and a very familiar passage. Now here's what I want to emphasize in particular. We've been in our last several lessons talking about things that can distract from the gospel by adding to the gospel. And I've emphasized especially the dangers of the matter of baptism, placing baptism as a part of the gospel. you are not saved by the waters of baptism. Nothing could be more clear in the scripture than that. And to add that to baptism is really to do despite or damage to what the scripture teaches is the grace of God purchased on Calvary by Jesus Christ. And one of the things we have very strongly emphasized is that if you place in the baptistry tank the power to save, if you say that whether it is a baptism font where an infant would be sprinkled or A tank like ours where an adult would be baptized or a child that has reached understanding would be baptized. If you place that power in the baptistry fount, you have essentially given me the power to grant salvation or to withhold it. Because if I were to refuse baptism from someone, then ostensibly I could withhold salvation from them. There's no church or human being institution in this world that has that power. Why is that? Because salvation is not a matter of being baptized. It is by grace. It is by grace. Now, I want you to understand this in depth. When Christ died on the cross, he paid my sin penalty 100%. Now listen to the statement, so that there is nothing I can add to what he has already done. There is nothing I can add. The moment you suggest that there is something that I need to add to my own salvation, that somehow Calvary wasn't sufficient. The moment you suggest that is the moment that the focus is off of Calvary and goes on to human beings, okay? And understand that. And then, basically, all you're looking at is various religious groups of what hoops they tell you to jump through. One group will say, jump through the baptism hoop, and another group, the confirmation hoop, and another group, the good works hoop, or the burning candles hoop, or the sacraments hoop, or whatever it is. After that, once you start adding to it, it's just a matter of how much people want to add to it. But the scripture is clear, salvation comes by grace through faith, simply believing. Remember we said Romans chapter 4, faith is not a work per se. Paul made that very clear. Faith is simply believing. It is trusting. It is not working. Now Acts chapter 16, to illustrate this if you will please, beginning at verse number 25. The Bible says, and at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, this is Acts 16.25, and saying praises unto God, the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, waking out of his sleep, And seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. The reason for that was that if prisoners were to escape under Roman guard, it would be the death penalty for the Roman guard. So he figured he'd finish himself off rather than let Rome take care of it for him. Verse 28, But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. And then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Now, obviously he had heard Paul and Silas in their singing, in their praising, in their testifying as a guard at the prison. The Lord had been preparing his heart. Obviously he kind of understood he had a personal need from the witness of Paul and Silas. And so we ask them, sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, here are the words, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house, and thy house. Now right away someone says, aha, Pastor Monty, that means that the infant children that were part of the Philippian jailer's household, they automatically got saved when they got baptized. Now follow me. I'm going to prove in a moment that there were no infant children in the Philippian jailer's household. I'm going to prove it from the Bible. Not one. Not one. Every child in the Philippian jailer's household was of an age to understand the gospel. And I'm going to prove it. Boy, you're on the edge of your seats, I can just tell. Continuing, look at your Bible, verse 32. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, Paul and Silas did, and to all that were in his house. So they're speaking to everyone. It would be odd Now, just don't look at your Bible. You're gonna ruin the surprise, okay? We'll go back there in a second. It would be odd if I were to come to your house with a presentation of the gospel, and you had an infant. Let's say you had a little baby that was like six months old, and I went up with my Bible to the little baby and started going through the Romans Road Plan of Salvation with the infant child. How many would find that odd if I were to do something like that? You sure would. He said, Pastor, it's a baby. That baby doesn't... Now, you'd expect me to talk to mom and dad and maybe the teenage daughter and the, you know, the elementary age son. You'd expect me to talk to them. But I'm likely not going to do that with a child. Well, it says that they spake the word of the Lord. to him and to all that were in the house. Pastor, that doesn't prove anything. Well, let's just continue on, verse number 33. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized. So the Philippian jailer got saved and was baptized, he and all his straightway. Now pause, now look at this. Not only did he get saved and baptized, but the whole family got saved and baptized. Ah-ha, preacher, I knew it. They were sprinkling infants. Now, do you see anywhere in the passage where there was an infant? No, quite to the contrary. He spoke the word to all that were in the house. It would be odd to speak the word to an infant that way. But notice this, verse 34 settles it all. Notice these words. believing in God with all his house. Now does everybody see that? Does everybody see that in your Bible? Every member of the family believed in God. Okay, they believed. Why? Because they had heard the message, they received it, and were baptized. They could not have believed apart from being old enough to understand the message. Does everybody follow me on that? Very basic logic. But the entire family saved and baptized because the entire family had heard the Word of God, and according to the Scripture, the entire family believed. Does everybody follow me on that? Now, let me tell you something, folks. When you're dealing with this Reformed theology thing, get into the details of the Bible, and you'll find that the argumentation that they would use is not there. Nowhere is it mentioned that there was an infant. That is just presumed by some, and yet the Bible is plain that every person in the house was old enough to hear the Word of God that was preached by Paul and Silas, and then was old enough to respond in faith by believing, and believing they were baptized. Everyone sees that. Having brought that little fact to bear, let me move back to verse number 31. The Philippian jailer said, By the way, having a knowledge and an understanding, having heard the testimony, because he came down and fell before Paul and Silas, none of the other prisoners, he'd heard them singing, he'd heard them testifying of Christ, They said to him, in answer to the question, they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. Now, I want to talk about something tonight that is called Lordship Salvation. Lordship Salvation. Before you sit there in the audience and say, oh Pastor Monty, you're about to deal with another theological hair-splitting moment. Let me assure you that is not the case tonight. it is vital that we understand that there are some that fall prey, even some who are genuine and sincere people, fall prey to the temptation to seek to add some level of human merit to salvation. Now let me tell you something, folks. There's nothing I can do to add one ounce of grace to what was purchased on Calvary. Nothing I can do, nothing, okay? Nothing, and we sing the song sometimes, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Ladies and gentlemen, my only hope is the cross of Jesus Christ. I know myself far too well to think there's some hope in me. However, however, there are some, and I think sincere in many ways and well-meaning preachers, who have struggled with something. And I want you to listen very carefully. In the beginning of my series, I talked about a reductionist theology, that means boiling it down to almost nothing, a reductionist theology that teaches this. And some of you were amazed by this, that there are actually people who could believe in such a thing, that the only thing you need to do is to witness to someone, is just to tell them the name Jesus. That's all you have to do is just say Jesus. And if they somehow believe on this Jesus, without you giving any facts about the death, burial, and resurrection, if they somehow just embrace this name Jesus, they are saved. That is reductionism to the point of absurdity. There is actually an evangelical group that believes this. Ladies and gentlemen, hear me. The name, the word, Jesus, J-E-S-U-S, isolated by itself, is not enough to save anyone. Did you hear what I just said? You say, why is that? Because the name Jesus, J-E-S-U-S, is not the gospel. The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. You must take the name and the personality and understand the facts of the gospel in his sacrifice on the cross. Remember, we've emphasized this over and over, Paul's teaching in Corinthians. We're not going to go back there. But that is the essence of the gospel. And so rather than just whispering the name Jesus to someone, that would be an insufficient form of gospel witness. I need to tell them who this Jesus was. I need to tell them that he died sacrificially on the cross for their sin, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day. The Good News has content, not just a name. It has more than a headline. It has a story content that is the gospel of Jesus Christ and his death. burial and resurrection, that he died for my sins according to the scripture, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scripture. That is the essence of the gospel. And so there is an odd danger in reductionism. Now here's what happened. In the evangelical world, in order to build mega-churches, and this would harken back more to your a seeker-sensitive era, which is sort of drawing to a close. In that particular time period, it was believed that somehow if we could fill grand coliseums with people and just get them to make some kind of really weak mental assent to the existence of God, that everyone would be okay. And how many people do you hear of today that even have evangelical connections, who if you ask them, do you know for certain, you ask the question, do you know for certain that you're on your way to heaven, and they respond very weakly by saying, oh yeah, I'm on my way to heaven, I believe in God. How many have ever heard that? It's not enough to believe in God. The devils, the demons, also believe and tremble. It's not enough. And how about this? Here's even a different one. Rather