One Year Discipleship Course (part 1)

If you have not done it yet, if you're planning to keep that

book, and I know that maybe some of you have your book at home

and didn't bring it tonight. That's the one thing that I'm

really worried about is 70 books out there with 70 people.

I wonder how many of you are actually going to remember to

bring it every week. I hope you do.

I don't know if you need to set a reminder for yourself and your

phone or something to, to try to remember to bring it, but we're

going to be going through this. I mean, obviously here and there

we're going to have different things on Wednesday night.

I'll try to mention it on Sunday.

So you don't have to bring the book, but I, I would encourage

you if you have an iPad or some kind of tablet to go in or go on

to wayoflife.org and, and buy the ebook.

It's cheap. If you're planning to do that

and you just didn't do it, then don't write in the book.

But I would encourage you #1 put your name on the inside of your

book. All right?

If you have a pen, I would do it right now so you don't forget

because there's going to be 50 of these things floating around

and you know, you're going to need to know which one is yours.

And so put your name in it if you're planning to keep it and

take some notes in it right in the margins there.

I know there's not a ton of space inside the book to do

that, but I, you know, underline maybe even wouldn't be a bad

idea to bring a highlighter if you have one and highlight some

different things here. I can't say that I know exactly

how this is going to go. We've done it a little bit with

the institute class. And I know that some of you that

were, that were taking part in that class have been through

some of this. But let me just let me just

start at the beginning here and, and kind of talk through some of

these things. If if you have your book there,

go to the table of contents, it's on page #4 This is a one

year discipleship course and I'm going to try as much as possible

to get through one lesson at a time at least.

But I'll stop and we'll have a conversation if we need to.

I want you to understand this. All right?

It is a Bible study. It's a Wednesday night Bible

study. It's a Wednesday night church

service. But I am going to treat it a

little bit more like a college class, a little bit more like an

institute class. So if you have a question, raise

your hand and ask if, if, and don't feel bad if I say we're

going to get to that later, because there it's a good

possibility that that will be the case.

And I will get to it later. And you know, we'll, we'll

address it when we get to it. But if, if you have questions,

the whole purpose of this, it's a discipleship course.

And discipleship is all about understanding really the first

steps of, of Christianity, if you will.

And obviously most of you have been in church and, and, and,

and a lot of you have been in church for a long time.

And so you've heard these things before.

You've, you've at least heard the ideas, you've heard the

terms, you've, you've probably gotten at least a little bit of

an explanation of some of these things.

But we're going to jump into a lot of these things in detail.

And I hope it'll be a huge help to you.

And you know, I'm going to try to get into as much detail as

possible with these things. I'm going to kind of read

through it and explain it. I'm not going to read every

word. I would like to have some of you

read the Bible verses out loud. So what we'll, what we'll do is

just have a microphone that will pass around and, and I'll try to

maybe just get one person from each each row to read a verse.

And that way, you know, and then, and then we'll just keep

going in circles with it. And if you don't want to read,

you don't have to. But if you'd like to read, then,

you know, I'll ask maybe who wants to read in this row.

Andrew will have to raise his hand because he's the only one

sitting there. But you know, we'll kind of do

it that way. And, and like I said, I'm going

to do it a little bit more like a class setting.

Obviously we're having a church service, but we're going to do

it in a little bit more of a class setting.

So repentance, saving faith, the gospel, evidence of salvation,

baptism, eternal security, position and practice.

Those are all things that really relate to our salvation.

What happens to us at salvation. I know there's a good handful of

you that are actually going through the it's a smaller book,

but the first steps for new Christians and you're you're

filling in the blanks and the blanks are all Bible verses and

and this, these are just a long way of saying the same things

that you're going through in that.

So there's obviously a lot more things in this and a lot more

details that will help you with it, hopefully.

But then Christian growth and spiritual V4 different parts for

that. And that's obviously that's a

huge part. You know, as a as a new

Christian, essentially you're a baby Christian, right?

And if you've never been discipled, if you've never had

somebody take you through these things, then essentially you're

kind of in that same spot, right?

You're still a baby Christian. Just because you've been saved

for 10 years doesn't make you mature as a Christian.

You've got to start growing in your faith.

You've got to start growing as a Christian.

And so that's that's what a lot of that part is.

And then kind of after that, a lot of these things are things

that are just, you know, important for you to, to once

you've got the foundation and once you've got everything

established, these are all things that are, are important

steps in your Christian life, prayer, faith, the armor of God,

church, the Bible, studying the Bible, And, and then along with

that you have principles of Bible interpretation.

These things are, I mean, and it's going to be, you know, it's

going to be a few months before we get to this, but all of these

things are kind of in, in order of the steps that you need to

take, right? Let's just say that that we're

trying to get to the attic. You can't jump from the ground

floor and jump into the attic, right?

You've got to take the steps to get up there and, and the attic

is where you're trying to get, you know, I mean, I don't know

why anybody wants to get in the attic, but you know what I'm

saying? You've got to take the steps to

get there and you've got to understand these things at kind

of the, at the basic level to get to the point where you

understand the things that are maybe a little bit more

complicated or maybe a little bit more reserved for somebody

who is more of a mature Christian.

