Is it just lip service ?

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God, and are the only sufficient, certain and authoritative rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience.

Most evangelicals today say that the Scriptures are not only inerrant, but that they are sufficient for everything that pertains to life and godliness. Do we really believe what we say? Do we really believe our denominational or congregational statements of faith? Or are we guilty of lip service?

The Scriptures describe the condition of man, apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ as dead, deviant, disobedient, deranged and damned. Ephesians 2:1-3 - “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the 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. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

This condition of man is so sinful, it is even hostile towards God. Romans 8:7 - “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so …

Jesus said, “ MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” Matt. 4-4

The Scriptures say:

• That all human beings are born spiritually dead.

• That all human beings are separated from God because of their iniquities.

• That all human beings were counted guilty in Adam.

• That all human beings are justly condemned to hell apart from God’s grace.

The Scriptures also say that a person must be “born again” to see the kingdom of God. The supernatural work of salvation results in a “new creation”. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. - 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Make no mistake about it the Scriptures testify of Him, Jesus Christ. He is mighty to save! When Jesus Christ saves a soul, He saves them to the uttermost. Not only does Christ save, but He sanctifies and glorifies. He calls us by name to come to Him, that He might show forth His glory in saving a people for Himself.

If the Scriptures say men are dead, why do we preach men are sick?

If the Scriptures say men are hostile, why do we preach men are hurting?

If the Scriptures say men are disobedient, why do we preach men are searching?

If the Scriptures say men are damned, why do we preach men are needy?

The Scriptures are the only sufficient, certain and authoritative rule of all saving knowledge, but most of the professing church in America preaches half truths or a gospel completely void of biblical regeneration, salvation and sanctification. So, the question now becomes: How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?

WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.

Lost sinners must call on the God of the bible, the Lord of the bible, the Jesus Christ of the bible to be saved. No substitute will do and no half truth will prevail at the judgment seat of Christ. Lost sinners must believe in the God of the bible.

For lost sinners to call on and believe in the God of the bible, they must first HEAR about the God of the bible. For lost sinners to hear about the God of the bible preachers must preach the God of the bible.

My constant prayer for the “professing church” in America and much of the world, is that we would return to the truth of God’s written word. The professing church in America is in desperate need of recovering the true gospel of Jesus Christ and returning as a whole to the biblical mandate to endure sound doctrine. Clever schemes of men are no substitute for the word of God. The sociologist, psychologist or anthropologist are no replacement for the biblical exegete.

The Scriptures are sufficient for life and godliness. Please pray for men who will stand on the word of God and preach the truth until someone gets saved or they die trying.

May God never say of us: THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.

True Church Conference 2010

Dear fellow believer,

I want to invite you personally to come to the True Church Conference 2010. The following invitation is taken directly from the conference website which you can view at http://www.truechurchconference.org



Nothing kills a church faster than a lost passion for evangelism and missions. Losing our evangelistic fire removes the heat and life from the church. Nothing is more grievous and schizophrenic than using the Doctrines of Grace (the Gospel) as an excuse for a lack of evangelistic zeal! This is the unbalanced and extreme doctrine of “hyper-Calvinism.” Classic hyper-Calvinism is far different from true evangelistic Calvinism. To be honest, all of us need to be stirred to greater fervency in the evangelistic calling (Matthew 28:18-20).

At this time in church history, I’m convinced there is a genuine awakening to the Doctrines of Grace, but with it comes the ever-abiding temptation to go beyond a Scriptural balance. In pride, one can become tempted to love a man-made “system” of theology more than the God of that system and the souls of men. Thus begins the slide down the slippery slope of hyper-Calvinism. Our goal in this year’s conference is to cut off this serpent’s head before it is above the ground!

We’ve invited Jonathan Sims, David Miller, Barry King, and Conrad Mbewe to bring us rich expositional preaching. In addition, Dr. Michael Haykin will bring us some of the historical and practical implications of hyper-Calvinism. I will deliver a message addressing the use of altar calls and how we approach this issue at Grace Life Church of the Shoals.

This year’s conference will offer significantly more instruction and training. Because of many requests for training on practical matters, we are offering four optional break-out sessions covering ten areas of church life.

Cold, dead, fatalistic hyper-Calvinism should not even be named among us! While we will never give up the biblical and glorious God-centered Doctrines of Grace, we must fight all temptation to be slack in taking the Gospel to ALL men in ALL nations urging ALL to repent and believe.

If you share with us a passion for the glory of God in His church, we invite you to join us as we strive together to walk in truth and to build true churches for the glory of God. “To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” - Ephesians 3:21

For His glory in His church,
Jeff Noblit - Senior Pastor / Grace Life Church Of The Shoals

The Lordship debate ... who's side are you on?

