Ten Indictments (A Historical 21st Century Message) - Part 2

And now it is the same today. What do we face? I will tell you what we face. It is not a sort of infant baptism necessarily most of the time. It is not a high church confirmation by an ecclesiastical authority. What we face is the sinners’ prayer. And I am here to tell you, if there is anything I have declared war on it is that. You say. “Brother Paul...” Yes, in the same way that infant baptism, in my opinion, was the golden calf of the Reformation, for the Baptists and the Evangelicals and everyone else who has followed them today, I will tell you, that sinners’ prayer has sent more people to ell than anything on the face of the earth. You say, “How can you say such a thing?” Go with me to Scripture and show me, please. I would love you to stand up and tell me where anyone evangelized that way. The Scripture does not say that Jesus Christ came to the nation of Israel and said that “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, now who would like to ask me into their hearts? I see that hand.” That is not what it says. He said, “Repent and believe the gospel.”21 Now men today are trusting in the fact that at least one time in their life they prayed a prayer and someone told them they were saved because they were sincere enough. And so in their salvation if you ask them, “Are you saved?” they do not say, “Yes, I am because I am looking unto Jesus and there is mighty evidence giving me assurance of being born again.” No. They say, “One time in my life I prayed a prayer.” And they live like devils. But they prayed a prayer. And some of them... I heard of one evangelist who was coaxing a man to do that thing. Finally the man felt so uncomfortable the evangelist said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. I will pray to God for you and if it is what you want to say to God, squeeze my hands. Behold the power of God.” Decisionism, the idolatry of decisionism. Men think they are going to heaven because they have judged the sincerity of their own decision. When Paul came to the Church in Corinth he did not say to them, “Look, you are not living like Christians so let’s go back to that one moment in your life when you prayed that prayer and let’s see if you were sincere.” No, he said this, “Test yourselves, examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith.”22 Because I want you to know, my friends, salvation is by faith alone. It is a work of God. It is a grace upon grace upon grace. But the evidence of conversion is not just your examination of your sincerity at the moment of your conversion. It is the on going fruit in your life. It is the ongoing fruit in your life. Oh, my dear friends, look what we have done. Isn’t a tree known by its fruit? What 60%, 70% of America thinks it is converted, born again. We kill how many thousands of babies a day? We are hated around the world for our immorality. Yet we are Christian. And I lay this squarely, the blame, at the feet of the preacher. Fifth indictment: An unbiblical gospel invitation. We have touched on it a bit. I want to go further. Look how we do it today. I mean, now listen to me. The more... I have seen this everywhere. The Calvinist, the Arminian, a lot of them share something in common. It is this, the same superficial invitation. They talk a lot of talk about a lot of things and then they come to the invitation and it is almost as though everyone loses their mind. Walk up to someone says, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Can you imagine telling that to an American? “Sir, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” “What? God loves me? Well, that’s great because I love me, too. Oh, this is wonderful. And God’s got a wonderful plan? I got a wonderful plan for my life, too. And if I accept him into my life I’ll have my best life now. This is absolutely wonderful.” That is not biblical evangelism. Let me give you something in its place. God comes to Moses and he says this. The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.23 The reaction of Moses: “Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.”24 Evangelism begins with the nature of God. Who is God? Can a man recognize anything about his sin if he hath not a standard with which to compare himself? If we tell him nothing but trivial things about God that tickle the carnal mind, will he ever be brought to genuine repentance and faith? We do not begin with, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan.” We begin with a discourse of the full counsel of who God is. And we tell him from the start it may cost him his life. After that we have exploratory questions. “Hey, you know you are a sinner, don’t you?” That’s like years ago my mother died of cancer. It is like the doctor walking in on today and say, “Hey, Barb, you know you got cancer, don’t you?” We treat it so superficially. No weight, nothing solemn. “Sir, there is a terrible malady upon you and a judgment coming.” Because if you just tell a man, “Sir, you know, you are a sinner?” Go ask the devil if he knows he is a sinner. He will say, “Well, yes, I am. A mighty good one at that... Or a mighty bad one depending on how you look at it. But, yes. I know I am a sinner.” The question is not do you know you are a sinner. The question is: Is the Holy Spirit so at work in your heart through the preaching of the gospel that a change has been wrought so that the sin you once loved you now hate and the sin you once desired to embrace, you are wanting to run from it as though you were running from a dragon? And then the question: Do you want to go to heaven? This is the reason I would not let my children go to 98% of the Sunday schools and vacation Bible schools in evangelical churches because some well meaning person stands up and says, “Isn’t Jesus wonderful,” after showing the Jesus film. Yes. “How many of you little children love Jesus?” “Oh, I do.” “Who wants to accept Jesus into their little heart.” “Oh, I do.” And they get baptized. And they may walk a little bit because they have been.... They are being raised in a Christian culture, sort of, a church culture anyway. And then when they turn 15, 16, when they have the strength of will they begin to break the bonds. They begin to live in wickedness and then we go after them saying, “You are Christians. You are just not living like it. Stop your backsliding,” instead of going to them biblically and saying this. “You made