Romans 14:8-9, “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.”
I am so sick and tired of hearing the unbiblical cliché: “If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.” Nothing could be further from THE TRUTH of God's Word! The unbiblical idea that Jesus Christ is either in absolute control of your life, or else He is not your Lord at all, is of the Devil. Yes, in fact, Jesus can be only partial Lord of your life:
2nd Chronicles 25:1-2, “Amaziah was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a perfect heart.”
King Amaziah only served the Lord half-heartedly! Christ was NOT the supreme Lord of his life. I think I can safely say that most genuine Christians today do NOT serve God with a perfect heart. And I can tell you assuredly with 100% Biblical certainty that ALL believers still commit sin every day (Romans 7:14-25; 1st John 1:8-10). No one has arrived. There's not one saint on the planet who can be lifted up as an example of what all the rest of us should be, if the truth be known. 1st Timothy 5:24, “Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.”
Dear reader, the day that you became a born-again child of God (which is by faith alone in the Gospel of Jesus Christ), Jesus also became the supreme Lord of your life. That is, He became your Master! Jesus is “LORD,” you don't make Him Lord. Our text passage from Romans 14:8-9 proclaims that Jesus died on the cross, was buried and resurrected miraculously from the dead, so that He could be Lord of both the dead and the living. That is interesting, why the dead? It is because even the unsaved dead must acknowledge their mistreated Creator and spurned Savior:
Philippians 2:8-11, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
I am fully convinced that guitarist Eddie Van Halen went to Hell. Eddie was a Roman Catholic, trusting in the manmade sacraments of the Vatican, and the empty words of some unholy priest to save him, but that is NOT the saving truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Salvation must be without human works! God doesn't save anyone who is trying to be saved, He only saves those who are trusting to be saved. Everyone will someday bow their knee before the God and Creator of the universe in eternity, and confess with their tongue that “Jesus is Lord!”
Thankfully, you don't need to make Jesus the “Lord” of your life to get to Heaven, you simply need to receive Him personally as your Savior. The Gospel of John is God's Gospel tract according to John 20:31, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” God authored the Gospel (Good News) of John, to convince the human reader that Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and that by BELIEVING we will be saved. That is the ONLY way to get to Heaven.
I feel sorry for members of the demonic Bahai Faith (of which singer Dan Seals, aka, England Dan, was a devout lifelong members), because in their religion they teach that there are many paths to Heaven. But what saith the Scripture? John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” No, Dan Seals, there are not many paths to Heaven, there is only one, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. I am so sick and tired of this damnable heresy of “Lordship Salvation” today! You don't have to take Jesus as your Lord and Savior to get to Heaven, you just need to take Him as your SAVIOR!!!
What saith the Scripture? 1st Timothy 4:10, “For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.” Jesus is the Savior of ALL MEN, especially of those that BELIEVE ON HIM!!! So if you go to Hell forever, it will be by your own foolish choosing, because your rejected your dear Savior and His free gift of eternal life which was purchased for you with His blood.
I don't care who you are, if you are a redeemed child of God, blood-washed and your name is written in Heaven, JESUS IS NOT THE TOTAL LORD OF YOUR LIFE!!! I will be the first to admit that Jesus is not the absolute Lord of my life. Is Jesus my Lord? Yes, of course, absolutely. He became the Lord (Master) of my miserable life the day that I received Him as my personal Savior in 1980 at age 13 in Chicago. But I do not submit to Him very well. I have many faults, sins and short-comings as a child of God. I long for the glorious future day that my soul and spirit are no longer chained to the body of this death, and Jesus resurrects me with a new body fashioned like unto His resurrected glorified perfect body (Philippians 3:21). Even so, come, Lord Jesus!!!
No saint can honestly profess that Jesus is 100% the Lord of their life. I sure can't. And neither can you friend. You and I can only do our best in Christ's strength to live the Christian life by faith to please God. Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Ga:2:21: I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” A lot of Bible students only read Galatians 2:20, lifting it out of context. But there is a beautiful truth tucked away if your interpret Galatians 2:20 in the proper context.
The churches at Galatia had fallen prey to a works-based religious cult (Galatians 3:1-3), who insisted that in addition to placing one's faith in Jesus Christ, you still had to keep the law, turn away from your sinful ways, follow Jesus as “Lord” and live the Christian life faithfully to get to Heaven. This is exactly what the accursed Seventh-Day Adventists (SDA) teach today. Sadly, it is also exactly what Bob Jones University (BJU) and most of their corrupt graduates and affiliates are also teaching; namely, pastors' Marty Herron, Jared Baldwin, Joe Hensen, Gary Walton, Steve Pettit, Chuck Phelps, John MacArthur, et cetera.
And tragically, Pensacola Christian College (PCC) wickedly bids BJU Godspeed, hobnobbing with the wicked Harvest Baptist Church on Guam (which is a cesspool of BJU alumni). I had attended Harvest Baptist Church on Guam for an entire year, and I can tell you assuredly that they preach hardcore Calvinism (aka, Lordship Salvation). They use, sell and promote the Devil's corruptible seed (i.e., the damned modern PERversions of the Bible). They also preach a perverted understanding of repentance, unbiblically requiring lost sinners to give up their sinful bad habits as a prerequisite to going to Heaven (which is self-righteousness). Bible repentance is merely “a change of mind” (Greek noun: metanoia) from unbelief to BELIEVING THE GOSPEL. Forsaking one's sins is not repentance, it is reformation! Living a changed life is NOT repentance, it is reformation!!! Judas reformed and went to Hell.
