Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. –Jeremiah 6:16 (KJV)
Don’t pacify spiritual Teach me to be me in Christ Origin of consciousness Spiritual I am not what meets the eye
Jack Deere, Why I Am Still Surprised by the Voice of God, ch. 3.
Bernard McGinn, Mysticism in the Reformation.
Stanley Burgess, The Holy Spirit: Medieval Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions, Part 7: “The Radical Reformers.”
GEORGE WISHART (1513-1546). Scottish reformer and martyr. Wishart preaching against Mariolatry. Oil on canvas, English, c1857, by Sir William Fettes Douglas (1822-1891)
There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 178
I cannot give pederasty anything like a first place among the evils of the Coll. There is much hypocrisy on this theme. People commonly talk as if every other evil were more tolerable than this. But why? Because those of us who do not share the vice feel for it a certain nausea, as we do, say, for necrophily? I think that of very little relevance to moral judgment. –C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 109
1. If God worketh in you, then work out your own salvation. The original word rendered, work out, implies the doing a thing thoroughly. Your own; for you yourselves must do this, or it will be left undone forever. Your own salvation: Salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) preventing grace; including the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency toward life; some degree of salvation; the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God. Salvation is carried on by convincing grace, usually in Scripture termed repentance; which brings a larger measure of self-knowledge, and a farther deliverance from the heart of stone. Afterwards we experience the proper Christian salvation; whereby, “through grace,” we “are saved by faith;” consisting of those two grand branches, justification and sanctification. By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favour of God; by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin, and restored to the image of God. All experience, as well as Scripture, shows this salvation to be both instantaneous and gradual. It begins the moment we are justified, in the holy, humble, gentle, patient love of God and man. It gradually increases from that moment, as “a grain of mustard-seed, which, at first, is the least of all seeds,” but afterwards puts forth large branches, and becomes a great tree; till, in another instant, the heart is cleansed, from all sin, and filled with pure love to God and man. But even that love increases more and more, till we “grow up in all things into him that is our Head;” till we attain “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
2. But how are we to work out this salvation? The Apostle answers, “With fear and trembling.” There is another passage of St. Paul wherein the same expression occurs, which may give light to this: “Servants, obey your masters according to the flesh,” — according to the present state of things, although sensible that in a little time the servant will be free from his master, — “with fear and trembling.” This is a proverbial expression, which cannot be understood literally. For what master could bear, much less require, his servant to stand trembling and quaking before him? And the following words utterly exclude this meaning: “In singleness of heart;” with a single eye to the will and providence of God; “not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;” doing whatever they do as the will of God, and, therefore, with their might. (Eph. 6:5, &c.) It is easy to see that these strong expressions of the Apostle clearly imply two things: First, that everything be done with the utmost earnestness of spirit, and with all care and caution: (Perhaps more directly referring to the former word, meta phobou, with fear) Secondly, that it be done with the utmost diligence, speed, punctuality, and exactness; not improbably referring to the latter word, meta tromou, with trembling.
3. How easily may we transfer this to the business of life, the working out our own salvation! With the same temper, and in the same manner, that Christian servants serve their masters that are upon earth, let other Christians labour to serve their Master that is in heaven: that is, First, with the utmost earnestness of spirit, with all possible care and caution; and, secondly, with the utmost diligence, speed, punctuality, and exactness.
