How Can I Know I'm Saved? Paul's Answer in 5 Verses

Okay, good to see everybody back in again today, and I don't know about the rest of the country, and of course these programs play at various times, but it's a beautiful day in Oklahoma, and it just sort of, well you just can't help but praise the Lord for the work of His fingers. Now this half hour is going to be a little different, this is primarily for so many of you out in television that have had so many questions about us and our ministry, and I'll never forget, I hadn't been on a Minnesota station but a week or two, and a lady called and she says, who in the world are you anyway? Well, that was just the first one, and we get that question time and time again, well who are you, where do you come from, do you pastor a church, do you have this or do you have that, and so the powers that be that help me in the ministry thought that maybe it would be a good idea to just put together a 30 minute situation that will be a little different from the routine. We're going to show you a segment of some time that they came down to our ranch and some friends came in to do some testimonies, and that isn't very long, and then of course as soon as we finish that we'll probably have around 14-15 minutes left in this 30 minute segment, and we're going to devote that strictly to the plan of salvation, because again we get so many questions. How can I know that I'm saved? How can I know that I'll go to heaven when I die? And so we're going to cover that in the last part of this half hour by simply using the Scriptures, and for now though we'll just go to the time down at the ranch and Jeff and the fellows came down and we'll just let it speak for itself. At high-speed communications, the global community, cell phones and even instant coffee, you can always count on one man to keep it simple. Les Feldick has been teaching the Word of God for years, making the Bible come to life in an understandable yet deep and pure way. Les Feldick is where family and faith are part and parcel of who he is. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les brings insight to the Word of God without pride and ego. They say you can tell a man's character by looking at his family, friends and his life. Les, along with his wife Iris, have a long legacy of integrity, wrapped up in love and affection that's not only evident in his family life, but also in his ministry. What you see is what you get. Les Feldick. We had both heard of each other, but we'd never met. And so one afternoon, it was a beautiful winter and spring in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and so one day I came in from golfing and I stopped for a cup of coffee and a lady who knew her real well, actually she was your Sunday school teacher, and I had just met her one time and so she just called me over to her booth and said, you've got to get a date with Iris. And I said, why? She said, you've got to meet Iris. She said, call her. And I said, just make a blind date. She said, make it a blind date. So I did. And she lived up on the third floor of the nurse's quarters and I had to wait down at the lobby. And when she stepped out of that elevator, I'll tell you what. It was love at first sight. Prettiest thing I'd ever seen. And so that was the beginning of a whirlwind courtship and a beautiful spring, wasn't it? Oh, it was a gorgeous spring. Four months later, we were married, June 21st, 1953. But so then after we got out of service, we went up to Iowa, started farming and began to have our family, raised our kids up to there. And then in 75, we moved down here to Oklahoma. We weren't here four weeks and we were church hunting, you know, and started looking around for a home church. And there was a home missionary guy that got the idea that Les could teach class, I guess, from his answers that he'd given in Sunday school or something. So Les said, yeah, he would love to do that every Monday morning. So Les did. And it wasn't long until their relatives who live over the mountain, as we say here in Oklahoma. And they wanted one also. Well, then after a couple of months, then the women wanted to know why they couldn't have a class after the men went to work. So we would just simply have a cup of coffee and then teach a women's class right after that. And then from one thing led to another. Then one of the ladies that was in the women's class was the head of what they called adult education in the college. And so she wanted to know if I would teach a religion quote unquote class. So we took that opportunity. So we went into Eastern College here at Wilberton and taught there with a paid enrollment, never less than 45 people paid. And we taught there for 13 years. And as a result of that, then the college started a an extension class over at Macalester, which was also tuition paid. And my goodness, the first class we had at Macalester, we had 100 paid people. Then, of course, we started a class in telecom in 1990. And then out of that telecom class, a young man came and approached Gary at Channel 47, showed him a videotape, and Gary picked up on it and thought it was something that would fly. So not having any money to go on, we didn't have anything. And the guys at Channel 47 had figured it would take about 24,000 to go through the first year. So we put it in front of just the two classes, Wilberton and Macalester, and just asked them to put on a little slip of paper what they thought they could give above their church. We didn't want to take anything away from their local churches. And when Iris and I got home on Thursday night after the two classes, we took all the little bits and pieces of paper and we added them up and it was $100 less