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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

The Plan of Salvation

Self-preservation is the strongest force operating the average human being.

Amazing examples of personal survival under hopeless conditions are often revealed.

Yet some have deliberately sacrificed their lives to save others.

I'll be back in a moment with history's most dramatic story of courage and love.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the Amazing Facts Broadcast.

You know, friends, 1 of the greatest natural gifts that a man possesses is the power of choice.

The justice of God is revealed in His creation by every individual as a free moral agent.

Man was made with this power of choosing, either the good or the bad, to obey or disobey.

Unfortunately, mankind in the beginning chose to disobey, and the result was that the penalty of transgression fell on the whole human family.

Now listen, when Adam and Eve disobeyed, the entire plan of heaven seemed to be frustrated.

The human race had placed itself on the side of the enemy.

In great love God had formed our first parents, intending for them to inhabit this earth and exercise dominion over every creature.

But now that holy pair had exercised the free will that had been placed in them and disobeyed the express commandment of God.

They did it not in ignorance, but with full knowledge of the consequences.

God had plainly said, If you eat, you shall surely die.

Now friends, I want you to consider something wonderful right here.

God could have simply washed His hands of the whole affair as soon as man sinned.

He had done what He could to safeguard them.

He can leave them to the natural consequences of sin and let them die.

God has a higher characteristic than justice.

He loved man so deeply that he couldn't bear to see him die.

You and I can't understand that kind of love.

I don't understand it, because His love is too broad and wide and deep.

I think I know what we would have done had we been in His place.

After all, God had the power to create a thousand new worlds and people them with perfect inhabitants.

We would have simply wiped them all out, those rebels, those disobedient ones, and started over again.

3 things opened up before Him that He could do.

First He could let man die in his sin and pay the price for transgression.

Second he could destroy the law that had been broken and thus abolish the penalty, because where there is no law, of course, there is no transgression or sin.

Third, he could provide a divine substitute to die in man's stead.

And that, of course, is exactly what He did, for in John 3, 16 we read, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

He could not have abolished that law, actually.

His holy law was a reflection of His own character.

And somewhere back in the eternity of the past, a covenant had been made between the Father and the Son.

The creation of mortal beings would make the possibility of sin a reality.

The plan of salvation was not and could not have been an afterthought with God.

An agreement was reached long before the actual emergency arose.

Jesus offered Himself as a divine substitute to pay the price for sin.

And here is a thought that is so tremendous we could ponder over for a lifetime without exhausting it.

Philippians 2, verses 5-8 says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not a robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Now don't minimize that condescension, friends.

John 1 tells us that Christ was the Creator.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

These verses tell us plainly that Jesus was that active agent by whom the worlds were framed.

He did not need to bow to anyone, friends.

His hand had hung those billions of stars in space.

Glorious angels, billions and billions of them, prostrated before him and sang, Holy, Holy, Holy.

Then suddenly into that calm and peaceful picture of an orderly universe, 1 note of discord appeared, 1 tiny speck of a world rebelled against God, 1 world so tiny that it could almost be lost among the systems nearby.

Other worlds moved at His bidding, but this 1 alone resisted and disobeyed.

But God was not satisfied with the hundred billion worlds that obeyed His voice.

He longed to save that 1 lost world from perishing, and so the plan of redemption went into effect.

1 who had sat on the throne, the 1 who had controlled the planets and their courses, suddenly appeared now as a baby in the manger of Bethlehem.

Oh, it was the greatest night this world ever knew.

Angels sang together over the plains of Judea.

What a night it was for the sin-shackled race who had been waiting for this deliverance!

And what brought the Son of God down to that stable of Judea, friends?

Did he understand that the people would beat him and hate him and then finally put him to death?

Did he know about the lonely nights and the weary days?

Romans 5, verse 8, But God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Oh, listen, he saw the entire path that was laid out before him when he left that throne.

He understood the demon spirit that possessed this world.

He knew there would be nobody to stand with him through that bitter experience of Gethsemane, but He came anyway.

He was not just interested in 1 world, but even in 1 person, 1 individual.

And suppose you had been the only soul in need of redemption.

Isaiah 53, 5, But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

My friends, you and I cannot measure the power of that love that constrained Jesus to live and suffer for 33 1⁄2 years on this sinful earth.

We have no time to mention the seemingly unbearable provocations that were on Him.

His whole life was spent in errands of mercy.

He traversed the hills and the valleys, healing, raising the dead, comforting the poor, preaching the gospel.

His mission was to seek and to save that which was lost.

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The Plan of Salvation

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