John 5:39-40, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”
More deadly than a mother bear robbed of her cubs is the Devil's damnable lie of Lordship Salvation. What is Lordship Salvation? It is a deadly heresy that teaches faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not enough to be saved. In addition, a lost person is falsely told that they must turn away from their sinful behavior, surrender their life to serve Jesus, follow Christ no matter what the cost, commit your life to Christ, live a changed life, et cetera.
Lordship Salvation requires WORKS as evidence that you FAITH is genuine. So if a professed believer in Christ doesn't live a changed life, proponents of Lordship Salvation will conclude that the person's faith is not real and they are still unsaved. See and hear for yourself what the heresy of Lordship Salvation does to wreak havoc on a person's mind and soul...
The Damage of Lordship Salvation with John MacArthur
(This Should Make You Angry!)
This my dear reader is the sorrowful fruit of Lordship Salvation: stress, anxiety, worry, guilt, fear, condemnation, confusion and torment. This is what happens when you are taught to focus on the sinner rather than the Savior; analyzing self rather than searching the Scriptures; resting in my performance rather than His promise; looking in the mirror rather than looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Hebrews 12:2, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The true Gospel always points you to CHRIST; a false gospel always points to YOU.
Pastor John MacArthur horribly lies to this young woman in the preceding video, telling her:
“The way you know that you're saved is by your desire.” —John MacArthur
That is a lie of Satan! Should we base the assurance of God's free gift of salvation upon the subjective experience of sinful man; or should we base the assurance of God's salvation upon the objective truth of God's inspired Word? Which of these two do not change? Our human feelings can and will change from moment to moment, but God's inspired Words will NEVER change. Matthew 5:18, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Luke 16:17, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
We Must Keep Service Separate From Salvation
You don't have to love Jesus to go to Heaven, you have to trust Him as your Savior. I try to serve and please God because I love Jesus (John 14:15); but the only reason I am going to Heaven is because Jesus loves me, who sacrificed His life for me on Calvary's cruel cross (John 3:16; 1st John 3:16).
When you trust Christ as your personal Savior, you have eternal life. John 6:47, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” When you got saved God didn't take away the old carnal nature, He gave you a new birth. He gave you His Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9; 1st Corinthians 3:16-17; 1st John 3:24). When we sin, it is only because we are choosing to walk in the flesh; but when we obey God, it is because we chose to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). At any given time a believer can choose to walk in the Spirit (i.e., if we yield in obedience as the Holy Spirit teaches, guides, comforts, rebukes and leads us with the inspired Holy Bible). The unsaved person (lost man) doesn't have the Holy Spirit. No lost person has ever possessed the Holy Spirit of God! And no child of God lacks the Holy Spirit.
You can be saved and not love God. You can be saved and not serve Christ. You can be saved by just believing the Gospel. You don't make Jesus the Lord, HE IS LORD!!! Thank God that going to Heaven is not dependent upon our turning away from sins and our performance, or else we'd ALL be going to Hell someday!!! The ONLY thing that makes me (and you if you are a born again child of God), any more righteous than mass-murderer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, is the precious blood of Jesus! The ONLY thing that makes me any more righteous than the worst sinner on planet earth is the precious blood of Jesus that washed away all my sins (1st John 1:7; Revelation 1:5; 1st Peter 1:18-19). Colossians 1:14, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:” (By the way, nearly all of the Devil's modern Bible perversions butcher this verse, removing, “THE BLOOD.”)
The great fear and confusion caused by Lordship Salvation is because preachers fail to SEPARATE service from salvation. They fail to separate personal sanctification within from justification without. They fail to keep separate discipleship from sonship. John 1:12-13, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Many Bible students make the mistake of citing Bible references from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke to support the heresy of Lordship Salvation. For example: Luke 14:27, “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:33, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” False prophet Billy Graham (1918-2018) often quoted these passages out of context to bolster up his straw man heresy of Lordship Salvation.
One of my favorite Bible preachers is Pilgrim's Progress author John Bunyan (1628-1688), because he clearly understood the theological concept of God's imputed righteousness, which is BY FAITH ALONE...
