You Cannot Grow As A Christian Without The Bible

2nd Peter 3:18, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”

I heard a helpful sermon today by Pastor Max D. Younce on Ephesians. Here is an excerpt that I took from the sermon for this blog...

Ephesians Edit 15
(sermon excerpt by Pastor Max D. Younce; full sermon)

Jesus was tempted by the Devil three different times in Matthew 4:1-10 and in Luke 4:1-13. All three times our dear Savior quoted the Scriptures to overcome Satan's temptation. This is one of the most basic fundamental truths of the inspired Word of God—that the Scriptures are our primary weapon of defense against sin, depression, loneliness, temptation, suffering, demonic attacks, et cetera. The Bible has all the answers!!! Christ is the answer to all of your problems. You may not understand or see how that is true, but I assure you that it is indeed very true.

Jesus said in John 8:23 that the truth would set us free, and then in John 8:36 we read, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Jesus exclaimed in John 14:6 that He is THE TRUTH. 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.” I counsel with umpteen believers regarding their broken life and depression, many of whom sadly want an answer apart from the Word of God. Dear reader, if you are down and miserable about life for a prolonged period of time, I guarantee you that your mind is broken.

I mean, it is normal to be down in the valley sometimes emotionally. I've been there more times than I can remember in life. But when I counsel myself with the inspired Word of God, reading and listening and meditating upon God's wonderous promises ahead in the future for every saint, I rejoice again ("re-joice") and praise my wonderful God, Lord, Friend and Savior, Jesus.

When I pray, claiming God's beautiful promise in Philippians 4:6-7, I find a peace that passeth all understanding, knowing that God's is now on the job because I prayed for His help. That is exactly what prayer is, asking God for His help. ...

Hebrews 4:14-16, “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Have you prayed about your problems, burdens and needs dear friend? If not, please do so now. You don't need to bow your head, nor get down upon your knees, God just wants you to talk to Him, showing Him through prayer that you humbly need His help. ...

James 2:6, “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.”

When you don't read your Bible and pray, you are telling God that you can make it on your own, that you don't really need His help. What saith the Scripture? ...

Psalms 119:9-11, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

Oh, dear reader, I and you both desperately need God's help. Either sin will keep you from the Bible, or the Bible will keep you from sin. Sadly, ninety-nine people couldn't care less about staying away from sin, they just don't want to be incarcerated in prison. If people could do whatever they wanted without getting into any trouble, I shudder in horror to think what wicked people would do.

One of the evidences that we are saved is having a desire to obey God's commandments. I didn't say that doing good works is evidence of being saved, because it is not. Even many wicked hellbound Mormons, Catholics and Seventh-Day Adventists do good works. So anything that an unsaved person can do, cannot be used as evidence of salvation. The Bible says that the only evidence of being a child of God is the indwelling Holy Spirit.

So if you have God's Spirit in you—convicting you about present sins or unreconciled past sins in your life, and He inspires in you a desire to obey God's commandments—that working of God's Holy Spirit in you is evidence of salvation. Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” 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.” It is plain and simple, if you don't have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, you're not a born-again child of God. Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

Again, to be clear, if you have to look at your life to prove that you're saved, it just proves that you're not. The Epistle of 1st John is NOT talking about examining your life to determine if you are really saved or not. The Apostle John (the same beloved disciple of Jesus who penned the Gospel of John, showing us how to have eternal life), also penned the Epistle of 1st John to show believers HOW TO KNOW we are saved (1st John 5:13). Unfortunately, John's Epistle is often misunderstood, because it is in our sinful human nature is to add works to God's grace.

In my humble opinion, 1st John 3:24 is the key verse to remember when interpreting John's Epistle. 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.” The test given is whether or not you have God's Holy Spirit indwelling you, and not what type of lifestyle you are living. I digress.

