WWUTT 1505 Q&A Our Refuge and Strength, Legacy Standard Bible, Lordship Salvation

What's some hope that we can have in these days with all that's going on in the world? What are some of the things I like about the Legacy Standard Bible? And is Lordship Salvation biblical? The answer's when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this is ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Trusting God as Our Refuge in Troubled Times

Thank you, Becky, who is not gonna be in studio with me this week. I thought I would start today with a psalm. We've got a lot going on in the world right now. You're watching the calamity that is unfolding in Afghanistan.

There's been another earthquake in Haiti. Domestically, we still have COVID to deal with, mask mandates, vaccines. What is it, like New York City's shutting down, basically, unless you have the vaccine.

Some students not able to go to school unless they get vaccinated or they're wearing a mask, and there are even churches that are still closing their doors over the COVID panic. Let us meditate on the word of God.

Psalm 46. Here is what the Lord says to us. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains shake into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its lofty pride.

Selah. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She will not be shaken. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations roar, the kingdoms shake.

He gives his voice. The earth melts. Yahweh of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. Come, behold the works of Yahweh, who has appointed desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth.

He breaks the bow and cuts up the spear. He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. Yahweh of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. Well, this is the Friday edition of When We Understand the Text, and we take questions from the listeners. You can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Hey, before getting to the emails, I wanna remind you that we will be at G3. I will have a booth at the G3 conference, biggest Christian conference in the country right now. It's going to be in Atlanta starting at the end of September, I think September 30th, and then going through October 1st and 2nd.

If you can make it to the pre-conference, I think that's on the 29th, and then there's even the expository workshop that's gonna be September 28th and 29th. If you're a pastor, we'd love to see you there for that.

You gotta go to g3men .org, that's G, the number three, the letters M-I-N .org, in order to register for any of these, whether it is the pre-conference or the pastors, expository workshop, or the main conference itself, and we hope to see you there.

You can find out information on there too about all the speakers, everything that you can expect from this great conference. Let's get to the questions here. This first one is from Richard. He says, dear Pastor Gabe, thank you for some of the translation distinctions that you gave this week on the podcast, reading from 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11.

I always wondered about some of the different wording myself. A few months ago, when you first started reading from the Legacy Bible, you said that you were trying it out, and this wasn't an official switch, but you've been consistently reading from the LSB.

Is it safe to say that you've made the switch? Love the podcast. Well, I thank you, Richard. I really don't know yet. I don't know for sure if this is an official transition. The whole LSB is not out yet.

It's just the New Testament Psalms and Proverbs. I received word from somebody at Grace To You that it's supposed to be later in the year we will see the full edition of the Legacy Standard Bible and maybe some copies to give away at ShepCon as well.

That would be kind of nice. I'm just going off of previous Shepherds Conferences. They'll always do something great for the pastors, like giving us all copies of the Preacher's Bible. So maybe we'll get copies of the Legacy Standard Bible as well.

That would be something to look forward to. As for making the switch, I gotta be honest. I am really, really committed to the English Standard Version. So it's not been easy to teach from the Legacy Standard Version every week.

It actually forces me to have to be more careful with what I'm reading and how I'm teaching what it is that I'm reading. Sometimes I have to read it twice because I gotta make sure, okay, am I reading the wording correctly?

Because I've been reading it so long in the ESV that I'm used to it being worded this way. And I gotta be careful with how I'm wording it, how I'm teaching what the wording is, that sort of a thing. You wouldn't think that would be complicated.

I mean, it all says the same thing, right? From one translation to the next. Yes, the message is exactly the same, but the difference in the wording can be kind of challenging. It forces me to have to think.

That's one of the things I like about teaching from the LSB is that being forced to have to slow down and examine each word. It's not the sort of a thing where, because I've read the chapter 1 ,000 times in the English Standard Version, my eyes just kind of skim over it again, because I've read it so many times.

Yeah, I know what this says. But in the LSB, with different wording, I examine each word and articulate it and teach it carefully. So that's one of the things I've really enjoyed with having to get used to this translation.

Because I'm so used to the ESV, that's why it's so difficult to give it up and why I'm not ready in my mind to just go, you know what, yes, I'm teaching from the LSB now. Especially when I don't have a full LSB to teach from, I just have the New Testament Psalms and Proverbs.

