becoming saints, neither filthiness, foolish talk, justesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know that no whoreonger or unclean person, nor covetous person, nor who is an idoltor, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Let no one deceive you with vain words. For because of these things, because of all these things we just talked about, comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. So why am I being saved or what am I being saved from? I'm being saved from the wrath of God which is to come.

There's some other scriptures. Revelations 19, it talks about um how God is coming and he's coming. He's coming how Jesus himself is coming back to the earth. And this time he's not coming as savior to save men. He's coming this time as one who will execute judgment. In verse 15 of that chapter it says he will rule uh them with an iron rod.

He stomps the wine press of the furious wrath of God. And on his thigh, uh there's a tattoo somebody would say, "Haha, King of Kings and Lord of Lords." So God will be judging sin and that's coming in the future. So we're saved from his eternal judgment. So then we ask the question, we understand why I need to be saved and from what I am being saved.

And there are some other things. We're just scratching the surface here. But that to what or to whom am I being saved? If I'm being taken out of and rescued out of something, then that implies that I have to be rescued and set into and placed into something else.

The Bible says and declares that we are saved to an eternal life with God. John 3:15-17. So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For this is the way God loved the world. God gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Will not experience eternal death, eternal damnation, will not be judged but have eternal life. God didn't send his world son into the world to condemn the world but that the world should be saved through him. Verse 36, that same chapter says this, "The one who believes in the Son has eternal life."

So, we're saved to eternal life with God. Hallelujah. Verse uh John 17:3, I'm skipping over some of the scriptures. Get the down, get the outline. Get the outline. Now, this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus whom you have sent. So this eternal life that we are being saved unto is in Jesus Christ.

And this is the testimony in first John's epistle chapter 5 11 through13. God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his son. The one who has the son come on has this eternal life. The one who does not have the son of God does not have this eternal life.

The Bible is straightforward. It's straightforward. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have Thank you, Jesus. You have eternal life. I'm glad I'm with him. I'm glad my name is written down in glory.

I'm glad that Jesus has already taken on the judgment that was due me. I'm glad that I'm in right standing with him. How about you? Is your name written down in the lamb's book of life? Are you sure and you have the shortity that you are with him and that you are going to be with him forever?

Jesus said, "I'm leaving the scene." When he told his disciples, he says, "I'm going away to prepare a place for you. That where I am, you can be there also. So don't let your heart be troubled. Don't let it be afraid. I'm coming back and I'm coming to take you to that place that I have prepared for you.

Oh, glory to God. He's coming back. Jesus is coming back. Hallelujah. He's coming back for us. All right. The Bible declares that we are saved to a right standing relation relationship with God. In other words, we're made righteous. Hallelujah. By being saved. We can't do it. We already covered.

We can't do it on our own. But the Bible says this in Romans 5:1. Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, our right relationship with God is contingent upon our relationship with his son Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah. Uh 2 Corinthians 5:21 said this, "God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we would become the righteousness of God." Jesus became the propitiation. That's a word you want to look up. Propitiation for our sin. He satisfied the judgment.

He moved the judgment that was t intended for you and intended for me. He moved it, redirected it, and placed it upon himself. The sin that you and I committed, that he did not commit. He did not commit. That sin, he decided to pay the price for so that it would not hit us.

And we can be declared righteous in right standing with the father by the shedding of his his shed blood. Hallelujah. We thank you, Jesus. We love you and we praise you for your eternal work of salvation. The Bible declares that we are saved to an inheritance. An inheritance that we have.

Acts 20:32 says this, "And now I entrust you to God and to the message of his grace." This message is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. We have an inheritance with the Lord. Hallelujah. Titus 3:7 says this, "And so since we have been justified by his grace, we become hes that implies an inheritance.

Heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life." Ephesians 1:13 says, "And when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed in Christ, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance." The Holy Spirit is the down payment on all the things that God has already prepared for us until the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory.

So, you might say, "Okay, I understand I need to be saved. I understand what I'm being saved from. I understand what I'm being saved to. What if I choose to not be saved? What if I want to uh make it on my own? I believe I still can be I can make it.

