All right, well, welcome back to our study of the book of Romans. We are in lesson 10 today, which is justification by grace through faith. That is how it's always been. And this is part two because we're in Romans chapter four, verses one to eight. There's a movie that came out this past summer called 13 Lives. And this movie is a dramatization of some events that occurred in the nation of Thailand a few years ago. And in this movie, produced and directed by Ron Howard, the scene is this. There are 12 boys on a soccer team and their coach who decide to go on a little excursion. And they're going to go to a local cave, which is for tourists. But think of a large cave that has many, many miles of corridors. And on this day, they get there, they get into the cave, it's in late afternoon, and they start to explore the cave. But unseasonably, a monsoon-type rain occurred that afternoon, a couple of, a week or so to 10 days earlier than the expected monsoon rains. It was so inundating that the essential thing was they were cut off and presumed lost. At that point, many, many people from all over Thailand and across the world began that task of trying to see if they could find the boys. Some 3,000 people eventually come to that cave place and attempt through different means to see if they can find them. The Thai Navy SEALs come on the scene and they do the best they can and they get out about a mile into the caves underwater in an effort to find the boys, but to no success. It was at that point in the story that some men are heard about who live in England who are expert cave divers and rescue divers. And they're volunteers. They don't take money for this, but this is what they do on the side. And so they're invited from England. They come to Thailand. And they join the adventure. And they get in. They look. They get out as far as they can. They get as far as the Thai Navy SEALs had gotten. They don't see the boys. They come back. There's obstructions. There's all kinds of things. There's currents. The rains are still continuing. It's crazy in there. Eventually, they go back out. And on the 10th day, they pop up. The two men from England pop up in this one sort of entrance and opening in the cave, only to find that some of the boys are still alive. In fact, as they start to number them, they realize every single one of them is alive. and their coach, so 13 lives. You're like, praise God! So they talk to the boys, they assure them that help will come, and then they leave. Now, I want to say this about, oh, they just swam in there, it was like 10 minutes. It was a seven hour round trip to swim to where the boys were, through caves where it was about this big at times. Incredible story. They get back out, They brought a video camera, they videotaped the boys, and when they get out, it goes all over the world. They found them! The boys are safe! But that's really only the beginning of the story, because these two divers who are rescue divers, and others know this, they're not coming out alive. We said, why? We'll just go in and get them. Yeah, seven-hour round trip to get there through arduous things. Two things occur that convince everyone that there's no way we're just taking those boys out with us. The first of them is there was a worker who was a little far into the cave, but a flood came. He was stranded. These two men from Britain went and got him. And it wasn't that far a swim, and he almost drowned, even using an apparatus. And then secondly, unfortunately, one of the Thai Navy SEALs lost his life attempting to support the boys. And so in that, it was realized three things. These boys, and you'll see where we're going with this today, these boys and this man cannot save themselves. That's the parallel to what we're talking about. They cannot save themselves. There's no way for them to just, let's do this. Number two, they can't be helped to be saved. No one could just simply swim in, give them a wetsuit and an aspirator and a thing, and we're just gonna go out of here. Why? Even a Navy SEAL had died attempting to do that. And these boys are not trained in any way, shape, or form. So what were they going to do? Well, the oxygen in the little cave area they were in began to diminish. So they only had a few days to live was what was decided. It was at that point, a man from Australia who was a doctor of anesthesiology and a friend of the two men from Britain joined the adventure. And so imagine this conversation if you haven't seen the movie. So this is what we think's left as our alternative. You help us anesthetize these boys and bring them out inert, completely asleep, completely done with a mask on. And we will float them out two and a half miles from their point to the front of the cave. That's the only hope. Well, the doctor said two things. That's illegal, and it's unethical. And I'm not going to do it. I signed an oath as a doctor. I'm not going to anesthetize. I'm going to kill these boys. And of course, the reality of the story is, they came down to, they only have a couple days to live. And so the decision was made, that was the only way to try it. And so the doctor, who also was a diver, went with them. And on that day, they began to anesthetize the boys. And one diver at a time would take them two and a half miles for about four hour trip to try to get them to the front of the cave. In God's goodness, all 13 of them came out alive. And it's not a miracle to Providence, but as far as humanly speaking, it looked like a miracle to have all 13 of them come out of there alive. So I see in that story, I remember when I saw the documentary a few years ago before the movie, I was crying. I was like, this is amazing. True story. Think about that in terms of our salvation. We've talked about swimming across the Pacific, but think of that story. We're the person in the cave, and how am I gonna get out of that with my sin? Well, I can't swim out myself, so I can't work myself, and there isn't any rites or religion or symbols that they can put on me that will actually get me out of there. They can give me the symbol of baptism, if you will, they're gonna put the suit on me, but I still can't swim out. So the only thing they could do is knock me out to take me out of there. And that's the story of what happened to Abraham in Genesis 15. In Genesis 15, where he's accounted righteousness by his faith, God puts him to sleep, if you remember. He anesthetizes him. And then God makes the covenant, a blood covenant, in which God says, I will do these things. You're not doing squat. And Abraham was awoken, and it's counted to him for righteousness for what? Believing God was going to do something he couldn't do. It'd be like saying this. Do we give any merit to those boys for going to sleep and being pulled out of there? Or even at the end of the day, you say, but their faith saved them. No, you can't imagine any story in which you would say their faith saved them. And that's what we're talking about in Romans chapter four. Not even your faith saved you. It's the rescue diver who saved you and took you out of there. And so that's the beauty of where we are. So on page one, I want to refresh you. I have not done that, and I very seldom go back to say something, but I think we need to retrench Abraham for about five minutes. So page one is a retrench on last week. Abraham was justified by grace through faith before the law. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he swam out. He has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The swimmer's swimming is credited on his account as if he had swum out. So why is Abraham important? I mentioned 11 things last week. I'm not gonna reteach them, just simply to say them. His conversion is recorded in the book of Genesis, so Paul is making the point that justification by grace through faith was from the beginning. Secondly, the author of Genesis is Moses, so you get two birds with one stone. Moses knew about justification by grace through faith. How do we know that? He wrote about it. Number three, he was justified through faith before the law. That is Abraham. He was a Jewish hero. Number five, he had resurrection faith. He looked forward to the Redeemer. It says in the book of Hebrews and also in this passage that he believed that God would raise his son Isaac from the dead if necessary to fulfill the covenant. He was justified before he was circumcised. Ah. So it's not the symbol of baptism that saves us, it's only a symbol. It's not the symbol of circumcision. He was already saved before the symbol. He's the father of all who believe. He's both a Gentile and a Jew, if you look at it that way. Before we had Israel and the 12 tribes, we had Abraham as the progenitor of that line, but he himself was not quote-unquote Jewish. Argument of the greater to the lesser. If Abraham needed to be helped to swim out, just imagine us. The greatest swimmer on the beach. Abraham's the greatest character of the entire Old Testament, and he couldn't swim out of the cave. Just imagine how much more help we're gonna need to get out of there. And then 10 and 11, he was given the covenant. He was promised that God would get him out of there, and God would get his line out of there through the greatest swimmer who was ever gonna be. That was the Abrahamic promise. Abraham was promised a land, a seed, and a blessing, and that seed would be the swimmer who went into the cave and brought us out. Not Abraham. And the way Abraham is justified is through a blood covenant, just like the new covenant that we are under. We don't do anything. All the bleeding, all the dying is done on our behalf. We believe, and God takes us out. So how was he justified? Same way as we are. It's by grace, so he couldn't boast. It was through faith, he believed, and righteousness was imputed to him. That is, it was credited to his account as if he himself had done it. All right? Page two. So glad you're here today. So page two is now, we have not looked at verses four and five, and it is about us now. We, during this age, we are justified by grace through faith after the time of the law. Now, to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. This chapter has justification is mentioned three times. Grace is just mentioned once, though the principle of grace is mentioned three times. And then credited is mentioned like 12 times in some form or another. Amazing. And then faith is mentioned almost as many times. To do the outline of this chapter and to sound different every time you do the next three verses, really hard. Now it's going to be super important guys to listen because this could be so different. Everybody is justified by grace through faith. Before the law, during the law, after the law. But nevertheless, here's the beauty. How are we justified according to these two verses? Paul points out that your salary at work is not because of a favor from your employer, nor is it given simply as a gift, but rather it's a contractual obligation due from your employer. That's verse four. Now to the one who works, you go to your job. His wage is not credited as a favor. No, no, no, no. But as what is due. The way people in Christian churches that preach the gospel, people who attend gospel preaching churches, the way that those people go to hell is to believe that they are adding to Jesus's work. They think that they're going to work for the Lord through their faith or through their life. And that somehow the merit of some of that is what God expected and needed to add to the whole value system. Now, if you're a true Christian in here and you've truly trusted in Christ as your Savior, and you're like, I know I'm born again. I know I'm going to heaven. I am assured of that. And you're living in that assurance. Like today, you're walking in the room going, I know that. Then for you, it might be inconceivable that others in this very room or in this church would be thinking differently. But my friends, not only do I know that in the last four weeks of being a pastor here and talking to some, in every church I've served in in 38 years, very similar gospel preaching, very similar doctrinal statement. We're Calvinist, we're dispensationalist, we're all the things we are here. We're cessationist, we're complementarian. But there are people in that church who do not know for sure that they are Christians. Their assurance is questioned. And they're professing Christians. And then there are those there who think that Jesus saved them to work out their salvation. The very passage that Pastor Gabe is preaching on this morning. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He's going to talk about that today in that combo platter. Work hard at your, not salvation, but work out what is already in. Live the Christian life, but it's not you alone doing it, right? But Christians get confused, and in a few minutes, really the bulk of what I want to say to you today, in a few minutes is to talk about that misunderstanding that leads to complications for Christians within our movement. So what is it? If you're working, in any way, even if you're earning a dollar in your mind, or you believed in Jesus, now you have to put money in the bank for that to continue, then you're in verse four. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due. But then my next paragraph there simply says this. We have already seen that Abraham was justified by grace, so he had nothing to boast about before God. Pardon me. If we could earn our justification, then God would be obligated to us, is what the passage is saying. But God is no man's debtor. So Romans 4.4 is simply saying that. Any attempt for work by us or anyone else is to put God in our obligation. And Paul's like, cannot do, my friend. Here's just a couple of verses that I've put, Job 41.11. Who has given to me that I should repay him? There you go. Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. I'm not asking anybody for anything that I need because it's already mine. But if I just give my life to the Lord, I made you. I could make children of Abraham out of rocks. Don't need any more people. And then, of course, The only wages we are earning from God are the wages of sin. Right? Romans 6, 23. For the wages of sin, we're getting those, is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the beauty. So again, you cannot work, my friend. Nor can your neighbor, nor could any of those people. And if they try to put God in obligation, That is, I'm working, I'm obeying the commandments, I'm doing church, I'm doing religion. God is not your debtor, and you are piling up wages of sin. Number two, it's by faith. It's always been by faith. We do not work, it's a gift. It's a gift. Now the beauty of this passage, it allows me to belabor that point. Verse five, but to the one who does not work. Obviously, this is not calling for us to be lazy. It's not talking about your physical work. It's a metaphor. But to the one who's in the cave who doesn't even try to swim out, the one who realizes, I cannot save myself, the one who doesn't say when the rescue diver shows up, hey, let me help you out of here, or I'll swim with you, to the one who doesn't do anything and acknowledges their desperate plight, I cannot save myself. I cannot help myself. Then it has to be a gift. And if you're a Christian of any length of time, you've heard a million illustrations about gifts, right? It's a gift, it's a gift. That's okay, I'm gonna say it again. At Christmas, when you receive a gift, hopefully you don't jump up and say, earned it! Right? You know, you chortle, that was good. Finally, you guys gave me what I deserved. Right, it's a gift. So it's an act of faith to stop trying to work. Let me stop there, right? Verse before it is, hey man, if you're trying to work, you're trying to make God an obligation to you. So for the one who doesn't work, it's not just letting go and letting God, it is, in salvation. But it is clearly the act of faith begins with determining you can't do this. By putting away a math equation, we've been living with a ledger thinking, I'm pretty good, and I've got dots over here that prove it, and God owes me that. The first step, if you will, as we're going to talk about, is acknowledging none of those things count on that side of the ledger. And in fact, the whole system is broken. When you get to that point, you begin to see that you can be saved. So God works, or good works cannot save us. Everyone knows Ephesians 2, 8, 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Hey, if you're a Christian here today, you've embraced that, and that's a beautiful thing for you. If you're a person here today who's still religious, and you're attempting to save yourself somehow, just reach out and receive the gift. But don't I have to do something? But I'm sure there's a lot, I gotta, but don't I have to kinda, no, you still don't get it then. But isn't God gonna be more pleased if I were to, no? No, not really. And we're going to get to that in just a second. Titus chapter 3 then, but when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, that is Christ coming to die for us, he saved us not on the basis of deeds which we had done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration. and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Christ Jesus, or Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Paul's consistent message across all of his books. We're saved by grace, through faith, and not of ourselves, and it is credited to us as righteousness. Well, my next point is a quick point. But it's probably the most important thing I'm gonna say today. God only saves one kind of person, the ungodly. Verse five, but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. This is where people get off. See, Pharisees don't believe that they're in that category. The reason Pharisees couldn't be saved among jealousy and all the other things is their intrinsic belief that they're better than others, and they're not in the category of sinners that other people are in. And therefore, they're not ungodly, and they want a religion in which God saves good people. But that's not possible, because there are no good people. So it's a false religion. Guys, he only saves one kind of person. Have you come to the place where you realize that you are qualified for this? That Puritan quote of the only thing you contributed to your salvation was your sins. So I'm going to belabor this one more time. Do you realize that Christ saved you because you were ungodly and that you could not save yourself and that you could not swim out, but you yourself were an enemy of his? If you did and you trusted in him, you've got it, but it is very possible for someone to believe that he saves good people. and that is not true. So on a life I never lived and on a death I never died, I stake my whole eternity. Well, we're done today, God bless you, have a great day. All right, at the bottom of page two, I'm gonna say something because I'm gonna say it again on the next page, but the bottom of page two is really the introduction to the heart of what I wanna speak about in this chapter. You see, Paul has made it really clear, we're saved by faith. But what about repentance? And what about all the evangelical obediences? And what about the means of grace? And what about all those conversations? Here's my pastoral concern, which I've seen over years and years of being a pastor and a friend. And I should say this before I even dive into just the word, you can read the words. I think of times, one brother in the Lord in California where, professing