So all of these things are necessary.

And I hope that I know that sometimes things happen and you

can't be here on a Wednesday night.

I hope you won't just miss because you feel like missing.

But if you do miss one, I would highly encourage you to go back

and watch it, or at the very least listen to it so that

you're not missing some of these steps.

You know, it's important. And I'll try to do a little bit

of review. We'll try to do some questions

from the, the, the, the previous lessons, but you know, and then

it continues on. So, so making wise decisions,

knowing God's will, I mean, those are, those are things that

are important, important things. And if nobody's ever given you

these things, then how would you know, How do you know when it's

God's will? How do you know when it's God

that's leading you and not just something that you want to do,

right? Or how do you know that that the

thing that you feel like you're good at is God leading you to do

that thing, or just something that God might be able to use

that talent later on, right? That's how do you know God's

will? Well, certainly God wants us to

know his will. He's not trying to hide it from

us. So there's principles in the

Bible that give us those things, making wise decisions, Christ's

Great Commission. And then we get into two more

things on page #5 but judgment, seat of Christ, separation from

the world, tests of entertainment.

How do you know if something is OK for you to do or not?

Right? There's a lot of things in the

world. Is it OK to go to an amusement

park? Is it OK to go to the movies?

Is it OK to go to the beach? Is it OK to go to, you know,

anything? All right, I'm not saying that

all of those are wrong. I'm just saying how do you know

which ones are good and which ones are not good?

Well, there's tests for those things and, and those will help

you through that. Fasting, miracles, a testing

mindset and that is basically testing everything by the word

of God, right? Tongues, the rapture, how to be

wise with your money, alcohol, the believer in drinking,

abortion, evolution, the Sabbath, dressing for the Lord,

important things, important things, but you've got to take

the steps to get to the point where we can really grasp, I

think some of these things and understand them.

Listen, I don't have any problem with you reading through this

book ahead of time either, all right?

If you're interested in tongues and you're like, oh man, what

does the Bible say about speaking in tongues?

Go read it. You know, it's not going to hurt

you to read it ahead of time. It's not like, well, I want to

know about what the Bible has to say about that, but we're not

there in church yet. So I can't look at that in the

Bible yet. No, read ahead.

If you're interested in it, read ahead, right?

And there may be some things where you're like, what does

that mean? Well, you might have to take

some steps to get there, to be able to understand what that

means or to be able to apply it to your life, to yourself.

That's what I'm saying. These are all steps where we're

walking up a giant staircase and doesn't mean that you've arrived

when you get to the end of it. But at the same time, these are

all steps that are necessary for you to take in your Christian

life if you're going to grow, if you're going to mature, if

you're going to be complete. Or as the Bible uses the word

perfect, doesn't mean that you're sinless.

It just means that you're mature as a Christian, right?

God very plainly says in in first Peter that we're trying to

get from the point where he doesn't have to feed us just

with milk anymore. He can feed us with meat because

we can handle the, the weightier things of God.

And so that's that's the whole purpose of this.

And when I first started doing this class, and that's how we

started off as an institute class, my goal was to teach

these things to you so that as people got saved and as people

came in, you could teach them to others.

And that's still the goal of this class, right?

As you learn these things, the important thing is that you

learn them well enough that you can go then and teach them to

somebody else. And we should, by the time we

finish this up, we should have a whole church full of people who

could lead somebody to Christ and then go disciple that

person. And honestly, that's the best

way for discipleship to happen is one-on-one.

But in this case, we have a lot of people who have been saved

fairly recently. We have a lot of people who have

expressed a desire for discipleship because they've

never had anybody disciple them. So that's why I've decided to do

this as an entire, as an entire church.

It'll, it'll kind of give everybody who may know these

things a refresher course. It'll help the people who have

never been through it to have a foundation.

And hopefully by the time we get done, all of you will be able to

take this book and go teach it to somebody else.

That's the purpose of it, right? And that's what the Bible says

that we should be able to get to the point where we handle the

scriptures well enough that we are able to teach others also.

That's the goal that you should be getting into in your life.

If, if, if you, if all you are is a sponge, you're missing the

whole point, right? Be a sponge.

Soak up all that information. Get everything you can from the

word of God, but do it with the intention of being wrung out at

some point and giving everything back to somebody else that you

can help them disciples. So where we want to start, let's

go ahead and turn to Acts Chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

There will be a few passages that I ask that I'll ask all of

you to turn to. And I don't know how far we'll

get into this tonight because I did want to give you a little

bit of that introduction. And if I go through this whole

thing, it's going to be another 45 minutes or an hour.

And I don't want to do that. So we'll, we'll find a good

place to stop as we get through this.

I'm going to take my time going through it.

I'm not, I'm not trying to rush through any of these things.

And like I said, if you have a question or something doesn't

make sense in one of these points, ask, ask a question.

What I would ask though, is if you're going to ask a question

that you wait and and get one of the microphones and ask it in

there. That way, if anybody does happen

to be watching online because they can't be here, then at

least they can hear the question.

