Romans 10:3-4, “For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
Oftentimes the Lord will lay a truth upon my heart, which prompts me to write
an article, while the thought is still on my mind. Hence this very important article.
I've known pastor's wives, who after 20-years of going along with their
husband's ambitions to serve Christ in the ministry, realized that they had
never been born-again. Religious workers, deacons, and even pastors themselves
have realized after decades, that they were never saved at all. I care about
you, whoever you may be, friend or foe, and I don't want you to miss the
blessings of Heaven. And I certainly don't want you or anybody else to go to
Hell forever.
The Holy Bible teaches that a person MUST be “born again” to enter into God's Kingdom. John 3:3, “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” I am worried about a lot of professed Christians today, who think they are saved, but I am convinced are not. They are good people. They are sincere. They are religious. I'm talking about pastors, Bible college presidents, evangelists, deacons and pastor's wives. I'm talking about youth directors and Christian school teachers. I'm talking about Independent Baptist churches and other groups as well. Our churches are filled with false converts. We see this horrifying reality evidenced in Matthew 7:13-14, Matthew 7:21-23 and Luke 13:23-24. The sad truth is that MOST religious people are still lost!
The reason why is that the clarity of the Gospel has been obscured by well-meaning, but ignorant, churchgoers and preachers. No doubt Satan is behind this theological confusion. It is critically important that soul-winners clarify the Gospel, keeping it simple the way God intended it to be. It is tragic how the churches have embellished (added to) the Gospel over the past century, hiding the Gospel behind a bunch of step-by-step methods, asking Jesus into one's heart, inviting Christ into your life, surrendering all to Christ, following Jesus and repeating a prayer. None of these are the Gospel. What Is The Gospel? (Dr. Harry Ironside).
I had attended an
Independent Baptist church down the street from me (Harvest Baptist Church on
Guam) a couple years ago. It
opened my eyes to a lot of things, mainly the deadness and apostasy in our
churches today. Although I kindly tried to help them see the light, they are
in their spiritual comfort zones, and don't care about the truth. I literally
came home one Sunday and cried, after the church's senior pastor (who
abandoned ship in 2018) taught from
the pulpit that it's not enough to admit you're a sinner to be saved; but
also, he insisted that you MUST turn away from committing those sins to be
saved. Although he doesn't believe in the sinless perfection of the saints, he
does believe the lie of so many religious teachers today that to be
saved you must CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
Satanic Modern Bible Revisions Corrupt God's Simple Plan Of Salvation
This heresy doesn't come as a surprise when you consider that the church uses a parallel Bible, with the King James Bible (KJB) on the left, and the corrupt Easy-To-Read Version (ERV) on the right. The Satanic ERV plainly teaches that you must CHANGE YOUR LIFE to be saved. By the way, that's why I've been hitting that false Bible version (i.e., the ERV) so much over the past year in my articles, because it is popular in many deceived Baptist churches today. By the way, I don't refer to the King James Bible as a “version,” because it is God's inspired words and not merely another translation to pick from. God only wrote one book! It numbs the mind when one considers that according to the American Bible Society, there are 900 English Bibles.
The Greek word for “repent” in Mark 1:15 in the King James Bible is metanoeo, which means, “to think differently.” It is a change of mind. It DOESN'T mean to “change your hearts and lives,” which is what the corrupt ERV says!!! Here is a comparison . . .
KING JAMES BIBLE (KJB) — Mark 1:15, “And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” [emphasis added]
EASY-TO-READ VERSION (ERV) — Mark 1:15, “He said, “The right time is now here. God’s kingdom is very near. Change your hearts and lives, and believe the Good News!” [emphasis added]
That is wrong,
wrong, wrong! You don't have to change your own life as a requirement to be
saved. Rather, it is the indwelling Holy Spirit that comes into a person at
the time of salvation that changes one's heart and life, over time as they
grow in grace by nurturing on the milk of the Word (1st Peter 2:2). Anyone who
tells you that you must change your ways, habits or sinful lifestyle to be
saved is a BIG LIAR! Eternal life is a gift (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8-9). A
gift can simply be received, not achieved.
Because of the plethora of modern counterfeit Bible versions, heresy has overtaken Moody Bible Institute, Bob Jones University, Dallas Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Convention, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Pacific Garden Mission's UNSHACKLED radio program, Grace To You (Dr. John MacArthur), and countless thousands of other apostate ecumenical ministries. Literally, our nation is going to Hell. The main problem is that pastor's don't study the Bible anymore. One of my favorite scholars, Pastor J. Vernon McGee (1904-1988) rightly states, “We're a nation of Biblical ignoramuses! We do not know the Word of God today in this land” (Dr. J. Vernon McGee, commentary from Hosea 4:1-2). Ain't it the truth brother!
