Part 1.
The Great Salvation
What It Is and How to Obtain It
Reader, we earnestly appeal to you. We have an important subject to talk to you about – not about making money, either for you or for me, but about a matter of much greater importance, that which every man needs – about what people call religion. You perhaps will answer, "Away with it; look at the confusion there is in the religions of the world. What is the use for me to trouble myself when wise men cannot agree?" That is just the reason I want to talk with you just now – to show you that the wisdom of the wise is foolishness with God; and that the religion of the Bible is not found in the "wisdom" of theological schools, but is revealed, so that plain, homespun people may understand it and be saved by it – in fact I want to show you – don’t get angry – that for to learn the religion of the Bible is to discard the popular religion of Christendom. Now, "come and let us reason together".
Perhaps you will have done like many others – concluded that it does not make any difference what our religious belief is if we are honest and sincere; but it is the hopelessness of reconciling the many religious creeds with themselves, and nearly all of them with the Bible that has driven many to say, "Well, it makes no difference." But your common sense will tell you that it does make a difference whether you believe the truth or believe a falsehood, whether you believe God or not’ and the religious world, by it’s actions, shows that it makes a difference what is believed, for they send missionaries to change the belief of the heathen, and also to the Jews to change their belief, so that they may believe that Jesus is the Christ.
If it makes a difference what we believe, then we can see why the Bible has been given – to guide us into the Truth; and the Bible itself says that our salvation depends upon our belief of the gospel as revealed in it’s pages.