There is a modern pastor who claims that he doesn't want to "place a barrier between the world and the church?" When referring to friendship with homosexuals in the church. Are you kidding!
There is a barrier between the world and the church. There can be no fellowship for the believer with the world. Those who are lost are not reconciled to Christ, our job is to warn them that they need to be. Why are they lost? That's simple because of their sin. What sin? All the sins Godspeaks about in the Word of God.
It is our sinful nature that separates us from God and from believers, however, through faith in Christ we can be reconciled to God and to other believers, only if we confess our sinfulness and trust Christ, Who paid the penalty for our sin, after which He changes us into a new creation.
Shame on those who bring evil into the worship with God's people. The worship gathering is not for unbelievers, evangelism is for the streets, since our worldly apostate churches are too embarrassed and lazy to go to the masses to preach, they encourage the congregations to bring the unholy masses to the worship gathering, this is offensive to God. "Light has no fellowship with darkness" and God said "come out from among them and be separated."
Mark 16:15 "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
I see no mandate in the Word to bring non-believers into our worship services.
When we welcome non-believer to the worship we are disobeying God. When we water down our sermons to be careful with the unsaved wicked , we disobey God. When we act happy and friendly no matter how vile the sinfulness of an unsaved person, we offend and mock God.
Our worship services should be kept only for believers, and only for those believers who are not in open sin themselves.
1 Corinthians 5:13 "But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG "
Many unsaved people have learned the lingo, putting on a pretense to rival Broadway performers, fooling those in the apostate church. They have worked their way into leadership positions, watered down the gospel and even changing the meaning of truth to fit with those who would be offended at a strong sermon against evil.
Matthew 7:15 "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."
Many leaders in pulpits today have never been born again. They teach lies that tickle the ears of those who want a superficial helpless and impotent gospel of works and happiness. They encourage others to try real hard to be good, negating the power of the Holy Spirit, relegating Him to a genie in a bottle to do the bidding of it's host.
If we are going to trust Christ, then we must trust Him with our salvation, our cleansing and our keeping.....all of it, or it is not trust in Him at all.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Self-Righteousness Will Not Save You
We have to make a decision whether to confess our sin and trust Christ, when we do place our trust in what He did on the cross on our behalf, He sends the Holy Spirit to come and live in us.
Ephesians 2:8-13 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, [i]excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off [j]have been brought near [k]by the blood of Christ.”
The Holy Spirit is our seal and guarantee of our inheritance. WE are positionaly seated in the heavenlies with Christ.
Ephesians 1:13-14 “13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also [b]believed, you were sealed in [c]Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is [d]given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
Ephesians 2:1-10 “2 And you [a]were dead [b]in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the [c]course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, [d]indulging the desires of the flesh and of the[e]mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead [f]in our transgressions, made us alive together [g]with Christ (by grace you have been saved),6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them”
The Holy Spirit continually cleanses us until the day we die. We are a NEW Creation, no longer what we used to be, the old us is gone. We cannot bring back the old creation, any more than a butter fly can crawl back into the cocoon and be a worm again.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Those who get confused have been taught that there are scriptures that prove one can walk away, basing this presumption on what they see in others rather than what the Bible says. They see people who seem to have been godly, but over time, they walked away from the Lord.
1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
We also must remember if you cannot earn your salvation by your works, there is no way you would be able to keep that salvation by your works. Works have no effect on our salvation. It is a free gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8-10 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them”
The old testament saints were saved the same way we are, their blood sacrifice of animals did not take away their sin, it was a picture of the sacrifice of Christ to come later, nor did their adherence to the ten commandments. Now that sacrifice has occurred, the true sacrifice that did take away our sin. The death of Christ and the resurrection proving that He is God. It covered the sin in our bodies, while the sin in our spirit was taken away. The Father in heaven cannot look at sin, in any degree, so He made a way for us to be sealed with the Holy Spirit in Christ so that the Father can look at us and see His Son, instead of us.
I find it interesting that when we die, our spirit goes to God, but our body is left behind, until it is raised in its’ new form, changed and uncorrupted.
Our faith should not be in our own ability to keep from sinning, or in our own ability to obey, it should be in the faithfulness of Christ alone.
John 2:1 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:”
It is Christ in us Who is righteous, not us. He covered our sin in His blood. Only the shedding of blood can take away sin. An attempt to not sin, does not remove our sinful nature, only the blood of Christ accounted to us, covered that sinful nature, it is covered in the blood until Christ takes us out of this world.
God does not want us to sin, He has provided a way for us to keep from sinning and that is through Christ. However, we do disobey as children because our flesh is weak even though our spirit is born again.
Romans 8:3 “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,”
Christ had to die to atone for our sins, it makes no sense that we would have to continually work to keep what Christ had to die for. Can anyone die for their own sins? Those who think you can lose their salvation must think that a blood sacrifice was not necessary for the atonement of their sins, or they would realize, that to think one could lose their salvation, someone would have to die all over again for those new sins. It is only through the blood atonement of Christ that can save anyone.