than even saying they believe in God, nowadays some people say, well, I'm a believer. In what? Well, I'm a believer. And then if that's a little too offensive for some, they've even taken the edge off believer, and now they say, this is popular in the political realm. Well, I'm a person of faith. How many have ever heard that? I'm a person of faith. And I say to you that that kind of generic faith cannot save. It is a reductionism that takes away from the gospel, which is the facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Okay, we emphasized that several weeks ago, how dangerous that reduction is. In reaction to that, there were some evangelical leaders, and I think it was more in reaction to that, in reaction to that, they filled their coliseums. One very famous evangelical leader in Chicago very large church, thousands, thousands of people, made the admission a couple years ago, he said, we got very good at building a crowd, but we never built a church. That's a very interesting attitude that he portrayed. It was an admission that he gave. In reaction to that movement that built this huge crowd of people that really didn't believe anything, but were just glad to get together once in a while, in reaction to that, there were some who said, you know, I don't think that those people, and I think some of these people are sincere in their concern. But they said, I don't think those people are saved because they've made a shallow profession. Now I want everybody to look this way and listen carefully. Do not misunderstand what I'm saying. Is it possible for an individual to make a shallow profession? Jesus said it was. Remember he talked about the sower that goes by the wayside? The sower goes forth to sow and sometimes the seed will spring up real fast and then all of a sudden it withers away. There are some people that just kind of attach themselves to a movement, whether it be a church or some other religious movement, they get all excited about it briefly, they get on the bandwagon, and then they get off the bandwagon almost as quickly as they got on. That happened widely in evangelicalism, and so some sincere preachers said, okay, there's a problem here, and then they said this, they said, maybe it is the gospel that is being preached. Now listen carefully. In some quarters, the concern was correct. Because if all you're telling people to do is whisper the name Jesus and not telling them anything about his sacrifice on the cross and his burial, his resurrection, then you're missing out on the gospel message. But what these men did, in many cases, is they went too far, and they said, you know, it's more, now here's where the error comes in, and I'll get into this in detail in a moment, they said it's more than just believing in Jesus, and now remember, we said there's a difference between head belief and heart belief, Okay, you can believe the facts and go to hell, but if you believe and trust with your heart for yourself personally, that is the way to eternal life. But some of these men said, you know, it's more than that. It's got to have to do with a person's commitment. And they looked over here and said, all these people who have some kind of shallow profession that don't even know anything about what they think or believe, couldn't explain the gospel of their life depending on They said, all of these people over here, their problem is a shallow commitment. And so now watch what they did. They said, the commitment then needs to be much deeper. Now, and here's wherein lies the problem. And they started looking at the level of commitment of the convert, rather than pointing that person to the cross. Now let me tell you something. If I look at my level of commitment, I'm in trouble. So are you. Pastor Monty, I'm here on a Wednesday night. There's a lot of people that aren't here on a Wednesday night. If anyone's one of the chosen, it's certainly ought to be me. Uh-huh. Yeah. And you're looking at yourself and not at what Christ did on the cross. Do you see that? That's work salvation. But there are some that were so concerned about what they termed shallow commitment or shallow profession that they went in the other extreme and just declared that there had to be a certain level of of discipleship present at the point of salvation. Let's go into this. I'm going to go ahead and put that up, Mike. Is it up there? Okay, go ahead. Gospel clarity. We read one of our passages. Now, I want this... Oh, I have to turn it on. There we go. We're going to get this down eventually. Okay, what's the issue? Over the last 25 years, much theological discussion has focused on the part of works or evidences, what they play in salvation. Here's the question, is salvation acquired by heart faith in the gospel, by simply believing or trusting Christ's substitution on the cross, or does genuine conversion require something more? That is the question. This lordship view says it requires more than belief. Now remember, in answer to the question, what must I do to be saved, Paul said to the Philippian jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. To varying degrees, those who espouse lordship salvation require certain works to accompany faith in order to result in genuine conversion. And to different degrees, they're asking for these works. The works usually relate to the word repentance. Thus, those who hold to lordship salvation define repentance variously as a forsaking of sin or obedience. Now listen carefully, now I'm gonna split a hair. I've even heard well-meaning