Is the Lordship vs. Free Grace debate important ? You bet it is.

Consider the following when you consider what “camp” you dearly hold to in this often misunderstood doctrinal debate: The reason the Lordship debate is one of great importance is simply because the two views are at such extreme, opposite, theological ends with no reconciliation to be found.

Comparing the Lordship position to the Free Grace position is like comparing:

• 
  
  Light and Dark
  
  
  
• 
  
  Jesus Christ and Satan
  
  
  
• 
  
  Wheat and Tares
  
  
  
• 
  
  Sheep and Goats.
  
  
  

By now you get the picture. Simply put, the “no Lordship” people are taking the doctrine of “justification by faith” and perverting it into something it is not. The essence of the perversion comes in defining “saving faith”.

The most interesting point in the entirety of the debate is that there was no debate prior to about 180 years ago. Just a cursory look back into evangelical history will show that spurious or non-saving faith wasn’t an argued point. It was not until the altar call was invented until the need arose for this debate. Prior to the altar call, it was a well understood fact that faith without works is dead. We know that dead faith is not saving faith. You would think this would end the debate, but let's go on.

In fact, in light of Matthew 7:21 a verbal profession of faith alone is worth absolutely nothing on the Day of Judgment. “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”

If you take a Savior Only position, or No Lordship position of Jesus Christ in the work of Salvation, you are saying that one can enter through the “narrow gate”, but somehow end up walking on the “broad path”. Even more ludicrous would be to say you could gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from among the thistles!

You might guess then, that we are able to know the true child of God by their fruit. Not to mention the IRON CLAD testimony of Scripture in 1 John 3:10, "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother."

So what is the real issue … what is the sore spot of this debate? SIN is the issue. To give you a clear understanding of the complete picture let’s start at the beginning.

First and foremost let’s start with the infallibility and the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. The bible is the word of God and is absolutely and completely sufficient to handle this discussion on it’s own without opinions being interjected on either side.

The bible is the story of the redemption of man.

The free grace position holds to a faulty view of regeneration call “decisional regeneration”. Take a look at biblical regeneration. Regeneration is the act of a sovereign God creating a new creature. Regeneration is God, for His own good pleasure and purpose, supernaturally transplanting a man from his sinful, fallen, hell bound condition to a position of granting him repentance, faith and eternal life. It is called being born again.

In John 3 Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit”

Men in history have always been, and were obviously not satisfied with God’s church growth method. Somewhere about 150 to 200 years ago a preacher got the idea that he could coax, coerce and motivate people into making long, drawn out, emotional laden, public professions of faith. He was successful and birthed the “altar call” response system we see so prevalent in the professing church today. Pragmatism takes over from there and the rest is history, ugly history.

Although decisions for Christ were readily being made, the bulk of these decisions didn’t last. People were not being changed. I could bore you with polls, statistics and historical facts that demonstrate that the bulk of the professing, modern church look, act, think and generally live life just like the sinful world, but I won’t. I won’t bore you with stories, but just take a look around your own family and friends … ask your family and friends if they are Christians. Ask them if they died today where they think their eternal destiny will be. Go ahead and try it. Ask the drunkard, the thief, the liar, in fact go to the local jail and ask all the hardened criminals on death row. You will find the overwhelming majority of people really believe that they are going to heaven, and the demonstration of their life, or the sins they continue to commit have absolutely no bearing on a past decision of faith. They entered through the narrow gate one day at church, revival service or an evangelical crusade and yet never took one step onto the narrow path. They continue to run down the broad path to their own destruction with a smile on their face, because some silly preacher or worse yet a “numbers running” preacher told them they were saved because they prayed and asked Jesus to come into their heart.

The gospel call has always been and will always be to “repent and believe” (Mark 1:15). Pray a sinner's prayer if you want, walk down the aisle, stand up at the crusade and visit the prayer room, but whatever you do, don’t mistake God for an unjust idol. Don’t think the God that created you is somehow magically amazed because you “did” some ritual at the front, back or even outside the church.

God did not send His Son to die on a cross so that you could pray a prayer and remain in your sins. God sent His Son to save His people from their sins. God sent His Son to purchase a people for Himself that would glorify Him with good works.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

What does the born again Christian look like.

If you are genuinely born again, you will walk in the way of righteousness as a style of life; and if you step off the path, the narrow path, the Father will come for you and discipline you to bring you back on the narrow path. If you can walk in sin, live in sin, continue in sin and yet you profess Christ you ought to be terrified of the state of your soul and your eternal destination.

We don’t tell people they are saved; we tell them how to be saved. Tell them how to get saved and let God tell them they are saved.

Jesus is Lord and Savior or He is nothing at all. Prophet, Priest and King are offices we do not have the authority to usurp or divide. Christ is Lord.

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