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Here in Matthew chapter four, and we're going to look at six more arguments they have to say that we have to repent of our sins to be saved, we're going to look at logical arguments. And after we get done with that, we're going to look at why we do not have to repent of our sins to be saved and why it is a work salvation. So the number one logical reason they gave is this, well, Jesus preached repentance, right? They'll say, Jesus preached repentance, so I'm going to preach repentance, right? That's what they'll say. These are the big arguments they use. Well, Jesus preached repentance, so I'm going to preach repentance. Matthew four verse 17, Matthew four verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Okay? Now look, any person who's a man of God, they're going to preach repentance in two different ways. When it comes to preaching the gospel, hey, repent of what you believe and believe on Jesus Christ, right? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Or you're going to perish and go to hell. But when it comes to preaching sermons to people that are already saved, you preach hard against sin and say, hey, repent of your sins. Make changes in your life. Not to be saved because you have eternal life and you can't lose that, but you need to make changes in your life. So you know what? Yeah, Jesus preached repentance. Okay? Go to John six, John six, John chapter six, John six. So here's the thing. I'm okay with that. Jesus preached repentance. Amen. I'll preach repentance too, but you know, I'll preach it properly, okay? That's the difference, okay? How did Jesus preach in regards to salvation? I mean, we're looking at John six, but we know the whole, I mean, John chapter three or John four with a woman at the well, what does he say? Believe. That's the word, right? Belief is a victory that overcomes the world. John six, verse 47, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. So how did Jesus preach repentance in regards to receiving eternal life? Believe on me, change what you believe, not repent of your sins. Okay? Go to Matthew three, Matthew three, Matthew three. So the first logical argument they use is Jesus preached repentance. Okay? What's your point? Second logical argument that you hear often is John the Baptist preached repentance, okay? And look, I would say this. Every character in the Bible preached repentance. I agree with that. Okay? Yes, they all preach repentance, but how did they preach that? Let's see how John the Baptist preached this. Matthew three, verse one. In those days came John the Baptist preaching the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Once again, it does not say repent of your sins. It just says, repent ye. Okay? Go to verse seven. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Okay? So the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, and it doesn't give us a lot of information. Were they just checking out what was going on? Or did they want to get baptized? I think they were pretending to be like minded, and some of them wanted to get baptized, and they show up, and the response of John the Baptist is, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? He's saying, I'm not going to baptize you. It's like, you're a phony. You're a liar. Because you got to be saved. You got to believe first, and Pharisees and Sadducees are showing up. It's like, no, wait a minute. I don't know who lets you in the line, but I ain't baptizing you, my friend. It's like, I don't believe you believe, right? Why does he say that? So then he says in verse eight, bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. Now what he's saying is this, that these people were false prophets, Pharisees, Sadducees, and he says, I don't believe you're sincere. I believe you're a phony, and I want to see some fruit to show that you've actually changed your mind about what you believe. What is he saying? You have all these false converts. Show me your true convert. Show me somebody that you've changed what you believe, and that you've shown them the gospel and you got them saved. It would be like if a Mormon bishop showed up to get baptized, right? Because the elders are the 18 year olds, right? Mormons aren't very good at English grammar. Like the 18 year olds are the elders, right? And then the leaders of the church are called the bishops, okay? If a Mormon bishop showed up here today to say, hey, I heard you got baptisms going on. I'd like to get baptized too. We'd be like, what in the world? It's like, why did this guy come to get baptized, right? It's like, you know, that would be kind of hard to believe. And see, John the Baptist is not an idiot. He's saying, I don't believe these people are saved. It's like these people are false prophets. They're my enemies, and now they're coming here, right? He says, show me some evidence that you've actually changed your mind, okay? Verse nine, and think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. In verse nine, what John the Baptist is saying is, you still believe salvation by race. And it's not salvation by race, it's salvation by grace. Verse 10, and now also the ax is laid under the root of the trees, therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. What he's saying is, you are a fruit bearing tree. Unfortunately, it's the wrong kind of fruit, right? These are people that have converts. Others can have converts, not true converts though. He says, you've got some converts, false converts. That's what he's saying. He's like, I'm not baptizing you. He's like, show me that you've changed your mind about what you believe, right? It's just like when Paul the Apostle got saved. People are like, I don't know about that. It's like, I have a hard time believing someone who was our enemy in the faith actually got saved, right? And so John the Baptist refused to baptize them. Verse 11, I indeed baptize you with water onto repentance. So it says, you know, I will baptize you after there's been a change of mind is what we believe this is referring to. You got to change what you believe in order to get baptized. You say, well, that's your opinion here. Just says repentance. Well, the Bible actually teaches us what it's talking about. Go to Acts chapter 19, Acts 19. And I would encourage you as a soul winner, Acts 19 is a good passage to know about the topic of repentance. Okay. It's right up there with Jonah 3 10 in terms of important verses. And we'll look at Jonah 3 10 later. But Acts 19, the first several verses are very important that make it very clear. Okay. And I have no problem with saying John the Baptist preached repentance, but what kind of repentance did he preach? Acts 19 verse one. And it came to pass that while Paul was at Corinth, Paul, having passed to the upper coast, came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples, he said on to them, have you received the Holy Ghost since he believed? And they said on them, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And so Paul's just kind of passing along and he's kind of confirming these people are saved. They've heard the word of God. And he mentions the Holy Ghost. And then they're basically like, what's the Holy Ghost? And Paul's like, these people are saved? I mean, they don't even know what the Holy Ghost is, right? And so, you know, he's saying, you know, I don't think they're really saved. We're going to see in the context because they obviously heard the word of God to some degree, but they didn't fully get it, right? Verse three. And he said on to them, on to what then were you baptized? Why were you baptized? Right? He's saying you're baptized. You're like minded, like supposedly you got baptized, but you don't even know what the Holy Ghost is. Who baptized you? And they said on to John's baptism, referring to John the Baptist. