If you have not done it yet, if you're planning to keep that
book, and I know that maybe some of you have your book at home
and didn't bring it tonight. That's the one thing that I'm
really worried about is 70 books out there with 70 people.
I wonder how many of you are actually going to remember to
bring it every week. I hope you do.
I don't know if you need to set a reminder for yourself and your
phone or something to, to try to remember to bring it, but we're
going to be going through this. I mean, obviously here and there
we're going to have different things on Wednesday night.
I'll try to mention it on Sunday.
So you don't have to bring the book, but I, I would encourage
you if you have an iPad or some kind of tablet to go in or go on
to wayoflife.org and, and buy the ebook.
It's cheap. If you're planning to do that
and you just didn't do it, then don't write in the book.
But I would encourage you #1 put your name on the inside of your
book. All right?
If you have a pen, I would do it right now so you don't forget
because there's going to be 50 of these things floating around
and you know, you're going to need to know which one is yours.
And so put your name in it if you're planning to keep it and
take some notes in it right in the margins there.
I know there's not a ton of space inside the book to do
that, but I, you know, underline maybe even wouldn't be a bad
idea to bring a highlighter if you have one and highlight some
different things here. I can't say that I know exactly
how this is going to go. We've done it a little bit with
the institute class. And I know that some of you that
were, that were taking part in that class have been through
some of this. But let me just let me just
start at the beginning here and, and kind of talk through some of
these things. If if you have your book there,
go to the table of contents, it's on page #4 This is a one
year discipleship course and I'm going to try as much as possible
to get through one lesson at a time at least.
But I'll stop and we'll have a conversation if we need to.
I want you to understand this. All right?
It is a Bible study. It's a Wednesday night Bible
study. It's a Wednesday night church
service. But I am going to treat it a
little bit more like a college class, a little bit more like an
institute class. So if you have a question, raise
your hand and ask if, if, and don't feel bad if I say we're
going to get to that later, because there it's a good
possibility that that will be the case.
And I will get to it later. And you know, we'll, we'll
address it when we get to it. But if, if you have questions,
the whole purpose of this, it's a discipleship course.
And discipleship is all about understanding really the first
steps of, of Christianity, if you will.
And obviously most of you have been in church and, and, and,
and a lot of you have been in church for a long time.
And so you've heard these things before.
You've, you've at least heard the ideas, you've heard the
terms, you've, you've probably gotten at least a little bit of
an explanation of some of these things.
But we're going to jump into a lot of these things in detail.
And I hope it'll be a huge help to you.
And you know, I'm going to try to get into as much detail as
possible with these things. I'm going to kind of read
through it and explain it. I'm not going to read every
word. I would like to have some of you
read the Bible verses out loud. So what we'll, what we'll do is
just have a microphone that will pass around and, and I'll try to
maybe just get one person from each each row to read a verse.
And that way, you know, and then, and then we'll just keep
going in circles with it. And if you don't want to read,
you don't have to. But if you'd like to read, then,
you know, I'll ask maybe who wants to read in this row.
Andrew will have to raise his hand because he's the only one
sitting there. But you know, we'll kind of do
it that way. And, and like I said, I'm going
to do it a little bit more like a class setting.
Obviously we're having a church service, but we're going to do
it in a little bit more of a class setting.
So repentance, saving faith, the gospel, evidence of salvation,
baptism, eternal security, position and practice.
Those are all things that really relate to our salvation.
What happens to us at salvation. I know there's a good handful of
you that are actually going through the it's a smaller book,
but the first steps for new Christians and you're you're
filling in the blanks and the blanks are all Bible verses and
and this, these are just a long way of saying the same things
that you're going through in that.
So there's obviously a lot more things in this and a lot more
details that will help you with it, hopefully.
But then Christian growth and spiritual V4 different parts for
that. And that's obviously that's a
huge part. You know, as a as a new
Christian, essentially you're a baby Christian, right?
And if you've never been discipled, if you've never had
somebody take you through these things, then essentially you're
kind of in that same spot, right?
You're still a baby Christian. Just because you've been saved
for 10 years doesn't make you mature as a Christian.
You've got to start growing in your faith.
You've got to start growing as a Christian.
And so that's that's what a lot of that part is.
And then kind of after that, a lot of these things are things
that are just, you know, important for you to, to once
you've got the foundation and once you've got everything
established, these are all things that are, are important
steps in your Christian life, prayer, faith, the armor of God,
church, the Bible, studying the Bible, And, and then along with
that you have principles of Bible interpretation.
These things are, I mean, and it's going to be, you know, it's
going to be a few months before we get to this, but all of these
things are kind of in, in order of the steps that you need to
take, right? Let's just say that that we're
trying to get to the attic. You can't jump from the ground
floor and jump into the attic, right?
You've got to take the steps to get up there and, and the attic
is where you're trying to get, you know, I mean, I don't know
why anybody wants to get in the attic, but you know what I'm
saying? You've got to take the steps to
get there and you've got to understand these things at kind
of the, at the basic level to get to the point where you
understand the things that are maybe a little bit more
complicated or maybe a little bit more reserved for somebody
who is more of a mature Christian.
