Only the Church of Christ Saved?
All right. So this is Bible Warfare: How
to Defend Your Faith, lesson number two, only the church of Christ Saved? So we
started our class on Bible Warfare: How to Defend Your Faith, by listing the
rules of engagement last week. Basic rules help us maintain communication
when discussing religious issues with our friends and with our families. A lot
of times there’s division and hurt feelings can happen, not on account
of what is being taught, but on account of the attitude that people have when
they’re trying to share their faith. So we said there are some kind of basic
rules of engagement if we want to maintain communication and good
relationships with our family and friends if we’re discussing a
religious idea. So rule number one, respect other people’s sincerity.
Remember that others hold deeply and dearly their views, and disrespecting
that will cause a communication breakdown.
You may disagree with their beliefs,
but you mustn’t be disagreeable in doing so. It’s okay to disagree, we
disagree on this particular issue, but if we want to keep the door of
communication open, we have to be polite, we have to be kind. The second one,
stick to the Bible. Your objective is always to understand accurately and then
communicate accurately what the Bible says, and actually, what you believe the
Bible says. It’s okay to say, I believe that the Bible says… When you say, I
believe that the Bible says…, what you’re saying is, I don’t know everything and I
could be mistaken, but as far as this point is concerned, I believe that this
is what the Bible says. That’s okay. That’s fine to say
. Not, I feel. I feel that it’s not fair that God
should judge – that, that has no – you don’t get anywhere just
by comparing feelings. The questions that you’ve submitted will all be answered in
this context.
The questions that you’ve submitted to me for this class are,
what does the Bible say, not, what does the, quote, church of Christ say? And
hopefully the church of Christ and the Bible, we’re saying the same
thing. That’s what we’re shooting for, but our objective is always, as members of
the church, to accurately convey what the Bible teaches about particular topics.
Number three, be patient of course.
Different people are at
different points of knowledge and different points of maturity,
spiritual maturity. So don’t be in a rush. Take time and take the time necessary to
teach and encourage, to share. The world says, where there’s life, there’s
hope. That’s what the world says. What we say is that all things are possible with
God. No, it’s impossible for my uncle, whatever, to come around.
It’s impossible. Well, maybe you can’t think that your
uncle would come around to believing in the scriptures, but with God all things are possible. God opens hearts. And this week, I’m just
going to ask, I’m going to add one more, don’t get discouraged. Don’t be
destroyed if someone rejects your very best intentions and your clearest
teaching. As I said last week, many obstacles keep people from
believing the gospel or accepting a more accurate teaching from God’s Word. Keep
trying with others to share your faith and to share the Word. Keep loving your
friend or your family member even if they reject the Word.
In this way, they
will have a constant witness of God’s love, even if they reject His truth, and
in so doing you will affirm your faith before the Lord. Sometimes the
objective is not for the person you’re teaching, sometimes it’s for
you. It’s for you to learn something in an attempt to teach someone else.
So much for the rules of engagement, let’s get down to the questions that you
asked last week. As I say, if you didn’t have a chance, we’ve got some of those
cards out, you can write some more questions and I will I’ll try to answer
those before we finish the entire course. Now, I’ve taught this class before and thes,e classes the questions that I receive, tend to
repeat themselves and they fall into four categories. And so, this time is no
different. The questions that I’ve gotten from you so far tend to fall into the
same categories. Some of your questions are different, but these are
the categories that they fall into nevertheless: some fall into the
doctrinal, and they’re like doctrinal questions.
These are the type of
questions that require an answer based on what the Bible teaches on a specific
issue or a specific practice. And these were subdivided into other
categories. Note that the same doctrinal questions were asked in a variety of
ways, but they all require the same answer. For example, a lot of people ask
why we use music or why we think that the church of Christ is the only church
to go to heaven.
