Where are the Godly Men who Teach Truth?

Romans 12:1-2 ESV

 

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

 

Too Many Lies and Liars

 

I just finished listening to half of a preacher’s sermon in which he took such liberties with the Scriptures that it was blasphemy and heresy. What he taught was an insult to God. He began his sermon with the illustration of the Apostle Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Paul pleaded with the Lord three times to be delivered, and to which God’s response was that his grace was sufficient for Paul for God’s power was made perfect in his weakness (2 Co 12:1-10).

 

And then he compared that with someone who is living in sexual addiction who is struggling to get out of it, supposedly, and who is praying to God for deliverance, and that God is saying to this addict that his grace is sufficient and that the addict doesn’t have to do anything to change his situation. For he stated that we do absolutely nothing and God does everything, and that there is nothing that we can do that will keep us out of God’s heaven.

 

He went on to talk about how someone who is living like a goody-goody, doing the right things, is just as bad as someone living in sexual addiction, for the goody-goody (perhaps the truly righteous person), he says, is full of pride (he is presuming this). For he said that we can do nothing to be righteous before God or to be acceptable to God, for he called that “works-based salvation.” He basically said we don’t have to leave our lives of sin.

 

What he taught was that all we do is acknowledge or accept God’s grace in saving us from our sins and in promising us heaven when we die but that how we live will have no impact whatsoever on whether or not we go to heaven when we die. We don’t have to repent of our sins or obey the Lord or submit to the Lordship of Christ, according to what he taught, so we might as well then throw out the Scriptures, for that is obviously what he is doing.

 

And if you are reading this and you are on his “bandwagon,” try reading the New Testament one book and one word at a time, in context, in truth, truly seeking God’s face. I mean it is all throughout the New Testament that we must die with Christ to sin, not just once, but daily, and that we must walk in obedience to our Lord in holiness and righteousness or we will NOT inherit eternal life with God. How is it a pastor of a church can totally miss this??

 

The Truth as Opposed to the Lies

 

Our passage of Scripture for today teaches us that because of God’s mercies to us – in Christ dying on that cross for our sins so that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness (1 Peter 2:24) – we are to present our bodies (our lives) to God as living sacrifices to him, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual and acceptable worship of God. Now, is this saying we do nothing? No!

 

Our lives and our bodies are to be given over to our Lord as living sacrifices. We die with him to sin and now he owns us, and we are his possession, and we are now to do the works of God which he prepared in advance that we should walk in them as his workmanship, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, and no longer conformed to the ways of this sinful world; no longer living in sin like the world is living.

 

[Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:19-20; Eph 2:10; Tit 2:11-14; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15; Gal 2:20, etc.]

 

Now we are to be living holy lives, separate (unlike, different) from the world because we are being conformed to the likeness (character, nature, conduct) of Jesus Christ. Now we are to be living morally pure lives, no longer as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. Now are to say “No!” to ungodliness and fleshly lusts and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, which is what God’s grace teaches us that we must do.

 

[Titus 2:11-14; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; Lu 9:23-26; Matt 7:21-23; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Col 3:5-10; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Rom 2:6-8; Gal 6:7-8; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10, etc.]

 

For if we continue living in sin, in habitual and deliberate sin against the Lord Jesus and against our fellow humans, and this remains our life course, and we do not turn from our sins to follow our Lord Jesus in obedience to his commands, the Scriptures teach that we will not inherit eternal life with God. For Jesus said that not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one doing the will of God the Father (Matthew 7:21-23 plus the other Scriptures referenced above).

 

When I think about what this pastor was telling all who listened to his sermon it just makes my heart ache, for he just told them all that they can continue to live like hell on a confession of Christ as Lord and that heaven is guaranteed them regardless of how they live. So he just cursed them all to hell by lying to them and by telling them that they don’t have to change, that they can keep on sinning, and that God’s grace covers it all, and so heaven is still their eternal destiny and that they can count on it. WOW!!

 

Doesn’t that make you just want to stand up and scream “NOOOOO!!!!”?? It does me. So many liars abound. And so many people are believing their lies and are following them as pied pipers who are leading them to their deaths. And they love it, and they love these messengers because they are telling them what their itching ears want to hear. But we need men of God who will tell people the truth of the gospel. But where are they? Everyone I have heard, pretty much, is speaking lies, and is regurgitating this same garbage.

 

Please be people who are telling other people the truth and not the lies!

 

Send the Light

 

By Charles H. Gabriel, pub. 1888

 

There’s a call comes ringing o’er the restless wave,

“Send the light! Send the light!”

There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save,

Send the light! Send the light!

 

We have heard the Macedonian call today,

“Send the light! Send the light!”

And a golden off’ring at the cross we lay,

Send the light! Send the light!

 

Let us pray that grace may everywhere abound,

“Send the light! Send the light!”

And a Christlike spirit everywhere be found,

Send the light! Send the light!

 

Let us not grow weary in the work of love,

“Send the light! Send the light!”

Let us gather jewels for a crown above,

Send the light! Send the light!

 

Send the light, the blessed Gospel light;

Let it shine from shore to shore!

Send the light, and let its radiant beams

Light the world forevermore!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lmn-20yyJY

*Caution: This link may contain ads