If you're not speaking into a microphone, you can't hear it

and you know it's not, then it's not really helpful to everybody

else. I'll try to repeat the question

maybe or make sure I understand your question.

But let me do this, Alex and Andrew, if you guys can just

grab one of these microphones on both sides and we'll just start

with you guys in the front there and then as we do it, we'll

we'll kind of pass them back. Jackson, you guys in the back,

if you can handle just making sure the mics are off until

somebody is getting ready to read.

Don't need to pick up your private conversations making fun

of the pastor. So we'll, we'll make sure those

microphones are off. All right.

So let's look at this, these two, this, this first one here,

repentance. And then the next one, which if

you're looking for it on page 17 is faith and repentance and

faith go hand in hand. And this, these are absolutely

necessary foundational steps. And the main thing is for you to

understand this yourself, to make sure that you've been saved

the proper way, to make sure that you have exercised both

repentance and faith. But also it's so very important

because most of the time the only thing that gets emphasized

is faith. And if all you're exercising is

faith, then it's not salvation because repentance is absolutely

necessary for salvation. Where the question comes is what

is repentance, right? A lot of times people have the

mindset and we're going to talk about what repentance is not.

A lot of people have the mindset that repentance is just a change

of mind. I'm deciding that I'm going to

go from unbelief to belief. That's repentance.

Not according to the Bible. That's faith, right?

And, and, and how do we know that those two things are

separate? Well, the Bible says this in

Acts chapter 20 and verse 21, testifying both to the Jews and

Acts 20 · chapter mention

also to the Greeks. Repentance towards God and faith

toward our Lord Jesus Christ. If those two things were the

exact same, why would he mention them both?

All right, Repentance and faith, both are necessary for

salvation. So, and, and, and I'm going to

try to, I'm going to try to keep you up to date here or not up to

date, but but up to speed with where I'm at with these

different points as I go through.

I'm going, I'm just going to follow this exact format.

I'm going to, I'm just going to, I've highlighted a lot of

different things. I've written notes in my own, I

have a digital copy of it, but I've written notes in here to,

to make sure that I point some of these things out and, and,

and help you try to follow along.

So the question then is, is repentance necessary for a

salvation? I kind of already mentioned

that, but repentance is actually commanded by God.

And not only is it commanded by God, it's commanded by God 60

different times. The idea of repentance and the

and and and repentance itself is mentioned 60 different times in

the New Testament. Well, we'll highlight just a

couple of those tonight. Andrew, if you can read Matthew

3, one and two, if you'd turn over there for me.

And Alex, since you have it on the other side, let's, let's

have you read Luke 13 three. Somebody in this row want to

read Acts 1730. Nobody, Doc, you want to read

it? Acts 1730 and then let's see

here, the next one we'll get to somebody in this world want to

read Ephesians 2. All right, brother Paul,

Ephesians 2, eight through 10. We'll get there in just a

minute. All right, so repentance is

commanded by God 60 different times.

It's mentioned in the New Testament.

It was preached by John the Baptist and the Bible says this

in Matthew chapter 3 verse one and two in those.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Days, John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of

Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at

hand. All right, so we have the red

mic on this side. We have the what colored mic do

you have the blue mic on this side?

And and John the Baptist preached it.

Christ preached it. Luke chapter 13, verse 3.

Luke 13:3

I tell you your name. But except ye repent, ye shall

all likewise perish. Except ye repent, ye shall all

likewise perish. Peter preached it.

Paul preached it. Acts chapter 17, verse thirty.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

There we go, there we go. Acts 1730 In the times of this

ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to

repent. OK, so Christ preached

repentance and now here we're giving very, very plainly that

this is a command to repent. So if repentance is commanded

and it's mentioned 60 different times and it was preached by not

only Christ himself, but Peter, Paul, and and many others in the

New Testament. If they are, if it's commanded,

then we better understand what repentance is, right?

If it's commanded for salvation, then we better know what

repentance is. And obviously then Paul preached

repentance and faith. So we know that there are two

different things and both of them are necessary for

salvation. So what is repentance not?

All right, That's that's an important question.

What what what is not repentance or it it's not the the better

way to ask it, even though it sounds awkward, is what is

repentance not? And here's a few things that

repentance is not. Repentance is not reformation or

changing your life. There's a lot of people who are

in that spot and some of some of you who I've talked to fairly

recently about your own salvation, you're having

questions about it. And a lot of it is it comes down

to that. Well, I, I, I, I saw some

changes in my life. Well, so did, so did the guy who

went to Alcoholics Anonymous, right?

And now he's been alcohol free for three years and he's

celebrating his recovery. And it's great.

It's, it's, it's a wonderful thing for somebody to be in

recovery and not not drinking alcohol.

But did that guy get saved because he changed and stopped

drinking? All right, what, what about

somebody who is, you know, addicted to who knows what

pornography or, you know, drugs or whatever else?

And they they get free from that because they went through a 12

step program, right? Does that, does that mean that

that guy is now saved because he saw some changes in his life?

No, and that's exactly now there should be evidence of salvation.

But just because there is a change or a reformation does not

mean that there was salvation. Salvation is not of human works.