When I say, why we use music, why we don’t use
instruments of music in our worship. That question comes back all the time. In
evangelism, a lot of questions dealt with evangelism: how do we do it better, how do
we approach different individuals? Someone who has a Hindu
background versus someone who has a Roman Catholic background, there’s
a big difference there. The Roman Catholic, well, you can begin with the
assumption that they believe in one God. Catholics are monotheists like
we are, and they’re theists. They’re not deists. So we have many, many similarities.
There are a lot of things you don’t have to teach someone who is a
Roman Catholic. Usually with the Roman Catholics, you have to try to get them to accept that the sole
authority in religious matters, as far as Christianity is concerned, is the Bible,
right? And show them scriptures that teach that idea. But we’ll get to that.
Bible facts. A couple of questions were the kind that
needed an explanation of facts and figures in the Bible. Less about ideas,
and less about doctrines.
And then, miscellaneous. There are always questions
that don’t fit any category: why are there so many religions in the world? Or, which version of the Bible is the best? So those,
they don’t fit under doctrine or anything like that. So a lot of
miscellaneous questions. So I’m going to do my best to answer all of your questions.
Sometimes I’ll tackle only one question per lesson, like tonight. And then other
times we’ll do two or three. One thing that will remain the same from class to
class will be that I will answer as best as I can from the Bible and only from
the Bible.
I will not use any other texts. All right, church questions. I
don’t know how many people ask this question: what do you answer
when someone says the church of Christ thinks that they’re the only ones going
to heaven? I mean, that question is asked 16 different ways, but it’s always the
same question. And an interesting thing about this question, is as I was watching
television one night, several years ago, and I was watching the David Letterman Show. You’re familiar with David
Letterman? He had a talk show late at night and he used to do things in the
audience. He’d go into the audience and ask questions or play games
or do stuff. And usually all he asked someone was, where
do you come from? What city? You could do a bit of a shout-out to
your city. What do you do for a living? What’s your name, where do you
come from, and what do you do for a living? And then
Letterman would kind of play with that, make jokes, whatever.
So one man was there
one night and he was doing something in the audience and this man
stood up and he says, okay, what’s your name? I forget, Joe Smith or
something like that. Where do you come from? I come from, I don’t
know, Montana. And he says, and what do you do? He says I’m a minister. And I, kind of,
perked up, now I’m paying attention. And so, Letterman,
usually he let it go at that. I’m a hairdresser, I’m a fireman. Yeah?
Good for you. So he says, I’m a minister. So Letterman says, oh what denomination?
And the man said, the church of Christ.
And Letterman says, oh
you’re the guys who think you’re the only ones going to heaven. I mean, I was
flabbergasted. You thought that this was just something that was
floating around. Letterman, of all people, is not a religious man to
begin with. But his impression of us was, oh you’re the guys who think
you’re the only ones going to heaven. Yeah, exactly. So we’re not the only ones
that ask that question. Now there’s no easy one-word answer that can
completely answer this question because it’s loaded with so many different
meanings. For example, if the question means is only the church that is in the
Bible, the one spoken of by Peter, the 3,000 that were baptized at
Pentecost, and the church spoken of by Paul when he’s addressing Corinth and
Ephesus. If the question is that church there in the Bible, is that church the
only one going to heaven? The answer is, well, yes.
If, however, the question is, does
the Bible teach that there is only one church and is that the only church that
is going to go to heaven? The answer to that question is, well, yes. Paul says in
Ephesians four, verse four, that there is only one body, the church,
and only one body that belongs to Christ. And only the body of Christ is going to
be saved. It’s very clear in the New Testament, as opposed to the body of
Buddha or the body of Muhammad or the body of Krishna. So it’s not what the,
quote, religious leaders teach, it’s what the Bible teaches, very clear. And I’ve
said this before, a person doesn’t have to believe it. You’re free not to believe
that. You’re free to reject that if you wish. You’re free to laugh at it and just
deep-six it, if you wish.
