031. Receiving the Free Gift of Eternal Life

The title of today’s message is …

PP   Receiving The Free Gift Of Eternal Life

Everyone would love to live forever.    ---  IF ---  (the BIG IF)  ---

IF life could be wonderful -- no more hurt, no more accidents, no more sickness or death or cruelty, egos, aggression, no more  hatred, no more natural disasters.

Yes, we would be very happy to live forever if everyone -- would be loving, and everything -- would be wonderful.

Well, Jesus promises exactly that. After this life of problems we go through down here, He promises a fabulous eternal life as a free gift.  -----

PP    The purpose of today’s message is to learn from the Bible how to accept that gift of eternal life.

The JIGSAW Bible learning programme will help you to realize that the Bible we have in our hands today is not just a bunch of fairy stories. By looking at the discoveries of the archaeologists and checking some of the prophecies (or predictions) in the Bible about future events - most of which have already come to pass - we come to realize that the Bible is a very accurate historical document.

PP   The Bible is also a book, that if we follow it, it will give us wonderful peace amongst the turmoil of this world, and a fantastic eternal life after this life is over.

-----   Some people will tell you how to receive eternal life this way. After church, go to the beach, walk up to a young couple trying to have a romantic time there, and spend 10 minutes telling them about eternal life. They go along with you, because they want to get you out of their face. And you take them through the ‘sinners prayer’. And then you go back to church. And everybody proudly tells each other how many people ‘got saved’ on the beach that day. -----

Go back and see that young couple a week later and ask them how their new ‘eternal life’ experience is going. And they’ll often say, “What are you talking about?  ---  Oh yeah, you’re the religious kook who hassled us on the beach last week. We only went along with you to get you out of our face.” ----

----   Do you think that’s the best way to do it? Today, I’d like to take us through this topic, step by step, verse by verse, so that you can choose to make a strong, well-grounded decision to accept Jesus as your Saviour, and receive His gift of eternal life.

PP    God wants your experience to be real, solid, permanent.

In some of my earlier messages I presented in public halls many years ago, you will realise that the Bible is real and Jesus is real.

You can collect a few CDs off the table that show the accuracy of God’s book and some of the fantastic things that are soon to happen in this world.  On my website, the MP3 CD audio message called ‘Back-Cutting for Forgiveness’ covers today’s topic in much more detail.  ------

------   So, with that big introduction, let’s stand and pray as we honour our God and ask for His guidance as we do this study from His holy Word, the Bible.

Thank you Father for your blessings. Thank you for a great day. And I just want to pray for each one of us today, that You will give us open hearts and open minds to hear what You want to tell us today. And that we will not only hear, but we will choose, today, to open our hearts and minds to make a decision for You, a decision to follow what we’re talking about and to accept the free gift of eternal life. And I just pray that it will be all for our special blessing today. Thank you Father for everything, in the precious name of our best friend and Saviour, Jesus  -  Amen.

-----    So the title of the message is…

PP       RECEIVING THE FREE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE

As I think about it, I suppose  …

PP1   Salvation comes in three phases.

Firstly, here, we’ve got 1, 2, 3 steps.  But we’ve got a point below that.  It’s called zero.  And we will call it, ‘Unsaved’.

So we’re walking along in life, and we are not saved. The next thing that happens is God’s Spirit, like our conscience, encourages us, to seek God and to seek salvation – to seek eternal life.

And so, step number one then is called ‘Justification’.  It’s a big Bible word. And it simply means getting saved. And it’s the work of an instant. Jesus says, “Come to me just as you are, and I will accept you, I will give you salvation.”

So it’s the …

PP2    Work of an instant.

One minute we are unsaved, and the very next second we are saved.
And that word ‘Justification’ -- it’s a big word. Yes, I know. But we become justified. For me, for example, God looks down at me, and He sees me …

PP3      ‘just-if-I’d never sinned’    

----  justified.      You can’t really break the word up that way, but nevertheless ... you can. It works well that way. He sees me ‘Just-if-I’d never sinned.’   And if you accept His free gift, then it’s the same for you.