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with a baptism of repentance. Now, look, from the context already, we can tell it's not repentance of sins because they believe the wrong thing. They don't understand. They're ignorant. And he's saying, you know what? John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, okay? What does that mean? Saying on to the people, this is the baptism of repentance, saying on to the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is on Christ Jesus. So what kind of repentance did John the Baptist preach that you should believe on Jesus Christ? That's what the Bible is saying in Acts chapter 19. Look, we preach a baptism of repentance, meaning if you've repented, you've changed your mind about what you believe, we'll baptize you. If there's no change of mind, then you know what? We can't baptize you. You got to change your mind about what you believe because you're showing, I believe that Jesus was buried and then he rose again, okay? Now go in your Bible, Mark 1, Mark 1. We're going to fly through these here today. Acts 19, you should probably write that down as an important one. And look, this is not John the Baptist's fault because he was baptizing a lot of people. And look, we baptize people from time to time. We don't baptize 100 people a day or anything like that, right? But if we were baptizing 100 people, we wouldn't have time to double check everyone as much as we'd like to, to make sure that they're saved, right? When you only have a few people, you can kind of double check it. But you know, if there's too many, you're not going to be able to do that, right? Here's an example in Verdi, in Sacramento before, somebody came to get baptized. And you know, Pastor Jimenez was having me double check people's salvation before we baptized them. Because you know, you're preaching sermons, you don't have time to check everything that's going on, right? This person drove like two hours to get baptized. It was him and either his wife or his girlfriend or fiance or whatever. They were online listeners. So you know, I kind of assume they're probably saved, right? Just do the double check on questions. And so I was asking them, you know, what they thought it took to get to heaven. It's like, oh, just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a gift. I was like, oh, yeah, great. Do you think a person can ever lose their salvation? They're like, well, no, except, except if, right? I can't remember exactly what he said, but he gave like a condition where you could lose your salvation. And it's just like, this is like a nightmare scenario, right? This guy's driven two hours to get baptized and he's not saved. And then I was as kind as possible. And I said, well, you know, we actually believe something different. And this is right before the service, right? So I said, do you mind if maybe I can talk to you outside, explain a little bit more about what we believe about? He's like, what are you saying? You're not going to baptize me? And he was already like really mad at me. And I tried to be as nice as possible. And like, he got mad with his fiance, like he stormed out of there. And he knew somebody at our church, just kind of vaguely. And during the sermon, he's texting him, right? And I'm beside this guy, one of the ushers, and he's texting about, he's like, you tell your baptism gatekeeper that I want to meet him at the pearly gates. He's like challenging me to a fight at the pearly gates, right? It's just like, well, I hope he makes it to the, I hope he changes what he believes, right? But it's like, he didn't believe the right thing. But here's the thing, realize if you have 100 people showing up and there are 100 online listeners, you're going to have some unsaved people in there. And you might not have time to double check everybody's salvation, right? If there's only a few people you can check, John the Baptist baptized a lot of people. It's not his fault. There's some false converts in there, okay? I am sure I have baptized people before that are not saved. I'm positive about it, right? We baptized 100 people at our church. There's going to be somebody who maybe they were listening online, they didn't really get it. Or maybe somebody thought they were saved or, you know, whatever. I mean, there's going to be some false converts. That's the same thing with John the Baptist, okay? Question number three, okay? Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, right? This is a very common argument. Repentance and faith are two... You cannot have one side of a coin. I mean, if you got one side, you got to have another side, right? Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. If you got faith, you got repentance. If you got repentance, you got faith. There's two sides to a coin, my friend. Yeah, but you know, here's the thing. There's three sides on a triangle. What's your point? There's four wings on a butterfly, right? I mean, there's five players on a basketball team, right? I mean, what's your point? 12 months in a year. What's your point? I get it. A coin has two sides. That's your argument? And what they're trying to do is this. They look at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of verses that say faith alone. And they say, well, we negate that because you know what? Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, even though it does not mention, you know, repentance of sins, it doesn't matter because you can't have faith without the repentance of sins. That is how they try to overhaul John 3.16, John 3.36, you know, John 6.47, Romans 6.23, Ephesians 2.89. They overhaul all of those verses by saying, well, coins have two sides, okay? Well let's see. And what they're saying is this. You're not going to have faith without repentance. You're not going to have repentance without faith. Well, let's see if that's biblical. Mark 1, verse 15. That's probably the most common thing I've ever heard from people. You always hear them talk about coins. It's like, yeah, you're obsessed with money, I can tell, right? Mark 1, verse 15. And saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe the gospel. And see, what they say is this. Well, you got a lot of verses that say believe, but repent ye is always along with the belief. Now for us, what we believe is you repent of what you believe in order to believe on Jesus, right? But go to Matthew 21. Let's look at this a little bit more in depth. Let's look at their argument and see if it holds water. Because they're showing a verse that says repent and believe, and what they're saying is this is repentance of sins in order to believe. What we're saying is you change your mind about what you believe in order to believe. And look, that makes sense, because if you believe one thing, you've got to change what you believe to believe something else. It doesn't make logical sense to say, well, you know what? I was a drunk, but I repented of that sin, then I believed on Jesus. No, no, no. What would make sense is I was a drunk, I repented of that, I quit drinking. I no longer drank. I mean, those things line up. It's like, you know, I was committing this sin, I repented of that sin, I no longer commit that sin. That's logical. Those are the same things, right? It makes sense to say you change what you believe in order to believe on Jesus, when those things are being linked together. But let's look at one of their arguments, because here's the thing, we're going to see repentance and believe together, and we're going to see very clearly that repentance is a change of mind, okay? Matthew 21, verse 32, for John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not. But the publicans and the harlots believed him, and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. And