Are We Saved by Faith Alone or by Faith that is Not Alone?

MORAL LAW

 Another group, the Antinomians, void of the law.  Antinomian is a compound word from the Greek roots “antinomian” meaning “without law.” The sect originated in the days of the Apostles, Its followers suppose that the gospel was designed to release Christians from their obligation to obey the moral law. Their doctrine grew out of a perversion of the doctrine of justification by faith.

The Jewish scholars had taught that men would be saved only by perfect outward conformity to the moral and ceremonial laws. In opposition to this, Paul taught that by the works of the law no flesh can be justified; first, because all men had broken the law already, and second because no obedience however perfect could make restitution for past disobedience.  Therefore, all people are already condemned by the law because of their pardon and acceptance. The atonement of Christ is, therefore, the only ground for pardon. Those who are saved are justified solely by faith in Christ irrespective of any legal righteousness of their own.

     The Biblical view of justification by faith was perverted by the Antinomians. They maintained that if people were justified by faith alone, then good works are unnecessary. They believed that faith in Christ is substituted for obedience to the law of God. They overlooked the fact without personal holiness no one shall see the Lord.

Holiness of Heart Is Part of the Gospel

    Varieties of the Antinomian sect have existed throughout history and in almost every part of the Church. They have not always been known by this name, but thousands have and still do manifest their belief and practices. They may generally be recognized; when holiness of heart and life are demanded, they complain that this is legal preaching, that the gospel has been exchanged for the law. They think that the gospel is designed to repeal the moral law; not only to set aside the penalties for believers in Christ, but also to discharge them from any obligation to the moral government of God, render it impossible for either law or gospel to sanctify them and “utterly perish in their own corruption.”

    Obviously, a person professing faith in Christ must live a holy life, as holy as if he expected to be saved by his works. If he indulges in sin, abandoning all regard for the law, he is the minister of sin. He is perverting and abusing the gospel. He becomes, in heart, an Antinomian. The gospel becomes a license to sin and Christ the apologist for sin.

PRINCIPLES OF REVIVAL p. 98

Charles Finney

Visit us and join our worship celebration at the River of God, Galleria. 

For more info, contact me: (click fb badge logo)

 About me:

                                   

A disciple of Christ

Servant of God/Discipler

Preparing the Way of the Lord

  for His soon 2nd Coming!

CAN YOU TRACE IT?

Peculiarities Of The Movement

There is no preaching, no order, no hymn books, no choirs, no organs, no collections and, finally, no advertising. I am not saying these things are wrong. I simply want you to see what God is doing. There were the organs, but silent; the ministers, but among the rest of the people, rejoicing and prophesying with the rest, only there was no preaching. Everybody is preaching. No order, and yet it moves from day to day, week to week, county to county, with matchless precision, with the order of an attacking force. Mr. Stead was asked if he thought the revival would spread to London, and he said, “It depends upon whether you can sing.” He was not so wide of the mark. When these Welshmen sing, they sing the words like men who believe them. They abandon themselves to their singing. We sing as though we thought it would not be respectable to be heard by the man next to us. No choir, did I say? It was all choir. And hymns! I stood and listened in wonder and amazement as that congregation on that night sang hymn after hymn, long hymns, sung through without hymn-books.

The Sunday-school is having its harvest now. The family altar is having its harvest now. The teaching of hymns and the Bible among those Welsh hills and valleys is having its harvest now. No advertising. The whole thing advertises itself. You tell me the press is advertising it. They did not begin advertising until the thing caught fire and spread. One of the most remarkable things is the attitude of the Welsh press. I come across instance after instance of men converted by reading the story of the revival in The Western Mail and The South Wales Daily News.

The Three Characteristics Of The Meetings

It was a meeting characterized by a perpetual series of interruptions and disorderliness. It was a meeting characterized by a great continuity and an absolute order. You say, “How do you reconcile these things?” I do not reconcile them. They are both there. If you put a man into the midst of one of these meetings who knows nothing of the language of the Spirit, and nothing of the life of the Spirit, one of two things will happen to him. He will either pass out saying, “These men are drunk,” or he himself will be swept up by the fire into the kingdom of God. If you put a man down who knows the language of the Spirit, he will be struck by this most peculiar thing. I have never seen anything like it in my life; while a man praying is disturbed by the breaking out of song, there is no sense of disorder, and the prayer merges into song, and back into testimony, and back again into song for hour after hour, without guidance. These are the three occupations—singing, prayer, testimony.

