Taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York
Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
The Torrey Collection - Chapter 4
IV. THE BEST TEXTS FOR THOSE WHO ENTERTAIN FALSE HOPES
1. The hope of being saved by a righteous life.
GAL 2:16 Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by
faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus
that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the
law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
ROM 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those
who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the
whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared
righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we
become conscious of sin.
GAL 3:10 All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it
is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything
written in the Book of the Law."
MAT 22:37-38 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first
and greatest commandment.
JAM 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one
point is guilty of breaking all of it.
MAT 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that
of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not
enter the kingdom of heaven.
LUK 18:10-14 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee
and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about
himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers,
evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a
week and give a tenth of all I get.'
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up
to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a
sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home
justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
LUK 16:15 He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in
the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among
men is detestable in God's sight."
ROM 2:16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men's
secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
1SA 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance
or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the
things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD
looks at the heart."
HEB 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because
anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards
those who earnestly seek him.
JOH 6:29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the
one he has sent."
JOH 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever
rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
HEB 10:28-29 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy
on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do
you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God
under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the
covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
2. The hope that "God is too to damn anyone."
ROM 2:4-5 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness,
tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you
toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your
unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the
day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
JOH 8:21, 24 Once more Jesus said to them, "I am going away, and you
will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot
come.". . .I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not
believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your
sins."
JOH 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever
rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
JOH 5:40 Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
2PE 3:9-11 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some
understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to
perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord
will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the
elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it
will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what
kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives
EZE 33:11 Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign
LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that
they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why
will you die, O house of Israel?'
2PE 2:4-6, 9 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but
sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for
judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the
flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of
righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what
is going to happen to the ungodly. . .if this is so, then the Lord
knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous
for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
LUK 13:3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all
perish.
JOH 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does
not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the
name of God's one and only Son.
ISA 57:20-21 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot
rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. "There is no peace," says my
God, "for the wicked."
3. The hope of being saved by "trying to be a Christian."
(It is not trying what we can do, but trusting what Jesus has done, and
will do, that saves.)
ROM 3:23-25 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came
by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through
faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in
his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.
ROM 4:3-5 What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it
was credited to him as righteousness." Now when a man works, his wages
are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to
the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his
faith is credited as righteousness.
JUD 1:24-25 To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present
you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy--to
the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
JOH 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his
name, he gave the right to become children of God.
ACT 16:31 They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be
saved--you and your household."
2TI 1:12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed,
because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able
to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
ISA 12:2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my
salvation."
4. The hope of being saved because "I feel saved," or "I feel that I am
going to heaven."
PRO 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it
leads to death.
TIT 1:2 . . .A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal
life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of
time.
JOH 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever
rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
LUK 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and
looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went
up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that
I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like
this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up
to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a
sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home
justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
5. The hope of being saved by a profession, or church membership, or
faith, that does not save us from sin.
HEB 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be
holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
1CO 6:9-10 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the
kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor
idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers
will inherit the kingdom of God.
TIT 1:16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.
They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
JAM 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith
but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
JOH 3:3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see
the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
1JO 2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who
does what is right has been born of him.
1JO 5:4-5 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the
victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that
overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
REV 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers,
the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and
all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
This is the second death."
Taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (C) 1978 by the New
York Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Index of Preacher's Help and Notes
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