So all of these things are necessary.
And I hope that I know that sometimes things happen and you
can't be here on a Wednesday night.
I hope you won't just miss because you feel like missing.
But if you do miss one, I would highly encourage you to go back
and watch it, or at the very least listen to it so that
you're not missing some of these steps.
You know, it's important. And I'll try to do a little bit
of review. We'll try to do some questions
from the, the, the, the previous lessons, but you know, and then
it continues on. So, so making wise decisions,
knowing God's will, I mean, those are, those are things that
are important, important things. And if nobody's ever given you
these things, then how would you know, How do you know when it's
God's will? How do you know when it's God
that's leading you and not just something that you want to do,
right? Or how do you know that that the
thing that you feel like you're good at is God leading you to do
that thing, or just something that God might be able to use
that talent later on, right? That's how do you know God's
will? Well, certainly God wants us to
know his will. He's not trying to hide it from
us. So there's principles in the
Bible that give us those things, making wise decisions, Christ's
Great Commission. And then we get into two more
things on page #5 but judgment, seat of Christ, separation from
the world, tests of entertainment.
How do you know if something is OK for you to do or not?
Right? There's a lot of things in the
world. Is it OK to go to an amusement
park? Is it OK to go to the movies?
Is it OK to go to the beach? Is it OK to go to, you know,
anything? All right, I'm not saying that
all of those are wrong. I'm just saying how do you know
which ones are good and which ones are not good?
Well, there's tests for those things and, and those will help
you through that. Fasting, miracles, a testing
mindset and that is basically testing everything by the word
of God, right? Tongues, the rapture, how to be
wise with your money, alcohol, the believer in drinking,
abortion, evolution, the Sabbath, dressing for the Lord,
important things, important things, but you've got to take
the steps to get to the point where we can really grasp, I
think some of these things and understand them.
Listen, I don't have any problem with you reading through this
book ahead of time either, all right?
If you're interested in tongues and you're like, oh man, what
does the Bible say about speaking in tongues?
Go read it. You know, it's not going to hurt
you to read it ahead of time. It's not like, well, I want to
know about what the Bible has to say about that, but we're not
there in church yet. So I can't look at that in the
Bible yet. No, read ahead.
If you're interested in it, read ahead, right?
And there may be some things where you're like, what does
that mean? Well, you might have to take
some steps to get there, to be able to understand what that
means or to be able to apply it to your life, to yourself.
That's what I'm saying. These are all steps where we're
walking up a giant staircase and doesn't mean that you've arrived
when you get to the end of it. But at the same time, these are
all steps that are necessary for you to take in your Christian
life if you're going to grow, if you're going to mature, if
you're going to be complete. Or as the Bible uses the word
perfect, doesn't mean that you're sinless.
It just means that you're mature as a Christian, right?
God very plainly says in in first Peter that we're trying to
get from the point where he doesn't have to feed us just
with milk anymore. He can feed us with meat because
we can handle the, the weightier things of God.
And so that's that's the whole purpose of this.
And when I first started doing this class, and that's how we
started off as an institute class, my goal was to teach
these things to you so that as people got saved and as people
came in, you could teach them to others.
And that's still the goal of this class, right?
As you learn these things, the important thing is that you
learn them well enough that you can go then and teach them to
somebody else. And we should, by the time we
finish this up, we should have a whole church full of people who
could lead somebody to Christ and then go disciple that
person. And honestly, that's the best
way for discipleship to happen is one-on-one.
But in this case, we have a lot of people who have been saved
fairly recently. We have a lot of people who have
expressed a desire for discipleship because they've
never had anybody disciple them. So that's why I've decided to do
this as an entire, as an entire church.
It'll, it'll kind of give everybody who may know these
things a refresher course. It'll help the people who have
never been through it to have a foundation.
And hopefully by the time we get done, all of you will be able to
take this book and go teach it to somebody else.
That's the purpose of it, right? And that's what the Bible says
that we should be able to get to the point where we handle the
scriptures well enough that we are able to teach others also.
That's the goal that you should be getting into in your life.
If, if, if you, if all you are is a sponge, you're missing the
whole point, right? Be a sponge.
Soak up all that information. Get everything you can from the
word of God, but do it with the intention of being wrung out at
some point and giving everything back to somebody else that you
can help them disciples. So where we want to start, let's
go ahead and turn to Acts Chapter 20.
There will be a few passages that I ask that I'll ask all of
you to turn to. And I don't know how far we'll
get into this tonight because I did want to give you a little
bit of that introduction. And if I go through this whole
thing, it's going to be another 45 minutes or an hour.
And I don't want to do that. So we'll, we'll find a good
place to stop as we get through this.
I'm going to take my time going through it.
I'm not, I'm not trying to rush through any of these things.
And like I said, if you have a question or something doesn't
make sense in one of these points, ask, ask a question.
What I would ask though, is if you're going to ask a question
that you wait and and get one of the microphones and ask it in
there. That way, if anybody does happen
to be watching online because they can't be here, then at
least they can hear the question.