Christian, living apparently a godly life, has a wonderful family, attends church, is a small group leader, is doing good works. Everyone would have thought this young man, young to me, in his 30s was perfectly fine. But he was eaten up every single day with this question, or this point, I don't know that I'm really a Christian. Why? Why would he struggle with that? Now, people struggle with doubt. There's no one answer to that, okay? We all have had doubt, and some people struggle more with doubt than others. Doesn't mean you're not a Christian. But some people are eaten up with doubt. And they never get that type of joy and comfort and assurance that we see in Romans 8, where the Spirit has come to give us assurance that you are indeed our child of God. It's lagging in them, or it's this, and it's back and forth. And I've seen this so often as a Christian in others, and in particular as this man in my life. His thing was arranged around my words here. The growing number of Christians who are doubting their salvation, losing their assurance over a misunderstanding of repentance. Namely, repentance, its relationship to salvation, and to the evidence that you're going to get. Let's go to the next page. I'll describe the issue a little more because it's a little fuzzy, perhaps. As I just said on the other page, for emphasis, the growing number of Christians who are doubting their salvation, losing their assurance over a misunderstanding of repentance, namely, its relationship to salvation and its evidence. It's this. In the camp that we're in, and if you go, I didn't know I was in that camp, well, you're about to find out. The camp our church is in, the Master's Seminary world, John MacArthur, all of that world, In that camp of Christians and churches, there is a growing and an issue within assurance that comes with the lordship salvation package. Every theological position has an underbelly. If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, it's smog, the dragon has a little spot where he can shoot him. Every theological system, every good theological material has some underbelly in which there's dangers because it's written by men. Just like my teaching this morning. It is not going to be perfect, it will not be absolute. In a good system, which I think is a good system, this is a consistent problem that Christians have. And it is on two things. The preaching of the gospel and the assurance of faith. What is What is a person to preach or teach the gospel is? Must you come to believe and surrender to the lordship of Christ to be saved? Don't answer. Well, if you're a lordship salvationist, the answer is yes. And how can I be sure that I am saved? Let me go in. I'm going to quote Paul Washer here. He spoke yesterday. Some of you heard him speak at a men's conference down in Virginia. Paul Washer is pretty much known, if you know who he is, as a repentance preacher. That is, when he preaches, he's very much like, hey, I'm talking to you, right? His famous sermon. I'm talking to you, you need to repent, you need to do this, you need to do that. He's sober-minded, he preaches holiness. These are all good things in Paul. It's probably not the place you might think the quote I'm about to read would be, but he has the same concern I have, Pastor Orley, and let me read his quote. Paul Washer has noted that there's a growing number of people who are reacting against quote-unquote easy-believism by saying this. I am seeking God for months. even a year, and there's no genuine repentance. There's no faith. This is what the person says within that movement. It's as though they are seeking to brag and boast and point out that they're not like all those superficial Christians, or people, that they are completely different, and their testimony, for some reason, will be heightened because of all this. I would tell them that they have moved out of the context of evangelical Christianity. Exhibit two, a pastor's daughter that Carla and I counseled. Her thing, because she believed that she had to repent to be saved, and by the way, the word repentance, yes, defined properly, but because she believed repentance is, I must turn from my sins to be saved. If you believe that's what repentance is at the moment of salvation, then you must believe in the finished work of Christ and turn from your sins. And if you do that, you have been then taught within that system. Therefore, your life should demonstrate it that if you truly repented, you'll not do those things again or you didn't really repent. Because repentance in that definition is turning 180 from your sin and leaving your sin behind. Now that would be the full outcome of a really genuine repentance that eventually we all want to walk away from sins that we should not do. But is that required for salvation? To turn from your sins and walk away from them and commit to not do them anymore? If in that system, which this young lady believed was what she was asked to do at salvation, you then find later that you're not as obedient as you thought. that some of the sins you repented of, I hate smoking, you know, I hate this, or I loathe myself that I used to love this, but now I love Jesus. And a year later, you realize I'm still struggling with that sin. Well, in that gospel, you must then realize you're going to look back and say, I'm not truly saved because I didn't repent, because had I, and because I joined onto the real plan, I wouldn't be struggling with that. And he said, well, I wouldn't put that logic together. Well, there's a zillion people who do. And this young lady, for instance, was like, I'm probably not a Christian because I do these things and I struggle in my heart and I don't always love Jesus and all those things. And to watch her psychological breakdown, which indeed it was, but then God rebuilt her around what I would consider a much clearer understanding. the gospel. I say under this little box a few of the points I'm really making. If I keep sinning after I'm saved then I must have never repented. That's the point. How could I be a real Christian because I had to sign up to the Lordship of Christ to be saved. I meant that, but it's not working out too good. Did I really mean it? If that's the gospel So here's five terms that I've never heard anybody use, I just, I made them up. That's where you know this is not a good lesson, okay? You know, when Dave's making up words, it's probably not a good idea. Repentancism. Weird spelling, isn't it? Yeah. Contritionalism. Pledgism. Surrenderism. Vowism. This