(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, so the sermon I'm going to be preaching this morning is titled John MacArthur's Lordship Salvation Debunked. John MacArthur is a lying devil, he's a false prophet, he teaches a false gospel, and needs to be called out for one reason, because of his popularity, there's a lot of people who listen to him, he's got a study bible, and people look up to him, and his teaching, it's not new to him, this isn't something that he just came up with, this is actually a popular teaching among many people, and it needs to be addressed, and we need to understand why it's wrong and why it's false. Now before I even go any further, I just want to explain real briefly why I come out real strong and I'll use strong language against, you know, just come right off the bat saying he's a heretic, he's a devil, he's a false prophet. You say, well, you know, can't you just explain the doctrine and just have differences? No, it's important to call out these people for what they really are, and it's important not to be deceived into thinking that, well, he's really not that bad, but he just believes a little bit different. So what? You believe a little bit different? No. For one, the bible talks about people who are false prophets, it talks about them deceiving people and being deceived, and when you have prophets, when you have people who are getting a following and they're teaching salvation and they're leading people astray, and he's heard the truth, don't tell me he hasn't, and I'm going to just expose that because I got from his church's website, Grace To You, whatever his website is, articles from him and I'm going to be going through this point by point where he is trying to rebuke easy believism, which is the true gospel, which is salvation, and so it's not that he doesn't know it. It's not that he's ignorant. It's not that he's never heard it before. He's heard it, and whether or not he understands it, he's heard it, he rejects it, and he's teaching a works-based salvation, and when you call out people like that, think about Satan himself. A lot of people think of the devil or Satan as being real evil-looking with horns and a pitchfork, but that's not how he looks in reality. Satan looks like an angel of God, which is an angel of light, Lucifer, comes from the root of light, loose, and in appearance, in physical appearance, he's a very beautiful creature, but you need to label someone like Satan and bring that name down so that people can understand and make him into a monster, so that people understand how dangerous he really is, so that you're not deceived into thinking that, like, oh, well, he's really not that bad. Oh, he looks pretty beautiful. He looks pretty nice. He talks and sounds okay. It's the same way you call out a pedophile and turn them into a monster. Does anyone have a problem calling a pedophile a monster? No. We need to do things like that so that people realize, no, this guy's really, really bad and really, really wicked. They may sound real suave in their speech. They may sound real personal. They might have a good personality and be able to talk to people, and you think, oh, well, he's kind of a nice guy. I don't see any problem with him. No, he's really a monster, right? So they need to be brought to that level so that everyone's just real clear and you don't just kind of let yourself slip and think, well, he's really not that bad. John MacArthur is one of these people, okay? And as we get into this, you'll see why it's so important because when you're damning people to hell, that's really, really bad. When what you're teaching is literally, if people subscribe to what you're teaching and believe what you're saying, you're going to be sending souls to hell. That is way worse than even the worst temporary pain and discomfort and things that people could go through here is damning souls to hell because that's an eternity. There's no getting out of that. It doesn't stop. It doesn't end. I'm going to give you a quote. I'm not going to read all of his article, but we're also, well, another point, another reason for going through this is to demonstrate how false prophets work, how they operate, how they twist the truth, how they speak half truths, how they say things to try to get you to accept what they're saying. And unfortunately, one of the biggest problems, I think, one of the reasons why people are so effective and false teachers are so effective is because people are lazy. People are too lazy to check up anything on their own. They'll just listen to what he's saying and for, and this is the perfect example. This is copied and pasted from his website and he makes lots of statements and claims and then just puts references in quotes, right? So with every claim, he's going to have reference, reference, reference, reference, reference. So the lazy people, they're going to read this and go, oh, OK, well, I mean, he's got four references. This must be true. I mean, if he's got all these places in the Bible, then OK, you know, OK, yeah, and it makes it sound close enough to things like, oh, yeah, well, the Bible talks about repentance. The Bible talks about this and without actually going and looking at things, it's easier to accept and then people just say, oh, well, he's a pastor and he's this great scholar and he knows the Bible and he's putting these references here. So I'm just going to trust him. Big mistake right off the bat. Don't just trust anybody, especially someone trying to teach you the Bible. Look it up for yourself. You need to look this up for yourself and understand it and not just accept what's being taught. This quote says it all for me. This is from early on in this article where he's like defining lordship salvation. So again, I don't like trying to misrepresent what someone believes. I don't like doing it because you know what that does? That discredits you. You ought not to misrepresent what someone says. Now, sometimes what people believe and in fact and in actuality, they may not like the way you describe it, but it doesn't mean it's untrue the way you describe it, right? So a lot of things they may not like, like, for example, lordship salvation is a works based salvation. Now they're going to tell you, swear up and down. It is not. That's a lie. It's not workspace. We believe it's grace. But I'm going to prove why it is a workspace salvation just because they don't like what you say about it doesn't make it untrue. But at the same time, I don't want to misrepresent their position by saying things that is just really not even