If you're not speaking into a microphone, you can't hear it
and you know it's not, then it's not really helpful to everybody
else. I'll try to repeat the question
maybe or make sure I understand your question.
But let me do this, Alex and Andrew, if you guys can just
grab one of these microphones on both sides and we'll just start
with you guys in the front there and then as we do it, we'll
we'll kind of pass them back. Jackson, you guys in the back,
if you can handle just making sure the mics are off until
somebody is getting ready to read.
Don't need to pick up your private conversations making fun
of the pastor. So we'll, we'll make sure those
microphones are off. All right.
So let's look at this, these two, this, this first one here,
repentance. And then the next one, which if
you're looking for it on page 17 is faith and repentance and
faith go hand in hand. And this, these are absolutely
necessary foundational steps. And the main thing is for you to
understand this yourself, to make sure that you've been saved
the proper way, to make sure that you have exercised both
repentance and faith. But also it's so very important
because most of the time the only thing that gets emphasized
is faith. And if all you're exercising is
faith, then it's not salvation because repentance is absolutely
necessary for salvation. Where the question comes is what
is repentance, right? A lot of times people have the
mindset and we're going to talk about what repentance is not.
A lot of people have the mindset that repentance is just a change
of mind. I'm deciding that I'm going to
go from unbelief to belief. That's repentance.
Not according to the Bible. That's faith, right?
And, and, and how do we know that those two things are
separate? Well, the Bible says this in
Acts chapter 20 and verse 21, testifying both to the Jews and
also to the Greeks. Repentance towards God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. If those two things were the
exact same, why would he mention them both?
All right, Repentance and faith, both are necessary for
salvation. So, and, and, and I'm going to
try to, I'm going to try to keep you up to date here or not up to
date, but but up to speed with where I'm at with these
different points as I go through.
I'm going, I'm just going to follow this exact format.
I'm going to, I'm just going to, I've highlighted a lot of
different things. I've written notes in my own, I
have a digital copy of it, but I've written notes in here to,
to make sure that I point some of these things out and, and,
and help you try to follow along.
So the question then is, is repentance necessary for a
salvation? I kind of already mentioned
that, but repentance is actually commanded by God.
And not only is it commanded by God, it's commanded by God 60
different times. The idea of repentance and the
and and and repentance itself is mentioned 60 different times in
the New Testament. Well, we'll highlight just a
couple of those tonight. Andrew, if you can read Matthew
3, one and two, if you'd turn over there for me.
And Alex, since you have it on the other side, let's, let's
have you read Luke 13 three. Somebody in this row want to
read Acts 1730. Nobody, Doc, you want to read
it? Acts 1730 and then let's see
here, the next one we'll get to somebody in this world want to
read Ephesians 2. All right, brother Paul,
Ephesians 2, eight through 10. We'll get there in just a
minute. All right, so repentance is
commanded by God 60 different times.
It's mentioned in the New Testament.
It was preached by John the Baptist and the Bible says this
in Matthew chapter 3 verse one and two in those.
Days, John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of
Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at
hand. All right, so we have the red
mic on this side. We have the what colored mic do
you have the blue mic on this side?
And and John the Baptist preached it.
Christ preached it. Luke chapter 13, verse 3.
I tell you your name. But except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish. Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish. Peter preached it.
Paul preached it. Acts chapter 17, verse thirty.
There we go, there we go. Acts 1730 In the times of this
ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent. OK, so Christ preached
repentance and now here we're giving very, very plainly that
this is a command to repent. So if repentance is commanded
and it's mentioned 60 different times and it was preached by not
only Christ himself, but Peter, Paul, and and many others in the
New Testament. If they are, if it's commanded,
then we better understand what repentance is, right?
If it's commanded for salvation, then we better know what
repentance is. And obviously then Paul preached
repentance and faith. So we know that there are two
different things and both of them are necessary for
salvation. So what is repentance not?
All right, That's that's an important question.
What what what is not repentance or it it's not the the better
way to ask it, even though it sounds awkward, is what is
repentance not? And here's a few things that
repentance is not. Repentance is not reformation or
changing your life. There's a lot of people who are
in that spot and some of some of you who I've talked to fairly
recently about your own salvation, you're having
questions about it. And a lot of it is it comes down
to that. Well, I, I, I, I saw some
changes in my life. Well, so did, so did the guy who
went to Alcoholics Anonymous, right?
And now he's been alcohol free for three years and he's
celebrating his recovery. And it's great.
It's, it's, it's a wonderful thing for somebody to be in
recovery and not not drinking alcohol.
But did that guy get saved because he changed and stopped
drinking? All right, what, what about
somebody who is, you know, addicted to who knows what
pornography or, you know, drugs or whatever else?
And they they get free from that because they went through a 12
step program, right? Does that, does that mean that
that guy is now saved because he saw some changes in his life?
No, and that's exactly now there should be evidence of salvation.
But just because there is a change or a reformation does not
mean that there was salvation. Salvation is not of human works.