In the afternoon we were at another chapel, and another meeting, equally full, and this time Evan Roberts was present. He came into the meeting when it had been on for an hour and a half. He spoke, but his address—if it could be called an address—was punctuated perpetually by song and prayer and testimony. Evan Roberts works on that plan, never hindering anyone. I venture to say that if that address Evan Roberts gave in broken fragments had been reported, the whole of it could have been read in six or seven minutes. As the meeting went on, a man rose in the gallery and said, “So and So,” naming some man, “has decided for Christ,” and then in a moment the song began. They did not sing Songs of Praises, they sang Diolch Iddo, and the weirdness and beauty of it swept over the audience. It was a song of praise because that man was born again. There are no inquiry rooms, no penitent forms, but some worker announces, or an inquirer openly confesses Christ, the name is registered and the song breaks out, and they go back to testimony and prayer.

In the evening I stood for three solid hours wedged so that I could not lift my hands at all. That which impressed me most was the congregation. I stood wedged, and I looked at the gallery of the chapel on my right, and there were three women, and the rest were men packed solidly in. If you could but for once have seen the men, evidently colliers, with the blue seam that told of their work on their faces, clean and beautiful. Beautiful, did I say? Many of them lit with heaven’s own light, radiant with the light that never was on sea and land. Great rough, magnificent, poetic men by nature, but nature had slumbered long. Today it is awakened, and I looked on many a face, and I knew that men did not see me, did not see Evan Roberts, but they saw the face of God and the eternities. I left that evening, after having been in the meeting three hours, at 10:30, and it swept on, packed as it was, until an early hour next morning, song and prayer and testimony and conversion and confession of sin by leading church-members publicly, and the putting of it away, and all the while no human leader, no one indicating the next thing to do, no one checking the spontaneous movement.

A Church Revival

What is the character of this revival? It is a church revival. I do not mean by that merely a revival among church members. It is that, but it is held in church buildings. I have been saying for a long time that the revival which is to be permanent in the life of a nation must be associated with the life of the churches. What I am looking for is that there shall come a revival breaking out in all our regular church life. The meetings are held in the chapels, all up and down the valleys, and it began among church members, and when it touches the outside man it makes him into a church-member at once. I am tremendously suspicious of any mission or revival movement that treats with contempt the Church of Christ, and affects to despise the churches. Within five weeks, twenty thousand have joined the churches. I think more than that have been converted, but the churches in Wales have enrolled during the last five weeks twenty thousand new members. It is a movement in the Church and of the Church, a movement in which the true functions and forces of the Church are being exercised and filled.

The movement is characterized by the most remarkable confession of sin—confessions that must be costly. I heard some of them, men rising who have been members of the church and officers of the church, confessing hidden sin in their heart, impurity committed and condoned, and seeking prayer for its putting away. The whole movement is marvelously characterized by a confession of Jesus Christ, testimony to his power, to his goodness, to his beneficence, and testimony merging forevermore into outbursts of singing.

This whole thing is of God; it is a visitation in which he is making men conscious of Himself, without any human agency. The revival is far more wide-spread than the fire zone. In this sense you may understand that the fire zone is where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel the flame that burns. But even when you come out of it, and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere, men everywhere are talking of God. Whether they obey or not is another matter. There are thousands not yielded to the constraint of God, but God has given Wales in these days a new conviction and consciousness of himself. That is the profound thing, the underlying truth.

The Origin Of The Movement

In the name of God let us all cease trying to find it. At least let us cease trying to trace it to any one man or convention. You cannot trace it, and yet I will trace it tonight. Whence has it come? All over Wales—I am giving you roughly the result of the questioning of fifty or more persons at random in the week—a praying remnant has been agonizing before God about the state of the beloved land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come. You tell me that the revival originates with Roberts. I tell you that Roberts is a product of the revival. You tell me that it began in an Endeavor meeting where a dear girl bore testimony. I tell you that was part of the result of a revival breaking out everywhere. If you and I could stand above Wales, looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here and there, and yonder, and somewhere else, without any collusion or prearrangement. It is a divine visitation in which God—let me say this reverently—in which God is saying to us: See what I can do without the things you are depending on; see what I can do in answer to a praying people; see what I can do through the simplest who are ready to fall in line and depend wholly and absolutely upon me.

