John 5:28-29, “Marvel not at this: for the hour
is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And
shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and
they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
At a glance our text passage of Scripture seems
to teach works salvation, that is, that you get to Heaven by good works. What
does that mean? We must take into consideration the entire Bible to find the
correct meaning of this Bible passage. We are plainly taught in Ephesians
2:8-10, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them.” We are not saved by good works as Ephesians
2:8-10 plainly states... NOT OF WORKS!!! It is evil to disobey God. It is good
to believe the Lord and trust upon the name of His only begotten Son, Jesus
Christ! Amen!
The Bible often associates living a righteous
life with being a born-again Christian. Certainly, Lot in the Old Testament
lived a sinful life (so much in fact that Lot's two sons and their wives
perished in Sodom's destruction). We'd never conclude that Lot was saved
without one little Bible verse in 2nd Peter 2:7 that calls Lot a “just” man. So,
you cannot know who is saved or unsaved merely by their lifestyle testimony.
Yet we are given a general principle in 1st
John 3:7-9 that a man who is truly saved has undergone some type of divine
change within his soul. Hebrews 12:6-8 teaches that a person is a bastard
(illegitimate, not really a child of God) if they do not receive chastisement
(discipline) and scourging (whipping) from the Lord when we do wrong and sin.
It is important to notice in 2nd Peter 2:8, “For that righteous man dwelling
among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day
with their unlawful deeds.” Lot was being eaten up in his soul by the
wickedness of Sodom, just as you and I are if you're truly a born-again
Christian over the evils in the world today.
Notice that the Bible warns of God's judgment
against THE UNGODLY. 2nd Peter 2:9-10, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the
godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to
be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of
uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they
are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.”
The Apostle John penned 1st John under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In 1st John 5:13 John confirms that the purpose
for His Epistle, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name
of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may
believe on the name of the Son of God.”
One of the assurances of being saved is having
a desire to live righteously in the Lord...
1st John 3:7-9, “Little children, let no man
deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the
beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin;
for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
The unjust person loves their sins and doesn't
want anything to do with the written Word of God nor the Living Word, Jesus
Christ (Who is God). The hardest thing
about getting religious people saved is first getting them lost. They're
indoctrinated with false thinking, and so they cannot grasp the gift of God
many times because they've been taught since childhood that a good life is the
way to Heaven.
We Are Saved (Born Again) By
Christ's Righteousness
My friend, you have no goodness in you except
what God has put there. We are created in God's good image. Yet, the heart of
man is desperately wicked and full of evil, deceitful above all else (Jeremiah
17:9). The first step to living righteous is to realize that you have NO
righteousness of your own (and neither do I). We need Christ's imputed
righteousness to be saved. Jesus took our debt of sin upon Himself at Calvary,
and He places His righteousness upon our record the very moment that we believe
the Gospel. We are saved by receiving what Christ did on the cross to pay for
our sins. There's NOTHING that I nor you can do to merit Heaven.
Catholics are often scared to let go of their
manmade traditions and exchange them for blind faith in the living God. From
the cradle-to-the-casket Catholics are handed packaged religion. Churchianity
is not Christianity. You can believe in God and go to church all your life and
still go straight to Hell the moment you die. Ye must be born-again (John
3:5-7). Have you been saved in Christ Jesus? Christ died, was buried and then
resurrected three days later. According to 1st Corinthians 15:1-4 that's THE
GOSPEL of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the way of salvation, that is,
through the cross by faith. There is NO other way to be saved. Jesus is the
way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).
Let me tell you something... Hell is not for
bad people, and Heaven is not for good people. Hell is for unforgiven people,
and Heaven is for forgiven people! We are saved by placing our confidence in
the Lamb of God Who died in our place upon the cross. Jesus paid a debt that He
did not owe, because we owed a debt that we could not pay.
We Live the Christian
(Righteous) Life in Christ's Righteousness
Then once you're saved, the way to live
righteous is to walk in the new man, Who is Christ in you. You live the
Christian life by faith (and not by sight), just as you were saved by faith.
Righteous means to obey God. It doesn't mean to play church and follow the
manmade sacraments of the church. The Bible does not teach sacraments as such.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances,
and they are the only two mentioned in the Bible. Holy Eucharist is a purely
Catholic heresy, as is confirmation, mass, last rights, divine unction and the
sinful confessional booth. 1st Timothy 2:5 says that Jesus Christ is our only
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1st Timothy 2:5, “For there
is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Any
Lutheran minister or Catholic priest who claims to have the God-given power to
forgive other's sins is a BIG LIAR!!! Only God can forgive sin (Mark 2:7; Luke
5:21).