“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)
John Bunyan nailed it! Yes, that is exactly what is wrong with Lordship Salvation, it mixes and confuses the lines between sanctification and justification, obscuring the Gospel and perverting God's grace. Oh, dear reader, please reject the Devil's lie of Lordship Salvation, for it is “another gospel” accursed by God (Galatians 1:6-9; 2nd Corinthians 11:3-4, 13-15).
Pastor Yankee Arnold Responds To Lordship Critics
The religious people in Matthew 7:21-23 FELT like they were saved. They boasted to Jesus of their “many wonderful works,” and that they “cast our devils,” and they called Him: “Lord, Lord.” They felt like they were true Christians. They felt saved. Based upon their own subjective human experience, by all indications they were going to Heaven. But what saith the Scripture? Lordship Salvation is serving Christ and living the Christian life without ever being born-again...
Matthew 7:21-23, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
As you just read for yourself, Lordship Salvation is serving Christ and living the Christian life without ever being born-again. That is what happened to these cursed false prophets in Matthew 7:21-23. They had churchianity without Christianity! Dear reader, the most dangerous thing you could ever do is to blindly trust some preacher about how to get to Heaven. I feel so sorry for the thousands of people in Pastor John MacArthur's church cult, who are all victims of his damnable Satanic lies. The only way to stay safe is to SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES...
John 5:39-40, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”
If you have any doubts and concerns about going to Heaven dear friend, I implore you to listen to the Gospel of John over and over and over, until you see the simplicity that is in Christ, which is: THE GOSPEL.
What saith the Scripture? 1st John 3:24, “And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” What does the Bible command all men concerning getting saved? John 6:40, “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” That is God's commandment to receive eternal life.
Let'[s see what Jesus said in John 6:28-29, “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Many people wrongly divide the Word of Truth (the Bible), tormenting themselves with a lie. One could easily assume that 1st John 3:24 is speaking about keeping all of God's commandments to get to Heaven, but that would be foolish, because we should NEVER base a doctrine on a single passage of Scripture. A good rule to follow when interpreting the Bible is to never use an obscure passage to contradict a clear one. We have the entire Gospel of John, which was authored by God specifically to show mankind how to get to Heaven. 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.” Faith is the only righteous thing that I can do.
I receive hundreds of emails each year from people who are afraid they are not saved because of the sins in their life. This is the adverse consequence of the Devil's lie of Lordship Salvation. These poor souls have been lied to by wicked preachers. They have been deceived by the Devil concerning what God requires to get to Heaven. The Devil is a beautiful liar! Lordship Salvation is damnable heresy which causes stress, anxiety, fear, torment, tears and confusion in its victims. Those who trust in Lordship Salvation are always analyzing them self instead of "searching the Scriptures" (John 5:39). They are looking in the mirror, instead of looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Dear friend, RUN from Lordship Salvation.
My dear friend in the ministry Michael P. Bowen was also a victim of Lordship Salvation for several years. Michael admits that if he had died during that time of anxiety, stress and confusion over God's plan of salvation, he would have went to a burning Hell forever. Thankfully, Michael testifies that one day he heard a sermon by Pastor Hank Lindstrom (1940-2008) that finally showed him THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL and Michael became a born-again Christian. That sermon is called: 'How Permanent Is Your Salvation?'
Michael Bowen wrote a helpful book about his ordeal, and he shows you exactly how you can also know that you are going to Heaven. The book is titled: I Never Knew You: The Horror Of The Great White Throne Judgment And How You Can Avoid It' (free .pdf version). You can obtain hard copies at Amazon.com store. I regularly order a few copies here and there to give away to the people in my life. A hard copy is much more likely to get read than a .pdf file.
Lordship Salvation is of the Devil. You get saved by coming to God as a needy guilty sinner (not by forsaking your sinful ways), and simply receiving Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for your sins. Nothing more is required or allowed by God, except faith in the Good News (Gospel) of His only begotten Son crucified, buried and risen for your sins (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). This is the Gospel of free grace! 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. Thank you humbly for reading my blog. To God be ALL the praise, credit and glory (John 15:5).
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