Common Errors in Sanctification (Part 4) (Slain in the Spirit)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Opening Banter and Upcoming Travel Updates

Mike Abendroth here. It is raining out. Why do they say it's raining cats and dogs? I don't know, is that like a merism or something? Everything between cats and dogs is raining? I don't think that's the right figure of speech, but I like that figure of speech.

You can always write me, mikeadnocompromiseradio .com. We are filling up quickly, the Israel trip. I don't know if we're gonna have to get another bus or not. Some are concerned about vaccination. I think if you're required to have a passport, vaccination passport, that probably the trip won't go forward, but we've got a long time, and Israel's gonna probably change their mind as fewer tourists, pilgrims, decide to go.

You can listen to my brother's podcast, thepactum .org. I just listened to his message on Islam. That was good. I learned things. And what else can I tell you? Got back from Ohio with my friend John Tucker at Community Bible Church, and all kinds of people there that I met.

Some I knew from before, like Noah, a fine young man. And then, who else did I meet there? Roy and others. Anyway, it was really good to be there, and I think if you go to Community Bible in Beloit, Ohio, you could probably pull up those old sermons.

Maybe I'll pull those up and play them on No Compromise Radio. Topic was Sanctification, Law, Gospel. And one of the sessions I did was Common Errors in Sanctification. And so I'm gonna continue that.

Cessationism, Continuationism, and the Question of Signs

I think this is part four, Common Errors of Sanctification. Excuse me, before I get onto that, I did see a post by R .C. Sproul, Jr. And the topic is, does God still speak to us? R .C. Sr. is not the one we're talking about here today.

R .C. Jr., and you can type in Google and find out what kind of path R .C. Jr. has been on. I don't know where he stands these days, but the old path wasn't too good. He said here, I once described myself as a leaky cessationist.

I meant that by that, that in principle, I agreed with the cessationist position, but that of course I need to leave room for God to be God. My father experienced multiple unusual experiences where God seemed to be communicating to him.

That's just anecdotal as far as I'm concerned. I now describe myself as a caution, a cautious continuationist. Healthy room for skepticism. Some of the shallow claims of charismatics that he has to deal with.

Hmm, interesting. A cautious continuationist. All I have to say to that is, I know, I'm not talking about that today, but well, I guess we'll leave that for another day. The more I read while I was trying to do the radio show, the more I didn't want to talk about it anymore.

Show me a Bible verse where the signs have ceased. Okay, show me a Bible verse where the signs go on today and show me a hospital named Boston Children's Hospital that has been evacuated because of the gift of healing that a man has that can heal instantaneously, organically and completely, even in front of unbelievers.

That's a different subject. Anyway, I come up to the next number here for common errors. I don't know the last one because I did these shows last week, but I'm going to just say this is error number 12.

So if you've listened to the last three shows on common errors in sanctification, and I stopped at nine or 10 or six or whatever, I'm sorry, this is a low budget show. Here's an error of when it comes to sanctification.

By the way, I would encourage you to read the other ones because if you don't read those, we started off with some of the most important things like sanctification is the work of God's free grace, et cetera.

Yes, there is a response, but it's not technically sanctification and all that. So you got to go over those on your own. Error number 12, that fear is the only motivation for obedience. For Christian's obedience, fear is the only motivation.

And that's an error. A fear is a motivation. Now, if they mean the fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom and stuff like that, well, we can travel down that road. But what's the motivation for you, dear Christian, to live a holy life?

What animates your living a life commensurate with your calling? Now, you may say it's the Holy Spirit and he's the one that does that work. And I think we can talk that way if you'd like. Jerry Bridges said, have you ever thought about the wonderful truth that Christ lived his perfect life in your place and on your behalf?

Has it yet gripped you that when God looks at you today, he sees you clothed in the perfect, sinless obedience of his son? And that when he says, this is my son whom I love, with him I'm well pleased, he includes you in that warm embrace.

The extent to which we truly understand this is the extent to which we will begin to enjoy those unsearchable riches that are found in Christ. I would tell you, dear Christian, that the motivation that you have must not be a dread and a fear of God's wrath.

