Spiritual Growth--It's Decline

by Arthur W. Pink

I

First, its nature. That which we are here to be concerned with is what some writers term "backsliding"—a lucid and expressive word that is not employed so often as it should be or once was. Like most other theological terms this one has been made the occasion of not a little controversy. Some insist that it ought not to be applied to a Christian since the expression occurs nowhere in the New Testament. But that is childish: it is not the mere word but the thing itself which matters. When Peter followed His Master "afar off," warmed himself at the enemy’s fire, and denied Him with oaths, surely he was in a backslidden state—yet if the reader prefers to substitute some other adjective we have no objection. Others have argued that it is impossible for a Christian to backslide, saying that the "flesh" in him is never reconciled to God and that the "spirit" never departs from him. But that is mere trifling: it is not a nature but the person who backslides, as it is the person who acts—believes or sins.

It is not because the word backslide is a controversial one that we have preferred "decline," but because the former is applied in Scripture to the unregenerate as well as the regenerate—to professors as such, and here we are confining our attention to the case of a child of God whose spirituality diminishes, whose progress is retarded. There are, of course, degrees in backsliding, for we read of "the backslider in heart" (Prov. 14:14) as well as those who are such openly in their ways and walk. Yet to the great majority of the Lord’s people a "backslider" probably connotes one who has wandered a long way from God, and whom his brethren are obliged to sorrowfully "stand in doubt of." As we do not propose to restrict ourselves to such extreme cases, but rather cover a much wider field, we deemed it best to select a different term and one which seems better suited to the subject of spiritual growth.

By spiritual decline we mean the waning of vital godliness, the soul’s communion with its Beloved becoming less intimate and regular. If the Christian’s affections cool, he will delight himself less in the Lord and there will be a languishing of his graces. Hence spiritual decline consists of a weakening of faith, a cooling of love, a lessening of zeal, an abatement of that whole-hearted devotedness to Christ which marks the healthy saint. The perfections of the Redeemer are meditated upon with less frequency, the quest of personal holiness is pursued with less ardor, sin is less feared, loathed and resisted. "Thou hast left thy first love" (Rev. 2:4) describes the case of one who is in a spiritual decline. When that be the case the soul has lost its keen relish for the things of God, there is much less pleasure in the performance of duty, the conscience is no longer tender, and the grace of repentance is sluggish. Consequently there is a diminishing of peace and joy in the soul, disquietude and discontent more and more displacing them.

When the soul loses its relish for the things of God there will be less diligence in the quest of them. The means of grace though not totally neglected, are used with more formality and with less delight and profit. The Scriptures are then read more from a sense of duty than with a real hunger to feed on them. The throne of grace is approached more to satisfy conscience than from a deep longing to have fellowship with its occupant. As the heart is less occupied with Christ the mind will become increasingly engaged with the things of this world. As the conscience becomes less tender a spirit of compromise is yielded to and instead of watchfulness and strictness there will be carelessness and laxity. As love for Christ cools, obedience to Him becomes difficult and there is more backwardness to rood works. As we fail to use the grace already received, corruptions gain the ascendancy. Instead of being strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, we find ourselves weak and unable to withstand the assaults of Satan.

A born-again Christian will never sink into a state of unregeneracy, though his case may become such that neither himself nor spiritual onlookers are warranted in regarding him as a regenerate person. Grace in the Christian’s heart will never become extinct, yet he may greatly decline with respect to the health, strength, and exercise of that grace, and that from various causes. The Christian may suffer a suspension of the Divine influences to him. Not totally so, for there is ever such a working of God as maintains the being of the spiritual principle of grace (or new nature) in the saint, yet he does not at all times enjoy the enlivening operations of the blessed Spirit on that principle, and its activities are then interrupted for a season, and in consequence, he becomes less conversant with spiritual objects, his graces languish, his fruitfulness declines, and his inward comforts abate. The flesh takes full advantage of this and acts with great violence, and in consequence the Christian is made most miserable and wretched in himself.

If it be asked, Why does God withdraw the gracious operations of His Spirit from His people or suspend His comforting influences, which are so necessary for their walking in Him? Answer may be made both from the Divine side of things and the human. God may do this in a sovereign way, without any cause in the manner of their behavior toward Himself. As He gives five talents to one and only two to another according as seems good in His sight, so He varies the measure of grace bestowed on one and another of His people as best pleases Himself. Should any one be inclined to murmur against this, then let him pay attention to His silencer: "Is it not lawful for mc to do what I will with mine own" (Matthew 20:15). God is supreme, independent, free, and distributes His bounties as He chooses, in nature, in providence, and in grace. God takes counsel with none, is influenced by none, but "worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" (Eph. 1:11). As such He is to be meekly and cheerfully submitted to.

But it is not only from acting according to His own imperial right that God withdraws from His people the vitalizing and comforting influences of His Spirit. He does so also that He may give them a better knowledge of themselves and teach them more fully their entire dependency upon Himself. By so acting God gives His children to discover for themselves the strength of their corruptions and the weakness of their grace. Though saved from the love, guilt, and dominion of sin, they have not yet been delivered from its power or presence. Though a holy and spiritual nature has been communicated to them, yet that nature is hut a creature—weak and dependent—and can only be sustained by its Author. That new nature has no inherent strength or power of its own: it only acts as it is acted upon by the Holy Spirit. "In the Lord have I righteousness and strength" (Isa. 45:21): every believer is convinced of the former, but usually it is only after many a humiliating experience that he learns his strength is not in himself but in the Lord.

It is rather in a way of chastisement that, in the great majority of instances, God withholds from His people the gracious operations of the Spirit; and that brings us to the human side of things, wherein our responsibility is involved. Ii the saint becomes lax in his use of the appointed means of grace—which are so many channels through which the influences of the Spirit customarily flow—then he will necessarily be the loser and the fault is entirely his own. Or if the Christian trifles with temptations and experiences a sad fall, then the Spirit is grieved and His comforting operations are withheld as a solemn rebuke. Though God still loves his person; He will let him know that He hates his sins, and though He will not deal with him as an incensed Judge, yet He will discipline him as an offended Father; and it may be long before he is again restored to the freedom and familiarity that he formerly enjoyed with Him. (See Isa. 59:2; Jer. 5:25; Hag. 1:9, 10.)

Though God draws not His sword against His erring saints, yet He uses the rod upon them. "If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips" (Ps. 89:30-34). Then it is our wisdom to "hear the rod" (Micah 6:9), to humble ourselves beneath His mighty hand (1 Peter 5:6) and forsake our folly (Ps. 85:8). If we do not duly repent and amend our ways, still heavier chastisements will be our portion; but "if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). When the Spirit’s influences are withheld from the Christian, it is always the safest course for him to conclude he has displeased the Lord and to cry "Show me wherefore thou contendest with me" (Job 10:2).

Second, its causes. The root cause is failure to mortify indwelling sin, called "the flesh" in Galatians 5:17, which makes constant opposition against "the spirit" or the principle of grace in the soul of believers, A carnal nature is ever present within them, and at no time is it inactive, whether they perceive it or no, Yea, they are often unconscious of many of its stirrings, for it works silently, secretly, subtlety, deceptively, prompting not only to outward acts of disobedience, but producing unbelief, pride and self-righteousness, which are most offensive to the holy One. This enemy in the soul possesses great advantages because its power to rule was unopposed by us all through our unregeneracy, because of its cursed cunning, because of the numerous temptations by which it is excited and the variety of objects upon which it acts. Yet it is our responsibility to keep our hearts with all diligence, to jealously watch over its workings, for the principal part of the "fight" to which the Christian is called consists of continually resisting the uprisings and solicitations of his evil principle: in other words, to mortify them.

The more carefully the believer observes the many ways in which indwelling sin assails the soul, the more will he realize his need of crying to God for help that he may be watchful and faithful in opposing its lustings. But alas we become slack and inattentive to its serpentine windings and are tripped up before we are aware of it. This is stupid folly, and it costs us dearly. By our slothfulness we get a sore wound in the soul, our graces droop, our conscience is defiled, our relish for the Word is dulled, and we lag in the performance of duty. Grace cannot thrive while lust is nourished, for the interests of the flesh and of the spirit cannot be promoted at the same time. And if our corruptions be not resisted and denied, they will, they must, flourish. If the daily work of mortifying the flesh be not diligently attended to, sin will most certainly become predominant in its actings in our hearts. If we fail there, we fail everywhere.

True, the lustings of the flesh cannot be rendered inactive, but we must refuse to provide them with fuel: "make not provision for the flesh unto the lusts thereof" (Rom. 13:14). Those lusts cannot be eradicated, but they can (by the Spirit’s enablement) be refused. There is where the responsibility of the Christian comes in. It is his bounden duty to prevent those lusts occupying his thoughts, engaging his affections, and prevailing with the will to choose objects which are agreeable to them. Take covetousness as an example—a lusting after the empty things of this world. If the mind permits itself to have anxious thoughts for material riches, and the affections to be drawn unto them and pleasing images are formed in the imagination, the lust has prevailed and our conduct will be ordered accordingly. An earnest pursuit after corrupt things preys upon the vitals of true spirituality. The preventative for that is to set our affection upon things above, to make Christ our satisfying portion, and having "food and raiment . . . therewith be content" (1 Tim. 6:8).

It is very evident then that the Christian should spare no pains in seeking to ascertain and be sensibly affected by the real causes of his spiritual decline, for unless he knows from what causes his spiritual decays proceed, he cannot "remember therefore from whence he is fallen" nor truly "repent" of his failures or again "do the first works" (Rev. 2:5); and unless and until he does these very things he will deteriorate more and more. It is equally clear that if there be certain appointed means the use of which promotes spiritual growth and prosperity, then the slighting of those means will inevitably hinder that growth. As the first of those means is the mortifying of the flesh it will be found that slackness at that point is the place where all failure begins. It is sin unmortified and unresisted, yielded to and allowed, and—what is still worse—unrepented of and unconfessed, which brings a blight upon the garden of the soul, Sin unmourned and unforsaken in our affections is more heinous and dangerous than the actual commission of sin.

Closely connected with the mortifying of sins is the Christian’s devoting of himself entirely to God. Christian progress is largely determined by continuing as we began—by the measure in which we steadfastly adhere to the surrender we made of ourselves to Christ at our conversion and to the vows we took upon us at baptism. If our conversion was a genuine one we then renounced the world, the flesh and the devil, and received Christ as our only Lord and Saviour. If our baptism was a Scriptural one and the believer entered intelligently into the spiritual import and emblematic purport of that ordinance, he then professed to have put off the old man, and as he emerged from the water — as one symbolically risen with Christ—he stood pledged to walk in newness of life. As the adult Israelites were "baptized unto Moses" (1 Cor. 10:1, 2)—accepting him as their lawgiver and leader, so those who have been "baptized’ unto Christ, have "put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27) having enlisted under His banner, they now wear His uniform.

The more consistently the believer acts in harmony with the public profession he made in his baptism, the more real progress will he make. Since Christ be "the Captain" of his salvation, lie is under bonds to fight against everything opposed to Him, for "they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15). Each day the saint should renew his consecration unto God and live in the realization that "he is not his own, for he is bought with a price"—no longer free to gratify his lusts. The more Christ’s purchase of him be kept fresh in his mind, the more resolutely will lie conduct the work of mortification, It is forgetfulness that we belong to God in Christ which makes us slack in resisting what He hates. It is such forgetfulness and slackness that explains the call "remember therefore from whence thou art fallen" (Rev. 2:5)—i.e., your dedication to God and your baptismal avowal of identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

While there be a healthy desire after God and a delighting of ourselves in Him, an earnest seeking to please Him and the enjoyment of communion with Him, there is necessarily an averseness for sin and a zeal against it. While we have a due sense of our obligations to God and high valuation of His grace to us in Christ, we continue to find duty pleasant and direct our actions to His glory. But when we become less occupied with His perfections, precepts, and promises, other things steal in and little by little our hearts are drawn from Him. The light of His countenance is no longer enjoyed and darkness begins to creep over the soul. Love cools and gratitude to Him wanes and then the work of mortification becomes irksome, and we shelve it. Our lusts grow more unruly and dominant and the garden of the soul is overrun with weeds. In such a case we must "repent" and return to "the first works" (Rev. 2:5)—contritely confess our sinful failures and re-dedicate ourselves unto God.

