Saved by Grace

Recently I read Revelation 3:22. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  

When I read this verse it really spoke to me. I looked at it from different angles.

If you do not have an ear to hear, people may observe you and it may look as if you are listening attentively, but in reality you are not hearing anything. What is lacking is your spiritual ear with which you can hear what the Spirit says. It says here, that all need to have this ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. If you do not have an ear to hear you will lose out on so much that you should be doing.

The reason for us being here, is because the work of the Lord is going forward as it is still on the foundation on which the founder of this work built. He had an ear to hear what the Spirit said. If he had not had that ear to hear, you and I would not have received this salvation.

I have been so blessed when I listened to all the evening services. Often I hear a message that I had wished to share, being preached. One person said, if a person is deaf, you may warn him about a snake, a fire or even criminals, that he should watch out, but as he doesn’t hear he is oblivious to the danger because his ear does not hear the warning and he cannot escape. Brethren, do you hear how vital it is for you to have an ear to hear, otherwise you will never learn to discern God’s speaking or even remember what He said in a service,

The prophet Isaiah said it in Isaiah 59: God’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor His ear deaf that He cannot hear, but the iniquities of men separate them from God. Sin separates a person from God.

If you have an ear to hear what God says, and you listen attentively to what He says, God can perform miracles through your life. You will hear God speaking to you, and saying to you as a child, as a wife, speaking to your husband, that which you said there wasn’t right, that which you did there wasn’t right. You will then be quick to hear and do what you should do, to be reconciled, but if you don’t hear, it is like water off a duck’s back . If you have received Jesus and the Holy Spirit in your life, be attentive to listen and obey. That is why David prayed and said, do not remove Your Spirit from me, create a pure heart within me. How wonderful it is when a child of God has received the Holy Spirit, but how terrible when he quenches the same Holy Spirit.

You lose out on so much of God’s working in your life, just by not having an ear to hear what He says. You can read the Bible and it won’t have any meaning to you, a service won’t mean anything to you, the sound will go in one ear and out the other. Then God speaks to you and says, go and make that right, go and make restitution, but you harden your heart and quench the Holy Spirit. Ask yourself the question – if God does not speak to you, what is the cause of that, has your heart grown cold?

The two disciples on their way to Emmaus did not recognise that it was Jesus walking with them. It is recorded that they had long faces, they were downcast. Eventually when Jesus broke the bread and gave it to them, their eyes were opened. And they spoke to each other saying, did not our hearts burn within us when He spoke to us? We need God to open our minds and eyes to hear Him speaking to us. Because you may listen to someone singing, testifying, preaching, but you don’t take it in, you don’t take it to heart, because your ear is blocked. Your child, your neighbour speaks to you and you push it aside as you have lost your hearing. Bessed is the one who asks God; ‘Oh Lord, how did I lose my hearing ear that I could commit something like this?’ then God will show you.

Today I am going to speak about salvation and grace. The choir sang about it, even the opening prayer was about that. It is like that if people are one in the Lord. They are on the same wavelength, and it pleases God.

Ephesians 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins

Hear the language Paul spoke, but unless God helps you through His Spirit, you won’t understand what He says here.

The topic is: The Gentiles share in the Gospel through faith and salvation. Jews and Gentiles alike share in salvation through grace. The same with us. We may be various races, different peoples, but through grace, we share the salvation of God. When we are with our relatives, believers and non-believers, they will see in our lives that we have met up with this salvation. Do your neighbours bear witness to the fact that you, father, mother, children have received salvation through grace?

Paul says now you have received life but before you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Do you see how clear the difference ought to be. Paul said, you have been made alive. If you have experienced that, you will be able to testify to it. We could ask different people here to stand up and ask and they can testify to the same.

But there are some who will have to stand up and say, I have not yet experienced it, I am still ruled by sin in my life, I have not received that grace yet. My question is – if the Lord  returns and you are still busy with your sin, where will you go?

Ephesians 2:2 – 3  in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 

So Paul explains here, that before they had been saved, they were following the power of the prince of the air. Following the desires and passions of their mind and body, but the grace of God came and lifted them out of that, and they received salvation.

Some so-called believers are still walking like that, in the old ways. It is terrible when sin rides a person like you ride a horse. Where you don’t want to become angry or irritated, or be stubborn, but it just comes because it rules in your life.

Ask yourself dear child, is this spirit at work in your life? Are you a son of disobedience? When your mother speaks to you and say you shouldn’t get back at this time of the night, then you backchat and say that you did it when you were young, why do you speak to me about it? You need prayer to be delivered from that power of the prince of the air.

If Jesus comes and works in that person’s life, they will fear sin, like you fear a snake and you don’t sleep with a snake. You will never go to bed knowing that there is a mamba in your room, but the one who goes to bed knowing there is unconfessed sin in his life, is worse, that will kill.

You as a child of God should know full well whether you have been set free. If the blood of the Lord Jesus has done its work in your life, you will know that. God has bestowed so much grace upon you, for how long will you still persist in your sin?

Ephesians 2:4  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us

Do you see the greatness of God’s love, that He sent His only begotten Son, He makes it very clear that it is by His grace that we have been saved.

Ephesians 2:5 – 7   even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Paul says that while we are here in this sinful world, we are living with Christ for Christ is within us. What type of Jesus is in you if you can still say, I dislike this one, I hate that person and I can’t live with that one. Today a black man hates a white man. A white man hates a black man. The nations are rising up against each other now. They need this salvation. We thank God for His grace and salvation that people from all nations can be saved, but how terrible it is amongst those that are unsaved.

It is amazing how Paul saw that the Gentiles got saved, as the Jews were being saved.