Works follow salvation as the effect of what happens in
somebody's life, but works change does not mean that you
got saved at Ephesians chapter 2.
These are these are pretty familiar verses to you, but
Ephesians chapter 2, verse eight through 10.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the guilt of God, not of
works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works.
Which God? Prepared beforehand that we
shall walk in them. OK, so that's the the point here
is that we're not saved by our works, but we are saved from,
you know, from our our wicked works and everything else.
So works follow salvation as the effect or the fruit or the OR
the product of that. For by grace are you saved
through faith and that not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should
boast, right? For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Now doesn't mean that we have to have good works in order to be
saved, but we should have good works because we've been saved.
There should be evidence of that salvation in your life.
So the life changing part of salvation is God's part.
It's not our part, but it should change your life.
Repentance though, is not just changing your life.
Repentance also is not doing penance.
A lot of Catholic Bibles translate repentance as
dependence, by the way. That's why it's so important
that you have the right version of the Bible too, right?
It changes things. We did that the other night, and
you saw the difference in how doctrine is changed when you
have different versions of the Bible, right?
You read in a Catholic Bible that it says dependence.
That's very different. That's very different than
repentance right now commandeth all men.
And I don't, I can't say that the Catholic Bible says this,
but I'm just, I'm just putting this in the place because it
does say that right now commandeth all men everywhere to
do penance. Well, that's all works, right?
And, and basically what they're saying is that repentance is
works and repentance is not works.
And so we're saying repentance is not just doing penance.
That involves confession to a priest, contrition, absolution,
which is a priest for giving you of your sins satisfaction.
Catholic penance is works, salvation, which the Bible, as
we just read in Ephesians chapter 2 very clearly condemns
not of works, lest any man should boast, right.
I was, I was in, I spent a month in Mexico City in 2006 and I
went to one of the largest basilicas in Mexico City, huge,
huge, huge Catholic Church. And not only was the, the church
itself just a massive, massive buildings.
I mean, that the ceiling was so high in there and it was just, I
mean, opulent. Everything was just, it was, it
was very beautiful. But out there outside the doors
of the church was a huge courtyard.
And, and when I say huge courtyard, I'm talking about
like as big as all of this property.
And, and, and really, if somebody was standing on the
other side of the property, I mean, they're this tall.
That's how big is it was all concrete and like little stones
and things like that. And what really stuck out to me
is that there was people that were actually walking on their
knees across the middle of that courtyard and, and, and, and
several of them had bloody knees from, from, you know, walking
across the courtyard on their knees.
And of course, I knew what that was and I didn't have to ask,
but we got to talking about it a little bit.
And, and that's exactly what is it's penance.
Oh, you got to do something to be able to pay for your sins,
right? So go, you know what, what the,
what the Catholic priest will tell you is, you know, go do 10
Hail Marys and light a candle and that, that, that should take
care of it, right? Or, you know, if you've, if you
really feel like you've sinned and you want to do something to
take care of that, then, you know, do something different.
But there's, there's all kinds of sects of the Catholic Church
that have different things that they say that, you know, that,
that, that, you know, obviously there's monasteries where, where
they have vows of silence, where they just, they don't speak
because they're, they're trying to punish themselves for
something they did in their past life.
And you know, they, they, they, and this is, I mean, you know,
walking up the steps on your knees and whipping yourself
while you're doing it. You know, it's all things that I
can do to pay for my sins. Those are all works, right?
And that's not repentance. Repentance is not doing penance.
Repentance is not just remorse for your wrong actions.
I do want to read this for us. If somebody can.
Let's let's find somebody on this side.
Second Corinthians Chapter 7 and verse #10 for the mat.
All right, let's get the microphone to him.
And we're not going to read it yet, but just go ahead and turn
there. Somebody on the 3rd row with
Frank, You want to read, let's read First Samuel 1524 when we
get there. So this is this is important
too, all right, because we have to understand that repentance is
not just being sorry or, or, you know, remorse.
And so the Bible tells us that men can be remorseful about
their actions without actually exhibiting A genuine repentance.
And it sounds like a slight difference and it may be a
slight difference, but it's it's very pronounced difference
because Second Corinthians actually go ahead and read 2nd
Corinthians 710. Second Corinthians 710 for godly
sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented
of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death, the sorrow of the
world. That is remorse, right?
Sometimes it's sorry that you got caught.
Sometimes it's sorry that you made somebody else feel bad.
Sometimes it's sorry that you ruined somebody else's life
because of your actions or whatever else.
That's very different right there.
There are people who are sitting in death row who are sorry that
they killed people. Some of them are not, but
there's some of them who are and they've come to the point where
they say, man, I can't believe that I was in that mindset where
I would actually just go kill somebody.
I can't believe I did that. I feel so bad for the family.
I feel so sick for my actions. I'm so, I'm so sorry that those
people had to go through that, right?
Does that does that mean that that guy saved because he's
sorry for his actions? No, because it's not just
remorse. It's not just being sorry for
your actions. That's the sorrow of the world.
And the Bible says the sorrow of the world worketh death.
So there are examples of this in the Old Testament.