part of what they believe at all. Now, like I said, they're not going to like being called works salvationists, but that is true based on everything else that they're teaching. So this statement though, that he wrote, here's kind of where, and I don't remember exactly where this was near the beginning of his article. He says the gospel that Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship, a call to follow him in submissive obedience, not just a plea to make a decision or pray a prayer. And this is what's so deceptive about this guy just right off the bat. Now did Jesus call for people to be disciples? Yes he did. Did Jesus want people to be in submissive obedience to him? Yes, he does, and he did. So there's true statements in here, but is that the gospel? Is the gospel discipleship? No, that's why there's two different words. There's the gospel and there's discipleship. Discipleship is when you're actually following and doing things and being in submissive obedience, but that's not the gospel. The gospel is a death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And just to sum everything up real simply, just right at the beginning, lordship salvation teaches that you have to give your life to Jesus Christ and say, okay, I'm going to be submissive. I'm going to do your works. I'm going to follow you. I'm going to do everything that you tell me to do. And you're giving yourself for him, for you to be saved. Whereas the gospel, the gospel that's given to us by Jesus Christ, by God in the word of God says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ is the one that gave his life for you. You don't give your life for him in order to be saved. You accept his gift. It's his price, his blood shed for you, not anything that you can do to get salvation. And that's why this is so wicked. It turns the gospel on its head and makes it completely backwards and upside down. But when he says things like this, now the lie is just right off the bat when he says the gospel that Jesus proclaimed. It's not what he says right here. Because he's using things, well, yeah, Jesus did make disciples. Yeah, he is calling people to be in submissive obedience. And then he says, not just plea to make a decision or pray a prayer. And this is misrepresentative of what easy believeism is, right? Because he's saying, well, do we just want people to pray a prayer? No. Is that salvation? No. So see how he'll build up this straw man of saying, oh, well, yeah, people just want you to pray a prayer. Well, no, no, that's not what we're teaching. It's not just praying a prayer. It's putting your faith on the Lord Jesus Christ like the Bible says. Now you call on him through prayer. Yes, that's true. But it's not just, oh, you just pray a prayer. Now the people he may be attacking here might just be trying to get people to pray a prayer. But that is not what salvation is either way. So he's going to try to tie these various thoughts together and make this claim that, well, no, because these people are wrong, then it's a workspace. No, they're both wrong. Just praying a prayer is not good enough for salvation. And that's not what we're trying to teach. But making God, making Jesus the Lord of your life in the sense where you're kind of just saying, I'm going to do everything that you say so that I can be saved is a workspace salvation. Think about it this way, right? Because he said, he's talking about discipleship. He says the gospel that Jesus proclaimed was a call to discipleship. The gospel is the good news. That's what it means. It's good news. The gospel is salvation. Discipleship is not salvation. It's the same way as, you know, when a child is born into a family, that's like the gospel being born again. Just you're born into the family. Amen. Praise the Lord. The child didn't have to do any work to get there. You know, mom did the work pushing the baby out, but the child's born in that family. But now if the child wants to be, you know, a good child and follow the rules and follow law and be obedient, that would be like discipleship. That's them doing work, doing what's right, choosing to walk a certain way. If they choose not to, does that mean they're no longer a child? No, of course not. They're still a child. And when a person is born again, they are a child. Now, just as every parent wants their children to obey them and listen to them and do what's right, do good, be a good person, God wants the same thing for His children. Of course He does. He wants that. But that doesn't mean that you're not saved if you're not being a good child. Now, a lot of the confusion surrounding this lordship salvation does have to do with repentance. I preach entire full-length sermons on this one subject, and we do need to cover it significantly this morning, but that's not going to take up the whole time. I don't want it to, even though it can. I've got multiple points. He has nine points, and I'm not going to get through all of them this morning, and I doubt I'm going to turn it into a two-parter just because I don't think it's worth it. Once we debunk enough of this, the rest of it isn't going to matter. But I want to hit the most important parts anyways. His first point, and I'm going to read this for you, and we're going to look up the references that He gives as we go through this. So His first point in outlining lordship salvation says, first, Scripture teaches that the Gospel calls sinners to faith. Now is that true? Yes. The Gospel calls sinners to faith. But then He adds this, joined in oneness with repentance. Okay. I'm still okay with that. Sinners to faith, repentance. But the key is, what is repentance? His next sentence, He defines it for you. He says repentance is a turning from sin that consists not of a human work, but of a divinely bestowed grace. So He knows that turning from sin is a work, which is why He has to say, but it's not a work. It's turning from sin, but it's not a human work. It's grace. He has to say it, because right off the bat, you're going to be thinking, well, wait a minute. If I turn from sin, I'm going to be following the law, because sin is the transgression of the law. So when you turn from sin, you inherently have to be obedient to the law. That is how it works. You can't turn from sin and not be obedient to the law. And the Bible says that, therefore, we conclude that a man is not justified by the deeds of the law. A man is not justified by the deeds of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. So if you have to, in order to repent, if repentance is turning from sin, that means you