----   And then number two.  It’s kind of like walking up steps. We’re unsaved, and then we go to the next step, Justification, where we receive the free gift of eternal life.  It happens in an instant.  And then we take the next step to Sanctification.
Is Sanctification the work of an instant?  No, it’s not. It’s the …

PP4     Work of a lifetime

----   as we continue to walk with God, and to continue to learn to love God our Father, and Jesus, more. And we walk more closely with Them. And so that’s Sanctification, the work of a lifetime.

And then finally, the third point is, Glorification. Glorification, that’s when Jesus comes back to take his followers home.  That is the final receiving, the real culmination of receiving eternal life, when eternal life is ushered in, and Glorification takes place. And that of course, is the …

PP5    Work of an instant   (again.)

And we live forever in a fabulous new place with no more hassles, no more dramas, no more of anything bad. -- And that is fantastic.

So, they’re the three steps, you might say.   After Unsaved comes Justification, Sanctification and Glorification”.   ----    And we’re going to move on now that we’ve got that basic understanding.  We’re going to go to some of the Bible verses. We will cover quite a lot of verses. So we’re going to put them up on the screen. And we’ll move along quite quickly.   Some questions that you may still have will be answered in the MP3 CD called ‘Back Cutting for Forgiveness’ that is available, and even by listening to today’s message a second time.   So if you just bear with me, we’ll move on with it. Thank you very much.

PP1    Romans 1:16,17 (the Bible says, and St. Paul is speaking here, and he says in verse 16,)
V16   “For I am not ashamed of the gospel (or good news) of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. For the Jew first and also for the Greek.”  (That meant everyone else.)

And in verse 17,

PP2  
V17   “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, the just shall live by faith.”

So …

PP    We are saved by faith, by simply believing. That’s what faith means.   (And)  We are not saved by good works.

Martin Luther was a Catholic priest, and every Catholic would like to go on a pilgrimage to Rome. And so Martin Luther went on his pilgrimage to Rome. It was a special time for him. And as he was crawling on his hands and knees up the Scala Sancta steps in one of the big churches there, as he was going up the steps, something kept ringing in his ears, “The just shall live by faith.”

Martin Luther had always believed that to be saved, you had to do lots of good works. But something kept ringing in his ears, “The just shall live by faith.” Every step he took, ‘the just shall live by faith’, not works, it’s simply by faith, by believing.

So, we’re going to look at that subject right now. And our first question is, …

PP     1.    “What does ‘Justified’ mean?”

What does the word “justified” mean? Well, here’s an example in the Bible in Luke chapter 18, and verses 10 to 14, where Jesus is speaking, and He says in verse 10,…

PP1    Luke 18:10-14
V10   “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”

Friends, a Pharisee was a member of a strict Jewish religious sect. These people were... well, they thought they were pretty perfect. And the other man was a tax collector. A tax collector was classified seriously by the Jews as a sinner, as the scum of the earth, because the tax collectors would actually work for the Roman Government. And Rome rule the world at that time. They worked for the Romans. And they took taxes off their own fellow Jewish neighbours to pay to Rome. And they weren’t always honest either. And so, one was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. And they’ve gone up to the temple to pray.  -------  Now the next verse, verse 11, …

PP2    v11  
“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men - extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

PP3    v12  I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.”

So he thought he was pretty good, didn’t he? This Pharisee had ‘I’ problems. I reckon that he would need to go off to see a heavenly optometrist to get his ‘I’ problems fixed up. He was really full of himself. -----  It’s interesting that ‘I’ is the middle letter in sin, ‘I’ is the middle letter in pride, and it’s not good. So now we come to verse 13, the rest of the story, verses 13 and 14, …

PP4  
V13   “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’

Then verse 14 Jesus said … …

PP5   v14
‘I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other;  for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’ ”

----  So they are the thoughts in that verse. The proud Pharisee says,  “I, I, I, I, I, I”, and the tax collector, in his humility says, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” And it says, he is the one who went down to his house justified, justified, just-if-he’d never sinned. -----

------  So the second point here, that we’re coming to is, …

PP     2.    Our great need is to receive the gift. (Friends, a gift is free)

I’ll just back up a bit. Isn’t it great that when we work, we get wages? We get paid our wages. Well, we wouldn’t want this kind of wage that is being spoken about here. …

PP    Romans 6:23
”For the wages of sin is death, (Yes, sin pays a wage, but it's death.) … but the gift  (You don’t have to work for a gift do you? A gift is free. ‘but the gift …) of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So look at that. We don’t have to pay with good deeds. It’s a gift - it’s free. ------

Now …

PP    Romans 3:10-12  
V10   “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.
V11   There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God.
V12They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one.”

