Jul 23
24
DOCTRINE VS SAVING FAITH
I have heard people say, “Don’t preach doctrine to me.” I say, “Preach sound doctrine to me!” There is no salvation without the preaching and hearing of true doctrine. No one can believe on Christ until they have heard and believed the truth about Christ. However, salvation and eternal life are much more than a mere head knowledge of true doctrine.
Doctrine knows that all men died in Adam. Saving faith believes that I died in Adam. Doctrine knows that all men are sinful. Saving faith believes that I am the sinner, the chief of sinners. Doctrine knows that God elected a people unto salvation. Saving faith believes that my only hope of salvation is that God chose me because left to myself I would never choose God. Doctrine knows that Christ died for sinners. Saving faith believes that the only way the sin of a sinner like me could be forgiven is if Christ died for me. Doctrine knows that Christ died for sin. Saving faith believes that Christ’s death put away all of my sin. Doctrine knows that life is in Christ. Saving faith believes that Christ is my life. Doctrine knows that righteousness is in Christ. Saving faith believes that Christ is my righteousness.
O may God be pleased to give me a heart that believes what sound doctrine has taught my head!
Pastor Frank Tate
If God saved you in light of his consideration of something in you, however small, it could not be grace. No amount of immorality can prevent God in his grace and no amount of morality can commend oneself to God. If one sin or 1,000 of them can hinder a soul in the reception of grace, it ceases to be grace. If the smallest amount of morality can commend one to God, it ceases to be grace.
We shall not become truly eloquent until we have lost the desire to be so.
Faith is not an isolated act of life. It is not something you did. True saving faith is an inward disposition of the heart created by the grace of God. It is continual confidence and trust in God through the Lord Jesus Christ. True faith in Christ is a governing principle of life in the hearts of all true believers. “The just shall live by faith.” Saving faith is manifest in a very practical way in the lives of God’s children. Faith dictates how you acquire your possessions, how you look upon your possessions, and how you use your possessions (Luke 12: 15-21). Faith looks squarely and honestly at material possessions and knows them to be vanity, and rejoices to know that Christ is all. Christ is all that is needed, wanted, and sought by true faith. Faith lives not for the perishing things of time and sense, but for Christ and his eternal glory (2 Cor. 4:18). Faith seeks to use the blessings of God in this world, not to pamper and indulge the flesh, but for the glory of God in Christ. If faith is afflicted with poverty, it is content. If faith is blessed with wealth, it is generous. True faith makes a man honest, content, peaceful, and generous.
Scott Richardson
An apostolic face and a Judas heart
J.C.Philpot
Many think that a minister is exempt from such
coldness, deadness, and barrenness, as private
Christians feel. And the hypocritical looks and
words of many of Satan’s ministers favor this
delusion. Holiness is so much on their tongues,
and on their faces, that their deluded hearers
necessarily conclude that it is in their hearts.
But, alas! nothing is easier or more common,
than an apostolic face and
a Judas heart.
Most pictures that I have seen of the “Last Supper”
represent Judas with a ferocious countenance.
Had
painters drawn a holy, meek-looking face, I believe
they would have given a truer resemblance.
Many pass for angels in the pulpit, who if the truth
were known, would be seen to be devils and beasts
in heart, lip, and life at home.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make
clean the outside of the cup and of the platter,
but within they are full of extortion and excess! Even so ye outwardly
appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity.” Matthew 23:25, 28
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Monsters of iniquity! Spurgeon’s, “Spots in Our Feasts of Charity” Oh, the depths of human sin! Sin is an incomprehensible thing! There is no water so deep but fish will swim in it; no pond so foul but frogs will live in it; no mire so filthy but swine will wallow in it, and no sin so damnable but man will commit it. Men will even seek out ways and means of making themselves more and more proficient in the most filthy of vices. If in these times there should arise monsters of iniquity, we must not be astonished, for long practice of sin makes men proficient therein. The earth is ripening, and men’s characters are rotting to the uttermost degree of corruption. We must expect to see more and more of the boilings over of the sink of iniquity, which lies in human nature. Christian, what might you have been, but for God’s distinguishing grace to you? Why, might not you have been Judas? Christian, is there any betterness in your heart beyond the heart of Judas? Judas was an apostle, mark you, a preacher, a miracle-worker; he dipped his hand with Jesus in the dish, and yet he sold him; and why not you? “Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” What another man has done you may do; and there are no depths of wickedness into which you might not have plunged had not the preventing grace of God stopped your course. |
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So many truly sincere and
religious people (J. C. Philpot, “Answers to Inquiries”) “Cornelius “a devout man, one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.” Acts 10:2 Yet Cornelius and his family weren’t saved! (Acts 11:14) –A generous centurion build a synagogue. (Luke 7:3-5) –A young man keeps the commandments from his youth up. (Luke 18:21) –Balaam prophesies. (Numbers 23:16) –Saul weeps. (1 Samuel 24:16) –Judas preaches the gospel. (Matthew 10:5-8) Yet none of these men were saved! It is at times, enough to fill one’s heart with mingled astonishment and sorrow, to see so many truly sincere and religious people, whose religion will leave them short of eternal life—because they are destitute of saving grace. To see so much . . . amiability, benevolence, devotedness, self-denial, liberality loveliness of character, integrity, consistency of life, all inescapably dashed against the rock of inflexible justice, and there shattered and lost—swallowed up with its unhappy possessors in the raging billows beneath—such a sight, did we not know that the Judge of the whole earth cannot do wrong, would indeed stagger us to the very center of our being! |
False faith!
