1st Corinthians 5:1-5, “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
It saddens me when I keep hearing Baptist preachers promote the Devil's lie of Lordship Salvation. Sadly, Pastor Keith Gomez of the Northwest Baptist Bible Church in Elgin, Illinois is a false prophet! Pastor Gomez combines sanctification with justification, corrupting the Word of Truth and casting stumbling blocks before the people. On their church website, Pastor Gomez requires lost sinners to "turn from your sin" to be saved. But they don't explain what that means. I triple-dog dare you to show me anywhere in the Bible where it teaches to "turn from your sin" or "repent of your sin." You cannot! But I can show you Hebrews 6:1 where it teaches to repent from "DEAD WORKS." That is, both good and bad works that have been hindering you from doing the one thing that determines salvation, which is TO BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (Acts 16:30-31).
It was Pilgrim's Progress author John Bunyan who made this excellent observation:
I couldn't have said it any better. What Pastor Gomez is doing is mixing justification with sanctification, which is another gospel. Read these helpful true words by Pastor M.R. DeHaan (1891-1965):“If you do not put a difference between justification wrought by the man Christ without and sanctification wrought by the Spirit of Christ within, you are not able to divide the Word aright; but contrariwise, you corrupt the Word of God, and cast stumbling blocks before the people.” —John Bunyan (1628-1688)
"There is a vast difference between coming to Jesus for salvation and coming after Jesus for service. Coming to Christ makes one a believer, while coming after Christ makes one a disciple. All believers are not disciples. To become a believer one accepts the invitation of the Gospel, to be a disciple one obeys the challenge to a life of dedicated service and separation. Salvation comes through the sacrifice of Christ; discipleship comes only by sacrifice of self and surrender to His call for devoted service. Salvation is free, but discipleship involves paying the price of a separated walk. Salvation can't be lost because it depends upon God's faithfulness, but discipleship can be lost because it depends upon our faithfulness." DeHaan, M. R. Hebrews. Zondervan Publishing House, 1959 (p. 117).
Keith Gomez is preaching the same theological garbage as Chuck Phelps, Steve Pettit, Marty Herron and the whole rotten Bob Jones University cult today! RIGHT DOCTRINE MATTERS!
It sickened me when I attended Pensacola Christian College's Campus Church for the summer of 2021. I heard false teaching. Pastor Timothy Zacharias and Jeff Redlin falsely teach, and I quote: “Repentance is a change of mind resulting in a change of behavior.” No, that is a doctrine of devils. Repentance unto life has nothing to do with behavior modification. Although it is Biblically true that when a person gets saved there will be some form of inward change, those changes may or may not be noticeable in their outward behavior.
If you listened to the sermon clip by Pastor Gomez, then you heard him condemning teenagers who live worldly lives, saying that their faith is dead and they are not saved. That is false doctrine!!! Evangelist John R. Rice (1895-1980) was asked that very same question. In Dr. Rice's book titled: Dr. Rice... Here Are More Questions, he beautifully refutes the heresy of Lordship Salvation:
"We have young folks in our church who are supposed to be saved and who giggle and whisper all during church services and who say they 'just hate' church and 'can't stand' to listen to our pastor preach. They attend movies and worldly amusements. I feel that as pastors and Sunday school teachers we do not warn those enough who think they are saved but are not born again. Shouldn't we plead with them to go to the alter again?"
SOURCE: Dr. Rice... Here Are More Questions, by John R. Rice, p. 76, Sword of the Lord Publishers; ISBN: 0-87398-157-X
The following is Dr. Rice's response to the preceding question:
That is something very different than what Pastor Keith Gomez is heretically preaching. Kindly said, Keith Gomez is an ignorant fool. He is theologically incompetent! What Gomez is preaching is balderdash, tommyrot, flapdoodle, claptrap, poppycock and blahblah. Keith Gomez is a Hyles-Anderson College graduate, as I am; but we espouse two very different plans of salvation. What I preach is in 100% agreement with what Pastor Jack Hyles taught, but what Keith Gomez is preaching is the same crap that Dr. John MacArthur teaches!"Being saved, born again, is one thing; learning to live a consecrated Christian life is an entirely different thing. There is not any way you can judge whether people are born again except as you take their testimony that they have put their trust in Jesus Christ and depended on Him for salvation. Some of these young people indeed may not have been taught to trust in Christ. If they were looking for "an experience," a certain kind of feeling or emotion, then they may have been misled. But if they honestly turned their hearts to Christ and depended on Him for salvation, they were saved.Now a Christian should live a consecrated Christian life but that does not automatically follow. People who are saved will find, like Paul, "When I would do good, evil is present with me . . . . So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:21, 25).Every saved person still has the old carnal nature and often-times has the same kind of temptation he had before. Some people who have truly been born again have a desperate fight to quit tobacco, and some have never seemed to get the victory over that or other bad habits. Some Christians have never learned to trust the Lord enough to bring tithes and offerings, and some have never learned to win souls. When a baby is born, he is not born grown. Being born is one thing; growing is another thing entirely.So the thing to do is to take for granted that people are saved when they trust Christ for salvation. Then one should set out to teach them to read the Bible daily, to learn to pray about their daily needs, to confess their sins and failures and grow in grace day by day. It is as foolish to expect young Christians to be good Christians by themselves as it is to expect a child, born in the family, to automatically be a great credit to the family without any rearing—whether they are spiritual babes or physical babes. I assure you that unless people are taught to be consecrated Christians, taught to read the Bible and pray, they are not likely to be good Christians, even if they are truly born again. [emphasis added]SOURCE: Dr. Rice... Here Are More Questions, by John R. Rice, pp. 76,77, Sword of the Lord Publishers; ISBN: 0-87398-157-X
Dr. Rice is 100% correct:
“Being saved, born again, is one thing; learning to live a consecrated Christian life is an entirely different thing.”