Again; if the Christian accords not to the Word of God that honor to which it is so justly entitled, he is certain to be the loser. If the Word holds not that place in his affections, thoughts and daily life which its Author requires, then sad will be the consequences. If the soul be not nourished by this heavenly bread, if the mind be not regulated by its instructions, if the walk be not directed by its precepts, disastrous must be the outcome. We must expect God to hide His face from us if we seek Him not in those ways wherein He has promised to meet with and bless us, for such a neglect is both a violation of His ordinance and a disregard of our own good. I may spend as much time in reading the Bible today as ever before, but am I doing so with a definite and solemn treating with God therein? If not, if my approach be less spiritual, if my motive be less worthy, then a decline has already begun, and I need to beg God to revive me, quicken my appetite, and make me more responsive to His injunctions.

Finally; it requires few words here to convince a believer that if there be a decreasing occupation of his heart with Christ, his fine gold will soon become dim. If he ceases to grow in a spiritual knowledge of his Lord and Saviour, if he become lax in desiring and seeking real communion with Him, if he fails to draw from the fulness of grace which is available for His people, then a blight will fall upon all his graces. Faith in Him will weaken, love for Him will abate, obedience to Him slacken, and He will be "followed" at a greater distance. His own words on this point are too clear to admit of mistake: "He that abideth in me and I in him [note the order: we are always the first to make the breach], the same bringeth forth much fruit [his graces are healthy and his life abounds in good works], for severed from Inc [cut off from fellowship] ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). The same things which opposed our first coming to Christ will seek to hinder our cleaving to Him, and against those enemies we must watch and pray.

"Faith which worketh by love" (Gal. 5:6). Since it is "with the heart man believeth" (Rom. 10:10), saving faith and spiritual love cannot be separated—though they may be distinguished. Faith engages the heart with Christ, and therefore its affections are drawn out unto Him. Thus faith is a powerful dynamic in the soul, and acts (to borrow the words of Thomas Chalmers) as "the impulsive power of a new affection." A little child may be amusing itself with some filthy or dangerous object, but present to him a luscious pear or peach and he will speedily relinquish it. The world absorbs the heart and mind of the unregenerate because he is of the world and so knows nothing better, for the Christ of God is a Stranger to him. But the regenerate has a new nature and by faith becomes occupied with Him who is the Center of Heaven’s glory, and the more the mind be stayed upon Him, the less appeal will the perishing things of time and sense make upon him. It is faith in exercise upon its glorious Object which overcometh the world.

II

We have pointed out the deep importance of ascertaining the causes from which spiritual decays proceed, in order to bring us to a due compliance With the injunctions of Revelation 2:5. We cannot turn from that which is injurious and avail ourselves of the remedy until we are conscious of and sensibly affected by those things which have robbed of spiritual health. But let not the young Christian assume a defeatist attitude and conclude that ere long he too will suffer a decline. Prevention is better than cure. To he forewarned is to be forearmed. This aspect of the theme should serve a dual purpose: a warning against such a calamity and as furnishing instruction for those whose graces have already begun to languish. Thus far we have dwelt only on what will be the inevitable consequences if the believer fails to make a diligent and full use of the chief aids to spiritual growth; now we proceed to point out other things which are among the causes of decline.

A slackening in the prayer life will soon lower the level of one’s spiritual health. This is so generally recognized among Christians that there is the less need for us to say much thereon. Prayer is an ordinance of Divine appointment, being instituted both for God’s glory and our good. It is an owning of His supremacy and an acknowledgment of our dependency. On the one hand the Lord requires to be waited on, to be asked for those things which will minister unto our wellbeing; and on the other hand, it is by means of prayer that our hearts are prepared to receive or be denied those things which we desire—for it is essentially a holy exercise in which our wills are brought into harmony with the Divine, A considerable part of our religious life consists in praying, either in public or in private, either orally or mentally; and our spiritual prosperity ever bears a close proportion to the degree of fervor and constancy with which this important duty is attended to. Prayer has been rightly termed "the breath of the new creature," and if our breathing be impeded then the whole system suffers—true alike spiritually and naturally.

But prayer is more than a duty: it is also one of the two principal means of grace, and without it the other (the Word) profits us little or nothing. Since prayer be the breath of the new creature, we need to live in its own element—the atmosphere of Heaven. In order thereto a new and living way has been opened to the throne of grace, whither we may come with boldness and confidence, and there find help. Help for what? For everything needed in the Christian life, more particularly, for enablement to comply with the Divine precepts. That which God requires from us may be summed up irk one word, obedience, and it is only through prayer we obtain strength for the performance thereof. That is partly the meaning of "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). The law reveals mans duty, but it conveys no power for the discharge of it. But grace (as well as truth) comes to us by Jesus Christ as the previous verse tells us, yet there is no other way of receiving out of His fullness except by the prayer of faith,

Prayer is even more than a means of grace: it is a holy privilege, an unspeakable boon, an inestimable favor, and it should be the most delightful of all spiritual exercises. It is by prayer we have access to God and converse with Him, whereby He becomes more and more a living Reality unto the soul. It is then that we draw near to Him and He draws near to us, and there is a sacred converse the one with the other. Thereby we commune with and delight ourselves ilk Him, It is while we are thus engaged that the Spirit graciously fulfills His office work as the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry "Father! Father!" We then find He is more ready to hear than we are to speak. Pleading the merits of Christ we enjoy most blessed fellowship with Him and obtain fresh foretastes of the everlasting bliss awaiting us on high. It is to a reconciled Father we come, and as "his dear children." If we approach in the spirit of the prodigal son, the same welcome awaits us and the same tokens of love are received by us. It is then we are made to exclaim "Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over" and that we pour out our hearts before Him in praise and adoration,

Now contemplate a slackening of the prayer life in the light of the three things pointed out above, and what must be the inevitable consequences! How can I prosper if I shirk my duty? How can the blessing of God rest upon me if I largely refuse that which He requires from me? If prayer also be one of the chief means of grace and I neglect it, am I not "forsaking my own mercies?" If it be the only channel through which I obtain fresh supplies of grace from Christ shall I not necessarily be feeble and sickly? If my strength be not renewed, how can I successfully resist my spiritual foes? If no power from on high be received, how shall I he able to tread the path of obedience? And if prayer be the principal channel of communion and converse with God, and that holy privilege be lightly esteemed, will not God soon become less real, my heart grow cold, my faith languish, and my joy vanish? Yes, a slackening in the prayer life most certainly entails spiritual decline, with all that accompanies the same.

Sitting under an unedifying ministry. God has appointed and equipped certain men to act as His shepherds to feed His sheep. He speaks of them as "pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 13:15). In the ordinary course of events it is His method to employ human instrumentality, and therefore He has provided gifted servants "for the perfecting of the saints" (Eph. 4:11, 12). Satan knows that, and hence he raises up false prophets to deceive and destroy. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 warns us that "such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves in to the apostles of Christ." Nor should we he surprised at this, "for Satan himself is transformed as an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness." Those ministers of his have long held most of the professors’ chairs in the seminaries, thousands have occupied the pulpits of almost every denomination, and the great majority of those who sat under them were corrupted and fatally deluded by a specious mixture of truth and lies; and real Christian is who attended; injuriously affected.

It is because of the presence of these disguised ministers of Satan that God bids His people "Beloved, I believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God, for many false prophets are gone out into the [professing] world" (John 4:1). "Try" them by the unerring standard of Holy Writ: "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa. 8:20). God holds you responsible to "prove all things" (1 Thess. 5:21) and commends those who have "tried those who say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars" (Rev. 2:2). His urgent command to each of His children is, "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth thee to err from the words of knowledge" ( Prov. 21:27). That is not optional but obligatory, and we disregard it at our peril. Listening to false doctrine is highly injurious, for it causes to err from right beliefs and right practices. The ministry we sit under affects us for good or evil, and therefore our Master enjoins us "Take heed what ye hear" (Mark 4:24).

It is of far greater moment than young Christians realize that they heed that which has just been pointed out. The reading matter we peruse and the religious instruction we imbibe has as real an influence and effect upon the mind and the soul as that which ye eat and drink does on the body: if it be corrupt and poisonous its effects will be identical in each case, Proof of that is found in the history of the Galatians. To them the apostle said, "Ye did run well: who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" (5:7), and the answer was, heretics, Judaisers, who perverted the gospel. And the saint to-day is hindered ("driven back," margin) if he attends the preaching of error. Therefore "shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness and their word will eat as doth a canker" (2 Tim. 2:16, 17). The teaching of heretics diffuses a noisome influence, till it eats away the life and power of piety, as a gangrene spreads through a limb.

But one may sit under what is termed a "sound" ministry and, through no fault of his own, derive no benefit from the same. There is a "dead orthodoxy," now widely prevalent, where the truth is preached, yet in an unctionless manner, and if there be no life in the pulpit there is not likely to be much in the pew. Unless the message comes fresh from God, issues warmly and earnestly from the preacher’s heart, and be delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit, it will neither reach the heart of the hearer nor minister that which will cause him to grow in grace. There is many a place in Christendom where a living, refreshing, soul-edifying ministry once obtained, but the Spirit of God was grieved and quenched, and a visit there is like entering a morgue: everything is cold, cheerless, lifeless. The officers and members seem petrified, and to attend such services is to be chilled and become partaker of that deadening influence. A ministry which does not lift the soul Godwards, produce joy in the Lord, and stimulate to grateful obedience, casts the soul down and soon brings it into the slough of despond.

Only the Day to come will reveal how many a babe in Christ had his growth arrested through sitting under a ministry which supplied him not with the sincere milk of the Word. Only that Day will show how many a young believer, in the warmth and glow of his first love, was discouraged and dismayed by the coldness and deadness of the place where he went to worship. No wonder that God so rarely regenerates any under such a ministry: those places would not prove at all suitable as nurseries for His little ones. Many a spiritual decline is to be attributed to this very cause. Then take heed, young Christian, where you attend. If you cannot find a place where Christ is magnified, where His presence is felt, where the Word is ministered in the power of the Spirit, where your soul is actually fed, where you come away as empty as when you went,—then far better to remain at home and spend the time on your knees, feeding directly from God’s Word, and reading that which you do find helpful unto your spiritual life.

Companionship with unbelievers. "Enter not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of wicked men" (Prov. 4:14). "I have written unto you not to keep company—with the world" (1 Cor 5: 10, 11). The word for "company" there means to mingle: we cannot avoid contact with the unregenerate but we must see to it that our hearts do not become attracted to them. Indeed the Christian is to have good will toward all he encounters, seeking their best interests (Gal. 6:10); but he is to have no pleasure in or complacency toward those who despise his Master. It is forbidden to walk with the profane in a way of friendship. "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14), for familiarity with them will speedily dull the edge of your spirituality. "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33). We cannot disregard these Divine precepts with impunity. "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" (James 4:4). "A companion of fools shall be destroyed" (Prov. 13:20).

But it is not only the openly profane and lawless who are to be shunned by the saint: he needs especially to avoid empty professors. By which we mean, those who claim to be Christians but who do not live the Christian life; those who are "church members" or "in fellowship" with some assembly, but whose conduct is careless and carnal; those who attend service on Sunday, but who may be found at the movies or the dance-hall during the week. The empty professor is far more dangerous as a close acquaintance than one who makes no profession: the Christian is less on his guard with the former, and having some confidence in him is more easily influenced by him. Beware of those who say one thing but do another, whose talk is pious but whose walk is worldly. The Word of God is plain and positive on this point: "Having a form of godliness, but [in action] denying the power [reality] thereof: from such turn away" (2 Tim. 3:5). If you do not, they will soon drag you down with themselves into the mire.