than 24,000. So that was our fleece. And so then Gary knows the rest of the story. We got started taping up there then in the fall of 1990. And we've been going ever since. Over the years, Through the Bible with Les Feldick has touched the lives of thousands all across the country. Insight and understanding of the Word of God has been a major focus of Les' teachings, with an emphasis on practical application. Over the years, we've become personal friends with Les and Iris. They visited in our home and we visited in theirs. And they're just wonderful, down-home people. And they live what they teach. And Les has such a talent, such a gift, a God-given gift for making the Bible so easy to understand. He doesn't have his own agenda. He's not trying to convince you of anything. He wants you to study and learn. And you're free to read and understand. And if you have a question, if you question him, if you think he's wrong, he'll visit with you about it. He's not least bit shy going to the Scripture and showing you what is right, what's in the Scripture. My Granny Vi, her name is Vi Box, she was one of Les' first viewers when he first came out on the TV. To hear Les tell it, I think she was one of the first people who had ever wrote him a letter. Granny Les meant it all. It was one of the first Bible teachers, I think, that really got Granny interested into the Word, not just the Bible story, but really in who Jesus was and what he meant to us as believers. I'm very thankful for Les and the ministry. And I know that with his ability, his teaching ability, and his dedication, that the hard work that he puts into an effort, driving to all of the locations. But I also know it's the work of the Holy Spirit through each one of us and through him where our knowledge grows and we learn and there's understanding. And I'm really thankful for him and the ministry and just the knowledge that I've gained through it. And I wouldn't trade it. And for the viewers that are watching, if they can get it on their TV stations, then they should tune in. That very first night that we were at Les' place, we started in Genesis. And I guess the good Lord had someone ask the question about salvation. And so during the weekly classes, Les will just stop right where he's at and we'll just run those things down. You know, it might take an hour or two. You can ask questions, the whole thing. So someone asked a question about salvation. Les shared with the class, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 4, Paul's Gospel. And I looked at that and I said, I can't believe it. And so it just opened up a new world to me. His teaching has just opened our eyes. It really has. And I was saved as a young person. I was only eight years old. And I've been in church all my life. But the change that Les has made for me is to take me beyond those favorite Bible passages, the ones that we all know, to take me beyond the Bible stories that were taught and to take me really into the Word. And you know, one of his phrases is, you know, what does the Bible say and what does it not say? You know, Scripture, what does it say? And that's what he's really helped me to listen and learn as I read and to listen to others as they teach. Les can teach you how to study the Bible and to think and compare one verse with the next. And that's the only way I've ever got to get anything out of the Bible is that a way. The whole thing excites me and I want to share it with everybody. I think that's the biggest thing. And we do get the tapes and the books. And when it's possible, we share with co -workers and, you know, just whoever will listen. Well, what I feel good about the whole thing, it isn't that they're looking to Les Feldick. It's just that Les has been able to get them into the Word and see it for themselves, because I wouldn't want people to just go and say, well, this is what Les said. That won't cut it any more than when they say, well, this is what my church said. We have to get people to understand what the Word of God says and what it doesn't say, which is just as important. And so that's what thrills us when we get all these letters that say, for the first time in my life, I'm understanding my Bible, I'm enjoying my Bible, and I'm searching the Scriptures. So this is what we want. Les Feldick Ministries is an outreach where Les, Iris, and the entire family do everything from sending out tapes and accounting to opening mail, answering the phone, reading letters. Our oldest son was the first of the three kids to come back home. He had gotten his degree and had worked for a company, and he just decided that he'd had enough of it and wanted to know if he could come back and work in the ranching with me. So that was in 1990, and it was that very fall, then, that we began the television ministry, which we could not have done had Greg not been here to hold things in order while we're gone. And then just, oh, just when we needed somebody to take care of the computers and answer the phone, Todd and Kim came back with our youngest and his wife, and they left a good job out of Washington State University and came back and worked in with us. And Kim just jumped in and has been so much for the ministry. Well, then we had to have somebody do the accounting and the bookkeeping, and my daughter came in and just became adept with the QuickBook bookkeeping system on the computer. So now all the kids are back home, and they're all involved in the ministry. They all help when we need help with the ranching, and so it's just a family effort. Proceeds from the show go directly into teaching the Word of God and getting the message out. God has instructed the body of Christ to be good stewards of His