Dr. John MacArthur
and other false teachers claim that it is difficult to be saved, because they
errant think a changed life is mandatory to be saved. They
confuse
Discipleship with Salvation.
Have You Received The New Birth?
And so I ask you
now friend... ARE YOU SAVED? Have you been born-again by the Holy Spirit of
God? Salvation is so simple that most people pass right over it in favor of a
Satanic substitute. Human nature tells us that good people go to Heaven and
bad people go to Hell. This type of wrong reasoning appeals to the human
sin-nature. Man in his wicked pride tends to believe that he must be worthy of
eternal life, that he must attain to higher standards of living to qualify for
salvation. The hardest part about winning people to the Lord is first
convincing them that THEY ARE LOST!
And so, Satan knows that if he can sell you on a substitute for God's plans of salvation, then you will have a false sense of security and go to Hell. This is why we read in Luke 13:23-27, Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.”
Have you been born-again? It's very simple to be saved. If you acknowledge that you are a guilty sinner in God's holy eyes for breaking His commandments, and you BELIEVE that Jesus Christ died on the cross for YOUR SINS, and was buried, and bodily resurrected from the dead three days later, then you are saved!!! John 11:25-26, “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” Salvation is not doing your best, it is having Christ's best put to your account through receiving Him by faith. God will not save anyone who is trying to be saved, He will only save those who are trusting to be saved.
Please DON'T ADD anything to believing the Gospel, or you will not go to Heaven. I've been hearing lots of theological garbage on religious radio about repenting from your sins to be saved, and then continuing repenting for the rest of your life or you're not really saved. This is a false plan of salvation rooted in human effort plus partial faith in Christ, which DOES NOT produce the new birth in Christ Jesus. The phrases “turn from sin” and “repent from sin” are not even found in the Bible. Biblically, repentance is the realization and admission that I am a dirty sinner in God's holy eyes. Without repentance, no man would ever come to Christ to be saved (John 3:20). Repentance is not optional for salvation, it is a change of mind that must happen, otherwise we would never come to Christ at all. Galatians 3:24-26, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Please beware of the corrupt plan of salvation being promoted in apostate neo-evangelical churches today!
Any plan of salvation which places even the slightest responsibility, obligation or effort into man's hands is of the Devil. Either God does all of the saving, or you're not saved! Our text verses speak so clearly from Romans 10:3-4, “For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The proper mindset of a genuinely born-again Christian is that we are saved solely by GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS!!! Our part is simply to BELIEVE, and no more. How we live afterwards has no bearing on our eternal life, because it is a free gift from God. God will chastise and scourge disobedient children (Hebrews 12:6-8), but they are still His children!
And so I say to you as a caring friend, please make sure you're saved! Ask yourself, “Why do I think I'm going to Heaven when I die?” The answer should be: It is because I realized one day from the Scriptures that I am a guilty sinner in the sight of a holy God, and I received Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for my sins, believing that He was buried, and that He bodily resurrected three days later from the dead. That is my only hope! The “Gospel” truth is that Christ DIED for our sins on the cross, and was BURIED, and bodily RESURRECTED 72 hours later for our justification. If that is your only hope for Heaven, you are saved! You don't get saved by praying a sinner's prayer, you get saved by believing! It is certainly appropriate to pray a sinner's prayer to accompany one's believing heart, but it is not required. You need to know that, because praying never saved anybody! WE ARE SAVED BY FAITH IN THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!!!
The Word of God defines “the Gospel” in 1st Corinthians 15:1-4, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” That is the Gospel—Christ DIED on the cross for our sins, He was BURIED, and He RAISED UP the third day according to the Scriptures. All the theological garbage that we're hearing on religious radio today; such as, “trust Jesus” or “Invite Jesus into your heart” or “Commit your life to live for Christ,” are NOT the Gospel. I fear, as did the Apostle Paul in 2nd Corinthians 11:3-4, that many churchgoers have adopted one of these similar psuedo false plans of salvation. Thus, they have religion without truth, and churchianity without Christianity. Jesus said in John 3:3... YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN!!!
Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life without ever being born again! Are you going about to establish your own self-righteousness? Or have you, as the Bible commands in Romans 10:3-4 and Philippians 3:9, submitted yourself unto God's imputed righteousness, which is solely by faith in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?