Friends, we all need justification. In the eyes of God, we need to be seen as ‘just-if-I’d never sinned’, justified. ------

PP   Romans 5:12
“Therefore, just as through one man  (that’s Adam.  Just as through one man) sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

So Adam started it and we chose to keep it up.  

I want to tell you a story about   ‘John, the Stonebreaker’  ---  John worked breaking stones to make the cobblestone roads over in England many years ago. They’ve still got some of those cobblestone roads. They’ve been there for a long time. The vehicles still drive on them. So John was breaking stones in the middle of the day.  He was breaking the stones and fitting them into the road and packing them in and everything and it was a hot job. It was a hard job. And as his boss walked past one day, he overheard John saying under his breath, “O, Adam, O Adam.” And the boss stopped and said, “John, what are you saying that for? -- ‘O, Adam’.   What do you mean?” and John said, “Oh boss,” he said, “if it hadn’t been for Adam, if Adam had not sinned way back there in the Garden of Eden, I wouldn’t have to be doing this. I wouldn’t have to be working by the sweat of my brow and all of that. And I just wish he’d never chose to sin back then. Because if he hadn’t, all would be well today.”

Well, his boss thought about that. And a couple of weeks later, he had the opportunity to invite John and his wife home for a meal.  He had a nice home. And the table was set up beautifully --  nice cloth, nice chairs, nice cutlery, crockery, everything beautiful, food on the table.

And the boss sat down with them. And he said, “We’ll just have a great meal together.”  John and his wife, were really looking forward to this. And then one of the servants came in and called the boss away. He said, “There’s a call out here for you, and you need to come Sir.” And so the boss stood up from the table. And he said to John and his wife, “Look, just make yourself completely at home, enjoy the food.” He said, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I will be back before too long. And just enjoy yourselves.” But, he said, “This one big bowl in the middle of the table”, he said, “Whatever you do, don’t take the lid off that one there. That’s all,” he said, “But apart from that, just enjoy everything.”

And so the boss went away. He didn’t go too far actually, …. this was rigged actually, …  and he went and stood behind the curtains. And he watched. And he watched. And after a while of John and his wife enjoying the food, they started talking about, “What would be under this lid?” If they lifted the lid up, “What would be underneath there.  We mustn’t take the lid off it.” But after a while, the boss didn’t come back and join them so John’s wife said, “Oh, look, if we just take the lid off a little bit, to have a quick look.” And so she lifted the lid up, and out ran a mouse and it ran across the table, and it jumped down onto the floor and then John and his wife got up to try to catch the mouse to put it back into the bowl with the lid on.

And just then the boss, who had been watching carefully, came out from behind the curtains and reminded them of what John had been saying a couple of weeks earlier, “O, Adam, O Adam.”  -----  

-----   Friends, if it had been you and me back there in the Garden of Eden instead of Adam, it would probably be me who kicked off this sin thing in the world. Or you.  So it might not have been the name of Adam.  It could have been Ray or Mary or Sue, or somebody. Now Adam started it, but we chose to keep it up.  -----  

Now …

PP1   Romans 5:18,19
V18  “Therefore, as through one man’s offense, (or sin) judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one man’s righteous act  (that’s the righteous act of Jesus)  the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

PP2
V19    For as by one man’s disobedience (that one man was Adam, Adams disobedience) many were made sinners, so also by one man’s obedience (that’s Jesus - His obedience,) many will be made righteous.”

So here is the answer friends, one man, Jesus also brings righteousness. ------

------  So the third point that we want to come to is this …

PP     3.    Justification brings a new relationship with God.