________________________________________________

Much can be gained from studying the move of God throughout history. I would be unwise to attempt to mimic the exploits of these men and women of God from old, but there are reasons why God used them, and we would do well to put ourselves in the same position. Evan Roberts was only used because he travailed in prayer day in and day out for years in expectation for what God would do. Are we so committed? Because until we are willing to suffer with Christ like Evan Roberts suffered with Christ, we will never see the glory of God like Evan Roberts saw the glory of God.

-from the book titled simply The Welsh Revival

 

Visit us and join our worship celebration at the River of God, Galleria. 

For more info, contact me: (click fb badge logo)

 About me:

                                   

A disciple of Christ

Servant of God/Discipler

Preparing the Way of the Lord

  for His soon 2nd Coming!

Living the Love Life

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

– John 15:13

We often think of "laying down your life" for someone else in terms of dying. That's what Jesus did. He loved us so much He laid down His life by dying in our place so that we could live.

But now, He's asked us to lay down our lives in a different way. He's asked us to show our love, not by dying for others, but by living for them.

Exactly what does that mean?

Sometimes it means giving our lives by spending time in prayer for someone. Other times it means giving of ourselves with love and understanding. Many times it means laying down our own selfish desires in order to meet the needs of another.

Romans 15:1 puts it this way, "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."

When you lay down your life, you live to please God instead of yourself. You let your life be guided by His love. If love leads you to the person next door, you follow. When love calls you to intercede for someone in need, you yield.

Commit yourself today to lay down your own life—and take up the love life. Say:

"Father, in Jesus' Name, I see from Your Word that You were willing to give of Yourself, in the person of Your Son, for all men. I understand that because Jesus is Lord of my life, I, too, am called to give myself to others. I choose to accept that calling today.

"I'll give of my time. I'll give of Your love in me. I'll be strong and lift up those who are weak. I'm willing to be available to be used of You so that those around me might experience the abundant life You have provided.

"You have loved me, Lord, with the greatest love there is. I count it a privilege now to share that love with others. I thank You for it in Jesus' Name. Amen."

FAITH TO FAITH
KCM

Visit us and join our worship celebration at the River of God, Galleria. 

For more info, contact me: (click fb badge logo)

 About me:
                                     
A disciple of Christ
Servant of God/Discipler
Preparing the Way of the Lord
  for His soon 2nd Coming!

What It Means to Be Full of the Spirit

How it is that the moment you are filled with the Holy Ghost persecution starts? It was so with the Lord Jesus Himself. We do not read of any persecutions before the Holy Spirit came down like a dove upon Him. Shortly after this, we find that, after preaching in His hometown, they wanted to throw Him over the brow of the hill. It was the same with the twelve disciples. They had no persecution before the day of Pentecost; but after they were filled with the Spirit, they were

soon in prison.

 The devil and the priests of religion will always get stirred when a man is filled with the Spirit and does things in the power of the Spirit. And persecution is the greatest blessing to a church. When we have persecution we will have purity. If you desire to be filled with the Spirit you can count on one thing, and that is persecution. The Lord came to bring division, and even in your own household, you may find three against two.

The Lord Jesus came to bring peace; and soon after you get peace within, you get persecution without. If you remain stationary, the devil and his agents will not disturb you much. But when you press on and go the whole length with God the enemy has you as a target. But God will vindicate you in the midst of the whole thing.

Excerpt from "Ever Increasing Faith"  p. 105
by Smith Wigglesworth


Visit us and join our worship celebration at the River of God, Galleria. 

For more info, click logo:

Making Your Words Work for You

          God didn't create any of us to be average. He didn’t make us to barely get by. We were created to excel. The Scripture teaches that before the foundation of the world, God didn't only choose us, but He equipped us with everything we need to live His abundant life. You have seeds of greatness inside of you, but it is up to you to believe and act on them.

        You need to have an image of a champion on the inside. You may not be there yet you may have some areas to overcome, but you need to know deep down inside that you are a victor and not a victim.

       One of the best ways that we can improve our self-image is with your words. Words are like seeds. They have creative power. It says in Isaiah that “We will eat the fruit of our words.” That’s amazing when you stop to consider that truth: Our words tend to produce what we’re saying.

