“Are you saved?” is the only question that will matter a million years from today. In this 30 minute sermon by Michael Penfold you will learn what it means to be saved, how you can be saved, why you need to be saved, if salvation is by grace alone, what happens if you are not saved, how you can know you are saved and how you can be sure you are saved. Readings: Matt 1:21, Eph 2:8-9, John 3:17. (Recorded in Malden Road Gospel Hall, Windsor, Ontario, Canada 11 Jan 2026)
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Here is the sermon transcript:
So my question to you this morning is, are you saved? Are you saved? You say, why are you taking up that question? Well, to put it simply, a million years from today, that’s the only question that will matter. A million years from today it will not matter what job you had, what your name was, what your country was, how much money you had, how many followers you had on social media. None of that will matter the slightest. The only thing that will matter a million years from today is this.
Are you saved? Are you sure you’re saved? When did you get saved? How did you get saved? Why did you get saved? You say, this word saved, I’m not sure I’ve really heard it before. Well, you can trace through the New Testament and you’ll find lots of mentions of the word saved. It’s there more than 60 times. You’ll never find the word purgatory in the Bible. You’ll never find the word Christian in the Bible. The word religion’s in there a couple of times, but the word saved, wow, it’s on nearly every page.
Titus chapter three, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. 1 Timothy chapter two, God desires all men to be saved. Acts chapter four, verse 12, we must be Saved. This is a Bible word. Now, it’s not a strange word. It’s not like a word we think, oh, there must be a mystical meaning to it because it’s in the Bible. No, it’s just an ordinary word. The Bible didn’t make this word up.
It’s just the word for being rescued. So if you’re drowning, you need to be saved. If you’re in a burning building, you need to be saved. If your plane is dropping out of the sky, you need to be saved. It’s just the normal word for being rescued and saved. So I ask you again, are you saved? Are you saved? You know, you say, well, I’ve been baptized. I sing in the choir.
Well, let me just tell you, without letting it down too hard, you could be a lot of things and not be saved. You could be religious and not be saved, like Nicodemus in John chapter 3. You could go to prayer meetings and not be saved, like Lydia in Acts chapter 16. You can go on a pilgrimage to a holy place and not be saved, like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8. You could be christened, confirmed, and ordained as a reverend gentleman in a church and go to a foreign country as a missionary and not be saved, like John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. So we just have to come back to this question again.
Are you saved? I’m glad I’m saved. I was saved at 14. I was on the second row, on the last seat, window open, Sunday evening. That was the first night I understood that I was a guilty sinner, that Jesus died for me. And that night I trusted in Christ and I was saved. And I’ve been saved ever since, because I didn’t save myself. And the person that saved me says, once I’m saved, I’m saved forever.
You say, what was that verse in Matthew? Well, it says that the Lord Jesus was called Jesus because he’s going to save people from their sins. So Jesus means the Lord saves. That’s the meaning of his name. So we’re going to have to grapple with this word sins. If we need to be saved from our sins, well, there might be somebody here who says, well, in that case, I don’t need to be saved because I haven’t got any sins. So we’re going to have to clear that one up because the Bible says we’re all sinners. And of all committed sin, in fact, it goes much deeper than that. It says we’re born in sin. So there’s a nature in here that is selfish, that is wrong, that is bad, that is wicked. And it comes out in thoughts and words and deeds that are bad and wrong and wicked. That’s the human condition. Now every psychological theory in the world, Freud, Adler, Maslow, all of them, they all disagree with that. The health service disagrees with that. The universities disagree with that. The media disagrees with that.
That’s what the Bible says. We’re sinners by nature and we’re sinners by practice and it has to be the most obvious thing in the world. Just look around. Better education will not solve it, better housing will not solve it, better this, that and the other will not solve it, you can give all that to sinners, you won’t change what’s in here, only the gospel can do that.
There was an evangelist some years ago in Iowa, his name was Oliver Smith and well he was an amazing man and he preached the gospel, lots and lots of people got saved and There’s assemblies all over Iowa that he started. One day he was knocking on doors and inviting people to come out to gospel meetings.