have to keep the law in order to repent. But then you have the Bible saying you don't have to keep the law to repent, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodliest faith is counted for righteousness. I mean, over and over again, Scripture is going to debunk this concept. Now, we started off there in, oh, I already changed my place, we started off in Acts 19, because you'll hear this from people, and this isn't, I just want to start with this, we're going to go to his references, because he actually has one, two, three, four, five, six references, seven, eight, eight references in that first sentence I just gave you. See? Because he wants you to think, like, this is, look at all this evidence, right? People will say, well, Jesus taught repentance, this is a big thing from the repentance crowd, and when I say repentance crowd, it doesn't mean we don't believe in repentance. I'm labeling a crowd that teaches a repentance defined as turning from your sin, okay, because they stress the word repent, you need to repent, but their definition is just completely false and unbiblical. Turning from sin does not equal repent. Repent means turn, repent means literally rethink, it is a change of mind, you are changing your mind, you could be changing your direction, but here's the thing, it's not always in the context of sin, so the word repent by itself has nothing to do with sin, nothing to do with sin. It has to be in context being applied to sin, which actually is very seldomly in Scripture when you see the word repent, is it tied in with sin. It does happen, it's in there, but it's not in regards to salvation, number one, but number two, just kind of not in general, you see the word repent way more often, talking about repent and believe, talking about changing what you believe to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and we see this very clearly because, you know, would anyone disagree that John the Baptist was preaching the same gospel that Jesus was? I mean, I think they're preaching the same thing. We see John the Baptist early in his ministry, you don't read a whole lot about him, but what is he saying? He's saying, repent, right, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent, and then we see Jesus saying, repent, well, what did they mean when they said repent? Jesus was preaching repentance, but Acts chapter 19 tells us exactly what John was teaching when he was preaching repentance, and it says in, when Paul is confronting these people who've been baptized by John the Baptist, and they're saying, I don't even know what the Holy Ghost is, these people never got saved, yeah, they got baptized, people get baptized unfortunately, frequently, that don't really get saved, they don't understand the gospel, these people didn't understand, he's saying like, well, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? And this is verse two, and they said unto them, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost, and he said unto them, well, unto what then were you baptized? And they said unto John's baptism. He's like, really? John's baptism? Because here's what John preached. Verse four, then said Paul, John verily baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying. So when he's baptizing people, and when he's preaching repent, that baptism of repentance, what did he say? What was he actually teaching? Saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus, and that's exactly, and we see examples out in scripture too, he's like, there cometh one after me whose shoes latch and I'm not worthy to unloose. He's talking about Jesus, the one that's coming after him, he's saying, that's who you need to believe on, that's who you need to trust on, and that baptism of repentance is believing on Jesus. There's no mention of sin in this explanation of what John's teaching when he's teaching the baptism of repentance, so you can't say, oh, he's telling them to turn from their sins. Is that the way it was explained? No. This is just one example, there's so much, this is all throughout scripture, why? Because it's truth. Because the truth is, repentance by itself has nothing to do with sin. And just saying, that's what it means, doesn't make it so. But people who don't look things up and don't study it out, and especially don't want to listen to an opposing view, can fall for this stuff hook, line, and sinker. So some of the passages that he references here, because the first claim, he says, scriptures teach that the gospel calls sinners to faith, join in oneness with repentance. He lists, and we're not going to go through all of these, because he's basically, and you could list a lot more than this, verses that just talk about repentance, right? So he brings up Acts 2.38, right, so what shall we do? Repent and be baptized every one of your name in the Holy Ghost, right? You can look at verses that say, repent. And you can look at verses that talk about repentance in context of salvation as well. He has Acts 17, verse 30, and the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Okay, he commands everyone to repent. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem comes in when he starts making the definition of repentance be something that it's not. So I'm not going to go through these other verses, well, since we're in Acts, he has Acts 20, verse 21, which says, testifying both to the Jews and also the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, amen, repentance toward God, faith, great, I don't have a problem with these verses. There's nothing wrong, so when he says, it calls sinners to faith, join in oneness with repentance, yeah, because the reason why it's join in oneness, very simply, because in order to believe on Jesus, you have to change what you believe prior to believing on Jesus. So yeah, it's in oneness with repentance, because you're changing your mind, I didn't know what I believed, I believed in no God, I believed in a different God, I believed in my works, I believed in myself, I believe in something else. Now I'm believing in Jesus, that's a repentance, that's a change. So sure, when you believe it's tied in one, that's fine, and you can list all the verses in the world you want of faith and repent tied together. No problem there. But here's where he references repentance is a turning from sin. He has Acts 3.19 and Luke 24.47. You can turn to these if you want, I have them all just written out in my notes, I kind of want to get through this, there's a lot of material to get through, so I'm going to be pretty quick with this. He has Acts 3.19, Luke 