How to Establish Religious Authority #22

(A) There is a doctrine taught by a popular denomination that teaches, “Once saved always saved.” In
short it teaches that you cannot fall from grace. Once you are saved there is nothing you can do to loose your salvation and be lost. That doctrine is NOT found in the Bible and it is false to the core. One of the great tragedies is that this false doctrine encourages sin and can lead people to be lost. Rev. 3:1-3, That says, It is possible for congregations and individuals to conduct themselves in such a way that the Lord disowns them----That’s falling from grace. In Rev. 2:1-5, Jesus speaks these words of warning to the thriving congregation at Ephesus. That is a stern warning and it warns about the possibility of falling from grace.
1. Acts 8:21?23, The apostle Peter speaks to a saved, baptized believer named Simon. Does he remain saved if unrepentant? What about the Judaizing teachers who were teaching Gentile Christians that in addition to being baptized into Christ they had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses? Paul’s reply is clear and final. Gal. 5:4, “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” You add false doctrines to the gospel of Christ, or change the gospel of Christ and you fall from grace. Thus saith the Lord.
1. Leaving the Lord and losing your salvation is not usually a thing one does overnight. It is such a gradual process that we sometimes do not even notice what is going on until we are far away from the Lord. That’s why Heb. 2:1, reminds us, “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Ever walk into a dark restaurant and try to get seated and read the menu? You can’t see until your eyes gradually get used to the dark. Falling away from Christ is like that. It does not happen over night. It is a gradual process of taking one small, seemingly, innocent step at a time away from God until you are so far away you don’t even know that you have strayed.
(A) There are two distinct things that take place along the road of unfaithfulness to the Lord — and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. The first step is a change in attitude toward Divine authority. We are the followers of Jesus, who is both Christ and Lord ? That is the absolute statement of Acts. 2:36. Jesus is anointed Ruler over the Messianic Kingdom. That’s why Matt. 28:18. He has the authority to command and expect our obedience. That means that when you become a Christian, you submit yourself to Jesus as the Lord of your life. The noun Lord means He is your Master, Ruler----You are subservient to Him. He has all rights and you have none. Maybe you never knew that. Maybe that’s the reason you’ve always given Him nothing more than lip service, been a Christian in name only. Never made Him the Lord, Master, Ruler of all you are and all you have.
(1) Rom. 6:15?16, “Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as servant, you become His slave, and you are to be obedient to the one to whom you are a slave.” We are to treat with utmost reverence every aspect of His will— that means we put away any thought, word, any deed that does not meet with His approval. Eph. 5:17. Col. 3:17. Jno. 14:15?24.
(2) Secondly. Jesus placed great emphasis on the importance of the kind of attitude that “wants to do His will.” If you ever cease to have that attitude, your “faith” has become little better than that of the devils. That’s the statement of Jas. 2:19-20. A heart that is unsubmissive before the will of God is an unfaithful heart before the face of God Himself!

(B) Many people today disrespect God by changing or ignoring what God has commanded in the Bible. Do you remember King Solomon? Who would have thought that Solomon’s attitude toward God would change so drastically that he would actually build places for the worship of idols? Read with me, 1 Kgs. 11:1?11. Just because a Christian or congregation is doing what God commands in His Word, is no guarantee that will always be the case. Solomon, the wisest man in the world, didn’t. He was rejected by God.
(1) The apostle Paul warned the Church leadership at Ephesus about this in no uncertain terms, Acts 20:28?31. That states the reality and possibility of both individuals and congregations going into apostasy and falling from grace. In fact Paul prophecies how people will do it and identifies them two of the false doctrines they will teach, 1 Tim. 4:1-5. And then he repeats the warning and states why they go into apostacy, 2 Tim. 4:1-4. How did they go off into apostasy and fall from grace? They left the Word of God and began to teach doctrines, false humn ideas and made-up religious mythology instead of teaching, believing and obeying God’s written Word. Somewhere along the way they changed their practices taught in the Bible and replace the Bible with denominational doctrines.
(2) Some people today are wanting an “alternate” way of worshiping God. We need a “spiritual and cultural” change in the church. What does that mean? “We want to make some radical changes in our doctrine and practice but we still want to use some of the terminology that reflects Bible teaching. But we DO NOT want to believe that one has to be bound by divine authority and scriptural teaching.”
(3) You can spot them by their arguments: “We do not have to have authority for what we do. People, today, are not “bound” by the New Testament. The voice of the church is equal in authority to the voice of the Scriptures. We need a ‘new hermeneutic.’” That means we need a new way of interpreting the Bible so we can pick and choose what we want and interpret it the way we want. This is usually the last thing to change when a person or congregation has left the Lord. It’s like walking into that dark room and waiting until your eyes get so used to the dark that you begin to mistake the dark for light. It is a long, slow, methodical process that often takes many years, or even several generations, for people to sear their conscious to the point they can ignore God’s word with a shrug and a smile.
(4) What you believe and practice must not reflect and outward appearance of Biblical truth. It must be in harmony with Biblical Truth as it is taught in the Bible. God expects us to worship Him in the spirit and the truth of His Word as it really is and Not as we suppose it to be or as it might appear to be.
Rev. 2:4?5.
Acts 20:32.

Spur - 07/13/03 am