To one who has felt his need of help― who has groaned beneath the weight of sin― the tidings of a great salvation is a pleasant sound. To his troubled and anxious heart it comes like balm of Gilead to soothe and heal. For it is worthy to be called a great salvation, because there is no sinner whose need it is not able to meet.
Satan has two great lies which he uses― oftentimes with conspicuous success― to destroy the souls of men. First, he persuades them that they do not need God's salvation! He tells them that they are so good, their characters so upright, their morality of such a high tone, and their religious profession of such a degree that they have no need to come to Him as lost and guilty rebels before God. They do not require His mercy like common sinners. But thanks be to the God of all grace, in spite of this satanic lie, sinners do become anxious and alarmed. God then speaks to their consciences by His Word and Spirit, and they become exercised about their state before Him.
When penitent souls, under conviction of sin, seem ready to bow before God, then Satan has another lie ready for them, exactly opposite to the former one. He reverses his judgment of them and says, "Consider what sins you have committed. Remember how you have treated God; how you have scoffed at His mercy and refused His love, and gone on taking pleasure in your sins, in spite of all His warnings and entreaties. How can you expect to be saved? There may be mercy for others, but not for you.”
Thus Satan seeks to plunge the trembling sinner into despair. But how the "So Great Salvation" confronts and confounds him! There is no sinner with crimes of so deep a dye, with guilt so aggravated, with need so great, that he is beyond the reach of this great salvation. The greater the sinner, the more is God's grace magnified in saving him.
Let not your heart be troubled, then. If you have felt your guiltiness before a holy God, and have even, perhaps, had cause to doubt whether His salvation could extend to one so vile as you, come to Him in faith. He has said: "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37). A Magdalene, a dying thief, a brutal Philippian jailer, and the arch-persecutor of saints, Saul of Tarsus chief of sinners bear eloquent witness to the greatness of God's salvation.