Some Things I've Noticed

What a Summer! What a Summer....

I recently decided to stop fellowshipping at the same church I've been at for the last two years. You know compromise seems like such a good idea... but think about the whole debt ceiling thing in the USA. They've just come to some, non-specific, compromise that will let them stick their heads in the sand until 2013.. when (if the Lord tarries) they'll have the same "crisis" all over again and they'll have all the same issues to deal with.

Compromise isn't always helpful. Do you compromise in life? Sure, about desires... about wants... about schedules... but not about TRUTH. You can't "compromise" about TRUTH because then TRUTH becomes compromised - and does not remain TRUE.

I'm truly sick of the Lordship Salvation movement.  So here are a couple of things I've noticed about it that really make me scratch my head.

When I hear a Lordship Salvation proponent talking about repentance being turning over a new leaf, changing direction, turning from sin, forsaking sin, stopping sin, feeling remorseful enough to never want to sin again, hating sin, changing from disobeying God to seeking only to obey Him, submitting one's self to the mastery of Christ over all areas of your life... or any number of other definitions that go beyond what the Scriptures say.... well I almost invariably suggest that the person take a listen to a very good, very complete study of all the usages of "repentance" in the OT and NT in the form of a course freely offered online by the Bible Believers Network Bible Institute. I always note that the course is about 5 hours long.

You know what response I get? Consistently, actually without exception, the Lordship Salvation proponent will balk at taking a free 5 hour course on repentance that goes through the Bible passage by passage. I cannot tell you the motivation of the person - only God knows a person's heart - but I can tell you about how hypocritical it looks to me, every single time. You see the person will have been telling me how "true" Christians are sold out for God and seek to obey Him at all times in all ways, that they have completely submitted their will to that of God. Yet they balk at spending 5 hours on the fundamental doctrine they preach.... Seriously? How am I supposed to react to this?

Consistently, I react by telling that I understand that 5 hours is quite an investment (while trying to keep from either sighing or sounding sarcastic - sometimes neither is at all easy) and so I suggest that they pick up a copy of HA Ironside's Unless You Repent. You can get it from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca and in many GOOD Bible stores. It costs about $12... Guess what? That's too much apparently... or they don't want to order from Amazon.. or they have some other excuse. OK I understand that sometimes money is tight, and one might not be too sure of the validity of the work of a Canadian. ;) So how do I respond?

Well there is a free version of this work online but it is in older King James English. It can be found at Wholesome Words (PDF). At this point the one I'm speaking with will sometimes tell me they will "take a look at it" however, I have yet to ever have a single person come back to me to tell me that they have actually done so.

So what am I to think about all of this? Well I think you know what I think about all this. I also have a deep, deep dislike of how some people will preach to others that they must be sold out for Christ in order to qualify for Salvation, that they must forsake all in order to attain Eternal Life, and that if they haven't submitted every area of their life to the mastery of Jesus Christ that they will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire - and yet the preacher is himself very worldly.

You know, the Lord did say that you can tell a Prophet by his fruit. Do I believe the gospel you preach? Not much chance if I must first ask you; do YOU?