4. But what are the steps which the Scripture directs us to take, in the working out of our own salvation? The Prophet Isaiah gives us a general answer, touching the first steps which we are to take: “Cease to do evil; learn to do well.” If ever you desire that God should work in you that faith whereof cometh both present and eternal salvation, by the grace already given, fly from all sin as from the face of a serpent; carefully avoid every evil word and work; yea, abstain from all appearance of evil. And “learn to do well:” Be zealous of good works, of works of piety, as well as works of mercy; family prayer, and crying to God in secret. Fast in secret, and “your Father which seeth in secret, he will reward you openly.” “Search the Scriptures:” Hear them in public, read them in private, and meditate therein. At every opportunity, be a partaker of the Lord’s Supper. “Do this in remembrance of him: and he will meet you at his own table. Let your conversation be with the children of God; and see that it “be in grace, seasoned with salt.” As ye have time, do good unto all men; to their souls and to their bodies. And herein “be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” It then only remains that ye deny yourselves and take up your cross daily. Deny yourselves every pleasure which does not prepare you for taking pleasure in God, and willingly embrace every means of drawing near to God, though it be a cross, though it be grievous to flesh and blood. Thus when you have redemption in the blood of Christ, you will “go on to perfection;” till “walking in the light as he is in the light,” you are enabled to testify, that “he is faithful and just,” not only to “forgive” your “sins,” but to “cleanse” you from all unrighteousness.” [1 John 1:9]
Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. –Isaiah 59:14-15 (KJV)
The Matthew Henry Commentary says the following about that Scripture:
They owned that that was not done which might have been done to reform the land and to amend what was amiss, Isaiah 59:14. “Judgment, that should go forward, and bear down the opposition that is made to it, that should run in its course like a river, like a mighty stream, is turned away backward, a contrary course. The administration of justice has become but a cover to the greatest injustice. Judgment, that should check the proceedings of fraud and violence, is driven back, and so they go on triumphantly. Justice stands afar off, even from our courts of judicature, which are so crowded with the patrons of oppression that equity cannot enter, cannot have admission into the court, cannot be heard, or at least will not be heeded. Equity enters not into the unrighteous decrees which they decree, Isaiah 10:1. Truth is fallen in the street, and there she may lie to be trampled upon by every foot of pride, and she has never a friend that will lend a hand to help her up; yea, truth fails in common conversation, and in dealings between man and man, so that one knows not whom to believe nor whom to trust.”
What we’re seeing here is a state of declension and backsliding across society. That’s the opposite of revival: and the preachers in times of declension, tend to preach theologies of antinomianism. That means that they come up with a form of theology that ignores the Ten Commandments being put into practice in people’s lives. We call it cheap grace, sloppy agape, we can call it whatever we want to call it, but the Ten Commandments get thrown to the side. They are no longer remembered, honored, revered, and obeyed: they’re thrown to the side and the preachers will come in with some cheap grace ideology. What does “cheap grace” mean? The expression comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (pgs. 3-4). Its the false anti-Reformation teaching that you can receive grace and forgiveness from God, with absolutely NO SACRIFICE on your part: you never do anything at all: God just forgives you, and so it’s a cheap grace. The Bible doesn’t teach anything like cheap grace. Not even remotely close! It teaches that unrepentant people have to become repentant in order to receive forgiveness from God, and after receiving that grace, they will remain repentant within the blood of Jesus and with a clean, forgiven conscience (see Westminster Confession ch. 15). Luke 24:47: “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.” Mark 1:15: “Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.” Acts 20:21: “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Real Christians don’t earn God’s grace by repentance, but we do put ourselves in a position to receive it by our repentance. This anti-repentance American false gospel message you’re hearing, is what theologians call antinomianism, solifidianism, sloppy agape, non-lordship salvation, easy believism, cheap grace, greasy grace, and hyper-grace. Its a hellish teaching of backslidden preachers who can’t stop masturbating to porn, like the old prophets of Baal used to; and they’ll console all of their porn addicted buddies with words like, “I understand how it is.” They call these guys “accountability partners,” as if this REALLY helped them in the fight against porn. It never does. Its just a way for Christian guys to excuse themselves: “He looks at porn, so I can look at porn too.” 1 Corinthians 15:33 (NASB): “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’” Pastors who are into extreme carnality should be disciplined. Wesley called such an attitude “the worst of heresies.” Young Bible college grads can be idealistic about the way they think pastoral ministry is going to be, and say things like, “I’m gonna change the church from within.” But then after a 5-year to 10-year period, no, not at all. The cheap grace church culture changes them instead as they realize its the only way to hold down their job as a pastor; and so it ends up being primarily a financial concern, not a spiritual one. The role of pastor becomes a heretical if not a completely pagan idol without any Biblical holiness mixed into it. Everything is social clubby and educational. It has the spirit of Balaam all over it. A divine calling to preach repentance and warn sinners of a burning Hell turns into looking at porn, masturbating every day, living a lie, roving eyes, inappropriate touching, and clergy sexual abuse. In a word: OPPRESSION. And you couldn’t ask for a more spiritually toxic way to raise a family. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” Jesus Christ said. “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of Hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15).