Works follow salvation as the effect of what happens in

somebody's life, but works change does not mean that you

got saved at Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

These are these are pretty familiar verses to you, but

Ephesians chapter 2, verse eight through 10.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of

yourselves. It is the guilt of God, not of

works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Which God? Prepared beforehand that we

shall walk in them. OK, so that's the the point here

is that we're not saved by our works, but we are saved from,

you know, from our our wicked works and everything else.

So works follow salvation as the effect or the fruit or the OR

the product of that. For by grace are you saved

through faith and that not of yourselves.

It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should

boast, right? For we are his workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

Now doesn't mean that we have to have good works in order to be

saved, but we should have good works because we've been saved.

There should be evidence of that salvation in your life.

So the life changing part of salvation is God's part.

It's not our part, but it should change your life.

Repentance though, is not just changing your life.

Repentance also is not doing penance.

A lot of Catholic Bibles translate repentance as

dependence, by the way. That's why it's so important

that you have the right version of the Bible too, right?

It changes things. We did that the other night, and

you saw the difference in how doctrine is changed when you

have different versions of the Bible, right?

You read in a Catholic Bible that it says dependence.

That's very different. That's very different than

repentance right now commandeth all men.

And I don't, I can't say that the Catholic Bible says this,

but I'm just, I'm just putting this in the place because it

does say that right now commandeth all men everywhere to

do penance. Well, that's all works, right?

And, and basically what they're saying is that repentance is

works and repentance is not works.

And so we're saying repentance is not just doing penance.

That involves confession to a priest, contrition, absolution,

which is a priest for giving you of your sins satisfaction.

Catholic penance is works, salvation, which the Bible, as

we just read in Ephesians chapter 2 very clearly condemns

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

not of works, lest any man should boast, right.

I was, I was in, I spent a month in Mexico City in 2006 and I

went to one of the largest basilicas in Mexico City, huge,

huge, huge Catholic Church. And not only was the, the church

itself just a massive, massive buildings.

I mean, that the ceiling was so high in there and it was just, I

mean, opulent. Everything was just, it was, it

was very beautiful. But out there outside the doors

of the church was a huge courtyard.

And, and when I say huge courtyard, I'm talking about

like as big as all of this property.

And, and, and really, if somebody was standing on the

other side of the property, I mean, they're this tall.

That's how big is it was all concrete and like little stones

and things like that. And what really stuck out to me

is that there was people that were actually walking on their

knees across the middle of that courtyard and, and, and, and

several of them had bloody knees from, from, you know, walking

across the courtyard on their knees.

And of course, I knew what that was and I didn't have to ask,

but we got to talking about it a little bit.

And, and that's exactly what is it's penance.

Oh, you got to do something to be able to pay for your sins,

right? So go, you know what, what the,

what the Catholic priest will tell you is, you know, go do 10

Hail Marys and light a candle and that, that, that should take

care of it, right? Or, you know, if you've, if you

really feel like you've sinned and you want to do something to

take care of that, then, you know, do something different.

But there's, there's all kinds of sects of the Catholic Church

that have different things that they say that, you know, that,

that, that, you know, obviously there's monasteries where, where

they have vows of silence, where they just, they don't speak

because they're, they're trying to punish themselves for

something they did in their past life.

And you know, they, they, they, and this is, I mean, you know,

walking up the steps on your knees and whipping yourself

while you're doing it. You know, it's all things that I

can do to pay for my sins. Those are all works, right?

And that's not repentance. Repentance is not doing penance.

Repentance is not just remorse for your wrong actions.

I do want to read this for us. If somebody can.

Let's let's find somebody on this side.

Second Corinthians Chapter 7 and verse #10 for the mat.

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

All right, let's get the microphone to him.

And we're not going to read it yet, but just go ahead and turn

there. Somebody on the 3rd row with

Frank, You want to read, let's read First Samuel 1524 when we

get there. So this is this is important

too, all right, because we have to understand that repentance is

not just being sorry or, or, you know, remorse.

And so the Bible tells us that men can be remorseful about

their actions without actually exhibiting A genuine repentance.

And it sounds like a slight difference and it may be a

slight difference, but it's it's very pronounced difference

because Second Corinthians actually go ahead and read 2nd

Corinthians 710. Second Corinthians 710 for godly

sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented

of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death, the sorrow of the

world. That is remorse, right?

Sometimes it's sorry that you got caught.

Sometimes it's sorry that you made somebody else feel bad.

Sometimes it's sorry that you ruined somebody else's life

because of your actions or whatever else.

That's very different right there.

There are people who are sitting in death row who are sorry that

they killed people. Some of them are not, but

there's some of them who are and they've come to the point where

they say, man, I can't believe that I was in that mindset where

I would actually just go kill somebody.

I can't believe I did that. I feel so bad for the family.

I feel so sick for my actions. I'm so, I'm so sorry that those

people had to go through that, right?

Does that does that mean that that guy saved because he's

sorry for his actions? No, because it's not just

remorse. It's not just being sorry for

your actions. That's the sorrow of the world.

And the Bible says the sorrow of the world worketh death.

So there are examples of this in the Old Testament.