The thing that you cannot do is, you cannot
say that the Bible doesn’t teach that only the church is going to heaven. You
don’t have to accept it, but you have to acknowledge that that’s what the Bible
teaches. So we’re not in trouble as far as if you’re saying, does the
Bible teaches that only the body of Christ is the only that’s going
to be saved. Yeah, exactly. It’s exactly what the Bible teaches. But this question
doesn’t usually refer to what the Bible says about the church. It is a response
to a certain aggressive attitude that existed in the churches of Christ in the
past and even among some today that said the following: among those who call Jesus
the Christ, among those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, only those among
the churches of Christ will go to heaven.
That’s what that question is aiming at.
So the conclusion drawn from this position was that, well, if you were a
Baptist or you were a Methodist or a Catholic or whatever, quote, Christian
group other than the church of Christ, you were
lost, you are lost. That’s what that question is asking. And I know this is – I told you we’re going to tackle some tough ones in here and this is the
toughest one.
Because you can’t just come back in just a one-word answer, one
scripture, boom, that’s it. Wouldn’t it be nice? Ephesians 4:4, “There is only one
body.” Okay, next question. Well, that’s not what they’re asking. So this position was
offensive and it was hard to take. And it spawned the question and attitude toward
churches of Christ by other groups who were also calling themselves Christians
and were also trying to serve the Lord sincerely. Remember, I said, one
of the key things in a Bible study with someone, you have to accept that they are
sincere about their beliefs, just as you are sincere about your beliefs. So when
this thing came up, only the people who call on Jesus who belong to the church
of Christ group, only those believers are going to heaven, everybody else is going
to hell. So the problem here is that the people in the churches of Christ who
promoted this idea, broke all the rules of engagement in discussing their
faith with other people.
First, they were not respectful of others’ sincere belief
in Jesus. Like people who are Baptists or Catholics. Where I come from in
Quebec, Montreal, French Canada, when I went to
school in grade school – here in America in the 50s, let’s say, the heroes –
who were the heroes? Well, they were the pioneers, right? Or George Washington.
These people were the heroes of history. A little different now,
we won’t get into the political correctness that’s going on today, but I
think most of you understand the heroes that were taught back in the day, in the
The 50s. When I went to school in Canada, do you know who the heroes were that they taught us?
The Catholic missionaries, the Catholic missionaries that came from France, who
came to Quebec and tried to convert the – well, we don’t call them Native Americans
in Canada, we call them First Nations, but it’s the same thing.
They tried to convert the
Indians and many of them lost their lives. They were burned at the stake, they
were scalped, they were killed. The brothers, missionary brothers, sisters, nuns, that came – it was the nuns that established
the first hospitals in Quebec, that ran the hospitals. It was the Catholic Church
that ran all the orphanages, all the hospitals. All the social services up
until about 1960 were done and run through the Catholic Church. The nurses
were Catholic. So if you’re having a study with a Catholic person
and you say to them, oh yeah, you people are going to hell. I mean, could you
imagine how offensive it is? And so, they openly criticized and
ridiculed other religious groups and accused them of ignorance and being
insincere. I mean, I know. I was on the receiving end of some of this. They used
public debates and books and periodicals to denounce the doctrines of other
believing groups. And most of their doctrinal points were correct.
Hey, they
were correct. Is baptism by immersion? You bet it is. How? We can prove it. We can
prove it linguistically, historically, contextually, in the Greek
in the – we can prove it 50 ways ’till Sunday. We were correct.
It was the attitude that was so difficult. So most of the doctrinal
points that were being made were correct, the biblical arguments were accurate, but
the spirit was arrogant and combative. And so, they won the battle but lost the
war, and gained a reputation that was crystallized by this phrase, Oh, the
Church of Christ, you think you’re the only ones going to heaven.
