Testi-phonies

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.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Evangelicalism and the Question of Faith

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm your host. I'm the pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church in the center of Massachusetts, Central Mass, just north of Worcester, or as we might say, Worcester.

And so here I am sitting in the studios at Bethlehem Bible Church, and we're gonna talk today about current issues in evangelicalism. What's happening in the world of so-called Christianity? Evangelicalism is a broad term.

In the old days when Whitefield was around, instead of calling himself a evangelical, he called himself a Methodist, not because it had to do with the denomination per se, but it had to do with his methodical approach to Christianity.

He was called not a gospeler, as he used to be called, but he was called a Methodist. And today we call Christians evangelicals for the most part when you have to believe in the good news of Christ Jesus and his saving power, his only saving power, he alone saving.

Even though it's a broad term, it gives me plenty of leeway to either hang myself or to talk about other things. And so today I wanna talk about faith. Let's talk about faith. And I'm trying to pick topics that are fairly thought-provoking because that's what we do here.

It sells radio time, makes you want to tune in. And I think it's a good way to learn. Of course, we wanna be biblical before we're controversial or provocative or edgy, but you can't open the Bible without finding some kind of issue there.

And so today we're going to talk about faith. Now, here's my question for you today. Is faith the cause of salvation or the result of salvation? That is to say, do you believe and then God is allowed to save you, God is waiting for you to believe, and then when you do, he is then allowed to save?

Or does God save and then the response to that saving work of God in the heart of a person is I believe? So which came first, the chicken or the egg kind of story? Does faith result in salvation? Is it the cause of salvation or is it the result?

And so what we would like to do today is saying pretty much the difference is between Christianity and every other religion. While you may be a new Christian or immature Christian or untaught Christian and come up with the wrong answer, intellectually, that's not going to damn you.

But ultimately, we would all say that salvation is from God. And today I wanna try to prove to you from the scriptures that you need to stop thinking about salvation as something you allowed God to do, that you allowed him to be Lord of your life, or you made him Lord of your life.

Friends, you don't make Jesus Lord, Jesus is Lord. Acts 2, God the Father declared him Lord. And so when God saves us, then we respond with faith. It's not the other way around. There's nothing that causes salvation except the mercy of God.

Salvation by Grace Through Faith, Not Because of Faith

So if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter two. It's a very popular passage, Ephesians two, talking about the great truths of Christianity. And I'd like to go ahead and read Ephesians 2, 8.

You know the passage. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Faith shows commitment, it shows confidence, it yields itself in a conviction and a persuasion about someone and humbly trust in the object.

One man said trusting commitment of one person, that is what faith is. And we believe that faith is a central concept of Christianity. Even the reformers knew that, where it's sola fide, by faith alone.

But if you look at your passage, or if you're just listening in your car, for you have been, by grace you have been saved because of faith or through faith. That's my premise today. You're not saved because of your faith.

You are saved through faith. Faith is the instrument from which we receive salvation. We don't cause our salvation. What's the difference between you and your unbelieving friend? You came up with your own faith.

You had enough fortitude theologically, enough insight intellectually that you believed and your friend didn't. No, you have been graced. You have received grace and your friend has not received saving grace.

They may have received common grace, the sun and heat and enjoyment and personal intimacy with friends and relatives and a spouse, but they have not received salvation. So salvation is granted through faith, not because of faith.

Theologians call this the instrument of means. This is instrumental means. It does not achieve anything. Grace is the objective operating cause of salvation. Faith may be the subjective medium by which it's received, according to Eliot, but we're not trying to say, and I don't want you to somehow think that you have faith that you produced, so then God saved you.

You did something that made yourself good and right and acceptable. Then God said, great, I like that because we want to make sure we exclude any kind of merit, any kind of works theology, including coming up with our own faith.

You are not saved because of your faith. You are saved because of Ephesians 2 .4, but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love, you want to know the cause? The cause of salvation is God's great love in Christ Jesus.

