SALVATION BELONGS TO JEHOVAH AND NO OTHER

IN THE DAYS OF HIS POWER SERIES.

TOPIC: SALVATION BELONGS TO JEHOVAH AND IN NO OTHER

COMPILED/EDITED BY-:
Rev. Innocent Chukwudi Peace-Udochukwu
President Living Fountain Ministries Int’l LIFOM

“For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour”…
Isaiah. 43:3a

We might wonder why God puts such great emphasis upon His identity as the Saviour. Don’t we all know that God is the only Saviour? Doesn’t just about everybody know that?

The answer to that question is, No! There are many who are either ignorant of the fact that He is the only Saviour or they deny that He is the only Saviour. That is true today just as it was in the days when this Word of the Lord was given to the people of Israel.

Throughout her history, by word or deed, Israel denied that God was the Saviour. She was continually going awhoring after other gods. This was true at the very beginning of her history as a nation. Immediately after God had led Israel out of the house of bondage in Egypt, while He was giving the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, Israel built a golden calf and worshipped that calf as her Saviour. During the time of the Judges, over and over again Israel turned to the gods of the Canaanites so that God had to send her enemies against her in judgment. The same thing was true in the time of the kings after the death of Solomon. Israel fell into great apostasy, denying the only Saviour, so that finally God had to lead her away into captivity.

What was true of Israel is also true of the Church of today. The Church as it is manifested in the world (all that goes by the name of Church) is, for the most part, ignorant of or denies the true Saviour. Oh, there is much talk about God and Christ. We hear the name Jesus all the time-so much so that one tires of it. These names, however, have been drained of their meaning. Even though people take these names upon their lips, they do not know of whom they speak. People have so many misconceptions about God and Christ that the God and Christ of most people are not the God and Christ of the Bible. Today God is considered by most to be a weak and helpless God who does not rule this world. He is brought down to the level of man. There is very little respect for Him. He is common-just a buddy. In fact, He is made even lower than man. For man is able to frustrate the will of God by his will. God is supposed to love everyone and want everyone to be saved. God, however, does not get what He wants because many refuse to receive Him as their Saviour.

“Salvation is of the Lord.”
—Jonah 2:9

Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college. He learned it in the whale’s belly, at the bottom of the mountains, with the weeds wrapped about his head, when he supposed that the earth with her bars was about him for ever. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. No man is competent to judge in matters of the kingdom, until first he has been tried; since there are many things to be learned in the depths which we can never know in the heights. We discover many secrets in the caverns of the ocean, which, though we had soared to heaven, we never could have known. He shall best meet the wants of God’s people as a preacher who has had those wants himself; he shall best comfort God’s Israel who has needed comfort; and he shall best preach salvation who has felt his own need of it. Jonah, when he was delivered from his great danger, when, by the command of God the fish had obediently left its great deeps and delivered its cargo upon dry land, was then capable of judging; and this was the result of his experience under his trouble—”Salvation is of the Lord.”

Salvation belongeth unto the LORD: thy blessing is upon thy people. Selah.

Jehovah of course means “I Am”. Thus David is saying that “I Am is (my) Help”. Jehovah Who spoke the heavens and earth into existence (Heb 11:3-note, Ps 33:6, Isa 40:26). If you are born again, you can “take personal possession” so to speak of this passage. In short, this very same God is my Help, my ‘Ezer! What can man do to me if I truly receive and believe this truth! As the psalmist says…
The Name of the LORD is a strong tower. The righteous runs into it and is safe.”
Proverbs 18:10-

Finally, what does it mean that salvation belongs to the Lord? In the context of
Jonah, it means salvation goes where He wants it to go, when He wants it to go & how
He wants it to get there. Think about Jonah. God wants salvation to go to Nineveh &
He wants Jonah to take it there. So, it’s going to Nineveh & Jonah’s taking it there.
• So, when it comes to avoiding eternal wrath, when it comes to enjoying eternal life, for
a person to have salvation they must get it from the Lord bc it belongs to Him. He
owns it. He has exclusive rights to it. It is His enterprise, His invention, His business.
He is in charge of salvation. It is under His authority. He does with it whatever He pleases.
• Now, look at 2:10. As soon as Jonah said those words “Salvation belongs to the Lord,” the
fish spit him out! Like the fish, most ppl in church today will not stomach this truth.
• They want to think that salvation belongs to them, that they can own it, that they can be in
charge of it & that they can do with it whatever they please, but that is not true.
• Exod 33:19, God speaking, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I have compassion.” Paul quotes this verse in Rom 9:15 & adds,
in conclusion, salvation does not depend on human free will or on human good works.
• Well, if it doesn’t depend on that, what does salvation depend on? Paul continues. It
depends on God who has mercy. Why does salvation depend on God? Because Salvation belongs to
God. It is His & His alone. He gives it whenever, wherever & to whoever He wishes.

Salvation from temporal troubles and physical blessings in this life are truly often given to us by God. But far greater than these are spiritual and eternal salvation and the accompanying spiritual blessings we receive in Christ. It is God’s work to save; it is his people’s privilege to receive the blessings of that salvation.

Salvation is of God: then damnation is of man. If any of you are damned, you will have no one to blame but yourselves; if any of you perish, the blame will not lie at God’s door; if you are lost and cast away, you will have to bear all the blame and all the tortures of conscience yourself; you will lie for ever in perdition, and reflect, “I have destroyed myself; I have made a suicide of my soul; I have been my own destroyer; I can lay no blame to God.” Remember, if saved, you must be saved by God alone, though if lost you have lost yourselves.

Now lift up your heart in prayer to God. May now be the very time when you shall be saved. Or ever the next drop of blood shall run through your veins, may you find peace! Remember, that peace is to be had now. If you feel now your need of it, it is to be had now. And how? For the mere asking for it. ‘ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find.”

PRAYER
Praise to your holy name, Lord, for the powerful, undeserved, and everlasting salvation you have in your grace condescended to bestow upon me! As the hymn write put it, “Christ Jesus shed his precious blood rich blessings to bestow”. May I enjoy ever more of those blessings with every passing day. Amen.

SHALOM!

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