Hello and welcome to our broadcast. This is our third in the series that we're looking at here of having understanding to know what to do. We're facing perilous times. Stay tuned for the program. Well, as we face the days in which we are living, and we're definitely living in an age of apostasy, we have a verse in the Bible where Peter said just before the end of his life, and you know, when you get to the end of your life and you want to leave a message, you're going to leave one that's really important. And he said this in verse 10 of 2 Peter, chapter 1 he said if you do these things you shall never fall if you do these things you shall never fall and as we have seen in a previous broadcast that those things that he was talking about are listed here we're going to look at them and he said you would never fall fall for what well as you go down through here you see that he says in chapter 2 and verse 1 there shall be false prophets among the people even as there shall be false teachers among you." And he's talking about falling for the apostasy, and we're certainly living in the day of apostasy. We need to face the facts. We need to accept the fact that we're living in an age of compromise and apostasy, and we need to confront the situation. If you're going to face the facts, we will confront it, we'll deal with it, but we need to know what to do. Now, the first thing he says here, is add to your faith. Verse number five, he said, and besides all this, giving all diligence, all diligence, add to your faith. Now before we can add to our faith, we've got to be sure that we're in the faith. Paul wrote to these Christians in 2 Corinthians 13, verse number 5, and he says, Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith, except ye be reprobates. Now, he wrote to them, and he called them saints. In 2 Corinthians, verse number 1, he said, All the saints. he's writing to Christians. And when he says, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, he is not saying examine yourselves to see whether you're really saved or not. He's writing to Christians. He's writing to people who are saved. And what he is saying is, when he's talking about examining yourselves whether you be in the faith, he's talking about, do you have the correct doctrine? You see that phrase, in the faith, The Bible talks about in Acts 14.22, continue in the faith. Romans 14.1, there's those who were weak in the faith. 1 Corinthians 16.13, stand fast in the faith. Colossians 1.23, he said, continue and be grounded in the faith. In Colossians 2.7, he said, be established in the faith. In 1 Timothy 3.13, he says, have great boldness in the faith. Titus 1 and 13 says, be sound in the faith. 1 Peter 5, 9 says we are to be steadfast in the faith. And so when he says to them, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, the word, the phrase the faith occurs 43 times in the Bible, and it refers to Bible doctrine. The word of God says the churches were to be established in the faith, Acts chapter 16, verse number five. And 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 13, rather, also warns us to watch ye, stand fast in the faith, and we are commanded to examine ourselves that we do not become reprobates. Now, the word reprobate means not standing the test. The same Greek word is translated, castaway, in 1 Corinthians 9.27, where we read that Paul was concerned about the possibility of becoming a castaway, not standing the test. And so when he's writing to the Corinthians here, it says, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, Are you in the faith? Do you understand the doctrine is what he is talking about here. Paul said to the Corinthians, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. The word prove here is to recognize as genuine after examining something. Now, we're living in an age of apostasy, and apostasy has been prophesied. 1 Timothy 4, 1 informs us that in the latter days, some shall depart from the faith. We are commanded to examine ourselves, to prove ourselves, not to be included in that group that is departing from the faith. We are told in the Bible that there will be times when the enemy will come in like a flood, Isaiah 59, 19. Jesus also warned us of a time when while men slept his enemy sowed tares among the wheat and went his way, Matthew 13 and verse 25. Well, it's happening. What is happening now among Fundamental Baptist leaders in our movement is what happened within evangelical churches in the early 50s. I was saved in 1955, and I joined an evangelical church. Soon I began to realize that they were departing from the faith. They were leaving the doctrine. And so I aligned myself and my family with what we call fundamentalists, One thing that impressed me about the Fundamentalist group was that they had a desire to win people to the Lord. However, I began to get concerned when I heard deeper life Christians being publicly ridiculed by Jack Hiles while the challenge was to set a goal to baptize 200 a year. Well, you know, in the 60s there was a popular song on the radio entitled, Anyone Want to Go to Heaven, Say I Do. Well, that same nonsense was being promoted by our fundamental leaders in our so-called fundamental movement. with a desire to see people saved. I accepted that nonsense and saw hundreds of people pray a prayer. A small percentage of them showed any evidence at all of being saved and are still, this small percentage, are following the Lord today. But unfortunately, 90% or more of them went on their path to hell thinking they were saved because a salesman for Jesus who knew how to close a deal got them to pray a prayer. I was a salesman before I became a pastor, and I actually won two Canada-wide contests in the sales promotions. I knew how to sell, and I became a sales representative for Christ, selling people on the heresy that all they needed to do was pray a prayer to be saved, ignoring the fact that Jesus says, I tell you, nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Why is it that we believe Catholics are not saved by praying little forgiveness prayers and we think because we call ourselves Fundamental Independent Baptists that somehow that will impress God? Well, we're also living in an age when we have what I call incentive salvation. In the 60s, Fundamental Baptist leaders taught us to replace a genuine repentance with an incentive. The incentive was heaven. Nowhere in the Bible is heaven offered as an incentive to salvation. The truth is, we have offended God by our sin, and we need to repent. Going to heaven is another subject. If there was no heaven, and there is, but if there were no heaven, we still need to repent because we have offended God with our sin. Well, as a young preacher, I was totally caught up in a goal to baptize 200 a