SRR #77 | A Wolf Among The Sheep

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.

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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the error and combating the error.

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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make,

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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.

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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,

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Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

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As opposed to, Blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It is on.

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We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. All right.

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I want to welcome everybody back to Simple Riff around the radio. This is Tim and I'm going to be your host for today.

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And today we're going to be interviewing an individual by the name of Patrick Hines. And Patrick is a

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Presbyterian pastor. And I've asked Patrick to come on, Pastor Hines, to come on the podcast to talk about something specific.

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And before we before we do that, let me let me just give Pastor Hines an opportunity to say hello and let me welcome him to the show.

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Yeah, thanks, Tim. I'm really excited to be here with you. As you were just told, I'm Patrick Hines.

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I've been married for 21 years and I have nine children, six girls and three boys. And I've been the pastor at Brittle Heights Presbyterian Church since June of 2012.

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And I was in a different denomination. I was in the Bible Presbyterian Church, which is kind of a micro denomination from way, way, way back in the 1930s.

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And I was an assistant pastor there at a church in Cincinnati for four years and then eventually came down here to Tennessee.

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And I've been here ever since. And things are really going well here at the church. And God's been really blessing the work that we're doing.

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So I'm excited to have this opportunity to speak with you about about this very, very important topic. Yes, and we're going to get into that topic in just a minute.

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But recently I did an interview on the Bible Thumping Wingnut podcast where I basically promoted that we are going to bring you on.

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And for all of our listeners, I owe you an apology because I said that you are Mark Hines and that is certainly not your name.

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So I apologize for that. It is Patrick Hines. Well, I was speaking to several individuals on Facebook Messenger.

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One of them was named Mark. And in my head, I just I guess I conflated your name with his name.

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So, yeah, well, so we are going to talk about something controversial.

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And I think really the only way to do this is to basically jump into the topic.

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The reason that I've brought Pastor Hines on to the podcast is because we want to talk about John Piper and the controversy that is surrounding

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John Piper. I believe it is still surrounding John Piper, even though a lot of what we see is sort of died down.

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And it seems like a lot of people have moved on from this topic. Now, Timothy Kaufman and myself, we published an article on our website.

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We published two articles on our website, and we also published an article on the Trinity Foundation. And we did an episode, a podcast episode with the

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Trinity Foundation discussing this issue. And so, Pastor Hines, you did something that I thought was pretty remarkable.

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And the reason that I wanted to bring you on here was basically to promote what you're doing and to promote your stuff.

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And a number of weeks ago, Tom Giuditis, the president of the

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Trinity Foundation, introduced me to your content. I had never heard of you before.

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And I think sometimes it's hard to find good quality content out there.

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And so I was very grateful that Tom Giuditis had introduced me to your content.

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And you were basically saying the same things that we were saying about John Piper. And what you did, which

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I thought was really good, was that you actually preached a sermon titled, what was the title of that sermon?

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Let me look it up. John Piper's False Gospel. That was the name of the sermon. And in the message, you essentially said, you said, folks,

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I'm just going to say it. That's a false gospel. And you later said, quote,

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Piper is wrong on the gospel. And I thought this was remarkable because you're not just leaving it as some side issue, maybe talking about it in an article.

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You are preaching this in front of your congregation. So real quickly, did you lose any members over this?

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No, I didn't. I got a number of questions. There were folks, that was actually the first Sunday of that month.

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And on the first Sunday of the month, we always do a fellowship luncheon. So people will stay at the church till about three o 'clock on that first Sunday of the month.

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So people, it sparked a lot of conversation. But, you know, I was privileged by the grace of God to take over in a church that had been pastored by a very faithful godly man.

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Larry Ball was here for 31 years before I got here. So the people here love the Reformed faith.

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And they understood that I didn't just say that Piper's preaching a false gospel.

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I gave the quotations. I pointed out the things that he has said, even trying to clarify that he is very, very clearly promoting something contrary to Scripture and what the

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Scripture says about the gospel. So people were happy that I did that. And, you know, we have a book rack where we put lots and lots and lots of books out, very heavily subsidized.

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I've never put any of Piper's books out there because I've never been a huge fan of his. But I'm glad that we didn't have to go through and pull anything off book racks.

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But everybody understood what I was saying, that what I pointed out was, in fact, very serious.

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So no, no, we didn't lose any members over that sermon. That's good. And I figured that you probably didn't.

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I've been looking at your stuff and you seem to be pretty straightforward with your theology.

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And, you know, it's like I think that people in your church would know where you stand probably before you said something about it.

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But I brought that up because, you know, one of the things that I want to talk about is why pastors don't seem to want to address the issue.

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But before we do that, let me ask you this. We're talking about John Piper and his false gospel.

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And what we're going to do today is we're actually going to play that sermon that you preached in your own church.

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And then what we're going to do is we are going to put in the links section all of the content, all of the ways that you've addressed

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Piper's false teaching. And I believe there's four episodes, if I'm correct.

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And one of them was a response to Piper's response. And one of the things that you said was that, you know, if you had made a controversy over the gospel, something that should be simple, something that everybody should get.

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If you had made such a controversy over this, that you would at the very least be questioning whether or not you should be in ministry.

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And one of the things that I wanted to just ask you is what, in a nutshell, what is wrong with Piper's gospel?

