Arthur: ‘Salvation: What is
God’s role and my responsibility?’
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman, November 16, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – “This describes me with you today,” began Kay Arthur, one of the speakers at the Friday evening session of the 2009 National Conference on Christian Apologetics, as she read from I Corinthians 2:3-5:
“And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Her topic was “Salvation: What is God’s role and my responsibility?” based on John 6:26-71. Related Stories
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Arthur is co-founder of Precept Ministries, and teacher and host of Precepts for Life, a radio and television program that reaches a worldwide audience of more than 94 million.
Her presentation was part of the 2009 National Conference on Christian Apologetics at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. The two-day conference, “Apologetics and the Local Church,” was held Nov. 13-14 and sponsored by Southern Evangelical Seminary.
“We are living in a time where people do not know the Bible,” she said. She said she learned to study the Bible inductively – a way of studying that helps the reader discover the truth for himself by using observation, interpretation and application.
Arthur gave a brief synopsis of the first five chapters of John, saying that in those chapters, “believe” is a key word. “John was written so that you may believe in God,” she said.
In verse 28 of the evening’s text, the question was asked of Jesus, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”
And He answered in verse 29, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
“If you want to have eternal life, you have to believe in Jesus Christ,” Arthur said. “It is your responsibility when presented the facts, that you make the decision. … If we don’t believe, we can’t have the bread of life.”
“Tucked in this chapter is who it is that is going to believe,” Arthur said. “It is those who God has given to His Son.”
“What you see all the way through is man’s responsibility to salvation – to hear the truth and respond directly to the truth,” she said. But, “why do I believe, what brought me to my knees, what brought an immoral harlot of a woman to her knees? It is this: Look at verse 37, ‘All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me.’”
She then highlighted verse 39: “… all that He has given Me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day,” and verse 44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him.”
“Why have you been saved?,” she asked.
“God chose us … so that when Christ died, He knew me by name. When Christ died, He was made sin for me. God raised Him up and because of that God knows me. … Your salvation: It is of God it is not of man,” she said.
She said that if her father, sister or friend didn’t believe in Jesus, it was “not because I had failed. It was not because I had not presented the Gospel. It was because God had not chosen to reveal His son to them.”
“I know that God is the author and the finisher of my salvation. That He who began a good work in me will continue until the day of Jesus Christ,” she said. “What manner of love you have bestowed upon me that I should be called a child of God.
“Salvation is of God, but once I come to know Jesus Christ, what do I become? I become an ambassador for Jesus Christ and my message is this: ‘Be ye reconciled with God,’” she said.
“What is my responsibility? I am an ambassador for Jesus Christ. I am to be a disciple to Him,” she said.
God’s responsibility is to open the eyes of those who don’t know Him. “It is God’s responsibility to save them. … God is not going to lose His own because I did not share the salvation message. … Our salvation rests in God not in man.”
Since founding Precept Ministries International with her husband Jack in 1970 with the vision to establish people in God’s Word, International Bible teacher Kay Arthur has authored more than 100 books and Bible studies. Today, God is using Precept Ministries to reach nearly 150 countries with inductive Bible studies translated into nearly 70 languages.