There's example in the New Testament even.

But King Saul is a perfect example in the Old Testament.

He was sorry that he got caught, but he didn't demonstrate true

repentance. His actions didn't change.

First Samuel chapter 15 and verse 24.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have

transgressed the commandment of the Lord in thy words, because I

feared the people and obeyed their voice.

OK, but then what it said, What did Saul do right after that?

You remember Charlie sinned again?

Yes, but I'm saying like it's part of that whole story.

What happened? Anybody remember?

Yeah, honor me, right? I've sinned.

I'm sorry, but don't make me look bad in front of the people,

right? Don't, don't, don't let them

know that I know that I sinned, right?

That's that's not repentance, right?

If somebody, if you are truly sorry for your sin, you realize

who you are before God and you know that your sin is what is

sending you to hell. And you're not saying I know, I

know I've done wrong, but but just don't tell anybody else.

No, I mean you see, like John Newton and and Isaac Watts and

and and the things that they wrote in the songs that would he

devote that sacred head for such a worm as I right.

That's that's what repentance brings you to not I know I did

wrong, but but still make me look good in front of everybody

else, right. That's not repentance.

That's just being sorry for your wrong actions.

We have other examples. Judas is one right.

Judas was so sorry for what he had done, or so remorseful over

what he had done, that he actually went out and hung

himself, right? Was Judas saved?

No, he wasn't saved. He was sorry for his actions,

but that was just remorse. It was just regret for his

actions. Same thing with the the prodigal

son. We see a big difference in him

though, right? He realized that his actions

brought him to the point where he was, but he did something

about it. It brought him to the point of

getting those things right. He he wasn't just remorseful

about how he had lived and and because of the consequences that

now he's sitting in a hog through, you know, eating with

the swine and, you know, no money left and everything else.

He came to the place where he acknowledged first and foremost,

he said, I have sinned against thee.

And that's exactly the point that we have to come to.

We'll talk a little bit more about that in a little in a

little bit. Excuse me, but repentance is not

reformation. Repentance is not penance.

Repentance is not remorse for wrong actions.

Repentance is not just believing in Christ.

And there's a there's a, there's a faction out there that say

that repentance is just synonymous with believing and

that whole group of people is sending people to hell.

It's not just belief, right? I can believe that there was a

Jesus. I can believe that he did die in

the cross. I can believe that he did rise

again from the dead. And that's no different than me

believing in George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or the

Declaration of Independence OR the Founding Fathers or any,

anything. I mean, I can believe any story

from history. I can believe the flood, right?

I can believe different things, you know, different stories that

I've heard. I wasn't there when it happened.

So just believing his story is different than repentance,

right? It's not just believing in

Christ. And there's and again, a well

known fundamental Baptist preacher defined it as turning

from unbelief to belief. But if that's true, then why

did? And this is an important part

here. The Bible's preachers would not

have preached repentance in addition to faith.

If all it is is turning from unbelief to belief, then there

would be a huge number of people in this world, especially in

America, who are saved, right? Think about how many people

identify with Christianity. Think about how many people, if

you were to ask them, say that they're a Christian.

Think about how many people, when you ask them, say they

believe in Jesus. There's a huge, huge part of the

world that believes in Jesus, right?

Especially in America. I mean, that would probably be

75% of people in America would be saved.

That number is probably getting a little bit lower than it used

to be. Maybe not 75, but still a high

percentage of people who would say that they believe the story,

right? That's why they go to church on

Christmas and Easter, because they believe the story, right?

Does that mean that all of those are saved?

Well, there's a reason that the Bible says broad is the way that

leadeth to destruction. And many there be which go in

there at straight is the gate and narrow is the way that

leadeth to life. And few there be that find it

Few there be that find it because it's not just a change

from unbelief to belief. And and what's happened is

that's given rise to a very, very dangerous philosophy of

what's called quick prayerism. 123 Pray after me.

You're saved. You're on your way to heaven.

Don't you ever let anybody else tell you you're not you've

accepted Christ as your savior. Now you're going to heaven,

right? That's that's a very, very

dangerous philosophy. And if you haven't seen it yet,

we just brother Spencer Smith just produced a video called

Disclosure and it goes back and exposes that exact philosophy.

So many people, so many people that have prayed at prayer that

have no idea what repentance is, that have no idea what salvation

is. And what happens with the people

who are genuinely seeking is 5/10/15 years down the road,

they still don't know if they're, they're saved.

They're trying to act like a Christian, they're trying to

live like a Christian, they're trying to do Christian things,

but they've never been saved. And so they're so frustrated in

their life. They're so confused because they

don't know what happened to them, right.

And it's because of that. Pray this prayer you want, do

you want to go to heaven, don't you?

Well, of course I do. All right.

Well, hey, God's made that way to heaven.

Very simple. Jesus died on the cross to pay

for your sins. And not only that, but they put

him in a grave and he rose again three days later.

You believe that, don't you? Well, of course I do.

Well, all the Bible says is that you have to accept Christ as

your Savior. Just confess with your mouth and

believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead and

thou shalt be saved. You want to go to heaven, don't

you? Yes.