What most believers do is wait until the storms come in life, and then panic and seek answers quickly; but since they haven't been walking with God in the fair weather, the answers are much more harder to find when you're mind is broken. Proverbs 25:19, “Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint.” Seeking the Lord only when bad times come just doesn't feel right. It is just as true spiritually as it is physically, that an ounce of prevention is worth one pound of cure. Please don't wait until the sky is falling to seek the Lord. Seek Him today, right now, while God may be found. ...

Isaiah 55:6-7, “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Dear reader, God keeps you breathing (Daniel 5:23; Acts 17:25). That is how close God is to you. One of the very first life-changing sermons that I heard Pastor Jack Hyles preach, when I attended Hyles-Anderson College, is titled: 'God Is Not Far From Every One Of Us.' I hope that you will listen to this precious sermon. I am confident that it will change your life as it did mine, and still does today everything I think about this wonderful Bible truth.

Jesus created all things (John 1:3). He gives to all living creatures breath and life. If you feel like God is distant from you friend, it is only because you don't see Him. Where do we find God? Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

Romans 10:8-9, “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

The preceding Scripture passage is simply teaching how easy it is to be saved. Unfortunately, this is also another commonly misunderstood passage. The Bible is NOT requiring you to audibly confess Jesus as Christ with your mouth to be saved. We know this because the entire Gospel of John was authored by God to show us how to be saved (John 20:31). Yet there is nothing mentioned in the Gospel of John about confessing, praying, surrendering, repenting or inviting Christ into your life to be saved. No, Jesus simply said in John 6:47, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”

Romans 10:8-9 is simply saying that you already have everything you need to be saved, if you will simply BELIEVE in your heart on the Lord Jesus Christ. Please also know that all of the Devil's modern Bible versions pervert verse 9 to accommodate the Calvinist crowd. Instead of “confess the Lord Jesus Christ,” the new Bible perversions wickedly change it to “confess 'Jesus is Lord.'” The latter is a counterfeit plan of salvation. Nowhere in the Gospel of John are we taught to confess “Jesus is Lord” with our mouth to be saved. Ungodly men added those words to God's Word. Proverbs 30:5-6, “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

Dear reader, you and I cannot make it on our own without the blessed Lord. If you are saved, you got saved by trusting Jesus as your personal Savior. You learned the facts that Jesus died on a cross to pay your debt of sin. He was buried, and three days later He miraculously resurrected from the dead. This is 'The Gospel' (i.e., the Good News) by which all who BELIEVE IT are immediately, irrevocably and forever saved (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). There is no other way to be saved than to simply BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS!!!

But now that you are saved, you need to be recycled. God saved you from being disposed of in Hell. That is justification. But now as a child of God you need to grow in grace, being conformed by God into the very image of Christ (Romans 8:29), which is sanctification. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Lordship Salvation is the wrongful combining of these two great doctrines, which is a false gospel which cannot produce the new birth.

We have a wonderful God, who loves you more than you can know. God is love. He desires to commune with you dear saint of God. He desires to hear your prayers and enjoy sweet fellowship with you. God never gets tired. Nothing ever occurs to God. It is all a matter of faith. The Bible says we walk by faith, not by sight (2nd Corinthians 5:7).

Oh sinner, God loves you!!! Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” It doesn't matter how deep you've gone into sin, God wants to forgive and cleanse you of all unrighteousness (1st John 1:9). The choice is yours. God is not far from you, for His very presence gives you life and breath.

I don't know about you, but I need God more than ever as a I grow older. This world is falling apart, but the man whose Bible is falling apart is not. God is not far from every one of us. Simply talk to him, like you would a close friend. God is no different than anyone else whom you talk to. The Lord is not impressed when you get down on your knees, use big theological words and pray for extended periods of time, treating Him like some distant deity.

Remember, you are created in the image of God. When the Lord finished His marvellous work of creation, He rested on the seventh day, looking over His works. I do the same thing all the time, looking over my blogs and articles, seeing if I did a good job for my dear Savior. I usually find a bunch of typos...lol. I am created in God's image, but God makes no mistakes. I love praise, just like God does. I get frustrated, just like God does. My heart feels grieved when fellow believers walk in the flesh; such as carnally minded pastors like Jeff Redlin at Pensacola Christian College (and PCC leaders in general) who don't genuinely care about individual people. Sadly, PCC is a religious cult where the system always comes first, and individual people are expendable. SHAME on PCC.