And he went to this one door and there was a lady called Mrs. Murphy answered the door. I think she must have come from Ireland with a name like that. And Mrs. Murphy invited Oliver Smith in and he went in and he said, I’m here having gospel meetings in the tent or wherever it was. And he invited her to come.
And well, she wasn’t too pleased about that. She didn’t think she needed to come to a tent. She got her own church. And she was happy in her own church. And Oliver said to her, well, Mrs. Murphy, you need to be saved. You’re a sinner. Oh, she took real offense at that. I’m not a sinner. And he said, well. Have you got a Bible? Yeah, I read it every day. Would you like to go and get it? Yes, I would. So she very proudly brought out this Bible and he said, I’m going to read you some of the parts of this Bible. And in fact, he got her to read. That is always a good thing when you’re talking to others.
So he opened up to a Bible chapter called Romans chapter three. And there’s four parts in that chapter that says, there is none, something, no not one. There is none, there is none, there is none. So he said, have a read of this. So she read verse 10. And she read, Mrs. Murphy read, there is none righteous, no not one. And then Mr. Smith said, except Mrs. Murphy. Read the next verse. There is none that doeth good, no not one, except for Mrs. Murphy. Read the next verse.
And he put her through all these, and you know, it just hit her. I am a sinner. And she got saved. You see, that’s the, you have to get hold of that. You know, it’s like me, if I was a doctor, I can’t convince you to have this terrible treatment that’s gonna be painful and all of that until you’re really convinced you need it, that you’re ill. and that if you don’t get this treatment, you’re going to die. So it’s like that in the gospel. You will not even want to be saved until you know that you’re a sinner, until you know that because of your sins, you deserve God’s judgment. And that means you’re going to be in hell if you’re not saved.
We had a couple back where I lived a few years ago, Stan and Mary, that was their names. They were an older retired couple. He had been evacuated from London during the war and he’d ended up staying in the place near where I lived. one day we knocked on her door, invited them to meetings and Stan and Mary occasionally would come to the tent or whatever we were doing, they would come occasionally and they were very nice and I would take preachers around to see them and but we could never really sort of make a dent into Stan and Mary, they were just so nice, and everything you said they would agree with, more or less, and they would come to the meetings, but we never could sort of get them stirred up about being saved. He said he was an agnostic, so you can’t know anything, and she was kind of religious, and it was very hard to get through to them. Then we had a preacher from Canada. You have to watch these preachers from Canada. So we had this preacher from Canada.
His name was Murray McCandless. Now, if you know Murray McCandless, he’s not someone to mess around. He hits the bullseye every time. So I thought, I’m going to take him to St. Mary. And if anybody can stir them up, it will be him. Because if we lose them, we lose them. But they’ve got to get this need to be saved sorted out. So we went round. I’ll never forget the day we went round. And we walked in. And they made us a cup of tea. They couldn’t have been nicer. And so Murray was straight into style. What about you, Stan? Are you saved?
Well, you know, I’m not sure whether there’s a God or not, and I don’t think you can really know the whole agnostic thing. So then he turned to Mary, and he said to her, what about you, Mary? And she said, oh, I’m saved. Well, that was news to me. I was like, well, you never told us that before. And he said, oh, when was that, Mary? So she said, when I was 17. I thought, well, she knows the time. This is amazing. And how did it happen? So she sort of said, well, she went to some sort of meeting and I’m not sure how she described it, but anyway, she told us what she thought was salvation.
And then Murray said something which I would never have thought of. He just looked at Mary and he said, tell me this, Mary, what were you saved from? Well, he might as well have said, You’ve just gone bankrupt. She just looked at him with that look of, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
And she looked up at the ceiling. And to buy some time, she repeated the question back. She said, what was I saved from? And the silence was agonizing. And Murray said, let’s have a word of prayer. And he got up. And he prayed, and he said, we’ll come back next week, Mary, and you can tell us what you were saved from. And we left. Do you know what happened the following week when he went and knocked on the door? She wouldn’t let him in. She had no notion of being saved. She hadn’t been saved, and she didn’t want to be saved.
You see, someone who’s saved will have no problem telling you what they were saved from. Look, if you said to me, what were you saved from? I’d say, oh, I was saved from my sins. Saved from going to hell. Saved from standing at the great white throne with no excuse.