so what they would have us to say is the publicans and the harlots repented of their sins in order to believe, okay? Well, let's look at the context. Go to verse 28, verse 28, verse chapter 28. But what think ye? A certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not. I don't want to work in the vineyard. But afterward he repented and went, right? He says, I don't want to work in the vineyard. But you know what? He had a change of mind about it, and he ended up working in the vineyard, right? He changed. He went from this to this. I didn't want to work, but you know what? I changed, and I did work. That makes sense, because these things line up. I didn't want to work. I did work, right? Just like I believe this, and now I believe this. Those things line up. Not like I was a drunk, now I believe this. That doesn't make any sense, okay? It's not very logical. Verse 30. And he came to the second and said likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir, and went not. Whether them twain did the will of his father, they say unto them the first, Jesus saith unto them, verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. Now is there anything about repenting of your sins? Is there anything about the publicans and the harlots, she quit being a harlot? No. There's nothing about you quit being a tax collector. You quit committing these sins, right? He uses the example of someone didn't want to go, and then they changed their mind and they went, right? Those things are congruent. Then he says in verse 32, for John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not. Ye believed one thing, but the publicans and the harlots believed him. Why is that? And ye, when he had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. One group of people, they changed what they believed. They repented of what they believed in order to believe on Jesus Christ. The others, they didn't believe, and they still didn't believe. It's about belief. That's a context. It's about belief, and they never changed what they believe in order to believe on Jesus Christ. And let me be clear, some of those publicans and harlots, I'm sure they kept being publicans. I'm sure they kept being harlots, because it doesn't mean that you change your actions if you get saved. And there's nothing that says they changed their actions. It says they changed their belief. One group of people didn't believe, and the other didn't believe. But then the one that did not believe, when it talks about those that didn't, not the publicans or harlots, they didn't repent in order to believe. They didn't change what they believe. But the publicans and harlots, they did change what they believe. Right? And you know, we find this when we go soul winning, that people that are super religious, oftentimes they don't want to listen to us. People that are dogmatic about what they believe, often they don't want to listen to us. And just kind of everyday people, they listen, right? It's the ones that are super religious and strongly believe something. And you know what? They are the ones that don't want to listen. That is what we find. Okay? Go to John four. John four. John four. So here's the thing. When we're saying repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, like, well, what do you mean by that? Because if you're saying this, that you cannot believe on Jesus Christ, if you believe something else, I agree with that. You can't be a Hindu and add Jesus to what you already believe and get saved. Because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father, but by me. You can't trust Shiva and Jesus Christ. You got to put all your trust in Jesus Christ. So look, someone's got to change what they believe. So yeah, you know what? If somebody has faith one hundred percent in Jesus, yeah, they can't have one percent over here. But you know what? They can still be a drunk and have one hundred percent of their faith in Jesus. Why would being a drunk stop you from having all your faith in Jesus Christ? It doesn't make sense, right? Somebody can be a sinner and commit terrible sins, and they can still believe on Jesus Christ. And look, we're all sinners. All of us are guilty. And don't go around thinking, well, I would never commit those sins. That person must not be saved because they're committing this sin. The Bible doesn't say you have to change your actions to be saved. Okay? It's that simple, okay? Argument number four is they talk about calling on the name of the Lord. And they say, well, it's the same as calling on the name of the Lord. They say, you say it's just by believing, but then you also say you got to call on the name of the Lord because that's implied. And we're saying the same thing just about repentance. Here's why that's different. Okay? Notice what it says in John four, verse ten. John four, verse ten. Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God, right, what is the gift of God? Eternal life, right? If you knew the gift of eternal life and who it is that sayeth to thee, give me to drink. Now who's telling her to drink? Jesus Christ. What's he saying? If you understand the gift and who's given it, right, because to be saved, you have to understand what the gift is, but you have to understand who Jesus Christ is. You got to understand it's a free gift. You have to understand Jesus is who he says he was and that he do what he said he do. Okay? That's salvation. If somebody says, well, I believe it's eternal life, but I don't believe it's in Jesus, right? My neighbor's name, Jesus. So I think he died for me. Well, that's not good enough. You got to believe on the Jesus Christ. You say, well, I believe it's eternal life in, you know, Muhammad. That's not good enough. You got to believe on Jesus Christ. So you have to understand the gift, eternal life, that it's a gift and it's eternal, but you also have to understand who's giving it to you. But then there's some people, there's many Catholics, and they believe Jesus Christ is the savior. They believe Jesus was God in the flesh. They believe in the Trinity. They're not confused on the nature of the deity of God, right? They believe those things and understand those things, but they don't understand the gift. Well, you need both of those things. And what Jesus says in John 4 is if you know what the gift is and who's the one giving you the gift, then guess what? John 4 verse 10, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water. So what Jesus Christ said is, you know what, if you understand what the gift is and who's giving it, you will ask. What does that mean? It means everybody who believes will ask. That's what the Bible's saying, right? If somebody 100% believes everything about who Jesus is and everything about eternal life, and not just that they've heard it, but they believe it, they believe it, the Bible says they will ask. And that makes logical sense because a drowning man in the water that has people beside the water is going to cry out for help to save him, right? It makes sense that, yeah, if you believe, you're going to ask for this. Now we have it in our Gospel presentation because we want to make sure that they do understand these things, they do believe these things, and many times people are thinking about these things and they're not sure. It could be during the presentation they change over, but you know, man looketh on the outward appearance, right? We can't see what happened on the inside if they prayed on the inside. Man looketh on the outward appearance, okay? But we see how that lines up if you believe you're going to call, but that doesn't mean that if you believe you're going to repent of your sins, though. Here's the difference. Because with calling, Jesus Christ said, yes, you know what, that is attached to believing. But the Bible doesn't say that about repentance of sins, right? And realize this, there are people that repent of their sins, but then they don't believe. Because here's the thing, if this is two sides of the same coin, if you did the repentance of sins, then you are going to believe according to them. Look, Malcolm X, who knows Malcolm X? He was like the other one besides Martin Luther King, nobody knows him. All right, in the US, everybody would know Malcolm X, right? Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were the two, you know, popular, you know, black political speakers. Malcolm X was a hardcore Muslim, right? He got converted in jail because he was a bad person, he was a derelict, he was a loser, he almost got shot to death into drugs and drinking and everything. And you know what, he converted to Islam, and he never did any of those things ever again. Does that mean he got saved? Because he was still a Muslim, right? Did you know people do make changes in their lives? People are drunks, and then they quit drinking. Does that mean they automatically believed on Jesus Christ? Because according to them, you can't do that unless you believe because it's two sides of the same coin, my friend. I mean, if you got the repentance of sins, the faith is automatic. Really? Because there's many people in this world that do things and then they change their actions and it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. All the time people do this. I mean, good night, you can have a million examples, right? I mean, people change their diets all the time. Oh, that means they must have gotten saved. They followed their New Year's resolution. There's proof of their salvation, right? They used to eat cheesecake and now they eat apples. There's their salvation, right? I mean, it's ridiculous to say that if there's repentance of sins, there's automatically faith. You know, there's a million examples that disprove that. People make changes all the time in their lives. It doesn't mean that they got saved, right? Turn in your Bible to James 2. James 2. James 2. James 2. What we're doing in the sermon is going through their biggest and best arguments. All the common ones I've heard and look, I've been around the block for a long time. I know what the arguments are. I double checked online in case there's any new arguments. We got 16 out of 18 down and look, we don't have the hardest two left, right? I mean, they don't have any arguments for the topic. The problem is they're not saved and they don't understand the Bible. That is the problem. And the big problem is they're confusing people that are saved that are in their churches. And that's what makes me angry, right? Argument number five of logical arguments. Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of heart that results in a change of action. So they add a magical step in between, right? Because this is what they try to do. This is really annoying. You talk to people like this and you'll say, well, repentance is just changing what you believe. They're like, hey, I don't disagree with that. Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of heart, that leads to a change of action, right? That's called somebody kind of trying to go both ways, right? It's like, what do you believe? Is it a change of mind or is it a change of action? No, it's both, right? Because it's a change of mind that leads to a change of heart, right? Let's just take out that middle one that they said, because if you take out the change of heart, what you have is a change of mind results in a change of action. Let's just take out the middle step because they're saying if there's a change of mind, there will automatically be a change of action. So let's take out the middle step. Does the Bible teach that if there's a change of mind, a change in your belief, that there's going to be a change of action automatically? Does the Bible teach that? James 2, verse 20. You know what I love about James 2, verse 20? You don't have to go there during a conversation with someone. They will take you to James 2, 20. They are going to take you here. You say, Brother Stuckey, you're a prophet. Like I was preaching. I got into this debate with this person and he took me to James 2. They always go to James 2. What is great is when they quote this and they don't know where it is, it's like, oh, it's in James 2. James 2, verse 20. It's like, let's just go there, right? It's like, then they're like, James, it's not in the Old Testament. Oh, man. The Gospels. I mean, he was one of the... No, no, no. Here, let me just turn for you, okay? I'll turn you to James 2, verse 20. Does a change of mind result in a change of action automatically? James 2, verse 20. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? See, according to James 2, verse 20, you can have faith without works, right? Faith without works is dead. Now what does it mean by dead? Well, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It means like a computer's dead, right? I mean, if I poured water on brother Chris's computer after the service, this is why I didn't bring my computer today, brother Chris. I was like, no, man, if I'm gonna pour water on brother Chris's computer after the service, that computer is gonna die. Does that mean it doesn't exist? No, it just means it doesn't work anymore. If I died, my body still exists, right? But you'd say that I'm dead. It doesn't mean that my body doesn't exist, okay? When it's saying faith without works is dead, faith without having any works, it's useless. It doesn't do any good. But does that mean that you cannot have faith without works? It just said faith without works. You can have faith without works. And people will take you here and say, here's proof that you cannot have faith without works. Faith without works is dead. It's like, I mean, is English your 10th language? What's the problem here? Faith without works. And they say, well, it doesn't exist. You just quoted a verse where it said you can have faith without works. So does a change of mind automatically result in a change of action? No. Let me tell you something. A change of mind doesn't automatically result in a change of heart. It's people's decision what they want to do, okay? A change of mind does not guarantee a change of action. Let me be clear. We get a lot of people saved, and a lot of those people we run back into when we're going soloing. And they're saved, and our church got them saved, and there's probably been no change of action on their part. But you know, there's been a change of their belief. I mean, you run into these people on the streets. You know, the other day, like last week, we're walking by, I still don't know who this person was. I think it was on Wednesday we were going soloing in Calientar Rizal, and he's like, oh, Brother Matthew. And I'm just thinking, I have no clue who that person is. I'm assuming I gave them the gospel. It's like, we talked to a lot of people. It's hard to remember, right? We run into people all the time, and they'll tell us that they're saved. That doesn't mean that they're reading the Bible and going to church. Look, a change of mind does not always result in a change of action. Go to Romans 4. Romans 4. Romans 4. Romans 4. I'll tell you what can result in a change of action is when people start reading the Bible, they start hearing preaching. I mean, if people start to walk close to God, then they might make some changes in their lives. If people are mentally saved and they never hear a biblical sermon, they never start reading the Bible, why would there be a change? Because you know what changes you? When the Word of God pierces you on the inside, and you've got to make a decision, right? I'm either going to make a change or I'm just going to quit reading the Bible because it hurts too much, right? And we still have