O young Christian, your "companions," those with whom you most closely associate, exert a powerful influence upon you for either good or evil. Far better that you should tread a lonely path with Christ, than that you offend Him by cultivating friendship with religious worldlings. "He that liveth in a mill, the flour will stick upon his clothes. Man receiveth an insensible taint from the company he keepeth. He that liveth in a shop of perfumes and is often handling them carrieth away some of their fragrancy: so by converse with the godly we are made like them" (A Puritan). "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise" (Prov. 13:20). In selecting your closest friend, let not a pleasing personality allure: there are many wolves irk sheep’s clothing. Be most careful in seeing to it that what draws you to and makes you desire the Christian companionship of another is his or her love and likeness to Christ, and not his love and likeness to yourself.

"I am a companion of all that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts" (Ps. 119:63) should be the aim and endeavor of the child of God, though such characters indeed are very scarce these evil days. They are the only companions worth having, for they alone will encourage you to press forward along the "narrow way." It is not those who profess to "believe in the Lord," but those who give evidence they revere Him; not those who merely profess to "stand for" His precepts, but who actually perform them, that you need to seek out. So far from sneering at your "strictness" they will strengthen you therein, give salutary counsel, be fellow helpers in prayer and piety: the godly will quicken you to more godliness. Their conversation is on sacred topics, and that will draw out your affection to things above. If you are unable to locate any of these characters, then make it your earnest prayer "Let those that fear thee turn unto me and those that know thy testimonies" (Ps. 119:79).

An undue absorption with worldly things. "Worldly" is a term that means very different things in the minds and mouths of different people. Some Christians complain that their minds are "worldly" when they simply mean that, for the time being (and often rightly so), their thoughts are entirely occupied with temporal matters. We do not propose to enter into a close defining of the term, but would point out that the performing of those duties which God has assigned us in the world, or the availing ourselves of its conveniences (such as trains, the telegraph, the printing press), or even enjoying the comforts which it provides (food, clothing, housing), are certainly not "worldly" in any evil sense. That which is injurious to the spiritual life is, time wasted in worldly pleasures, the heart absorbed in worldly pursuits, the mind oppressed by worldly cares. It is the love of the world and its things which is forbidden, and very close watch needs to be kept on the heart, otherwise it will glide insensibly into this snare.

The case of Lot supplies a most solemn warning against this evil. He yielded to a spirit of covetousness and so consulted temporal advantages that the spiritual welfare of his family was disregarded. When Abraham invited him to make choice of a portion of Canaan for himself and his herds, instead of remaining in the vicinity of his uncle, upon whom the blessing of the Most High rested, he "lifted up his eyes (acting by sight rather than by faith) and beheld all the plain of Jordan that it was "veil watered everywhere . . . then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan and Lot journeyed east." Thus, he even went outside the land itself, for we are told "Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom" (Gen. 13:8-10). Nor did that content him: he became an alderman in Sodom (Gen. 18:1) and discarded the pilgrim’s "tent" for a "house" (v. 3). How disastrous the sequel was both to himself and his family is well known.

One form of worldliness which has spoiled the life and testimony of many a Christian is politics. We will not now discuss the question whether or not the saint ought to take any interest in polities, but simply point out what should be evident to all with spiritual discernment, namely, that to take an eager and deep concern in politics must remove the edge from any spiritual appetite. Clearly, politics are concerned only with the affairs of this world, and therefore to become deeply absorbed in them and have the heart engaged in the pursuit thereof, will inevitably turn attention away from eternal things. Any worldly matter, no matter how lawful in itself, which engages our attention inordinately, becomes a snare and saps our spiritual vitality. We greatly fear that those saints who spent several hours a day in listening to the speeches of candidates, reading the newspapers on them, and discussing party politics with their fellows during the recent election, lost to a considerable extent their relish for the Bread of Life.

III

Having dwelt at some length on the nature of spiritual decline and pointed out some of the principal causes thereof, a few words should be said on its insidiousness. Sin is a spiritual disease (Ps. 103:3) and, like so many others, it works silently and unsuspected by us, and before we are aware of it our health is gone. We are not sufficiently on our guard against "the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:13): unless we resist its first workings, it soon obtains an advantage over us. Hence we are exhorted "Take good heed therefore unto yourselves that ye love the Lord your God" (Josh. 23:11), for all spiritual decline may be traced back to a diminution of our love for Him. The love of God is of heavenly extraction, but being planted in an unfriendly soil, it requires guarding and watering. We are not only surrounded with objects which attract our affections and operate as rivals to the blessed God, but have an inward propensity to depart from Him.

In the early stages of the Christian life love is usually fresh and fervent. The first believing views of the gospel fill the heart with amazement and praise to the Lord, and a flow of grateful affection is the spontaneous outcome. The soul is profoundly moved, wholly absorbed with God’s unspeakable gift, and weaned from all other objects. This is what God terms "the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals" (Jer. 2:2). It is then that the one who has found such peace and joy exclaims, "I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice, my supplications [for mercy], because he hath inclined his ear unto me: therefore will I call upon him as long as I live" (Ps. 116:1, 2). At that season the renewed soul can scarcely conceive it possible to forget Him who has done such great things for it or to lapse back in any measure to his former loves and lords. But if after twenty years of cares and temptations have passed over him without producing this effect, it will indeed be happy. There are some who experience no decline, but that is far from being the case with all.

There are those who speak of the Christian’s departing from his first love as a matter of course, who regard it as something inevitable. Not a few elderly religious professors who have themselves become cold and carnal (if they ever had life in them), will seek to bring young and happy Christians to this doleful and God’s dishonoring state of mind. With a sarcastic smile they will tell the babe in Christ, though you are on the mount of enjoyment today, rest assured it will not be long until you come down. But this is erroneous and utterly misleading. Not so did the apostles act towards young converts. When Barnabas visited the young Christians at Antioch, he "saw the grace of God and was glad," and so far from leading them to expect a state of decline from their initial fervor, assurance, and joy, he "exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord" (Acts 11:23). While the great Head of the church, informed the Ephesian saints that He had it against them "because thou hast left thy first love" (Rev. 2:4).

There is no reason or necessity in the nature of things why there should be any abatement in the Christian’s love, zeal, or comfort. Those objects and considerations which first gave rise to them have not lost their force. There has been no change in the grace of God, the efficacy of Christ’s blood, the readiness of the Spirit to guide us into the truth. Christ is still the "Friend of sinners," able to save them unto the uttermost that come to God by Him. So far from there being good or just reason why we should decline in our love, the very opposite is the ease. Our first views of Christ and His gospel were most inadequate and defective: if we follow on to know the Lord, we shall obtain a better acquaintance with Him, a clearer perception of His perfections, His suitability to our ease, His sufficiency. He should, therefore, be more highly esteemed by us. Said the apostle "this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment" (Phil. 1:9). So far from himself relapsing, as he neared the end of his course, forgetting the things that were behind, he reached forth to those that were before.

To decline in our love is quite unnecessary and to be lamented, but to attempt a vindication of it is highly reprehensible. It would be tantamount to arguing that we were once too spiritually minded, too tender in conscience, too devoted to God. That we were unduly occupied with Christ and made too much of Him: that we overdid our efforts to please Him. It is also practically to say, we did not find that satisfaction in Christ which we expected, that we obtained not the peace and pleasure in treading Wisdom’s ways that we looked for, and, therefore, that we were obliged to seek happiness in returning to our former pursuits, and thereby we confirmed the sneer of our old companions at the outset, that our zeal would soon abate and that we would return again to them. To such renegades God says "O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me" (Micah 6:3).

The fact remains, however, that many do decline from their first love, though they are seldom aware of it until some of its effects appear. They are like foolish Samson, who had trifled with temptations and displeased the Lord, and who "awoke out of his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him" (Judges 16:20). Yielding to sin blinds the judgment, and we are unconscious that the Spirit is grieved and that the blessing of God is no longer upon us, Our friends may perceive it and feel concerned because of the same, but we ourselves are not aware of it. Then it is those solemn words accurately describe our case: "strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not" (Hos. 7:9)! "Gray hairs" are a sign of the decay of our constitution and of approaching decrepitude: so there are some signs which tell of the spiritual decline of a Christian, but usually he is oblivious to their presence.

We will turn now and point out some of the symptoms of spiritual decline. Since sin works so deceitfully and Christians are unconscious of the beginnings of retrogression, it is important that the signs thereof should be described. Once again we find that the natural adumbrates the spiritual, and if due attention is paid thereto, much that is profitable for the soul may be learned therefrom. Constipation is either due to self-neglect or a faulty diet, and when sin clogs the soul it is because we have neglected the work of mortification and failed to eat "the bitter herbs" (Ex. 12:8). Loss of appetite, paleness of countenance, dullness of eye, absence of energy, are so many evidences that all is not well with the body and that we are on the way to a serious illness unless things soon are righted: and each of those has its spiritual counterpart. Irritability, inability to relax, and loss of sleep, are the precursors of a nervous breakdown, and the spiritual equivalents are a call "return unto thy rest O my soul" (Ps. 116:7).

In cases of leprosy, real or supposed, the Lord gave orders that the individual should be carefully examined, his true state ascertained, and judgment given accordingly. And just so far as a spiritual disease is more odious and dangerous than a physical one, by so much is it necessary for us to form a true judgment concerning it. Every spot is not a leprosy! and every imperfection in a Christian does not indicate he is in a spiritual decline. Even the apostle Paul groaned over his inward corruptions, and confessed He had not yet attained nor was he already perfect, but pressed forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling. Yet those honest admissions were very far from being acknowledgments that he was a backslider or that he had given way to an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Great care has to be taken on either side, lest on the one hand we call darkness light and excuse ourselves, or on the other call light darkness and needlessly write bitter things against ourselves.

Undoubtedly more are in danger of doing the former than the latter. Yet there are Christians, and probably not a few, who wrongly depreciate themselves, draw erroneous conclusions and suppose their case is worse than it is. For instance, there are those who grieve because they are no longer conscious of that energetic zeal, of those fervent and tender affections, which they were sensible of in the day of their espousals. But a change in their natural constitution, from an increase of years, will account for that. Their animal spirits have waned, their natural energy has diminished, their mental faculties are duller. But though there be less tender and warm feelings, there may be more stability and depth in them, Many things relating to the present world, which in our youth would produce tears, will not have that effect as we mature, though they may lay with greater weight on our spirits. To confuse the absence of the brightness and excitement of youth with spiritual decline and coldness is a serious mistake.

On the other hand every departure from God must not be reckoned a mere imperfection, which is common to all the regenerate. Alas, the tendency with writer and reader alike is to flatter himself that his "spot" is only "the spot of God’s children" (Deut. 32:5), or such as the best of Christians are subject to; and therefore to conclude there is nothing very evil or dangerous about it. Though we may not pretend or deny that we have any faults, yet are we not ready to regard them lightly and say of some sin, as Lot said of Zoar "is it not a little one?" Or to exclaim unto one we have wronged, "What have we done so much against thee?" But such a self-justifying spirit evidences a most unhealthy state of heart and is to be steadfastly resisted. The apostle Paul spoke of a certain condition of soul which he feared he should find in the Corinthians: that of having sinned and yet not repented for their deeds, and where that is the case spiritual decay has reached an alarming stage. Here are some of the symptoms of spiritual decline.