There's example in the New Testament even.
But King Saul is a perfect example in the Old Testament.
He was sorry that he got caught, but he didn't demonstrate true
repentance. His actions didn't change.
First Samuel chapter 15 and verse 24.
And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have
transgressed the commandment of the Lord in thy words, because I
feared the people and obeyed their voice.
OK, but then what it said, What did Saul do right after that?
You remember Charlie sinned again?
Yes, but I'm saying like it's part of that whole story.
What happened? Anybody remember?
Yeah, honor me, right? I've sinned.
I'm sorry, but don't make me look bad in front of the people,
right? Don't, don't, don't let them
know that I know that I sinned, right?
That's that's not repentance, right?
If somebody, if you are truly sorry for your sin, you realize
who you are before God and you know that your sin is what is
sending you to hell. And you're not saying I know, I
know I've done wrong, but but just don't tell anybody else.
No, I mean you see, like John Newton and and Isaac Watts and
and and the things that they wrote in the songs that would he
devote that sacred head for such a worm as I right.
That's that's what repentance brings you to not I know I did
wrong, but but still make me look good in front of everybody
else, right. That's not repentance.
That's just being sorry for your wrong actions.
We have other examples. Judas is one right.
Judas was so sorry for what he had done, or so remorseful over
what he had done, that he actually went out and hung
himself, right? Was Judas saved?
No, he wasn't saved. He was sorry for his actions,
but that was just remorse. It was just regret for his
actions. Same thing with the the prodigal
son. We see a big difference in him
though, right? He realized that his actions
brought him to the point where he was, but he did something
about it. It brought him to the point of
getting those things right. He he wasn't just remorseful
about how he had lived and and because of the consequences that
now he's sitting in a hog through, you know, eating with
the swine and, you know, no money left and everything else.
He came to the place where he acknowledged first and foremost,
he said, I have sinned against thee.
And that's exactly the point that we have to come to.
We'll talk a little bit more about that in a little in a
little bit. Excuse me, but repentance is not
reformation. Repentance is not penance.
Repentance is not remorse for wrong actions.
Repentance is not just believing in Christ.
And there's a there's a, there's a faction out there that say
that repentance is just synonymous with believing and
that whole group of people is sending people to hell.
It's not just belief, right? I can believe that there was a
Jesus. I can believe that he did die in
the cross. I can believe that he did rise
again from the dead. And that's no different than me
believing in George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or the
Declaration of Independence OR the Founding Fathers or any,
anything. I mean, I can believe any story
from history. I can believe the flood, right?
I can believe different things, you know, different stories that
I've heard. I wasn't there when it happened.
So just believing his story is different than repentance,
right? It's not just believing in
Christ. And there's and again, a well
known fundamental Baptist preacher defined it as turning
from unbelief to belief. But if that's true, then why
did? And this is an important part
here. The Bible's preachers would not
have preached repentance in addition to faith.
If all it is is turning from unbelief to belief, then there
would be a huge number of people in this world, especially in
America, who are saved, right? Think about how many people
identify with Christianity. Think about how many people, if
you were to ask them, say that they're a Christian.
Think about how many people, when you ask them, say they
believe in Jesus. There's a huge, huge part of the
world that believes in Jesus, right?
Especially in America. I mean, that would probably be
75% of people in America would be saved.
That number is probably getting a little bit lower than it used
to be. Maybe not 75, but still a high
percentage of people who would say that they believe the story,
right? That's why they go to church on
Christmas and Easter, because they believe the story, right?
Does that mean that all of those are saved?
Well, there's a reason that the Bible says broad is the way that
leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in
there at straight is the gate and narrow is the way that
leadeth to life. And few there be that find it
Few there be that find it because it's not just a change
from unbelief to belief. And and what's happened is
that's given rise to a very, very dangerous philosophy of
what's called quick prayerism. 123 Pray after me.
You're saved. You're on your way to heaven.
Don't you ever let anybody else tell you you're not you've
accepted Christ as your savior. Now you're going to heaven,
right? That's that's a very, very
dangerous philosophy. And if you haven't seen it yet,
we just brother Spencer Smith just produced a video called
Disclosure and it goes back and exposes that exact philosophy.
So many people, so many people that have prayed at prayer that
have no idea what repentance is, that have no idea what salvation
is. And what happens with the people
who are genuinely seeking is 5/10/15 years down the road,
they still don't know if they're, they're saved.
They're trying to act like a Christian, they're trying to
live like a Christian, they're trying to do Christian things,
but they've never been saved. And so they're so frustrated in
their life. They're so confused because they
don't know what happened to them, right.
And it's because of that. Pray this prayer you want, do
you want to go to heaven, don't you?
Well, of course I do. All right.
Well, hey, God's made that way to heaven.
Very simple. Jesus died on the cross to pay
for your sins. And not only that, but they put
him in a grave and he rose again three days later.
You believe that, don't you? Well, of course I do.
Well, all the Bible says is that you have to accept Christ as
your Savior. Just confess with your mouth and
believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead and
thou shalt be saved. You want to go to heaven, don't
you? Yes.
