Denomination Gone Astray (Clip) — Steve Gallagher

You guys know, I believe, that we do our utmost here at Pure Life Ministries not to do anything that makes it a struggle for people of a different denominational background. We just try our best to not cause disunity or anything.

Whatever your denominational background, you're welcome here. The truth that we are bringing forth, we just avoid those kinds of issues for the most part until it crosses these lines and then I have to deal with it.

The One Pillar of Calvinism

And this is one of those things. Okay, so I'm going to call this the One Pillar of Calvinism. Alright, so I've got three avenues for this lie to make it into the church and this is the first one I'm going to mention is the One Pillar of Calvinism.

Historical Appreciation for Reformed Teaching

And let me explain that. I have spent the last 30 years studying the men of God from 100 years ago, 150 years ago and I would say at least half of those men were of the Reformed tradition. Okay, so I have thoroughly enjoyed their teachings.

There's something about godly Calvinists that I just love and am drawn to. And there's two of these pillars that kind of go hand in hand and the first one is what I'm talking about that I love about them is that they understand what a conversion looks like.

Conversion as Radical Repentance and Regeneration

There's a long tradition in Calvinist circles of strong conversions and their idea of a conversion is you are going one way, living for self-will and you get arrested by the Holy Spirit of God. You fall on your face.

You have complete repentance. You renounce your past life of sin, of self-will, of pride, of doing your own thing. You totally turn away from that and you go 180 the other direction. It doesn't mean that you're walking in perfection all of a sudden.

It means that there has been a revolution has occurred inside you. Regeneration. Amen. Okay, that's what I love. I love that. Now along with that is what they have held is the belief in eternal security.

Eternal Security and Perseverance

And the way that they teach it in what I'm describing, I don't have a bit of a problem with that. You know, I am good with that. I don't know exactly how all that works out. I'm not going to claim to have the final answers on that.

But I can understand what they're saying. That if you've had that kind of conversion, you're never going to go back. Sin will never be able to hold you. You will not stay in sin if you go off track or something.

God's Spirit is inside you and He will make sure you get back on track. You know, I'm good with that. It's not exactly the way I tend to think, but I don't have a problem with that whatsoever. Eternal security, okay, praise the Lord.

If that's what you believe, absolutely, you know, it's good with me. But this has been corrupted. Let me read something that I wrote about the apostasy. It's on the Eternal Weight website. And I'm going to call it the One Pillar of Calvinism.

The Original Emphasis on Repentance and Transformed Faith

That's not what it's called on the website. And I'm kind of cutting into a thought here, okay? Just bear with me. Let me read this. Part of this comes from a centuries-old doctrinal system that went bad.

It began as a solid offshoot of Reformed theology, emphasizing the eternal security of a believer and stressing the fact that true faith in Christ is always accompanied by true repentance, heart-probing, sin-renouncing, life-transforming repentance.

The Neglect of Inward Obedience

All right, so the two go hand-in-hand. Over the years, the once-saved-always-saved doctrine was vigorously maintained and defended, while the emphasis on meaningful repentance and inward obedience was increasingly neglected.

Spurgeon’s Warning and Modern Spiritual Deterioration

By the time Charles Spurgeon came along in the latter part of the 19th century, he lamented that his denomination was going downhill at breakneck speed, his words. Today, the spiritual deterioration of this great movement is evident in thousands of postmodern churches that offer a form of Christianity which expects very little in the way of change, all the while assuring its members that their salvation is secured, guaranteed, and irrevocable.

Are you understanding what I'm saying? Yeah, it started off good, right? Yeah, when you have a real conversion, repentance, you're going to live your life for God, okay, eternally secure, I'm with you on that.

Assurance Without the Obligations of Conversion

But little by little, the first part went away, and all that was left was that assurance, the blessed assurance we sing. Yeah, well, I'm telling you, this is one of the avenues that this lie has made its way into the church, that they've maintained the blessings of salvation, supposed salvation, and have done away with the obligations and requirements that are involved with a true conversion.

Okay, so nothing against Calvinism, right? But here's where part of that whole movement has gone astray.