The result is we believe. If you use the illustration of a baby, the baby doesn't bear itself. When Jesus said, you must be born again, it is something that happens to you. You receive the work of another.

Babies don't make themselves born again. You are made born again. Babies don't make themselves born. Babies receive that. It's something done to them, and then they respond when they come out of the womb through the birth canal, and they respond with a cry.

It's a response. The cry, they don't cry inside the womb, and then they're born that way. No, so it's the same thing with theology. Faith is not the cause of salvation. It is the result. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved. And there's a different construction in Ephesians 2 .4 in the Greek than there is in Ephesians 2 .8. Faith is not the cause of your salvation. Faith is not a work. Faith does not merit salvation at all.

It is not something you can produce. It is not something you can come up with. Faith says, I renounce who I am and what I've done, and I used to love myself, and I used to think I was meritorious in all my achievements, and God was really lucky to have me worship him.

Faith turns away from self, and it turns to the right object, and the right object is the procuring cause of salvation, Christ Jesus' work. Listen to the same kind of concept in Galatians 2 .16. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even as we believed in Christ Jesus.

So that's the issue. We are saved not on account of, not because of, but through, like a channel, or maybe you could think of a PVC pipe or something like that. Romans 3 .22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, not because of faith, for all those who believe.

It goes on to say in Romans 3 .25, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith, not because of faith. Of course, God doesn't believe for you. You must believe. Yet salvation is from God.

We receive it. We respond humanly. God doesn't believe for us, but we accept what God has already done and said, and it's not meritorious. It's a response. God makes us alive, and alive Christians respond with a trust and a faith.

We contribute nothing to our salvation. God regenerates us, and then we believe. In time, it happens simultaneously. You can't have a born-again person who doesn't believe, and you can't have a believing non-born-again person.

So in time, it's simultaneous, but in logic, in God's scriptures, we need to make sure we understand that you have to be regenerate before you can believe. Dead people don't believe. Dead people rot. Jesus has to cry out, "'Lazarus, come forth,' and then he comes forth.".

Similarly, it's the same thing when it comes to salvation. This faith that we have is not just a mental ascent, not just believing some things, not believing like the singer said, I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.

It's not some kind of sentimental belief or Norman Vincent Peale's self-confidence. It is a real trust, a real confidence. One man said, Kistemacher, faith in God through Jesus Christ is the certainty that flows from our own hearts, emanates from our minds, and translates into deeds.

Vibrant faith of word and deed spoken and performed out of love for God and our neighbor saves us. Friends, we can't come up with that on our own. Don't think somehow God saved you because you believed.

God saved you because in eternity past, he chose you. He sent his son to die for you. The spirit of God quickened you, and your response to that was, thank you, I repent, I believe. George Zemeck used to say a man's response to God characterized by a total dependent entrustment and demonstrated through a persistent commitment to obedience is faith.

Friends, we used to be dead in our trespasses and sins. We had Satan who was controlling us. We lived according to the lust of our flesh, and then God made us alive, and so we did the exact opposite. And instead of being children of wrath, we're now children of the living God.

Did you know Philippians 1 .29 states that faith is a gift? Of course, it's a command, but it's also a gift, and that should help you understand that it's not something that you do to merit something.

It's something you've received as a gift. For to you, it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. God grants you saving faith. Let's look at another example found in Acts chapter 18.

And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. And when he had arrived, he helped greatly those who had believed through grace. He helped greatly those who had believed through grace.

How does anyone believe? It's through grace. It's because of grace. You don't get to heaven because of your faith. You get to heaven because of what Jesus did, what the triune God did, and he saved you, and you responded with faith.

That was a gift. Of course you believe, but you have to ask yourself the question, where does that belief come from? It's not internal because we're tainted with sin. It has to be given from the outside.

And so when 2 Peter 1 1 says, Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ. This particular group of people, these Christians, are just like us.

They have received a faith of the same kind. You don't merit it. You don't earn it. You're not gonna get to heaven and say, I'm in heaven because of that. Faith doesn't cause salvation. But most evangelicals think that.