How have I handled that in my Sunday school class then? If you've been listening to the Sunday edition of the podcast, you've heard me teaching through 2 Peter, which I've been doing from the Legacy Standard Bible.

So what about those times that I'm going back to the Old Testament, like where I referenced the story of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, or the story of Balaam in the Book of Numbers? Well, I go to the New American Standard, 95, because that's the translation that the LSB was looking to preserve with a few updates, some slight changes.

So since the NASB 95 is the closest to the LSB, then when I've been teaching from the LSB in the New Testament, I'll go to the NASB 95 in the Old Testament. So anyway, that's how I've dealt with that.

But yeah, whether this is an official switch or not, I don't know. I do know that I really enjoy the Legacy Standard Bible. And as I said on the podcast earlier this week, the ESV is more widely recognized, it's more widely used.

The copyright is also more free for people to use. That's something that makes the English Standard version a little more appealing, especially for somebody that does as much publication as I do. Whether it's writing a book or doing a video or even a podcast like this, I'm less concerned with any copyright issues that I might run into using the ESV as opposed to something that's owned by the Lachman Foundation.

Anyway, that's kind of complicated to explain. I did a poll earlier this week on Twitter. And the question that I asked was, which is your weapon of choice? And I gave three options, the Legacy Standard Bible, the Elect Standard version, and the Non-Arminian Standard Bible.

And then I gave a fourth option, other, so leave in the comments what other kind of translation you used. And the ESV came out as the overwhelming majority. 52 of the votes that I got said they still use the English Standard version or the Elect Standard.

I had about 1 ,000 votes on the poll and 52 are still using the ESV. I really did the poll for two reasons. Number one, I wanted to see how many people were catching on with the Legacy Standard Bible.

And that one came out about 13, 14%. So that's not bad. I mean, considering it's brand new, we only have a New Testament, that's quite a few people that already consider the LSB their Bible of choice.

But then the NASB, you've got about 20%. And how many are gonna stick with the NASB and how many of that 20 are gonna switch to the Legacy Standard? Even if all of the NASB readers switch to the LSB, you're still talking about only a little over 30%, at least of my audience that would consider the Legacy Standard Bible.

The majority is still in the ESV. So I did that poll to see how many are switching to the LSB. And I also just wanted to do a poll where I called these two Bible translations, the Elect Standard version and the Non-Arminian Standard Bible.

Thank you to Darrell Harrison and to Virgil Walker of the Just Thinking Podcast. Darrell likes to use the Non-Arminian Standard Bible, that's what he calls it on the podcast. And then Virgil's still using the Elect Standard version.

I'm looking forward to seeing those brothers at G3 in Atlanta as well. Okay, let's go on to the next question here. This comes from Sam in Louisville. This is less a question and more a comment, but kind of goes back to the praise that we were reading for the podcast on last week's episode, episode 1500.

So Sam in Louisville, he says, Mr. Gabe, I found your what channel last night when looking for a critical review on the Bible project. And I am so glad I found your videos. I understand lots of folks found that video very polarizing.

Yeah, the video that I did exposing the problems with the Bible project. In a way, Sam says the Bible project was useful to me in exposing this false doctrine. I was not aware that propitiation and its importance to the gospel is so quickly written off by biblical scholars like Tim Mackey and others.

I stayed up till 2 a .m. watching some of your other videos and found that they are filled with the Holy Spirit. Keep up the good work, Gabe. Well, God bless you, brother. I thank you so much for that.

And I'm glad that video, the one that I did on the Bible project, was so edifying for you and you were able to find some value in the others as well. Do me a favor and share those online with others. Post them on Facebook and Twitter.

That's what they are made for. This next question comes from Ed. He says, hey, Pastor Gabe, just a note to thank you for your podcast. It is very helpful and encouraging to me. I first discovered it when I stumbled upon you discussing the teaching of Tim Mackey, the Bible project stuff, about two years ago.

I haven't missed a Friday Q &A since then and have recently begun listening every day. I've learned a lot from your teaching in 1 Corinthians. Thank you so much for that, Ed. He goes on to say, I've been blessed by the teaching of John MacArthur for many years and have probably heard close to 10 ,000 of his sermons.