How do you
think you get a reputation like that? So this phrase then is not a question, it’s
a summary statement of our mistaken approach in the past and it’s a put-down
at the same time. When somebody says that to you, I’m just cluing you in, you’re
being insulted. It’s not a nice thing to say that to us. We also broke rule number
two in reaching out to others. Instead of keeping the discussion based strictly on
what the Bible taught on various issues of salvation, many times we made it
personal. It became the church of Christ versus the Baptists, the church of Christ
versus Roman Catholics, and the church of Christ doctrine versus the Methodist
doctrine. There was a time when we addressed when we adhered to the
motto that said, we speak where the Bible speaks and we are silent were the
Bible is silent. That was a great way to approach things: speak where the Bible
speaks, silent where the Bible is silent. We forgot that piece of wisdom and we
began battling others, pitting the church of Christ against all comers, and we
gained a reputation for it.
Again, we won the arguments. Why? Because
we were the Bible people. We knew the Book. But the attitude, the attitude had a lot to do with getting this reputation. And also, we were
impatient. I’m not saying, everybody. You understand that. I’m just saying,
to arrive at a point where a comedian on a late-night talk show in New York City
randomly picks out of the air this thought when he hears the church of
Christ, must mean that, yeah, this thing has absorbed into the
subconsciousness of the public. We were all so impatient to convert
others, thinking that intellectual conversion was the same thing as the
conversion of the spirit and the heart. We began breaking the gospel down
into a formula that could be explained and memorized in five easy steps. How
many times have I heard people say this, preach it even, here’s the gospel,
here’s the gospel: you hear the good news, you believe the good news, you repent of
your sins, you confess Christ, and then you’re baptized.
There you go. I’ve just
preached the gospel to you. Have you? If people got this information
and they understood it, in our way of thinking, but they didn’t follow through
right away with baptism, well, we just discarded them and we moved on. The
problem was that we preached the formula for the response to the
gospel as the actual message itself. That we hear the gospel and that
we believe it and that we repent of our sins and that we confess Christ and that
we are baptized, we are immersed in water in the name of Jesus, okay, that is the
response to the gospel, that is not the gospel. If all you’ve done is explain the
five steps, you have not preached the gospel to that person, you’ve only
given him, you’ve given that person how they are to respond to the gospel.
The
plan of salvation, salvation planned that God sent His Son to die for the
sins of man and thus offer us forgiveness based on faith not works. The
response of faith was expressed how? Through repentance, confession, and
baptism. What is God’s plan of salvation? His plan is, I’m going to save you, not
through a system of works. I’m going to save you through a system of faith.
That’s the good news. You could never be good enough to
be saved. You could never do enough work to justify your salvation.
So here, what God says, here is what I’m going to do for you, I’m going to send my
Son to pay the moral debt for your sins, all of them.
And you will receive
forgiveness if you believe and trust in My Son. And the way that you are to
express that faith in Him, you will repent of your sins and be baptized, okay?
There you have the gospel and the response to the gospel. What we were
doing was we were just giving the response to the gospel. Not always, but I
saw a billboard with that. I saw a billboard with that. Spent a lot of money
on that billboard and it was: here’s how to be saved: one, two, three, four, five.
Never mentioned Jesus, never mentioned the
cross, never mentioned grace, faith, anything.
Just do these five things, and bang,
you’re saved. And then, to make matters worse, we practiced a scorched earth
policy of evangelism which reached its zenith with the Crossroads/Boston/
International Church movement that gave us some more bad publicity. Some of you
may not be familiar with that. They were the ones in the ’80s, ’70s/’80s, ’90s, they
would infiltrate and divide churches to take them over. They were the
natural outcome of this brash attitude of only we are saved mentality because
they taught that if you weren’t part of their discipleship movement you were not
saved.
So the irony of it is – so we’ve done this thing, we’ve
done this aggressive evangelism – fight with everybody,
we’re the only ones saved. And then comes along these young college students who
form a church and whose only goal is to baptize people. That’s it. That’s all they
do, baptize people. And they are super good at it. They are super good at
arguing and debating. And I mean, they’re like that, they’re like stormtroopers, they’re evangelistic stormtroopers.