The Word of God is our spiritual food as God's children. 1st Peter 1:23 says that we have been born-again by the seed of God's incorruptible Word. Someone has rightly said that when all else fails, read the instructions. Dear reader, please don't wait until your life becomes a heaping pile of rubbish to seek God. Multitudes of humanity run from God, shunning the inspired Holy Bible, until they simply cannot run any further and then come back to their senses. The blessed Savior will always take any sinner back who repents. Jesus never turned anyone away empty-handed, except those who came to Him full of themselves! John 5:40, “  ”And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” Carefully notice that Jesus didn't say “cannot,” but “will not.” God is faithful (1st Corinthians 1:9; 1st John 1:9).

I learned many years ago the necessity of walking with God during the fair-weather, so that when the storms of life come, I will feel boldness with God, knowing that I have been walking close to Him all the time. Our great compassionate God will be there for you during the storms of life, but wouldn't it be sweeter knowing that you were there for God during the good times? I listen to Bible preaching regularly, laying up truths for a rainy day (and so that I can share those life-saving truths with others).

You'd be surprised just how many professed saints are at their wits end, some even contemplating suicide. I know, because I receive their heartfelt emails all the time. They trust me because I unconditionally love people, never ask for ministry donations, am very understanding and I don't condemn sinners. You'd have to go to Pensacola Christian College to be condemned and thrown under the bus, as they wickedly did to me in 2021 and still today.

I knew right away at PCC that their leaders don't walk with God, evidenced by their woeful lack of love, understand and compassion for individual people who don't blindly go along with the cult system. I dared to challenge their heresy on repentance, which got me kicked out of Campus Church, banned in writing from returning. If you are divorced, as I have been for 17 years now, and you hope to remarry someday, you will be despised at PCC. What ungodly hypocrites! PCC is the epitome of everything that is ruining churches today! SHAME!!!

Sadly, PCC leadership think they are above the Word of God. The Bible teaches love and forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32), but at PCC they hold never-ending grudges. They have wickedly set me at nought (Romans 14:10). THE LOVE OF MONEY is what matters most at PCC (1st Timothy 6:10-11). Sadly, they have huge egos at PCC, patronizing people like me whom they despise because I dare to question their false teaching. PCC wickedly bids Godspeed to false prophet Ken Ham, who says that faith is not enough to be saved. According to Ken Ham and Answers-In-Genesis, you must also turn away from your past sinful ways, or else you cannot go to Heaven. That is another gospel, not what the Scriptures plainly teach. God's curse is upon PCC for corrupting the simplicity that is in Christ. BEWARE of the dangerous PCC cult!

They are not growing in the PCC camp, because they do not abide in the Word of God. Instead, they live by their own cult rules, blaspheming the Word of God by wickedly bidding Godspeed to the Calvinist Bob Jones University camp (who are the biggest supporters of Pastor John MacArthur's damnable Lordship Salvation mess). PCC only cares about making money, which is why they refuse to take a stand for Christ. PCC doesn't want to be put outside the gate with Jesus, so they sinfully dip their sails in sinful compromise. Jesus has always been outside the gate, which is where PCC has driven me, banning me from attending Campus Church. Pastor Jeff Redlin is a devil, a fake preacher, a con man who only cares about his  disgusting 6-digit salary. Campus Church at PCC is WORSE than the lukewarm apostate church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:15-17. Even the church at Laodicea didn't wickedly bid Godspeed to damnable false prophets, as does the bizarre cult at PCC.

In Acts 4:13, the Bible says that the magistrates perceived that Peter and John had been walking with Jesus, because of their BOLDNESS TO SPEAK. Acts 4:13, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” I am BOLD to preach because I have been walking with Jesus.