All right. Well, here's all you got to say.
You can repeat after me. I'll.
I'll tell you what to say. Repeat these words.
OK? Did you mean that in your heart?
Yes, I meant that in my heart. OK, well, you're saved, you're
on your way to heaven, and I can in 3 minutes lead somebody to
Christ and they can walk away as as unsaved as they were 5
minutes before you got there because they have no idea what
they just did. Turning from unbelief to belief
is not salvation. It's part of it.
It's part of it because faith is a necessary part of salvation,
but it's repentance and faith. And and that's why we're saying
it's not just believing in Christ.
And I'll tell you what what happens.
And I've seen this, I've seen it with my own eyes, these big
churches that that that promote this.
It's always been called easy believism.
I don't like the term easy believism because it is easy to
believe. It's quick prayer ISM if I can
get you to pray this prayer real quick, right?
And and what they try to do is they try to trick the person
into it's almost like a like a like like I'm a salesman and if
I can trick you into buying salvation, then I can mark that
down as a as another number. And and one of the most
dangerous things that was ever done is, is soul winning
contests. How many people did you lead to
Christ? Oh, you won.
You get this prize for leading the most people to Christ.
What do you think's going to happen?
Right? Do you think it's going to be a
genuine salvation? Do you think that people are
going to be careful and make sure that people understand it
before they just lead them in this prayer?
No, they want to mark them down as a number, throw them in the
tank and get them baptized and move on to the next one.
Because I'm trying to win a prize here, right?
That's why it's so dangerous to do those kind of things.
But we have to understand that repentance is not just believing
in Christ. The reason why verses like John
316 and Acts 1631 don't mention repentance is that true saving
faith includes repentance, and true repentance includes faith.
Repentance and faith are sometimes spoken of in Scripture
as, as being both necessary for salvation.
And, and, and that's one of the one of the biggest arguments
that these quick prayer ISM philosophies or, or repentance
is just turning from unbelief to belief.
Well, you read out, you read through the entire book of John
and not one time does the word repentance mentioned in the book
of, of John. No, it's not.
But you know what? There's more than one book in
the Bible, right? John is not the only book in the
Bible. And every one of them, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John all had a different focus.
They all had different things that they were focusing on.
And John's aspect was the idea of faith.
Well, you didn't mention that sixty other times in the New
Testament, repentance is mentioned while you just single
out the book of John and say, well, you know, John 316, the
most well known verse in the Bible that talks, that gives us
the gospel, that entire book doesn't even mention repentance.
No, but a lot of the other books do and they're mentioned
together with faith. So it's it's not just believing
in Christ. It's not just having this faith.
Turn over to Matthew, Chapter 7. I just, I just mentioned this
verse, but I want you to see this because this may be a good
place for you to write it down. And I'm going to end, I'm going
to end with this section here so it doesn't get too late.
But Matthew Chapter 7 and verse #13 enter ye in this is, this is
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
And obviously the the whole focus of the Sermon on the Mount
was the heart, right? You have heard that it has been
said you have to do this. But I'm telling you what's in
the heart, right? And we see that many, many
times. But he says in verse #13 enter
ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction.
And many there be which go in there at because straight is the
gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it. Verse 15 Beware of false
prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly
they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their
fruits. Verse 21 Not everyone that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but
he that do at the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
Now when you think about this, OK, if you're saying Lord, Lord,
do you think you believe in Jesus?
Yeah, you're even calling on him.
Lord, Lord, Lord, right. Not everybody that saith, not
everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the
Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father,
which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day.
Many will say to me in that day. You think about this, a huge
percentage of the so-called Christians in America are not
saved. I think even in a lot of good
churches, independent Baptist churches, I think that a lot of
the people that are sitting in the pews are not safe because
they've been LED there by a quick prayer.
They've been LED there by somebody who was just trying to
to lead somebody to Christ so they could say they led somebody
to Christ. And I'm listen, I'm saying we
ought to be well, that ought to make us want to evangelize more,
not less. I'm not, I'm not giving us a
pass. I'm saying we ought to do more
when it comes to evangelism. And we, we have to be more
thorough when it comes to evangelism.
But he says many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, that's
obvious belief. Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in thy name? That's believing him for more
than what most people would believe him for, right?
Prophesying in his name and in thy name have cast out devils,
man, When's the last time you tried to cast out devils in the
name of Jesus, right? That that's, that's somebody
who's on a, on a, on another level when it comes to believing
in what Christ can do. So here they're prophesying in
his name, here they're casting out devils in thy name.
Done many wonderful works. This is somebody who's doing it
all in the name of Jesus. Do you think they believe in
Jesus Absolutely. They believe in Jesus because
we're doing all of this in your name.
And then while I profess unto them, I never knew you depart
from me ye that work iniquity. And that's why I say what, what
what's happening in in a lot of places is that people are
believing in Christ and praying a prayer and being pronounced
saved. And they've never come to
repentance in Christ. And then they start doing
Christian things. They start getting involved in
church. They start getting involved in
the ministries. They start looking and acting
and dressing like a Christian because this is what they're
being told they need to do. And they start going to church
every week and they start carrying their Bible and they
start doing all the things that Christians should do.
