SALVATION
Ron D Plant
I want to speak about salvation. Salvation is an immense subject that is referred to over a hundred and fifty times in the Scriptures, right from the beginning of the Scriptures to the end. The young ones here can search that out and find out how many times exactly salvation is mentioned, over one hundred and fifty times anyway.
I was struck with this reference in Corinthians that says, “I have listened to thee in an accepted time, and I have helped thee in a day of salvation: behold, now the well-accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”: now. We live in a very changing world. It is full of woes, problems and difficulties and things that need solutions; some are very urgent at the present time. Men are seeking answers. The difficulties of doing that, and bringing about things equitably and meeting expectations occupy the world all the time and have done for the whole of the world’s existence. I thought of this scripture, “now the day of salvation”. You may say it is a day of trouble, when the latest episodes of the world’s crises and problems and difficulties and dangers are testing the world’s governments with how to resolve these things. So, you may say now is the day of trouble, it is a day of perplexity, but scripture says today is “the day of salvation”.
I had to read the scripture in the Acts for it says, “salvation is in none other, for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”. God’s salvation has not had to be adjusted for the changing times or the nuances of the political world and all the things that man has done in his efforts that are all around us. God’s salvation has never changed and God’s salvation is presented now. I was struck with that, “now”. You may say, ‘Now is a critical time in the history of the world’. Scripture says, “now the day of salvation”; and, “salvation is in none other”.
We read about the death of that glorious Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. In that death God resolved the great matter of His salvation in all the aspects that it contains. He resolved it all in the death of the One He loved the most, our Lord Jesus Christ. God presents His salvation, as He has done all our lives here and far, far longer and before. It is in a changing world. It just strikes me that it is a very topical thing. The world needs solutions, and has done in all its history. Somehow this is attempted to be brought about and yet God’s salvation - in all its fulness and completeness, with every aspect of what that salvation is, because it is such a vast subject - that salvation has been secured and secured forever in the death and resurrection of Christ. It is presented to mankind in the fulness of God’s love for the acceptance of faith and the settlement of your life and your eternal salvation forever. How wonderful these things are.
There is a very interesting book in the scriptures, the book of Ecclesiastes. You have to read it carefully because Solomon was given wisdom such as no king had possessed. He was the king after David and he asked God for wisdom, and He gave him this gift to judge the people wisely. He could have asked for wealth but he asked for wisdom, and he became very wise. You can find his proverbs, the Proverbs of Solomon, in the Scriptures. He went an interesting way in that he sought grace from God to look at the whole of the world’s system and to look at everything that took place “under the sun”; to look at its good things, and its evils and all the things in it. The book of Ecclesiastes is an account of Solomon looking into everything. God gave him special grace to look into everything that the world was, and all its content and everything about it. If you read it, it is interesting, but remember to read it for what it is. It is not exactly a book that gives heaven’s view. It is a view of man’s work and man’s efforts to achieve his own happiness and solutions in this world, everything that is “under the sun”, Eccles 1: 3. You go through it; and you will see he tried them all.
When we were younger perhaps, we tried various things, but Solomon tried them all. You can read it for yourself. I do not propose to go through the whole thing. Solomon looked at everything that was under the sun. He looked at all the work that was done. He looked at everything that was attempted to be done. He looked at wisdom and knowledge, all the clever things about men, He had a look at that. He looked at pleasure as a thing; he looked at mirth and pleasure. He looked at it and tried it. He looked at great works that were built. He looked at gardens, big gardens and parks and buildings and all these things. He looked at possessions, possessions of cattle and possessions of money and possessions of gold; he had a look at that. He looked to see where he could find lasting happiness, contentment, solutions, and the answers to life’s quest. At the end of it, he says of the pursuit of everything that is in this world “all was vanity and pursuit of the wind”, Eccles 2: 11. Have you ever tried to chase the wind? All is vanity and pursuit of the wind. He expands upon that. There is a lot more detail than I have given you. There is one section that is usually quoted from Ecclesiastes. It says, “To everything there is a season” (Eccles 3: 1), then he lists out all the things that apply to the world, and he commences with perhaps the most solemn, and that was that there is -
A time to be born, and a time to die.