24.47, Acts 3.19 says, repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Here's a statement, repentance is a turning from sin, parentheses, Acts 3.19. So is sin mentioned in that verse, Acts 3.19, yeah it is, but is he saying, he says, repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. So in order for you to be saved from your sins, in order for you to have those sins wiped away and washed away and cleared out, you need to repent. Does that say that repentance is turning from sin? No, it doesn't say that anywhere. The verse does not back up his claim at all, it says zero proof for saying it's turning from sin, yet he lists it here just because the word repent is there and the word sin is there, so people go, oh okay, repent, sin, whatever, but that's not what it's saying at all. And then the other verse, Luke 24, and some of these I'm going to add in context because you know it's kind of important to get context when you read the Bible. He has Luke 24, 47, I'm going to start reading in verse number 46 where the Bible reads, and said unto them, thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. It's basically saying the same thing Acts 3, 19 said. Repentance is preached and remission, what does that mean? When your sins are remitted, they're paid for. Where is it saying we have to start following the law and turn from our sins? In fact, that's why I started in verse 46, because verse 46 says it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. He's bringing up the gospel. The gospel that doesn't say follow the law, turn from all your sins, the gospel that says Jesus Christ died and is risen. That's the gospel. That's the good news. That's what you need to repent and believe that, trust that, not your works, it has nothing to do with turning from sin because once you put your faith in Christ, your sins are remitted. You are saved. It's that simple. So those are his two references, obviously zero proof to make the claim repentance is turning from sin. Continuing on here, he says repentance is turning from sin that consists not of a human work but of a divinely bestowed grace. Now he says not of a human work, if you want to, you can turn to Jonah chapter 3, you probably know where I'm going with this already. He has to say that it's not a human work because the Bible defines turning from sin as being works in Jonah chapter 3. If you don't have this verse memorized or at least this reference memorized, you need to know this because this is extremely powerful in defining turning from sins as works when you're out preaching the gospel and so on and trying to explain to people and trying to convince them that no, I'm sorry, what you may have heard week after week after week and been pounded into your head that you have to turn from your sins and be saved is actually false because it's a works-based salvation because thank God, most people will still say, well, salvation's not of works. So at least they have that concept in their head and can accept that as being truth that, well, yeah, no, salvation's not of works. So we could show them verses that very clearly say that, like Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 that explicitly say it's not of works. So that's pretty clear and straightforward, and even in their minds, they could at least reconcile and say that, which is why when someone is still saying you have to turn from your sins to be saved, you want to show them, no, this isn't even just my opinion that turning from your sins is works because the Bible literally is defining it as works in Jonah chapter 3. Verse number 9, the Bible says, who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from His fear-singer that we perish not? So this is talking about God repenting, which if the definition of repent is turn from sin, that makes God a sinner. That shows the stupidity of the definition just saying, well, no, repentance is turning from sin. Okay, you just made God a sinner. Good job. Even if the word really means what I said it means, it lines up perfectly with Scripture and there's no contradiction, no conflict whatsoever, and God is still holy. Verse number 10 says, and God saw their works. So what does God see? Works. Does God see their faith? No, God sees their works. God says, what are their works? That they turn from their evil way. Wow, they stopped doing evil things. They had an evil way, which is why Jonah came and preached unto them, and he preached doom and gloom and preached destruction, and then they turned from that evil way. They stopped doing that. They changed their actions to start being in obedience to God, being in obedience to the word that was preached to them, submissively being obedient, and you know what that's called? Works. 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. It's a work, my friend. You say, yeah, but they got saved. Yeah, the physical nation was saved. That's how physical nations are saved is by their works, because a physical nation doesn't have a soul. Your soul is damned to hell as a sinner, and your soul, you need to turn to Christ and accept the free gift by believing in what He did for you. Believing in His death, burial, and resurrection, and not in yourself and not in your works, but if you're part of a country, part of a nation that's doing bad works as a whole, in order to spare God's judgment on that nation, that nation needs to change its ways and start doing what's right. If you can't see that in Scripture, I don't know, but trying to equate what a nation does with what an individual does, it's not the same thing. Not talking about a soul's salvation versus a nation's physical salvation. And that also, whether it's a nation or an individual, the word repent still means the same thing. It doesn't change definitions. So, here's where he wants to focus on, instead of trying to defend repentance as turning from sin and it's not a work, because he already just gave two bogus things that have no backing up of what he said at all, just zero evidence to back up his claim, he wants to focus now on repentance being given by God. And that's how it's grace. So this is just the mindset he's trying to get you to follow. So he has you look up Acts 11 18 and 2 Timothy 2 25, so again, I'm going to read these in context. Acts 11 17 says, for as much then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God? So this is, you know, Peter recounting the story of preaching to Gentiles, the gospel, and then them being able to speak in tongues, because they believed in God saved. So he's saying, well, hey, if God gave this unto