Hello, friend. Welcome to Authorized Sword Ministries.

We're so glad you're here.

About This Course

This course is called The Way of Salvation.

Over six short lessons, we're going to walk through what the Bible says about how a person can be saved. How you can know God. How you can be forgiven. And how you can know for sure that you have eternal life.

We'll take it one step at a time. We'll stay close to the King James Bible. And we'll talk with you plainly, the way we would if we were sitting across a kitchen table.

Today is Lesson One. It's called "All Have Sinned."

Now, we know that's not the happiest place to start. But it's the honest place to start. A doctor can't help you until he tells you what's wrong. And God loves you too much to skip that part.

Our Key Verse

Here is our key verse. Romans 3:23.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" — Romans 3:23 (KJV)

Look at that first word. All.

Not some. Not most. All.

That means the people you admire. That means the people you struggle with. And it means every one of us. And it means you.

To sin is to break God's law. It's doing what He says not to do. It's failing to do what He says we should. And it shows up in our actions, our words, and even our thoughts.

The verse says we have "come short of the glory of God." Think of an archer whose arrow drops into the dirt before it reaches the target. It doesn't matter if it lands one foot short or a hundred feet short. It still missed.

That's all of us. Some people look better than others. But nobody hits the mark of God's perfect holiness.

None Righteous, No, Not One

The Bible says this again and again. Just a few verses earlier, in Romans 3:10, Paul writes:

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" — Romans 3:10 (KJV)

Not one. Not the religious person. Not the nice neighbor. Not one.

The prophet Isaiah said it this way, hundreds of years before Jesus was born:

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." — Isaiah 53:6 (KJV)

We love that picture, because it's so true. Sheep don't usually run off in rebellion. They just wander. One bite of grass at a time. And before long they're lost.

That's how sin works in most of our lives. We just turn to our own way. And we keep turning.

But notice the end of that verse. "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Hold on to that. We're going to come back to it.

Now, some people hear all this and say, "Well, I'm not that bad." We understand. Many of us used to think that way too. But the apostle John gives us a warning:

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." — 1 John 1:8 (KJV)

The Bible Knows the Human Heart

Here's something worth thinking about.

People sometimes say the Bible is out of date. But look around. Read the news. Look at the wars, the cruelty, the broken homes, the lying and the greed. Every generation has more education and more technology than the one before. And yet the human heart hasn't changed.

Nobody has to teach a child to be selfish. Nobody has to teach us to lie to protect ourselves. It comes naturally.

And if we're honest, we don't just see it out there. We see it in here. In our own hearts. We know the good we ought to do, and we don't always do it. We know the wrong we ought to avoid, and sometimes we do it anyway.

The Bible doesn't flatter us. It tells us the truth about ourselves. And that truth matches exactly what we see in the world, and what we feel in our own conscience. That's one more reason we trust this Book. It knows us better than we know ourselves.

Our founder knows this personally. He was a troubled teenager, and when he got saved at sixteen, God took a broken life and began to transform it.

Sin Is Not the End of the Story

So, friend, if today's lesson feels heavy, we want you to hear this.

Sin is not the end of the story.

God didn't show us our sin to leave us there. He shows us the problem so we'll reach for the cure. Remember that line from Isaiah? "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." God already had a plan to deal with our sin. And that plan is Jesus.

Next Time

In Lesson Two, we'll look at one of the most important verses in the Bible. Romans 6:23:

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." — Romans 6:23 (KJV)

There's bad news in that verse. But there's wonderful news too. And we'll unpack both of them next time.

A Prayer

Before we go, let's pray together.

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for this friend who is listening right now.

Thank You for telling us the truth, even when it's hard to hear.

Lord, help each of us to be honest about our sin. Take away our pride and our excuses.

And open our hearts to the good news of Your love and Your gift in Jesus Christ.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for spending this time with us.

We'll see you in Lesson Two.

From all of us at Authorized Sword Ministries, God bless you.