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The problem of what John Piper is saying is that he makes a very hard distinction between justification and what he calls final salvation.

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And the reason that that makes him so dangerous and so subtle is that John Piper can go on and on and on and even write entire books on justification where he sounds and says exactly what we would say about justification.

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But you have to bear in mind that in his thinking, justification is not what gets you into heaven.

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And that's what's wrong with it, is when you listen to him talk about justification, he will say everything that we would say.

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He goes on and on. I mean, he goes to the very same passages. If you go the direction, Piper says, if you go the direction of justification by just a little law -keeping, you go the direction of justification by total law -keeping.

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And we hear that and we say, yeah, that's right. But then he says, and here, let me give you a direct quotation from an article that's somewhat of a transcript of his sermon.

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He says here, okay, in sanctification, faith receives an ongoing power of Christ that works inside of us for practical holiness.

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Okay, before that, he said, in justification, faith receives a finished work of Christ performed outside of us and counted as ours.

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Yeah, that sounds great. But then the third thing he says is, in final salvation at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit and that faith.

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And that's why I just said, look, when the Reformation said that justification is by faith alone, when the great confessions of faith, looking, following exactly what the

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Apostle Paul said about this. When he said, therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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What they're talking about, what the New Testament is talking about is the doctrine that gets you into heaven.

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It is the legal verdict at the final judgment. And so, for Piper to make this hard distinction and to act like he affirms justification sola fide by the blood and righteousness of Christ alone, really all he's talking about.

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And he's very careful to say it this way in the way he preaches about this. I've listened to that sermon more than once, and I've listened to his clarification video more than once.

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He's always very careful to say faith alone gets you into not heaven, but a position where God is now 100 % for you.

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So, it's very, very careful to make sure that's all he says about what faith does. Faith in Christ gets you into a position where God is now 100 % for you.

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And now from that position, you pursue holiness and put sin to death. And then really, on that basis, you are saved.

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I mean, he says you are saved through that fruit. Okay? The fruits of our faith are the works that we do because of the regenerating work of the

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Spirit of God in our lives. And we're born again, and God dethrones the power of sin. Romans 6 addresses this.

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And the problem is he includes that in, quote -unquote, final salvation and getting into heaven.

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And you remember, when you listen to his sermon, at one point, he goes off on the surveyors who asked the questions to all these evangelicals.

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It was this big survey. And he said the surveyors are totally confused because they asked the question, how do you get into heaven?

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You don't get into heaven by faith alone. You get justified by faith alone.

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You get into a position where God is 100 % for you by faith alone. You just hear that and go, hang on a second here.

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Hang on. When you say you don't get into heaven by faith alone, what you are, in fact, saying is you do not get into heaven by the blood and righteousness of Christ alone.

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And that is a denial of the gospel. That's a denial of the sufficiency of the work of Christ.

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That's exactly what the Apostle Paul was saying. In fact, it really is amazing when you look at Galatians.

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Galatians is really addressing the very error that Piper is making. In Galatians 3 -1, when he says, are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

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I mean, that really is the very thing Piper is teaching. You initially get into this position where God is all for you, and then from that position, you have to produce this fruit that then becomes the grounds of your final salvation.

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That's why this is a false gospel. It's shocking to me that more people have not called him out on this, because it's very blatant.

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Well, Pastor Hines, I really appreciate you sharing all of that and explaining exactly why

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Piper's teaching is wrong. And one thing that you said was that you were surprised that there's not more people calling him out.

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And when we first published the article explaining why John Piper had a false gospel,

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I was really shocked by the pushback that we've gotten. Because for me, this was a clear cut -and -dry error, and it seemed like most people wanted to just defend

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Piper and make excuses for what he was saying. And one of the things that I wanted to bring up is that in your message—and

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I'm paraphrasing you here—but in your message, you said that this is one of the most dangerous false teachers and one of the most dangerous false teachings.

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You said something along those lines that we see here in the church today.

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And I've said exactly the same thing. Maybe not in that way, but I've made the same point.

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And the reason that I think that this is one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, teaching in the church today is because you see its deceptive nature.

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It is deceiving people that would otherwise—you know, when we call out people like Benny Hinn or when we call out people like Joel Osteen or these other people, you see that for the most part, the

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Reformed community is usually in a consensus of where these people stand.

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But what we see is that Piper is preaching a false gospel, and a lot of quote -unquote

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Reformed people are actually defending him and defending what he's saying and trying to make nuances or trying to rewrite what he's saying.

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And so I wanted you to just explain a little bit more.

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I wanted you to explain that a little bit more. Tell us why you think that this teaching is so dangerous and so bad.

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Yeah. For a lot of the reasons you just laid out, John Piper isn't a wild -eyed, goofy, charismatic like Benny Hinn, who's throwing the

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Holy Spirit across stadiums and knocking people down in the stands. He has an air about him of great scholarship.

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You know, he was educated at the University of Munich, and he did his doctoral dissertation on Romans 9, that book,

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The Justification of God. There's a lot of good things in there. He has been, in some ways, a very able defender of the sovereignty of God and the

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Reformed faith, and people are familiar with him because of that. The problem here is, like I said, he will affirm that he believes in justification by faith alone, and he'll say it as loudly as we say it.