them, then who am I to say anything different, right? So that says for when they when they heard these things, they held their peace and glorify God saying, then if God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life, right, and now makes perfect sense, okay. First of all, these people when they hear Peter's story, are the ones who said then hath God also to the Gentiles granted or given repentance unto life. Their understanding was that then which was a false understanding to begin with that the Gentiles couldn't be saved. They had you go through the book of Acts, and the Jews had a had a racial superiority problem where they thought they were better than everyone else, even to the point where they're thinking like, well, no one else could even really get saved. I mean, it's just, it's just the Jews, right, they get gotten really bad. And that's evidence throughout the book of Acts, you can see this kind of a mindset just being fought against regularly. And here they're saying, Oh, well, then I guess God's also granted to the Gentile, which is why God had to even give Peter the vision saying, Hey, look, what I have cleansed that call not thou commoner and clean. Like you're going to be called to go to this other people is like go with them. Don't not go with them and not see them because they're Gentiles because they're Italian, you know, don't just just withhold that go to them. So they're the ones saying, well, then if God also the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. So first of all, just just using that statement that they said of God, giving it to them doesn't hold a lot of weight, because it's not like, you know, yes, what they said, this is exactly what they said, it's right in the Bible, it's true. But it doesn't mean that even there, you know, what a person says in the Bible is true. If it's a narrator, we know for sure it's true. If someone else just said something, I mean, Satan's quoted in the Bible as saying things. Does that mean what he said is true? Well, Jesus said that there's no truth in him. That everything he says is a lie, because he's a father of lies. So, but it's in the Bible. So it's true. It's true that he said that. And I'm not saying that these people, I'm not even saying these to be right or wrong, but when you have a statement that just says, well, these people said this, just like when Mary said, you know, thy father and I have sought thee. Is it true that Joseph is Jesus' father? No. God is his father. But is it true that she said that? Yeah. So again, you can't be going off of statements like this. But then you give 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 24, or excuse me, he says verse 25, but we're going to read it again in context, where the Bible reads, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. So he's saying God giving them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Now this gets into the Calvinistic teaching that you can't even, you don't even, you can't even choose to believe on Jesus Christ because God has to give that to you. Now first of all, I just want to say this, this passage, you have to interpret, first of all, that this is talking about salvation, because that's not clear in the context. This could very easily be talking about people who are in the snare of the devil, in the trap of the devil, just as Simon was when in the book of Acts, where it says he believed, so if he believed, he got saved, but then he asked to have that power of the Holy Ghost where on whoever he lays hands on, so he wanted to buy that power, and he says, hey, you know what? You're in the gall of bitterness, and he was in sin, and he's like, you better pray to God that you'd be forgiven of that sin, and he was trapped in the snare of the devil. Believers can be trapped in the devil's snares. He lays traps for people. Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're never going to fall into sin, you're never going to get caught in a trap of the devil. So when it's saying here, people, and you know what, you oppose yourself when you're going against God when you're caught in this trap, and he's saying, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves of God-preventual will give them repentance, acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. You can make arguments either way, and I'm not going to just dig deep into it, but my point is, this still isn't this super clear verse that's even talking about salvation, let alone God being the one, the only one, that can give you the ability to believe. But the funny thing is, too, is that he's going to use his wording whenever it's going to be convenient for him as well, because then that would be, like it's saying here, I guess maybe what he's trying to say, and again, maybe he's saying that God makes you do the good works, and that's how it's grace, and that's not you doing the works. I don't know, but either way, it's kind of bizarre, because we have commandment after commandment telling us to do things. What's the point of that if God's just going to make you do them anyways? And then you get into the problem, and again, this is a Calvinistic argument, of if God's making you do the good works, then does that mean he's making you do the bad things, too? Because we know we're all sinners. You know you do things, so God's making you do good and bad things? He's making you sin against him, and how can you even be held responsible? It's all stupid. It's stupidity. But I don't want to get too far into the whole, because he's a Calvinist, and that's where a lot of this influence comes from, this Calvinistic teaching. Let's move on here. So he says, like halfway through point one, our news is going to take a while. Everything is just so wrong, just so completely backwards. Repentance is turning from sin. It consists not of a human work, but of a divinely bestowed grace. It is a change of heart, but genuine repentance will affect a change of behavior as well. So this is his next statement, and he gives Luke 3.8 and Acts 26, 18 through 20 as his references to back up the claim that repentance is not only divinely bestowed grace, it's a change of heart, and that genuine repentance will affect a change of behavior as well. That there will be a change of behavior. So he says, Luke 3, I'm going to start reading verse number 7, Bible reads, Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin 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. This gets a little bit more time consuming. I'm not going to get into all of it, but he's talking to the Pharisees specifically. He's