All right. Well, here's all you got to say.

You can repeat after me. I'll.

I'll tell you what to say. Repeat these words.

OK? Did you mean that in your heart?

Yes, I meant that in my heart. OK, well, you're saved, you're

on your way to heaven, and I can in 3 minutes lead somebody to

Christ and they can walk away as as unsaved as they were 5

minutes before you got there because they have no idea what

they just did. Turning from unbelief to belief

is not salvation. It's part of it.

It's part of it because faith is a necessary part of salvation,

but it's repentance and faith. And and that's why we're saying

it's not just believing in Christ.

And I'll tell you what what happens.

And I've seen this, I've seen it with my own eyes, these big

churches that that that promote this.

It's always been called easy believism.

I don't like the term easy believism because it is easy to

believe. It's quick prayer ISM if I can

get you to pray this prayer real quick, right?

And and what they try to do is they try to trick the person

into it's almost like a like a like like I'm a salesman and if

I can trick you into buying salvation, then I can mark that

down as a as another number. And and one of the most

dangerous things that was ever done is, is soul winning

contests. How many people did you lead to

Christ? Oh, you won.

You get this prize for leading the most people to Christ.

What do you think's going to happen?

Right? Do you think it's going to be a

genuine salvation? Do you think that people are

going to be careful and make sure that people understand it

before they just lead them in this prayer?

No, they want to mark them down as a number, throw them in the

tank and get them baptized and move on to the next one.

Because I'm trying to win a prize here, right?

That's why it's so dangerous to do those kind of things.

But we have to understand that repentance is not just believing

in Christ. The reason why verses like John

316 and Acts 1631 don't mention repentance is that true saving

faith includes repentance, and true repentance includes faith.

Repentance and faith are sometimes spoken of in Scripture

as, as being both necessary for salvation.

And, and, and that's one of the one of the biggest arguments

that these quick prayer ISM philosophies or, or repentance

is just turning from unbelief to belief.

Well, you read out, you read through the entire book of John

and not one time does the word repentance mentioned in the book

of, of John. No, it's not.

But you know what? There's more than one book in

the Bible, right? John is not the only book in the

Bible. And every one of them, Matthew,

Mark, Luke and John all had a different focus.

They all had different things that they were focusing on.

And John's aspect was the idea of faith.

Well, you didn't mention that sixty other times in the New

Testament, repentance is mentioned while you just single

out the book of John and say, well, you know, John 316, the

most well known verse in the Bible that talks, that gives us

the gospel, that entire book doesn't even mention repentance.

No, but a lot of the other books do and they're mentioned

together with faith. So it's it's not just believing

in Christ. It's not just having this faith.

Turn over to Matthew, Chapter 7. I just, I just mentioned this

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

verse, but I want you to see this because this may be a good

place for you to write it down. And I'm going to end, I'm going

to end with this section here so it doesn't get too late.

But Matthew Chapter 7 and verse #13 enter ye in this is, this is

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

And obviously the the whole focus of the Sermon on the Mount

was the heart, right? You have heard that it has been

said you have to do this. But I'm telling you what's in

the heart, right? And we see that many, many

times. But he says in verse #13 enter

ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate, and broad

is the way that leadeth to destruction.

And many there be which go in there at because straight is the

gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few

there be that find it. Verse 15 Beware of false

prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly

they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their

fruits. Verse 21 Not everyone that saith

unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but

he that do at the will of my Father, which is in heaven.

Now when you think about this, OK, if you're saying Lord, Lord,

do you think you believe in Jesus?

Yeah, you're even calling on him.

Lord, Lord, Lord, right. Not everybody that saith, not

everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the

Kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father,

which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day.

Many will say to me in that day. You think about this, a huge

percentage of the so-called Christians in America are not

saved. I think even in a lot of good

churches, independent Baptist churches, I think that a lot of

the people that are sitting in the pews are not safe because

they've been LED there by a quick prayer.

They've been LED there by somebody who was just trying to

to lead somebody to Christ so they could say they led somebody

to Christ. And I'm listen, I'm saying we

ought to be well, that ought to make us want to evangelize more,

not less. I'm not, I'm not giving us a

pass. I'm saying we ought to do more

when it comes to evangelism. And we, we have to be more

thorough when it comes to evangelism.

But he says many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, that's

obvious belief. Lord, Lord, have we not

prophesied in thy name? That's believing him for more

than what most people would believe him for, right?

Prophesying in his name and in thy name have cast out devils,

man, When's the last time you tried to cast out devils in the

name of Jesus, right? That that's, that's somebody

who's on a, on a, on another level when it comes to believing

in what Christ can do. So here they're prophesying in

his name, here they're casting out devils in thy name.

Done many wonderful works. This is somebody who's doing it

all in the name of Jesus. Do you think they believe in

Jesus Absolutely. They believe in Jesus because

we're doing all of this in your name.

And then while I profess unto them, I never knew you depart

from me ye that work iniquity. And that's why I say what, what

what's happening in in a lot of places is that people are

believing in Christ and praying a prayer and being pronounced

saved. And they've never come to

repentance in Christ. And then they start doing

Christian things. They start getting involved in

church. They start getting involved in

the ministries. They start looking and acting

and dressing like a Christian because this is what they're

being told they need to do. And they start going to church

every week and they start carrying their Bible and they

start doing all the things that Christians should do.