is the underside of our movement. Gospel preaching that obligates people to a contractual relationship with Jesus Christ before they are saved. I vow to be a good Christian. I'm gonna be a disciple. I'm all in. You are my Lord and I walk away from sin totally. Have fun with that gospel. The rest of your life, even if you truly came to Christ, you're gonna live in a great bondage. Somewhere between moralism and legalism, you're gonna live in that zone. Like, no, I'm gonna live holy. No, you're gonna doubt the goodness of God in saving you and question whether you truly are a Christian. Yes, ma'am. When I was first saved, I didn't know what holy was. That's right. No, that's the very point. She said when she first became a Christian, she didn't know what holiness was. It's God's effect in us. Now I'm gonna say some things, I'm not trying, in fact, what I'm about to say is not gonna try to balance things back to people who think I'm wrong. But you'll see there's a balance point, but it's balanced over here. Let me go to my next point. What we're seeing is an overemphasis on sanctification of fruit as the ground of your assurance. as opposed to the finished work of Christ. How do I know I'm truly a Christian? Now we're looking at the person who's professed, most certainly is a Christian perhaps, but struggles with assurance. How do I know? How can I feel more assured? Well, it's based on my fruit. We are going to have fruit. If you're truly born again, you've been promised to have fruit. You will have fruit. You know them by their fruit. I'm not talking about not having fruit. Is that where you get your assurance? Book of First John tells us there's 20 or so tests that a person could say whether they're in the faith or not. If you love the brothers, you love the word, you don't have a wrong doctrine, if you confess that you are a sinner, all those things are measures of weighing out, hey, these are some evidences that I'm truly a Christian. Oh, okay, then that's good. But the type of preaching that makes lordship the question of salvation often is brought along with the same thing is, and it's this line that kills. If he's not lord of all, he's not lord at all. That's the byword of lordship salvation. That's drawn specifically out of an individual's book in the movement. If he's not lord of all, he's not lord at all. Well, that's absurd. That's an extreme. That's false. You cannot live a Christian life in which that's the statement. If he's not Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. What about Romans chapter seven? Paul's saying of the things I want to do, and Paul wouldn't be a Christian. So back to it. My little statement here in the box to try to help you understand what I'm really trying to say, I hope. I acknowledge, this is Doyle, that repentance is necessary for salvation. Yes! Just as I also acknowledge that faith is necessary for salvation. Yes! It's the definition of the words that makes all the difference. Repentance means a change of mind, not turning from sin. Now, you do not have to go the 180 extreme from lordship to a thing called free grace. I'm not here today to teach the doctrines of those all the way out. You don't have to go 180 to say what I just said. I'm a five-point Calvinist. Some of you in the room are like, whatever, but you who are just in the room like, oh, theologically, I'm in the camp. I teach here. I love the word of God. I believe that there needs to be fruit in people's lives. You cannot truly be a Christian and have no fruit. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about how do you preach the gospel? What do you have to do to be saved? And how can I know that I am saved? The word repentance in the New Testament does not mean a turning from sin. A person who is repenting may very well turn from sin. It means to change your mind. One has to have a change of mind in order to be saved. Well, exactly. A change of mind about what? What you put in that theological content bucket under the word repentance is gonna determine how you preach the gospel. If repentance is you gotta feel bad, or you have to confess your discipleship, or you have to say up front, I'll follow you and do everything you say, Dude, go back to the cave. Those boys did not have to make a contractual obligation with those swimmers. That swimmer came there to save them no matter what their behavior, thoughts, whatever was, they could not get out of the cave. And you are totally depraved before you're a Christian. You're not getting out of any caves. You're not making any obligations that are going to work. You have to have a Savior. And so, It's a change of mind. It is not a turning from sin. But when I repent, that word itself, it just means turn from sin. No, it does not. A true change of mind towards Christ and the gospel accompanied by faith in the finished work of Christ will lead to a change in behavior after you are converted. So what is faith and repentance? How are they working? They're two sides of the same coin. We often say that. You must turn from something. Oh wait, turn? Why? Because a change of mind is a turning. But it's not a behavioral change. It's not a, I'm signing, okay, I'm gonna sign up for the big package of discipleship now. I'm in on that. But rather, I trusted in this. And now I am now trusting in Christ. I have turned from idols, for Thessalonians, to the living God. It is a change of disposition and belief about Jesus Christ and your sin, and a turning to the only one who can save you. The question in mind, too, is this. People who might agree and say, yes, that's what I mean by repentance. But what do they mean about that turning? They often preach what I call contritionalism. You have to feel bad. You have to be remorse for your sins. If you have not truly remorsed, you are not turning. We're going to talk about that in a second. So the paragraph at the bottom of page three. This is all about those who are overselling the amount of fruit needed for your assurance. Some people's emphasis on commitment and willingness regarding sanctification as a part of the gospel seems to undermine, in my estimation, sola fidei, faith alone. and sola gratia, grace alone. That is why we're talking about that today. If it's by grace alone, through faith alone, then emphasizing contrition or willingness to change or sincerity about giving up sinning looks and feels very much like faith plus something equals salvation. Now those, let's go to page four. Those in the quote unquote salvation lordship camp, you understand