a confession of faith in Christ. You professed him even in baptism, but now it seems as though you have turned away from him. Examine yourself. Test yourself. There is little evidence of any true conversion in you.” And then when they are 24, 25, after college, maybe 30, they come back to church and they rededicate their life and they join right in with that pseudo Christian morality that encompasses churchianity in America and in the end they hear this: “Depart from me you worker of iniquity. I never knew you.”25 You say, “Brother Paul, you are so angry.” Have I not right to be? Somebody must be crying out for revival. But we haven’t even got the foundations straight. Oh, that revival would come and straighten our foundations. But would we, while we have open eyes and open ears and have Scripture in front of us, should we not correct these things? Would you like to go to heaven? My dear friend, everybody wants to go to heaven. They just don’t want God to be there when they get there. The question is not do you want to go to heaven. The question is this. Do you want God? Have you stopped being a hater of God? Has Christ become precious to you? Do you desire him? That is what political theory is all about, my dear friend. Everybody wants to go to heaven. But men are haters of God. So the question is not do you want to go to a special place where you will no longer hurt and you will get everything you want. The question is: Do you want him? Has Christ become precious to you? Often as a person prays they are told after that, “Would you like to go to heaven?” “Well, yes.” “Well, then, would you like to pray and ask Jesus into your heart?” Now, my dear friend, let me say this. There are people who get saved using that methodology, but it is not because of it. It is in spite of it. “Sir, do you desire Christ? Do you see your sin?” “Oh, yes, yes, I do.” “Sir, let’s look at a few Scriptures here that lay out for us what repentance looks like, the Spirit bearing witness that this is happening in your life. Do you see brokenness? Do you see the disintegration of everything you fought and now your mind is filled with new thoughts about God and new desires and new hope?” “Yes, I see that. “Sir, that may be the first fruits of repentance. Now, throw yourself upon Christ. Trust in him. Trust in him.” And then listen to me. You have the authority to tell me the gospel. You have authority to tell me how to be saved and you have authority to teach men biblical principles of assurance. But you have no authority to tell men they are saved. That is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. But when you take them through that little thing, “Did you ask Jesus into your heart?” “Yes.” “Do you think you were sincere?” “Yes.” “Do you think he saved you?” “I don’t know.” “Of course he saved you because you were sincere and he promised that if you asked him to come in, he would come in. So you are saved.” And they walk out of the church after five minutes of counseling and they evangelist goes to [?] and the man is lost. The man is lost. An unbiblical invitation. If they ever doubt, if they ever doubt their salvation again, here we go again. If they ever doubt their salvation, “Let’s go back to a point in time. Was there ever a point in time in your life when you prayed and asked Jesus to come in?” “Yes.” “Were you sincere?” “I think so.” “That’s the devil bothering you.” And if they live without growth even in the context of a church without growth in continued carnality, no fear. We blame it on the lack of personal discipleship and we write it off as the doctrine of the carnal Christian. The doctrine of the carnal Christian has destroyed more lives and sent more people to hell. Do Christians struggle with sin? Yes. Can a Christian fall into sin? Absolutely. Can a Christian live in a continuous state of carnality all the days of his life not bearing fruit and truly be Christian? Absolutely not or every promise in the Old Testament regarding the New Testament covenant has failed and everything God said about discipline in Hebrews is a lie. A tree is known by its fruit. When we work with men in conversion... I have seen preachers who understood much about the things of God, but when the come down ever after an exemplary gospel presentation they will enter, once again, into this methodology. Let me give you a story and then we will go on to the next indictment, but a story that is one of the most precious moments in my life as a Christian. I was preaching in Canada just... Actually they told me it was like 30 kilometers from Alaska. There were more grizzly bears in the town than there were people, really. It was a little church of about 15, 20 people and I was preaching. And right when I got up in the pulpit this mountain of a man walked in in his 60s, early 70s, but just a mountain of a man. He could have whipped every one of us in this building. And as I preached, as I saw his face, I just threw everything away and started preaching the gospel. He was the saddest human being I have ever seen. Just gospel, gospel and when I got done I walked right from the pulpit to him. I said, “Sir, what is wrong. What is troubling your soul? I have never seen a man so sad and down hearted in all my life?” And he pulled out a manila envelope and it had some x-rays which I couldn’t understand, but he said this. “I just came from the doctor. I am going to die in three weeks.” That is what he told me. “Now I have lived all my life on a working cattle ranch. You can only get there by float plane or riding horses across the mountains and all this stuff.” He said, “I have never been to church. I have never read a Bible. I believe there is a God and one time I heard somebody talking about some guy named Jesus.” He said, “I have never been afraid of anything in my life and I am terrified.” I said, “Sir, did you understand the message, the gospel?” He said, “Yes.” Now what would have a great majority of preachers done at that moment? “Well, would you like to ask Jesus to come into your heart?” That is what they would have done. I said, “Sir, you understood it.” He said, “I understood it, but is that it? Is that just...” He said, “A child could have understood that. Anybody. Is that all it is that I understand it and I pray or...?” I said, “Sir, you are going to die in three weeks. I have to leave tomorrow. I will cancel my plane ticket and we will stay here over the Scriptures wrestling and crying