You probably think that. I used to think that. It doesn't mean we're all damned, but it just means it's immature and it's robbing the glory from God. God will not give his glory to another, and we ought to talk in a way that gives God most of the glory.

We ought to give a personal testimony that doesn't say something like, well, when I believed, although that's true, why don't you say when God saved me? Wouldn't that give more credit to God and more praise to God?

You don't want to give a testiphony. You want to give a testimony. You don't want to give up and test a lie. You want to get up and testify to the goodness of God. It is by God's grace alone I've saved.

I contributed, like Horatius Bonar said, sin, God contributed my salvation. Spurgeon used to say it this way. It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee. It is Christ. It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee.

It is Christ. It is not even thy faith, though that be the instrument. It is Christ's blood and merit. So Spurgeon knew as well that faith is not causing. Faith is the instrument that looks away from self.

Paul says in Ephesians 2 .8, it's not of yourselves, this faith. It is the gift of God. It is not yourselves. Sometimes people think that this refers to faith. This refers to something else. I think it refers to the entire salvation process, the entire grace salvation process.

None of it's from ourselves. It's not ours at all. Salmon said your salvation by grace through faith is not as proceeding from yourselves or of your own performance. That is correct. At every point of the process, one writer says of salvation, this word is appropriate, not of yourselves.

From the first desire after it is to the full reception of it by faith, it is evermore of the Lord alone and not of ourselves. The man believes, but that belief is only one result among many of the implantation of divine life within man's soul by God himself.

In our self-help age, in our self-salvation age, we don't save ourselves. Salvation comes from God. It is the gift of God. The emphasis, by the way, in the original Greek shows God as the giver and no one else.

Not of you, it could read, of God is the gift. The graciousness of God is underlined here. What do you do with a gift? You can't earn it or receive it with some kind of merit. No, you receive it looking away from self.

It is a gift. It is the opposite of a wage and God gives no bad gifts. God gives great gifts and he gives not only regeneration as a gift, but he gives faith as well. Let me read to you Acts 13, 48. This is pretty much the clincher.

Acts 13, 48, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

As many has been appointed to eternal life believed. Before time began, there was this great triune God and he had set his love and affection on you because of Christ. And so in eternity past chosen and then since chosen, the son had died for and then since chosen and having the son die for, then the spirit of God quickens and grants faith.

That is the proper order. And so I'm wondering when you give your testimony, what kind of testimony do you give? Friends, try to minimize who you are in your testimony. Frankly, I don't like these testimonies that go on and on and on.

I was into sex, drugs, rock and roll. I'm into this. Look how bad I was. Look at how incredible I was. I used to be in the mafia and I used to kill people and I used to sleep around with all these different people.

Especially if you're married, why would you say any of those things to shame you and shame your wife? Why don't you just say, I was enslaved to my own sin. I did everything that most people do that are enslaved to their own sin.

I live for myself. I worship myself. It was me, myself and I. That's who it was. And God in eternity past and at Calvary and when I got saved, did a great work. He saved me and not because I believed, but he saved me because he was merciful and he was kind.

And as he was kind and merciful to Paul, Saul of Tarsus, he was kind to me too. I'm standing here now in front of you, not because I'm anyone. I didn't even have enough sense to believe. But God, his greatness, his goodness, all for his own glory, saved me.

It wasn't an accident. I didn't do something first and allow God to do something. No, God saved and I am a product of his salvation. As Jonah 2 .9 says, 2 .8 and 9, that we are, salvation is from and of the Lord.

That's why we want to boast in God. That's why we don't want to boast in riches or in our wisdom or in might, but we want to boast in God. If you like to say God looks down the quarters of time and sees that I would believe and then grants me faith, friends, that is a works salvation.

That is your own merit. God looks down the quarters of time and sees that you're going to be a hell-deserving sinner, enslaved to your own lust and doing Satan's will. And God says, I could just let you go like the fallen angels, but I'm going to interrupt that.

