Saturday Night Devotions

I Peter 1:18-19

     Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

     Listed for us here are 2 things which cannot save a man’s soul and the One thing which can.  First of all, “corruptible things, like silver or gold” cannot possibly purchase salvation for a soul.  A man’s soul is spiritual and money is material.  There is just no logic at all in thinking that money, even money given in a religious context, can provide any eternal benefit to a soul.  We cannot buy for ourselves eternal security by saving up for ourselves material wealth.  Money can distract us from God, but it cannot reconcile us to God.  This sounds obvious, yet we have millions of people giving alms and making merit and donating to causes thinking that this avenue provides them with eternal reward.  We must call people from such dangerous reasoning!  Few people would openly claim that money can get them into heaven, but when their only spiritual efforts involve donations and material offerings, their actions reveal their horribly misguided inner expectations.  Only the blood of Christ, the precious blood of Christ, can redeem our life from the penalty of sin and offer us the assurance of salvation in heaven. 

     Secondly, we cannot be saved by “aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers.”  How many millions, goodness, the number is too great to contemplate, how many people aimlessly follow religious precepts, simply because they received the tradition from their forefathers?  Religious traditions cannot save the soul of a man.  There are so many religions available in the world – some of them have been held to for thousands of years.  But the antiquity of a religion does not authenticate its reliability.  Men are not saved just because they are religious, nor are they saved by dutifully (albeit “aimlessly”) following the traditions passed on to them from their fathers.  A man can only be saved by the precious blood of Christ.  By this wondrous means and only by this wondrous means can a man be saved.  Let us awaken the souls of men who are sleepwalking through unthinking allegiance to ancient traditions which are powerless to save their soul.