But they're not saved to the point where they are even up in

the front leading people in prophesying in Jesus name and

casting out devils and doing all of these wonderful works in

Jesus name. He's going to say, I don't even

know who you are. Depart from me, you cursed.

Imagine how difficult that's going to be for those people who

think that they're saved because there's a belief in Christ.

Or I'm telling you, this is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous

thing about what's happening right now.

I think it's great, you know, Charlie Kurt, I believe that he

was a Christian and I believe that he, he genuinely preached,

if you, if you want to call it that, the gospel, right?

But what's happening is this return to church is not, it's

not, it's not Christianity, it's not, it's not salvation.

And what's happening is they're returning to these churches who

are so weak on this that they're not getting the genuine gospel.

And they're returning to an emotionalism and they're

returning to and, and they have a desire.

They have a desire, but they're not being LED.

They're being LED in a wrong direction.

And many of these people are going to make a false profession

of faith. And they might even turn their

life around. They might even start doing

different things with their life.

They might even start, you know, becoming conservatives and all,

who knows what else, right? And I've seen so many posts in

the last, the last week or so. I haven't read my Bible in 10

years, but I read my Bible today and I went to church today and

I've even, I'm even getting baptized today.

That's not salvation. It's not salvation.

It's a desire, but it's not salvation.

And they're being LED in a wrong direction by so many of these

churches who are preaching faith.

And that's it. It's repentance and faith and

repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation.

That's why many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we

not prophesied in thy name and a nine name cast out devils and a

nine name done many wonderful works and then while I profess

into them. I never knew you depart from me

ye that work iniquity. You never repented, never

repented as part of your faith. And there's so many other verses

if you look at page 12 the top of page 12 there.

And this might be a good little study for you to do I we just

don't have time to read through all these verses tonight.

But salvation is referred to as coming to repentance with no

mention of faith. OK, well, what about John?

John doesn't mention repentance at all.

OK, well here's a whole list. Matthew 913, Matthew 1120 and

21. Matthew 2132, Mark 14, Mark 217,

Mark 612, Luke 15, Seven. Luke 2447, Acts 238, Three

Nineteen 53111182620 Second Corinthians 710, First

Thessalonians 19, Second Timothy 225, Second Peter 39.

All of those are passages that mention repentance without

mentioning faith. So what about that?

What about somebody who says it's all about repentance and

there's no faith involved, right?

Well, you could easily say that because if you're going to use

that argument that repentance is not mentioned in John and it's

all about faith, then what about all these that only mention

repentance and not faith? Would you agree with the person

who says that? Well, no, because it's faith.

OK, Well, you have to agree that it's repentance and faith

because both of them are all the way throughout the New

Testament. You've got to have both other

passages like John 316, Acts 1631, salvation is referred to

as believing and repentance is not mentioned.

But this is, and this is one of the things that we're going to

learn as we get through this later on.

Part of studying the Scripture is comparing Scripture with

Scripture, right? Peter said, repent and be

baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the

remission of sins. Very clearly Peter's preaching

that you have to be baptized in order to be saved, right?

Well, no, if you take that verse, yes, but you have to take

that verse in context of the passage.

You have to take the passage in context of the book and you have

to take the book in context of the entire Bible.

And you compare Scripture with Scripture.

Scripture doesn't, doesn't, doesn't comprehend is not the

word. I'm trying to think of what is

it contradict? It doesn't contradict itself,

right? So compare Scripture with

Scripture. What does the Bible say about

the Bible? What does the Bible say about

this passage, right? That's a principle of studying

God's Word. And you have to do that.

If you isolate Scripture, then you can make it say anything you

want to say. And that's why you come up with

all these weird doctrines, right?

That's why you come up with all the doctrines that separate the

denominations because they took one verse, they took it out of

context. They made it say something that

it was never meant to say because they didn't look at it

in the context of that passage, and they didn't look at it in

the context of the rest of the Bible, and they came up with

this doctrine that separated them out.

So the true meaning of faith, this is important here.

This is your your second paragraph on page 12.

The first full paragraph, the true meaning of faith must be

explained and emphasized. The common way that faith or

belief is defined by people today involves a mere mental

consent to something such as I believe that George Washington

was America's first president, or I believe that Jesus was the

Son of God and came to die on the cross.

That's not what the Bible means by saving faith.

Saving faith is a faith that issues from a heart that's

convinced of its own fallen condition and has stopped making

excuses and hiding in self righteousness.

Saving faith issues from a heart that is convinced that Christ is

the only Lord and Savior and that reaches out to Christ in

personal trust. Saving faith issues from a

surrendered heart, which is the very essence of repentance.

That alone and that, that and that alone is saving faith.

