What We Believe: Doctrine of Salvation, Part 2 (11/30/22)
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What we believe @ SALVATION
What we believe @ SALVATION
In the last message that I preached in this series, we considered the fact that:
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ “died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
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:
Continuing on...
We believe that a person is saved when he repents of his sin and exercises faith by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.
A person is saved when he repents of his sin...
Repentance
Repentance
Years ago, I had a couple - members of SCBC - come to me and tell me that they were leaving the church. Part of their “reason” for leaving SCBC was that they had begun listening to a Youtube “Bible teacher” and they no longer believed in repentance in the same way that I taught and preached.
John the Baptist preached a message of repentance.
John the Baptist preached a message of repentance.
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry, preached a message of repentance.
Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry, preached a message of repentance.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Christ’s message?
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Jesus sent the disciples out to preach a message of repentance.
Jesus sent the disciples out to preach a message of repentance.
And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;
And they went out, and preached that men should repent.
Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, preached a message of repentance.
Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, preached a message of repentance.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Paul testified to King Agrippa that he preached a message of repentance.
Paul testified to King Agrippa that he preached a message of repentance.
Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:
But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.
The message of repentance is not merely a New Testament truth. It is/was an Old Testament message.
Jonah preached a message of repentance to the people of Nineveh.
Jonah preached a message of repentance to the people of Nineveh.
So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
You may say, though, “Pastor Campbell, there’s nothing about repentance in that message?!?!”
Notice how the king of Ninevah responded to Jonah’s message:
Jonah 3:5–8 (KJV 1900)
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
And, consider how Jesus compared His generation with that of Jonah’s day:
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
Not only is repentance an Old and New Testament message it is...
The Command to Repent
The Command to Repent
In Acts chapter 17 when Paul was in Athen and preaching upon Mars’ Hill he said:
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
Why has God commanded that all men - everywhere - repent?
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
There is a day of judgement coming!
So, I can confidently attest to the fact that repentance should be a part of the message which we preach.
With that, though, we should consider:
What is “Repentance?”
What is “Repentance?”
If you were to look up the words repent and repentance in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, you would find the following:
Repent
To feel pain, sorrow or regret for something done or spoken;
To change the mind in consequence of the inconvenience or injury done by past conduct.
Repentance
Sorrow for any thing done or said; the pain or grief which a person experiences in consequence of the injury or inconvenience produced by his own conduct.
Real penitence; sorrow or deep contrition for sin, as an offense and dishonor to God, a violation of his holy law, and the basest ingratitude towards a Being of infinite benevolence.
Those definitions have changed. If you were to look up the repentance on dictionary.com, you would find the following:
deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing, or the like.
regret for any past action.
This is why it is important to define our words because the popular definition of repent and repentance misses the mark of the Biblical definition and meaning of repent and repentance.
Lexham Theological Wordbook (μετανοέω)
μετανοέω (metanoeō). vb. to repent, change one’s mind. In the NT, generally refers not simply to changing one’s mind but to turning back to God.The original meaning of metanoeō is “to change one’s mind.” In pre-Christian Greek, however, it could also refer to regretting a particular act....in Jewish thought it took on the meaning of comprehensively turning back to God, and this is the primary meaning in the NT.
We can think of repentance in 3 steps:
An individual is convicted of their sin. (They feel regret for their actions.)
An individual has a change of mind because of the truths of Scripture.
An individual turns from trusting themselves and their good works to trusting completely and solely in Jesus Christ for salvation.
I like how Evangelist John VanGelderen puts it (in our Good News Gospel tract):
It is not depending on Jesus plus yourself, good works, or baptism. It is a simple choice to depend only on Jesus to save you from sin and Hell. Like a child simply trusting his father by jumping into his arms, jump into the open arms of Jesus, and trust Him to save you. He will give you His very own eternal life.
A person is saved when they repent of their sin...
We believe that a person is saved when he repents of his sin and exercises faith by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.
…And exercises faith by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ...
In the last message which I preached in this series I touched on the Calvanistic belief in man’s total inability (or total depravity).
Evangelist and Bible Teacher, Paul L. Freeman (who is now with the Lord) wrote:
The teaching of Five-Point Calvinism is that man is totally unable to do anything to obtain salvation.
Calvinists state very emphatically that man cannot repent or believe the gospel.
Their teaching is that man cannot believe until he is born again.
This new birth is brought about by God who chooses certain individuals and regenerates them.
Those whom He regenerates are then capable of believing by virtue of their new birth.
Man does not have a free will by which he is able to come to Christ for salvation.
We believe that salvation is a gift of eternal life wholly by the grace of God without any merit or works.
That contradicts our doctrinal statement; that contradicts God’s Word.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
And these verses are just from the Gospel of John!
George Bryson, in his book, The Dark Side of Calvinism, stated (specifically about John 1:12-13 but applicable to all of these verses):
Does it not seem almost too obvious that John is telling his readers that receiving Christ, which he equates with believing in Christ, is the prerequisite to becoming a child of God, or of being born again?
The Calvinist has turned this passage (John 1:12-13) on its head by saying that God makes you a child of God so that you can believe and receive Christ.
The reason the Calvinist reverses the order is because of Reformed Theology and not what he finds in the text itself.
No where in Scripture are we told that God must first give us faith before we can exercise that faith in Him and that is exactly what Calvanists - those who believe in Reformed Theology - believe and teach.
Theologian Lorraine Boettner, an authority on Reformed Theology (Calvanism), stated:
A man is not saved because he believes in Christ, he believes in Christ because he is saved.
And yet, all of the verses which I just shared with you from the Gospel of John show that eternal life follows the sinner’s believing in Jesus Christ!
And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Faith comes before salvation!
Faith comes before salvation!
An individual is convicted of their condition, based upon the work of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit; they repent - they have a change of mind; they turn from trust in themselves and good works to exercising faith in Jesus Christ’s finished work upon the cross!
So, if you have been tempted to follow Reformed Theology and the teachings of Calvinism, I challenge you to consider what Loraine Boettner wrote:
Prove any one of them (the five points of Calvinism) true and all the others will follow as logical and necessary parts of the system.
Prove any one of them false and the whole system must be abandoned.
We believe that a person is saved when he repents of his sin and exercises faith by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Declare the Gospel!
Declare the Gospel!
Recent Prayer Requests
Recent Prayer Requests
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If you can’t get to the online bulletin to post a prayer request, you can text your prayer request to the church’s phone at (704) 542-5536.
Mrs. Patricia Jordan
Liam Treloar - The grandson of Pastor Tom Barliment (Mollie’s pastor).
Ivan Buck - (Request made by Mr. Norberg) Ivan was born with half a heart.
Bill Sturgis and his son, Mike - They have some type of flu.
Monica McCall has lung cancer. (co-worker of Barron or Kim)