(Don Fortner)
There is a false
faith in which multitudes are confidently resting.
There is a false faith by which multitudes are deceived and will
perish for ever in Hell.
A false faith may be greatly enlightened and knowledgeable in
gospel truth (Heb. 6:4).
A false faith excites the affections (Stony Ground Hearers).
A false faith reforms the outward life (The Pharisees).
A false faith may speak very well of Christ (The Jews).
A false faith confesses sin (Saul).
A false faith may humble itself in sackcloth and ashes (Ahab).
A false faith may repent (Esau – Judas).
A false faith may diligently perform religious works (The
Pharisees).
A false faith may be very charitable and generous (Ananias).
A false faith may tremble at the Word of God (Felix).
A false faith may experience much in religion (Heb. 6:1-4).
A false faith may enjoy great religious privileges (Lot’s wife).
A false faith may preach, perform miracles, and cast out demons
(Matt. 7:23).
A false faith may attain high office in the church (Diotrephes).
A false faith may walk with great preachers (Demas was Paul’s
companion).
A false faith may be peaceful and carnally secure (The Five
Foolish Virgins).
A false faith may even persevere and hold out until the day of
judgment (Matt. 7:22-23).
If you have the faith of God’s elect, it will bear examination.
If you do not, if you are resting in a false faith, you need to
be awakened so that you may flee to Christ in true faith.
One sin, trifled with —
tampered with!
(John MacDuff,
“Communion Memories” 1886)
“Jesus was in great anguish of spirit, and He exclaimed —
The truth is, one of you will betray Me!” John 13:21
It was not the nail and spear which
now entered His soul. It was the thought of injured goodness and unrequited
love on the part of a faithless disciple. It was Sinless
Purity Incarnate, wounded in the house of His friends. He wept over a whole
city; now His mighty soul is bowed in sorrow by the base conduct of one
apostle, and the keen anguish seems too deep for tears!
His name, Judas, means “praise of God.” We
have every reason to believe that he was once as earnest and faithful as his
brother apostles — as unselfish in his motives as they, in joining Christ and
the disciple-band. But covetousness — the base and degrading love of money —
assailed him. In an evil hour he dangled its forbidden gold and silver chains —
and they became fetters to bind him!
The master-passion by degrees . . .
took full possession of his soul;
dominated his will and affections;
crushed every lofty aspiration; and
left him, at last, a blighted, blackened ruin —
demon-haunted and defiled! The most dreadful sin that ever stained the catalogue
of creature guilt — came to brand with infamy, his name and memory.
Oh! let that unhappy traitor tell us, what one sin, trifled with — tampered with,
can do!
“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a
snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction
and perdition.” 1 Timothy 6:9
Only two families inhabit
earth!
(Henry Law, 1858)
Only two families inhabit earth!
In principle,
in taste,
in habit,
in desire,
in eternal destination—
they are as separate as . . .
light from darkness,
heat from cold,
life from death,
Heaven from Hell.
There is the serpent’s seed.
There is the heaven-born race.
There is the wide wicked world.
There is the little flock of grace.
There is the broad road that leads to eternal destruction.
There is the narrow way that leads to eternal life.
There are the cursed goats.
There are the blessed sheep.
Hence the importance of the question:
“Have you escaped from nature’s thraldom?
Do your feet tread the upward path of
holiness?
Do you belong to Satan—or to Christ?“