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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Bridges of Life

Many times in history, a bridge has provided a means of escape for retreating armies and civilians.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about a bridge which has saved millions of lives.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

The story is told of 2 prisoners who lived in the first century after Christ, who found themselves under the custody of the laws of the land.

On the surface it appears that these men must surely be very dangerous.

The account of their arrest and the subsequent sentence would lead us to wonder about them.

They were stripped of their clothing and beaten in accordance with the law of the Roman government for their alleged crime.

Then, since they were considered so dangerous, they were cast into the inner prison, doubtless some dungeon reserved for the most hardened criminals.

But even that was not enough, because the record says that they were then placed in stocks for safekeeping.

It would surely seem that men in such circumstances as these would be very sad and dejected concerning their plight.

But The actual truth of the story is quite different.

You may read the entire account in your own Bible in Acts 16.

You will discover that the record tells us these men were singing and praying at midnight there in the inner prison.

Yes, these were dangerous men, but not in the common sense of the word.

Their power was greater than the power of all men of all governments of the earth.

These men were the personal representatives of the greatest government of all time, the government of heaven, whose head, of course, is God, the Creator of all.

Our story continues that while these men sang, suddenly there was a mighty earthquake.

The prison door swung open, the chains fell off the prisoners, and escape was then possible.

The jailer, seeing the situation, was about to slay himself, thinking the prisoners had all fled and he would be responsible for it.

But Paul stayed the jailer's hand by telling him that all the prisoners are still there.

The jailer comes in before these men of God.

He realizes that he stands in the presence of men who represent a new way of life for him, and he cries out with a question that men everywhere are still asking, "'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' The answer is certain as it comes from the lips of Paul.

Plainly and simply he says, "'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

But the answer is likewise simple and uncomplicated.

As we open this chapter on the marvelous story of the controversy between Christ and Satan, we want to examine the question and the answer.

First, the question, what must I do to be saved?

Romans 6-23 tells us that the wages of sin is death.

This is the great basic question of life.

Isaiah 59 tells us that sin has separated us from God.

Thus we need to be saved from separation from Him.

Sin has caused a great gulf between man and God.

We need to find the bridge that can cross this great gulf of sin, the gulf of death, and the gulf of separation from God.

But there is something else from which we need to be saved also.

We need to be saved from the power of sin, the hold that sin has over our lives every day.

1 John 3, verse 8, notice this text, He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning.

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the work of the devil.

And then Hebrews 2, 14, forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.

All right, we need this power that will give us the power over sin in the life, and then power over Satan.

So when we ask the question, What must I do to be saved?, we are asking first to be saved from death, then to be saved from separation from God, and thirdly to be saved from the power of sin and the daily life and habits.

The answer comes back the same no matter where or when the question is asked.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

Only Christ can save us from death and from separation from God and from the power of sin.

He is the only 1 that can bridge the awful gulf of sin.

Did you ever stop to seriously consider what it means to believe on Jesus?

There is a tendency in modern theological preaching to tell us that to believe in Christ is merely a work of the mental powers.

We merely come to the place where we are willing to give mental assent to Christ and what he has done.

Perhaps we change a few of our ideas, of course, and readjust our thinking a bit, giving a mental allegiance to Jesus alone.

We need to change our minds indeed from the natural thoughts to thoughts about God and Christ.

We may do certain things that reveal a change in our thinking, But too often we deny our belief by not going any further.

In fact, the Bible says in James 2, verse 19, that the devil believes in God.

Even a casual observer would admit that the devil is not going to be saved, even though he does believe in Christ.

He knows that the coming of Christ is imminent and that his time is very short.

Yes, all of these things are revealed in the Bible.

Even though Satan believes all this, belief alone will not save him.

Thus, we must surely see that unless belief is accompanied by more than theory, it is nothing at all.

Now let's look at an illustration that will help us understand the true relationship of our professing that we believe and our responsibility of putting these beliefs into action.

In Luke 16, verse 26, Christ mentions this great gulf of sin over which man cannot cross by himself.

We recall that 1 John 5, verse 12 tells us that there are 2 sides.

1 side leads to life, the other to death.

On 1 side man has the hope of eternal life to come.

He has the abundant life now, free from separation from God, free from eternal death, free from the power of sin.

He suffers remorse and heartache of sinful deeds day by day.

He faces the certainty of the judgment and the day when the wages of sin will be given to all whose names are not in the book of life.

Now doubtless at some time in your life you, too, have had the frightening experience of being lost.

Your surroundings for the moment were entirely strange to you.

You didn't know which direction to turn, and the more you tried to find your way to familiar ground the more confused you became.

Surely there is a great gulf fixed over which no man can cross.

We are lost friends of ourselves in trying to find a way across that gulf.

Peter once said that there is only 1 name that can save us, and that is the name of Jesus.

Just before the birth of Christ, his mother was told that she was to call his name Jesus because he would save his people from their sins.

The mysterious bridge then becomes no mystery at all.

The bridge is Christ, for only Christ can bring the answer to the sin problem.

This brings Paul's answer into sharp focus when he said, ìBelieve on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved." Now there are 7 points from the life of Jesus that we need to consider in order to truly, fully believe on him and be saved.

We'll call the first of the 7 piers of the mysterious bridge, CAME, because Paul says when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, Galatians 4.

So at just the right time, when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, Galatians 4.

So at just the right time, when the fulness of time was come, when the world situation was ready, When the time clock of heaven had come to the right moment, Jesus came into this world of sin and rebellion.

His coming was not accomplished by his appearing on the streets of Jerusalem and announcing that he was the Son of God.

Surely he had the power and ability to appear in the form of men coming quickly from heaven in such a manner.

But in order for him to fully pay the penalty for our sins and in order to meet Satan on his ground, Jesus was to affiliate himself fully with men and their problems.

You see, friends, Jesus must fully take the place of man, and only then could the full wages of sin be paid.

His coming then as He did, being born of human flesh, allowing His every need to be supplied at the hands of human parents, growing as any baby and little boy grows, experiencing the problems of boys and youth and then of all mankind, provides the remedy and the full answer to all of man's problems.

He must also live, L-I-V-E, and that's the next pier on the bridge that we're talking about.

His life was ever after to be an example in all things for all men.

As we study his life recorded for us in the first 4 books of the New Testament, we find how he reacted to different situations in his life, situations, by the way, that were just as real as our own today.

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Bridges of Life

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