people say to someone who wants to get saved, listen, all you have to do is give up all of your sins and believe on Jesus and you'll be saved. How many have ever heard something like that? Sure, that's not the gospel. Do you know why? The giving up of all of my sins is a work, okay? Now let me ask you a question, okay? I think the majority, if not every person in this room, would say, preacher, I'm saved, I'm born again. Can I ask you a question? Did you, at the moment of your salvation, give up all of your sins? No. And if you did, it was only for like a second and a half. You didn't, okay? You didn't do that. The idea of giving up all of my sins is adding works to the gospel. And what if I forgot about a sin that I didn't give up? Would believing not be enough? Now listen carefully. You say, Pastor, that's funny. It's very sad to people who hear this kind of preaching. Because what happens is they begin to wonder, did I give up enough of my sins when I got saved in order to really get saved? Does everybody follow me? It lends them to doubt. Now watch, and all of a sudden, they're not looking at Jesus anymore, but they're looking at themselves. Do you see the problem here? When I look at myself, it is going to land me in despair. If I look at Jesus, it lands me in salvation. But I look at myself as I was despair. So the works usually relate to repentance. Did the person repent hard enough? All kinds of terminology, more theologically sophisticated than that, but not meaning anything different from it. That's the Lordship view. Lordship equates faith and obedience. Now, I have purposely obscured the source of this quotation. If you want to know who said this later, I'll be happy to tell you. The reason I'm not calling out names right now is because the minute I do that, your mind is gonna go on to a personality thing and not the content of what is being said, okay? Let's look at the content. One well-known Bible teacher, writes that faith, quote, encompasses obedience, that obedience is an integral part of saving faith. Indeed, obedience is bound up in the very definition of faith, being a constitutive element in what it means to believe. Thus, any concept of faith that excludes obedience must be rejected, because obedience is indivisibly wrapped up in the idea of believing. In fact, the character of true faith is nothing less than the higher righteousness of the beatitudes of Matthew 5, 3 through 11." Wow! You say, Bridget, what is he saying? He's saying that you have to keep all the beatitudes in order to be saved. That's part of faith. I mean, this is really going a long way here. This Bible teacher even suggests that obedience is synonymous with faith. He then quotes with approval Rudolf Bultmann, who is a neo-orthodox theologian who is not even a Christian, who made the statement, to believe is to obey. Now here's the problem. You've just added works. Okay, I can believe something, believe the gospel, and trust in Christ from my heart. But as soon as you say, no, no, no, Pastor Marty, belief is really obedience, then I want to ask the question, how much do I have to obey? Let me ask you the question, is your obedience in this room to the Lord, is it perfect? No. Then are you saved? not if you're counting on your obedience, but I'm not counting on my obedience, I'm believing on Jesus. Now, do you see the difference? Lordship teaching gets your eyes off the cross and onto yourself. And all of a sudden, you're examining yourself to see if you have believed hard enough, if you're obeying enough. And I understand this is a reaction to what was common in evangelical circles and still is in some places, but here are some more examples. And again, I'm not naming the people who said these, because I don't want to be in a personality issue tonight. We're just dealing with substance. Quote, let me say again unequivocally that Jesus' summons to deny self and follow him was an invitation to salvation. My thing is beeping at me. Was an invitation to salvation, not a second step of faith following salvation. Okay, so in other words, in order to be saved, Jesus said you have to deny yourself and follow him. Now wait a minute. Was that salvation or was that something different? In a moment I'm going to show you that had reference to discipleship. Look at the next statement. That is a kind of response the Lord Jesus called for, wholehearted commitment, a desire for Him at any cost, unconditional surrender, a full exchange of self for the Savior. Can I ask you a question? The moment you got saved, did you understand all of those concepts? I can tell you wholeheartedly that I didn't, and I'd been hearing the gospel for six months. I didn't understand the idea of a full surrender. My full surrender to the Lord came later, okay, as I grew and understood and wanted to be his follower, wanted to be his disciple. I didn't even understand all of it. Can you imagine trying to win someone to the Lord and telling them, okay, not only do you need to believe on Jesus, but you need to fully surrender everything? And they're going to look at you and say, huh? What does that mean? They're going to think you're trying to get money in the offering plate, okay, if you give an invitation like that. No, you're trusting Jesus. And then again, if you say that to someone, well, you need to fully surrender everything. It sounds very spiritual. You need to come to the altar and fully surrender everything. Okay. How does a person know that they've really fully surrendered everything? How do you know? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. I don't know that. Oh, I can say, well, all to Jesus I surrender, but is it possible that there's some hidden corner of the heart that I have not yielded to him because the Spirit of God has not shined his searchlight on that yet in conviction? Sure there is. In fact, the more I grow as a disciple, the closer I get to the Lord, the more darkness I see in my life that needs that confession. I don't see all of that instantaneously. And if you teach someone that the only way to be saved is for them to make a full, what we call full surrender at that point of salvation, then they will forever question was their surrender significant enough at the moment that they were saved. And guess who they're looking at? They're looking at themselves and not at the cross. Do you see? Now, all of a sudden, the gospel is a matter of how good did you repent? Someone said this to me one time, and they were being very sincere. They wondered about their salvation. Preacher, I'm not sure I'm saved. I said, okay, do you believe Jesus died on the cross for your sins? Yes. Do you believe he was buried and rose again? Yes, yes. Are you trusting in him and him alone? Yes, yes, I'm only trusting in him and him alone. Okay, what's the problem? And do you know what this person said to me? Preacher, when I got saved and I prayed and asked the Lord to save me, I didn't get down on my knees. Now, honestly, this person, that's what, they were worried that they didn't get down on their knees. And so if they didn't get down on their knees, they weren't really saved, is what they thought. May I tell you something? God doesn't sit up in heaven with a little checklist, watching a sinner come to him, okay, look at Joe, angels gather around here. Look at Joe, Joe's under conviction. Wow, he's really under conviction. Let's see, got my checklist out. Oh boy, look, it looks like there's sweat breaking out in his brow, check. Boy, he's really listening to the preacher. Attentive. He even turned off his cell phone for the service. Wow. Check, check, check. Man, he came forward. And angels, did you notice the speed at which he moved to the altar? Check, check. Oh! And he kneeled. Bingo, he's in. Now, I'm being facetious, but I'm illustrating a point. If you depend on what you have done, whether it's the amount that you repented, the number of tears that you shed, the heart emotion that you may or may not have manifested at that time, all of a sudden you're no longer looking at Christ and His sacrifice on the cross, you're looking at something you've done. And the next quotation down, if we have it here, next one, moving on to the next page, look at these. If you want to receive this gift, salvation, it will cost you the total commitment of all that you are to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, does everybody see the contradiction in that sentence? If you want to receive a gift, it's gonna cost you. No, that's actually in print. A very intelligent person wrote that. But he wasn't understanding this in clarity. A gift is the free grace of God given by Jesus. I don't earn a gift. I can't work for a gift. Salvation, this person says, is for those who are willing to forsake everything. Okay, what does that mean? If I tell a person they need to forsake everything in order to be saved, they come and they want to trust Christ as their savior, what does that mean to them? Okay, does that mean that they lay all their credit cards out at the altar? Does it mean they hand over the title of their car, house, and boat to the church? What does that mean to them, okay? Have they forsaken up? You can't add these things. It sounds spiritual, and it's super religious, but it takes away from Jesus. Because when he died on the cross, ladies and gentlemen, he paid it all. There's nothing I can add to that. He paid it all. And as spiritual as all of this sounds, this is for discipleship, not conversion, not salvation. I'll illustrate this in a moment from the scriptures. I'll quote another quotation quickly. That is what Jesus meant when he spoke of taking up one's cross to follow him. Now this, by the way, that passage is discussing discipleship, not conversion. And that is why he demanded that we count the cost carefully. He was calling for an exchange of all that we are for all that he is. He was demanding implicit obedience, unconditional surrender to his lordship. Well, I doubt anybody in this room did that when you got saved. I know I didn't. You know what I knew when I got saved? I knew that I was a filthy, vile sinner, that I could do nothing to save myself, that Jesus had died and paid the whole penalty for my sin, and I cast myself on the loving mercy of the Lord, believing his word that he had died for me and rose again, and trusted him. And I got saved. And God said, you're my child. And now later on, as I grew as a disciple, learning, a learner, as I grew, as I understood the Bible, as I came to understand my obligation to the Lord, my great gratitude for His saving me, then He began to work in my life, and the process of sanctification was something that brought me to a point of additional surrender. You say, is that taught in the Bible? I'm so glad you asked the question. Romans 12, 1 and 2, written to Christian people, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is a reasonable service. Christians should do this. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Speaking to Christians, okay? There is a point of surrender, a point of growth, a point of discipleship in the Christian walk. The subtle error of this, the teaching of Lordship Salvation subtly adds a level of works for salvation. Rather than receiving Christ by faith, Lordship Salvation confuses faith with surrender, obedience, and forsaking of sin. Lordship Salvation defines repentance as a change of action rather than a change of mind. If repentance is action, It constitutes works very similar to Roman Catholic penance, okay? Remember if you were ever a Catholic and you did something bad and so you went to the priest and told him about it in a little confessional booth, and then he would assign penance for you to do, typically Hail Marys or Rosaries or something like that, and you had to go through a little assignment that cleaned it up. Why were you doing that? Well, you wouldn't get forgiven unless you made it through the assignment. Oh, now wait a minute. Who are you looking at? You're looking at yourself. you're counting beads rather than looking at the cross. That, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what the devil would have us to do, to count our spiritual beads rather than to look at the cross of Christ. And so there's a key here in regard to this matter. Dr. Ernest Pickering, he's a great old Baptist preacher of the past. He made this observation concerning this matter many years ago. He's died, and and gone to heaven some time ago. But he made this observation. He said, one of the chief objections to the notion of lordship salvation is that it adds to the gospel of grace. It requires something of the sinner which the scriptures do not require. The message of salvation by grace proclaims to sinners that they may receive eternal life by faith alone, whereas the message of lordship salvation tells sinners they must be willing to give up whatever it is in their life that is displeasing to God. And there again, what if they don't think of everything at that moment? What if in the subtlety of their heart there's something that they're holding on to, not even recognizing that they are? Every one of us who's been a Christian long enough knows that the Lord over our lifetime, as we hold on to things subconsciously, watch this, in our hearts, in the dark places of our hearts, every one of us who's a sincere Christian knows that the Lord has a way over time of prying loose fingers doesn't he he sure does but that doesn't happen instantaneously at salvation and people who teach that this is necessary cause others to doubt as to the extent of their repentance did they repent enough so Essentially, Lordship Salvation Advocates confuse two key New Testament teachings. Number one, the teaching of repentance. Number two, discipleship. Let me go into that quickly. Repentance rightly defined. That is a Greek word, metaneo, and it means this, to think differently or to reconsider. Notice that, to think. To change one's mind. Biblical repentance changes one's mind about sin and the Savior. I'm under conviction for my sin. What I used to embrace, I am now sorrowful for. I'm hearing the gospel. I have not yet believed the gospel, but I'm hearing it. The Lord is speaking to my heart. Finally, I decide, yes, I'm going to believe on Christ. I'm believing the gospel. I am believing that my sin has been bad and crucified Jesus. I am now embracing Jesus and believing in Him. That is the essence of repentance. It is a change of mind. Now, repentance and works. Let's look at this. Repentance and works. Repentance itself is not a work. If defined as works, it becomes akin to penance. Repentance typically results in works, but works must not be considered a part of repentance. And I've quoted just a portion of Acts 26.20, Paul's testimony, that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance." In other words, when someone changes their mind, naturally, things begin to change. Not everything all at once perfectly, but things begin to change. Does everyone follow me on that? After I got saved, things started to change in my life. Not everything perfectly. I still had problems. I still had issues. I still had things I'm dealing with. But the Lord was working my heart, and as I was growing in grace, my life was beginning to demonstrate the reality of my repentance, the change of mind that I'd made at the point of salvation. Does everybody understand that? That is when I believed on Christ. These things come slowly over a period of time. It is overgrowth. So there are fruits that, or pardon me, works that demonstrate repentance. Now, let me ask you a question. Is it possible, now follow me. Pastor, you're going deep tonight. Yeah, let's just have a good time. Is it possible to change your mind about something sincerely and still be inconsistent. Is it possible? Sure it is. Can I testify? Let me testify. Years ago, I became convinced through numerous studies that have been published in medical magazines and journals that the excessive consumption of White Castle hamburgers can do absolutely nothing beneficial for you. I believe that. If you were to say, Pastor Monty, do you believe White Castle hamburgers are good for you or bad for you? I would say they are bad for you. Right? They're bad for you. I just say they're bad for you. Now, I do believe that. Let me ask you a question. Am I always consistent with that belief? No, not always, not always. Okay, it is possible, listen, in our frailty, our humanness, to ascribe ourselves to a belief system, but not be perfectly consistent in that. Okay, that is part of our humanness. That