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And that's what makes him so subtle is because you have to get into your mental machinery. When it comes to John Piper, when he's talking about justification, he is not talking about it the way the

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New Testament does, and he is not talking about it the way that the Protestant Reformation talked about it. He is not talking about it the way the

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Westminster Standards talk about it. For him, justification is just the initial step that you can start the process of salvation, and he's real clear about that.

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He says salvation is spoken of in Scripture as a process. And the reason that I really look at him as so dangerous is for that reason.

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He is so popular, and people want to give him a pass. I've been contacted by a number of people because of that sermon and also because of some of the videos

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I've done. You know, why are you so angry? Why are you so angry? I said the same reason Paul was angry when he wrote

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Galatians. When Paul wrote Galatians, the man was livid, okay?

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He goes off on those false teachers. And you would think, well, my gosh, is it really that big of a deal that they added this one little thing to the gospel?

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Paul is very crystal clear that getting the doctrine of justification wrong is another gospel that's no gospel at all.

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And they added circumcision. They believed in Jesus Christ. Yes, you can't be saved without faith in Jesus Christ. You have to have faith in Christ.

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But they added this one little thing to it, and Paul says in Galatians 5, Christ will be of no benefit to you if you do that.

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And so, that's what makes him so dangerous is because unlike Rome, Rome is just straightforward. We reject soul defeating.

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A lot of the false teachers today, they just, you know, flat out teach a raw works righteousness.

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But Piper will say he affirms justification by faith alone and even argues for it the way we do.

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And can write articles about it and write entire books about it. He wrote a book called Counted Righteous in Christ where he defends the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

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But it never hit me until I listened to him talk about this. He doesn't think that justification is the doctrine that gets us into heaven and makes us right with God once for all eternity.

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He doesn't see it that way. And because of that, he is so subtle. It's such a subtle error.

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You have to really listen carefully for the way he slides this in. And another thing that makes him dangerous, if you watch my response to his clarification video, the host that was interviewing him for that says, yeah, this is a long, very broad reform tradition has always spoken this way.

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It's not just us. There's many that will speak this way. And I remember thinking, and I said in the video, that is not the case.

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Okay. The reformers did not speak this way. And historic reform theology has not taught this.

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And the reform confessions do not teach this. Justification is the forensic legal verdict that changes our status before the law of God once and for all eternity that we are now declared righteous by the imputation of Christ's righteousness and his crosswork accepted in our place.

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And that's what makes us right with God. And that's the end of it. And that's Paul's gospel. And he is very clear. If you get that wrong, you are outside the kingdom of God.

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And, you know, you and I were corresponding a little bit earlier. One of the things I wrote down on the night before I was ordained,

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I wrote down a number of things I was afraid of, and I prayed about those things. And the first thing I wrote down on that list was that people would listen to me preach and end up in hell.

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As far as I'm concerned, I have hit and hammered this issue of how to be justified before God from every conceivable angle.

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And I'm going to keep going back to it, too. Usually once a month or once every six weeks or so, we go back and cover this because the tendency is not to stay orthodox.

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The tendency is not to stay biblical. It's always to drift away from those biblical truths. And so we have to keep pressing them and pushing them and making sure that people have the mental machinery and equipment from Scripture to recognize and to turn away from false gospels like this.

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You're exactly right. And we are not exaggerating when we say that this is a matter of utmost importance.

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It is a matter of life and death. One of the things in talking to you through Messenger that you were referring to right now, that's a biblical perspective.

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To want or to strive to say at the end of your ministry, if you end up in hell, it's not because of me because I'm going to do everything that I can to warn you in the truth and to give you the truth so that you will not end up in hell.

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And in Acts 20 verses 26 through 29,

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Paul, he says, Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

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And he says, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

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I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

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And we see that this was what Paul was saying is, I'm innocent of the blood of all of you because I am telling you the whole counsel of God.

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And let me ask you this. I believe that every pastor has an obligation to look into this and to essentially take a position that you really can't ignore this issue.

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And it would be analogous to ignoring what the

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Reformers were saying during the Protestant Reformation and just dismissing it as if it was just a personal conflict or a personal issue and just being outright dismissive of it.

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And when I look at the church abroad, it seems like, OK, there was a controversy last year that spilled into the beginning of this year, and now we're sort of moving on.

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And I believe that every pastor has an obligation to say something about this or to study this in depth and to dig into this, because essentially what we're saying is the gospel is at stake, and there's somebody among us who is preaching a false gospel.

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And in my city, because I always say this, I live in El Paso, Texas, and we are predominantly

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Roman Catholic. And John Piper has a huge platform. He has a household name, and many of the people in my church know who

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John Piper is, read his stuff. I know some people who have written for John Piper's platform,

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Desiring God, and their articles got over a million hits. This platform is huge.

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I mean, you talk about an article getting a million hits. We're lucky if we get 10 people to read our articles.

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So this is a very big deal, and I brought you on because I basically see you doing what a pastor should do.

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A pastor is to care after the flock, and you brought up Paul. Paul wasn't the pastor of the

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Church of Galatia, but there was this controversy, and he intended to put the nail in the coffin.