PP    Romans 5:10
“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled  (or made in harmony with God, we were reconciled) to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

So it says, “For if when we were enemies,” ---  Well, you know, God never hated us. He loves us, ---  hates what we do.  He hates sin. ----But we were enemies in that we would actually push ourselves away from God, because we didn’t want to do the things that God wants us to do, the good things. And so we wanted to go on our own merry way. And we were the ones who have walked away from God. He did not walk away from us.

So before justification, in this way, we are God’s enemies, we don’t want God. And so he puts it in our heart to choose to follow Him and to desire Him.  …

PP    Romans 5:1
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Yes friends, after justification, we have peace with God and we are not enemies.”

The new relationship brings peace.

PP1    1 John 3: 1,2
V1    “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Now the first part of verse 2 ----

PP2  
v2   Beloved, now we are children of God;  

So after Justification, we are God’s children.  We are sons and daughters of God.  -----

-----   Well, the fourth point we come to is this …  

PP       4.     How are we to be Justified?

PP    Romans 3:24
“… being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,…”

Friends, this is God’s part in our salvation. We are justified by His grace.  What is grace?  Grace is an undeserved favour.

------   Now, what is the part that Jesus plays in our salvation? …

PP   Romans 5:9
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

This is Jesus’s part, “We are justified by His blood,” Him dying on the cross for us – to pay the price for our sins.

Now, what is the part that you and I play in our salvation?

PP1    Romans 9:31,32
V31   “… but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.”

PP2    
V32   “Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, (or simply by believing,) but as it were, by the works of the law. (They tried to just do the work, do the works. It wasn’t just a believing thing for them. They wanted to work their way to salvation.) … For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.”

So my friend, this is our part, we are justified by faith, we are made right with God, and righteous in His eyes, by faith, simply by believing.

PP1    Acts 13:38,39     (It says,)
V38 “Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man (Jesus) is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; …”

PP2  
V39   “…and by Him, everyone who believes is justified from all things (from all sins) from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.”

He’s speaking here about the old Ceremonial Laws – The Law of Moses.  He’s not talking about the 10 Commandments. He’s talking about the other set of laws, the Ceremonial Laws.  They can’t justify us.  And so the word justification there means forgiveness of sins.  ------

------   So number five, what about …

PP     5.    Justification and the Law

PP    Romans 3:20   (says)
“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

This time, we’re speaking about the 10 Commandments Law. And we read here that nobody can be justified by this law either. The law is actually a mirror to show us the grease. Look, I’ll explain it to you this way. -----   I’m working under the car. I come out from under the car and I’ve got grease on my face. Can I see the grease? No, I can’t. But if I look in the mirror, I can see the grease.

And so, what do I do next? Does the mirror wash the grease off? No, it doesn’t. I need some soap and water to wash the grease off. And so that is the same with sin too.

”By the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight.”

And it says here, “For by the law (by looking at God’s 10 Commandments law) is the knowledge of sin.”

So we can’t be justified by the law. We can’t be cleaned by the law. The law is a mirror to show us the grease, the sin that’s on us. The mirror can’t clean us, the 10 Commandments Law can’t clean us. We need soap to clean us. We need the blood of Jesus to clean us, to remove the grease, the sin. -----

-----  Now …

PP   Romans 3:28
“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.”

----  Is it possible to receive God’s gift of eternal life without doing good deeds?  It certainly is!  Please listen.

Is there an example in the Bible? There are many, but one of them, an example of somebody in the Bible, who didn’t have to do good works, they didn’t have to keep the 10 Commandments. In fact, they were a bad breaker of the 10 Commandments, but they were still justified by faith.  They still received the free gift of eternal life.

Let’s have a look at an example. The thief on the cross beside Jesus. He was hanging up there on the cross, he was a thief. And the history books tell us that he was probably also a murderer. And so he was hanging on the cross there, getting the just reward for what he had done in life for his sin.

And then he looked across to Jesus. And he said, “Lord, please remember me when you come into Your kingdom.” And that, of course, is in ….