THEY’RE ALL GOIN’ TO HELL! If we offend God, if we break the Ten Commandments, then it provokes God to be angry at us. It is then that we find ourselves to be sinners in the hands of an omnipotent, holy, just, fully alive, and for the time being, an EXTREMELY ANGRY God that’s willing to send us Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes, F4 and F5 tornados, and floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and wars, just to get us to wake up from our backslidden conditions. He gave us the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and he expects us to frame our lives and hearts according to them, but what do we do? We break them instead, and we set our hearts against them with evil conversations, shady business deals, porn, R-rated movies and video games, gratuitous profanity, endless lies, and manipulations, and provocations not repented of, and so many worldly distractions, and so we provoke God to anger, and his wrath abides on us like a pillar of fire. We think God doesn’t care about these things. We test God in this, by running all the way up to the edge of the line, of what we call Christian liberty. But God expects us to take the way of escape from temptation (1 Cor. 10:13). That loving voice, vision, dream, and presence of God all wears off and flies away from us, and there are no signs of his intervention to us anymore; and its all our fault, because of our stupid, man-made, anti-Biblical cheap grace theology that we deceived ourselves with. We manufactured our unbiblical rebellious lifestyles; and then turned around and accused God for not speaking to us anymore! Hell fire and damnation clearly await such men; and yet they say they don’t know why! They’re unbelievers, ashamed of God’s lordship, rude, insensitive, adulterers at heart, murderers at heart, thieves at heart, hypocritical stage magicians putting on an act before everyone, and they still wonder why the voice of God doesn’t speak to them anymore. Spiritual idiocy. Self-deceived fools! God finds that he doesn’t remotely like us at all in this condition, not even close. He HATES us! He sets himself against us! He’s not our friend at all, he’s our ENEMY in such cases. As an angry avenging Judge he feels as if he’s mad with rage, to aim the fire tornado of his holy wrath at us, and drill it right into us until we end up in Hell under the force of it–that is, until we repent or deeply turn from our wicked ways, and we place our faith in the substitutionary, sacrificial, blood of His Son Jesus on the cross, and he hears from Heaven, and gladly forgives our sins against him, and he becomes an adopting Father to us (2 Chron. 7:14). But make no mistake: God is not mocked; only a sincere heart before God will procure his forgiveness. That’s what we need to have a friendly, saving relationship with God, and to be on good terms with him, through the Cross and the Ten Commandments. The Good News is simply this: that salvation from Hell is received in a justification by faith alone, which leads to a heart renewed in Biblical sanctification, and leads to eternal blessedness in Heaven.
Dr. Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry, pgs. 8-9.
If he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. –2 Corinthians 11:4 (KJV)
Five Views on Sanctification, Wesleyan, Reformed, and Pentecostal. (VS Keswick).
Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, all could be good here.
Mark Jones, Antinomianism.
Martin Luther, “Against the Antinomians,” Luther’s Works, vol. 47, Fortress Press.
J. I. Packer, Concise Theology (Tyndale House, 1993), p. 178.
This movement I see slowly forming out of people that love holiness, and love Jesus, and hate false gospels–its a movement that I love to be honest. –52:08-52:16
He’s talking about the open air preaching movement, or street preacher movement, which was mainly inspired by Ray Comfort, but had lots of other street preachers on YouTube, and was covered in the documentary Go Stand Speak (2010):
WesleyGospel Ministries 