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He intended to deal a death blow to this false gospel. So what would be your encouragement to pastors out there who maybe are struggling with, well, you know,

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I'm not really sure what Piper's saying, and well, what did he really mean? And well, you know, I'm not really familiar with this whole controversy.

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What would you say to them as pastors who are caring for people who probably read

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Piper's books, who probably listen to Piper's messages? And we're going to point out that one of the main reasons that we want to talk about this now is because Piper was one of the main speakers at a conference titled

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Together for the Gospel. And thousands of pastors, hundreds if not thousands of pastors, listened to the speakers, and John Piper is one of the speakers at a conference called

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Together for the Gospel. And John Piper has a false gospel.

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I mean if you think about that, that is huge. It is.

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And so what are these pastors doing? And so I want you to speak on that for a minute if you can.

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Like you said, that passage in Acts 20 is a great text because that's Paul exhorting the

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Ephesian elders, and he's telling them what they need to be aware of. And he's letting them know that you're going to see savage wolves arise from inside the church.

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They will come in among you if 2 Peter 2 says the same thing. There will be false teachers among the people just as there are false teachers among you.

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And what pastors need to recognize is that the Scriptures teach very clearly that we are answerable to God for the people that we pastor.

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The people who are communicant members of this church and the covenant children of this church, I will give an account to God on the

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Day of Judgment for how well I did what Acts 20 is talking about. There's a great passage in 2 Timothy 2 .13

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where Paul warns that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse deceiving one another and being deceived.

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And I remember years ago reading John Calvin's commentary on that, and he said the reason Paul told Timothy that was because he needed to be ready to spend the balance of his life in uninterrupted warfare for the truth.

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And I had a friend who was in seminary at the same time I was. I went to Reform Seminary down in Jackson, Mississippi, and he was at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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And he and I had been talking about NT right. I'd just gotten into the new perspective issue and was talking about that and talking about other issues.

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And he criticized me and said, man, you're always in polemical mode.

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You're always ready to just jump on this and condemn this and condemn that. And I responded back to him very gently because he is now a pastor as far as I know.

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And I responded back to him and I said, if you're not ready to be in polemical mode for the rest of your life, please do not go into the ministry because we have enough cowards, traitors, and turncoats as it is.

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See, we're accountable not just for what we say. We are not accountable just for what we teach.

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We are also accountable for what we tolerate. We're also accountable for what we don't say something about.

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And someone forwarded me a link to this thing by John Piper, and I listened to it. I was aghast by it.

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I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. I went back and listened to it again. I read the articles. There's lots of different articles there on Desiring God's website that teaches this false gospel, this initial justification by faith alone, and then final salvation by works, final salvation by the fruits of your faith.

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And I thought, you know what? This guy has such a huge platform, and so many people know who he is.

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He needs to be denounced. And I'm going to call that sermon, John Piper's False Gospel. And that's what we're going to call it on Sermon Audio, because I want people to be able to see that, and I want them to hear this.

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And the people who have responded to me and the people that I've corresponded with a little bit have been coming back at me and defending him.

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And I've responded to them. It makes me wonder if you need to be evangelized. If you don't understand that this is a false gospel, are you actually trusting that what's going to save you at the last day is the fruits of your faith?

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Because my confidence is in the blood and righteousness of Christ alone. And if yours isn't something else, well,

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I think that you're going to be part of that line of people from Matthew 7, 22, who will hear, Lord, Lord, didn't

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I bear this fruit, and didn't I bear that fruit, and didn't I do this, and didn't I do that? I'm sorry, if you're trusting in your works in any way, even the fruits of your faith, even if it was all made possible by grace, like the

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Roman Catholic Church teaches, you're not a Christian. And that's not this hardcore Reformed person like me.

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That is the apostolic position that the scriptures give us. Paul is very clear about it. Right.

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Let me go ahead and read from an article titled, Why Heretics Win Battles. I've read this before,

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I think, on another podcast, but this is by John Robbins. He writes, We can learn a great deal from the example of the

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Apostle Paul in Antioch and his letter to the Galatians, for he was neither slow to recognize error nor timid in correcting it.

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Our failure to learn from and imitate Paul is the principal reason why heretics win battles.

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Paul recognized doctrinal error quickly and acted swiftly to correct it. But this, which he was speaking of a problem over the preaching of the gospel, occurred because of false brethren to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

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Paul did not put up with, that is to yield submission to, error or those teaching error on the gospel even for an hour.

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One of the things that I wanted to point out with is that he says, so that the truth might continue with you.

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I think that every pastor needs to be concerned with, you know, there's people out there who are going to fall into this.

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I have no status in my church. I'm a nobody. And I'm going to submit this and everything else to my pastors, because I want to raise the alarm.

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I want them and everybody else to know that, no, you do not get into heaven through the fruit of your salvation or through fruit.

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You get into heaven through faith alone in Christ alone. And so, this has been a very difficult road, but this needs to be really, this needs to be talked about more.

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And here at Semper Reformanda Radio, we are not done dealing with this issue, because as we've said before, it is so dangerous because of how deceptive it really is.

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So, you know, I'm praying that my pastors will see this. I'm praying that other pastors who saw

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John Piper together for the gospel will come to recognize that currently, right now, John Piper is preaching a false gospel.