But they're not saved to the point where they are even up in
the front leading people in prophesying in Jesus name and
casting out devils and doing all of these wonderful works in
Jesus name. He's going to say, I don't even
know who you are. Depart from me, you cursed.
Imagine how difficult that's going to be for those people who
think that they're saved because there's a belief in Christ.
Or I'm telling you, this is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous
thing about what's happening right now.
I think it's great, you know, Charlie Kurt, I believe that he
was a Christian and I believe that he, he genuinely preached,
if you, if you want to call it that, the gospel, right?
But what's happening is this return to church is not, it's
not, it's not Christianity, it's not, it's not salvation.
And what's happening is they're returning to these churches who
are so weak on this that they're not getting the genuine gospel.
And they're returning to an emotionalism and they're
returning to and, and they have a desire.
They have a desire, but they're not being LED.
They're being LED in a wrong direction.
And many of these people are going to make a false profession
of faith. And they might even turn their
life around. They might even start doing
different things with their life.
They might even start, you know, becoming conservatives and all,
who knows what else, right? And I've seen so many posts in
the last, the last week or so. I haven't read my Bible in 10
years, but I read my Bible today and I went to church today and
I've even, I'm even getting baptized today.
That's not salvation. It's not salvation.
It's a desire, but it's not salvation.
And they're being LED in a wrong direction by so many of these
churches who are preaching faith.
And that's it. It's repentance and faith and
repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation.
That's why many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we
not prophesied in thy name and a nine name cast out devils and a
nine name done many wonderful works and then while I profess
into them. I never knew you depart from me
ye that work iniquity. You never repented, never
repented as part of your faith. And there's so many other verses
if you look at page 12 the top of page 12 there.
And this might be a good little study for you to do I we just
don't have time to read through all these verses tonight.
But salvation is referred to as coming to repentance with no
mention of faith. OK, well, what about John?
John doesn't mention repentance at all.
OK, well here's a whole list. Matthew 913, Matthew 1120 and
21. Matthew 2132, Mark 14, Mark 217,
Mark 612, Luke 15, Seven. Luke 2447, Acts 238, Three
Nineteen 53111182620 Second Corinthians 710, First
Thessalonians 19, Second Timothy 225, Second Peter 39.
All of those are passages that mention repentance without
mentioning faith. So what about that?
What about somebody who says it's all about repentance and
there's no faith involved, right?
Well, you could easily say that because if you're going to use
that argument that repentance is not mentioned in John and it's
all about faith, then what about all these that only mention
repentance and not faith? Would you agree with the person
who says that? Well, no, because it's faith.
OK, Well, you have to agree that it's repentance and faith
because both of them are all the way throughout the New
Testament. You've got to have both other
passages like John 316, Acts 1631, salvation is referred to
as believing and repentance is not mentioned.
But this is, and this is one of the things that we're going to
learn as we get through this later on.
Part of studying the Scripture is comparing Scripture with
Scripture, right? Peter said, repent and be
baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins. Very clearly Peter's preaching
that you have to be baptized in order to be saved, right?
Well, no, if you take that verse, yes, but you have to take
that verse in context of the passage.
You have to take the passage in context of the book and you have
to take the book in context of the entire Bible.
And you compare Scripture with Scripture.
Scripture doesn't, doesn't, doesn't comprehend is not the
word. I'm trying to think of what is
it contradict? It doesn't contradict itself,
right? So compare Scripture with
Scripture. What does the Bible say about
the Bible? What does the Bible say about
this passage, right? That's a principle of studying
God's Word. And you have to do that.
If you isolate Scripture, then you can make it say anything you
want to say. And that's why you come up with
all these weird doctrines, right?
That's why you come up with all the doctrines that separate the
denominations because they took one verse, they took it out of
context. They made it say something that
it was never meant to say because they didn't look at it
in the context of that passage, and they didn't look at it in
the context of the rest of the Bible, and they came up with
this doctrine that separated them out.
So the true meaning of faith, this is important here.
This is your your second paragraph on page 12.
The first full paragraph, the true meaning of faith must be
explained and emphasized. The common way that faith or
belief is defined by people today involves a mere mental
consent to something such as I believe that George Washington
was America's first president, or I believe that Jesus was the
Son of God and came to die on the cross.
That's not what the Bible means by saving faith.
Saving faith is a faith that issues from a heart that's
convinced of its own fallen condition and has stopped making
excuses and hiding in self righteousness.
Saving faith issues from a heart that is convinced that Christ is
the only Lord and Savior and that reaches out to Christ in
personal trust. Saving faith issues from a
surrendered heart, which is the very essence of repentance.
That alone and that, that and that alone is saving faith.
And when we're dealing with people's souls, we must be
careful to explain the meaning of the terms of the gospel as
opposed to hastily running through some little Romans Rd.
plan and then trying to get the person to pray a sinner's prayer
before he knows what he's doing. And I'm telling you, if you
haven't been involved in this, and then maybe you don't know
exactly what I'm talking about, but there's a lot of people who
are trying to convince somebody to be saved and convince them to
pray this little prayer so they can go to heaven before they
even know what is happening. I've seen it with my own eyes.