Saved from, you know, some people think, oh, I’ve got to give this up to be saved. I’ve got to give that. I never gave up anything except hell. That’s all I gave up. I needed to be saved from my sin. So what’s the difference between Mary and Mrs. Murphy? One was dishonest, and one was honest. One admitted the truth. I need to be saved from my sins, I’m a sinner. So, this question, are you saved?
If you’re not saved, You won’t be able to tell me, yeah, I remember, I remember when I found out I was a sinner, and I was on the way to hell, and boy, I was in a mess, and I was worried about it, and then I heard, oh, then I heard the gospel. I heard about the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, who loved me, and gave himself for me, and died on the cross. And when I found out that he, the sinless Son of God, would die for me on the cross, a sinner who deserved to be in hell, I was just blown away. I just drank it in and I realized this is the amazing grace of God, this is what God came, this is what Jesus came for, to save people like me.
That’s how you talk when you’re saved. You might not be able to put it in that exact language, but you will be able to tell me that’s what I used to be like and this is what has happened because I was saved. You say, what? I do know that bit. And I sometimes lay awake in bed at night thinking, I need to get this sorted. But I just, how do I get it? What do I need to be saved by? Is it by something I do? Well, that’s why we read Ephesians 2. By grace are you saved.
You say, well, that doesn’t help me at all because I don’t know what grace means. Well, let me tell you. Grace means getting something you don’t deserve. So if you work all week at McDonald’s and at the end of the week, the boss gives you money, that’s not grace, that’s works. You worked, you got paid. But if you didn’t work all week and somebody turned around and said, I’ve just decided I’m gonna give you $500, that would be grace.
If you haven’t done anything for it, it’s just a favor, that’s what grace is. It’s unmerited favor, which means, If you are saved by grace, salvation, being saved, will not come to you by anything that you do. So going to church, getting baptized, confessing to a priest, praying, giving, none of that will ever save you. Why? Because salvation is by grace. It rules all that out.
You see, if you got salvation because you did something, it would be by works. You say, what’s works? What does works mean? Well, works is anything you do or say or think that has merit attached to it, that puts God in your debt. I’ve done this, I’ve said this, I’ve thought this, I’ve confessed this, I’ve prayed this, now give me salvation. No, no, that’s works. Works is Anything that you do or say or think that makes you deserve something. Now, life works like that. Life works on you do this and you get this. You work and you get paid. You volunteer and you get an award. You run a race, you win a prize. Life works like that.
But salvation is the opposite. Salvation is by grace. So, if you are going to be saved, you need to understand this. There will be zero contribution from you in that process. Zero. See, some people think Jesus died for me, that’s 50% of what needs to happen for me to get to heaven, and now I need to believe, confess, live a righteous life, do my best, try my hardest, read the Bible every day, and then combining those two things together, I’ll get to heaven possibly. That is a million miles from what the Bible is saying. The Bible is saying you can be saved today, right now, but if you’re going to be saved, you will have nothing to contribute to that salvation at all. And I’ll tell you something else, and this will really shock you.
The Bible is not simply saying that works are not required. Oh, great, great news, you can be saved and you don’t have to do anything. No, no. When the Bible says, not by works, it’s not just saying works are not required. It’s saying works are not allowed. You are not allowed to pay anything. You say, really? No, not a thing. Forget it. God doesn’t only not require you to do anything, he will not allow you to do anything.
You see, he sent his son from heaven on a rescue mission to save a fallen race, all of whom come from a man at the beginning called Adam who sinned. We’re all sinners. We’ve proved that by our lives and by our words and our thoughts and our actions. So God sent his son from heaven to die, to pay the death penalty, not for his own sins, because he didn’t have any sins, but for my sins. And through his death, and through his sacrifice, and through the shedding of his blood, he has given an answer to God that only he could give. And he said, that charge against Michael Penfold for lust, that charge against Michael Penfold for stealing, that charge against Michael Penfold for jealousy, put that to my account. And He has borne my sins, He’s taken the responsibility of them and all the judgment that they deserve. God’s judgment fell upon His holy, innocent Son, the Lord Jesus, not because He deserved it, but He did it for me who deserved it. and he died and he rose again as proof that it was all perfect. God set him in his own right hand and stamped approval, the work is done, it’s all finished. Now, come to Christ and accept salvation freely.