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Now, we hope, we pray that Piper would repent, but the response that he gave was not repentance.

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And he pushed the blame on other people as maybe not being educated, or he said something, if you're not informed of the

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Reformed tradition or something like that. Which is just totally absurd. It is ridiculous to make that claim.

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And so, here's what we're going to do. I've already said this, I think, but here's what we're going to do.

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We're going to play the sermon that you preached, Pastor Hines. And in the show notes, we are going to add all of your episodes.

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One of those episodes is a response to Piper's response to the controversy.

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I did not have time to put anything together myself, because I've been building the website.

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I've been helping the Trinity Foundation develop their podcast. I've been helping

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Steve Matthews with his podcast. And I'm actually going to be helping to bring on Pastor Hines' content onto the website, because we want to promote what he's doing.

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And we want to promote the stuff that he's addressing. He's got some really good stuff, and we want to promote that.

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So, we're going to be doing that. So, I've been pulled in other directions, and I haven't been able to tackle this.

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But Pastor Hines, he addressed this issue. And so, I want everybody to listen to the sermon, and then go and listen to what

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Pastor Hines said in response to Piper's response. Because Piper is still wrong.

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And this is the gospel. And as Christians, you have an obligation to at least inform yourself of this.

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And pastors, I think you have an obligation to study this in earnest. Because if you're going to a conference where Piper is a keynote speaker, and the conference is titled,

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Together for the Gospel, and Piper is preaching a false gospel, and you're not even studying this, you're not going through this, you're not willing to take a look at this, then

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I think the Word of God would admonish you to say something about this.

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And Pastor Hines, let me ask you one more question. I didn't add this in the show notes, but I'd like for you to address something.

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I'm bringing you on, and so far, you're the only pastor that I've heard actually preach a sermon in his church to his congregation, warning your own flock about this false teaching.

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And I think what a lot of people do, and I know pastors who are guilty of this, what they do is they say,

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Well, if what you're saying is true, how come nobody else is seeing it? And here we have,

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Together for the Gospel has affirmed Piper implicitly, and even explicitly.

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They've affirmed Piper, and essentially have said, Piper's solid on the gospel so much so that we want him to be one of the main speakers at this conference titled,

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Together for the Gospel. And a lot of pastors, I think, will struggle with that.

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Well, I don't want to be the guy that's just calling everybody out, and you're a heretic, and you're a heretic, and you're a heretic.

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One of the things that I heard you say, Pastor Hines, and one of your other sermons was that there was some guy who was talking to you, and he was an old earth creationist.

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And you were like, Well, yeah, that's problematic, but I still believe you can be a Christian. And this isn't the hill that we're going to die on.

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I think you're wrong, and I think that you should probably study that a little bit more, but I'm not going to die on this hill. But this issue is not secondary.

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This issue is primary. And what I think happens is a lot of pastors look at,

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Well, nobody else is seeing this. How come nobody else is calling him to account?

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How come – and first of all, it's a myth. I think of when

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Elijah went into the cave, and he cried out to God, and he said, Only I am left.

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I'm the only one that's left. And God says, No, I've saved 7 ,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

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And we can look at ourselves and say, I'm the only one calling him out. I'm the only one disagreeing with this.

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Well, first of all, that's not true. In one of our episodes, I put up links. R. Scott Clark is disagreeing with this.

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The Trinity Foundation is disagreeing with this. We are disagreeing with this. I think Paul Flynn disagreed with this.

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You are disagreeing with this. There are people who are disagreeing with this and calling this to account.

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So that – first of all, that's a myth. But I get the impression that a lot of pastors, they sort of follow.

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It's like, Well, what is John MacArthur saying about this? Or, Well, did R .C. Sproul say anything about this?

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And unfortunately, R .C. Sproul has passed away. I believe he was a brother in the Lord and very grateful to that man and his ministry.

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But they look to these other guys, these other ringleaders to wait to see where they land or where they fall.

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And many times they're not going to say anything. I don't know if they have time to go through Piper's Mess because of the demands of their own ministry.

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I don't know what the issue is. I don't. But as a pastor, you have an obligation,

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I think, to concern. If your members are reading John Piper and John Piper is preaching a false gospel,

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I think we have an obligation, as it says in Mark 16, verse 17, to mark them and avoid them.

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My advice to them would be to recognize, like you said, the issues of creationism and things like that.

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There's lots of theological topics that you can allow for various positions, eschatology and things like that.

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But if you get the doctrine of justification and how sinners enter heaven wrong, it doesn't matter where else you're right.

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You're not a Christian. And if you're preaching, if you have every other doctrine of the faith, if you have all of them right and get this one wrong, you are a heretic and a false teacher.

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This is as basic as it gets. When Paul wrote Galatians and he says, if anyone preaches any other gospel than what we preach to you, let him be anathema.

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If I or an angel from heaven or John Piper or someone that you've learned from in the past or who has written good books in the past that have been beneficial to the body of Christ, if they preach another gospel, and what

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Paul means by another gospel is a doctrine of justification by something other than or in addition to faith in Christ.

