And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed,”
Acts 13:48
Today’s Speaker: Eager Avenue Grace Church extends a warm welcome to Ken Wimer. Ken is pastor of Shreveport Grace Church and once again we welcome him as our guest speaker. Ken will conduct both the 10:00 am and 11:00 am services today. Pray for him as he delivers God's Word.
Announcement: Eager Ave. Grace Church now has an additional web page located on the Sermon Audio web site. The web page address is: www.sermonaudio.com\reignofgrace .
“Judging Righteous Judgments”
When Christ said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” Matthew 7:1, was He forbidding us to judge anyone at all who is in error?No! He was giving us guidelines as to how we are to be discerning and not merely judgmental, particularly with regard to whether or not we or others are saved or lost. The standard that the Lord gave is “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”(Matt.7:2)He was telling us we must use a proper standard of judgment and not our own sinful standard, such as “I think”, or “Mom or Dad said”, or “the preacher said”.The ONLY standard of saved and lost is God’s revealed testimony in the Gospel. According to THE GOSPEL of God, only those are saved whom God the Father has chosen; and that God the Son has redeemed and the merits of His death imputed to them at the cross as their only righteousness; and whom the Spirit of God has made alive and converted to Christ in true repentance, 1 Peter 1:2.
You are no doubt judging what I have written at this very moment, or at least you should judge it based on God’s written testimony in the Scripture-“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try (test, examine, or judge) the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world,”(I Jn.4:1).This is as much a commandment of our God as “thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not steal”.He commands us to judge lost and saved according to the standard of God’s Gospel and not according to outward appearance-“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment,”(Jn.7:24). More than any other generation in history, our generation make their judgments of lost and saved based on outward character and conduct, i.e., based on morality, reformation, sincerity, or religious zeal. They are the first ones to tell you that “we shouldn’t judge whether someone is saved or lost because we can’t know their heart.”What a PARADOX!, in hope that They rip Christ’s words out of their proper context, “Judge not, that you be not judged” and yet judge based on a standard of their own.
The Apostles all made judgment concerning their hearers’ state before God-See Rom.16:17; Gal.1:8, 9; Phil.1:1; I Pet.1:1-3; II Jn.1:1-“The elect lady”.They made their judgments of saved and lost based on THE DOCTRINE of Christ- 2 Thessalonians 2:10-“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”It’s not enough to say you believe the truth. DO YOU LOVE IT?We are bound by love to God and our love to all men to judge whether we or they are saved or lost based on God’s testimony, and to declare the Gospel of Christ and His imputed righteousness alone as the only ground ofsalvationGod will be pleased to open their hearts to the truth. God help us to willingly “Judge righteous judgments”.
Richard Warmack , Pastor of Grace Baptist in Ruston, La.
BELIEVING AND SALVATION
“And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” Acts 16:31.
There are many who quote this verse as a proof text to support their notion that believing is a condition for being saved. It is taught as a condition and a promise, the condition being ‘believing,’ and the promise being ‘thou shalt be saved,’ if only you believe. While this may sound palatable to natural logic, nothing could be further from the truth. Nowhere in Scripture is salvation conditioned on anything done in us, by us, or through us, Titus 3:5. ‘Salvation is of the Lord,’ Jonah 2:9. The command to believe on Christ is not a condition, but just that- A COMMAND! The salvation that is in the Lord Jesus, and worked out by Him by His perfect obedience unto death, is revealed to the heart of those He redeemed causing them to believe, Romans 1:16, 17.
Notice in the context, it wasn’t Paul and Silas asking the Philippian jailer if he wanted to know what to do to be saved. It was the jailer asking the question, and that out of a heart already regenerated by the Spirit of God which caused him to cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ If the Spirit of God has already opened your heart, as in the case of Lydia (Acts 16:14), HE makes you, the sinner, attentive unto the Gospel, and causes you to believe on Christ alone as your wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30. He makes the salvation effectual, NOT you.
There are many today who have made professions of faith based on this Scripture, whose hearts the Lord has never opened, and are still ignorant of the one true righteousness of God imputed in Christ by His shed blood. Rather than them being brought by the Spirit to cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ it has been rather the preacher, or ‘evangelistic worker,’ asking the question ‘Wouldn’t you like to know how you can be saved?’ It is a very subtle error, but nonetheless dangerous and deadly because it leaves the man, woman, or child thinking that they have done something to make their salvation effectual.
Christ said in John 6:44- ‘No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.’ God makes His command to believe effectual in the hearts of His elect ones, causing them to come to Christ and be persuaded of their redemption and justification by His Son’s shed blood and righteousness imputed alone. Notice also in the verse following in Acts 16:32 that Paul did not simply say, ‘Believe.’ ‘He spake unto him and his household the word of the Lord,’ teaching them those things that pertain to Christ’s honor and glory and salvation fully accomplished by His death for them. It is just such a persuasion that the Spirit gives to those Christ redeemed, causing them to believe, in response to the command to believe, resting in the finished work of Christ alone.
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