Grace plus Nothing part two

 

Grace Plus Nothing

Part Two of Four

“Mr. Davis, you have a perforated gut. Holes are in your intestines, and things are leaking through. That is why you have been in and out of emergency. We hope to operate and repair your intestine. You will not have a normal life remaining, but will be very limited in what you can do and eat,” said my father’s doctor. With those words, Dad was on a short leash. The operation took seven long hours, but the intestine was too perforated to patch, so eventually they sewed him back up, and sent him back to his room. He was to live another 10 days.

Thirty-five years I had prayed for this man, for God to reach through to his very soul and bring him to Jesus. The strange thing about my prayer is that it was seemingly answered the third time I prayed for him, just a month or so after I had been saved. The year was 1972, and I had gone to my knees a third time for my family, wrestling before a God I had just recently discovered. Oh, what a glorious discovery it was! God had revealed himself to me, an inquiring mind, and simply overwhelmed me with showing me how many times he had already been there in my life. I had turned, a radical change, from being a skeptic to being a wholehearted follower of Christ.

During the early stage of coming to Christ, it has often been my observation that God will frequently answer the new believer’s prayer, almost as if it were a part of his sealing us into the body of Christ. At any rate, it seemed that way to me—I offered prayers and God seemed to delight in answering them. I had discovered a pipeline leading to the Creator of the universe, and I was certain I had his ears when I prayed. So, I prayed earnestly three times for each of the five members of my family. One by one, I seemed to receive assurance that God would take care of each one—until I at last came to Dad. Heaven seemed silent, but I persevered all the more. “God, would you please take care of my dad?” Still, it was quiet, even unto the third time. By this time tears were streaming down my face. “God, please remember my dad.” There seemed only a thundering silence, but all of a sudden, I seemed to receive some assurance. The answer seemed so clearly to be finally, “Yes, I will take care of your dad, but it is going to be really hard.”

For the next years, I watched as all the members of my family, one by one, came to a realization of their need for Christ as savior. I discovered my mother had already chosen for Christ, and my next brother had already received Christ in a church. The other two brothers came to Christ in their own time. I would pray to God, thanking him for his answer. Then, of course, I would turn to God about Dad. Every time I would start to pray for his salvation, but seemingly I was reminded by his Spirit that he had already answered that prayer. I would find myself turning to praise and thanksgiving for an answered prayer that I did not yet see. For thirty-five years, I waited and was thankful for that answer.

We almost lost Dad two or three times. He had trouble with aneurysms and eventually they led to some very dire hospitalizations. Once, they had to transfer him to a bigger hospital because he went in with an aneurysm that the smaller hospital could not handle. The chief physician came to me after the operation with amazement on his face. He explained that the aneurysm was right next to the heart, and the surgical team had actually designed a new surgery to fix it. Mind you, I do not think the doctor was a believer as he gave no sign of faith. But he exclaimed to me, “We just do not understand it. He came by ambulance over two hours away. The aneurysm that burst was right next to his heart. He should have bled out within seconds, yet for some reason the blood did not empty.”

I smiled at the doctor through my tears. “Doctor, he is under my prayers, and his time is not yet. This was an answer to prayer.” I was, of course, thinking of my prayer for salvation for Dad, not just our prayers for him in his emergency condition. But the doctor readily agreed, commenting again that there seemed to be no natural explanation for Dad being alive. I knew that God was not done with answering his prayer.

Fast forward to the end of his life, the beginning of our story. It is 2007 and thirty-five years have passed since I found the audacity to plead for the soul of my father. The operation is not successful, and with all kinds of tubes in his arms and mouth, we waited and watched for his time.

My brother, moved by the Spirit, asked Dad if he wanted to receive Christ. Dad, to our surprise, sat almost bolt upright in bed, nodding his head. There in front of me I watched Dad bow his head and receive Christ. My brother wanted to be sure, so he contacted his beloved pastor who came in, and the next day, did the same thing with dad. I could see the joy and earnestness on his face as he participated in the decision.

I said all of that to make the point in the parable of the sower. I assumed that the only seed to be, was the one that multiplied, thirty and sixty and one-hundred times. In my looking at wanting to be that seed, I ignored the other seeds. Is it not at least possible that the other seeds, which do germinate, are representative of believers?

Dad did no Christian works with his life. He reproduced not one other seed. He was completely bereft of works. Yet, I cannot think there are many, who in reading this story, doubt the grace of God. I, of course, believe in the grace of God, and know that Ephesians 2:8&9 are written that we may know the grace of God.

“For by grace, not by works”, it says. “It is the Gift of God, not of works.” We have absolutely nothing to stand before God, and tell him that we deserve salvation. No one, not one has the credentials with which to present, as it were, a “bill” to God, stating that He owes us. How silly man must appear when he presents himself as the least little bit clean before God! Is he going to put on his filthy rags with the white robe belief in Christ gets him? How utterly silly that picture is! We must come to God, believing that his Son died for us, and there is not one more thing that we can do for our salvation. It is exactly what God does ask of us when he tells us, “this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent.” Nothing added to it will “garnish” our salvation, and our refusal to believe will completely condemn us before God. “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God.”

Let’s not hear the nonsense about what you must do to become a Christian. Except for believing, the work is completely done. Grace has been adequately and freely given. Let us not insult God by adding to it. Works are always what a saved Christian ought to do; they have nothing at all to do with his or her getting into heaven. That is, and remains, solely the work of God.

 

Ephesians 2: 8&9
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

John 6:29
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

John 3:18
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

 

Chafer’s Corner:

Grace means pure unrecompensed kindness and favor. What is done in grace is done graciously. From this exact meaning there can be no departure; otherwise grace ceases to be grace.
Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Grace (pp. 6-7). Biblos Project. Kindle Edition.