That's phenomenal. I've been listening to him almost my whole life and I don't think I could say that I've listened to 10 ,000 sermons. So that's amazing. He goes on, one thing I have noticed is that most people that are opposed to his teaching are opposed to the doctrines of election and lordship salvation.

I recently debated with Mark Cahill for a few weeks on email over election. That's interesting. I've got a couple of Mark Cahill books. Anyway, Ed says that I noticed that he, Mark, wanted to debate lordship salvation with me when he found out that I like MacArthur.

I know that you definitely believe and teach the doctrine of election, so I was curious what your thoughts are on lordship salvation. I perceive that it is an important issue in the evangelical church today that is largely either criticized or ignored.

Once again, I am thankful for your diligence and ministry toward the body of Christ and I look forward to hearing you again next week, serving our king. Thank you so much, Ed. Well, in answer to your question, let's begin in Luke chapter 14, verses 25 through 33.

So as we're answering a question here about lordship salvation, what is it? Is it valuable? Is it good or not? Let's start first here in Luke 14, starting in verse 25. Now, many crowds were going along with Jesus and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?

Lest when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying this man began to build and he was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10 ,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20 ,000.

Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. Therefore, salt is good, but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?

It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. So consider again, verse 33. This kind of sums up everything that Jesus said in this section.

None of you can be my disciple who does not give up all of his own possessions. In other words, we must love Christ above all. And if we do not, then we are not a disciple of Jesus Christ. The concept of lordship salvation comes from John MacArthur's book, The Gospel According to Jesus, which he wrote, I'm just pulling this number off the top of my head, but I think it was in 1988, was when that book came out.

I read it years ago. It's been a long time since I've read The Gospel According to Jesus. But here's basically what I understand as being the doctrine of lordship salvation. It was to combat this American evangelical idea of easy believism, that coming to Jesus was something easy.

You just have to pray this prayer. Boom, you're saved. And then it doesn't even matter what you do with the rest of your life because you prayed that prayer. You ever doubt your salvation, then open up your Bible and look for the date that you wrote in your Bible of the day that you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

There's your evidence that you're saved and you're going to heaven. No, that's not, I mean, the funny thing about that is you're adding to scripture basically. The affirmation of your salvation is gonna be the date that you wrote in your Bible, not the words that Jesus said.

So we rely upon Christ. We look to Christ. He is our salvation, not the extra thing that you wrote in your Bible and you're relying upon to be your entrance into heaven. Christ is the narrow gate. He is the door to eternal life, not that prayer that you prayed once upon a time.

And this has been going on in American evangelicalism for, well, ever since, primarily in the 20th century. It kind of started with the second great awakening with the whole altar call, the anxious seat thing that was going on in Methodist churches.

And then that became something that Billy Graham latched onto and popularized and millions heard his presentation of the gospel and responded to his altar call. If you want to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, then come down front.

And many churches have been doing that ever since. And it doesn't even matter what happens in the person's life after that. As long as they've come forward and prayed the prayer, then they're saved and have eternal life.

So John MacArthur wrote the gospel according to Jesus as a confrontation of that kind of American evangelical easy believism. Lordship salvation is simply this, that if a person genuinely believes in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, they will repent of their sin and they will produce good works.

The works that Jesus talks about here in Luke 14 is taking up your cross. You will give up everything, take up a cross and follow after me. And whoever does not do this cannot be my disciple. A cross is not an easy thing to take up, people.

It's an instrument of death. It means you are dying to yourself and you are living a life for Jesus Christ. That's the concept of lordship salvation. If a person says that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but there is no works in their life that demonstrates an evidence of that faith, well then their conversion was not really a conversion.

Their faith is not genuine faith. There must be evidence of this faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Michael Horton wrote a book in which he was arguing against lordship salvation. Now Michael Horton is reformed.

He's a Christian and he even comes from the reform persuasion. So we're not even talking here about like the Armenians or the provisionists, the semi-Pelagians who are arguing against lordship salvation.