1. Waning of our love for Christ. If the Lord Jesus is less precious to our souls than He was formerly, in His person, office, work, grace, and benefits, whatever we may think of ourselves, we have assuredly gone back. If we have a lower esteem of the Lover of our souls, if our delight in Him was decreased, if our meditation upon His perfections are more infrequent, if we commune less with Him, then grace in us has certainly suffered a relapse. It is the nature of certain plants to turn their faces towards the light: so it is of indwelling grace to strongly incline the heart unto heavenly objects and to take pleasure therein. But if we neglect the means of grace, are not careful to avoid sinful pleasures, or suffer ourselves to be weighted down by the concerns and cares of this life, then will our affections indeed be dampened and our minds rendered vain and carnal. As it is only by acts of faith on the glory of Christ that we are changed into His image (2 Cor. 3:18), so a diminishing of such views of Him will cause our hearts to become chilled and lifeless.

2. Abatement of our zeal for the glory of God. As the principle of grace in the believer causes him to have assurance of Divine mercy to him through the Mediator, so it inspires concern for the Divine honor. As that principle is healthy and vigorous it will cause us to refuse whatever displeases and dishonors God and His cause, and inspire us to practice those duties with a peculiar pleasure which are most conducive to the glory of God, and which give the clearest evidence of our subjection to the royal scepter of Christ. If the new nature be duly nourished and kept lively, it will influence us to bring forth fruit unto the praise of God; but if that new nature be starved or become sickly, our concern for God’s glory will greatly decrease. If we have become less conscientious than formerly of whether our conduct become or bring reproach upon the holy Name we bear, then that is a sure mark of our spiritual decline.

3. Loss of our spiritual appetite. Was there not a time, dear reader, when you could truly say "Thy words were found and I did eat them, and thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" (Jer. 15:16)? If you cannot honestly affirm that today, then you have retrograded. You may indeed be a keener "Bible student" than ever before and spend more time than previously in searching the Scriptures, but that proves nothing to the point. It is not an intellectual interest but a spiritual relish for the Bread of life that we are now treating of. Do we really savor the things that be of God: the precepts as well as the promises, the portions that search and wound as well as comfort? Do we not merely wish to understand its prophecies and mysteries, but really "hunger and thirst after righteousness"? If we prefer ashes to the heavenly manna, the "husks" which the swine feed on to the fatted calf—secular literature than sacred—then that is an evident sign of spiritual decline.

4. Sluggishness or drowsiness of mind. One is in a sad frame when exercise before God and communion with Him are supplanted by carnal ease. In spiritual torpor it is much the same as in the natural: our senses are no longer exercised to discern good and evil, we neither see nor hear as we ought, nor can we be impressed and affected by spiritual objects as we should be. While in such a condition spiritual duties are neglected, or at most performed perfunctorily and mechanically, so that we are none the better for them. If spiritual duties be attended to from custom or conscience rather than from love, they neither honor God nor profit ourselves. Though the outward exercise be gone through, the spirit of it is lacking, the heart is no longer in them. Those who read the Bible or say their prayers as a matter of form or habit perceive no change in themselves: but those who are accustomed to treat with God in them, and then discover a disinclination thereto, may know that grace in them has languished. If we have no delight in them we are in a sad case.

5. Relaxing in our watchfulness against sin. The want of alertness in guarding against all that is evil, under a quick and tender sense of its loathsome nature, is a sure sign of spiritual decline, Refusing to keep our hearts with all diligence, indifference to the working of our corruptions, trifling with temptations without, are certain evidences of the decay of personal holiness. When the new nature is healthy and vigorous, sin is exceedingly sinful to the saint, because he then has a clear and forcible apprehension of its malignity and contrariety to God, and that maintains in him a holy indignation against it. While the mind is engaged in considering the awful price which was paid for the remission of our sins, a detestation of evil is stirred up in the heart, and that is attended with strict watchings, for the renewed soul cannot countenance that which was the procuring cause of his Savior’s death. Such an exercise of grace has been obstructed if sin now appears less heinous and there is less care in maintaining a watch against it.

6. Attempting to defend our sins. There are some sins which all know are indefensible, but there are others which even professing Christians seek to justify. It is almost surprising to see what ingenuity people will exercise when seeking to find excuses where sin is concerned. The cunning of the old serpent which appeared in the excuses of our first parents seems here to supply the place of wisdom. Those possessing little perspicuity in general matters are singularly quick-sighted in discovering every circumstance that appears to make in their favor or serves to extenuate their fault. Sin, when we have committed it, loses its sinfulness, and appears a very different thing from what it did in others. When a sin is committed by us, it is common to give it another name—covetousness becomes thrift, malignant contentions fidelity for the truth, fanaticism zeal for God—and thereby we become reconciled to it and are ready to enter on a vindication, instead of penitently confessing and forsaking it.

7. Things of the world obtaining control of us. In proportion as the objects of this scene have power to attract our hearts, to that extent is faith inoperative and ineffectual. It is the very nature of faith to occupy us with spiritual, heavenly, and eternal objects, and as they become real and precious our affections are drawn out to them, and the baubles of time and sense lose all value to us. When the soul is communing with God, delighting itself in His ineffable perfections, such trifles as our dress, the furnishing of our homes, the glittering show made by the rich of this world, make no appeal to us. When the Christian is ravished by the excellency of Christ and the inestimable portion or heritage he has in Him, the pleasures and vanities which charm the ungodly will not only have no allurement but will pall upon him. It therefore follows that when a Christian begins to thirst after the things of time and sense and evinces a fondness for them, his grace has sadly declined. Those who find satisfaction in anything pertaining to this life have already forsaken the Fountain of living waters and hewed them out broken cisterns that hold no water (Jer. 2:13).

Copyright (c) 2011 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isa. 40:8).

Regeneration vs. The Idolatry of Decisional “Evangelism”

by Paul Washer

When we look at Romans 1:16 we understand that the apostle Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel: “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes.”

Now this might seem unusual to some of us that he has to make that statement, being an apostle; a principle carrier of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But in reality, Paul’s flesh has every reason to be ashamed of the Gospel because the Gospel he preached contradicted everything that was believed to be true and everything that was believed to be sacred in his culture.

Paul makes no attempt to be relevant to his culture. He makes no attempt to make treaty with his culture, adapt his message to the culture, re-package his message, or any of the other non-sense that has become so prominent in the evangelical community today.

To the Jew, the Gospel was the worst sort of blasphemy because it claimed that the Nazarene who died on that cross, a cursed thing in Jewish culture, was the Messiah and the Son of God. To the Greek it was the worst sort of absurdity, because it claimed that this Jew from some out-of-the-way place was actually God in the flesh.

Therefore Paul knew that whenever he opened his mouth to speak the Gospel, he would be utterly rejected and ridiculed to scorn, unless the Holy Spirit intervened and moved upon the hearts and minds of his hearers. This is what he knew and this is what you should know. If you are properly preaching the Gospel it will be scandalous and if you try to make it less of a scandal you no longer preach the Gospel.

I want to quote from some contemporaries of primitive Christianity:

Pliny the Younger writes: “After examining the beliefs of two Christian slave-girls under torture, I discovered nothing but a perverse and extravagant superstition”.

In the dialogue Octavius by Marcus Minucius Felix, he derides the Christians saying: “Their ceremonies centre on a man put to death for his crime and on the fatal wood of the cross”. He goes on to say: “Christians put forward sick delusions, a senseless and crazy superstition which leads to the destruction of all true religion”.

I know I may offend many on this but most modern-day church-growth strategies used in evangelical churches, their main focus is to get around the very thing I just read.

An oracle of Apollo, preserved in the writings of Augustine, in response to a man’s question about what he can do to turn his wife away from the Christian faith says this: “Let her continue as she pleases, persisting in her vain delusions, and lamenting in song a god who died in delusions, who was condemned by judges, whose verdict was just, and executed in the prime of life by the worst of deaths, a death bound with iron."

Lucian, who is basically the Voltaire of antiquity, mocks Christians in his De Morte Peregrini as poor devils who deny the Greek gods and instead honour that crucified sophist, and live according to his laws.

In Origen Adamantius’ work, Contra Celsum, Celsus declares: “What drunken old woman telling stories to lull a small child to sleep would not be ashamed of uttering such preposterous things”.

In our day, the primitive Gospel is no less offensive, for it still contradicts every tenant or “ism” in our culture: relativism, pluralism and humanism.

Let us look at these now for a moment.

We live in an age of relativism; a belief system based on the absolute certainty that there are no absolute certainties. We hypocritically applaud men for seeking the truth but call for the public execution of any man who believes he has found it. We live in a self-imposed dark-age. Why? The reason for this is clear: natural man is a fallen creature, he is morally corrupt, and he is hell-bent on autonomy (or self government). He hates God because God is righteous, and he hates God’s laws because they censor him and restrict his evil. He hates the truth because it exposes him for what he is, and troubles what is left of his conscience. Therefore fallen man seeks to push the truth, especially the truth about God as far from him as he can possibly remove it. He will go to any extent to suppress the truth, even to the point of pretending that there is no such thing as truth or that if it does exist, it cannot be known or have any bearing on our lives.

Realize this about the Gospel: it is never a case of a hiding God but of hiding man. The problem is never the intellect, but the will. I do not believe that the Bible gives any room for atheism! There are liars and God-haters who push the truth out of their minds but there are no such things as “atheists”. For although they knew him…(Romans 1:21). Like a man who hides his head in the sand to avoid a charging rhino, modern man denies the truth of a righteous God and moral absolutes in hopes of quieting his conscience and putting out of his mind the judgment that he knows must come.

The Christian Gospel is a scandal to the man involved in relativism and his culture because the Christian Gospel does the one thing that man most hopes to avoid. It awakens him for his self-imposed slumber to the reality of his fallenness and rebellion and calls him to reject autonomy / self-government and submit to God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

We also live in an age of pluralism: a belief system that puts an end to truth by declaring everything to be true. Do you understand what I am saying? When everything is true – when contradictory statements that are diametrically opposed, when both of them are labelled as true – you have the death of truth. It may be difficult for contemporary Christians to understand what I am about to say, but the Christians living in the first few centuries of the Christian faith were marked and persecuted as atheists. And you will be too! If a revival does not break out in this country, this is one of the reasons you will go to jail.

The culture surrounding the Christian was immersed in theism. The world was filled with images of deities and religion was a booming business. Men not only tolerated one another’s deities but they swapped them and shared them like baseball cards. The entire religious world was going on just fine until the Christians showed up and declared that the god’s made with hands are no gods at all. They denied the Caesars, the homage they demanded, refused to bend their knee to all other so-called gods and they confessed Jesus alone to be LORD of all. Therefore they were labelled atheists. The entire world looked on such jaw-dropping arrogance and reacted with fury against the Christians. Intolerable: intolerance to tolerance.

I want you to look at something. Look at these words: jaw-dropping arrogance. The same scenario abounds in our world today. Against all logic we are told that all views regarding religion and morality are true no matter how radically different they are or contradictory they may be. The most overwhelming aspect of all of this is that through the tireless efforts of the media and academic world, this has quickly become the majority view. However pluralism does not address the issue or cure the malady. It only anaesthetizes the patient so that he no longer feels or thinks.

The Gospel is a scandal because it awakens man from his slumber and refuses to let him rest on such an illogical footing. It forces him to come to some conclusion: how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God then follow Him. If Baal then follow him. The true Gospel is radically exclusive. I never thought I would have to say this in front of a bunch of evangelicals! I never thought there would come a day where I would have to say such a thing to evangelicals: that the Gospel is radically exclusive. I never thought that we would begin to loose Christ as the only way.