If you desire to live righteous, then you must
abide in the Scriptures, which is how we abide in the Lord. John 5:39, “Search
the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they
which testify of me.” Our only righteousness as a Christian is the Lord's
righteousness flowing through our obedient life. We had no self-righteousness
of our own top save us, and we certainly don't have any to help us live
upright. The only way to live a victorious Christian life over sin is to renew
our minds daily, crucifying the flesh every single day to self-will, and
trusting upon the Lord's Spirit to help and guide us throughout the day.
No one is a shining example of how to live the
Christian life for the rest of us. We are all filthy sinners at best.
Christians are capable of any sin if we get away from the Lord. In fact,
walking close to God every day makes us more vulnerable because we get used to
things and let our guard down. Regularly attending church can become mundane
and lead to temptation. The best thing to do is to continually pray without
ceasing as the Bible commands in 1st Thessalonians 5:17, and memorize
Scriptures (hide God's Word in our heart) that we might not sin against God.
Psalms 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against
thee.” That's why I hate all the corrupt modern Bible versions, that is,
because you cannot memorize anything when a new version keeps coming out. The
authority of the King James Bible is irreplaceable. Modern Bibles are weak,
milquetoast and powerless.
The King James Bible Upholds
Christ's Righteousness
Stick to the King James Bible if you want to
live righteous in the Lord. Think about this... Revelation 19:13 calls Jesus
the Word of God. John 1:1-3,14 says that Jesus is the Word of God. That means
the Bible is critically important. If you have the wrong Bible, then you are
not going to be able to fellowship properly with the Lord, for God speaks to us
in these last days through His Son (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus is the living Word,
and the Bible is the written Word. If you want to have the mind of Christ as Philippians
2:5 commands, then you absolutely must have the inspired Words of God in the
King James Bible. God didn't author a comic book, nor did He author a newspaper
editorial as the corrupt new versions convey to the reader.
Bless God, we have the preserved and inspired
Words of God in the good, old, faithful, trustworthy, perfect, inerrant,
infallible, King James Bible. Don't get caught up into the Bible correcting
movement, where arrogant scholars think they know more than the 53 men who
translated the King James Bible (47 men did the actual work of translation). We
have God's inspired Word-for-Word instructions in the King James Bible. I'm not
saying that the King James Bible supersedes the Hebrew and Greek. Not at all. In
fact, we should study as the Lord commanded us, so that we might rightly divide
the Word of truth and not preach heresy as do many people today in the
churches. The King James Bible is doctrinally sound, which you will also be if
you use it. Corrupt Bibles leads to corrupt doctrines and corrupt churches. And
sadly, they are all teaching a corrupted gospel message of Lordship Salvation.
May you live righteously in the Lord, just as
we are saved by the Lord's righteousness (and not our own). Faith pleases God,
which is total dependence upon God throughout our daily life. I learned today
in Judges 3:1-4 that God didn't give the Israelites victory over all their
enemies. God deliberately left some of their enemies (six nations are
mentioned), so that God could test the faith of His people. This is an amazing
truth, because it applies to Christians today as well. God never changes. If
God needed to test their faith, then you can rest assure that God will also
test ours. A faith must be tested!!! Judges 3:1 and 4, “Now these are the
nations which the LORD left, to prove Israel by them ... And they were to prove
Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the
LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.”
God is going to allow problems in our life. God
is going to permit some difficulties and struggles to see how we respond. Will
we trust the Lord or complain? Will we whine and say that we had it better back
in Egypt (the heathen world) like the Jews did? I hope not friend. We are all
guilty at times of failing the test; but may we pray and ask the Lord through
His Spirit and Word to help us to keep His Commandments. In fact, this is a
part of the daily Lord's Prayer. Matthew 6:13, “And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, for ever. Amen.”
We are living in the days of Noah (Matthew
24:37-39). The party atmosphere and lifestyle are like a blackhole that breeds
nothing but social problems and disease (an all-around headache for people who
are in that environment).
Thank God for the gift of His dear Son, Jesus
Christ, Who is the spotless Lamb of God (John 1:29).
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