that freewill choice. Even when you get pierced with the Word of God, you hear a sermon, you still have your choice. Am I going to be hard-headed or am I going to change, right? If somebody gets saved and they never hear this kind of preaching and they never read the Bible, they're probably not going to change at all. That's reality. Okay. Romans 4 verse 4. Now to him that worketh is a reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness. Notice how it says that you cannot work, not do good works, but you can believe, right? The Bible is very clear. You can believe without having the works. You can have a change of mind about Jesus Christ and not have a change of action. Works and faith are not always linked together. Someone can, and look, common sense is going to tell you this. People believe a lot of things and it doesn't mean that they do them. People believe that they should spend more time reading books than on Facebook. Does that mean that they automatically read books? Right? I mean, people believe they should exercise because it's healthy. Does that mean that they exercise just because they believe that? People believe that, you know what, I probably shouldn't eat these potato chips. I probably should eat, you know, this, this, you know, really tasty carrot, right? But it doesn't mean that they're actually going to do it just because they believe it. People believe things all the time. It doesn't mean that they're actually going to follow it, right? Turn your Bible to Revelation 21. Revelation 21. I don't want to be too long. We'll go to Revelation 21. Maybe the last argument. I don't know about here, but like in the US, it's like the running joke that the people that take less care of their bodies than anyone are doctors, right? They have all this medical advice, but then they smoke the cigarettes, they eat unhealthy and everything. I don't know if that's true, but that's what you all is like the running joke. Like, you know, doctors, they always give you the medical advice, but it doesn't mean that they actually follow it themselves, right? But here's the thing. You can believe stuff without actually following it. That's reality. Just because you believe something doesn't mean that you're going to do it. And Revelation 21, right? I mean, many of you this morning, your alarm went off. You're like, I really should. I really should wake up. I believe this 100%, but you're like, nah, I'm just going to hit the snooze. Just because you believe something doesn't mean that you're actually going to have the actions. Okay. Common sense would disprove that. The Bible disproves that. We already disproved that. The logical argument is this. They will go to a lot of lists of really sinful people, or they'll go to a list of a lot of sins, right? We'll list off like 20 different sins, and they'll say, well, see, really sinful people do not inherit heaven. They don't go to heaven. Therefore, if you want to go to heaven, you must repent of all those sins, right? They'll go to a list where it says, if you commit this sin, you're going to go to hell. See, you must repent of that sin in order to go to heaven. That's what they say. An example is Revelation 21 8, right? Revelation 21 8, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their parts in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So they'll go through a list like this and say, well, see, murderers don't go to heaven, so you got to repent of that sin to go to heaven. Sorcerers don't go to heaven, you got to repent of that sin to go to heaven. That's what they argue. Even though it does not say repent of your sins in these verses, right? But they'll say, here's a list of people that do these things, they don't go to heaven, so you must have to repent of all those sins in order to go to heaven. But you know what I love about lists like this? God usually includes something like liars. But wait a minute, he didn't even say liars. He says, oh, in case you're confused, how about all liars? And here's the thing, in case you're confused about that, at the end of the chapter, who so ever loveth and maketh a lie. He defines a liar as one lie in the same chapter, who so ever maketh a lie. Why? Because a murderer is someone who's murdered someone, even if it's one person. A liar is someone who's lied. This is why when kids are on the playground, right, and then one kid tells a lie, it's like, you're a liar. Just for one lie, they call him a liar. Because by definition, a liar is someone who tells lies. Now here's the thing about this. Is there anybody who's never lied? Right? The Bible says, let God be true, but every man a liar. Every man. And don't get too excited, ladies. Because every man is referring to men and women, mankind, okay? We don't have a gender neutral Bible. So when it says every man, that includes you too, okay? Let God be true, but every man a liar. Everybody's lied before. And here's the thing, after you get saved, you still lie sometimes. Every single person. I don't know about that. Well, the Bible says that if you say you're not a liar, then the truth's not in you. That's what it says in 1 John 1, right? If you say that you've not lied, the truth is not in you. We still lie sometimes. So here's the thing about this. Someone might have repented of all these other sins, but did they repent of the sin of lying or do they still lie sometimes? Because it seems like you're not going to heaven then. Because by your own admission, by what they say, you must repent of all of these sins to go to heaven, but you haven't. Because you still lie sometimes. Nobody has repented of all their sins. That's what's so ridiculous about this. It's like, well, I repented of all my sins. Do you still sin sometimes? Well, yes. Then how are you saying you repented of all your sins? It doesn't make any sense. No, you haven't. Are you perfect? Are you sinless? Or do you still sin? Because if you still sin, then you did not repent of all your sins. Well, I was willing. I still commit the sins, but I'm willing not to sin. You have to be willing to give up your sins. If you were willing to give up your sins, then you would give up your sins. If I said, hey, you know what? I got like, I don't know, I got 50,000 pesos in my hand, and I said, JR, I am willing to give this to you. And you say, okay, can I have it? Well, I'm not going to give it. How was I willing to give it to him? It doesn't make any sense. I mean, if you are willing to repent of all your sins, why don't you repent of all your sins? It doesn't make any sense. They're just adding another step. It's like, no, look, the Bible does not teach you have to repent of your sins, and it is impossible to repent of all your sins. Okay, we still sin. And so when you see lists that will name a lot of different sins, the law is not given for us to look at it and say, man, I can follow every single one of these things. I'm like the rich young ruler. I've kept all these things from my youth up. No, the law is given to show you, wow, I'm guilty. Honor thy father and mother. Wow, I broke that one a few times, right? It's like, you know, the law is given to show us we're guilty. That's what it says in the book of Galatians, right? I mean, it says the law is given to show us that we need a savior, and then it's very easy for us to understand we need Jesus Christ. That's why when we go soul winning, we show people they're guilty because the law will show that to them that they've broken God's law. They're guilty. They're guilty because they're a savior, okay? That will show us that it's by believing because no one can repent of all their sins. Now go to Genesis six, Genesis six, Genesis chapter six. What's funny about this is in general, I'm sure there's some exceptions, but in general, when you run into people that say you've got to repent