Do those who think they can lose their salvation, believe that Christ’s blood sacrifice was not enough, we have to keep doing good deeds to add a little more to this bloody sacrifice? Do they think that we can die for our own sins? If we cannot atone for our own sins through the shedding of our blood, then what makes us think that our silly lifeless obedience sacrifices could atone?
Do not be proud of yourself because you obeyed, or think that it secured your salvation for you. If anyone think that each new obedience is one more cog in the wheel of securing their salvation, then they walk in pride, which is sin, and they are practicing a form of Catholicism which says that the more we obey or do good works the greater chance of heaven. It is still a works based religion to think one can keep the salvation they never earned to begin with and obtained it without a bloody sacrifice.
Let me ask those who think they can lose their salvation a few questions:
· How many sins do you have to do to lose what you did not earn in the first place?
· How big does a sin have to be for you to lose the salvation you did not earn?
· How do you get back your salvation if you have lost it?
· Which sins will lose you the salvation that you did not earn?
· Do you sin in thought word or deed regularly?
· Is it sin to have a lustful thought and if so, then does this lose one their salvation?
· Is someone who is born again by the Holy Spirit of Promise, sinless?
· Did you receive your salvation by living in obedience to Christ?
· Who paid the penalty for our sin?
· Do we keep ourselves or does God keep us after He changes us into a new creation?
· Do your little ones sin, do you disregard them as your children because they have sinned?
· What do you do when your little ones sin?
· If you believe we do not sin after we have become born again, then how would we ever sin to lose that salvation?
Matthew 5:28 “but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
No one can say that they no longer sin after being born again. Anyone who says this, is lying and therefore sinning by such a claim.
1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” This was written to believers, not the unsaved.
God knows that we have a sinful nature, that lives in our flesh continually, we have to battle it and we have the free will not to battle it, even though we walk in conviction and shame when we sin, we sometimes give into the flesh. The old nature is gone from the spirit, but the flesh is weak, while the spirit is strong.
Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
This life is a battle, but not a physical one a spiritual one. The more we battle the flesh in the Spirit the less we will sin. If we are born again and do not battle the flesh, the more we will give into the flesh. We are still born again, but the flesh will overpower the spirit until we confess that sin and begin to obey again.
The battle is in the heart, not the flesh. When we sin in the flesh, it is because we have given into the temptations of the heart before anyone can see it, it was a problem of the heart first. Anyone can pretend while obeying on the outside for everyone to see, but that does not mean they are born again. Those who are pretenders seeking to earn their own salvation by their works, will eventually be exposed for what they are, they will become too tired of the pretense and begin to live on the outside what was in their heart all along.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”
If we never sinned then we would not have to battle. The battle is continual until the day we are taken out of this world.
God will discipline His little children. Hebrews 12:4-11 “4 You have not yet resisted [d]to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had [e]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of [f]spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
God does not throw away His children by removing their salvation, He disciplines them, because of His great love for them.
Those who think one can lose their salvation based on their deeds, are not looking at Christ, discerning His character, but they are focused on works, entirely on human works, rather than the work that Christ did on the cross.
When Christ told us to trust Him, He meant for us to trust Him not only for salvation, but for cleansing us and keeping us until He comes for us.
I Believe Christ!!!!! When He said “ I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
For those who teach that He does not walk away but we can, are lying. God said that it is upon His faithfulness that we are saved and kept, not on ours.
2 Timothy 3:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
Did you trust Christ, or are you continuing to trust in your self-righteousness.
Ephesians 2:8-13 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, [i]excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off [j]have been brought near [k]by the blood of Christ.”
The Holy Spirit is our seal and guarantee of our inheritance. WE are positionaly seated in the heavenlies with Christ.
Ephesians 1:13-14 “13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also [b]believed, you were sealed in [c]Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is [d]given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
Ephesians 2:1-10 “2 And you [a]were dead [b]in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the [c]course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, [d]indulging the desires of the flesh and of the[e]mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead [f]in our transgressions, made us alive together [g]with Christ (by grace you have been saved),6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them”
The Holy Spirit continually cleanses us until the day we die. We are a NEW Creation, no longer what we used to be, the old us is gone. We cannot bring back the old creation, any more than a butter fly can crawl back into the cocoon and be a worm again.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Those who get confused have been taught that there are scriptures that prove one can walk away, basing this presumption on what they see in others rather than what the Bible says. They see people who seem to have been godly, but over time, they walked away from the Lord.
1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
We also must remember if you cannot earn your salvation by your works, there is no way you would be able to keep that salvation by your works. Works have no effect on our salvation. It is a free gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8-10 “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and[h]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them”
The old testament saints were saved the same way we are, their blood sacrifice of animals did not take away their sin, it was a picture of the sacrifice of Christ to come later, nor did their adherence to the ten commandments. Now that sacrifice has occurred, the true sacrifice that did take away our sin. The death of Christ and the resurrection proving that He is God. It covered the sin in our bodies, while the sin in our spirit was taken away. The Father in heaven cannot look at sin, in any degree, so He made a way for us to be sealed with the Holy Spirit in Christ so that the Father can look at us and see His Son, instead of us.