is part of the fact that when we're saved, we still have a sin nature. Does everyone follow me on that? we still sin, okay? Those are possibilities. We're not perfect people. We're not confirmed in perfection at the moment of repentance. The other issue that is confused is that of discipleship. Lordship salvation advocates confuse the issue of salvation and discipleship. Biblically stated, salvation is free, but discipleship can cost you everything, and there is a difference. Luke 14, quickly, in your Bible. I've got to have you see this passage of Scripture. It illustrates it perfectly. Luke chapter 14 in your Bible with me, if you will. The parable of the Great Supper, you're very familiar with this. The Bible says in verse 15, One of them sat at meat with him and heard those things. He said to them, Blessed shall he be that will eat bread in the kingdom of God. Verse 16, Then said Jesus unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many, and sent his servant at suppertime to them that were bidden, for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make an excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, I must needs go see it, pray thee have me excused. That's pretty lame, verse 19. The other said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I have to prove them. I pray thee have me excused. Well, how would you buy oxen without seeing them? Well, that's a lame excuse. Verse number 20, and the other said, I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come. He probably had the only legitimate excuse. That was a joke. Okay, continuing on verse 21. So that servant, that was sent out with the invitations, that servant came and showed to his lord these things. And the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets and the lanes of the city, bring in hither the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind. The servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. The lord said to the servant, go out in the highways and the hedges, compel them to come in, that my house may be full, for I say unto you that those of them, men which were bidden, shall taste that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper." Okay? In other words, Jesus said, get everyone and bring them in. The invitation to salvation is universal. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. All are welcome to come. Get everyone and bring them in. Get them saved. Get them to come to Christ. But verse number 25, following that, there went out a great multitude with him. So a lot of people said, wow, we like this teaching. They were applying it to themselves. Then Jesus said this, now if any man come unto me, and here's where it gets hard. It was easy to come to him for salvation, believing on him, coming, being invited to the supper is the picture there. Verse 26, Jesus said, if any man come and hate not his father and mother and wife and children, brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Okay, there's a difference between someone who believes on Jesus and someone being a disciple. Now, the verse here is teaching about a comparative thing. You love the Lord more. Your love for the Lord is so strong that your love for family seems like hatred in comparison to that. By the way, be honest, when you got saved, did you feel that way? Probably not. I didn't. Lordship Salvation crowd's gonna say, well then you didn't really get saved. No, this is talking about discipleship. Verse 27, whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Verses 28 all the way down to verse 32, he talks about the building of the tower and counting the cost. Verse 33, he says, so likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, He cannot be my disciple. You say, Pastor, what is that talking about? That's not talking about salvation. It's not saying for you, in order for you to get saved, you need to sign over your bank account to the church and your house and your boat and your car and all those things. That's not what it's saying. It's saying, as a disciple, there's going to come a point where you're following me. It's going to cost you something to follow me. The pressure's going to be on. That preacher is going to stand in the pulpit and start talking about faith-promised missions and say how desperately we need to sacrifice to get the gospel somewhere. And then those people that are real disciples in this room are going to say, you know, yeah, we can do without some things. We can make a personal sacrifice in order to give more to missions. Does everybody follow me, what I'm saying? That's not a call to salvation. Okay, that's a call to discipleship. So understand the differences in the two stories that our Lord told in those passages. Biblically understood, salvation is simply believing, personally trusting in Jesus' death and resurrection to save you. That is a static position. The moment I believe, from my heart, I am saved. Does everybody follow me on that? That is salvation. Discipleship happens after salvation. It involves a wholehearted commitment to follow Christ completely. Rarely does this occur contemporaneous to salvation. It is a growing experience. And everyone in this room would say, if you're a Christian, that you're on a different level of spiritual growth or discipleship from the people around you. We would all agree with that. Salvation and discipleship. Being a Christian means following an invitation. Being a disciple means forsaking all. To confuse these two aspects of the Christian life is to