Do I have to know the date?

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questionmarkredstandingPastor John, I was greatly troubled in a service recently when the preacher said that unless each person could identify the specific day that they prayed “the sinner’s prayer” they were not converted. He then said that if in fact they were not sure of the date, pray the prayer and then sign the date and time in the front of their Bibles. I feel sure I am converted but this preacher has unsettled me enormously. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks for your question. My opinion? What the preacher told you was pure unadulterated hogwash! Both you, and those in attendance in the service were victims of gross error and a total misunderstanding of biblical conversion perpetuated by this preacher.

Nowhere in Scripture are we told to record the day we pray a prayer and if we should somehow forget the date, we are not truly saved. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest such a thing. Instead, we are told to simply examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith – in other words, to look for signs of spiritual life.

The Scripture says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” – 2 Cor. 13:5

If you have ever seen the movie “Crocodile Dundee” (which is set in a backwater area of Australia, very much unaffected by urban culture) you might recall an incident where the leading figure, Mick Dundee, recounts the story of him asking his tribal elder when he (Dundee) was born. The answer from the elder was simple, “In the summer time.”

Because that is all the information he received, Dundee went through life never quite sure of how old he was. Yet as frustrating as that may have been for him, it would be totally erroneous to conclude that Dundee was never born (just because he did not know the day or even year of his birth). It is obvious that Dundee had a birth by the very fact that he was alive, living and breathing, in the present day.

In the same way, spiritually speaking, there are many Christians who although are very much spiritually alive, can only speak in vague terms about the date of their conversion. Some can indeed identify the day and the hour of their conversion, as it happened in a very dramatic way. Others however might say “I was converted to Christ somewhere between my 5th and 8th birthday.” Another might say “it was somewhere around the age of 14.”

The fact is that the New Testament does not tell people to look back on a date when a prayer was prayed as a ground for assurance, but the presence of spiritual life in the here and now.

Just as when paramedics encounter a person at the scene of an accident and immediately check to see if there are signs of physical life (by checking for a pulse, etc.) we are to look for signs of spiritual life.

I realize that this task is a subjective one, and none of us at any given time, live a single day with an absolute love for Christ, love for His word, or love for the people of God; yet if we understand what the Bible teaches about the spiritual condition of unregenerate man, we know that none of these components exist in the heart of stone. Only a truly converted (regenerated) person has any discernible love for Christ and His gospel. The stony heart is incapable of such love.

If someone is spiritually alive now because they show signs of spiritual life (they have a love for the Biblical Christ, and believe and embrace the Gospel), it is evidence of the fact that a spiritual birth has taken place, even if the day and the time of this birth are facts known only by God Himself.

My advice to you is to forget what the preacher told you you and instead, simply do what the Bible says and examine yourself to see if you are in the faith. If you believe the gospel and have turned to Christ in repentance and faith, and if your heart looks to Him alone to save you, that would be sure evidence of true conversion. We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and we know this based on the sure foundation of Scripture alone, all to the glory of God alone.

A Church Without Masks

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he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

2 Cor 1: 8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

2 Cor 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

I think it might be safe to say that these three passages would rarely have been put together in a sermon, but I hope you will see there is some sort of method in my madness today. I want to talk about three things. Three facts.. Three things we know:

1. JESUS IS BUILDING HIS CHURCH
2. IT IS A CHURCH BUILT ON GRACE
3. THIS GRACE IS FOR SINNERS

These facts are so well known that we think we know them. I am suggesting that the Church at large has rarely known them, except in a superficial way, or if these things have been known, they have been rarely applied in the life of the Church.

Often when a person encounters Christ and begins his trek through this world as a follower of Him.. as he enters the Church, he is handed a mask, which he is expected to wear to each service.

If he forgets to wear it for the first few services, allowances are made. “He’s new, its ok” someone might say.. Quickly though he learns the rhetoric, the jargon, the lingo… when asked how he is doing, he learns to say “I’m blessed” “it is well with my soul…” “God is good, all the time…” and over time, he understands that talking like this is what will allow him to be accepted by the group…

How this must grieve the Lord.. Jesus is building His Church with real people who are often hurting and in pain… and His Church is supposed to be the one place where sinners can own their sin and still be loved, a place where we can be imperfect and flawed, while at the same time exalting in the perfect Savior.

The Apostle Paul wanted his readers to know that he had experienced such a hard time that he despaired he would even come out of the experience alive. He was

1. Afflicted
2. Perplexed
3. Persecuted
4. Struck down
5. Carrying in the body the death of Jesus
6. Given over to death
7. His outward self (body) wasting away

Can one of God’s children say this kind of thing? Not only a child of God, but an Apostle! Continue reading →

Genesis 3:15

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Creation04Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

From an article by Nicholas T. Batzig found one of the leading Southern Presbyterian theologians of the 19th Century, set down 8 points of interpretion of Genesis 3:15 in his biblical-theological masterpiece “Discourses of Redemption.” In short, Robinson was seeking to highlight what our first parents could have known from the first preaching of the Gospel (what he called “the Gospel creed”) when he wrote:

Thus it will be seen, on careful analysis of these words, and deducing the truths embodied by implication in them, that they set forth these eight points of the gospel creed.

1. That the Redeemer and Restorer of the race is to be man, since he is to be the seed of the woman.

2. That he is, at the same time, to be a being greater than man, and greater even than Satan; since he is to be the conqueror of man’s conqueror, and, against all his efforts, to recover a sinful world which man had lost; being yet sinless, he must therefore be divine.

3. That this redemption shall involve a new nature, at “enmity” with the Satan nature, to which man has now become subject.

4. That this new nature is a regeneration by Divine power; since the enmity to Satan is not a natural emotion, but, saith Jehovah, “I will put enmity,” &c.

5. This redemption shall be accomplished by vicarious suffering; since the Redeemer shall suffer the bruising of his heel in the work of recovery.

6. That this work of redemption shall involve the gathering out of an elect seed a “peculiar people” at enmity with the natural offspring of a race subject to Satan.

7. That this redemption shall involve & perpetual conflict of the peculiar people, under its representative head, in the effort to bruise the head of Satan, that is, “to destroy the works of the Devil.”

8. This redemption shall involve the ultimate triumph, after suffering, of the woman’s seed ; and therefore involves a triumph over death and a restoration of the humanity to its original estate, as a spiritual in conjunction with a physical nature, in perfect blessedness as before its fall.

Such, then, is the gospel theology here revealed, in germ, through the very terms of the curse pronounced upon the destroyer of the race. It will be seen that here are all the peculiar doctrines of salvation, by grace, which every Christian accepts, who exercises the faith which is unto salvation. And in the broader and higher sense of the terms, Moses, as truly as Mark at the opening of his evangel, might have prefixed to this third chapter of Genesis the title, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.”