PP    Luke 23:42,43     (It says,)
V42   “Then he (that’s the thief) said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when you come into Your kingdom?’
V43   And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to you today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Did that thief have a chance to get down off the cross to do good deeds, to get baptized, to make amends with the people he had wronged or the people he’d robbed and perhaps murdered? No, he did not at all. He died up there, never having the chance to do good deeds, after he accepted Jesus as his Saviour.

But Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, you will be with me in Paradise.”  ----  So, to accept the free gift of salvation, is not about doing a bunch of good deeds. -----  

PP    Later, out of love for Jesus and love for God
for doing such a wonderful thing for us,
giving us the free gift of eternal life,
yes, we will want to do good things,
we will want to do good deeds.  
We won’t want to hurt Jesus in any way,
or hurt anybody else.
But we’ll do that out of love, later.

I’ll just touch very lightly on that point right now.  

PP    Romans 6:14,15   (says)
V14   “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
V15    What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not!”  

You know, we are not under the law, if we are keeping the law.
Look at these verses in …

PP    Galatians 5:18, 22,23.     (Verse 18,)
V18   “But if you are led by the Spirit, (that’s God’s Spirit,) you are not under the law.”
V22   “But the fruit of the Spirit…”  (What is God’s Spirit going to lead us to do? It says it here, “But the fruit of the Spirit)… is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
V23   gentleness, self control.  (And then it says,)  Against such … (against these good things that God’s Spirit leads us to do, against such) … there is no law.”

So friends, “If we are led by God’s Spirit and doing the good things that God wants us to do, we are not under the law, against such good things there is no law.”

I’ll give you an example. You and I are sitting in a car, I’m driving, you’re on the passenger seat.  We’re driving down the road, and instead of keeping to the speed in the 50 zone, I am traveling at 80 kilometres an hour. And the blue light picks me up. And so I finish up in court.  You come along because you’re feeling a bit sorry for me. And so I’m sitting in court, and the judge looks at my record and he says, “Archer, you know, this is a first offence for you. I could fine you heavily for this. But,” he says, “I am feeling gracious today. I feel like giving you an undeserved favour, grace. And so what I’m going to do, you don’t deserve it, but I’m going to let you go free.  Today, you’re not under the law Archer, you’re under grace.”  ---
And so I thank him very, very much. I think that’s fantastic that he’s let me go free. I’m not under the law. I’m under grace today. And we go outside. We get into the car. I’m driving again. And the speed goes up 20, 30, 40, 50, the limit, 60, 70, 80, 90. And you say to me, “Ray, slow down, what do you think you’re doing!? The judge has let you off free and now you’re just breaking the law again!”   And I say, “Ah, don’t worry yourself. The judge said that today I’m not under the law but under grace. So I can do what I like!”    ----  Well, is that what it means? Of course not. Of course not.  -----

-----   Friends, you’ll want to watch my message on the website about that.  It’s called ‘100% Freedom’. -----

----  So as we’ve seen in our message today, here’s number 6.

PP    6.   Righteousness (or justification) is a gift from God.

PP    Revelation 19:8  
“And to her…  (to her was referring in the book of Revelation, to the church or to the individuals who make up God’s Church. To her… ) … it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”

In the Bible, it tells us that Justification is the robe.  We come to Jesus just as we are, dirty as we are, sinful as we are. And He just gives us the free gift of eternal life. And then He, you might say, He wraps His beautiful, clean white robe of righteousness around us and presents us to the Father in heaven. And the Father looks down and He doesn’t see “Dirty Ray Archer.” He sees the beautiful white robe of Christ’s righteousness wrapped around me. And He says, “Welcome home, son, welcome home, daughter. Welcome to the family of God.” He sees us perfect.

