John MacArthur I am amazed at some of the things that have been said and written in recent years about the gospel. I fear that in many circles a different message is replacing the good news of salvation. I'm not talking about the attacks on the gospel from liberal religion or the theology of the cults, but a skewed message that has sprouted from right within conservative evangelicalism. I have a copy of a training film now being used internationally to teach Christians what they should and should not say when leading someone to Christ. A respected, conservative organization produced the film, but frankly, the warped view of the gospel it presents is appalling.
In the entire half-hour film, there is not one mention of the resurrection. It speaks of forgiveness without defining sin, and it talks of trusting Christ without describing faith. Incredibly, the film counsels believers never to speak to a non-Christian about the lordship of Christ, submission to Him, surrender of the will, forsaking one's sin, or obeying God. Those truths, according to the film, have no place in the gospel message but should be saved for later, after someone becomes a Christian.
That sentiment reflects a viewpoint that is rapidly gaining momentum within evangelicalism. A handful of outspoken and increasingly vocal teachers are popularizing it. To their credit, most of those men are motivated by a passion to keep the gospel of God's grace free from the influence of human works. Their desire, I'm sure, is to make clear the biblical truth that salvation may in no way be earned or obtained by man's effort. Their approach, however, has been to eliminate from the gospel message anything that sounds like a work of righteousness, and to speak only of believing the objective data. They have erased the biblical words repentance, obedience, and submission from the vocabulary of evangelicalism.
Such teaching has taken a heavy toll. Faith has become merely an intellectual exercise. Instead of calling men and women to surrender to Christ, modern evangelism asks them only to accept some basic facts about Him. A person can believe without obeying. Thus faith is robbed of any moral significance, and righteousness becomes optional. Even the way we invite people to Christ reveals this shift. "Make a decision for Christ," we say. When was the last time you heard an evangelistic message that challenged sinners to repent and follow Christ? Yet isn't that the language Jesus Himself used (Matthew 4:17; Mark 8:34)? Those were the questions that prompted me to write
--I wanted to study the message Jesus preached to unbelievers. How could any issue be more important? The gospel we present has eternal consequences. If it is the true gospel, it can direct men and women into the everlasting kingdom. If it is a corrupted message, it can give unsaved people false hope while consigning them to eternal damnation. This is not a trivial matter for theologians to speculate on. It is an issue every lay person must understand and get right.
Here are some questions that need to be answered biblically: Do we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, or as Savior only? Some say a person who refuses to obey Christ can still receive Him as Savior. They teach that the gift of eternal life is available by faith even to one who rejects the moral and spiritual demands of Christ. They accuse others of teaching "lordship salvation," implying that it is novel to suggest that submission is a characteristic of saving faith.
Until relatively recently, however, no one would have dared suggest a person can be saved while stubbornly refusing to bow to Christ's authority. Nearly all the major biblical passages calling for saving faith refer to Jesus as lord (cf. Acts 2:21, 36; Romans 10:9-10).
Is repentance from sin essential to salvation? Some say that turning from sin is a human work and therefore cannot be part of salvation. To accommodate the biblical call to repentance, they redefine repentance as nothing more than a change of mind about who Jesus is.
Biblically, however, repentance is a total about face--turning away from sin and self and unto God (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9). That is no more a result of human effort than faith itself. Nor is it in any sense a pre-salvation work required to prepare a sinner for salvation. Real repentance is inseparable from faith and, like faith, is the work of God in a human heart. It is the response God inevitably generates in the heart of one He is redeeming.
What is faith? Some say faith is merely believing certain facts. One popular Bible teacher says saving faith is nothing more than confidence in the divine offer of eternal life.
Biblically, however, the object of faith is not the divine offer; it is the Person of Jesus Christ. Faith in Him is what saves, not just believing His promises or accepting facts about Him. Saving faith has to be more than accepting facts. Even demons have that kind of faith (James 2:19).
Believing in Jesus means receiving Him for all that He is (John 1:12). It means both confessing Him as Savior and yielding to Him as Lord. In fact, Scripture often uses the word obedience as a synonym for faith (cf. John 3:36; Acts 6:7; Hebrews 5:9).
