Submitting to God.
The false gospel message teaches people to wait on God until he changes them. Rather than changing themselves via submitting to God, repenting and having their hearts purified by faith, and their sins cleansed by the blood of Christ. Today popular bible teachers teach all one needs to do is accept Jesus into their hearts although this is nowhere found in the bible. In fact thebible states that we must repent and believe the gospel. Jesus himself said “Repent or perish” and Paul said “Repentance leads to salvation”. So why do most deny these plain truths? It is due to doctrines like original sin and inability. These doctrines logical conclusions is that man can do nothing and God has to do all the work, yet the bible states we are co-workers with God and we must strive to enter into the Kingdom of God.
I would like to share with you something Catherine Booth wrote in a writing called “Save thyself”.
“Some of you have been trying this plan for years, but you are as far from Salvation as ever. How is this? There must be something wrong. God would never keep you waiting so long for a sense of His mercy and Salvation if you were on the right track, Depend upon it, you are under a delusion of the Devil. If ever you are to be saved, you will have to bestir yourself; you will have to strive against those things which keep you back from the Cross. You are like the man who said, `Lord, I will follow Thee! but suffer me first to go and bury my father.’ You have a `but,’ or it may be many `buts,’ in the way. Here is the great difficulty with many. They want to be saved without effort–without suffering. They are like some sick people we meet with sometimes, who go to the doctor and expect he is going to cure them without any self-denial or self-discipline on their part. They want to write a prescription that will cure them straight off; and when he begins to ask them about their diet, and to order them to leave off this and to take that, or to practice the other–`Oh!’ they say, `am I to cure myself? I can’t be at all this trouble.’ And so thousands of people remain sick because they will not endure the self-denial and trouble which the regimen requires to cure them. This will not cure them without the physician. They require his treatment all the same; but all his prescriptions and treatment will not cure them without their co-operation. Your heavenly Physician has never proposed to cure you without your co-operation. He has never promised anybody to do so. And even when you are cured, you are to go on doing what He wills to will and to do in you, or you will soon fall back again, and make shipwreck, as thousands do. You will have to go on, on your part, working out your own Salvation to the end, abiding in Christ, and keeping His commandments, or you will fall back and become a withered branch. Salvation means co-operation with God all the way through, from the first ray of light till He bids you come up higher. So you see I do not profess to preach an easy gospel, or to bring you Salvation without suffering and cross-bearing. I don’t believe that anybody has ever found such a Salvation, and I fear those who think they have will find themselves to have been utterly deceived at last. But I want to help those of you who are awakened, to strive and wrestle, to overcome whatever your `but’ may be.
What is your `but?’ That which represents in your case the man’s father, whom he wanted to stop and bury; or the possessions of the young ruler, which Jesus told him to sell; or the honour which some of His hearers preferred to the honour that cometh from God only. These and kindred things are the obstacles and enemies against which men have to strive and wrestle in coming to the Cross; and your case will be no exception.”
Isnt the plain truth just simply amazing? Do not ever expect to be saved if you have not submitted to God, repented of your sins which is to forsake them and turn from them, and placed your faith in the only begotten son of God Jesus Christ.
No doubt I will be accused of preaching a works based salvation or a salvation method where man saves himself. But I am not I am preaching the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. Just because salvation is by grace through faith does not mean there are no conditions. When the man asked Paul what he had to do to be saved Paul did not reply “Nothing”. Remember we must die to self, pick up our cross, forsake all for Christ, strive to enter into the Kingdom, walk the narrow path and walk like Jesus walked.
Shalom.
The false gospel message teaches people to wait on God until he changes them. Rather than changing themselves via submitting to God, repenting and having their hearts purified by faith, and their sins cleansed by the blood of Christ. Today popular bible teachers teach all one needs to do is accept Jesus into their hearts although this is nowhere found in the bible. In fact thebible states that we must repent and believe the gospel. Jesus himself said “Repent or perish” and Paul said “Repentance leads to salvation”. So why do most deny these plain truths? It is due to doctrines like original sin and inability. These doctrines logical conclusions is that man can do nothing and God has to do all the work, yet the bible states we are co-workers with God and we must strive to enter into the Kingdom of God.
I would like to share with you something Catherine Booth wrote in a writing called “Save thyself”.
“Some of you have been trying this plan for years, but you are as far from Salvation as ever. How is this? There must be something wrong. God would never keep you waiting so long for a sense of His mercy and Salvation if you were on the right track, Depend upon it, you are under a delusion of the Devil. If ever you are to be saved, you will have to bestir yourself; you will have to strive against those things which keep you back from the Cross. You are like the man who said, `Lord, I will follow Thee! but suffer me first to go and bury my father.’ You have a `but,’ or it may be many `buts,’ in the way. Here is the great difficulty with many. They want to be saved without effort–without suffering. They are like some sick people we meet with sometimes, who go to the doctor and expect he is going to cure them without any self-denial or self-discipline on their part. They want to write a prescription that will cure them straight off; and when he begins to ask them about their diet, and to order them to leave off this and to take that, or to practice the other–`Oh!’ they say, `am I to cure myself? I can’t be at all this trouble.’ And so thousands of people remain sick because they will not endure the self-denial and trouble which the regimen requires to cure them. This will not cure them without the physician. They require his treatment all the same; but all his prescriptions and treatment will not cure them without their co-operation. Your heavenly Physician has never proposed to cure you without your co-operation. He has never promised anybody to do so. And even when you are cured, you are to go on doing what He wills to will and to do in you, or you will soon fall back again, and make shipwreck, as thousands do. You will have to go on, on your part, working out your own Salvation to the end, abiding in Christ, and keeping His commandments, or you will fall back and become a withered branch. Salvation means co-operation with God all the way through, from the first ray of light till He bids you come up higher. So you see I do not profess to preach an easy gospel, or to bring you Salvation without suffering and cross-bearing. I don’t believe that anybody has ever found such a Salvation, and I fear those who think they have will find themselves to have been utterly deceived at last. But I want to help those of you who are awakened, to strive and wrestle, to overcome whatever your `but’ may be.
What is your `but?’ That which represents in your case the man’s father, whom he wanted to stop and bury; or the possessions of the young ruler, which Jesus told him to sell; or the honour which some of His hearers preferred to the honour that cometh from God only. These and kindred things are the obstacles and enemies against which men have to strive and wrestle in coming to the Cross; and your case will be no exception.”
Isnt the plain truth just simply amazing? Do not ever expect to be saved if you have not submitted to God, repented of your sins which is to forsake them and turn from them, and placed your faith in the only begotten son of God Jesus Christ.
No doubt I will be accused of preaching a works based salvation or a salvation method where man saves himself. But I am not I am preaching the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. Just because salvation is by grace through faith does not mean there are no conditions. When the man asked Paul what he had to do to be saved Paul did not reply “Nothing”. Remember we must die to self, pick up our cross, forsake all for Christ, strive to enter into the Kingdom, walk the narrow path and walk like Jesus walked.
Shalom.