So, yes, Jesus is the Lord of every believer's life, but that doesn't mean that I always follow Him as my Lord. You must understand dear reader that SERVICE (discipleship by works) is something entirely different than SALVATION (justification by faith). My favorite preacher quote is by Pilgrim's Progress author, John Bunyan (1628-1688):
“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.” —Evangelist John Bunyan
That is exactly what the heresy of Lordship Salvation is—a failure to put a difference between SALVATION (justification from without) versus SERVICE (sanctification from within). We must keep these two great doctrines separate, or else we corrupt the Word of God and utterly confuse the people (especially in the churches).
Another one of my favorite preachers, Pastor M.R. DeHaan (1891-1965) said it this way:
“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.” —Pastor M.R. DeHaan, Hebrews; Zondervan Publishing House, 1959 (p. 117)
Boy that is good stuff! Dear friend, if you are saved Jesus is your Lord. Receiving Him as “Lord” has nothing to do with getting saved; but rather, after you are saved the dear Savior wants you to pick up your cross and follow Him. This according to Romans 12:1-2 is the believer's “reasonable SERVICE.” Please don't miss that, it is our SERVICE for Christ, not our SALVATION through faith in Christ.
And then if you are not saved, Jesus is still Lord. You may have rejected Him as your personal Savior, but He is still your Savior (you just don't want to be saved). That is what 1st Timothy 4:10 teaches. One day in eternity you will bow to Him as Lord, and confess with your tongue that He is Lord. Even Satan himself, old smutface, will bow his knee to confess that Jesus Christ is the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Oh yes, it will happen, you have God's promise of it dear reader. That is what Philippians 2:9-10 teaches.
The only fools running around saying: “Either Christ is Lord of all or He is not Lord at all,” is the Calvinist crowd, the Lordship Salvation cult! It is possible to become a born-again believer, and yet still choose to remain in sin, living like the Devil. Yes, you CAN accept Jesus as your personal Savior, but still not be willing to submit to Him as the Lord of your life. That is grace dear friend! Romans 6:1, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” If you and I choose to continue living a lifestyle of sin, grace will abound.
Certainly, there will be some inner change when a person gets saved, because now that person has the indwelling presence of God's Holy Spirit in them (Romans 8:9), but those changes may not be visible outwardly. I have heard ignorant preachers say that where there is fire there is smoke. Their point is that you cannot have God's Holy Spirit living inside of your spirit, soul and body without some outward evidence becoming visible. Dear friend, that is simple not true. Some of the most evil people in the world go around smiling all the time. President George W. Bush murdered 1,455,590 innocent people in Iraq, but he was always smiling as U.S. President, like everything was a big joke to him. Remember, Satan comes to the world disguised “as an angel of light” (2nd Corinthians 11:13-15).
There is no way for you to determine if someone is really saved by examining their life. The only way to know for certain is by the direct testimony from their mouth concerning Jesus Christ. I like what my friend Pastor Ralph Yankee Arnold said:
“Lordship Salvation is the unsupportable and unbiblical belief that the performance of good works, the promise of good works, or the evidence of good works, must accompany faith in Christ to establish or provide evidence that such faith has resulted in eternal life.” —Pastor Ralph Yankee Arnold, "Jesus versus John MacArthur"
You don't have to take Jesus as the Lord of your life to be saved dear friend, you just need to take Him as your Savior. Always remember to keep SERVICE completely separate from SALAVTION. I went to the Pensacola Interstate Fair last night. The fair has been hosted in Pensacola since 1934. I had a good yesterday afternoon. I went to the circus and watched all the amazing acrobatics (and pretty girls...lol). I saw the fancy horses and amazing fire dances. I ate plenty of great food. I always enjoy going to fairs.
But then I walked into the exhibit building where all the religious nuts were The Jehovah Witnesses had a booth set up. Gideon's International had their own exhibit booth, promoting their corrupt Devil's Bible PERversions. And lo and behold, I met another heretic from of all places, Pensacola Christian College!!! Go figure! He was a younger fella with his own booth, with a big tattoo on his forearm. He handed me some little stupid booklet with a smiley face on the front, which didn't contain enough truth to convert a caterpillar! I asked him kindly and without hesitation... “You're not preaching Lordship Salvation I hope?” He replied: “If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.” SHAME on Pastor Jeff Redlin at Campus Church for not teaching his congregation better!!! It is actually God's flock (Acts 20:28), which God has entrusted to the incompetent pastors at PCC's Campus Church. Unbelievable!
Campus Church at PCC has their members at the Pensacola Interstate Fair preaching the Devil's Lordship Salvation!!! Go back to Hell Pensacola Christian College with your Lordship Salvation!!! I know exactly where they got that from too—from spiritually fornicating with the accursed Bob Jones University camp (who have become hardcore Calvinists in recent decades). Dr. Steve Pettit (president of BJU since 2014 is a dangerous false prophet!!!
The sad reason why that young man at the Pensacola Interstate Fair is promoting Lordship Salvation is because PCC's shameful leadership and pastors AREN'T contending for the faith. That young guy doesn't know any better! Pastor Phil Kidd is right, whatever a preacher stops preaching on is what his church will fill up with in 5 years!!! The PCC camp are filling up with Lordship Salvation because their rotten pastors refuse to PREACH AGAINST ERROR!!!
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