We're talking from someone in the reform biblical camp who said the following, faith produces obedience but to suggest that faith is obedience is to confuse justification with sanctification. Thus, when MacArthur writes, quote, repentance is a critical element of genuine faith, unquote, that's from page 172 of the gospel according to Jesus, he is inconsistent with the reformation position, Horton says.

So let me read that quote again from John MacArthur. He said, repentance is a critical element of genuine faith. I believe the reform position is the biblical position. So how is MacArthur inconsistent with the reform position which would be also to say, how is John MacArthur inconsistent with what scripture says?

You cannot believe in Jesus Christ without repenting. Repentance is essential even to faith. Believing and repenting are the same action. Belief is the positive action and repenting is the negative action, right?

Do you understand what I mean by that? So belief is turning toward and repenting is turning away from. When Jesus came preaching the gospel, he said to repent and believe, Mark 1 15, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel. Think of repent and believe as being two sides of the same coin. Belief is heads, repentance is tails. So to turn the coin over, you have to put one side down and one side up.

They're both in motion when you turn the coin. And so it is with repenting and believing. You're turning from something to something else. This is not faith by works. So in order to be saved, you have to do these things.

Okay, well, that would be salvation by works. That's not what we're talking about here. In order to believe, you're turning from unbelief and your sin. And again, this is all by the work of God. You used to love your sin and you did not believe in Jesus, but now you hate your sin and you do believe in Jesus.

Why? Because you repented. Think of this as going down a highway. Okay, if you're heading south, you're going to hell. You're in your car, you're going south, you're going down on the globe. Therefore, I've equated that with going to hell.

So if you're heading south, you're going to hell. It's also hotter in the south. Just keep up with my analogy here, okay? You've got your car pointed in one direction. If you keep going in that direction, you're gonna drive your car off a cliff into the fiery abyss.

But you see the signs on the road saying, hey, judgment is coming. The bridge is out. You're gonna be going to hell if you continue in this particular direction. And you start paying attention to those signs, which tell you to turn around, repent, go toward Jesus Christ, drive toward him and you will be saved.

And eventually you take those signs as being truth and you believe what it is that they say. So you turn the car around, you repent. You're not going in the direction of your destruction anymore. You're turning the other direction to go toward eternal life, to go toward Christ, who is your life.

So you turn the vehicle around. You turn from the direction that was headed to destruction and you're turning toward Jesus Christ that you may be saved. So that action of turning around is repenting. You're turning from something to something else.

You're turning to Jesus Christ, which cannot happen without repentance. So I have to say here that Michael Horton is wrong. Repentance is necessary for salvation. We're not talking about, you know, repenting from every single one of these things.

And as soon as you've turned from all of those things, then you consider yourself saved. There are gonna be convictions that you're gonna begin to feel as you grow in this sanctification process. It's not a perfect repentance that happens when you come to Jesus Christ.

Perfect in meaning that every single sin you've ever committed, you're never gonna commit it again. There's a growth of conviction that's gonna happen there, absolutely. But this person has to have turned from the direction that they were going, which was to their destruction.

And they have to be turning toward the direction that leads to life. And that is Jesus Christ. John MacArthur teaches and plainly believes that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone and no other way.

There's no other way a person is saved than by faith in Jesus and not by our works, but by his work. That is plain from MacArthur's teaching. I've never heard him teach anything but this. Lordship salvation simply presents that there will be evidence of that saving faith or it was never a genuine faith to begin with.

That's a completely reformed approach to salvation. Lordship salvation is in opposition to that modern American evangelical embracing of easy believism. The Bible does not teach that following Jesus is easy.

It teaches that it's hard. Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount that to follow him is the difficult road and only a few will find it, Matthew 7, 14. When Jesus gave the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, he mentioned that the message of the kingdom will sometimes fall among the thorns and so when the seed begins to grow up, the thorns will choke out the word and it proves to be unfruitful.

And he explained that the thorns were the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. When a person begins to love the things of this world, when they show that they love the world instead of loving Christ, then whatever claim that they had made to Christianity before turns out to be a passing opinion.

It wasn't real, it wasn't genuine. They would rather have the things of this world than have Christ. The seed that fell among the rocks, this is one who endures for a while but when tribulation and persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

So at one point he said he believed in Jesus Christ but once he realized that this was gonna be hard, that I'm gonna be persecuted for my faith, then he turns away from it and it turns out to be no faith at all.

