There is a myth in these post-modern times that has deceived untold numbers of professing Christians. The deceived have believed the lie that Christians are not to confront and rebuke false teachers nor preach or teach anything that has the potential to cause division within the visible Church. The visible Church contains the churches we see all across this globe. This would include denominations and local churches and ministries that we can see visually and of which we can partake. The invisible Church is made up of the elect, the called-out ones. This is the true Church of genuine believers. It is within the visible Church. Therefore, the visible Church contains both genuine believers and professing believers who are not genuine. View article →

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this:” Revelation 3:7, NASB

One of the big errors of our time in the visible church of the 21st century is the misguided concept that truth is subjective. In other words, truth is what you want it be. This concept is, of course, simply borrowed from the world, which loves it. While I do not contend that I know when our Lord will return, I do know that it will be at the end of this age prior to the age to come. I know that He has been given a people for Himself from the Father. I know that His blood purchased them at the cross. I know that those whom He saves must live in this sin-sick world to be sanctified, to mature in Christ, and for their lives to glorify God. These truths, and so many more from God’s Word, are not subjective.

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And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.” And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” Luke 9:18–20, NASB

We must agree that there is a growing apostasy that appears to be consuming the visible Church. This can cause us anguish and grief along with some growing excitement in anticipation of the soon return of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, let us not forget that there are many who claim to be “christian” who view this as the very thing they are trying to accomplish. They view our exposition of it as “interference” and “over reaction.”

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You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4, NASB

Compromise is a term the world system likes. In fact, the world system as we know it in our time runs on rails greased by compromise. Even though the U.S. Constitution protects the right of free speech to its citizens, the political correctness movement is doing all it can to squelch or smother the expression of “opinion” that is contrary to what it deems as inoffensive. It appears that the right of the easily offended is more protected than the right of those who speak the truth and live by it.

The emergent movement, for example, teaches that it is wrong to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in completion. Why? It is divisive. It is exclusive. It offends. Instead, its leaders teach that we should only preach things that bring people together. Another difference between orthodox Christianity and the emergents has to do with separation from the world system. We teach what the Bible teaches, that is, Christians must not be friends of or part of the world system because those who are actually prove that they are an enemy of God. On the other hand, the emergents consistently teach that repentance is no big deal and all sorts of sins condemned in the Bible are not grounds for separation from the local body of believers.

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“After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.” John 14:19, NASB

When our Lord spoke of the “world” in John 14:19, He was talking about those in this temporal existence who are not believers. They are not Christians, even though some in that group may profess to be so. In this context, He was also referring to the Jewish religious leaders of His own day who so opposed Him and His ministry, and who would continue to oppose the early Church, as is seen all through the books of Acts for example. What is it that separates those alive in this world from those who are not is that the living truly see Jesus for who He really is, believe and are saved, while those who refuse to do so, reject the gospel, and remain in their sins – even if they may develop a form of Christianity that suits them, but is absent of the real Jesus.

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Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:24–25, NASB

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a message given to be passed on as “Good News” of the completed work of Christ on behalf of those He came to save. The message is about His incarnation, His perfect life, His death on the cross, His three days and nights in the tomb, and His resurrection. All of these things were attested to by witnesses. The resurrection is the proof that our Lord is God and that the work of the atonement is complete. Those who effectually hear the Gospel, believe it, receive it by grace through faith and repent as they turn to Christ as Lord and Saviour. As is made clear in Ephesians 2:1–10, there is no one is able to do this on their own, God must intervene making then alive in Christ who were once dead in their sins so they could believe and be saved.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:3–6, NASB

Not long ago I listened to an attack on “Reformation Theology” in which the preacher based his entire case upon one single charge. He said that a Monergistic interpretation of the Bible is based upon a faulty presupposition. That presupposition is in two parts. The first part is that we say man is dead in trespasses and sins and incapable of obeying all commands to come to God in his own ability. The second part is that we say God takes the initiative and regenerates those whom he has elected before the foundation of the world, enabling them to repent and believe and come to Christ and be justified by faith.

This fellow totally ignored the fact that this theology is based upon God’s free choice before the foundation of the world, and the redemptive work of Christ in the obedient life and keeping the Law and going to the cross to the become the propitiation for those elect. That’s right, he totally ignored what was actually accomplished at the cross. Instead, his interpretation of all those “difficult” passages like John 6:44 are best to be seen as God’s people being those who come to him in repentance and then he saves them. So, totally ignoring all these passages about election and imputation, he says salvation is a totally synergistic system which man kicks-starts by first coming to God in repentance, and then God takes over from there. He gave examples of genuine converts he had seen who came in brokenness, and he could tell they were saved because they grasped the truth and walked in repentance, et cetera. He contrasted that with false converts who were simply religious who never walked in repentance. Right, could it be that he is confusing the order of things? Could it be that those he is seeing coming in repentance have been regenerated by God first, and now are able to believe because they are the elect of God?

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Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you. Joshua 24:19–20, NASB

One of the products of the growing apostasy of the Church in our time that is especially tragic is the loss of the understanding of God’s Holiness. Several years ago I wrote a post about our great need to walk in fear of God. Some of the comments I received on that post were heartbreaking. Some insisted that Jesus was their buddy or their homeboy or their ‘bro’ and he loved them so much that it really did not matter how they lived. My brethren, God has not changed. He is immutable and perfect. He neither changes nor has any need to do so.

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For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8–9, NASB

In my last post, _The deceitfulness of human reason_, we looked at how those who are in Christ are works of God, not works of human reason or works of men of any kind or sort. The focus of that post was primarily on the Sovereignty of God and the futility of those who are simply religious and who attempt to reason away the good doctrines of God because they are offended by them.

Why did I concentrate on that? I have been experiencing this a great deal lately from many quarters. I learned a long time ago to pay attention when something like that happens continually over a short period of time. It is time for me to focus, again, on the root of the problem behind that, so I wrote that post. After I wrote it, I was contacted by a certain person who has been doing so in a shadowy way over the last several weeks, but I have not posted any of his/her comments nor have I taken the bait to get into another fruitless “debate” on this subject, which has been completely settled.

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But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 2 Timothy 3:1–8, NASB

Genuine or authentic Christianity is not a world religion. Instead, it is a fellowship of believers who have been justified by Faith. There are many professing Christians who would not fit that definition. They may be religious. They may have made a “profession of faith,” but they are not regenerate nor do they have The Holy Spirit. Why? They have not repented and submitted to the Lordship of Christ. They are not New Creations through the washing of Regeneration, which quickens believers from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 2:13).

Saving faith is not the result of human reason. It is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8–9). Knowing God and obeying God requires an active faith that is outside of human reason. Over last several days I have been in several discussions with some folks that were obviously very bright, but their arguments were based entirely within intellect and totally outside of faith. After a few rounds of back and forth responses it becomes very obvious that unless God opens their hearts to the truth they simply will not believe it. They will even say things like I and those who fight the fight along side me have no regard for the truth or that we present truth outside of the love of God. How do we answer a charge like that when all we do is present the truth as commanded in sacred scripture? They have their own understanding of the truth that they have formulated via human reason, which looks at Biblical Truth as relative because it makes demands that are outside of what they can understand or see as fair or right.

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