year. The first church I started began with four people made up of my wife and myself and our two little children. One year later, we were averaging 242 during the Sunday morning service. I used every trick in the book, while ignoring THE book, to get people to come to church. I believed the garbage that it was acceptable to use any means to get people to church as long as it was not immoral or illegal. One Sunday in August I had seven Santa Clauses running around in the morning service arguing who was the real Santa Claus. Another Sunday we had Snoopy in the Red Barren Land in a helicopter. All that garbage works if you're after numbers. Well, we had a large number of people pray a forgiveness prayer during those days, and then I would publish a glowing report of all the people who got saved. Well, it wasn't immoral, and it wasn't illegal, and neither was it scriptural. The reason I fell for this low-level, sick, devil-honoring method of soul winning was because my focus was on numbers. I wanted to be Canada's fastest-growing church, and it was easy to get a crowd. I just skipped the part about repentance and had them pray a little prayer, and my win-them-wet-them-work-them philosophy of ministry was working as far as numbers were concerned. The reason my focus was on numbers was because every Fundamental Independent Baptist soul in any conference I went to taught me that numbers was what it was all about. That's what I should be concerned about. The goal was baptized 200 a year, and I would go and see if I could do that. I filled the church rolls with people who called themselves Christians, who attended one meeting a week as long as I kept begging them to come. They cared nothing about Bible study, nothing about prayer, and there was no evidence of a genuine salvation at all, as is taught in the Scriptures. Well, Harry Ironside over 75 years ago saw the shift to this new philosophy of so-called soul winning. He said shallow preaching that does not grapple with the terrible fact of man's sinfulness and guilt, calling on all men everywhere to repent, results in shallow conversions, and so we have a myriad of glib-tongued professors today who have no evidence of regeneration. Prodding of salvation by grace, they manifest no grace in their lives, loudly declaring that they are justified by faith alone, they failed to remember that faith without works is dead. Well, that was printed in Harry Ironside's message in 1937. I wonder what he would say today. A. W. Tozer said this, I quote, as the church stands now, the man who sees this condition of worldliness is either discredited for one thing or the other or just written off as a fanatic loser. I believe the spirit of Babylon is invading the church today to the point of controlling it. Tozer continued, the church fathers were fanatic worshipers and their worship carried with it a heavy cost, which incidentally they gladly and eagerly paid. Every new thing in the world will soon be copied by the Church, thinking in some way this impresses God. This is an excerpt from Tozer's book, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith. Tozer said, that larger numbers may accept him, is cruelly strong in this day of speed, size, noise, and crowds. But if we know what is good for us, we will resist it with every power at our command." Well, Tozer knew what he was talking about. Ironside knew what he was talking about. But we just didn't bother to listen. D.L. Moody said, When a man is not deeply convicted of sin, it is a pretty sure sign that he has not truly repented. He said, I believe we are making a woeful mistake in taking so many people into the church who have never been truly convicted of sin. Well, that's what Moody said in his message on the results of true repentance. Jude warned us about the common salvation. He said, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. The Greek word common is koinos. The word was used by Jews concerning something that was unholy. profane, or unclean. In Mark 7 and 2, it is translated defiled. In Romans 14 and 14, it is translated unclean three times. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse number 29, it has been translated unholy thing. The teaching that Jude was going to write about one thing and then change his mind and wrote about something else is absolutely nonsense. What he's talking about here is the unholy, defiled, unclean type of gospel had crept in, just like it has today, where we say you just don't need to repent. in order to be saved. In Jude's day, and again in our day, God's great salvation has become a common salvation. It is a salvation that is defiled, unclean, and unholy, and the time has come that those who know the truth should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. There are no slick sales presentations in the Bible, and people made decisions. Sometimes they made positive decisions, and sometimes they didn't. However, they made decisions. Peter preached, and many people made a positive decision. Stephen preached, and when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, gnashed on him with their teeth. They cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, ran upon him with one accord, cast him out of the city, and stoned him. All we need to do is preach the word. We don't need some fancy sales presentation minus repentance so we can get more people in a building listening to us on a Sunday morning. When John preached, he said, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell? When Jesus preached, he said, Woe unto you hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres. When James preached, he said, Ye adulterers and adulteresses. When Paul preached, he said, And thinkest thou that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? What we need today is some real preaching again and quit this salesmanship stuff. Gypsy Smith warned us about our new present-day common salvation. He said, I quote, I am afraid that in our zeal to get people into the kingdom or the church, we have lowered the standards. I am afraid that in our zeal to get people into what we call the church, we have been more anxious about heads than hearts. In order to capture, we have compromised and we have lost. We have been more concerned about filling our church registers than we have about the kingdom. That is from his message preached in 1905, message entitled, As Jesus Passed By. 1905! What would he be saying today? Well, I think he'd be saying the same thing that Paul the Apostle was saying in 2 Corinthians 13 verse number 5. Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Are you really following the doctrine of God? Prove your own selves. Accept ye the reprobates. Remember, that means not standing the test. Paul said, I don't want to be a castaway.