that we are, but those in that camp might say to me, oh, we're not saying that. Now I said a couple weeks ago that if I didn't quote Spurgeon, then I'm probably lost. This is the longest quote of Spurgeon I ever do in my Christian ministry. Now in my pagan ministry. This is a rather long quote, but I want you to see, and it is taken out of context because I want you also to know of Spurgeon, that Spurgeon would massage these words himself and say, I do believe repentance and contrition on occasions is the sign of coming to Christ. But he is in this sermon fighting the notion I'm fighting, which is as if we needed to be contritious or to feel bad to come to Christ. Because what if you came the day you became a Christian, you were ridiculously happy? Right? Well, you're not a Christian. Here's what Spurgeon says about this. 1855. First of all, let me correct one or two mistakes which those who are coming to Jesus Christ very often make. One is, they frequently think they must have deep, horrible, and awful manifestations of the terrors of the law and of hell before they can be said to repent. How many have I conversed with? who have said to me what I can only translate into English to you this morning, something in this way. I do not repent enough. I do not feel myself enough of a sinner. I have been so gross and wicked a transgressor as many. I could almost wish I had, not because I love sin, but because then I think I should have deeper convictions of my guilt and feel more sure that I had truly come to Jesus Christ. The gospel you get quote-unquote saved on is the gospel that's going to require of you a continual fuel of this, a self-loathing, a I'm-not-worthy-ing. So I'm now preaching Spurgeon, which is dangerous. All right. Yeah, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, a verse comes to mind. It's about the broken and contrite heart. Can you speak to that, too? The broken and contrite heart, yes. That's right, and let me add one because that would be in that package. Also in the New Testament it tells us that godly sorrow leads to repentance. Now when people look at that verse, sort of like a broken and contrite heart, the assumption is, well godly sorrow leads to repentance, two things are mistaken there. you always have to have godly sorrow before you repent. Because Paul also says in that same passage, it is the kindness of God that leads you to repentance. So the balancing point, without going into that one particular point, when you look in the New Testament, I would say it this way. There is no one symbol and no one personal reaction of an individual which constitutes an evidence of justification. There's no one outward manifestation. There's no if I was sorrowful. Godly sorrow, sorrow that looks at the scriptures properly as godly, will lead you to repentance. Again, what is repentance? A change of mind. How do we know that repentance is not godly sorrow? Because Paul says godly sorrow is separate from it. Godly sorrow can lead you to repentance if it's godly sorrow, but Esau's sorrow, in scripture just led him to more self-righteousness. You can be sorrowful, you can be addicted to a certain kind of sadness, says a song, and yet not truly be saved. And so sorrow is not an indicator like that you're a Christian, or even becoming one. It's an indicator like that you have now violated your conscience, or you feel bad about being guilty. But it's not necessarily spiritual. It can, godly sorrow, that's the term there, not sorrow. Godly sorrow, and that's inside of that bucket of godly is properly understand sin, properly understands my place in sin, understands he's a savior. Godly sorrow will lead you to a proper change of mind about Christ, if that makes sense. All right. So second paragraph here. Now it is a great mistake to imagine that these terrible and horrible thoughts of a coming judgment have anything to do with the validity of repentance. They are very often not the gift of God at all, which is the very thing I just said, but the insinuations of the devil. And even where the law worketh and produces these thoughts, you must not regard them as being part and parcel of repentance, just because you feel bad. It is possible for a man to repent without any terrific display of the terrors of the law. He may repent without having heard the trumpet sounds of Sinai, without having heard more than a distant rumble of its thunder. A man may repent entirely through the power of the voice of mercy. Some hearts God opens to faith, as in the case of Lydia. Others he assaults with the sledgehammer of the wrath to come. Some he opens with the picklock of grace, and others with the crowbar of the law. There may be different ways of getting there, but the question is, has he got there? Is he there? It often happens that the Lord is not in the tempest or in the earthquake, but in the still, small voice. There is another mistake, says Spurgeon, many poor people make when they are thinking about salvation, that is, that they cannot repent enough. They imagine that if they were to repent up to a certain degree, they would be saved. Oh, sir, some of you will say, I have not penitence enough. Beloved, let me tell you that there is not in any way eminent degree of repentance which is necessary to salvation. You know that there are degrees of faith, and yet the least faith saves. So there are degrees of repentance, and the least repentance will save the soul, if it is sincere. The Bible says, he that believes shall be saved. And when it says that, it includes the very smallest degree of faith. So when it says, repent and be saved, it includes the man who has the lowest degree of real repentance. Some people preach it is as a condition of salvation. Condition of nonsense, says Spurgeon. There are no conditions of salvation. God gives the salvation himself, and he only gives it to those whom he will. He says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. If then God has given you the least repentance, it is with sincere repentance, praise him for it, and expect that repentance will grow deeper and deeper as you go further on. Again, I'm not doing a whole seminar on it. This does come up again within the New Testament. But let me say this, because there's a certain point at which you might think, but Dave, isn't repentance like all over the New Testament combined with salvation? Isn't that like the whole thing? Let me just say it this way. There are 17 books in the New Testament that do not have the word repentance in it, including the Gospel of John. easily understood to be the gospel of belief. The gospel of John does not have the word repentance, does not have repenting, doesn't have any one of the repentance verses. 