What is a disciple? In the past hundred years or so, it has become popular to speak of discipleship as a higher level of Christian experience. In the new terminology, a person becomes a believer at salvation; he becomes a disciple later, when he moves past faith to obedience.
Such a view conveniently relegates the difficult demands of Jesus to a post-salvation experience. It maintains that when He challenged the multitudes to deny self, to take up a cross and follow Him (Mark 8:34); to forsake all (Luke 14:33); and to leave father and mother (Matthew 19:29), He was simply asking believers to step up to the second level and become disciples.
But how does that square with Jesus' own words, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matt 9:13)? The heart of His ministry was evangelism, and those difficult demands are evangelistic appeals.
Every believer is a disciple and vice versa. A careful reading of Acts shows that the word disciple has been a synonym for Christian from the earliest days of the church (cf. 6:1-2, 7; 11:26; 14:20, 22; 15:10).
What is the evidence of salvation? In their zeal to eliminate good works as a requirement for salvation, some have gone to the extreme of arguing that good works are not even a valid evidence of salvation. They teach that a person may be genuinely saved yet never manifest the fruit of salvation--a changed life.
A few have even taken the absurd position that a born-again person may ultimately turn away from Christ into unbelief, deny God, and become an atheist--yet still possess eternal life. One writer invented a term for such people: "unbelieving believers"! Scripture is clear that a saved person can never be lost. It is equally clear that a genuine Christian will never fall back into total unbelief. That kind of apostasy proves an individual was never really born again (1 John 2:19).
Furthermore, if a person is genuinely saved, his life will change for the better (2 Corinthians 5:17). He is saved "for good works" (Ephesians 2:10), and there is no way he can fail to bring forth at least some of the fruit that characterizes the redeemed (cf. Matthew 7:17). His desires are transformed; he begins to hate sin and love righteousness. He will not be sinless, but the pattern of his life will be decreasing sin and increasing righteousness.
You need to settle these critical questions in your own heart. Study the gospel Scripture presents. Listen with discernment to every speaker you hear. Measure everything by the Word of God. Above all, make sure that the message you share with unbelievers is truly the gospel of Christ.
Adrian Rogers : It Is Decision That Determines Destiny
Posted by david on 2005/10/17 8:48:05 (1092 reads)
It Is Decision That Determines Destiny by: Dr. Adrian Rogers
"... I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days... ." Deuteronomy 30:19b-20a
The text above is an episode in the history of Israel. What would happen to you if you were in the same valley of decision between these two mountains? Let me help by giving you some principles of choice.
First, you are free to choose. Every day, God gives us the freedom to make choices about what we think is going to be good, or even best for us.
Second, you're not free not to choose. To decide not to choose is a choice. Am I making any sense? Let me make it very clear – to decide not to choose good is always a choice to choose evil. Jesus said, "He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad" (Matthew 12:30). If you do not crown Jesus, you crucify Him. There is no middle ground.
Here's the third principle – you're not free to choose the consequences of your choice. Let me illustrate.
Stand beside an open window on the tenth floor of a building. You're free to jump. Now, that's a foolish thing to do, but if nobody is there to restrain you, you can choose to do so. Stay in the room or jump out. Now, if you decide to jump, then you must be ready to face the consequences of that choice.
The fourth principle is you are free to choose, but you're not free to achieve. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, suppose I chose to achieve as a professional basketball player. Well, you look at my frame and you say to yourself, "How can he even hope of achieving success?" And you're probably right.
You see, I can make all the choices I want. I can even have all the hopes and dreams I want. But, I have to be realistic to see that I might not achieve success simply because I have chosen to do something.
Now, the fifth choice principle – a big choice will take care of a lot of little ones. Let me give you another illustration of this.
I am a man who has made up his mind that I am going to be loyal to my wife. You see, I don't have to worry when I check into a hotel whether to watch pornography or not. I don't have to be concerned whether I am going to flirt with another woman.
I don't have to keep making that decision to be loyal to my wife. I've made that decision and that one big decision takes care of a lot of the other little decisions.