And you come along with two pence in your pocket or two cents and say, but can I not just give this? Can you even begin to imagine how offensive that is to God? So my son’s not enough then? The sacrifice that my son gave is not enough? He hasn’t satisfied me concerning your sins? His death’s not good enough? His death’s not sufficient enough? His sacrifice not worthy enough? You’ll come to me with your two pence? Away with your two pence! I don’t want your two pence! It’s offensive!
The work is finished. I need nothing from you. I will save you, but only by grace. Abandon your two pens, abandon any thought. You see, some people come to the Lord Jesus like this. They’ve got baptism in their right hand. or confession, or Sabbath-keeping, or not smoking, or penance, or saying the Lord’s Prayer, or getting down on their knees every night before they go to bed and saying, Dear Lord, forgive me for everything I’ve done today, and make me a better person. They hold that here, and then they hold out their hand and say, Please save me.
It isn’t going to happen. You’ll never be saved until you let go, until you throw it away and say, what an offense to God that I ever thought that this would impress him and this would put him in my debt and that he would owe me salvation because of this. No, let go of it today, let go of the whole thing. You know the last thing people will let go of?
I’ve seen people give up smoking, give up drinking, give up gambling. People will gladly give up those things because they say, oh, I’m now a better person. You see what people won’t give up? People will not give up the belief that they are basically a nice, good person. That’s the last thing they’ll give up. That’s what they hold in their hand. Please save me. I don’t want to burn in hell. I don’t want to be left behind when the law comes. but I’m basically a good person. No, you’re not a good person. There is none good. No, not one, Mrs. Murphy. Let go of it and be saved by grace.
You’ll be glad you let go of it when you let go of it. You might think, this is the best thing I’ve ever done. I gave £1,000 to charity once, $1,000. And you’ve got these gleaming gems of your own works in your hands. And you thought, the last thing you’d ever think you’d do is let go of them.
But you see, when you get God’s salvation, it’s like, how did I ever think that these little pathetic things that I’d done could ever earn this wonderful gift of God’s son to save me? The gift of salvation and eternal life and having the Lord Jesus as your saviour is so immensely glorious and wonderful that anything you can do is just like filthy rags.
Well, we’re near the bit, the last question. Who do we need to be saved through? That’s a lovely verse, isn’t it, in John 3:17. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him So we’ve discovered what we discovered this morning. We’re all sinners. We’ve offended God. We deserve to go to hell. We need to be saved. We can’t do anything to save ourselves.
We’re going to be saved through grace. But how do we actually sort of get it? It’s through him. It’s through him. Now a million, million people get mixed up at this point. because they know they’re sinners and they know salvation is by grace, they know Jesus died, but then they kind of think, okay, I’ll let go of all this, but how do I get it? And they turn getting it into another work.
You say, you’ve lost me. Is there anybody here this morning and you’ve been trying to get saved for weeks? Why aren’t you saved? I don’t know. I’ve been trying, I’ve been trying to believe, I’ve been trying to, I’ve asked the Lord to save me, but I don’t feel it. I must have asked the wrong way. You know, every time I get worried after a gospel sermon, I go home and get on my knees and I say, Lord, if I’m not saved, save me. I’m told I’ve got to believe, but I do believe. But I’m not saved. I mustn’t have believed enough. I mustn’t have believed the right way. There must be a special thing that I’m missing.
If I could just… I came to the meeting today hoping that this Mr Penfold fellow from England, he would say something that would just make it happen. And I would just get a new angle on it. No, you don’t need a new angle. You don’t need a clever way of believing.
Salvation is through Him. He says, well that doesn’t help me at all, I’ve always known that. No, no, no, no, you’re not listening. Salvation is through Him. Yeah, but I’ve got to believe. No, see what you think is this. God is going to reward you with salvation because you believed enough. I thought that’s what you preach. No, no, no, no. We do not preach that being saved is a reward for believing. No. If it was a reward for believing, then that believing is just another work.