I'm going to save you and forgive you and to redeem you. And everyone will look at you and say, God is great. It is God who interrupts. It is God who saves. God doesn't look down the quarters of time and foresees your work and then saves you based on that.

Friends, no one would agree with that. Why do we fall back on these common evangelical clauses and phrases and slogans? I don't know why we do that, but all of those tend to minimize God's free and sovereign grace.

Grace is always free and grace is always sovereign, but in our day and age, we have to reiterate grace is free and grace is sovereign. Grace is not owed. Grace is not deserved. Grace is not merited. Grace doesn't look down the quarters of time and see something.

Grace doesn't do any of that. Grace says, I already know down the quarters of time and nothing's going to happen. You are fallen in Adam and your own sin and you'll never get up. You've fallen, you can't get up.

You're not just unconscious. You are dead in trespasses and sin spiritually. You are spiritually in able and unable to make any contribution to save, not with one foot. There's no antidote sitting next to the dead body and that dead body just needs to pick up the antidote and drink it to become alive because that dead body is dead.

It just cannot happen. There doesn't need to be a heart. When they have the defibrillators, they don't need that. They need new heart, new eyes, new soul, new everything. And it is God's great love that initiates.

Jesus is the alpha and the omega. God is the first and the last. We ought to give credit to him for our faith. When's the last time you said, Lord, thank you for saving me for all my sins. And I acknowledge even now as I'm learning in Christ that faith is a gift.

Lord, you even gave me the faith to believe. My faith in the right object is from you. That's 2 Thessalonians 2 .13. But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and faith in the truth.

We are to give thanksgiving to God. Aren't you glad you're a Christian? If you are, you can thank God for your regeneration, that you're born again, and for your faith. B .B. Warfield said, it is never on account of its formal nature as a psychic act that faith is conceived in scripture to be saving.

It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. Let me repeat that. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith.

The saving power resides exclusively not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or the nature of faith, but in the object of faith. That is exactly right. B .B. Warfield hit the proverbial nail on the head.

We are dead. We are bound. We are fallen into state of sin, as Westminster Confession says, and have wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. We can't do it. We are broken, and so we need God to come and rescue us, and that's what we want to talk about in No Compromise Radio Ministry.

I want to be zealous and jealous for the glory of God, and I don't think you can get up and give a testimony and run your mouth for a while and talk about how bad you were and then throw God a bone and then talk about your great faith.

I think at the end of the day, you need to take a look at yourself and say, everything that I am now, it's because of God. God saved me, and he also gave me faith, and your faith is a gift of God. It is not of yourself.

So when you give a testimony, wouldn't you like to do that? Wouldn't you rather boast in who God is than talk about all your deeds of sin? When I see Titus chapter three and Paul giving a little testimony, that's my model for my personal testimony.

I could revel in all kinds of sin and relive it all. Friends, all of us have been saved from ourself and from God's wrath and from Satan and from sin, and we could just talk about our great Savior, not necessarily about us.

Listen to what Paul said about his testimony. We were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

But when the kindness of God, our Savior, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is a trustworthy statement. So that's what we want to do at No Compromise Radio Ministry. Speak well of God. I don't think you speak well of God at all if you say God saved you because of something you did.

That is not right, that is not theologically accurate. Now you might be an immature Christian, or you might not be a Christian at all if somehow you think you contributed to your salvation. You needed to be acted upon.

Internally, you couldn't do it. Friends, if you could, why send Jesus to die? Why send Jesus to live? Why raise Jesus from the dead? Because we couldn't do it. And Adam had fallen, we had fallen federally in Adam, and now Jesus, the second Adam, comes and rescues us and saves us and makes us heirs with him, giving us everything from election to redemption to regeneration to faith.

No Compromise Radio Ministry at nocompromiseradio .com. You can turn in all the podcasts, go to Israel with us, whatever you'd like. No Compromise Radio, No Neville Radio. God bless you.

Closing Credits and Station Disclaimer

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.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.