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You're not a Christian. You're under the curse of God. And insofar as anyone believes what

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John Piper is saying, and they are striving for holiness without which no one will see the

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Lord in the sense that that is what their confidence is in, then, as Paul says in Galatians 5,

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Christ will be of no benefit to you and you are a debtor to keep the whole law. In Paul's thinking, it's either you trust in Christ alone or you achieve righteousness by your own law -keeping, which of course is impossible because everyone's sinful and falls short of that standard.

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And Paul is so very clear. Any attempt to mix justification by faith with anything other than that makes you a debtor to keep the whole law, and Christ is out of the equation then.

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That's why so many people are going to say, Lord, Lord, there are a lot of people who say they believe in Jesus, but their confidence is in something in addition to Christ.

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And for pastors, you have to do everything in your power to make sure that people understand that.

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Because the gospel, as John Calvin and his successor Theodore Beza taught, the gospel is a doctrine that is not at all in us by nature.

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The law is, people are naturally inclined to believe false gospels of worse righteousness.

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They have a natural inclination towards that because the law is already in us. The gospel is not in us at all.

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We have to preach that from the outside. And I've told pastors this, I've said, look, my back porch,

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I have a wooden deck on my back porch, and some of that wood is kind of warped. And over the period of weeks,

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I have to go out there with a hammer and hammer those nails back in constantly on my back porch. Think of it like that.

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The gospel is like a nail that just keeps popping out of people. You have to hit that nail back in constantly, or it's going to come all the way out.

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Because those people do not have a natural inclination towards the truth. They incline to error.

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Now, yes, we believe in the sovereignty of God, and we believe in predestination and election. God has His elect people, but He uses means, and He uses our warnings, and He uses our preaching and our condemnation of certain people who preach false gospels.

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And it is our duty to actually name names. That's one thing you'll often hear people preach, even reformed guys preach, and they'll be talking about someone who is really dangerous, but they won't actually say their name.

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I've always wondered, why are you hesitating to say their name? You need to make sure people know who this is, so they know that this person is dangerous.

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And so, yeah, I understood fully. I mean, I listened very carefully to Piper and really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

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But as you know, in that clarification video, he doubles down and really just says basically what he said in the sermon.

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And just for pastors, guys, if you get this thing wrong, if you get the gospel wrong, it doesn't matter where else you're right.

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And people need to understand the gospel, because I want people to go to heaven when they die and not hell. And like you said at the beginning of the program, if the people in my congregation,

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I've said this with tears in my eyes from the pulpit, if any of you go to hell, it's not my fault, because I have told you what you need to do.

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You need to trust in Christ and nothing else and nothing alongside of Him and not ever confuse sanctification with justification.

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You need to understand this is a once for eternity legal declaration.

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Christ took the full punishment of the wrath of God upon Himself at the cross. It is gone.

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And His righteousness has been transferred to your account. You are now in Christ. You have forgiveness. You have redemption through His blood.

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You are saved from the wrath of God. You are now pronounced once for all eternity righteous in the sight of God. And I've said as well, and if that doesn't make your heart happy, then maybe you just have a heart of stone, because that's the gospel that all

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Christians believe. And that's what all of God's people have trusted in from the beginning is Christ alone for salvation.

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Amen. Well, so we are at 45 minutes to our listeners. Don't check out.

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Listen to the sermon. It is fantastic. And I want to thank you,

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Pastor Hines, for coming on to the program. We certainly look forward to partnering with you.

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We're going to set something up on our website to promote the stuff that you're talking about, because it's outstanding.

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So to all of our listeners, be looking out for that. And again, thank you,

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Pastor Hines, for coming on. You're welcome. Thanks so much, Tim. I really appreciate you. And you're some of the only real encouragement

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I've gotten other than the people in my own church. So I'm very, very thankful to know that you guys are out there and that you're seeing the same problems and that you have the same love for the gospel that I do.

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It really is encouraging to me, for sure. Well, that's good. And, you know, I hope that this podcast can encourage other people, because we know that there's people out there that are struggling with this.

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And maybe they just haven't put their finger on exactly what is wrong with this. So we hope that God uses this podcast in that way.

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So to all of our listeners, we just want to say thank you for checking us out. Please check out the website.

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Please check out all the tabs. We're categorizing things by topics. We're going to keep doing that as we go along.

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Check out Lux Lucid. We're going to be putting up Steve Matthews' podcast on there.

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And we've got some really good stuff coming. So thank you. And check out this sermon by Pastor Hines.

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Let's pray together for God's blessing on our time and His Word now, please. Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank

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You for speaking to us clearly in the pages of Your Holy Word. And we bless You and praise Your name that we, as Your sheep, have heard

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Your voice. We have heard You speak to us and speak clearly. And we pray You would bless us,

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Lord, this morning as we read Your Word. And we pray You would protect us and protect all of Your church with the one true and living gospel from all of its false competitors.

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We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please take your Bibles and turn to Galatians 3.

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We have two passages we're going to read this morning. Galatians 3, 1 -3.

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And then Galatians 5, 1 -6. Galatians 3, 1 -3.

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And then Galatians 5, 1 -6. Galatians 3, beginning at verse 1.

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This is God's Word. You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?

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Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing

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I want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

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Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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And then Galatians 5, verses 1 -6. Galatians 5, verses 1 -6.

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This is God's Word. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

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Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law.

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You have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace.

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For we, through the Spirit by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love.