What kind of blood is this that only washes your heart partially, that there is a part it doesn’t wash. The Bible makes it clear that you cannot serve two masters. It is either Jesus or satan. You cannot serve both. You who have not yet received salvation, you need it, people where you come from need to see this grace as well.

Ephesians 2:8 – 9 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

You see, faith is a gift from God. It is God who creates it that a person can believe. You cannot do it of your own accord. It is a gift that you receive from God, it is not something you can boast about.We thank God that whilst we are still here on earth, we can be united in spite of being from different nations and peoples.

But ask yourself the question, why has the blood of the Lord Jesus not yet cleansed your heart? You say you have received the Lord Jesus, why then does sin still reign in your life? You need to come to the foot of the Cross and be cleansed of your sins which you lay down there. Behold such grace!

As I draw to a close, let us turn to Titus 2:11 – 12  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

Although I have often spoken about this word, I want to emphasise this. In the year 2000 Rev Stegen preached on this word. You see, if salvation has not yet come to your life you will live just as it suits you. But once you have received this grace, you cannot just carry on living as you like, because brethren, if you have received this grace, it will lead you in godliness and integrity. Worldly passions will come to an end, you will live self-controlled upright lives.

Today people drink, smoke, live degraded lives – murdering, killing, stealing because they do not fear God. They need this grace. If they receive this grace, it will be spoken about that their lives have turned from death to life.

Now let me teach you, you who do not yet understand what it means to confess your sin. You might get your answer why it hasn’t worked for you, why you return to your sin after confessing it.

We learnt in the 1960s to be specific – not to generalise by saying: I lie, I am stubborn, I have grudges, then it will be easy to go back to them. You need to call a spade a spade, confess the beginning of the sin. When you chop down a tree and leave the roots, it will sprout again. But if you dig it up, and get the root out, it won’t grow again. Your sins will come back again and again if you don’t dig out the roots. When David confessed his sins, he did not blame the devil. Many do that, oh, it is the devil, Satan, that is why I did it.

If you go to a shop and steal, and the security cameras pick you up, how you put things in your pockets, then they catch you and they tell you to take out that which you have in your pockets, etc. You cannot blame Satan. It was your hands that took it and put it in your pocket. They will arrest you and you will go to jail, and if you blame Satan they will say there is something wrong upstairs. Maybe you highjack a car, shoot someone, you are caught, and then in the dock at court you say it was the devil, no, you are the one who took that car, your hands drove it away.

Romans 12:1 & 2 it makes it so clear. I beseech you therefore, brethre, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Your mind needs to be changed, if you still allow evil and unclean thoughts, pictures of nude people to cloud your mind, you’re just chopping off the branches. It will grow again.

That is why God came down in our midst and He saw we needed the Holy Spirit to change and transform our lives, as the disciples experienced it. If you go home and you go and make restitution, apologising to your parents that you stole things, they will expect you to say what it was you took. It is not enough to say, I am troubled by evil thoughts, explain what those evil thoughts are. If you say, I get angry, say why do you get angry, that is how to get victory over sin.

Ephesians 2:4 – 6  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus

A person still ruled by anger and passions has not yet received his grace.

I would like to repeat a story I have told before. Rev Stegen once went to Ladysmith with us and someone else preached. I was very young at that time, but I really understood the illustration he used. He had a bottle with water that was clear, but at the bottom of the bottle was sediment we could not see.He asked whether we could drink this water. Yes, we replied. He then shook the bottle. As he shook it, the water became cloudy and dirty. It was definitely not drinkable anymore. He said that is what our lives can be like, if there is still sin in your heart, someone can come and just rub you up the wrong way and the sin flares up.

I  have also illustrated it to you with my dog, Spinach. Spinach carries grudges in his heart because he gets very upset if I don’t greet him and say goodbye to him properly. Sometimes when I return home, he doesn’t even want to look at me. If I want to greet him, he doesn’t want to give me his paw, he is angry with me because I didn’t say goodbye to him properly when I left.

There are those people who spiritually live the life of a dog. Like a dog going back to its vomit. If you go back to your sin, that is exactly what you like, a dog returning to his vomit.

Decide once and for all that you will not sin with your hands again, as your body is the temple of the living God.

Now, I put R600 on my bed, and Spinach came and took a R200 note and tore it apart, he tore it into such small pieces that one could not stick it together again. Then he went and hid, looking up at me guiltily. I didn’t get angry or upset. What would you have done in that situation as you cannot control your temper? By God’s grace I did not get angry, God has saved me from my temper.

Many years ago, I went to fetch water to wash my car from a tap where someone was doing some washing. When I asked for water, this person just lost it and pulled me around by my shirt for a while, and then I could take water. Later I told Rev Stegen that I am a believer now, because I did not get angry and hit that person.

Ask yourself, have you been saved from your bad temper? If not, maybe when you confessed your temper you only cut off the branches and the shoots are growing again.

God showed us all grace by the Lord Jesus dying for our sins, how long will you still remain in your sin? As the Bible says: Will we continue in our sin so that grace may abound? Never!

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. 

If you always return to your sin you have not yet started fearing God, you have not yet attained wisdom. If you still get angry when people correct you, ask God to give you that wisdom, to give you that fear of God, that in this present age we can live God-fearing lives.

You all look like you are listening attentively, may you truly have that ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to His people and that you may not be deceived by the powers and principalities in the air.

S Khumalo

The story of Jesus is so sweet. Indeed, it is grace to be saved, and may you have had an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.. May you not only have heard the gospel, but may it have penetrated into your heart and life.

Ephesians 2:8   For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

Salvation comes through hearing, through hearing you believe, and then you confess with your mouth. Having heard the message, may you grasp, and may God give you that Spirit of discernment to discern what it is that God is saying to you personally.