Introduction:

Tonight, our topic is Salvation and it is a key subject. So we can begin by saying that

God wants what’s best for the world and for everyone in it. That’s what love means. Love is benevolent, bene volens, God is wanting what is best for the world and for you and me. Wisdom 1:13-15 says:

“For God did not make death and takes no pleasure in the destruction of any living thing; he created all things that they might have being. The creative forces of the world make for life; there is no deadly poison in them. Death has no sovereignty on earth, for justice is immortal.”

Of course, that was God’s intention before The Fall but the evil one brought sin and death into the world. You could say that the devil is the father of death. Our experience is not as rosy as the one we read about in Scripture. What W.B. Yates wrote is closer to what we are aware of:

“Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold … The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

I think that is closer to our experience of life and I also think that we are particularly feeling that in these days of the pandemic – that things are falling apart, that the centre cannot hold. We see it too in the natural world where the climate is changing for the worst.