I remember this like it was yesterday.
I was in college and this was 20 years ago, 25 years ago probably
by now. And we're walking down the
street and, and, and we were, we were visiting some kids on our
bus route and we were out. It was decent.
It was, it was spring and we're walking down the street and we
were knocking doors. We were talking to people and
trying to invite them to church and, you know, where you have
the opportunity to try to give them the gospel.
But there was a park that we always used to play basketball
in. A bunch of the neighborhood kids
would go down there and play basketball.
And so we'd go play with them and then, you know, try to get
them to ride the bus with us on Sunday.
And we were kind of making our way down toward the park,
knocking doors on the street. And we saw the kids playing
basketball. And there was a was an older guy
that was, if I had to guess, he was probably late 50s, early
60s, sitting on a little park bench right there and a church
that was in that area. Whenever they would have a big
push for a couple weeks, they would go into the same area that
we would visit every week. And they would just try to get
as many of those kids to come as possible.
And then they had their soul winning contest.
And so all the teenagers were out there trying to win souls to
Christ because they were in a contest and they were trying to
see how many people they could win.
And this kid, I would say that he was early teens, walked up to
this guy who was sitting on the park bench.
And I'm, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating.
Within 3 minutes, we saw this guy bow his head and this kid
gave him a little piece of paper.
I'm not exactly even sure what it was.
And he walked away. So we went up, I was, I was
actually with Pastor Whitaker. We were visiting together that
day. And we went up to this guy and,
and said, Hey, what, what was that all about?
What, what, what was that? And we, we had an idea.
And he said, I just got saved. And Pastor Whitaker said, you
just got saved. That's great.
He said so. So do you know what repentance
is? Guy didn't have any idea what he
was talking about. He said, well, let me ask you
this. He said, do you drink?
Well, yeah. He said, so you're, you're
you're ready to give that up for the sake of, of, of, of
following Christ. Well, no, I can't give up my
drinking. And he asked him a couple other
things. And this guy, well, no, no, I
can't do that. I mean, that that's, that's been
a part of my life, my whole life.
Can't do that. Pastor Whitaker looked at the
guy and he said you didn't get saved.
And, and that's what they need is somebody to tell them that if
you're not willing, now you don't have to stop sinning in
order to be saved. But repentance is being so sorry
that you're willing and ready to stop and you're asking God to
help you stop. Something ought to be different
about you when you accept Christ as your Savior.
And it takes longer than 3 minutes to share the gospel with
somebody where they can understand it and where they
know exactly what repentance and faith is.
And, and it, it takes many times, it takes more than an
hour to get somebody to understand you're a Sinner and
your sin is what is sending you to hell.
And if you didn't sin, Christ never would have had to die.
If you didn't sin there, there would be no need for him to die
in the cross. It's your sin that that is
causing you to need salvation. It's not just that you want to
go to heaven. I mean, heaven is a wonderful
byproduct of salvation. That's just, that's just one of
the wonderful things that you get when you accept Christ as
your Savior. The most amazing thing about
salvation is that your sins are forgiven and that you don't have
to live under the bondage of that sin anymore.
That's the wonderful thing about salvation.
And yet how many people say, do you want to go to heaven when
you die? Then here's what you need to do.
Believe in Christ, pray this prayer, and you can go to heaven
when you die. It's like you're trying to sell
them a wonderful insurance policy or a nice vacation or
something, right? It's no different.
They have to come to the understanding that their sin is
horrific before a holy God and that without their sin there
would be no need for a Savior. I'm not just trying to sell them
heaven, not just trying to scare them to stay out of hell.
What they have to understand and what what we all must understand
is that my sin is horrific before a holy God and something
has to be done about that sin. That's where we start to get
into the idea of what repentance is.
So we'll save it for next week. We talked about what it's not
repentance is not reformation, it's not changing your life,
it's not doing penance, it's not remorse for your wrong actions.
It's not just believing in Christ.
So what is it? What is it?
We'll talk about that next week. All right, let's pray.
We'll end with that tonight. We'll be finished.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
We thank you for an opportunity we've had to study through some
of these things. And I got, I pray that this
study would be helpful to us. I pray that you'd help us as we
go through it, that we'd understand it, especially when
it comes to this idea of repentance and faith.
I pray that you'd help us to to be to be very, very concerned
about genuine conversions, genuine salvation, not just
getting somebody to pray a prayer, not just getting
somebody to the point where they're willing to mentally
ascent or maybe even the sorrow of the world where they're sorry
for the things that they've done.
Got to pray that you'd help us to get people to genuine
repentance and that we'd understand this so that we can
lead more people to Christ. Got to thank you that you died
on the cross to save me from my sins.
And I know that there's many other people in the room here
tonight that would say the the very same thing.
We're thankful for that. God.
May you help us to be better witnesses for you because of it.
Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.