Many years ago, my brother Doug gave Kristin, our eldest daughter, a large framed poster for her graduation. It isn’t just large, it’s very large, like 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall. It’s in French and has an image of a teacher holding a Philips fluorescent light bulb as she is speaking to her class. Throughout the years, after transporting it through several moves, Kristin finally asked if we could use the poster and it fit perfectly in one end of our billiard room. It still hangs there today and really goes well our decor in that area of the house.
Since it is in French, a language I have not taken since high school, I was unable to translate what the printing on the poster said. It is kind of a cute scene. The teacher is using a long fluorescent bulb as a pointer while the students in the class were all in the shape of an incandescent bulb – you know, the kind we put in lamps. Clearly, the entire poster was a sales tool touting Philips products.
Anyway, I was fooling around on my phone not long ago while I was in the billiard room and some app came up that offered to translate from French to English. To be sure, I was kind of surprised but I decided to test it out with the wording on our large poster. I typed in the message and, sure enough, up came the translation that is as follows: “It’s safer… and not more expensive!” After looking at the scene again, it became quite evident that the teacher was admonishing her students to use Philips light bulbs – apparently, the message was that they were safe and not more expensive…
Of course, knowing me as you do, it’s probably not a stretch to realize that I went an entirely different direction with the translation. After all, the most important thing to a Christian is their salvation. And I imagine there are many unsaved people who don’t realize that accepting the gift of eternal life with Christ is absolutely free! All you have to do is believe! In fact, you can’t buy salvation or even earn it…
It’s a gift from God to us… and it’s not expensive… it’s totally free. It’s also the safest move you can ever make as far as your life – your eternal life – is concerned! So it should come as no surprise that the translation may apply to light bulbs, but it also applies to our eternal lives. Who would have thought that an innocuous poster hanging on a wall could have so many eternal implications! Yes, salvation is safe… and free…
Our verse for tonight is from the apostle John and the Gospel that he wrote. John tells us that we can trust God by quoting the words of Jesus, who guarantees us the safety of salvation. We are told, in John 10:28-29, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
In other words, our eternal security is absolutely guaranteed by Jesus Himself. My encouragement this evening is that Jesus assures us that we have been entrusted to His eternal care and that we have additional assurance that none will be lost . My prayer is that all of us are convinced that eternal life with Jesus is really the only way to spend eternity. It’s free and it’s safe. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…