This 2-part message is a must-hear for anyone relying on their baptism or church membership for salvation. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23 there are MANY false Christians - who call Jesus “Lord” and do many wonderful works in His name, but who will stand before Him on the day of Judgment and find out, to their terror, that they never possessed true salvation. This message explains why true salvation is not attained by ritual or sacrament, and that it is not in position only, but involves a powerful transformation by faith into a new creature.
The message begins with a church history lesson explaining the critical doctrinal differences between Catholics, Protestants and Baptists, how the Baptists were the persecuted separatists who guarded the apostolic doctrines throughout the 12 centuries that preceded Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and presents an overview of the “Baptist Distinctives” - the 7 integral and inseparable doctrines that distinguished Baptists both from Roman Catholics and from Protestants. The message then focuses on two of those defining doctrines; (1) regenerated church membership and (2) two ordinances only (baptism and the Lord’s supper), explaining why baptism does not save, and why being “born again” does NOT mean being baptized - it means being justified (change in position), adopted (change in relationship), and then regenerated (change in nature) by the power of the Holy Spirit, being transformed into a new creature, resurrected from spiritual death, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, given new spiritual perception, translated into God’s kingdom, and given a new nature whereby we become, as Peter says, “partakers of the divine nature.” |