The true Gospel is radically exclusive, Jesus is not a way, but the way and all other ways are no way at all. Now listen to this very carefully because this is what is happening today. If Christianity would only move one small step toward a more tolerant ecumenicalism and change the definite article “the” (in the Saviour), for the indefinite article “a” (for a saviour), the scandal would be removed and the world and Christianity could become friends. Do you realize that? If we would simply say that: “Yahweh is a god”, we would have no persecution on our hands. If we would simply say that: “Jesus is a saviour”, I would be on the Oprah Winfrey show! Do you realize that? All the scandal would remove if we just said He is our saviour. You have yours we’ll have ours, were not going to impose anything upon you, were not going to wrangle in dialogue, nothing. If that’s your way, you go with that way and I’ll go with mine. If we would only do that then we would never be persecuted. But if we do that, Christianity ceases to be Christianity, we cease to be Christian, Christ is denied and the world is without a saviour.

We live in an age of humanism, over the last several decades man has fought to purge God from his conscience and his culture. He has torn down every visible alter to the One True God and has erected monuments to himself with the zeal of a religious fanatic. This is not secularism against religious mind-thinking, don’t think that. Because the secularist has a religion, and often times he is much more fanatical in his religion than any Christian ever pretended to be.

Man has managed to make himself the centre, measure and end of all things. He praises his own inherent worth, demands homage to his self-esteem, and promotes his own self-fulfilment / self realization as the greatest good. Now if you think that hasn’t crept into Christianity, then you have not read the book: Your Best Life Now, because that is exactly what that’s about. He explains away his gnawing conscience – see you cant get rid of that, it’s there to stay – as the remnants of an antiquated religion of guilt. He excuses himself from any responsibility for the moral chaos surrounding him, by blaming society, or at least that part of society that has not yet attained to his enlightenment. Any suggestion that his conscience might be right in its testimony against him, or that he might be responsible for the almost infinite variations of maladies in the world, is unthinkable.

For this reason the Gospel is a scandal to fallen man because it exposes his delusion about himself, it convicts him of his fallenness and guilt: this is the essential first work of the Gospel. This is why the world so loathes true Gospel preaching. The true Gospel ruins man’s party, rains on his parade, exposes his make-believe and points out that the emperor has no clothes.

The Scriptures recognize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a stumbling block and foolishness to all men of every age. It’s not just a scandal, it’s supposed to be. Who was one of the old revivalists that said: “How could the world not get along with the holiest man who ever walked on the planet, but it can get along with us”. We’re supposed to be a scandal. Now we don’t have to live like a bunch of fanatics, we don’t have to do a whole bunch of crazy things to be a scandal, just be faithful to this one proclamation: Jesus is LORD of all!

To seek to remove the scandal from the message is to make void the Cross of Christ and its saving power. We must understand that the Gospel is not only scandalous, but it’s supposed to be. Through the foolishness of the Gospel God has ordained to destroy the wisdom of the wise, frustrate the intelligence of the greatest minds, and humble the pride of all men. To the end that no flesh may boast in his presence, but just “as it is written, let him who boast, boast in the LORD” (1 Cor. 1:31).

Paul’s Gospel not only contradicted the religion, philosophy and culture of the day but it also declared war on them. Not a political war, not a military war, but a spiritual war of truth. It refused truce or treaty with the world and would settle for nothing less than culture’s absolute surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Even to every thought of our mind being held captive to Christ. We would do well to follow Paul’s example. We must be careful to shun every temptation to conform our Gospel to the trends of the day or to the desires of carnal men.

One of the things about missions, there’s all kinds of missions in this world, we don’t need more missions, it’s just most of them aren’t Biblical missions. Let me share with you something, those of you who are budding missionaries. Missions are to be defined by the exegete and the theologian; the student of Scripture, not by the anthropologist, sociologist and those who are experts in the new cultural trend. We do missions and evangelism according to the sacred writings of Scripture and we need no help from Wall Street.

We have no right to water-down the Gospel’s offense or civilize its radical demands in order to make it more appealing to a fallen world or carnal church members. Our churches are filled with strategies to make them more seeker-friendly, by repackaging the Gospel, removing the stumbling block and taking the edge off the blade so it might be more acceptable to carnal men. We ought to be seeker-friendly but we ought to realize that there is only one seeker and He is God. If we are striving to make our church and our message accommodation, let us make them accommodating to Him. If we are striving to build a church or ministry, let us build it on a passion to glorify God and a desire not to offend His Majesty. To the wind with what the world thinks about us. We are not to seek the honours of earth, but the honours of heaven.

Another thing I want to point out before we go to the preaching; our message is not only scandalous, it’s unbelievable. I want you to know that. It is an unbelievable message. As we have argued, Paul’s flesh had every reason to be ashamed of the Gospel he preached, yet there is still another reason for fleshly shame; the Gospel is an absolutely unbelievable message, a ludicrous word to the wise of the world. As Christians we sometimes fail to realize how utterly astounding it is when anyone believes our message. In a sense, the Gospel is so far-fetched; that it spread throughout the Roman Empire is proof of its supernatural nature. What could ever bring a Gentile – completely unaware of Old Testament Scriptures and rooted in either Greek philosophy or pagan superstition – to believe a message, such a message about a man named Jesus.

He ware born under questionable circumstances, to a poor family in one of the most despised regions of the Roman Empire, and yet the Gospel claimed that He was the eternal Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, in the womb of a virgin. He was a carpenter by trade, an itinerant religious teacher with no official training, and yet the Gospel claims that He surpassed the combined wisdom of the Greek philosopher and the Roman sages of antiquity. He was poor and had no place to lay His head and yet the Gospel claims that for three years He fed thousands by word, healed every manner of illness among men, and even raised the dead! He was crucified outside of Jerusalem as a blasphemer and an enemy of the state, and yet the Gospel claims that His death was the pivotal event in all of human history and the only means of salvation from sin and reconciliation to God. He was placed in a burial tomb yet the Gospel claims that on the third day He arose from the dead and presented Himself to many of His followers, and forty days later ascended up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high. Thus the Gospel claims that a poor Jewish carpenter, who was rejected as a lunatic and a blasphemer by His own people, and crucified by the state, is now the Saviour of the world, the LORD of lords and the King of kings, and at His name every knee shall bow including Caesar’s. Do you have any idea how impossible it is for anyone in Paul’s time to believe this message. It is impossible!

Who could ever believe such a message except by the power of God? There is no other explanation. The Gospel would have never made its way out of Jerusalem, let alone the Roman Empire, and into every nation of the world, except that God had ordained to work through it. The message would have died at its birth had it depended on the organizational abilities, eloquence, or apologetic powers of its preachers. All the missionary strategies of the world and all the clever marketing schemes borrowed from Wall Street could have never advanced the Gospel, the foolish stumbling block of the Gospel.

Martin Hengel writes on the ancient scandal of the cross: “To believe that the one pre-existent Son of the one true God, the mediator at creation and the redeemer of the world, had appeared in very recent times in out-of-the-way Galilee, as a member of the obscure people of the Jews, and even worse, had died the death of a common criminal on the cross, could only be regarded as a sheer sign of madness!

Now this truth brings both encouragement and warning to those of us who preach the Gospel. First, it is an encouragement to know that the simple faithful proclamation of the Gospel will ensure its continued advance in the world. Secondly, it is a warning to us that we not succumb to the lie that we can advance the Gospel through brilliance, eloquence, or clever church-growth strategies. Such things have no power to bring about the impossible conversion of men. We must cast ourselves with hopeful desperation upon the only Biblical means of advancing the Gospel. The bold and clear proclamation of a message, that we are not only unashamed, but that we believe in, and glory in, because it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes.

I want to finish by saying this: we live in an unbelieving and sceptical age. Our faith is ridiculed as a hopeless myth, and we are portrayed as either narrow-minded bigots or weak-minded victims of a religious ruse. Such an attack often puts us on the defensive and we attempt to fight back and prove our position and relevancy with apologetics.

I agree with apologetics. Although some forms of this discipline are quite helpful and necessary, we must realize that the power still lies in the proclamation of the Gospel. We cannot convince a man to believe any more than we can raise the dead. Such things are the work of God’s Spirit. Men are brought to faith only through the supernatural working of God and His promise to work not through human wisdom or intellectual expertise, but the preaching of Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead.

We must come to grips with the fact that our Gospel is an unbelievable message. We should not expect anyone to give us a hearing, let alone believe, apart from a gracious and powerful working of God’s Spirit. How very hopeless is all our preaching apart from God’s power. How very dependant is the preacher upon God. All our evangelism is nothing more than a fool’s errand unless God moves on the hearts of men. However, he has promised to do just that, if we faithfully preach the Gospel.

Let us go to Ezekiel 37:1-10.

“The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, {there were} very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, {they were} very dry. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.” Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.’”" So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army”.

I have just described the conversion of men. When you go out to preach you are always an Ezekiel. You are always standing in a valley of dead bones, and behold they are very dry. In the time of Ezekiel there was no technique to bring life into lifeless bone. The marrow had completely dried out of these skeletons, they were nothing but dust. There was no technique, there was no persuasion, there was no power, there was nothing humanly-speaking that could be done to bring these bones to life. That is evangelism. And you do well to learn it now. That is evangelism.

Men are dead in their trespasses in sins. They are not only dead, they are in bondage to sin. What life they have, is only life to follow the prince of this air. They are haters of God. They are enemies of God. They are blind. They do everything in their power to restrict and restrain every bit of knowledge that they already possess about God. They work with all their might to close down their conscience so it will no longer speak to them. They would rather suffer in a devil’s hell throughout all eternity, than bow the knee and repent and believe in your God.

Now, go try and learn an evangelism technique to bring them to life. Give long, drawn-out alter calls, tell all sorts of soupy stories, manipulate their passions, their emotions, and the only thing you will have is a group of two-fold sons of hell. For men to be saved, there is only one way, and that is for one man like Ezekiel, to step out in the midst of that valley and preach the only message God has promised to bless: the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

When we’re looking for missionaries, or when we’re interviewing candidates we want one thing: a man who knows that the ministry is an impossibility. That men can not be converted any more than the dead can be raised and worlds can be brought out of nothing. A man that realizes that he only has a few weapons of warfare but they are powerful. The preaching of the Gospel, intercessory prayer, and sacrificial dying to self-love. Give me men and women like that and we will see the Gospel advance in this world. But the more you depend upon the arm of the flesh, the more churches attempt to grow – not by being Biblical, but finding the latest thing to appeal to the greatest number of people – as long as we’re doing that we will never see the power of God.

The Church, in its desire to become relevant, makes itself look like a fool in the midst of its enemies. The church today in America looks like a six flags over Jesus. This is because if you draw people using carnal means, you will have to keep people using carnal means.

I want us to look at the basic invitation for men to come to Christ that is most prominent in America today. A standard contemporary invitation: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Do you know you are a sinner? Do you want to go to heaven? Do you want to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart? Did He come in when you prayed? Were you sincere? You are now a Christian. Welcome to the family of God.

This is such a sacred calf, a golden calf in the evangelical community today that I am more attacked for this than anything else. But I assure you this is not Biblical language and it is not found in the greater part of Christian history. This method that we cannot do evangelism without, is neither Biblical nor historical and has led us to exactly what we’re complaining about. The greater part of the United States of America claims to be born again and they are not. The greatest field of evangelism today is found in church buildings – I don’t want to say it’s found in the Church because everyone in the Church is truly converted – but in church buildings. You say oh we have a lot of churches brother Paul. No, we have a large group of nice brick buildings on beautiful yards. But the glory of God has since departed from them and Ichabod (Hebrew for inglorious) has been written across the door.

Let’s look at this invitation. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Many times this is accompanied by an explanation of all that Jesus can do for the person; fix their life, their marriage, their finances, their self-esteem. So you walk up to – what we know about a sinner; he is self-centered, he is autonomous, he wants to do his own thing, he has his own dreams, and he is in love with himself – so you walk up to this man and say,

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”.

And he goes, “What! God loves me? That’s fantastic, I love me too! Well this is wonderful! And you are saying that He loves me more than I love me? Now that sounds impossible. How can anyone have such a great love? And God has a wonderful plan for my life? I have a wonderful plan for my life too! And you’re telling me that if I accept this Jesus he will help me with all my wonderful plans and that I can have my best life now?”