out to God until you are either converted or you die and go to hell.” And so we began. I began in the Old Testament, the New Testament, every verse of Scripture dealing with the promises of God regarding redemption and salvation, over and over, time after time, reading John 3:16, praying for a while, crying out to God, questioning the man regarding repentance, regarding faith, regarding assurance, working till Christ be formed in him. And then, finally, just exhausted that evening there was no breakthrough, there was nothing. And I said, “Sir, let’s pray.” And we prayed. I said, “Sir, read John 3:16 again.” He said, “We have read this a million times.” I said, “I know, but it is one of the greatest promises of salvation. Read that text again.” And I will never forget. He had my Bible on his lap in those big mountainous hands of his and he said, “Ok.” He said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave...26 I’m saved. I’m saved. Brother Paul, all my sins are gone. I have eternal... I’m saved. I mean...” I said, “How do you know?” He said, “Haven’t you ever read this verse before?” What was going on? A working of the Spirit of God instead of those little tricks you try. What you want to go eat. What you think preaching is a spectacle and after that you go back to the hotel? No, after the preaching is when the work begins. Dealing with souls. People come forward in meetings for counsel by someone who shouldn’t be counseling. Five minutes, they are given the... Quick, give the card to the pastor and the pastor says, “I would like to present to you a new child of God. Welcome him into the family of God.” How dare you? If you are going to present him, say this. “This man tonight has made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. And because of our fear of God and our love for the souls of men we will now be working with him to make sure that Christ has truly been formed in him, that he truly has a biblical understanding of repentance and faith and great assurance and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is what we are going to do.” Look what we have done. I plead with you. Look what we are doing. And this is not some cult. This is us. Stop it. Stop it. Sixth indictment: Ignorance regarding the nature of the Church. God has only one religious institution. It is the Church. It is the Church. And our ultimate goal and the ultimate product of revival will be the planting of biblical churches. I have the greatest fear that the local church today is despised. Tell somebody you are an itinerant preacher, that you have a world wide ministry and they all bow down. Tell someone you are a pastor of a group of 30 and they make you sit in the back during the conference. He is not the prince of itinerant preachers, he is the prince of pastors. Several years ago Bill Clinton had a slogan during the election. “It is the economy, stupid.” My pastor, Jeff Noblett, one of the elders in our church, the primary teaching, preaching pastor, he said to me one day, he goes, “You know, I’d like to have a bunch of shirts made up.” “What would they say, brother Jeff?” “It’s the Church, stupid.” Jesus gave his life for the Church, a beautiful virgin, pristine Church. If you want to give your life for something in the ministry, give it to the Church, to a church, a body of believers, a local congregation. It is the Church. Now let me say this about the Church. I want you to listen well. There is not a remnant of believers in the Church. We all know about the remnant theology, you know, that throughout all the course of Israel there was Israel the people of God and a remnant of true believers. That is not true about the Church. There is not a remnant of believers or a small group of believers inside a larger group called the Church. The Church is the remnant. And I want to say this. If pastors have ever come to close to blaspheming it is with regard to this. I hear theologians, itinerant teachers, pastors, this and that saying these sorts of things. “There is just as much sin in the Church as out of the Church. There is just as much divorce in the Church as out of the Church. There is just as much immorality and pornography in the Church as out of the Church.” And then preachers say, “Yes, the Church is acting like a whore.” I want you to know this. You ought to be very careful calling the bride of Jesus Christ a whore. I will tell you what the problem is. Pastors and preachers don’t know what the Church is. I want you to know that the Church of Jesus Christ in America is beautiful. She is frail at times. She is weak. She is buffeted. She is not perfect, but I want you to know she is broken. She is humbly walking with her God. The problem with you is you don’t know what the Church is. Today because of the lack of biblical preaching the so called Church is filled up with carnal, wicked people identified with Christianity. And then because of all the goats in the midst of the lambs, the lambs are blamed for all the things the goats are doing and then the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of us. Have you ever read... Let’s just.... I know we are running out of time, but just go quickly with me, just go quickly. I want to show you something. Go to Jeremiah 31, thank you. Verse 31 of Jeremiah 31. “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.’”27 Now I do not want to take away anything from the people called Israel, but this text is also applied to the Church. Understand that. I don’t want to get into any battles on eschatology, but in the Bible, in the New Testament, the book of Hebrews it is applied to the people of God. “Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.”28 I hear preachers saying all the time, “Well, when you look back and you see Israel, you see a bunch of godless, idolaters, people. And in the midst of them there was a tiny remnant of true believers.” That is true, but don’t apply that to the New Testament Church because he says, “I am going to do something different, Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them.”29 He hasn’t just given you, if you are converted, he hasn’t just given you a stone tablet of laws. He has supernaturally, through the doctrine of regeneration, written those laws in

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Ten Indictments (A Historical 21st Century Message) - Part 2

Paul Washer

Paul Washer (1961 - Present)

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