That is something that limits and covers everything that happens in this world’s system - everything. There is -
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up …
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
If you think about it, we see that during life’s journey. We see a lot of these things:
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose …
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
Somebody observed once that there is one thing it does not say in that comprehensive list, and that is, there is no mention of a time for salvation. There is nothing in this world’s system that is there for salvation. God at this time presents His salvation. This is the day: His salvation. The world is such a complicated place, the world in which we live, and the environment in which we live and the things that occupy it, the enemy is using it to interfere in a certain sense with men’s minds and set glittering things before them. What Solomon says is that he had had a look at it all and at the end it is all vanity. The one crucial thing that proves that is that there is
A time to be born, and a time to die.
It is an interesting book to read. It ends up with an appeal to youth mainly, but to all of us, “remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come” (chap 12: 1) - before time takes its toll. In the face of all of it, a world that is in turmoil, it goes this way - it goes that way, God presents His salvation; and His salvation is centred in the work of One glorious Man. We all know the answer to that. The answer is that God’s salvation is centred in the work and the preciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ who was here on this earth in which we are. He was not in a privileged position; He was in lowliness and meekness and in suffering. He went right into death to meet the whole question of sin and everything that stood in the way. God’s salvation is founded and established on the work that Jesus did. We read about one of the aspects of it in our reading today. How great these things are; I am not able to present the whole of God’s salvation: it is too vast. You think about it, the gospel is preached and we preach about forgiveness; that is a part of God’s salvation. The forgiveness of sins; it is part of God’s salvation. We often speak about mercy: that is a part of God’s salvation. You may say these are blessings you have often heard of. These are part of the vastness of what was secured by Christ, mercy extended to men on the basis of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and His completed work, the forgiveness of sins and offences which stood out against us and the mercy of God towards men. That is often the line which we follow in the preaching. What preaching would be complete without that reference?
Yet there are other references to God’s salvation. We could speak about justification and about reconciliation; these are wonderful features of God’s salvation. It is as if every corner is covered; everything is covered in the preaching of the glad tidings. It is a very wonderful thing to contemplate that. God’s salvation includes an outlook and a hope that is beyond the sphere of time and this world: Romans 8: 24 tells us that. We all have a short time relatively here upon this earth. God’s salvation includes the blessedness of a hope that is beyond, beyond the grave and beyond all that is here; and there is more. What precious things these are.
I wanted to leave an impression of one aspect of God’s salvation that we perhaps do not often speak about, which is redemption. Do you know what redemption means? If you look in one dictionary, it speaks about the recovery of an encumbered right. In other words, something that belonged to someone that has become lost and denied access to them, and redemption is the securing of it back. This is, I think, one of the sweetest aspects of the gospel. I am basing what I say upon Scripture: it speaks of “redemption through his blood”, Eph 1: 7. Redemption is through His blood. You may have thought the shedding of His blood was the means of the forgiveness of sins, and so it is. The scripture also says that we have been redeemed, by His blood, 1 Pet 1: 18, 19. I am going on what the scripture says, and redemption is the recovery of a right - not man’s right but God’s right. To me it is a very beautiful thing. Much could be said about the blessedness and filling out of all these other wonderful aspects of salvation that we have referred to. God sets out His salvation in our Lord Jesus and presents it in the glad tidings to you for your acceptance and the obedience of faith in the midst of a world that is troubled and broken and wrecked by man’s sin and man’s endeavours and pride.