“Yes!”

“Well then I’ll take a God like that! Do you got two of them?”

Do you see that? And you say brother Paul, we don’t mean it that way. But that’s the way it’s coming out. Now you are saying Paul, you are being very hard, full of satire. Yes I am. But look, everybody is lamenting the fact that this country believes it’s saved when it’s no more saved than a – it’s as lost, as they say in Alabama, as a ball in tall grass. But no one wants to point to what the problem is and the problem is even when we preach the Gospel correctly, then we go to this thing of how to invite men that’s not Biblical or historical. We get them to jump through a few evangelical hoops and say yes to the appropriate questions, and we “popeshly” pronounce them to be saved. They believe that false religious lie given by a religious authority – then when someone comes later and tries to preach the Gospel to them because they are living in the world, they wont listen – because a religious lie has so much power!

Then the next question:

“Do you know you’re a sinner?” and often times it’s really not

given too seriously. It’s kind of like:

“Hey, you know we’re all sinners, don’t you?” and if the person

says

“Yes I know I am a sinner” then the question is:

“Do you want to go to heaven?”

“Yea, I do”

“Then would you like to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart? It will only take five minutes.”

“Only five minutes?”

“Yes, because the Bible says: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, {even} to those who believe in His name (John 1:12). That if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me (Rev 3:20). So would you like to receive Jesus, because that’s what the Bible says?

“It will only take five minutes?”

“Only five minutes.”

“Sure.”

Afterwards, after a person prays, or is lead in a prayer by the evangelist he or she is assured that if they were sincere then Jesus has definitely come into their heart because He promised He would and if He didn’t come in then He is a liar because they were sincere.

How many people do you know believe they are going to heaven because, they’re not trusting so much in Christ, as the sincerity of the decision they made a long time ago. Often times, after a few minutes of counselling they are immediately presented before the church and welcomed into the family of God. Now you tell me I’m wrong! They come down front, I’ve seen it so many times, they are given over to a counsellor who has been trained in a packaged counselling form, they are talked to for about five or ten minutes while the invitation rolls on, and then immediately they are presented before the church; our new brother or sister in Christ. That’s the last most of them will ever hear of conversion counselling.

Then what will happen? If they never grow, or if they doubt their salvation they are taken again, back to that day when they prayed, and question regarding the sincerity of their decision. If they ever come to the pastor again doubting their salvation he’ll take them back to that day again and say:

“Well did you ever pray and ask Jesus to come into your

heart?”

“Yes”

“Were you sincere?”

“I think so”

“Then it’s just the devil bothering you.”

If they never grow in the things of God, their lack of growth is attributed to the lack of discipleship or the belief in the doctrine of the carnal Christian. One convention that I know of came to the conclusion that 60% of all its converts never attended church. Their answer for that malady was: we have to do a better job in discipleship. No! Jesus, His sheep, they hear His voice! They follow Him, whether you disciple them or not.

We ought to do discipleship. Back in the 70’s, discipleship became the big thing; personal discipleship. We have just as many people leaving the back-door of the church as entering into the front door of the church because we’re not doing personal discipleship. No! It’s because we’re not preaching the Gospel correctly and we’re pronouncing people converted who are not converted. They went out from us because they never were of us. You have to understand this. We deal five minutes with a person in their conversion and then spend 50 years trying to disciple a goat into a sheep.

I’m not saying this because I’m an angry person. I’m saying this because I’m angry because countless people are deceived. The problem is not liberal politicians, it’s evangelical preachers.

If they are ever challenged regarding their conversion because of a lack of fruit or overwhelming worldliness, they defend their hopeless salvation by once again, affirming the sincerity of their prayer and the confirmation of their religious leaders. If any counselling is done a person is usually admonished to turn away from his or her backsliding and to begin serving the LORD again. However the validity of their conversion is never examined or ever challenged.

For example: children evangelism. I would not let my child attend 98% of the Sunday school classes in Vacation Bible Schools in this country, and I’ll tell you why. A bunch of children are brought in and they are told wonderful stories about Jesus and then: “How many of you children love Jesus?” Except for the kid in the back with the leather jacket and the signs on his back that have been imprinted by a satanic cult, every other kid in that class is going to stand up and say:

“I love Jesus!”

“Well how many of you want to go to heaven?”

“I do!”

“How many of you want to pray this prayer?”

“I will!”

Then they are marched off to baptism, and a lot of the time the baptismal is dressed up like some kind of a happy party-time with graffiti so that they really enjoy it. Then when they are old enough to rebel against their parents, they do, and they live in gross immorality and sin. Then when they are about 25 or 30 after college, they decide they need to straighten things out because morality is really a better way to go, so they rededicate their life and they continue attending church once a week, having just enough morality to dim their conscience and send them straight to hell. That’s what’s going on.

Then when little Johnny wanders off the path and begins sleeping with his girlfriend, taking drugs, selling drugs, doing everything else, his mother and his father and his pastor goes to him and says, “you’re a Christian so you need to stop living that way”, instead of saying this, “you made the profession of faith in Christ, you were baptized in His name, and for a while it seemed that you did walk with Him but now you have turned away from the faith and you have proved possibly that you never knew Him and you’ve been reprobate from the beginning. Repent and believe the Gospel! Flee from the wrath to come!” That’s the difference.

I want to give you a Biblical alternative: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. What about instead, this modern mantra should be replaced by a proclamation of who God is? He is the Creator, Sustainer and LORD of all things. He is worthy of your honour and obedience. Now I want you to listen to this, in Exodus, God’s proclamation: “the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave {the guilty} unpunished (Exodus 34:6-7). One of the greatest revelations of God in the Old Testament, everyone knows that. Moses hid in the cleft of a rock, God proclaims His glory to Moses, and look at Moses’ response: “Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship (34:8). So instead of saying God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, tell them who God is! Because if you give them a god made in their own image I guarantee you they’ll accept him, but he wont be the God who saves. You tell them who God is. You exalt God before them, and tell them that everything in their life is going to have to bend toward His will. He is not like you all men. Repent and believe.

Does our Gospel presentation make men excited about what God can do for them on this earth or about who God is?

Now let’s go to our questions: Do you know you’re a sinner? My dear friend, the question is not do you know you’re a sinner. The question is this: as you have heard me preach the Gospel has God so worked in your life that the sin you once loved you now hate? You go up to the devil and ask him if he knows he’s a sinner. He’ll say, “well yes I am , and a mighty fine one at that”. Someone says, “yes I know I’m a sinner”, do they know what that means? That’s like someone says, “I’ve accepted God”, but when you begin to hear their definition of the God they accepted you realize it’s not the God of the Bible. In the same way a person says, “I’m a sinner”, that could mean anything; I don’t have enough love for myself. You must use the Scriptures to teach them! The Holy Spirit using the sword to penetrate their heart and to show them what it truly means.

I was preaching years ago and they had counsellors all prepared and everything and there was this lady leading up the counselling group and she did not like me at all. So one night I was preaching and there began a move of God. People over towards the left started weeping and then it went and started going across the auditorium; people were weeping, some almost convulsing. I hadn’t even finished the sermon and a girl ran up and was just laying across the steps, and another person, and started weeping. I looked up at the counsellors, and the leader looked at me like…(do something, and I shook my finger) and I kept preaching. Finally after I got through preaching she took a step forward and I realized she’s going to bolt on me. So I went down there and I stood beside her and she goes…(do something and I shook my finger) and finally she just looked at me and took a step and I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “Sister, don’t touch the ark of God. It is the God of Israel who is wounding these people with regard to their sin. Do not comfort the soul that God is breaking. Leave them alone to God”.

So you see the question is not simply: do you know you’re a sinner? But dear friend, do you know what it means, and has God so began to work in your heart that you’re beginning to see sin as God sees sin. Are their seeds of a divine attitude, of hating sin as God hates it. Your boasting over sin, has it turned to shame? Is God doing something?

Now, do you want to go to heaven, that’s the question. Do you want to go to heaven? Have you had anyone ever say, well no I rather go to hell? I’ve had a few people do that. But for the most part it’s, Yes, I would like to go to heaven. My dear friend, understand this, everyone want to go to heaven, they just don’t want God to be there when they get there. The question is not, do you want to go to heaven? The question is, do you want God? Political theory, this next election, it’s all about a utopia. It is all about making a wonderful place for men to live. Even godless men want a place where they get everything they want. But the question to the sinner, to whom you are witnessing is, has God done anything in your life? Is there any treasuring of Christ? Are you ashamed of the way that throughout the history of your life you have ignored Him, hated Him, been apathetic toward Him? Is there a new desire to follow Him, seek Him, know Him, delight in Him?

Let’s look at some of these texts. If someone answers all the questions yes, then they’re asked, do you want to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart? We’ve all done it. Does it bother anyone that this formula or language is not found in the New Testament? We don’t have Mark chapter 1; Jesus coming to Israel and saying, the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand, now who would like to accept me into their heart? We don’t see on the day of Pentecost; Ok, I see that hand, I see that hand, how many of you would like to come forward now? Get them all forward, everyone sees you, you can’t go back to your seat. Now pray this prayer with me.

You say Brother Paul, you’re making a mockery. Yes I am. I don’t know any other way to say it. You say, but I got saved that way. You got saved in spite of that way, not because of that way.

But Brother Paul, we have all these wonderful texts. Ok, let’s look at them. “But as many as received Him…” (John 1:12). Do you honestly believe that means the sinners prayer? Do you honestly believe that means, if you don’t feel comfortable praying, repeat this after me? Is that what that means? Look at it. Where do you get that? One evangelist said to a guy who didn’t even want to follow him in a prayer, he said, Ok, I’ll tell you this. I’ll say the words and if it’s what you want to say to God, squeeze my hand. Behold the power of God.

To receive Him, I believe should be interpreted within the context of the theology of John. It means to open up one’s life to ongoing fellowship or communion with the risen Christ; John 17:3. To receive Christ or feed upon Him as the sustenance of one’s life, John 6:53: unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. You see, a man is saved only by faith. Only by faith, believing what God has said, about God, about Himself, about the atoning work of Christ, the person of Christ – they’re saved. But in that moment of salvation, of belief, they are opening their lives to the person of Jesus. And, just because they prayed a prayer with a certain degree of sincerity, is no true evidence, because the heart is deceitfully wicked. How can you define the degree of sincerity in your own heart? You see the evidence in throughout all the New Testament it is this; you believe unto salvation, and the evidence you believe is this. You are saved only by faith in Christ, but if you believe in Christ your life will be open more and more to communion and fellowship with Him. It is not this (snap of the finger) flu-shot mentality of an invitation of the Gospel. We call men to repent and believe, and if they repent and believe truly in that moment they are saved in that moment, but the evidence is more than just the sincerity of a prayer. It is the continuation of the working of God in their life through sanctification.

Romans 10:9-10, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”. First we must say something about the heart. It represents the core or essence of what a man is. It is the seat of his intellect, mind, emotions and will. Therefore it is absurd to think a man can believe in Christ, with his heart, and it not have a radical effect on the rest of his life.

Let’s look at the language, would you like to receive Jesus in your heart? What does that mean? Have you ever thought about that? Believe in your heart, but we’ve change it to, would you like to ask Him to come into your heart. Believe in your heart means to believe with the very core or the very essence of who you are. It doesn’t mean you open up some secret chamber and ask Him to come in.

It is the testimony of Scripture and the interpretation of all sound evangelical scholars that we are saved by faith alone, so why does Paul seem to add confession as a requirement of genuine conversion. Let’s look at the text again, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”. Paul throughout the entire book of Romans says salvation only by faith, so why is he now adding confession. Paul is not contradicting the doctrine of faith alone, but its teaching that our public confession of the lordship of Jesus Christ is the evidence of believing in the heart. If someone is truly converted, they will publically confess Christ in word and deed. That does not mean the same thing as presenting themselves before the church the night of their supposed conversion.