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May God bless the reading of his infallible Word. The question that hangs over every human being on earth, every moment of their existence, from the time of their conception until their physical death, is where will they spend eternity?

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Heaven or hell? God's divine special revelation to man in Scripture acknowledges only these two places.

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There is a day of judgment for mankind. And every moment that passes us by, we are one moment closer to that day of judgment, where our verdict will be heard once and for all eternity.

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All of us in this room, and every human being alive, and who has ever lived or will live, is a covenantal creature.

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What I mean by covenantal creature is this. All of us are bound by God to obey all of his holy laws for us.

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And we are bound by God never to disobey any of his holy laws for us. This covenant of works, or covenant of life, or covenant of creation, or Adamic administration, or whatever you want to call it, is something that God enters into with man, not animals.

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Man is the image of God, and that he was created for fellowship with God, and was created with a true knowledge of God, and in true righteousness and holiness.

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And because of this, God entered into this covenant of works. All of us are bound by God to obey his law perfectly.

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And we are bound by God never to disobey any of his laws. That is what is required for a person to enter into heaven.

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If you want to enter into heaven and not hell on the day of judgment, you must be perfect even as God is perfect.

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Adam was the covenantal head of the entire human race. And when Adam sinned and failed to fulfill the covenant of works, the covenant curses are what fell upon him.

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Genesis 2 .16, the scripture says, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

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Every human being who has ever lived after Adam, except two, Enoch and Elijah. But all of us in this room, everyone that will ever live, everyone who ever has lived, except those two, have died and will die.

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Except those who are alive when Jesus returns. All of us in this room, I suspect, will die. Because Adam, our covenantal representative, did that which

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God told him not to do. He ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And because of that, Adam and Eve both eventually died.

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Everyone who has proceeded from them by ordinary generation has died. And everyone here is mortal and will die too.

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But we were not created by God to die. Death is the punishment for sin.

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Death is for the violation of the covenant of works. When people scratch their heads and ask me the question,

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Is there really a covenant of works? I can only ask one question. Are you going to die? If you are, yes there was.

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It was violated. What did God tell Adam? In the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Are all of us surely going to die?

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Yes, there is a covenant. That's the covenant sanctioned. That's the punishment God said would happen.

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Had God wanted to, He could simply have struck Adam and Eve dead at the foot of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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But God had planned from all eternity to display His love, His mercy and His grace instead.

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And that's why there is a human history. That's the only reason there is a human history. God gave the church to Christ before the foundation of the world.

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There is a human history. We are all here because of the advancement of God's kingdom and God's desire to glorify

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His grace. I know that rebellious sinners really do believe that the purpose for which the world turns on its axis and revolves around the sun is so that they can have fun sinning and acting like fools and make a name for themselves and glorify themselves.

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Many of us used to think the same thing before the grace of God changed that. But the only reason there has been a human history after the fall of mankind, after the fall of Adam into sin, is

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God's desire to glorify His grace by giving a group of people to His Son, Jesus, that is so numerous no man can count them.

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God the Father gave these people by name, individually, from all eternity to His Son.

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And God the Son agreed with no reluctance of any kind to become incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in order to save them all from their sins.

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Why did Jesus come and do all that He did to save His people from their sins? So that every last one of those people would enter heaven as trophies of His grace and power.

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Why does God predestine us unto adoption as sons? To the praise of the glory of His grace, Paul says in Ephesians 1 .6.

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The purpose for which Jesus came was to glorify the grace of God and the salvation of His church, all of God's elect.

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Every human being who has ever lived will either go to heaven or to hell. And this will be decided at the last judgment.

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Heaven or hell will be pronounced by God over every human being who has ever lived.

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Man in his state of sin is not able to obey God's holy laws perfectly, although we are bound to.

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Man is not able, he is not able to keep from disobeying God's laws perfectly. So if God requires absolute perfection of law keeping and absolute avoidance of transgressing

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His laws, what are we going to do? What are we going to do when we're summoned forth before the holy judgment seat of God on that day of judgment?

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Paul told the people of Athens, God has appointed a day in which He will judge mankind by the man

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He's appointed, Jesus Christ. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead. Many have a vain hope that they've done enough.

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They've done enough good to outweigh the bad to be allowed into heaven. All who have such hope will die in their sins and be condemned to hell.

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Others think that if they believe in Jesus and then with Jesus' help try to make themselves good enough for heaven, that this will suffice.

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They will likewise hear the terrifying verdict of condemned on the day of judgment and will be cast into the lake of fire and hell.

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The problem we face is so simple, it's terrifying. It's so simple, it's terrifying. God is perfectly holy.

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God is perfectly just. God is perfectly righteous. And we are not. We are not holy.

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We are not just. We are not righteous. And so how can any of us expect to make it past the day of judgment into heaven when

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God will judge, as the scripture says, even our secrets by His all -seeing holy eyes?

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If God truly is the Holy One, what are we going to do? The glorious good news that God foretold through Moses, the

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Psalms and the Prophets, and which was revealed in and by Christ, is God's gracious answer to that very question.

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How can I enter into heaven? In other words, how can I be justified instead of condemned on the day of judgment?

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These are the most important questions a human being can face. And all of us must face them today and not delay.

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There is nothing more uncertain than your future. There is nothing more uncertain than your future.

