Some of you lack having your own way,
and you're used to getting your way, and
heaven help the one who gets in your
way.
You feel you have certain rights and claims,
and you are completely ignorant of the rights
and claims that the gospel has on a
follower of Christ Jesus.
I have a message today, friends, that I
bring before you with a broken heart over
the condition of our congregations all over this
country.
My message today will probably upset some folks.
I hope it upsets you enough to get
you lost so you can be saved.
The title of my message is, The Same
Rebel You Have Always Been.
And I have a verse of scripture today,
friends, I feel many do not understand, and
it is in their ignorance of it, that
they will miss heaven when they die.
Jesus spoke in parables, and on particular occasions
his disciples would press him to explain the
meaning of the parable to them.
This was the case of the parable of
the sower and the seed, and the degrees
of soil that the seed fell on, the
seed being the gospel of the Son of
God, and the soil being the souls of
men.
Our passage today, friends, is found in Luke's
gospel.
You can turn in your Bibles there.
We will be in chapter 8 and in
verses 11 through 13.
Let me read us this striking passage of
scripture at this time, and may the Spirit
of the Lord attend the reading of His
holy word.
Now the parable is this.
The seed is the word of God.
Those by the wayside are they that hear,
then cometh the devil, and taketh away the
word out of their hearts, lest they should
believe and be saved.
They on the rock are they, which when
they hear, receive the word with joy, and
these have no root, which for a while
believe and, in time of temptation, fall away.
I will stop there, friends, to clear up
something, and that is the question.
Can a person lose their salvation?
Well, the answer is no.
It says here in our text that some
of these folks believed and then fell away.
How can that be?
Well, I want to spend a great deal
of time today on the subject of what
an intellectual assent to the gospel is, because
our text here in verse 13 is speaking
about people who heard the gospel and accepted
the good news with joy.
They made a profession of faith, joined the
church, and were baptized, but the faith they
had was not saving faith.
They just made an intellectual assent with their
mind to become a Christian, like they would
join a political party or join a health
club or a spa.
They liked what they saw and wanted to
join up and be a part of it.
They are enthusiastic about their professed Christianity, and
these individuals often get in your face and
tell you all about Jesus, and you need
them too.
But what these nice church folk have is
a ticket to heaven that has no stamp
on it, for there is no seal on
it dipped in blood.
They have no deep roots in their profession
of faith in God, because they do not
possess Christ.
I'm telling you right now, friends.
Our churches are loaded with such deceived individuals
who sit and soak and serve every week,
believing themselves to be saved, when they haven't
a clue what it means to be saved,
nor do they know the Savior from sin.
And although they may have responded to an
emotional appeal by a preacher and walked an
aisle and repeated the sinner's prayer and even
invited Jesus into their heart as their personal
Savior, they just went through the motions of
what the minister told them to do.
They are not saved individuals because they are
yet unconverted.
They merely made an intellectual assent to believe
in Christ, and they are the same rebel
they have always been.
The ticket to heaven they hold in their
hand won't do them any good.
It's just an empty religious profession.
But the catchphrase they love to say is,
once saved, always saved, so I can sin
all I want to and still go to
heaven.
That's what folks think.
The greatest deception in the church today is
an intellectual assent, because you think you are
saved, and you get baptized.
Believing church membership is salvation.
I'm trying to get through this message, friend.
It's a hard one to bring before you,
but you better listen to me, because you
may be smugly sitting beneath the robe of
religion without having the robe of righteousness in
Christ Jesus.
You may be believing your way to hell
because you're sitting on the rotten plankboard of
coronal security that creaks and moans with your
weight upon it, ready to break at any
moment and send you crashing down where you
will bust hell wide open.
Heaven only, in intellectual assent, will surely damn
you for certain, for God will not allow
any sin-loving rebels into his holy heaven.
You may be believing your way to hell
because you've never been awakened to your lost
condition, never knew holy spirit conviction, and never
have been a subject of the work of
grace that God performs in the heart through
regeneration.
You don't know what repentance is, much less
exercised it toward God.
You are yet in your sins because you've
never been washed in the blood of the
slain lamb who suffered and died on a
bloody cross for sin.
What you have is intellectual assent, and that's
all you have, and your hope of heaven
is nothing more than a hole in the
wall.
The faith you have is the faith of
a devil, because James 2.19 declares, Thou
believest that there is one God, thou doest
well.
The devils also believe and tremble.
Demons have more religion than you, friend.
At least they have enough sense to tremble
before God.
But you don't.
True faith in Christ Jesus transforms a person's
life.
Saving faith comes from God, and only he
can give it.
If you were saved, friend, it's because God
gave you saving faith.
Saving faith isn't the faith that the preacher
told you about when he used the illustration
of trusting in a chair to support you.
I believe the chair illustration in evangelism has
damned more people to hell in the last
forty years than any other evangelistic technique to
get converts.
Listen, friend, having the faith to trust in
a chair or trust an airplane to get
you off the ground is not the same
as saving faith.
Every atheist on the planet has faith in
a chair.
Every atheist trusts a plane to get them
up in the air.
No, friends, saving faith is an operation upon
the heart, which only the Spirit of God
performs in the supernatural act of regeneration.
You must be born again.
That should be the cry of the church
to this generation.
We must pick up the same cry as
George Whitefield.
You must be born again.
An intellectual assent will only make reference to
a repentant heart.
True faith is exercising repentance toward God in
an obedient heart toward God that causes man
to do righteousness and hate sin.
Faith in Christ Jesus is a transforming faith.
When Jesus was here in his earthly ministry,
as he passed through towns and villages, all
who encountered him experienced change.
Have you ever been changed by the grace
of God?
Or are you the same rebel you have
always been?
God is not impressed that you serve on
a deacon committee.
If you're the same rebel you've always been,
God won't listen to your singing in church.
If you are the same rebel you have
always been, God won't accept your profession of
faith.
If you are the same rebel you have
always been, it makes no difference, friend, if
you're standing in the pulpit or sitting dutifully
in the pew.
If you are the same rebel you have
always been, you are just believing your way
to hell.
You better come and lay down your shotgun
of rebellion at the pierced feet of a
sovereign.
You don't need to bring anything with you
to that cross but your point of rebellion
towards a holy God.
Come and lay that rebellion down in surrender
to King Jesus.
Look on him and believe on him.
Jesus says, I am the bread of life.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger.
And he that believeth on me shall never
thirst.
If you want heaven, friend, and if you
want to stay out of hell, then you
better get to a bloodstained savior and close
with him.
Let us pray.