What I wanted to say was that redemption involved that God has got something back which He lost and which He loved. He loves to have it back. That is a part of the glad tidings. Through that work that secured salvation and secured mercy for me, that secured an outlook and a hope and all these things, God has secured something for Himself, and revealed His never-failing love. That is redemption. God has always loved man. Remember that, especially the young ones here. Remember this, whatever people say, that God has never ceased His love for you, whatever your condition; never. Man made God the enemy in Genesis where they went and hid when He was coming (Gen 3: 8): having sinned they were afraid of Him. God never made Himself man’s enemy, because He loved them. He made man; He made man for His own pleasure and for His own joy. It says that: “God so loved …” in John 3: 16 and other scriptures – “For thy will they were, and they have been created”, Rev 4: 11. How short a time elapsed in the garden of Eden before sin and Satan intervened and brought about a distance between God and His creature that He had made for His pleasure, for His own joy, because He loved them. He loved what He made; and one aspect of God’s salvation is that He has secured man back for Himself.
I will tell you a little story which illustrates it a bit. There was a boy who built himself a model boat as carefully as he could. He set it to sail, but the wind caught it and unfortunately he lost control of it and it sailed away. He had lost his boat that he had spent so much love and care and interest in. But one day he saw his boat in a shop window, and he went in hoping to claim it, but the shopkeeper said if he wanted it he would have to pay for it. So, he paid the price and he got his boat back. He had made it and bought it. He redeemed it.
God speaks in the glad tidings of what He thinks about you and me. It is not only that you might be relieved of your burden, your weight of guilt and sin, but it is that God might bring back to Himself that which He loved from the outset and never lost the love for - you and me, sinners saved by grace. Sin in the garden of Eden brought in distance; we were lost to God in that sense. The death of the Lord Jesus and the work that He did involved securing a way of redemption, so that God may receive back what He made; He bought it at what cost - the life of His Son. That is redemption; that is part of the gospel. The most blessed thing is that redemption not only clears you of your indebtedness, but it reveals the heart of a God. He did not come in for you in the forgiveness of your sins just because He pitied you, because He was sorry for you, or something merely on that level. He came in in the work of Jesus because He loved you and because He wanted you, and He never ceased to want you whatever your sinful history has been. Everything for the repenting sinner is secured through the work of our Lord Jesus, not only for your salvation, but for God’s joy and pleasure. That is a wonderful part of the gospel, I think; that is redemption.
I refer briefly to the well-known parable spoken by the Lord in Luke 15, speaking of the course of the life of the younger son of his father. The younger son went away from his father’s house, his home; he went away from all that he knew and took with him everything he thought he was entitled to, money and property. And he lived a life that he wanted and in the course of time lost it all in a debauched life until he came to a point where he was in want. He remembered his father’s house and he remembered the time he had there; it leads to repentance. He remembered the time that he had everything and he said, “How many hired servants of my father’s have abundance of bread, and I perish here by famine. I will rise up and go to my father”. You may wonder how he can go back from that far country. How can he go back? How may the sinner repenting expect to be received? You may think that the father might take him back with reluctance, but he goes back. “I will rise up and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned”. That is about all we hear about this man’s sin and the details of his debauchery and all these things. When the father saw him, he “ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses”. You think of God’s reception; think of God’s reception of the sinner that comes back, that once was lost. The father said that here: he “was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found”. I think that is the gospel. That is an aspect of the gospel which is particularly in the heart of God and something that we can enjoy. God not only made provision for me, but He loved me with a love that never changed. What blessed things these are. God’s salvation, how vast it is.
Today is the day of salvation. May we all know what it is, young and old, to turn our hearts in relation to God’s salvation. It is presented only in a Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. That scripture in the Acts said, it is “in none other, for neither is there another name”. Peter refers to the “stone which has been set at nought by you the builders”: the world had and has no place for Christ. We were reading about that in the reading today, how they mocked Him, they derided Him, the One who was carrying in His heart and His spirit and His body everything that was for the heart of God and for the blessing of man. He says, “the stone which has been set at nought by you the builders, which is become the corner stone”. For the believer He becomes the Corner Stone. For those of you who are not builders and even those of us who have tried to be, the corner stone is where every part of the building was built from, built from the corner. It was straight and level, in every dimension horizontally and vertically – it is always very important. Technology may have changed that now, but “salvation is in none other, for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”. May we each one of us know what it is to embrace the fulness of God’s salvation today.
For His Name’s sake.
Dorking
16th March 2025