talking to the Pharisees, which were false prophets. The Bible talks about in Matthew chapter 7 that you know a prophet by their fruits. It doesn't say any person who ever believes in Jesus that you have to look at their fruits to know if they're saved. That doesn't teach that at all. It's talking about knowing a false prophet by their fruits. And again, fruits is are you going to say that's works? Not necessarily, but when he's in the direct context here, when he's saying, Well, you need to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and he ties that in with and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. So what are they trusting in? The fact that they're a Jew, the fact that they're physically, you know, in the lineage of Abraham. He's saying, Well, in order for me to believe you in order for you to be because it came to his baptism. He's saying, Well, wait, I'm not going to baptize you unless you can acknowledge that you're not trusting that Abraham is your father. How about you tell me that that would be one way of bringing forth fruits and letting him know. No, I reject that, and I'm believing now because if they did that, don't you think that he would probably baptize if they said, No, no, I reject that I'm believing in Jesus Christ. You're right. He's the Savior. You think he's going to stop and just make them like, No, no, no, okay, we're gonna just you just have to follow me around in my ministry, and I'm just going to watch you before I baptize you. No, he wanted to know the repentance was real. By bringing up something that they believed that they had to change and to change that belief. You can't trust in your lineage to save you. You can't trust it. Well, I'm one of God's chosen people. So I'm getting a free pass in the heaven, just based on virtue of who my mother and father was, and who their mother and father was, who their father was, that has nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. And if you believe that, you're not saved. It's that simple. So that's, I don't know how that supports his view. But again, it has, it has, you know, fruits worthy of repentance. So it's always see, that's it. So there must be a work. But even that's not saying there has to be. And then he brings up Acts 26. So I'm gonna start reading verse number 18. Acts 26, 18 says to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan and the God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them, which are sanctified by faith that is in me, whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient under the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. So he's telling him what he preached, that men should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. Well, you know what? It sounds like he's trying to complete the Great Commission. Doesn't that sound like what he's teaching there? Now, does that say that, well, if you get saved, you are automatically gonna do good works? It doesn't say that. He's saying what he taught people, he taught them to repent. Okay? Great. He also taught them to turn to God. Absolutely. And he taught them to do works meet that's associated with repentance. We all should do that. And look, when you say that it has to have the works, you're using verses that are saying things that we ought to do. It's not saying that it's going to follow for sure. They're two different things, and it's subtle. It's subtle. And it uses subtlety to deceive, because you say, but yeah, but I mean, we should be doing works. We should be doing works. We should show people our faith by our works, and I'm going to preach that you should be doing good works. And that's why, you know, that's one of the reasons why we come together is to be exhorted to do good works and to provoke one another into love and to good works. And that the purpose of us being saved isn't just to just be saved and go and live a life of sin. Should we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, of course, the Bible teaches that we shouldn't continue in sin, and that we should bring forth fruits, meat for repentance. It teaches all that, and that's what He taught, too. If it's going to happen automatically, then why do you got to teach it? Why do you got to even tell people to do good works? You wouldn't need to. I mean, you're already saved, so you don't even need me to tell you. You just can do it. It's going to happen. Ludicrous. This is still his first point. I can't believe this. It's a change of heart, but genuine repentance will affect a change of behavior as well. In contrast, so now he's refuting, he says, easy believism teaches that repentance is simply a synonym for faith. Is that what I define repentance as? No. Now, I don't know. Maybe there's people who make that claim, but then they're wrong, too. Repentance isn't a synonym for faith, because faith is your belief. Repentance is involved when you change your belief, because the repentance part is the change. The faith is the belief. But they're not the same word. You can't just interchange. And I don't know anyone who teaches, well, anytime you see the word repent, you can just swap that with faith, because isn't that what a synonym is? Isn't it just you just take a word and just swap it out, and it's basically going to mean the same thing? I don't know anyone who teaches that repentance is a synonym for faith. I don't know it. I mean, maybe it's out there, but that sounds pretty silly to me to just say, well, I mean, it just means faith. No, it doesn't. And so he's building up a straw man that I believe doesn't exist. Maybe it exists. It wouldn't shock me if it does. That's not what easy believism is, in that no turning from sin is required for salvation. Now, that's true. He got that part right. But see, you have to have these truths mixed in in order to sell it, because, yeah, we'll swear up and down. I'll swear up and down that no turning from sin is required for salvation, amen and amen, because I don't know anyone who's fully turned from all of their sins. Oh, is turning from sin required or not? Oh, but only some of them, only bad ones, only the ones that I say, only the ones I've turned from. Yeah, good standard. Not God's standard. God's standard is perfection. And if you fall short of that, you're a sinner. You need a savior. Here's a second point. Scripture teaches that salvation is all God's work. Those who believe are saved utterly apart from any effort on their own. And he gives Titus 3.5. Now he uses this, because I'll agree with this, to a point of saying we are saved apart from an effort on our