And their churches are growing in size and they would go into a
church, I know, they came to Montreal. They would go into a church like this,
everything would be fine, then all of a sudden they’d be saying, how many people
have you baptized this year, to a member. Not to – how many people have you baptized? Well, I haven’t baptized any.
Well, do you think you’re a
good Christian? Well, I thought I was. Exactly how were you baptized and
what we – in other words, they begin to make people doubt their salvation.
And there would be division and then they would, kind of, gather
groups, usually the young people, and pull them out, start a church, and away we go.
And so, the irony of it is a group within the church of Christ began to
tell members of the church of Christ, you people are not saved unless you’re part
of our group.
I mean, I had somebody say that to me after like 20 years of
ministry, try that bit on me, to make me think, oh, I’m not saved and I’m not
part of the church. Well, that didn’t go far. So what goes
around came around to us and thankfully, and we survived it. That group
repented, public repentance, and tried to fix things, but not after so many
churches were hurt and so many people, their faith was damaged and our
reputation was damaged. I’m not saying the church of Christ has a bad
reputation everywhere. We have a good reputation. but we’re known as the Bible
people. Well, after a while, you couldn’t get a church of Christ campus minister
to work on campus, because the universities were afraid of this group,
because they caused so many problems on different campuses. So that’s
some of the history and background behind this question. Don’t get me wrong,
I’m not knocking the church. I’m not trying to smear
our reputation.
I’m just trying to explain how did we get here? How did
people get this idea of us? Well, this is how they got this idea of us. Okay, at
least now you know where the question is coming from. So how do we
answer? Well, depending on the circumstances, whether you have
a lot of time or whether the person asking has some biblical knowledge, there
are several ways to respond, you’re the church who thinks you’re the only one
going to heaven. Okay, how do you respond? Number one, no,
we believe that only the church described in the Bible is the one going
to heaven with Jesus. That’s what we believe.
We believe that only the church
that is described in the Bible, that’s the one that is going to be saved.
First Thessalonians four, says, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the Archangel and with the trumpet of God, and” who are
they? “the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and
so we shall always be with the Lord.” Has he described 15 different groups here? No,
no. The Christians who are dead and the Christians who are alive, when He comes,
those will be together and those will be saved. He doesn’t mention 15 different
groups, just one group, the ones who are alive and the ones who were dead will be
joined together to be with Him forever in the air.
This is what the Bible
teaches. And I believe in what the Bible teaches. So that’s the first part of my
answer. Number two, only Christians are going to heaven because only Christians are saved. That’s Acts chapter four, verse 12. Peter
says, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under
heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” I mean, can you
twist this to mean that somebody other than Christians can be saved?
Is there any grammar trick that you can use to contort this verse, to make it
mean that not only Christians will be saved, but Buddhists will be saved, and
Hindus will be saved, and Muslims who are nice people will be saved, or people
who don’t believe in God but are fine, upstanding citizens, they’ll be saved.
I mean, “and there is salvation in no one else” kind of eliminates everybody
doesn’t it? Again, you don’t have to believe that.
You don’t have to live your
life according to this, but what you cannot do is say that this here is
teaching that everybody will be saved or all religions are all as good as – everyone as good as another. No, no. It says, there’s only one name by which
we can be saved. And of course, it’s Jesus. I mean, if you read the verse before
and after you see it’s Jesus. I remember having a Bible study with a
couple that lived near our house when we were in Montreal. They invited us for
supper. I think our kids played together. I think it was one of Julia’s friends and
we went over. And what do you do for a living? Well, I’m a minister. Oh boy. I tell
you. Here we go. The minute they knew that I was a minister, we couldn’t just
have coffee, no, no. We got into it. Church – and then the church of Christ.
Well, in Montreal, it’s not like the Bible Belt, church of Christ, what is that?
I explained it.
And so the guy, of course, was going to teach me now.