I believed enough and I’ve impressed God with how much I believe and now he saved me. Oh, my believing is really good. I’m really good at believing and now I’ve got it because God’s got the message. I really, really, really mean it and I really, really, really believe it. You might as well go on your knees and climb up the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican if you think that’s how you’re going to get saved.
Salvation, you see, I’ve been speaking to you for half an hour now, and I’ve been looking at you through these things here, my eyes. But until now, I haven’t thought about my eyes. Do you think about your eyes when you look at things? Faith and believing is just the eye with which you see Christ. But it’s Christ that saves you, not your eyes. You see the difference? My sister-in-law got saved when she was 41. She’s quite a character, my sister-in-law.
She rebelled against the gospel and went off and did her own thing and she’s the life and soul of the party. She loved to just go to the dance floor. She was always the first on the dance floor and she smoked and she drank and she lived in sin and she loved to go to the sun and she used to go to Turkey. That’s where the British people go for a nice sunny holiday. Lots of parties, lots of carry on.
And when she got to 41, God just broke into her life. because her brother got interested in being saved, and different things happened, and she suddenly wanted to be saved at age 41. And even though she’d been brought up hearing the gospel, it was like she didn’t know anything. And she started going to some gospel meetings in a particular place. So every night they were having another sermon and she would go every night and listen.
And she was trying to find out, how do I get it? How do I get it? And she would listen and listen, listen. And she would be told, you need to get to Christ. And she would go home and Google, how do you get to Christ? She brought up in a Christian home. And then she would hear something else about, believe, you need to believe. She’d talk, how do I believe?
Can you imagine drowning at sea and a lifeboat comes along and throws you the ring, the life ring? And you look up at the man that threw it to you and say, how do I get hold of this? So if you know you’re drowning and there’s a salvation, you don’t even think about the act of taking it, you just grab it. Cuz it’s not your grabbing that saves you, it’s the ring that saves you.
Anyway, my sister-in-law, she did everything. She read her Bible, she read verses, she read hymns. She got right down on her face and cried out to God for salvation and waited for it to happen. And then she got up, no different. And then she heard of someone that got saved, and they were reading a verse, and eventually they thought, oh, I’m just not going to get it. And they closed their Bible, and all of a sudden they realized Christ died for me. So she tried that too. She read her Bible, I give up. Nothing happened. What’s she doing? She’s working at it. She’s working at it. She’s trying her best to impress God that she believes enough. And God is saying, you’re 2,000 years too late to impress me.
I’ve already been impressed with my son. I’ve been so impressed with him that I’ve accepted his sacrifice, I’ve raised him from the dead, and salvation is free. And you’re doing all this sweating and all this praying and all this exasperating stuff. I’m not going to save you till you just let go of all that. And one day she, in this state, she called in at my mother-in-law’s house, and she came into the kitchen, and she sat across the table from my mother-in-law, and of course my mother-in-law was in a real state about her daughter getting saved and praying for her and all this, and, well, Naomi, how are you getting on? Well, I’ve tried this, and I’ve tried that, and I’ve read verses, and I’ve prayed, and I’ve got on my face, and I’ve stayed up to all hours reading tracts, and I’ve done this, and I’ve believed, and I’ve tried, and I’ve Googled, and I’ve, And her mother said, stop!
Every sentence you’ve used since you came in here begins with I. Salvation is in a person. It’s in Jesus Christ. And the mother-in-law said, I saw it on her face. It just dawned on her. Oh. Salvation’s through Him. And she was saved, sitting at the kitchen table. She never prayed anything. She never stood on her head. She never had a fuzzy feeling.
In fact, she thought, is that it? Am I saved? Have I been stumbling over this all this time? But the work is done. And it’s just Christ, that’s it. And she was saved. Boy, was she ever saved. Her life was transformed. Not because she blew up the big balloon of her own believing. You know, some people, they blow up the balloon of their own belief and they can’t even see the cross. No, can’t see the cross.
They’re all taken up with their believing. He that believeth on the Son is in Him. God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through Him. Have you got Him? Oh, take a look at the cross. Take a look at Christ. What did He do on that cross? I can tell you what He did. This is what I discovered the night I was saved. He didn’t die for his own sins because he didn’t have any. He died for mine. And if he died for mine, I’m saved. Are you saved? May you be saved today.