17 books in the New Testament do not even have the word. One of the major gospels, well they're all major. The book of Romans, but Paul's all about repentance. Paul mentions repentance once in the whole book and we've already done it. It was in chapter two in which he was talking to the hypocrites, the moralists who were judging others, and saying, you're heaping up for yourself because you have an unrepentant heart. So he was challenging them on their hypocrisy. He wasn't telling them how to be saved. He was pointing out their sin. Change your mind about the way you're judging other people. My friends, I'm not saying buy that. I'm weighing this into the balance. 10 of those books that then have the word repentance, most of them are in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Why? Because when Jesus was preaching and telling people in John the Baptist, repent, it is because they had already rejected him as Messiah. It was a change of mind. It was a, you have already determined against me, you Pharisee. Now change your mind because you're wrong. Is there any repentance towards individual sin in the Bible? Absolutely. Is there any change of your mind towards your sins so that you feel bad about them? Yes, there are some of those verses. But is repentance associated as another thing from faith? Repent and believe. No, they're more like this. It's the same thing. When you repent, it's not turning from sin because that would never save you. When the New Testament says repent and be saved, if it just means turn from your sins, what's the object of it? The word repentance must be understood to be synonymous with faith when it is used in the place of the gospel. Or sometimes you see them together, repent and believe. That's the proper combination. which is to turn from Christ to Christ and be saved. It is not to turn from your sins to be saved. I grew up Roman Catholic. That is called contrition in Roman Catholicism. To repent and to turn from your sin, you must feel bad and do contrition. Anybody who grew up Roman Catholic. walk around a baseball field on your knees, on glass, to make up for your sin. So Harry Ironside, some of you don't know who he is, probably 90% of you, and I won't belabor this, but in my estimation, one of the great preachers of the last century, and loved by many, MacArthur, myself, there you go, that proves everything. MacArthur, Dave, okay. But the point is, well-loved by many in our movement, But this is what Harry said, the gospel is not a call to repentance or to an amendment of our ways to make restitution for our past sins or to promise to do better in the future. These things are proper in their place, but they do not constitute the gospel. For the gospel is not good advice to be obeyed, it is good news to be believed. Do not make the mistake then of thinking that the gospel is a call to duty, or a call to reformation, a call to better your condition, to behave yourself in a more perfect way than you have been doing in the past. Nor is the gospel to demand that you give up the world, that you give up your sins, that you break off bad habits and try to cultivate good ones. You may do all these things and yet never believe the gospel and consequently never be saved at all. All right, more Doilinian theology on page five. Pledgism revisited. Here's some things I have to say. It seems like some people are so afraid of false professions that they add a pledge ceremony to the gospel presentation, somehow thinking that the problem lies in the gospel presentation completely. One must get the gospel right, of course. To me, that's the most important thing about preaching the gospel. But is repentance a pledge of lasting fidelity or an acknowledgment of one's previous infidelity? Here's what good and godly people in the lordship movement are trying to do. They've seen our culture. There it is, folks. America. America. And as you look at American evangelicalism, there is a problem. There are false professors, not the college professors, but false professions of faith in Christ. And our churches in the United States have a problem. We have many people who pronounce the name of Christ in their life, but their lives do not match it at all. And there's a growing problem with that. At least that is the motif. And so, what do you do about that? How do we stop false professing? Well, it's a good question. In the lordship movement, it was to write books and preach what I would consider, afterwards don't come to me, because I'll just say whatever. An attempt to balance the scales by saying, make the gospel harder. If we make it harder to get into the gospel, and make it narrow, and it is narrow, but so narrow it's like you gotta sign up for discipleship, and sign up for that, and you gotta get your pledge card, and you know, and all these, you gotta make sure you said you'd never do that again, the lordship, and you understand lordship, and you understand all that discipleship stuff. If that's how you get in over here, then man, we've got rid of false professors. For sure. Because those people aren't coming over there. No, you do. You just created the worst kind of false professor. The Pharisee. No, you didn't get rid of them. You just renamed them. These false professors over here were your average Joe sinner. Okay? They're just guys going to the beach every day, going to Raider games. Just average sinners. But they thought they were going to heaven because they put their hand up at a Billy Graham crusade. Okay, false professionals. But you don't fix false professions by changing the gospel to make it harder. If election is true, and God's already determined who's going to get saved, the false professors are simply those who never were going to get saved. You don't need to fix your gospel. You don't need to make it harder. You can still preach the freedom of grace. Paul was accused and says so in Romans. He's like, people have scandalously said that we say that you can do whatever you want after you become a Christian. But he said, that's a scandalous. Why were they saying that? Because Paul was saying, it's by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. You don't have to do anything. Merely believe that he died on the cross for your sins. You're a sinner. You cannot save yourself. And you, my friend, will be saved from your sins. Oh, but so