own. Well, you're using that word effort as a work, right? Because he uses words now that aren't in the Bible, but he's using it to make it ambiguous enough to imply that your act of believing is an effort. See, I don't believe that for a second, that choosing to believe something and trusting in something, there's no efforts involved in that, because effort implies work. But he uses these words to try to make as little distinction as possible between faith and works to sell this concept. So he quotes Titus 3.5, it says, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of all our goals. Amen. By our works, which, sorry, John MacArthur, turning from your sins is works. We've already established that. And this verse, you're defeating your own argument. This says it's not of works by righteousness, which we have done. But I guess he'll say it's not really you doing them then, because God's doing them for you or something. Those who believe are saved utterly apart from any effort on their own, even faith is a gift of God, not a work of man. So faith isn't a work. But he's implying that you have to receive this gift of faith from God and that you can't have the faith on your own. Again, it's a mixed bag because, yeah, you have to hear the word of God in order to believe on it. So there has to be, you know, the Holy Ghost is involved in you getting saved, but you are still at the end of the day the one responsible to make the choice as to whether or not you're going to believe on it. It's not like it's all completely you. There's other work involved there, but it's not your work. When you decide to believe something, you're not working, you're not working. I referenced here John 4.10, because this is where Jesus, I mean, it's so rudimentary and so simple, but unfortunately people like John MacArthur try to make things extremely complicated and try to say that even something like putting your faith in Christ is a work, which can only be given to you by God, but it's not your work. It's some ridiculous thing. Jesus was talking to the woman at the well, and He says in John 4.10, Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. So asking for a gift, you know, this is real similar. People would say, you know, well, if you call the name of Lord, that prayer is a work. Like, no, it's not. Jesus didn't hear God's got a gift for you, and if you knew what that gift was, you'd ask Him for it, and then He'd give it to you. Now, does God give a gift when you don't ask for it, though? No, He's not giving it. You have to ask for the gift. If you would have known, because you hear, you hear the Word of God, you understand it, and you go, hey, I want that, please give that to me, then He gives it to you. That's the way salvation works. It's a real simple process. It's a very simple process. It's not, believing is not a work, because it's not turning from sin. Turning from sin is the work. Asking for a gift is not a work. It's required for salvation. And the Bible already says that salvation is not of works, and you can't get the gift without asking for it. So let's see, he references Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 5, and then verse number 8. He says, because he said, those who believe are saved utterly apart from any effort on their own. Titus 3, 5, we already saw that. Even faith is a gift of God, not a work of man. So yeah, it's not a work of man, but it's not that you can't be saved based on you choosing to believe. Because that's what he's implying here. Ephesians 2, verse number 1, the Bible reads, And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past he walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now, I don't want to get too deep into what he's trying to twist this passage to say, but when he's saying that even faith is a gift of God, not a work of man, yeah, we know it's not a work of man, but we notice here it's saying, I mean, again, these verses debunk his own position. He says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. What is the gift of God? Your salvation. Not the faith itself. It's not like the faith is the gift. Your salvation, your eternal life, is the gift of God, which is evidenced in more clear verses as well, in Romans 6.23, right? Why is my mind going blank in Romans 6.23? Weight is a sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, thank you, through Jesus Christ. Of all the verses, you know, you say this one all the time, we lost an hour of sleep last night. I know you all know. You all got here, I think, on time. So yeah, that's what I'm going to chalk that one up to, the Romans 6.23 gaffe. So let's continue on here. He says, real faith, therefore, cannot be defective or short-lived. What do you mean by defective? Real faith cannot be defective or short-lived, but endures forever. Now, here is a point, though, that I do agree with, is that once someone does believe in Jesus, that you don't stop believing, it doesn't mean you don't doubt, it doesn't mean that you can't have questions or whatever, but deep down, a person who believes, that doesn't go away. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And that is something that I do believe is true. He has Philippians 1.6 here, being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Now, again, He's still, I think, misusing some of these verses, because this is saying that once you believe, though, you are eternally secure, because He started a good work when He gave you the earnest of the Holy Spirit, and He's going to complete that work when you have a new body in that resurrection, and He's going to complete that change that started. Now, look, and again, I do believe in a gospel that changes. But it's not always going to be outwardly manifested, and that's a key difference here. He likes to look at people in His lordship, salvation, and say, well, you're not in obedience to Christ, therefore you're not saved. And I'm going, but it might not be outwardly manifested, because it's not your turning from sin that saves you. You still have the flesh, and if you choose to walk in the flesh, then you're going to be walking in sin. But it doesn't mean that the Spirit's not there. Huge distinction. Very, very important. So he references Philippians 1.6, and then he references 2 Timothy 2.13, says, if we believe not, or excuse me, I have this. He didn't reference 2 Timothy 2.13, because I like to say that, you know, the Bible says, if we believe not, yet He abideth faithfully cannot deny Himself. So even if it were possible for someone to stop believing, of course that person is still saved. I