I find it interesting that when we die, our spirit goes to God, but our body is left behind, until it is raised in its’ new form, changed and uncorrupted.
Our faith should not be in our own ability to keep from sinning, or in our own ability to obey, it should be in the faithfulness of Christ alone.
John 2:1 “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:”
It is Christ in us Who is righteous, not us. He covered our sin in His blood. Only the shedding of blood can take away sin. An attempt to not sin, does not remove our sinful nature, only the blood of Christ accounted to us, covered that sinful nature, it is covered in the blood until Christ takes us out of this world.
God does not want us to sin, He has provided a way for us to keep from sinning and that is through Christ. However, we do disobey as children because our flesh is weak even though our spirit is born again.
Romans 8:3 “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,”
Christ had to die to atone for our sins, it makes no sense that we would have to continually work to keep what Christ had to die for. Can anyone die for their own sins? Those who think you can lose their salvation must think that a blood sacrifice was not necessary for the atonement of their sins, or they would realize, that to think one could lose their salvation, someone would have to die all over again for those new sins. It is only through the blood atonement of Christ that can save anyone.
Do those who think they can lose their salvation, believe that Christ’s blood sacrifice was not enough, we have to keep doing good deeds to add a little more to this bloody sacrifice? Do they think that we can die for our own sins? If we cannot atone for our own sins through the shedding of our blood, then what makes us think that our silly lifeless obedience sacrifices could atone?
Do not be proud of yourself because you obeyed, or think that it secured your salvation for you. If anyone think that each new obedience is one more cog in the wheel of securing their salvation, then they walk in pride, which is sin, and they are practicing a form of Catholicism which says that the more we obey or do good works the greater chance of heaven. It is still a works based religion to think one can keep the salvation they never earned to begin with and obtained it without a bloody sacrifice.
Let me ask those who think they can lose their salvation a few questions:
· How many sins do you have to do to lose what you did not earn in the first place?
· How big does a sin have to be for you to lose the salvation you did not earn?
· How do you get back your salvation if you have lost it?
· Which sins will lose you the salvation that you did not earn?
· Do you sin in thought word or deed regularly?
· Is it sin to have a lustful thought and if so, then does this lose one their salvation?
· Is someone who is born again by the Holy Spirit of Promise, sinless?
· Did you receive your salvation by living in obedience to Christ?
· Who paid the penalty for our sin?
· Do we keep ourselves or does God keep us after He changes us into a new creation?
· Do your little ones sin, do you disregard them as your children because they have sinned?
· What do you do when your little ones sin?
· If you believe we do not sin after we have become born again, then how would we ever sin to lose that salvation?
Matthew 5:28 “but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
No one can say that they no longer sin after being born again. Anyone who says this, is lying and therefore sinning by such a claim.
1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” This was written to believers, not the unsaved.
God knows that we have a sinful nature, that lives in our flesh continually, we have to battle it and we have the free will not to battle it, even though we walk in conviction and shame when we sin, we sometimes give into the flesh. The old nature is gone from the spirit, but the flesh is weak, while the spirit is strong.
Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
This life is a battle, but not a physical one a spiritual one. The more we battle the flesh in the Spirit the less we will sin. If we are born again and do not battle the flesh, the more we will give into the flesh. We are still born again, but the flesh will overpower the spirit until we confess that sin and begin to obey again.
The battle is in the heart, not the flesh. When we sin in the flesh, it is because we have given into the temptations of the heart before anyone can see it, it was a problem of the heart first. Anyone can pretend while obeying on the outside for everyone to see, but that does not mean they are born again. Those who are pretenders seeking to earn their own salvation by their works, will eventually be exposed for what they are, they will become too tired of the pretense and begin to live on the outside what was in their heart all along.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”
If we never sinned then we would not have to battle. The battle is continual until the day we are taken out of this world.
God will discipline His little children. Hebrews 12:4-11 “4 You have not yet resisted [d]to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had [e]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of [f]spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
God does not throw away His children by removing their salvation, He disciplines them, because of His great love for them.
Those who think one can lose their salvation based on their deeds, are not looking at Christ, discerning His character, but they are focused on works, entirely on human works, rather than the work that Christ did on the cross.
When Christ told us to trust Him, He meant for us to trust Him not only for salvation, but for cleansing us and keeping us until He comes for us.
I Believe Christ!!!!! When He said “ I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
For those who teach that He does not walk away but we can, are lying. God said that it is upon His faithfulness that we are saved and kept, not on ours.
2 Timothy 3:13 “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
Did you trust Christ, or are you continuing to trust in your self-righteousness.
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