of your sins to be saved, and if you're not really doing the good works, it means you're not really saved. Generally, they don't really live that godly of lives. What they do is this, instead of actually living a righteous life, they just bring down the standards of what a sin is. They listen to music that I would feel guilty about, and they just listen to it freely. Oh, this isn't a sin, right? I mean, the proof is the Calvinist is like, man, who drinks more than the Calvinist? I mean, instead of actually living up to a high standard, they just bring down the levels. Oh, it's not wrong to drink. I mean, drinking wine and smoking marijuana, it's not the same at all, according to John MacArthur, right? We got that guy in Arizona, Jeff Durbin, who's got a big, huge YouTube channel, and he talks about how Alec Guinness was such a godly person, and he created Guinness beer as a ministry. What in the world? What a joke. See, the Bible says it's wrong to do that, but you know what they do is instead of actually living a more righteous life, they pretend like they're living a righteous life, and they just bring down the bar of what sin is. And here's the thing, if you're actually serving God, that means you're going to get closer and closer to the light, and you're going to start seeing the problems. They're so far from the light, though, they don't see anything, and they don't even have the light inside of them when they're believing a work of salvation, so they can't even tell that they're guilty. They can't even tell they're committing all these sins, but you know what? If you're serving God, you get closer to light, you start seeing some problems in your life. People that teach that you got to repent of your sins to be saved, they usually don't live that godly lives. That's reality. Okay, Genesis six, Genesis chapter six. So let's look at five things real quickly of why we do not have to repent of our sins to be saved. We looked at all their arguments. Let's look at a few things, because many people will tell you this, when you see the word repent in the Bible, it means repentance of sins automatically, right? So it always means repentance of sins when you see the word repent. Well, there's a big problem with that. The problem is God is not a sinner. Problem is God repents more than anybody else. And so if repentance always means to turn from your sins, then God was pretty wicked. Because the Bible mentions God repenting over and over again. All the time. In fact, the first mention of repentance is Genesis six, verse six, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air for it repented me that I have made them. And so God made man, they committed wickedness. And he's like, you know what? I changed my mind like these people are here. They broke my laws. I don't want them here anymore. And then he goes through Noah and his family, right? You know what people will say that believe in repentance of sins? They'll say, well, I mean, here's the thing. In reference to God, when it says repenting, it's not saying turning from your sins, it's saying just change. Right? Change what you believe. But in reference to man, it's always turned from your sins. It's like, wow, good argument, buddy. All right. Go to John 20. John 20. John 20. John chapter 20. So number one, God repents throughout the Bible. So saying that repentance always means repentance of sins is ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. Number two, let's look at John chapter 20, then I'll explain. John 20 verse 27. John 20 verse 27. Then sayeth he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing. It says, Thomas, I want you to believe. I want you to believe I'm the risen Christ. Okay. He's doubting Thomas as he's known. And Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord and my God, Thomas understands that Jesus Christ is God. Do you notice that? Right? He says, man, my Lord and my God. Okay. So there you go. Jesus is God proven right there. Verse 29. Jesus sayeth unto him, Thomas, because thou has seen me, thou has believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. Right? What book is it referring to? That's referring to the book of John. That's the book that's being written. He's saying there's many things that Jesus Christ did that are not written in this book, in this book of John. Right? Obviously Jesus Christ did many things in the other gospels that aren't even mentioned in the book of John. He did many things in the book of John, but then it says this in verse 31, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by leaving that believing you might have life through his name. So it says in verse 31, you know what, in the book of John from verse 30, not everything that he did is written in this book, but the things that are written in the book of John, they're written that you might believe. They're written that you might get saved. Right? So it says here in John 20 verse 31 that the things that were written were written so that you might actually believe on Jesus Christ. You might actually get saved. Right? I had a friend of mine who was, was, you know, dating a girl and she was from a Baptist church, but he wasn't sure if she was saved or not because, you know, she's, you hear a lot of false things at a lot of Baptist churches and he wasn't real sure. So he said, let's start reading the Bible together. Right? After they'd been talking for a while and he had her start reading the book of John and then all of a sudden, you know, cause he had tried to give her the gospel. Then all of a sudden after she got through several chapters, like, oh man, I don't think I'm saved. She realized by reading the book of John, she wasn't saved. Why? Well, the book of John was written that people might believe. It's the most clear book on salvation. I mean the book of Romans is great. Don't get me wrong. The book of John is the number one most clear book on salvation. I always tell people when they get saved, Hey, you know what? When you start reading the Bible, start in the book of John, right? Starting the book of John, it's the best place to start reading, right? Is the book of John, cause it's going to confirm everything that we teach. You say, brother Stuckey, what's your point? Here's my point. The book of John, according to the book of John itself was written that people might believe. It's written that people might get saved and guess what? How many times is the word repent in the book of John? Zero. The word repent, never in the book of John. The word repents, never in the book of John. The word repenteth, repenting, repented, no form of the word is ever in the book of John. And yet the book of John says, Hey, this book was written that you might believe. Why is that? Because repentance of sins has nothing to do with salvation. And God's trying to make it clear. He intentionally leaves out that word. Why? He wants to make it clear because he knew people were going to come and teach false doctrine. He says, you know what? This book was written that you might get saved. And you know what? I'm leaving out the word repent. And people say, well, if you believe it's an automatic repentance, then why doesn't the book of John mentioned the word one time, one time, the next time you read through the book of John, look for it, double check me, check if I missed it. Maybe I just missed it 50 times. Maybe you got some other version of the Bible that has extra verses in there. I don't know. Right? My Bible doesn't have the word repent. It doesn't have any form of the word repent in it. And yet it's the clearest book to tell people how to get saved. You say why? Because salvation is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why. Turn in your Bible to Act 16, Act 16, Act Chapter 16, say, Brother Stuckey, why are you getting mad? Well, here's