Believing in Jesus is hard. Jesus said it was gonna be hard. And as the apostle Paul said to Timothy, those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. If when persecution comes, a person turns away from the gospel of Christ, then it turns out that they never really believed it in the first place.

The apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2, 7 -8, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

Believing in Jesus is hard. In fact, according to Jesus in Mark 10, believing in Jesus is impossible but all things are possible with God, he says, you believe and are saved because God was merciful to you.

Now, some will say that lordship salvation is, it's that salvation means acts of obedience are a part of faith, that acts of obedience are synonymous with faith or that faith means obedience in other words.

So that's how they will, that's how they'll understand lordship salvation. Admittedly, I've been confused on that point as well. But I think for me, it's been a semantic argument more than it's been a positional argument.

I do not think that faith is our works or that faith is obedience, though I have said that and I don't believe it's entirely wrong. It just, again, it's semantic. How are we defining faith and obedience here?

In our human limitations, to examine something truly as complex as what saving faith is, it is easy for us to confuse the very act of believing with obedience. After all, we believe because we're commanded to.

That's what came with the declaration of the gospel that was given to you. Repent of your sin and believe in Christ. Jesus said to believe, therefore we believe. Faith itself is wrought in us because God commanded and so we obey.

You believe in Jesus because you were told to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. Are you a heretic because oops, I obeyed the command and now I believe but faith is not supposed to be obedience so I guess I don't have genuine faith.

I believed and I did a work and therefore I'm saved so I must be a heretic. See, I mean, you can talk circles around yourself this way. That's nonsense. Sometimes we can get so nitpicky with these doctrines that there's no way that anyone can really believe them.

What do the scriptures say? It all comes back to what the Bible says. Do you believe what the Bible says? If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're saved and I don't see any contradiction with lordship salvation as I've heard John MacArthur teach it.

I don't see any contradiction between lordship salvation and what the Bible says. You're just giving a name to a doctrine that the Bible teaches but you're taking various verses from various places, organizing them in a category and saying, this is what the Bible teaches on that subject and that category has been given the name heading lordship salvation.

It's all completely in agreement with what the Bible says. I don't see any contradiction there. So we have come to faith because the Lord Jesus Christ told us to repent and believe. We remain in that faith because Christ is holding us fast.

It is not by our works that we became saved and it's not by our works that we stay saved. This is all the work of God. So we give him the glory but the evidence of that faith is gonna be seen in the works that we do.

That this work has been carried out in God. So you must turn from your sin and you must obey the commands of Christ. Jesus saying to his disciples, John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

And this is not our salvation, it's evidence of our salvation that we've been saved by Christ and we are indeed his disciples. So I hope that answers your question. I guess you know where I fall on this Ed and I thank you for listening and for submitting your question today.

If you have any questions that you'd like to send to the podcast, send them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. God willing, I'll be back in First Corinthians next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and we'll be reading from the Proverbs on Thursday and then if Becky's got the energy, she'll be on the podcast with me Friday for another Q &A.

We are less than two weeks away from this baby coming. God willing, be praying for us as we're in the homestretch here of baby number five that is going to be introduced to the Hughes household. Let's finish up with prayer here.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the time that we're able to spend together in the word like this, meditating on the things of Christ and I pray that you continue to work this salvation in us with fear and trembling for as we read in Philippians chapter two, that it is God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So continue to work these things out that we may be sons and daughters of God, worthy sons and daughters of God, pleasing to our Father who is in heaven. We wanna pray for those Christians in Afghanistan right now who are going through this upheaval that is happening in their government.

They've received threats from the Taliban, letters have been sent to churches saying we know who you are, we know where you are and we're coming for you and I pray that you would keep those Christians strong in their faith.

We're seeing Christians that are willing to gather in hostile parts of the world, though it may cost them their lives. So may we here in the Western part of the world, may we be committed to gathering as the saints in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, not shrinking back, not afraid of a virus, not afraid of any government mandates, but we gather because we love Jesus and we obey his commandments and may the fruit of the Spirit be seen in all that we say and do.

Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus, we pray in your great name, amen.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours, but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good gospel teaching Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.