He was an engineer, but he was going to teach me the Bible. Okay,
sure, go ahead and try. And he asked me a question, all of a sudden,
I brought him to this verse. And he read it and he says, wait
a minute now. Are you saying that the millions of Buddhists that live in this
world are lost? And I said, yeah. And I mean, he was aghast. How can you say that,
he said to me. I said I didn’t say that. I’m just telling you that’s what this
says. And he looked at it again. And so, there were only two ways for him to go. He
could – he wasn’t mad at me. I was just pointing him to the book. Only two ways
to go for him. He was either going to reject it or accept it. And he rejected it. He
said, well I just – that’s not what we believe in our church.
Okay. And somehow, the evening was over. I mean, where do you go
after that? More coffee anyone? No, I’ll have a gin and tonic, please.
I
didn’t have a gin and tonic. So in the churches of Christ, we do not say that
we’re the only Christians. What we say is that we only want to be Christians
according to the Bible. That’s all I want. I just want to be – you know the kind of
Christian they describe here? That’s the kind of Christian I want to be. And we’ll
let God decide. In the end, He’ll decide if I made it or not. Not you. You’re not
going to decide for me. I’m not even going to decide for myself. I’ll let Him decide for
me. So we know that Christians are going to heaven. And that’s what we are
striving to be, Christians. Nothing more, nothing less.
Why? Because the Bible says, “and there is salvation in no one else.” And we believe
that. It’s not that we have anything against our Buddhist friends and other religions. We’re not against them. We’re not
wanting harm or suffering for them. I’m not responsible for their souls. I’m just
responsible for my soul.
Now, I’m responsible for trying to preach to them.
Okay, fine. But in the end, I’m not responsible for
the yes or no of their soul. I’m just responsible for the yes or no of my soul. Number three, the Bible teaches that not
all who call themselves Christians will be saved. This is where we get into a
sticky situation, Matthew 7:21. This is Jesus speaking,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.” Stop there. Do you mean
to say that Jesus here is saying that not everybody who claims to believe in
He will go to heaven? Well, yeah, that’s exactly what He’s saying.
What does He
say? Not everyone says to Me Lord, Lord. You don’t call Him, Lord, Lord, if you
don’t believe in Him. Well, He says, not everyone who says to Me, Lord,
Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. I didn’t say that. The church of Christ
didn’t say that. Jesus said that. So don’t beat me up if I’m clarifying the passage for you, but I didn’t write the passage. I’m just trying
to explain it. And then what does Jesus say? “But he who does the will of My
Father who is in heaven will enter.” Well, where is the will of the Father
located? Right here. “Many,” He said, “will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in Your name” Whoa, prophecy.
Do you mean even preachers are not going to get in?
Some preachers are not going to get in. “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name,
and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” Do you
know how many people think that because they speak in tongues they’re guaranteed
entry into heaven? Do you know why it’s so difficult to convert or to teach a person who’s caught up in the
charismatic movement? Because the charismatic movement teaches that the
proof of your salvation is the fact that you can speak in tongues.
So when
you come along and say, yeah, I see what you’re doing. Yeah, that’s not speaking in
tongues. What? Yeah, it’s not speaking in tongues. What do you mean? You show them. We’ll talk about that in another thing. They
can’t let that thing go. Why? Because it’s their crutch. Every time they’re not sure, if am I saved or not. Instead of looking in the
Bible to find assurance, no, they go [making noises] Yeah, I can still do that.
I’m saved. I mean, it’s diabolic. “And then I
will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness.” The Bible itself, Jesus Himself says that there will be some who
call themselves Christians, those who will do great things in His name, from
miracles to various ministries, those who will prophesy or preach in His name,
who will not enter the kingdom. He said that. And why will they not enter? Because
they don’t obey the will of the Father, which is contained in Jesus’s word. What
does He say? “I do nothing on my initiative, but I
speak these things as the Father taught Me.” John chapter eight, verse 28.