the thing. I'm not really mad because I know our church agrees. But here's what I'll say. I want you to realize this is a heaven or hell issue. And I want you to realize if somebody starts coming to our church and they believe you got to repent of your sins, it's like that doesn't necessarily mean that they're a bad person or whatever. But yeah, I want to know about that. If they're going around telling other people about how, well, if you're really saved, you're going to live a good life. Right? I mean, you got to repent of your sins. Yeah. If someone starts coming and starts to try to teach people other things and we believe, yeah, I want to know about it. Right? As far as I know, this hasn't happened, at least not recently. Right? But we need to understand how important this topic is. Right? I'm not going to have fellowship with other Baptist churches that teach you got to repent of your sins to be saved. I'm not pointing at any specific church. Okay? I'm not going to fellowship with any Baptist church. Let me say this, though, right? To go on a bit of a rabbit trail, right? Which is similar to when John the Baptist said people show up to get baptized. We did have somebody who came to our church at the beginning of our church in Bayview, pretended to be like-minded. Right? I mean, many of you remember him. Pretended to be like-minded, pretend to be like us. There's a problem. When he explained verses about salvation, he was saying, well, if you're really saved, you're going to have the works. Just pretending to be like-minded. We had to get rid of him from our church. And you know what? And he went from being an enemy of that other pastor. And you know, he said, no, man, that pastor's false. You know, I'm like-minded. You know, I'm new IFB and everything. Never heard of Pastor Jimenez before. Never heard of Pastor Jimenez. Biggest fan. Biggest fan of the new IFB. Never heard of Pastor Jimenez before. Right? Biggest fan of the new IFB. I've never met anybody in my life who spoke less English than him. I'm not just saying that. I mean, people that are at a church, it's like, he literally, how can you listen to all Pastor Innocent's sermons when you don't speak any English? He preaches in English. He literally didn't understand. I mean, when he came to our church for a couple months, he'd fall asleep 10 minutes in, and it's awkward because our church used to be smaller. So it's very obvious. He'd go to the bathroom for an hour during the sermon. Literally. Is that not true? He'd just go to the bathroom. And then five minutes later, it's just like, what happened to that guy? And he's still hanging out. It's like, what are you doing? Right? But he was pretending to be like mine, and then he wanted to come soul winning with our church. He actually came once or twice or something. It's like, we had to stop it. And then he was ripping people off, getting people to give him money at the missions trip and stuff like that. I'm going on a bit of a rabbit trail, because he went back to that church, and all of a sudden he went from being the biggest new IFB fan to being the biggest fan of that pastor and everything. That church, who I believe probably sent him to our church, they're starting a branch their church really close to us. I don't know why. I really don't know why they'd send someone to spy on our church when we were a small church. Like, what are you afraid of? It's like, we're doing our own thing. We don't really care. But they're starting very close to the GULI area that we go soul winning in. Right? And let me be clear. If we run into them, we're not getting in fights. We're going to ignore them. We're doing our own thing. I don't really care. But what I am saying is, there's an example of a church we're not going to have fellowship with. They say, why? Because of the fact that church teaches repentance of sins. And look, I would love to have fellowship with Baptist churches, especially when they start next door. It's like, great. The problem is you teach something different. And here's the thing. There's not a lack of Baptist churches in the Philippines. There's a lack of churches that are clear on salvation. There's many Baptist churches. People tell me all the time, oh, I go to such and such Baptist church, which is nearby. The problem is they teach a different gospel. We'll never have fellowship with people. That's why it's a heaven or hell issue. Okay, Act 16. We'll look at a few more places. We'll be done. Act 16. Act 16. Acts chapter 16. And let me just be honest with you. You know, as a church, we're going to have a multitude of enemies through the years. I don't want to waste my time with them. I'm not going to waste my time just worrying about all these enemies that are going to come. We're doing a great work here right now. We got this church. We got our church plant. We're getting lots of people saved. Our church is growing and everything. I just don't really care about these other churches that are doing whatever. It's like, do your own thing. We'll do our own thing. I'm not worried about it. Okay, whatever. It's like, obviously, we believe something different. If somebody liked their church more than ours, then that's probably the church they should go to. Right? If somebody says, I just really like that message of repent of your sins. Yeah, that's the church to go to. Fact. Hey, I'm letting you know right now. You say, Brother Stuckey, man, I like this church. The only thing is I think you got to repent of your sins to be saved. There's a church opening up near door, opening nearby. It's probably the best fit for you because we make it very clear what we believe about salvation. It's perfectly fine if people come in and they believe something different or they don't know about our church and everything's new, but it's like if you know what you believe and it's the opposite of what I'm preaching here today, this is not the church for you. I'll tell you what, you're not going to fool the members at our church. If you're just kind of hanging out at this church, I'm going to try to subtly change it. You're not going to fool the members at our church. We understand what salvation is around here because we go so many all the time and declare what we believe. We know what we believe. Number three, simply because the Bible says all you have to do to be saved is believe. All you have to do. Okay. Act 16 verse 30 and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? There's a million things that we should do. But what must you do to be saved? This person's asking Paul and Silas, Hey, I don't understand salvation. What does it take to get to heaven? I want to know how to be saved. What must I do? Well, if the answer was repent of your sins and believe, wouldn't the Bible say that? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved in thy house. It doesn't mention repentance of sins because the thing you must do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look, if you had to get baptized, you know what it would say? It would say, get baptized. If you had to do whatever, speak in tongues, it would say, speak in tongues, he's saying, what must I do? And then Paul says, well, I'm going to give you half the gospel and hope you got the other half right. No, he's going to actually tell them this is what you must do to be saved. And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. Just like John 3 16 whosoever believeth in him, meaning if you believe, but you don't repent of your sins, you receive everlasting life. It's that simple. It's not complicated. One last place. Jonah 3, Jonah 3, Jonah chapter 3, Jonah 3. And look, I don't know everybody's personal testimony of how you got saved and how you started living for God, but I'll just quickly say that for me, I got saved in college at the age of 18 years old and I didn't start going to church immediately, but the person who led me to the Lord was my friend, right? He's somebody I met in college. I'm friends with him today. And so here's the thing. We would do whatever we play basketball, you know, we'd work out or whatever. And afterwards he just started explaining the Bible to me, just spending 10 minutes. Just, I was kind of like his followup convert, right? And he would just slowly show me the Bible. He's the one who taught me the post-trib rapture, the pre-wrath post-trib rapture. We believe today. He taught me a lot of things. He taught me the King James Bible. He taught me why we need to go. So when he, I learned a lot from this person who got me saved. I made changes because I had someone who actually showed me, here's the thing about this. We get people saved all the time though, and they don't have anybody to teach them the word of God. Obviously they have the Holy Spirit of truth inside of them, but the reality is when people first get saved, they're probably not going to start reading the Bible. I made changes because of the fact I had somebody who was showing me the Bible. Then I started going to church about a year later, and then I started making changes a little bit more rapidly, and I just slowly changed through the years, right? It's not that when I got saved right afterwards, I was like, oh man, now I'm going to start reading the Bible, right? I was very relieved I wasn't going to hell, but it's not like it just changed my actions immediately. Saying that you've got to repent of your sins or if you believe you're going to make this major change, it's not biblical, and it doesn't fit with people's testimonies because many of you got saved and changed nothing for years, and then you started coming to this church and it's like, boom. Why? Because the word of God is what changes your heart, and see, people get saved all the time. It doesn't mean they're going to change your actions, though, just because they believe. Number four, the reason why you don't have to repent of your sins to be saved is quite simply, the Bible says that turning from your sins or repenting of your sins is works. It is a works salvation. This is a heaven or hell issue. It's not just, well, you don't have to repent, but it's okay if you include it in your gospel. No, it's not okay if you include it in your gospel. Look, if you go sowing with someone at our church and then they tell someone they got to repent of their sins, look, I'm not saying that person's automatically a bad person. Maybe they just started coming to our church, but I definitely need to know about that because I hope they're confused, but it is very possible they're just not saved, right? We don't have to repent of our sins to be saved. It is a works salvation. Jonah 3, verse 9, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? Verse 10, and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. So God saw their works. What did he see? That they turned from their evil way. They turned from their sins. They changed their actions. And God says, when you changed your actions, that was work. Are we saved by works salvation? No. And here's what's funny. Every one of those Baptist churches would say, hey, you know what? You know, it's not of works, lest any man should boast. Every one of them, I mean, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 is popular with almost every Christian out there. I mean, unless you're a Catholic, they're going to say it's not of works, right? I mean, almost every church, other than Jehovah's Witnesses and a few, they're going to say it's not of works. But then they're going to explain why you got to do good works to go to heaven. It's like you just said it's not of works. You say, well, how is repenting of your sins work? Look, quitting drinking takes a lot of work for people. Quitting smoking takes a lot of work. Making changes in your life. That takes a lot of work, right? And so, look, of course, that is work salvation. Okay. Look, I'm not going to go on a rabbit trail. I get it. The Calvinist here. Well, God gives you the repentance. Right. All right. That's a whole other sermon on Calvinism. I preached that before. I'll preach it again. Okay. The Bible says turning from your evil ways, turning from your sins, that's works. And it makes perfect sense. And you know what? It's really not confusing when we go soul winning to people. They always get it. And what's sad is there are people out there right now, they want to be saved. But they think salvation is repenting of your sins. And they've been trying to for years. Sometimes you'll have people who can tell you, man, I've been trying to quit drinking for years. I thought I had to do that to go to heaven. Man, I'm so happy. It's just by faith. And look, it's funny because here's the thing, everybody out there, they already believe you have to repent of your sins to be saved. We're going soul winning and actually teaching them the exact opposite of repentance of sins. They already believe that you have to repent of your sins. That's why it's not shocking that people that teach repentance of sins don't go soul winning much. Right. Because that's what people already believe. So what are you teaching them? Right. It doesn't make any sense. Right. God says, turning from your sins, that is works. And number five, and I've already mentioned this, but because people that are saved, they keep committing the same sins. That's proof you don't have to turn from your sins to be saved. And here's the thing, it's not just me saying that, Paul the apostle said that. That's the word of God where Paul says, you know what, the things I want to do, I'm not doing. Right. You know, I die daily. He said, he's like, I'm carnal. There's no such thing as a carnal Christian. Well, except Paul the apostle, except the church of Corinth and the first several verses of first Corinthians three, except all of us walk in the flesh from time to time. Right. We get indwelled with the spirit of God, but you know what? We still have our choice. Are we going to walk in the spirit today? Are we going to walk in the flesh? That is our free will choice. The Bible teaches that turning from your sins, repentance of sins, it is a work salvation. And look, I need you to realize something, right? I know some of you, you've been here for a while. You already know what we teach and know what we believe. I want you to realize this is a heaven or hell issue. And the reason why so few people are saved, this is the reason. Right. I mean, I'll be honest with you, literally many of you would just go to your old churches, even if they were wrong on other stuff, as long as they were right on this. I mean, of course, I mean, you'd rather go to a church nearby than drive an hour and a half to church, but the problem is there are not churches teaching this. You're willing one day that we'll have a lot of churches in the surrounding provinces in Metro Manil, but the sad reality is there's not a lot of Baptist churches that are teaching this. Turning from your sins, that is a work salvation. The Bible is very clear, salvation is by faith alone. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and getting to see this topic from the word of God and help us to realize how important this topic is of repentance and why we preach so hard against false doctrine and things such as that and why it's so important to be at a church that's teaching like this, God. And help us to just teach the gospel to people here later today, people that are confusing this topic, and help us to get them saved. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And if you're here to get baptized here today, if you want to just prepare now, if you haven't already. Don't say you don't want to sing, don't ever say that.