I can be good enough." Well, the Bible declares, somebody said the Bible. The Bible declares to those who reject Jesus, God's plan of salvation, these individuals will experience God's wrath personally. See, God set it up where Jesus would would would satisfy uh his his wrath. God's not an angry God, but because of his righteousness, his righteousness mandates that he deals with sin.

And his plan for dealing with sin was offering his only son Jesus for you and I so that we would not have to suffer the consequences of our own sinful nature and our own sinful actions. John 3:35 and 36. We already covered that. The Bible declare declares that those who do not believe will be condemned to eternal death.

So if you choose not to be saved, we're choosing to be to suffer condemnation. In Mark 16:16, it says, "The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe will be condemned." Condemned, condemnation. The guilt of your sin is placed upon you.

The Bible declares that those who are not saved will be judged. If their names are not written in the book of life, they will spend eternity in the lake of fire. That's what the Bible declares. Revelations 20:12 and 15 says this, "I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne.

The books were opened, and another book was opened, the book of life." So the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to their deeds. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.

So, if we choose to reject God's plan of salvation, if we choose to not be saved, then we're choosing the alternative. We're choosing to be eternally separated from God. We're choosing to spend eternity in the lake of fire. We're choosing to receive condemnation, which God has already made a way of escape from.

But I've got good news. Hallelujah. I've got good news. Somebody say, "Good news." Good news today. It is not God's plan that anyone would perish, but that all would be saved. Second Peter chapter 3:9, and we're going to wrap this up. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God wants all of us to come and enter into that state of transformation, that state of change where we say, "Jesus has already paid the price, and I'm going to do what's right. I'm going to be smart about this. I'm going to accept what Jesus has done in exchange, oh, for eternal life, so that I can have eternal life and be with him forever."

So the Bible tells you this, and I'm closing. Hebrews 3:7 and 8. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks." You're not here by accident. You didn't just stumble upon this. This is a mandatory meeting between heaven and you right now.

Verse 8 says this, "Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion in the day of testing in the wilderness." The children of Israel, they had tested God. They kept looking back to the old way and say, "We want what we used to have." They refused to believe and accept what God had for them.

And so that generation, what happened? They died. They died in the wilderness. They didn't receive the promise. Now, the children went on. The children received and walked and inherited the promise, but they did not. So, the Bible says, if you hear this today, you've heard the word why you need to be saved.

You've heard the word uh what salvation is all about. Being made whole, being set free, being delivered, being rescued from. That's God's plan for you, my brother and my sister, right where you are. I'm going to ask you make that decision right now. This is a moment of decision.

And I'm going to invite you to pray with me. If you know that you need Jesus, if you know that you need to ex re receive and accept the work that he did on Calvary, what he suffered being beaten, being his back being uh torn open as they whipped him 39 times as they whipped him, as they whipped him, he who knew no sin, he became sin in order that we might become the righteousness of God.

He took on your pun your punishment. He took on my punishment. He took on that penalty at Calvary so that you could be saved. So that I could be saved. Won't you pray with me right now? Jesus, come on from your heart. Not just your head, from your heart.

Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart and speak to you right now as you're praying. Jesus, I need you. I know I'm in need of a savior. I believe that you took on this my sin that I deserved. I believe right now, Jesus, that you died to save me.

And right now, I'm asking you, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Ask Jesus to come in. Say, Jesus, come in. Be my Lord. Be my savior. Uh, from this moment forward, I confess that you are Lord of my life. I'm not going to live my own life, but I surrender to you.

I submit my will to your will. Let your kingdom come and your will be done in my life. From this moment forward, I am yours. Hallelujah. Welcome into the kingdom of God. We celebrate with you, all your brothers and sisters, and come back. I'm going to invite everybody as we're celebrating, as we're leaving.

We're rejoicing over the life, your life that has come into the kingdom. We want you to get plugged into the local church. But let us know what you've done tonight. Put a message there in the chat and say, "Hey, I've accepted Jesus. I'm saved. I'm saved. I'm no longer lost.

Jesus is my Lord. And come back next week because there's going to be something good for you. God bless you.