If someone is truly converted, they will publically confess Christ in word and deed. Why do I add word and deed? Because Matthew 7:21 says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven”, not everyone who confesses Me as Lord, “but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven {will enter}”.

Now I am not saying that we are saved by faith in works, not at all. I am a grace preacher. What I’m saying is, that salvation involves a lost doctrine. It’s called regeneration. When God saves a man, He is regenerating his heart, turns him into a new creature and the evidence is this: he will live like a new creature. And he will confess Christ, that is, the man who has truly believed in his heart, his life will be marked by a Biblical confession of Christ in word and deed. You will be able to hear with his mouth and see with his life that his faith is a genuine saving faith.

I want to put this really quickly in a cultural perspective. Let’s say that we’re all a church, about twenty people, first century Roman Empire. You know, from the epistle of Romans, that these Christians are being put to death some of them. They’re dying like sheep. Let’s say that we have twenty of us and we all work construction. So we’re working on some kind of a building there in Rome, construction, no problem, beautiful day, it’s lunch time, we’re taking a break, Spring, we’re laying out in the grass, having a good time, resting. All of a sudden though we here this, we hear drums. We look up and we see soldiers coming. They are carrying a little alter and on that alter is a little bowl of incense and a little fire built and we become terrified. As all the construction guys come to their feet, most of them unbelievers, there we are, a little church in the midst of them. The soldiers rally us all together and they say, come forth, pay homage to Caesar. So the first guy, unbeliever, goes up there and gets a little bit of incense, throws it in the fire and says: Caesar is lord, walks off as happy as he can be. The next one and the next one and finally it comes to the first of us, the Christians. One of us walk up, soldier prods him with a spear, pay homage to Caesar. Iēsous estin Kyrios, Jesus is Lord, and he dies. And the next one of us, Jesus is Lord, and he dies, and the next one of us and we have taken that truth that Paul is teaching right here, that if you truly believe, you will confess Christ even though it cost you your life. We have taken that beautiful truth and reduced it down that if you pray a little prayer before a bunch of people in a church in America, you can be guaranteed you’re saved if you think you were sincere. That’s not what it’s talking about.

Again, the moment a person calls upon Christ in faith, they are saved, but the evidence of salvation is not that one time in their life they were sincere when they prayed a prayer. The evidence of their salvation is: is there genuine repentance, is there faith, and do those both evangelical graces continue on in their life and grow? In other words, the evidence of justification by faith is the ongoing work of sanctification through the Holy Spirit.

Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me”. First of all, this is not given in the context of a Gospel invitation, do you realize that? Christ is not knocking on the door of a sinner’s heart. Nowhere does it say that, but he is knocking on the door of a wayward church. That’s the context. This ought to raise some red flags for us. I said that to an evangelist one time and he said, I know Brother Paul but it works.

Secondly, I find it interesting that we use this text to give sinners the assurance that if they open up their hearts, Jesus will come in, even though, this text does not specifically or primarily address conversion or the opening of a heart. On the other hand, we do not use Acts 16:14 which specifically and primarily speaks about both conversion and the opening of a heart: “A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul”. Why don’t we ever use that text?

Thirdly, instead of merely inviting the sinner to open up their lives, would it not also be appropriate to lovingly aid the sinner in self-examination, to evaluate what the Lord might be doing at that moment? Do you have any sense that God is working in your heart this evening? Has there been an increase in your understanding of the Gospel in the things of God? Are you more and more open to the person of Christ in the truth of Scripture and the demands of discipleship? Do you have a desire to respond to the things, about which you have heard, to forsake confidence and self in your life of sin, and trust in Christ alone?

Fourthly, if we take this text – even if we do take it and use it for evangelism – if someone has opened the door of their life to Christ, notice this, the evidence will once again be ongoing fellowship. Because He said, If I come in, I will come in to dine with him. The evidence that a person has truly opened their life to Christ is continued fellowship with Christ. But is it not true, and don’t tell me it’s not, countless millions of people believe, because of our preaching, walk around, they have no fellowship with Christ, no desire for godliness, no seeking of God, but they believe themselves converted because one time in one of our churches they prayed and asked Jesus to come in. That’s true!

Let me share with you, I have forty-five seconds left, one of the greatest moments of my life, was a few clicks south of Alaska, some of you may have heard this story. A man, soon as I had got up in the pulpit, about twenty-five people, a man walked in, giant of a man, saddest human being I’ve ever seen in my life, and he came in and he sat in the front row. I immediately just stopped and started preaching the Gospel. After I finished I went down I said, Sir, what’s wrong with you? What is wrong? He pulled out a manila envelope, and he just showed it to me and he said, I just came from the doctor, I’m going to die in three weeks. He said, I’ve lived out in the bush, working on a cattle ranch all my life, you can only get there by riding over them mountains or taking a float plane, or something like that. He said, I’ve never been to a church in my life, I’ve never read a Bible, but one time I heard someone talking about a guy named Jesus and I do believe there’s a God. I’ve never been afraid of anything in my life and I’m afraid because I’m going to die and I don’t know what to do. I said, Sir, for the last forty-five minutes I have preached the Gospel to you, the Good News of what God has done for sinners in Jesus Christ, did you understand it? He said, yes. Now what would have most evangelists done at that moment: would you like to pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart? But this is what he said, Brother Paul I understood it, I mean anyone could have understood it, but is that it? Is that it, I understand it now and I pray a prayer and that’s it? I went and started explaining repentance and faith. After several minutes he looked at me and said, I just don’t get it. I said, look, you have three weeks to live, I have to leave tomorrow morning. I’ll cancel my plane ticket and I’ll stay with you for three weeks until you die. Either you’re saved, or you die and go to hell. So let’s begin.

Listen to me, if you’re thinking about being an evangelist, don’t think you’re going to preach to a whole bunch of people, when they come forward, you pawn them off on everyone else to do the counselling and you go to Denny’s to eat. And glory and all the decisions, most of which were just decisions and no one got converted because most of those people won’t come back to church next Sunday.

Now you understand like Leonard Ravenhill used to say, “Now you understand why I preach in a lot of churches once.”

But I looked at that man and said, Sir, faith cometh by hearing, let’s go through Scripture. We went through Scripture for over an hour, every promise, Old Testament, New Testament, on and on, just labouring until Christ be formed. We prayed some more, we read some more, another hour goes on, it’s getting late I said, we’re staying here, this man is dying. And after I don’t know how long, we got back to one of my favourite verses in the Bible: John 3:16. I said Sir – I’ll never forget this because he had that Bible on his legs, my Bible, and those big ol’ hands of his – and I said, Sir let’s just read through this again. He said, we’ve read through it so much. I said, Sir, your life depends on it. So he looked down, that big ol’ man, and he goes, Ok, for God….so loved…the world…that…He gave – Oh…I’m…saved…..I’m…saved….all my sins are gone! I have…my hands are clean…I have eternal life…I have eternal life….I’m going to heaven! I said, Sir, how do you know? He said, haven’t you ever read this verse before!!

Do you see the difference? People say, are you against evangelism? I say, yes and no. I’m against your kind of evangelism. I hate it. They run men through, grab a little ticket, just like you were waiting at some government office for them to renew your licence. Grab a ticket and go to heaven. We will be responsible! We are called upon – when I preach in meetings, this is what I do – I don’t give big alter calls and stuff, I say, look, it’s over, if God’s dealing with your heart you come to me. We will sit here all night. And if someone professes faith in Christ then what do I do? I don’t go, Oh you’re saved, you’re saved! I tell them this, I say, listen, if tonight you have truly repented and believed in Jesus Christ, you have become a child of God, but this is going to be the evidence. If you have truly repented unto salvation you will continue repenting unto salvation and growing in repentance. And if you have truly believed, you will continue believing, none of this flu-shot stuff. I don’t want someone walking up to that person, ten years later, they’re living an ungodly life, and someone witnessed to them and they say, Oh don’t worry about me, I done did that, because that’s what most people do in the south isn’t it. Don’t worry about me preacher, I done did that. You done did what? I got my flu-shot. Ya, but you didn’t get Jesus.

You labour with them. Let everyone else go out to eat. You labour. You pray. You counsel them with many Gospel promises and many Gospel warnings. I’ve declared war. It’s like a little mite beating his head against a world of granite but I don’t care. I’m sick and tired of people being led into a decision, with very little knowledge of the Gospel. Trusting in a decision, rather than looking unto Christ. Living in ungodliness, and believing they’re saved because some religious authority in the evangelical community told them they were, and they’re almost completely insulated now from hearing the true Gospel. Stop it. Stop it!

Copyright (c) 2011 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isa. 40:8).

What Is The Gospel?

By Dr. Harry Ironside (1876 - 1951)

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (1st Corinthians 15:1-4).

It might seem almost a work of supererogation to answer a question like this. We hear the word, "Gospel" used so many times. People talk of this and of that as being "as true as the Gospel," and I often wonder what they really mean by it.

First I should like to indicate what it is not.

THE GOSPEL IS...
Not The Bible

In the first place, the Gospel is not the Bible. Often when I inquire, "What do you think the Gospel is?" people reply, "Why, it is the Bible, and the Bible is the Word of God." Undoubtedly the Bible is the Word of God, but there is a great deal in that Book that is not Gospel.

"The wicked shall be turned into Hell with all the nations that forget God." That is in the Bible, and it is terribly true; but it is not Gospel.

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." That is in the Bible, but it is not the Gospel.

Our English word, "gospel" just means the "good spell," and the word "spell," is the old Anglo-Saxon word for, "tidings", the good tidings, the good news. The original word translated. "Gospel," which we have taken over into the English with little alteration is the word, "evangel," and it has the same meaning, the good news. The Gospel is God's good news for sinners. The Bible contains the Gospel, but there is a great deal in the Bible which is not Gospel.

Not The Commandments

The Gospel is not just any message from God telling man how he should behave. "What is the Gospel?" I asked a man this question some time ago, and he answered, "Why I should say it is the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and I think if a man lives up to them he is all right." Well, I fancy he would be; but did you ever know anybody who lived up to them? The Sermon on the Mount demands a righteousness which no unregenerate man has been able to produce. The law is not the Gospel; it is the very antitheses of the Gospel. In fact, the law was given by God to show men their need of the Gospel .

"The law," says the Apostle Paul, speaking as a Jewish convert, "was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But after that Christ is come we are no longer under the schoolmaster."

Not Repentance

The Gospel is not a call to repentance, or to amendment of our ways, to make restitution for past sins, or to promise to do better in the future. These things are proper in their place, but they do not constitute the Gospel; for the Gospel is not good advice to be obeyed, it is good news to be believed. Do not make the mistake then of thinking that the Gospel is a call to duty or a call to reformation, a call to better your condition, to behave yourself in a more perfect way than you have been doing in the past.

Not Giving Up The World

Nor is the Gospel a demand that you give up the world, that you give up your sins, that you break off bad habits, and try to cultivate good ones. You may do all these things, and yet never believe the Gospel and consequently never be saved at all.

THERE ARE SEVEN DESIGNATIONS OF THE GOSPEL in the New Testament, but over and above all these, let me draw your attention to the fact that when this blessed message is mentioned, it is invariably accompanied by the definite article. Over and over and over again in the New Testament we read of the Gospel. It is the Gospel not a Gospel. People tell us there are a great many different Gospels; but there is only ONE. When certain teachers came to the Galatians and tried to turn them away from the simplicity that was in Christ Jesus by teaching "another Gospel, "the apostle said that it was a different gospel, but not another; for there is none other than the Gospel. It is downright exclusive; it is God's revelation to sinful man.

Not Comparative Religion

The scholars of this world talk of the Science of Comparative Religions, and it is very popular now-a-days to say, "We cannot any longer go to heathen nations and preach to them as in the days gone by, because we are learning that their religions are just as good as ours, and the thing to do now is to share with them, to study the different religions, take the good out of them all, and in this way lead the world into a sense of brotherhood and unity."