Why should you pursue sanctification? Simply because of fear? Simply because of your justification? How does that all work out? Well, the Lundebaps Confession, I guess I could go to other ones, but since I'm a Baptist, I should probably quote the Lundebaps Confession.

Good works, this is chapter 16 on good works. Good works are only such as God has commanded in his holy word, and not such as without the warrant thereof are devised by men out of blind zeal or upon any pretense of good intentions.

These good works done in obedience to God's commandments are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith, and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, that's guilt, grace, gratitude, right?

Strengthen their assurance. Edify their brethren, right? God doesn't need your good works, but your neighbor does, Luther said. Adorn the profession of the gospel, not live the gospel, but adorn the profession of the gospel.

Stop the mouths of adversaries, and lastly, glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end eternal life. And the Heidelberg Catechism, 86, is similar, since then we are redeemed from our misery by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why should we do good works?

And is it dread? Is it if I don't keep doing good works, I won't finally be justified? Is that it? Heidelberg, because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, also renews us by his Holy Spirit after his own image, that with our whole life, if we show ourselves thankful to God for his blessing, and also that he be glorified through us, then also that we ourselves may be assured of our faith by the fruits thereof, and by our godly walk when also others to Christ.

Essentially the same thing that the London Baptist Confession said. And of course, we know which one's first, 1689 is not in the 1500s, of course, and both say the same thing. That's one of the reasons why I like to read the Reformed Confessions, because they're saying the same thing on the continent of Europe, in England, over in the US, 1500s, different languages, 1800s, 1700s, et cetera.

If you are motivated because you think that if you don't do these works of purity and godliness, that God is going to smash you and unsave you, and you won't have enough good works on that day, you're thinking wrongly.

You've bought into this, I don't know, final justification paradigm that just keeps people spinning on that gerbil track, and you don't need to. I want you to live a holy life. There's no two ways about it.

Godlessness, rebelliousness, immorality, they're not fit for a Christian to do. And therefore, when you think about them, or you want to do them, or have done them, you ought to be ashamed, and contrite, and repentant, and going to God for forgiveness.

If we do sin, thankfully we have an advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. But this idea of fear-based, like wrath fear-based, I don't mean fear of the Lord's beginning of wisdom, I mean the wrath fear-based, I think you're gonna say to yourself, you know what?

My dad on earth seems to be more righteous, and more loving than my heavenly father does, as portrayed by many pastors and preachers. My dad never says, you better do this, or you're gonna experience my wrath, and if you don't, I'm gonna kick you out of the family.

Very interesting to kind of work through these things. Error number 13, God will love us if we obey. Now some of these are fairly similar, right? I've got to keep obeying, I've got to keep living a godly life, I wanna live a holy life, not because I wanna walk in a manner worthy of my calling, Ephesians 4 .1, but because I wanna be loved more.

I wanna somehow torque, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments, verse. I want to have God's blessing upon me. Now, if you're gonna disobey, we can talk about chastening, good fathers do that, but if you think you have to keep loving others, and loving God so that God will keep loving you, the good news of justification by faith alone is, according to Belgic Confession, article 24, you do, quote, a thing out of love for God, instead of out of a love for ourselves, and fear being condemned.

You're justified by faith alone, you get Christ's righteousness, he gets your sin, confirmed by the resurrection, and now you can do things out of a love for God, not out of, I'm gonna be condemned because I've not done the right thing.

I really think sinful human fathers are portrayed, at least functionally, as more kind and loving and generous than God the Father. Jerry Bridges, to the degree that we live with an abiding sense of his love for us in Christ, to that degree, we will love God with all our heart and soul and mind.

Bridges, he does not examine our performance to see if we are worthy. Rather, he looks to see if we are trusting in the merit of the Son as our only hope for securing his blessing. To repeat, Jerry Bridges says, we are saved by grace, and we are to live by grace every day of our Christian lives.