Psalms 119:104, “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.” I hate every false way because I have been abiding in the inspired Word of God. I hate the phoniness and woeful lack of love and compassion toward hurting and different people at PCC. I hate their false teaching on repentance (falsely claiming that your life must change to prove that you're really saved). I hate their ungodly support of false prophets like Ken Ham and the Calvinist Bob Jones University crowd. I hate that they charge money at PCC for people to learn how to more effectively share the Gospel. What is wrong with PCC leadership? They finished the fiscal year of 2020 with $1,200,000 left in the bank for Campus Church, and then they charge members $10 to learn how to share the Gospel? SHAME! SHAME!! SHAME!!! Psalms 119:104, “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.”

The cowardly PCC camp won't stand against anything, because it's not good for business. They don't care about heresies, falsehoods, false prophets and wickedness. All they care about in the PCC camp is the PCC camp and their fat cat salaries. Dozens of PCC employees take home well over $100,000 annually, which is a disgrace to the cause of Jesus Christ. Since when did Christianity become a lucrative business? The Bible warned us in James chapter five that RICH PEOPLE would be cocky, respecters of persons, arrogant, resistant against THE TRUTH, and abusive toward people like me (those who have nothing to offer them, that is, the poor). I pray for God to condemn PCC for their cruelty, indifference and ongoing malicious abuse toward faithful preachers like me who TELL THE TRUTH.

One thing that I have learned in my Christian life is that there is a direct link between WALKING WITH GOD, and one's attitude toward heresy, falsehoods, false prophets and sin. Those phony pastors (like PCC's leaders at Campus Church) don't truly walk with God; they walk with men, that is, their incompetent peers in the ministry. Those ungodly pastors don't care about RIGHT DOCTRINE, they care about their public image, their personal net wealth and protecting the cult at all cost. God knows my heart, that I don't hate anyone at PCC.

I detest their carnal attitudes. I detest their love of money. What they give away in charity to churches amounts to fractions of a penny, compared to the tens of millions of dollars that they horde and take home for themselves. Please BEWARE of these rotten phonies in Christendom today. I say that all kindly, with a sad heart. I offered to make peace with the PCC camp. I apologized three times for offending them in 2022. But they are so hateful and bigoted at PCC, that they didn't even think I was worth a reply. PCC ignored me. Well, they cannot ignore God, and God is on my side because my preaching agrees with the Word of God (Romans 3:4). 

Thank you for reading. You can tell from my blogs that I am upset at the PCC camp. I am only upset with them because they are arrogant, refusing to talk or discuss anything. They just kick people out, and throw anyone under the bus who dares to question their authoritarian cult. Tyranny is seldom seen except by those who are oppressed by it. PCC has a large following of blind lemmings, who go along to get their college degree. But years later, when they are safe from the authoritarian abusive arm of the cult, THE TRUTH eventually comes out on social media. We can expect to see a lot more negative feedback regarding PCC in the future. They simply refuse to repent of their wicked ways at PCC and Campus Church. Only God can humble their sinful pride, and the Lord will, He always does in time.

One of God's jobs is to find proud sinners and bring them low. Job 24:24, “They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.” God will ultimately bring Pensacola Christian College low. Job 40:12, “Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.” PCC is wickedly bidding Godspeed (2nd John 1:11) to the Satanic cult at Bob Jones University, and the ungodly Harvest Baptist Church cult on Guam. These rotten institutions are all preaching the Devil's lie of Lordship Salvation. They all use, sell and promote the Devil's corruptible seed, that is, the Devil's Bibles. They all preach a perverted meaning of Bible repentance to get to Heaven, requiring WORKS from lost sinners to be saved (which is IMPOSSIBLE to do). SHAME!!!

It is because I genuinely walk with God that I care enough to make a fuss, to preach THE TRUTH, which has cost me multiple churches families and shallow friends. I would do it all again for Jesus, my faithful Savior, Lord, Friend and God. WALK WITH GOD dear reader. That is the most important advice I could give to any believer. WALK WITH OUR GREAT GOD!!!