Sixth, God has already chosen you, that you might choose Him. That's why we're called His elect. "We love him, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Had God not first chosen us, we would never have the inclination to choose Him. Thank God for His sovereignty!
And lastly, the day of choice is passing away. Don't think that you have forever to make up your mind whether you're going to be a follower of Jesus Christ or not. Make your eternal salvation secure today.
CHOOSE JESUS BECAUSE ...
You can know immediate joy. Why wait to have joy when you can have it right now? I'd be a Christian if there were no heaven or hell for the joy that I have today in Christ. You may die tonight. These may be the last words you ever read about salvation in Jesus Christ. After you die, there are no second chances to get saved. Choose life. Jesus Christ is coming back. Matthew 24:24 says, "Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." If you don't think He's coming, then that is a fulfillment of this verse because He's coming when you least expect Him. Each time you decide against Him, you harden your heart. Hebrews 3:7-8 says, "Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts." A person becomes proficient at anything he does for a long time. You can become a professional Christ-denier.
The Transforming Power of Christ by: Adrian Rogers
"And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto them, They have no wine." John 2:1-3
The first recorded miracle Jesus performed was at a wedding. The wine had run out, and the Lord Jesus Christ, at the request of His mother, moved in to take care of the embarrassing situation. He told the servants to fill six available water pots with water. Then, He turned the water into wine — but not ordinary wine, the very best. But this was not just a miracle. It was a miracle with a message. You see, Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, but they didn't recognize Him. In John 1:26 John the Baptist said about Jesus, "... There standeth One among you, Whom ye know not." They should have known Him, could have known Him, ought to have known Him: but they didn't. And because they didn't know Him, they didn't understand this miracle. We'll look at three lessons from this first miracle.
The Prophetic Lesson
I believe there is as prophetic message dealing with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It looks forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb when He Himself is the heavenly Bridegroom and we are the bride, and we eat the marriage feast. This earthly wedding is but a fore gleam of what He will do for His saints throughout all the ages.
The Practical Lesson
There is also a practical lesson in this miracle. In John 2:5, Jesus' mother wisely instructs the servants, "… Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.” Are you a servant of Jesus? Let me give you the same advice: do what He tells you." There is a practical lesson concerning service. There are three reasons to serve God:
Serve the Lord for your good. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the new wine, he didn't know where it came from (verse 9). But the servants knew. Obeying the Lord brings intimacy with Him. Those servants knew things that the big shots at the head table didn't know. Even the bride and the groom didn’t know what the servants knew. It’s amazing what you can learn if you're willing to be a servant. God reveals His secrets to His servants (see Amos 3:7). What a blessing!
Serve the Lord for their gladness. The party was getting dull. The refreshments had worn out. But when the servants began to obey the Lord, everyone was blessed. When I obey God, I’ll be a blessing to you. When you obey God, you'll be a blessing to me. You cannot obey God without your obedience spilling out in a blessing to all those around you.
Serve the Lord for His glory. According to verse eleven, He "manifested forth His glory." When people obey the Lord Jesus Christ — when they do what Jesus tells them to do, He is glorified. When you obey Him, then He works in your heart and life, and the result is glory to God.
The Personal Lesson
Finally, there's a personal lesson concerning salvation in this miracle. I believe the Bible gives us a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ transforming and saving lives. And just as Jesus turned worthless water into sparkling wine, the Lord Jesus Christ can transform and change your life and save you today.
Notice the symbolism. There were six water pots of stone (verse 6). Six is the number of a man. Stone could be more aptly translated clay. These clay pots symbolize man made of the dust of the earth. They were dry, hard, brittle, and empty.
These old, hard, empty vessels were filled with water. Water is used as a symbol of the Word of God and the Spirit of God throughout the Old Testament. And when the vessels were filled and then touched by the omnipotent finger of God, a transforming miracle took place. This miracle points to a greater one — the miracle of salvation. Jesus turned water into wine with a touch. But when He saved me; He had to hang on a cross. Oh what a miracle — that Jesus can transform you! The same Jesus Who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and His business is the business of transformation.