If it is true that our relationship with God is based on his grace instead of our performance, why then are we so prone to fall into the good day and the bad day type of thinking? It is because we have relegated the gospel to the unbeliever, Jerry Bridges' discipline of grace.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com, or Spencer is info at nocompromiseradio .com. Category confusion is error number 14. Common sanctification errors.

Error number 14, category confusion. Some people think, well, I see justification as a category, and I see sanctification as a category, and now I'll blend the two together. Obviously, one follows, one must follow the other.

You, when justified in God's eyes and declared righteous, other things happen, and you will not just have a legal declaration upon you. Other things happen, and there's a regeneration, and there's union with Christ, and there's other things that will make it mandatory that there will be some fruit in your life, attitude fruit, action fruit, et cetera.

Moralism, Romanism, probably so, Sinianism, it's justification through sanctification. You have to do these holy things. You have to live this holy life, and that's how you get justification. Scott Clarke says, in order to get sinners to obey moralism, it makes our acceptance with God contingent upon our obedience.

It matters not whether we begin with grace, as Rome does, so long as we end with works. This is exactly Paul's point in Galatians 3 .3 and Romans 11 .6. Grace plus anything nullifies grace and denies Christ finished work.

We wanna make sure we keep our categories straight. Error number 15, the second blessing. The second blessing, seeing sanctification as a second blessing. I mean, sanctification is so hard. Wish something would just be done to me.

The Holy Spirit's the sanctifier. Holy Spirit, sanctify me, maybe by zapping me, maybe by getting slain in the Spirit, I could have somebody say something or touch me, and they will make me fall over.

I've got so much power of the Spirit of God upon me, overcome by the Spirit, I'm resting in the Spirit. Sociologist Margaret Paloma said slain of the Spirit is, quote, the power of the Holy Spirit, so filling a person with heightened inner awareness that the body's energy fades away and the person collapses on the floor.

I'm sorry, I had to do that. Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee. I've been a healing crusade, and I'm falling down on the ground. People are putting their hands on me and anointing me with oil, and it's the anointing, and I'm a fallen, and I'm a swooning, and I'm touched by God and touched by an angel, and heavens come down and glory fill my soul, and I fell over.

I guess it's maybe by auto-suggestion, but come on. I've been, as David Letterman used to say, hypnotized. Wiki on slain in the Spirit says, quote, in the 20th century, prostrate trance became chiefly associated with Pentecostalism and its offshoots.

The term slain in the Spirit was used in this context as early as 1920 by American healing evangelist Maria Woodworth Eder. That's a hyphen, by the way. I don't think it's a hyphen like Lloyd-Jones. I think it's something else, but that's another show, whose ministry was often accompanied by this phenomenon.

In her book, The Holy Spirit, published in 1920, she wrote, it will come to pass in the last days, says the Lord, that I will plead with all flesh with a sword and fire, and the slain of the Lord will be many.

The sword is the word of God, the fire is the Holy Spirit. The slain of the Lord are those who fall into the conviction or who will fall like dead men and under the power of God, end quote. One historian said this is like a disciplined use of ecstasy and he wasn't talking about the drug.

Error number 15. By the way, there's a reason why 2 Peter 1, verse 5 talks about adding verse 9 and 10 and 11 of 2 Peter 1 and be diligent. I'd like it to be just like a zap. Wouldn't that make it nice?

If anybody's been zapped and they're so much more holy, I'd love to talk to their spouse. How often do you need to keep getting zapped, by the way? Is it one and done? Or is it like a half-life? Is there like a radioactive half-life involved with these things?

Do tell. Speaking of spouses and wrong views of sanctification, common error number 16. Perfectionism. Perfectionism. I'm going to stop sinning on this earth. And we're not talking about glory. That's gonna be great, right?

Glorification. Heaven. Not talking about that. I'm talking about on earth. People teach a perfectionism. And of course, what they do is they lower the standards of God and His law. It's law light and holiness light.

And then they also kind of exalt men and women to think that they can actually live a life of sinless perfection. Now, if you want to go back to Pelagius, you probably can to find out some of those things.