gifts, and Les Feldick Ministries takes that instruction to heart. Some of the people that were interviewed for this have been contributing every month ever since we first started, and others have come in now and have become just as faithful. And I know we have one couple in particular that has given a fair amount every month, and she says so typically that now that we understand the Scriptures and have learned how to study them, we can share it with others, and it's such fun. And she always underlines the word fun, and it is. When you get adept at the Scriptures, it is just so thrilling to share them with other people, and so these are the rewarding things that have happened. You can be assured that your financial gifts are used with the utmost integrity and ethics, and that Les and Iris truly care about the well-being of their partners. Les Feldick Ministries—enriched understanding of the Word of God. Okay, we'll finish this half-hour segment by stressing some salvation verses. And so for those of you in the studio, I'm going to have you turn with me to II Peter chapter 3. Now you say, here you're such a proponent of Paul's writings, and you're going to start with Peter. Well, I'm doing this purposely. I guess I laid awake most of the night last night trying to figure out how I could do this the best. But you see, most of the Christian world hangs on Peter and Christ's earthly ministry, and they ignore Paul. You know, I've said it so often, they almost treat him like an ugly stepchild. So with that in mind, I'm going to show you what Peter says about the Apostle Paul, and then we'll naturally go back to the writings of Paul to pick up our plan of salvation. So II Peter chapter 3, dropping down at verse 15, remembering now that Peter writes this about the same time that Paul writes his prison epistles. I think they are both martyred probably within a year of one another, in probably 66 -67 A.D. So this is not Peter writing from Pentecost, this is Peter writing some 30 years later. Now look what he says. II Peter chapter 3, verse 15, and he says, "...in account, or understand, that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation." See that's the number one reason for this whole book, is to bring lost humanity to a knowledge of salvation. So the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom given unto him, has written unto you. Now remember by the time Peter writes this, most of Paul's epistles have been written and are circulating among the primitive churches. Then verse 16, "...as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things." Well I always ask that, what things? Salvation, how to be saved, and how to know that you're saved. So in all his epistles Peter says, "...Paul is speaking of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood." Even at this late date, I don't think Peter could comprehend that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was now turning to the Gentile world, not through him and the other eleven apostles, but through this one man, the apostle Paul. And so he says, "...in which Paul's epistles are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned, and unstable, rest or twist, as they do also the other Scriptures under their own destruction." Now you can be turning back to Romans chapter 3, and while you're finding that, I am reminded of a paper that one of the ladies in one of my classes the other night gave to me, and she said, Les, look at this. She said, "...so far as I'm concerned, it does nothing but confuse everything." Well I was reading it yesterday, I think sometime, and I read portions of it to Iris, and she said, "...you know what that reminds me of? Your story about the blender." And most of you remembered. I put it on the program, oh way, way back, and I've used it in the classes. I had a young man come up one day, and he said, "...Les," he said, "...this is the first time the Bible makes sense." He said, "...just sort of sorting everything out." Because he said, "...up till now, everything that I've ever heard is just like throwing it into a blender, turning it up on high, they ladle it out to me, and then wonder why I get sick to my stomach." Well that's exactly what this article was doing. It had everything all mixed up. It had enough of what we call Biblical truth that would take the unsuspecting and think the guy knows what he's talking about, and then he totally mixed it all up with Old Testament Scriptures and the four Gospels, used one or two verses from Paul, and then ridiculed our whole idea that the Lord is coming back one day soon. Well you see, that's exactly what Peter is talking about. That they may be the head of some denomination. I don't know what he was. It wasn't on the paper, and he just had a big title. I know that. But he had so totally twisted the Scriptures, and as Peter says, probably to his own destruction. Alright, and so what we have to do, and you don't have to have a theologian degree to do it, is just simply search out what does Paul say. Not what Jesus said, because everything Jesus said was to the Jew under the Law. And that can't be appropriate for us today. Peter in the 11th still preached everything to Israel that was still under the Law. But this Apostle, who has now been designated as the Apostle of the Gentiles in Romans 11, verse 13, and in other areas where he declares that he is the authority for the Church, and none of the others. Now that doesn't mean you throw away the rest of your Bible. Everything builds, just like our secular education. And again last night as I was laying awake, I just thought of this. Do you think an electrical engineer that's up into the very higher echelons in Silicon Valley, and in