We are beginning a new series of messages,
friends, on what I call the Lost Doctrines
of the Church, meaning these doctrines are seldom,
if ever, preached anymore.
Our series will be comprised of four Lost
Doctrines, which I feel are sadly missing in
many of our churches today.
I believe the fault has been a watered
-down gospel in a politically correct society that
doesn't have the power to save a flea,
much less a lost person hardened in sin.
These four main doctrines that need to be
recaptured today in the pulpits of the land
and in the life of our churches are
the following.
Number one, the Lordship of Christ.
Number two, the cross and the life of
a believer.
Number three, the Christ life for the self
-life.
And number four, the Spirit-filled life.
I'm going to cover these four heads in
this series of Lost Doctrines, friends, and today
we're going to tackle the Lost Doctrine of
the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
It was said that the prophet Isaiah died
as a martyr by being placed in a
hollow log and then being sawn in half.
As shocking as it is, many today are
doing the same thing because they like to
get out a power saw and cut Jesus
in half and choose the half they want.
They'll take Jesus as a savior, but very
few want to take him as their Lord.
They prefer to get out their pocket knife
and carve out for themselves a God they
can live with.
They'll accept your Jesus as their savior so
long as he doesn't get in the way
of their daily living.
They'd like a free ticket to heaven so
they don't have to go to hell, but
they don't want a sovereign Lord telling them
what to do.
So they'll take Jesus as savior and still
sit on the throne of their life and
rule there.
But the gospel of the Son of God
has rights and claims on all followers of
Christ.
He must be a prince as well as
a savior.
You cannot divide him into halves and choose
the one you want.
The Lordship of Jesus Christ means self must
be dethroned and another enthroned there, the Lord
Jesus Christ.
I'll never forget the seminary trained Baptist pastor
who told his congregation that if they wanted
to go to heaven, all they had to
do was to believe John 3, 16.
That's what the old boy told them.
The trouble is a sinner can believe John
3, 16 and still go to hell.
We tell folks today that they can have
their cake and eat it too because we
preachers tell them it isn't necessary to give
up the pleasures of the world and sin.
You don't have to change.
All you have to do is believe.
But Jesus never preached sin and religion like
we do today, friends.
That's why most of our church today are
a sad mix of the unconverted and antinomians.
Everybody just does what's right in their own
eyes and calls that salvation.
When at the very height of the revival
in Scotland, William Chalmers Burns answered God's call
to go spend the rest of his life
in oblivion as a missionary to China, a
friend said to him, I suppose you're going
to go convert the Chinese?
No, Burns replied.
I'm going to China to glorify God.
Listen, brother preacher, the great design of the
gospel is the glorifying of God.
When we fail to preach a God-centered
gospel, then we fail on all levels.
We must preach the truth in its purity.
And the lordship of Christ is not an
opinion or an option you can take or
leave, friend, but a requirement for Christ must
be a prince as well as a savior.
Old time preachers understood this and made this
doctrine of the lordship of Christ their primary
message.
And that's why God so blessed their labors
and attended their preaching with such powerful revivals.
If you don't believe me, go pick up
a copy of 50 Years on the Battlefront,
the biography of Mordecai Ham, and you'll see
what I mean.
Whatever town Mordecai Ham went into, he turned
that town upside down on its head in
revival.
Listen, friends, to the doctrine that he preached.
Here are his own words.
I preached the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.
I allowed for no compromise, but hammered this
one thought that Christ Jesus must have first
place, first call, and first allegiance.
I made that the keynote of all my
meetings.
My objective has always been to enter a
town and change the thinking of the residents
toward Christ to direct their lives to center
on Christ.
Well, friends, that's how men in former times
held up the lost doctrine of the lordship
of Christ.
Listen to this description of the effect of
Mordecai Ham's ministry.
When evangelists Ham preached, mockers were converted, families
were restored, bars were closed, laws were changed,
churches were filled to overflowing, even one advertised
in the local paper that no more new
converts should attend as there was not room
for them.
Hundreds were called to preach, and crooked politicians
either repented or feared the consequences.
When some resisted God's work, God withdrew His
grace in answer to Ham's prayers, and God's
judgment fell.
Listen, friend, do you want a ministry like
that?
Then recover the lost doctrines like the lordship
of Christ that God is so blessed in
former times and preach the full counsel of
God for the glory of God, and just
maybe, just maybe you'll see a transformation in
your ministry, and perhaps somebody may come tug
on your cold sleeve, and with a sob
and a broken voice ask you, oh, what
must I do to be saved?