And Pelagius would essentially say that, you know what, he was a bad example. And Jesus was the good example. And you're not inherently sinful based on the imputation of Adam's sin. So you can, you know, just don't follow his bad example.

And I don't know how that's gonna work out for you, especially if you've had Adam's sin imputed to your account, which you have. Unless your name's Jesus Christ of Nazareth, you have Adam's sin, Romans 5, verses 12 through 21.

I'd love to talk to the wife and spouse in this whole perfectionism thing. I no longer sin. And some may come across and say, well, since I've been justified, that means I don't sin anymore. All my sins have been, you know, paid for, and I don't sin.

And therefore, I don't even have to ask for forgiveness, et cetera. John Calvin, Romans 7. Here now comes to a more particular case that a man already regenerated in whom both the things which he had in view appear more clearly.

And these were the great discord there is between the law of God and the natural man, and how the law does not of itself produce death. For since the carnal man rushes into sin with the whole propensity of his mind, he seems to sin with such a free voice.

Calvin goes on. Hence the case of a regenerated man is the most suitable. For by this you may know how much is the contrariety between our nature and the righteousness of the law. For this case also, a proof as to the other cause may be more fitly sought than from the mere consideration of human nature.

For the law, as it produces only death in a man, holy carnal, is in him more easily impeached for it is doubtful whence the evil proceeds. In a regenerate man, it brings forth salutary fruits and hence it appears that it is the flesh only that prevents it from giving life so far as it is producing death of itself.

What's Calvin trying to say? He's trying to say that sinners saved by grace, Romans 7, people are still in this fight. Calvin says that the whole then of this reasoning may be more fully and more distinctly understood.

We must observe that this conflict of which the apostle speaks does not exist in a man before he is renewed by the spirit of God. For man left to his own nature is wholly born along by his lust without any resistance.

For though the ungodly are tormented by the stings of conscience and cannot take such delight in their vices, but that they have some taste of bitterness, yet you cannot hence conclude either that evil or that evil is hated or that good is loved by them.

Only the Lord permits them to be thus tormented. What Calvin is saying is, well, before you were saved, there was no struggle, you just sinned and afterwards there is a struggle. And if there's a struggle, how can you be sinlessly perfect?

That's just one of the oddest doctrines to me. Can you imagine anybody, I don't sin anymore. It's law light, dude. Error number 17, pietism. I'm not saying piety or godliness, pietism. That pietism is good, that's the error.

This is a term that has a history. We just don't make things up as we go and you can see what terms are used and how they're used. Piety certainly is good, but a pietism that focuses on the internal Christian life isn't what we're after.

There's an outwardly focused life, there's an inwardly focused life. And which one is pietism? It is inwardly and to a large degree, instead of the just shall live by faith in Christ Jesus, the risen savior, it is the just shall really examine themselves all the time to see if they live up to their calling.

Now, I think there's an objective and subjective side to assurance, but pietist in history, Germany, for instance, you've got all this creedal orthodoxy of the Lutherans and Calvinists, and then all of a sudden it's like, well, it's dry.

It's staid, it's stoic. And therefore, let's focus on spiritual disciplines and what we do and how do we do them and are we doing them enough? What is the role of focusing on my life versus the object of the faith?

And I need to make sure I'm doing things. And if I do them, then I feel good, right? Because I'm doing what Christians say they're supposed to do. And we're thinking to ourselves, you know what? We clean ourselves up and we do the right thing.

But I think for the pietist, I might say Galatians 3 .3, having begun in the spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh? A lot of this is a self. It is self-works, self-righteousness, self-effort, self-modification.

And I think, you know what? I'm going to try to see myself pleasing God by what I do and how I do it and what are my motives, and I'm out of time. I will say that Christianity is about the Lord Jesus Christ and is not about our inward feeling of divine dependence, as Schleiermacher would say.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. You can write me, info at nocompromiseradio .com, and we will continue next time on a few more common errors when it comes to sanctification. Mike Abendroth, NOCO Radio.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

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