A changed life comes from growing in grace as a result of having the indwelling Holy Spirit, and not as a part of saving-faith itself. Salvation is receiving, not giving. Salvation is receiving, not achieving. Repentance has NOTHING to do with a changed life. Repentance is simply a change of mind from unbelief to belief. Eternal life is a gift. You simply take it by faith.
Pastor Ray Stanford (1916-2012) wisely said:
“Salvation becomes ours when we trust Christ to SAVE us. Effective service is ours through OBEDIENCE. Salvation primarily involves the spirit and our eternal destiny; it is a gift (John 5:24). Service involves the body and our present earthly life; it is labor for which rewards are given (Romans 12:1, 2; I Corinthians 3:8-15; Luke 10:2).” ~Pastor Ray Stanford, Personal Handbook Of Evangelism, chapter 7 - Lordship Salvation
Amen! Salvation is not a reward for the righteous, it is a gift for the guilty!
Salvation is not doing your best, it is having Christ's best put to your account through receiving Him by faith.
Turning away from sinful ways would be a work. Faith puts all of the merit where it belongs, on the object of our faith, Jesus and His work.
If to “repent” means to forsake our sinful ways TO BE SAVED, but Jesus already paid for our sins by dying on the cross, then what are we repenting from?
The true Gospel always points you to CHRIST; a false gospel always points to YOU.
We must stay true to the simplicity of the Gospel!! Repentance regarding salvation is a change of mind from unbelief to belief!!! We must earnestly contend for the faith (Jude 1:3).
Titus 1:10-14 commands believers to REBUKE THEM SHARPLY who subvert whole households, that they might be sound in the faith. Tragically, we've got a bunch of sinfully proud and arrogant preachers today, who refuse to humble themselves to heed THE TRUTH. I have been preaching against the corrupt Bob Jones camp for the past 8 years, but they refuse to listen to repent of their false teachings. What saith the Scripture? Romans 3:4, “God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.” What I am preaching agrees with the inspired King James Bible. But what Pastor Gomez is preaching does not agree with the Word of God.
The issue arises over the proper interpretation of James 2:17-18, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” Carefully notice that the Apostle James said “shew me” and I will “shew thee” faith. James is talking about justification in the sight of men, not God. In the Epistle of Romans Paul talks about justification in the sight of God, which is by faith alone WITHOUT WORKS...
Romans 4:4-7, “Now to him that worketh is the 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. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.”
Please take careful notice of those beautiful words: “WITHOUT WORKS”!!! So why oh why do foolish preachers (e.g., Keith Gomez, Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College and other infidels) corrupt God's Words by ADDING works to faith. I am so tired of ignorant preachers citing the Epistle of James in an effort to ADD works to faith. They say stupid things like: “We are saved by faith alone without works, but real faith works!” Huh? Folks, that is a form of theological insanity! We've got a bunch of theological schizophrenic preachers today!!! We've got a bunch of clowns in the pulpit, telling people to push and pull at the same time.
The garbage that these preachers are teaching today is against the plain and simple teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Proverbs 21:30, “There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD.” A changed life is a matter of growth in grace, of sanctification (John 17:17); and not of getting saved, which is a legal matter of justification by faith alone. The next two Scripture passages clearly confirm that Paul and James are writing about two very different things in their epistles:
We've got a bunch of dumb dumb preachers today, who do not know how to rightly divide the Word of truth. So, like Marty Herron and Steve Pettit, two infidels of the faith, they go around preaching a counterfeit gospel that cannot produce the new birth by God's Holy Spirit. Consequently, these wicked men, their families and all who follow their false teachings are already damned to the everlasting Lake of Fire. John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”JUSTIFICATION IN GOD'S SIGHT = Romans 3:28, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”JUSTIFICATION IN MAN'S SIGHT = James 2:24, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”
Unless you are wholly trusting (relying upon) Jesus Christ (because of what He did on the cross to pay for your sins, that is, the Gospel, or Good News), apart from all else, you are not saved. Religion is not salvation! The church cannot save you. The baptistery cannot save you. The sacraments cannot save you. Turning away from your sin (keeping the law) cannot save you. You must CEASE from all of your human efforts (works), and wholly REST in the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:10-11). To be saved you simply must BELIEVE that Jesus did it for you!
Not Every One That Saith “Lord, Lord”
(Lordship Salvation EXPOSED)
(Lordship Salvation EXPOSED)
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