don't think it is possible, but again, that's going to go a little bit beyond this. And then he has Hebrews 11, just the entire chapter, which is, you know, the faith chapter, as his reference, that real faith cannot be defective or short-lived, but endures forever, which that's still not a proof of his claim, because all that's doing is telling us of great people who did have great faith. But that doesn't apply to everybody. That doesn't say you have to have the faith of Abraham, or, you know, a perfect faith, in order to be saved. That's not what that chapter is saying at all. It's just exalting people who have done well. But then he says this, in contrast, easy-believism teaches that faith might not last, and that a true Christian can completely cease believing. And I don't believe that. I don't believe that a true Christian will cease from believing. I don't think it's possible. I think the Bible teaches pretty clearly that, you know, once you're saved, not just once you're saved, you're saved forever, but that there's no evidence to show that a person isn't going to just completely stop believing in Jesus Christ. I don't believe that. His third point here, he says Scripture teaches that the object of faith is Christ Himself, not a creed or a promise. He references John 3.16. I don't know where he's going with that, to be honest. The object of faith is Christ Himself. Yeah, we believe in the Savior, too. Okay, fine. But then he makes this transition, he says faith, therefore, involves personal commitment to Christ. So, I guess he's trying to say that the object of faith is Christ Himself, therefore, you must be committed to Him. And then, you know, see how he just introduces works? Well, see, now you've got to be committed. That means you've got to do work. That means you have to be obedient. That means you have to do stuff. As opposed to, wait, no, the object of my faith is Christ and His finished work to save my soul, where's the work have to come into that? So to receive a free gift, you have to promise to do work for me forever. I mean, that's basically what he's saying. The object, you're going to get this gift, but only if you're going to promise that you're just going to do everything that he says. That's not a gift. Faith, therefore, involves personal commitment to Christ, he says 2 Corinthians 5, 15, I'm going to start reading verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. Verse 15 says, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Yeah, there's a key word in that verse, should, should. They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. But what's he saying? He's saying that faith involves personal commitment, that he's saying, in order to have real faith, you have to have that personal commitment. Whereas should we live unto God and ourselves? Yeah, we should. We should, but are you going to automatically do it, or does that mean that you don't have saving faith if you don't? No it doesn't. He says, in other words, all true believers follow Jesus. All true believers follow Jesus. So again, you see, this is taking discipleship, which is following Jesus, and equating that with salvation, which I already debunked. He brings up John 10, verses 27 through 28, where he says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. And again, you have to get the context here of hearing his voice, and why he even brings up the sheep, and not being deceived by a false prophet, because they hear the voice of the shepherd. It's not talking about, well, they're just going to do everything I tell them to do, otherwise they're not saved. Then how does he have lost sheep? Are they still a sheep? Yeah, we're about out of time here. I'm going to finish up with this point number three. In contrast, easy believism teaches that saving faith is simply being convinced, or giving credence to the truth of the gospel, and does not include a personal commitment to the person of Christ. And again, it's a misrepresentation. It's not just like, it's not like we just think that, well, intellectually, you just have to believe in the facts that Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead. No, that's not what we're saying. It's not just giving credence, like, oh yeah, there's truth to this, there's the truth of the gospel. No, you're accepting Christ's payment, you're putting your trust in the Savior, is what you're doing, but it's not a transaction that requires you to do work. Why is it so hard to understand? Because I think he does understand it, and rejects it, and wants to teach people and damn them to hell with his damnable heresy of telling you you have to do works to be saved. Because he's a devil. That's why. Because the devil likes to confuse things and muddy things, and make false claimants and speak lies, because he's of his father, the devil, which is a father of lies. So he's going to speak lies too. That's only the three points. He's got nine. I'm not going to get through all nine, not even if I do do a two-parter, I'm going to see real quickly what else. His fourth point, Scripture teaches that real faith inevitably produces a changed life. Lots of stuff that's screwed up there. Scripture teaches that God's gift of eternal life includes all that pertains to life and godliness, not just a ticket to heaven. Again, a lot of misrepresentations of easy believism. I'll decide if I want to go through any more of these tonight, but that's good enough as far as I'm concerned with demonstrating the falsehood, because if the first three points are so drastically incorrect regarding repentance, regarding making Jesus the Lord of your life in order to be saved, and promising to obey His commandments, the rest of it is about the same. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You so much for making salvation so easy, for giving us the free gift of salvation. Lord, we love You. I pray that You will please help us to reach the people who may have been deceived by this lying false prophet, John MacArthur. Help us to be able to show them the Scripture and be able to just have the words to be able to expound upon the Scripture and make them easily understood and plain, Lord, and that You'd open up the hearts and minds of people who have been deceived so that they can see and understand the truth. And I pray that You would just help us continue to learn and to grow and to challenge all of our beliefs and the things that we hear against Your Word, that we can compare them and make sure that what we believe is the truth, Lord. We love You. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.