God Loves… Himself

What pains do many luke-warm professors take to keep themselves fast asleep in carnal security! If they see their wretched case laid open by any Christian writer, or faithful minister, either they are ready to carp or quarrel with such, of to conclude, that they themselves know better, that the man is mistaken, and that there is no need of so much strictness and preciseness, nor of that wonderful change of heart which only a few enthusiasts here and there make so absolutely necessary to salvation; but on the contrary, they hear any formal, daubing, unawakened minister preach, or read any dry lifeless (wrongly called religious) book, how eager are they to catch at whatever may sooth them in their delusion! and are as much pleased with those who help to lull them in their fatal dream, as a child is pleased to be lulled asleep by the fables and tales of its nurse.    Sir Richard Hill.

In the modern day it is thought to be rude and unloving to suggest to people that they are unconverted. It is seems very hard for ministers to preach in such a way as to point out to people that they are unconverted. This leads ministers (in name anyway) to be positive and try to make the people feel good. On the other hand, certain types will try to preach in such a way as to make people feel good and confident in their salvation that they have prayed a prayer or that they are moral.

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.

The Scriptures also teach us about the great problem of the many false prophets that do and will abound. Part of this great deception that is going on is that there are religious leaders who are deceived as well. Deception goes on in the realms of liberalism and immorality, but there is also a great deception (if not greater) going on within what is called the “Christian Church” as well. The Lord Jesus Christ said with great emphasis and clarity that men must be born again to see or enter the kingdom, but the false prophets either deny that is true or they find other ways for men to accomplish this. The other ways for men to accomplish this are ways of deception.

The false prophets (preachers and ministers) will tell you that the new birth is just a picture of what happens, or perhaps an analogy of sorts. Others go on deceiving by saying that infants are saved when they are baptized and that by baptism adults can be saved too. Some stress that after baptism one needs to take the Lord’s Supper and with those one will be ushered into the kingdom. Still others stress the great need to pray a prayer, walk an aisle, or perhaps sign a card or squeeze a hand. This is a way to get great numbers in the “church” and various other programs to be funded. But Jesus said that a person must be born from above and that this must be done by the Holy Spirit rather than what men can do.

There are ministries across the land that focus on moral issues and conservative issues, but again the great need is not to first become moral and first to become this or that, the great need is for God to do a work in the human heart. We see in Matthew 7 that false prophets will abound and following that we see how people are deceived. Some think that their orthodoxy saved them. Some thought that their works saved them. Some thought that their prophesying or preaching would save them. But all of them were told to depart from Christ.

This real change of heart is absolutely necessary to salvation and yet people seem to rarely hear about this. When they do, they don’t want to hear more of it. Formalism seems to reign in America in many circles under the guise of moralism and orthodoxy. You can believe in the most conservative and orthodox confession that there is and yet be unconverted. You can be as moral as a human being can be and yet be unconverted. In place after place there are dry and lifeless sermons given to a dry and lifeless people and all are deluded into thinking that they are converted. We must wake up and seek the Lord for true life! The modern version of Christianity is no better than the Old Testament Jews who offered up sacrifices and worship to God who told them to take it away. We must wake up and be about waking others up. The delusion of life is simply that, a delusion. We must have God or we will perish.

This entry was posted on June 23, 2014 at 10:41 am and is filed under Genuine Christianity Rare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.