And when we're dealing with people's souls, we must be

careful to explain the meaning of the terms of the gospel as

opposed to hastily running through some little Romans Rd.

plan and then trying to get the person to pray a sinner's prayer

before he knows what he's doing. And I'm telling you, if you

haven't been involved in this, and then maybe you don't know

exactly what I'm talking about, but there's a lot of people who

are trying to convince somebody to be saved and convince them to

pray this little prayer so they can go to heaven before they

even know what is happening. I've seen it with my own eyes.

I remember this like it was yesterday.

I was in college and this was 20 years ago, 25 years ago probably

by now. And we're walking down the

street and, and, and we were, we were visiting some kids on our

bus route and we were out. It was decent.

It was, it was spring and we're walking down the street and we

were knocking doors. We were talking to people and

trying to invite them to church and, you know, where you have

the opportunity to try to give them the gospel.

But there was a park that we always used to play basketball

in. A bunch of the neighborhood kids

would go down there and play basketball.

And so we'd go play with them and then, you know, try to get

them to ride the bus with us on Sunday.

And we were kind of making our way down toward the park,

knocking doors on the street. And we saw the kids playing

basketball. And there was a was an older guy

that was, if I had to guess, he was probably late 50s, early

60s, sitting on a little park bench right there and a church

that was in that area. Whenever they would have a big

push for a couple weeks, they would go into the same area that

we would visit every week. And they would just try to get

as many of those kids to come as possible.

And then they had their soul winning contest.

And so all the teenagers were out there trying to win souls to

Christ because they were in a contest and they were trying to

see how many people they could win.

And this kid, I would say that he was early teens, walked up to

this guy who was sitting on the park bench.

And I'm, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating.

Within 3 minutes, we saw this guy bow his head and this kid

gave him a little piece of paper.

I'm not exactly even sure what it was.

And he walked away. So we went up, I was, I was

actually with Pastor Whitaker. We were visiting together that

day. And we went up to this guy and,

and said, Hey, what, what was that all about?

What, what, what was that? And we, we had an idea.

And he said, I just got saved. And Pastor Whitaker said, you

just got saved. That's great.

He said so. So do you know what repentance

is? Guy didn't have any idea what he

was talking about. He said, well, let me ask you

this. He said, do you drink?

Well, yeah. He said, so you're, you're

you're ready to give that up for the sake of, of, of, of

following Christ. Well, no, I can't give up my

drinking. And he asked him a couple other

things. And this guy, well, no, no, I

can't do that. I mean, that that's, that's been

a part of my life, my whole life.

Can't do that. Pastor Whitaker looked at the

guy and he said you didn't get saved.

And, and that's what they need is somebody to tell them that if

you're not willing, now you don't have to stop sinning in

order to be saved. But repentance is being so sorry

that you're willing and ready to stop and you're asking God to

help you stop. Something ought to be different

about you when you accept Christ as your Savior.

And it takes longer than 3 minutes to share the gospel with

somebody where they can understand it and where they

know exactly what repentance and faith is.

And, and it, it takes many times, it takes more than an

hour to get somebody to understand you're a Sinner and

your sin is what is sending you to hell.

And if you didn't sin, Christ never would have had to die.

If you didn't sin there, there would be no need for him to die

in the cross. It's your sin that that is

causing you to need salvation. It's not just that you want to

go to heaven. I mean, heaven is a wonderful

byproduct of salvation. That's just, that's just one of

the wonderful things that you get when you accept Christ as

your Savior. The most amazing thing about

salvation is that your sins are forgiven and that you don't have

to live under the bondage of that sin anymore.

That's the wonderful thing about salvation.

And yet how many people say, do you want to go to heaven when

you die? Then here's what you need to do.

Believe in Christ, pray this prayer, and you can go to heaven

when you die. It's like you're trying to sell

them a wonderful insurance policy or a nice vacation or

something, right? It's no different.

They have to come to the understanding that their sin is

horrific before a holy God and that without their sin there

would be no need for a Savior. I'm not just trying to sell them

heaven, not just trying to scare them to stay out of hell.

What they have to understand and what what we all must understand

is that my sin is horrific before a holy God and something

has to be done about that sin. That's where we start to get

into the idea of what repentance is.

So we'll save it for next week. We talked about what it's not

repentance is not reformation, it's not changing your life,

it's not doing penance, it's not remorse for your wrong actions.

It's not just believing in Christ.

So what is it? What is it?

We'll talk about that next week. All right, let's pray.

We'll end with that tonight. We'll be finished.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

We thank you for an opportunity we've had to study through some

of these things. And I got, I pray that this

study would be helpful to us. I pray that you'd help us as we

go through it, that we'd understand it, especially when

it comes to this idea of repentance and faith.

I pray that you'd help us to to be to be very, very concerned

about genuine conversions, genuine salvation, not just

getting somebody to pray a prayer, not just getting

somebody to the point where they're willing to mentally

ascent or maybe even the sorrow of the world where they're sorry

for the things that they've done.

Got to pray that you'd help us to get people to genuine

repentance and that we'd understand this so that we can

lead more people to Christ. Got to thank you that you died

on the cross to save me from my sins.

And I know that there's many other people in the room here

tonight that would say the the very same thing.

We're thankful for that. God.

May you help us to be better witnesses for you because of it.

Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.