it's an intellectual thing only? No, if election is true, then God's gonna make sure the people who are going to get saved are really gonna get saved. The gospel can be simple. Make it true and don't make stuff up. Okay, so all that back to my little page here then. Repentance isn't merely cold acknowledgement of past sins, okay? Yeah, I did that, so what? Okay, no, repentance is knowledge of my sin, assent to my guilt, plight from, plight and trust in God's word that I am under the sin. But you notice I'm not saying that I feel bad about it. Repentance requires to turn from what you believed in to Christ. You must come to realize, oh, I'm a sinner. But how you feel about that, you don't pledge, you just realize, I need a savior. And you turn to the one who can save you. My illustration, third line down there, think about lot. Lot in the Bible, real good guy, right? In the Old Testament, you know who Lot is, right? Real good guy. Peter calls him Righteous Lot. Huh? Because Peter's using the same term the way Paul uses it in Romans. Not righteous behavior, he's justified. Apparently, my boy Lot came to a justifying moment somewhere along the line where he believed God and was counted to him righteousness. But he's not a guy who could not only be a deacon, he couldn't be a member at our church. Fleeing to the Lord is the evidence of true repentance. I'm gonna skip that next paragraph. No, I'm just kidding. For the OCD in the room, okay. Sanctification is the latter evidence that one truly fled to the Lord, not whether one truly pledged the spiritual fraternity. I think the error lies in trying to get people to pledge fruit production. Some people seem to feel that not pledging at the point of conversion is the reason that many don't produce fruit later, my point of false professions. Well, they signed on to the wrong gospel, that's why there's no fruit. There's no fruit because they're not a Christian. So the irony of it all is what I just already said in small. The irony of trying to pre-screen through pledging by adding wording to the gospel presentation so as to significantly reduce false professors is that you've now introduced probably the worst kind of false professor of the Pharisee. I thank God that I'm not like all these other men. The person who pledged or believed, quote unquote, and didn't simply look and live is now possibly armed with the notion that they are not like those who struggle with worldly lust or post-conversion sinful patterns, oh no. No, they are the true Christian because they were willing to sign on for the discipleship. Hard road plan, not the easy Belizeism plan where anybody can get in. Back to verses four and five. The point of what we're looking at in Romans is the person who thinks I'm one of the good people who's going to get saved and my system of salvation is not like those other people is what we're talking about. First, they would say, I repented of sins specific and committed to the discipleship program. I signed on for the full package whose evidence is a zero-sum game, Lord of all or not Lord at all. I repented truly, which means that I felt contrition, probably a lot. And I vowed never to do those things again because true repentance is a complete 180, this is stuff you've been told. And the only way you know it was genuine is you don't do those things anymore. Hey, anybody can be sad they are sinning, but unless you stop sinning, you were never sincere about giving them up. So what kind of pledgers do we have in our churches? We have two. We have true believers and Pharisees. True believers, they are unduly vexed in their conscience and unnecessarily robbed of their assurance and the confidence of their salvation because they are wrongfully ever emphasizing fruit and the supposed repentance removal theology. They are true believers under the law of repentance. I've seen it many times. the unhappy Christian, the person who is constantly just talking about sin and repentance or whatever it is. Never going to be happy that way. Well, my goal is not to be happy, it's to be holy. You're hard to watch. And then there's Pharisees, the pledge gospel. suits their fancy that they were willing to be contrite, do repentance, commit to a program, because they never really saw themselves as bad. Let me explain. The Pharisee wants a gospel that saves good people. It helps the religious person get the boost they need to get over the top. Gospels with additives, like contrition and commitment and discipleship and lordship, always sell well for Pharisees. I'm a pledger. I'm a frat boy. I'm a true Christian, not like the average run-of-the-mill, just-believe-the-gospel rabble. If you're that guy or gal, and that's how you feel about those who are just believing in Jesus, you need to repent. Because you're arrogant and proud, and you've forgotten that you yourself were rescued from the cave with no effort of your own. and you've reconstructed a testimony of your conversion, that is not true. So what I have seen with some is an intricate, subtle, psychological war take place where the person goes through seasons of self-loathing because they obviously, quote unquote, haven't repented enough. It's a proud moralism that accepts the pledge gospel, thinking they really could be saved by committing to never do sin again. In some simple way, let me just say it this way. With all of that, they believe this of themselves. I'm the kind of person that if I ever was to be a Christian, I would be the very top kind of Christian. Therefore, any kind of Christianity I got into that wasn't that must be false. Or I didn't get into the real deal because I'm the kind of person who'd be one of those kind of Christians. Now, Ryrie, who's hated by some, but was a professor of mine at Dallas Seminary, said this, the only kind of repentance that saves is a change of mind about Jesus Christ. People can weep, people can resolve to turn from their past sins, but those things in themselves cannot save. The only kind of repentance that saves anyone, anywhere, anytime, is a change of mind about Jesus Christ. The sense of sin and sorrow because of sin may stir up a person's mind or conscience so that he or she realizes the need for a savior. But if there is no change of mind about Jesus Christ, there will be no salvation. Page six is what I mentioned earlier. It is a bridge too far. And it's actually part of next week's material anyway, okay? What must I do to be saved, said the Philippian jailer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Let's pray.