And then in
John 12:50 says, “I know that His commandment is eternal life, therefore
the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me.” So where is the will
of the Father? Well, there in the words and teachings of
Jesus. And what did Jesus say after He gives the commission to go and preach
the gospel and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to believe?
What does He say? “Teaching them,” whose them? The new converts. “Teaching them to
observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I’m with you always, even to the end of the
age.” The task of the Christian is to obey all things that Jesus has taught and
teach others to do the same.
Religion in His name, not done according
to His will and word, will not be blessed or accepted. That’s the hard lesson. The
hard lesson is some sincere people sincerely believe, but who are not
obeying what Jesus taught. That’s very hard teaching. When
Jesus said, you have to eat My flesh and drink My blood or you can not be
with Me. And oh, the Bible writer, the gospel writer said
after, that was a hard saying. That people said to him, that’s a hard saying. And
many of them didn’t follow Him after that. Oh, well, you’ve gone a
step too far here. Well, you know what? This right here, is a hard saying.
This lesson here tonight, is a hard lesson.
Why? Because it puts a line in the
sand. And in our country, we don’t believe anymore in lines in the sand. We believe
everybody’s okay on their terms. Whatever you want, anything goes, let’s go,
everybody’s invited to the party. Well, no. It doesn’t work like that
, unfortunately. I mean, like I say, it’d be a lot easier to preach the
gospel if you could say, you know what, believe whatever you want, as long as
you’re a nice person.
We’re all going to go to heaven. Well, yeah, sure. No. And you know
why that doesn’t work? I’m deviating from the notes. That doesn’t work because we
have no idea how sinful we are. We have no idea the depth of our depravity. We
have no idea. That’s why ‘just be nice and you’ll be okay’, that’s why we need the
cross of Christ. I think the worst thing at judgment is when we step up thinking,
yeah, I’m good.
I’ve been a nice person. I never killed anybody. I’ve
been a faithful wife, husband, or whatever. And then we come before God and realize
the depth of our sinfulness. That’s why the Son of God had to die on the cross for us. There was no other way. There is no other
way. So in the end, who is a Christian and who is not, who is saved and who is not,
who’s going to heaven and who is not, is all based on God’s Word. Not on what
churches of Christ say or what any other group says. One more. Jesus Himself says,
“He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him;” what
does He say? “the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day?”
Do you want to know what’s on the final exam? It’s right here. And so, to summarize,
when someone says, oh you’re the church that thinks they’re the only ones going
to heaven.
I begin by apologizing. I apologize to the person or the persons
who gave you this false impression. That’s never been what the churches of
Christ has ever been about. Never. I then informed them that God’s Word is the
final judge of who will go to heaven and who will not. And if you want to study,
here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to take your religion or your
ideas or your church, and we’re going to compare them to God’s Word.
Not to the
Church of Christ’s traditions or whatever we do. We’re going to
take what you’ve got and we’re going to compare it to God’s Word. And that’s
how our discussion will proceed. Number three, in addition to this, I’ll assure
them that in the church of Christ, our number one priority is to search the
scriptures carefully to make sure that we are understanding and obeying as
closely as possible the things that Christ taught. And you might put in
brackets there, that’s why we have Bible study Sunday morning at 9:30 and
a sermon lesson at 10:30 and another Bible lesson at 5:00 p.m., and another
Bible lesson at 7 p.m. on Wednesday and d,evos. That’s why
we do this. And finally, I asked them if there is any question or subject they’d
like to study the Bible about and see if I can invite them to Bible School and
worship.
Remember: respect the person, stick to the Bible, and be persistent. This
brings me to one more important point I want to make before we go on answering
other questions. Every question will always be answered with the same
approach, one more slide here. We’re going to put it into context, the issue, the
doctrine, the church, the salvation. And then, that question will be answered
according to what I believe the Bible teaches about that particular topic.
That’s how this class is going to run, okay?
Now we’re done. Thank you very much.
