Salvation Is Free But It's Not Cheap

I like reading after Vance Havner (1901-1986) who was a revivalist among the Baptist church. I suspect that if he were still living that modern day Baptist and many in the religious world would be very uncomfortable with his message. Remarkably, he wrote the following: "The Bible says, take up your cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24). You can come to Jesus and still not be saved. Do you know that? Because He said, 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple' (Luke 14:26). I preach a lot about the other side of the coin. All money has two sides. You never saw a one-sided quarter in your life. And every truth in the Word of God has two faces: the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man; faith, works; Jesus, son of God, Jesus, son of man. All the way through, it's both sides. And we need to see both sides of this picture." (Vance Havner, "When God Breaks Through", Sermons on revival edited and compiled by Dennis J. Hester, pg 34).

Then he writes, "When I was a boy, my dad took me to an old water-powered mill. I liked to see the stream-fed channel of water pour over the big waterwheel. The turning waterwheel powered gears that turned the massive millstone to grind the grain. Suppose one day there wasn't enough water to turn the wheel. The millwright would look silly if he jumped on the wheel to try to make it go round. He could go up the creek and deepen the channel. If that was the problem, the water would once again flow over the wheel and he'd be back in business. I travel all over the country to all kinds of evangelistic conferences with preachers and educators, musicians, and Sunday school superintendents. They are trying to make the wheels go around in the church, and the wheels are not turning much. One trouble is that we fail to remember that all the wonderful things you read about in the Acts of the Apostles were simply the outflow and overflow of the inflow of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, drink of this living water and from within such a person will flow rivers of living water (see John 7:37-38). The church these days needs to go up the creek and get sin out of the way in our lives. Then the Spirit will flow. There isn't any other way. So I say to people, 'You say you want a revival here in the church. Are you willing to pay the price of revival?' God is not running a fire sale and a bargain counter. A revival costs something. It costs a lot. I'm not wearing myself out to go all over the country preaching a cheap Christianity. Salvation is free, but it's not cheap. Let's get that straight. It cost God the Son His life, and it'll cost you every blessed thing you've got to be a New Testament Christian. We've got a strange doctrine today that I can take Jesus as my Savior and won't go to hell, but I'm not going to be out and out for Jesus. If you're not going all out, you might as well stay out, because Jesus Christ said discipleship is all-out, total, absolute commitment. (ibid, pg 36-37).

He makes a good point. Something to ponder.