the computer world, do you think he'd get there if he never had his 4th and 5th grade arithmetic? I don't think so. I think that everything rests on the things that are elementary, and they come on up. Well it's the same way with the Scriptures. So you don't throw away everything besides Paul, but you hone in on what Paul says. Now the first step of faith, the first step of faith for salvation, is to believe this verse. And it's Romans 3, verse 23, where Paul writes for all, every human being, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Why? Because we're sons of Adam. Every human being was in the federal head of the human race, Adam. And when Adam fell, the curse fell on every human being who would ever be born. So we're born sinners. You know I've put it on the board so many times over the last few years. We're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're born sinners. And so this is what this verse is saying. That the first thing we have to understand in our step for salvation is to believe what God has said concerning our Adamic background. We are lost. We are without hope. We have come short of the glory of God. That's the first step of faith. God said it. I didn't. You don't have to wait for some preacher to tell you that. You just simply know that God says that you are lost. You have been separated from Him by virtue of Adam. Now I'm going to back up a page or so to chapter 1 in the book of Romans, and you'll notice as we go through these, all these verses are now where Peter said to go. We're in Paul's epistles. Every word I'm going to use in these next few moments will come from Paul. Romans 1.16, and verse you all know, I am not ashamed of the gospel, not a gospel, the gospel. It's the only one. For it is the power of God unto salvation. What is? The gospel is. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone. Now here again, watch what's not in here. Not a word in here about baptism. Not a word in here by works. Not a word in here about giving. It's to everyone that believeth. And believing, and faith, and trusting all mean the same thing. So this gospel has to be appropriated by believing it. And to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Now I'm going to have you turn all the way with me quickly to Ephesians 1, where we have almost the same kind of thinking from the pen of the apostle. Ephesians 1, and we're going to start in at verse 13. Ephesians 1, verse 13. And these are all so clear. There's no gobbledygook here. Even the King James. If people say, well I can't understand the King James. It's too complicated. Well even the King James is so simple here a child can understand it. And look what it says. Ephesians 1, verse 13. Ephesians 1, verse 13. In whom, that is in the Christ, in whom you also trusted, placed your faith, in whom you believed, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. See how plain that is. So what do we have to first do? Realize that we�re lost. We realize that in ourselves we are undone, we�re children of Adam. And then we have to hear the Word of Truth, which is the Gospel of our salvation, and then in whom also after you believe, and again none of these other things that they�re hammering at us today. But it�s after we have believed that Gospel of Truth, God immediately sealed us then with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now I think we�re ready to come back then to Paul�s Gospel as he calls it over and over in I Corinthians chapter 15. And I always have maintained that this is the clearest presentation of the Gospel that we need for salvation of any portion of Scripture. This says it all. John 3.16 doesn�t unless you take this and feed it in. But again, like Peter�s little verse said, they twist. What does it mean? Again I was just thinking last night, I haven�t done it for a long time, but years ago in a cold Iowa winter once together we�d put together a jigsaw puzzle. And you know how kids are. They think they�ve got a piece that fits, and if it doesn�t what do they try to do? They try to work it on down and force it in. But does that make it right? No. And so the same way with the Word of God. How many people are twisting it, and then they try to push it in to make it fit their particular creed or whatever. You can�t do that. It has to fit perfectly. All right, here�s the Gospel. "...Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which you are saved." See, that�s the whole idea of God�s purposes. Salvation, to be saved, if you keep in memory what I preached, because we have to know what we believe. Now verse 3 and 4, Paul writes, "...I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins that we inherited from Adam, and that he was buried, and how that he arose again the third day according to the Scriptures." That�s the Gospel. See how simple that is. And once we realize our lostness and we believe that Gospel, then God has promised, and He�s got all of eternity to back Him up. He�s got all the power of the universe to back Him up. And God has promised that when we believe that, then He will move in and grant us salvation. All of grace, in fact if I had time I don�t think I do. Maybe we do. Let�s come back to Ephesians real quickly. Ephesians chapter 2, so you�ll see it�s the book that says it and not Les Feldick. Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9. And for by grace, unmerited favor, are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, not something that you�ve worked for, because it is the gift of God. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the Scriptures and you�d like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552 or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.