PP    Isaiah 61:10   (… tells us a little bit more about that. In Isaiah it says,)
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation.
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

Yes, friends, the beautiful clean robe of righteousness is God’s gift to us. -----

PP    Romans 5:8
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us,
in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

-----   We need to respond straight away to His love and accept Jesus as our friend and Saviour.    I’ll give you an example of the fact that sometimes we choose to delay and not respond straight away. ----   If you fall out of a boat into the river, and you’re getting pulled down the river, you’re getting pulled under the water, and someone throws you, on the end of a rope, they throw you a life buoy and call out to you, ‘Grab the life buoy and you’ll be saved. Grab the life buoy.’   -----   And what do you say?  “No. Look, I’ve got a lot more questions to ask. First, I’ve got some more questions to ask before I grab the life buoy.”  Guess what happens? We put it off, and we put it off, we procrastinate. And before too long, unless we grab that life buoy, down we go under the water, drowned.

PP    So Jesus is telling us,
“Today, now is the accepted time to accept Him
  and to receive Him as our Saviour and to
       receive the free gift of eternal life.”

We don’t know all about it at this stage. But I want to tell you friends, it’s only good. Jesus never asks us at any time to do anything that is going to be harmful to us. And so He’s just asking us today, to respond to His love and accept Jesus as our Friend and Saviour.  He’s asking us, to grab the life buoy.  ----

-----  So God invites you to pray this prayer to Him. And I just want to invite you, you can sit on your seat, you can kneel, whatever you would like to do.  This is the prayer that I invite you to pray with me. I’ll just say the basics of the words first. This is part of accepting the free gift of eternal life.

And so the first thing I’d like you to pray is something like this, and you can pray after me, …

PP1
Dear Father, I believe Jesus died so that I can have the free gift of eternal life.

Please pray that.    -----    

Now the second point I’d like you to pray after me…

PP2   I am a sinner, and my sins put Jesus on the cross.

-----     Now the third point …  

PP3
Please forgive me for my sins so that I can have eternal life.

-----   And we read in …    

PP4   1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, You (that’s our Heavenly Father) are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

----   So there’s our request to God in the prayer.   “Please forgive me for my sins so that I can have the free gift of eternal life right now.”  -----

------    And our last thing is, as we have received the free gift of eternal life that we have asked for, we need to now thank our heavenly Father.   So please pray this after me …

PP5    Thank you very very much, Father, for giving me the free gift of eternal life.

-------   Well my friend, if you’ve prayed that prayer, you now have received today the free gift of eternal life. -----  I’m not suggesting that you would have had tingles up your spine or anything like that, or you’re going to all of a sudden feel 100% different in every way.  No, not necessarily at all. The experience of receiving Jesus is different for different people. ------   But I want to guarantee one thing, Satan will try to make us think that we haven’t received eternal life.

Let’s look at a Bible verse. Satan, the devil, wants to destroy us. And when we accept Jesus as our Saviour, Satan will be on our case, a lot more than he has ever been before. And he will be wanting to turn us away from God, to take us back to the rut in which he had us in the first place.  ------

------   So let’s have a look at a verse for when Satan comes along to try to make us think we haven’t received eternal life. We think of this verse in …

PP1    1 John 5:10,13  (two verses. Verse 10,)
V10   “He who believes (that’s you and me.  He who believes) in the Son of God …  (that’s Jesus) … has the witness in himself;   (And then it goes on,)… He who does not believe God, has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son.”

Now, the very next verse …

PP2   V13   “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

So there it is, friends, the old devil tries to tell us we haven’t got the free gift of eternal life. But if we believe in the name of the Son of God, if we believe in Jesus, we can know that we have eternal life. And so, for each one of you, if this is your first time to accept Jesus as your Saviour, I want to say …

PP    Welcome into God’s forever family!  
Friends, The wonderful journey has just begun.

----  Our next study will be about the big Bible word called Sanctification.   Sanctification is about our ongoing journey of growth and it’s a great study. If you’ve got things you want to get rid of in your life, things that you don’t want to do anymore, it’s a lot easier than you might have thought, to make changes.  So ‘Sanctification’  ---- that’s a big Bible word.

PP    I have a message on my website about the wonderful ongoing process of Sanctification.  It’s called, ‘100% FREEDOM’.  It’s a very important, and a very practical message.     ‘100% FREEDOM’.  Please, check it out in the ‘LIFE LESSONS’ section on my website.

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Friends, if you’ve been blessed and challenged by this message,
then please take time now to send it on to your friends.

And may God bless you wonderfully on your journey.