So in our great universities and colleges men study this Science of Comparative Religions, and they compare all these different religious systems one with another. There is a Science of Comparative Religions, but the Gospel is not one of them. All the different religions in the world may well be studied comparatively, for at rock bottom they are all alike; they all set men at trying to earn his own salvation. They may be called by different names, and the things that men are called to do maybe different in each case, but they all set men trying to save their own souls and earn their way into the favor of God. In this they stand in vivid contrast with the Gospel, for the Gospel is that glorious message that tells us what God has done for us in order that guilty sinners maybe saved.


THE SEVEN DESIGNATIONS OF THIS GOSPEL are called...

1. The Gospel Of The Kingdom,

and when I use that term I am not thinking particularly of any dispensational application, but of this blessed truth that it is only through believing the Gospel that men are born into the Kingdom of God; We sing: "A ruler once came to Jesus by night, To ask Him the way of salvation and light; The Master made answer in words true and plain, 'ye must be born again.' " But neither Nicodemus , nor you, nor I, could ever bring this about ourselves. We had nothing to with our first birth, and can have nothing to do with our second birth. It must be the work of God, and it is wrought through the Gospel. That is why the Gospel is called the Gospel of the Kingdom, for, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God" (John 3:3,7). "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. . . And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you" (1 Peter 1:23-25. Every where that Paul and his companion apostles went they preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and they showed that the only way to get into that Kingdom was by a second birth, and that the only way whereby the second birth could be brought about was through believing the Gospel. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom. It also called

2. The Gospel Of God,

because God is the source of it, and it is altogether of Himself. No man ever thought of a Gospel like this. The very fact that all the religions of the world set man to try to work for his own salvation indicates the fact that no man would ever have dreamed of such a Gospel as that which is revealed in this Book. It came from the heart of God; it was God who "so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He first loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9,10). And because it is the Gospel of God, God is very jealous of it. He wants it kept pure. He does not want it mixed with any of man's theories or laws; He does not want it mixed up with religious ordinances or anything of that kind. The Gospel is God's own pure message to sinful man. God grant that you and I may receive it as in very truth the Gospel of God. And then it is called

3. The Gospel Of His Son

Not merely because the Son went everywhere preaching the Gospel, but because He is the theme of it. "When it pleased God," says the apostle, "who called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the nations; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood" (Gal. 1:15,16). "We preach Christ crucified . . . the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:23,24). No man preaches the Gospel who is not exalting the Lord Jesus. It is God's wonderful message about His Son. How often I have gone to meetings where they told me I would hear the Gospel, and instead of that I have heard some bewildered preacher talk to a bewildered audience about everything and anything, but the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel has to do with nothing else but Christ. It is the Gospel of God's Son. And so, linked with this it is called

4. The Gospel Of Christ

The Apostle Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost of the risen Savior, says, "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." And He speaks of Him as the anointed One, exalted at God's right hand. The Gospel is the Gospel of the Risen Christ. There would be no Gospel for sinners if Christ had not been raised. So the apostle says, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17). A great New York preacher, great in his impertinence, at least, said some years ago, preaching a so-called Easter sermon, "The body of Jesus still sleeps in a Syrian tomb, but His soul goes marching on.: That is not the Gospel of Christ. We are not preaching the Gospel of a dead Christ, but of a living Christ who sits exalted at the Father's right hand, and is living to save all who put their trust in Him. That is why those of us who really know the Gospel never have any crucifixes around our churches or in our homes. The crucifix represents a dead Christ hanging languid on a cross of shame. But we are not pointing men to a dead Christ; we are preaching a living Christ. He lives exalted at God's right had, and He "saves to the uttermost all who come to God by Him." The Gospel is also called

5. The Gospel Of The Grace Of God,

because it leaves no room whatever for human merit. It just brushes away all man's pretension to any goodness, to any desert excepting judgment. It is the Gospel of grace, and grace is God's free unmerited favor to those who have merited the very opposite. It is as opposite to works as oil is to water." If by grace," says the Spirit of God, "then it is no more works. . . but if it be of works, then is it no more grace" (Rom.11:6). People say, :But you must have both." I have heard it put like this: there was a boatman and two theologians in a boat, and one was arguing that salvation was by faith and the other by works. The boatman listened, and then said, "Let me tell you how it looks to me. Suppose I call this oar Faith and this one Works. If I pull on this one, the boat goes around; if I pull on this other one, it goes around the other way, but if I pull on both oars, I get you across the river." I have heard many preachers use that illustration to prove that we are saved by faith and works. That might do if we were going to Heaven in a rowboat, but we are not. We are carried on the shoulders of the Shepherd, who came seeking lost sheep When He finds them He carries them home on His shoulders. But there are some other names used. It is called

6. The Gospel Of The Glory Of God

I love that name. It is the Gospel of the Glory of God because it comes from the place where our Lord Jesus has entered. The veil has been rent, and now the glory shines out; and whenever this Gospel is proclaimed, it tells of a way into the glory for sinful man, a way to come before the Mercy Seat purged from every stain. It is the Gospel of the Glory of God, because, until Christ had entered into the Glory, it could not be preached in its fullness, but, after the glory received Him, then the message went out to a lost world.


It is also called...

7. The Everlasting Gospel

because it will never be superseded by another. No other ever went before it, and no other shall ever come after it. One of the professors of the University of Chicago wrote a book a few years ago in which he tried to point out that some of these days Jesus would be superseded by a greater teacher; then He and the Gospel that He taught would have to give way to a message which would be more suited to the intelligence of the cultivated men of the later centuries. No, no, were it possible for this world to go on a million years, it would never need any other Gospel than this preached by the Apostle Paul and confirmed with signs following; the Gospel which, throughout the centuries has been saving guilty sinners.

THE GOSPEL DECLARED

What then is the content of this Gospel? We are told right here, "I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." There is such a thing as merely believing with the intelligence and crediting some doctrine with the mind when the heart has not been reached. But wherever men believe this Gospel in real faith, they are saved through the message. What is it that brings this wonderful result? It is a simple story, and yet how rich, how full. "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received." I think his heart must have been stirred as he wrote those words, for he went back in memory to nearly thirty years before, and thought of that day when hurrying down the Damascus turnpike, with his heart filled with hatred toward the Lord Jesus Christ and His people, he was thrown to the ground, and a light shone, and he heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And he cried, "Who art thou Lord?" And the voice said, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." And that day Saul learned the Gospel; he learned that He who died on the Cross had been raised from the dead, and that He was living in the Glory. At that moment his soul was saved, and Saul of Tarsus was changed to Paul the Apostle. And now he says, "I am going to tell you what I have received; it is a real thing with me, and I know it will work the same wonderful change in you. If you will believe it. "First of all, "That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." Then, "that He was buried." Then, "that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

The Gospel was no new thing in God's mind. It had been predicted throughout the Old Testament times. Every time the coming Savior was mentioned, there was proclamation of the Gospel. It began in Eden when the Lord said, "The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head." It was typified in every sacrifice that was offered. It was portrayed in the wonderful Tabernacle, and later in the Temple. We have it in the proclamation of Isaiah, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed." It was preached by Jeremiah when he said, "This is His Name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness" (Jer.23:6). It was declared by Zechariah when he exclaimed, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones: (Zech.13:7) All through those Old Testament dispensations, the Gospel was predicted, and when Jesus came, the Gospel came with Him. When He died, when He was buried, and when He rose again, the Gospel could be fully told out to a poor lost world. Observe, it says, "that Christ died for our sins." No man preaches the Gospel, no matter what nice things he may say about Jesus, if he leaves out His vicarious death on Calvary's cross.

CHRIST'S DEATH - NOT HIS LIFE

I was preaching in a church in Virginia, and a minister prayed, "Lord, grant Thy blessing as the Word is preached tonight. May it be the means of causing people to fall in love with the Christ-life, that they may begin to live the Christ-life." I felt like saying, "Brother, sit down; don't insult God like that;" but then I felt I had to be courteous, and I knew that my turn would come, when I could get up and give them the truth. The Gospel is not asking men to live the Christ-life. If your salvation depends upon your doing that, your are just as good as checked for Hell, for you never can live it in yourself. It is utterly impossible. But the very first message of the Gospel is the story of the vicarious atonement of Christ. He did not come to tell men how to live in order that they might save themselves; He did not come to save men by living His beautiful life. That, apart from His death, would never have saved one poor sinner. He came to die; He "was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death." Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all. When He instituted the Lord's Supper He said, "Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me. . . This cup is the new covenant in My Blood" (1 Cor. 11:24,25) There is no Gospel if the vicarious death of Jesus is left out, and there is no other way whereby you can be saved than through the death of the blessed spotless Son of God.

Someone says, "But I do not understand it." That is a terrible confession to make, for "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: (2 Cor. 4:3). If you do not see that there is no other way of salvation for you, save through the death of the Lord Jesus, then that just tells the sad story that you are among the lost. You are not merely in danger of being lost in the Day of Judgment; but you are lost now. But, thank God, "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," and seeking the lost He went to the cross. "None of the ransomed ever know How deep were the waters crossed; Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through, Ere He found the sheep that was lost."

THE NECESSITY OF DEATH

HE HAD TO DIE, to go down into the dark waters of death, that you might be saved. Can you think of any ingratitude more base than that of a man or woman who passes by the life offered by the Savior who died on the Cross for them? Jesus died for you, and can it be that you have never even trusted Him, never even come to Him and told Him you were a poor, lost, ruined, guilty sinner; but since He died for you, you would take Him as your Savior? HIS DEATH WAS REAL. He was buried three days in the tomb. He died, He was buried, and that was God's witness that it was not a merely pretended death, but He, the Lord of life, had to go down into death. He was held by the bars of death for those three days and nights, until God's appointed time had come. Then, "Death could not keep its prey, He tore the bars away." And so the third point of the Gospel is this, "He was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures. "That is the Gospel, and nothing can be added to that. Some people say, "Well, but must I repent?" Yes, you may well repent, but that is not the Gospel. "Must I not be baptized?" If you are a Christian, you ought to be baptized, but baptism is not the Gospel. Paul said, "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel" (1 Cor. !:17) He did baptize people, but he did not consider that was the Gospel, and the Gospel was the great message that he was sent to carry to the world. This is all there is to it. "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

THE GOSPEL ACCEPTED

Look at the result of believing the Gospel. Go back to verse two, "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." That is, if you believe the Gospel, you are saved; if you believe that Christ died for your sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again, God says you are saved. Do you believe it? No man ever believed that except by the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit of God that overcomes the natural unbelief of the human heart and enables a man to put his trust in that message. And this is not mere intellectual credence, but it is that one comes to the place where he is ready to stake his whole eternity on the fact that Christ died, and was buried, and rose again. When Jesus said, "IT IS FINISHED" the work of salvation was completed. A dear saint was dying, and looking up he said, "It is finished; on that I can cast my eternity." Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die; Another's life, another's death, Is take my whole eternity." Can you say that, and say it in faith?

THE GOSPEL REJECTED

What about the man who does not believe the Gospel? The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:15,16). He that believeth not shall be devoted to judgment, condemned, lost. So you see, God has shut us up to the Gospel. Have you believed it? Have you put your trust in it; is it the confidence of your soul? Or have you been trusting in something else? If you have been resting in anything short of the Christ who died, who was buried, who rose again, I plead with you, turn from every other fancied refuge, and flee to Christ today. Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.

"O, do not let the word depart, And close thine eyes against the light; Poor sinner, harden not thy heart, Be saved, O tonight."

[Dr. Harry Ironside (1876-1951), a godly Fundamentalist author and teacher for many years, served as pastor of Chicago's Moody Memorial Church from 1930-1948]

Copyright (c) 2011 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isa. 40:8).