           Every day, we should make positive declarations over our lives. We should say things such as, “ I am blessed. I am prosperous. I am healthy. I am creative. I am wise.”  When we do that we are building up our self-image. As those words permeate your heart and mind, and especially your subconscious mind, eventually they will begin to change the way you see yourself.

       The Scripture says, “With our tongue, we can either bless our life or we can curse our life.”  Some individuals curse their own future by saying things such as, “I don’t have what it takes. I’m so clumsy I can’t get anything right. I’m so undisciplined. I’ll probably never lose this weight.” We must be extremely careful what we allow out of our mouth. Our words set the direction for our lives.

    Which direction are you going? Are you declaring good things? Are you blessing your life, speaking words of faith over your future and your children’s future? Or ar are you prone to saying negative things? Nothing good ever happens to me. I’ll probably never get out of debt. I’ll never break this addiction.”

      When you talk like that, you are setting the limits for your life.

    Start saying every day, “ I am excelling in my career.  I have the favor of God. I make good decisions. I’m a hard worker and I’m going to rise to new heights. If you hear that long enough, it will create a new image within, an image of victory, an image of success. Pretty soon, that will be a reality in your life. Start building your life today by prophesying into your future. Get into an agreement with God and learn to speak words of faith and victory over your own life and family.


Visit us and join our worship celebration at the River of God, Galleria. 

For more info, click logo:

Knowing Our Limits

"He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19

Webster's defines entrepreneur: "one who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk in a business venture." [Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Ed. (Springfield, Massachusetts, 1993), "entrepreneur."]

Entrepreneurs can smell an opportunity a mile away. However, what is often their greatest asset can become their greatest downfall. The road is littered with entrepreneurs who have been successful in one venture only to fail in countless others. Is this the natural way for an entrepreneur, or is there a better way?

King David was an entrepreneur. He grew up as a shepherd boy and later became Israel's greatest warrior. He responded to opportunities, like the time when no one would fight Goliath. He saw this as an opportunity. He ultimately became king of Israel and faced many opportunities placed before him.

David learned an important lesson somewhere along the way that each of us as workplace believers should learn. As an entrepreneur, the greatest danger is engaging ourselves in activities in which God never intended us to be involved. This is poor stewardship of what God has entrusted to us. When the Philistines attacked David, he always inquired of God as to if and when he was to counterattack. When he was attacked a second time on one occasion, David inquired of God as to whether he was to attack yet. This time God said yes, but with a condition, "Wait until you hear the sound of marching in the balsam trees" (see 2 Sam. 5:24).

This story tells us that David had learned an important lesson about staying vertical in his relationship with God at all times. David had learned the important principle of staying focused on what God wanted for him, not what seemed logical. He was an opportunist, but only through the filter of the Holy Spirit in his life.

How do you approach opportunities? Do you consider the merits of the opportunity only? Or do you inquire of God as to whether He desires you to pursue? It may be a wonderful opportunity, but it may not be God's will for you to be involved. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you as you seek to use the skills He has given you.

-Os Hillman

  You can visit us and join our worship celebration at the River of God, Galleria. 

Click logo:

Checking out on my next blog? Relax and hear my theme song "Whenever I see." God bless!

Faith is spelled R.I.S.K.

"Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!'" (Matt 14:29-30).

Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat. There is always a risk when we attempt something never done before. Naysayers seem to come out of the wood work. Why? Because it's not their vision, it's yours. Sometimes we fail the first time out. It's a fact that most entrepreneurs fail before they are really successful.

"Success," said Winston Churchill, "is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Everybody fails. It's part of the process that leads us to maturity and success. Most successful entrepreneurs don't think of their failures as defeats. They think of them as lessons.

If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures. In The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar, Orlando Magic executive Pat Williams observed, "Our experiences may not all be triumphs and successes, but so what? Failure is usually a far better teacher than success - if we are willing to learn the lessons. As Houston Astros pitcher Larry Dierker observed, 'Experience is the best teacher, but a hard grader. She gives the test first, the lesson later.'"*

God never gets mired in our past failures. He is constantly viewing our lives with future success in mind. "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" (Isa. 43:19). Someone once said, "When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you're headed for the grave." God wants to give us new dreams that are bigger than anything that has ever happened to us in the past.

Don't let past failures keep you from future successes. 

Os Hillman

_____________________________________________________________________

JESUS IS COMING VERY SOON!