confound the grace of God and the works of man, to ignore the difference between salvation and sanctification. The gospel of grace is scriptural. The gospel that adworks the works of man to salvation is a counterfeit gospel. A great statement from Faith Theological Seminary, the Faith Pulpit. March 1989, we have that quotation for you. Well, here's the obvious question, and I'm almost done. The obvious question is this, because there's a lot of confusion out there on this topic. The obvious question, if salvation, and I pose this to you as a question, understanding I've given you the answer in this lecture. If salvation requires a type of repentance that includes a certain level of work, obedience, submission, sacrifice, And salvation also requires a certain level of discipleship. Here's my question. When is enough enough? When does a person know he's got to say, well, Pastor Monty, if he goes, some of these gospel songs confuse things. These funny gospel songs. Well, he went down to the old fashioned altar and he prayed through. What? I'm not sure I understand what that means, prayed through, as if the Lord was not willing to hear the cry of whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. Well, you know, boy, he'd really get the goods if he just sweated out a little bit. No, no, no. Jesus already paid for the goods on Calvary. Are you following me on this? You're sweating it out a little bit doesn't earn you salvation. Are you following me on this? The price is paid on Calvary. It's not what I can and if you say well He's got big. I'm just gonna I'm watching to make sure he's gotten all his eyes and crossing all his knees I'm gonna make sure or I want to make sure he's sincere. I Okay, now wait a minute. Everyone look this way. Then you're basing it on his actions and not on Christ. Follow me, please. Salvation is not of works. It is all of Jesus. It is my believing on his saving grace, that's what saves me. And the minute I get my eyes off of the cross and put it onto what I did or did not do, I'm in trouble. If I'm able somehow to get my eyes off the cross and focus on what I did, I become a Pharisee. If I get my eyes off the cross and focus on what I did not do, I become a manic depressive. If I get my eyes on the cross and say, here is what Jesus did for me, and I'm resting fully and trusting in that alone, I have eternal assurance of my salvation, not because I have done something to earn it, going through some ritual, rigmarole, baptistry tank, altar, prayer, kneel, whatever it might be. but I have put my faith alone in what Jesus paid for." Does everyone follow this? This is so important. It's so important that we be clear. How would we know when it was enough? How would we know? When does one become certain he has repented enough and has been a good enough disciple to become a Christian? Well, I think we ought to do this. Let's just keep it simple. Paul did that Ephesians 2 verses 8 through 10. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now notice this, for we are his workmanship, his workmanship, do you know that? Who makes us, well, Pastor Minor, boy, he just, he really sweated out down at the altar, so I know he's gonna pull through. No. No one's going to pull it through because they sweat it out at the altar. They're going to pull through because they're saved by the grace of God. Does everyone follow me on that? And it's God that's going to pull them through. You know why? Do you want to know why? We're His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. That's the answer. Do you see this, folks, how subtle it is? It all sounds real spiritual, but the gospel is believing and being transformed by the grace of God. That is salvation, and it's not of my good works. And so, says Pastor Ronnie, how do you know you're saved? Well, because, boy, I hit the altar like a ton of bricks, and I'll tell you what, I meant it, and boy, then all of a sudden, you know, I just gave it all up. Oh, you're perfect now? Tell me about your perfectionism. Truth of the matter is, you start talking about salvation that way, and you're looking at everything you did. And that's very little different from the person who burns a candle. And it's very little different from the person who counts beads and says, this is how I'm getting to heaven. Do you know how I'm getting to heaven? Not by works of righteousness, which I have done. According to his mercy, he saved me. Do you know how I'm getting to heaven? For by grace am I saved through faith. Grace. God's giving me what I surely don't deserve. For by grace am I saved through faith. That not of myself. Salvation's not of myself. It is the gift of God. Not of works. Not of works, lest any man should boast. When I stand before the Lord, I won't be able to boast about anything. Nothing in my hands I bring. simply to thy cross, I cling. Father, thank you for the clarity of the gospel. Help us, Lord, to understand in a day when we're so tempted to always add some level of human merit, even if it would be a subtlety, help us, Lord, to understand that when we look at ourselves, we either become a self-righteous Pharisee or possibly depressed because we can never measure up to the holy standard of God. Help us, Lord, to know that real freedom comes when we look to trust in, believe in, and rest in the finished work of Christ on Calvary. Thank you, Lord, that you paid it all, that when you died you said, it is finished, and indeed it was. We rest in that tonight, not of ourselves, but only in thee. Thank you for