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I served with a pastor down in Pearl, Mississippi who told me the very first sermon he ever preached as an ordained minister.

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He said one of the guys that was sitting there and that church shook his hand, went to cross the street, was hit by a car and died.

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So I want to encourage you to listen carefully to me. You have no idea what's going to happen when you walk out that door.

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You have no idea what will happen for the rest of this service. There is nothing more uncertain than your future.

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The cemeteries around us are littered with dead people who died far younger than you and I are right now.

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And so I want you to have a certain answer today. I've titled this morning's message

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Justification John Piper and Getting Into Heaven. John Piper is a very famous pastor, conference speaker and author and has been for many decades.

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And he has always come across in the little bit that I've read from him and listened to as a very humble, knowledgeable and amicable man.

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Many years ago, I was introduced to his preaching ministry via the internet. His Men of Whom the World Was Not Worthy series was inspiring and wonderful to listen to.

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However, a number of years ago, a fellow seminarian at the time mailed me a copy of John Piper's book, Future Grace.

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It's a massive book. I remember pulling it out of the package going, wow, it's over 400 pages long. And I read about the first third of it and then

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I moved on to something else because I found it to be thoroughly confusing. And much of what John Piper says about grace, about faith, about works, justification, final salvation,

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I found to be convoluted and almost impossible to make any sense out of. So, for me, I put Piper aside as someone

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I wasn't really interested in. I regarded him as so vague on the gospel as to be outright dangerous.

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But I've also seen that his popularity in the reformed celebrity cult that's just what I call it now, the reformed celebrity cult, has continued to soar.

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His ministry desiring God is huge. His church is huge. His readership is huge.

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And the number of people who hang on his every word is huge. Now, someone from our congregation here forwarded me a couple of things that John Piper had preached and written recently that were very, very bad concerning the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ itself and the precious and all important doctrine of justification.

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When John Piper is teaching, what he's teaching and what he has taught on this topic is nothing new, of course.

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Everything that he says about it we've heard before. Everything that he says about it has happened before in church history. It's nothing new.

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Its similarity to the Roman Catholic religion's doctrine of salvation is strikingly clear, and I will demonstrate that to you this morning.

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I would like to read from an article on Desiring God's website from John Piper. He said this, quote, This is

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John Piper. If you substitute other clauses besides we are justified such as we are sanctified or we will be finally saved at the last judgment then the meaning of some of these prepositional phrases must be changed in order to be faithful to Scripture.

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Folks, I just want to warn you about something. Every heretic in the entire history of the church without exception has taught their heresy in the name of being faithful to Scripture.

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So when you hear people saying that, a little light should go on. Everyone that has ever taught false doctrine has always, always, always prefaced doing so with we want to be faithful to the word of God.

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We want to be faithful to Scripture. So just bear that in mind here. John Piper continues.

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For example, in justification faith receives a finished work of Christ performed outside of us and counted as ours imputed to us.

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That sounds pretty good. He says, in sanctification, faith receives an ongoing power of Christ that works inside us for practical holiness.

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In final salvation at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit.

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As Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2 .13, God shows you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the

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Spirit and belief in the truth. The faith which alone justifies is never alone. Still quoting Piper.

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But always bearing transforming fruit. So when James says these controversial words, a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

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I take him to mean not by faith which is alone, but which shows itself by works.

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Paul calls this effect or fruit of evidence of faith, the work of faith and the obedience of faith.

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These works of faith and this obedience of faith, these fruits of the Spirit that come by faith are necessary for our final salvation.

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No holiness, no heaven. Listen closely, this is still John Piper. So, we should not speak of getting to heaven by faith alone.

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In the same way we are justified by faith alone. So, faith alone doesn't mean the same thing when applied to justification, sanctification and final salvation.

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You can see what extraordinary care and precision is called for in order to be faithful to the

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Scripture when using the five solas. I'll just say it, just so you all know where I'm coming from, that's a false gospel folks.

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Paul is very clear in Galatians that if anybody, John Piper, myself, an apostle or an angel from heaven preaches any other gospel, let him be anathema, let him be accursed.

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No one gets a free pass when it comes to the gospel. Get it wrong and you are outside the kingdom of God. Paul says in Galatians 1 .6,

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I am astonished that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel which is not another.

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But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

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As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

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What is the heart of John Piper's false gospel? He does not demonstrate from any text of Scripture that quote, final salvation end quote, and justification are separate and distinct theological categories.

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And yet that distinction is not only integral to his entire formulation of how sinners enter heaven.

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Without it, his entire scheme goes up in smoke. What does John Piper mean by final salvation?

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What does he mean by that? He is actually very clear. Listen to him again. Quote, in final salvation at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne and we are saved through that fruit.

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Final salvation is, for John Piper, the last judgment. How are we saved from the wrath of God at the final judgment and thus enter heaven?

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By works. We're saved by the fruits. By the putting sin to death and pursuit of holiness.

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We're saved by our works, according to Piper, at the last judgment. On the last day, on the last judgment, yeah you get justified by faith alone, but at the final judgment you're saved by the fruits of your faith.

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That's what the man is teaching. That is a false gospel. Session 6 of the Council of Trent, the

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Roman Catholic religion's response to and condemnation of the Reformation says this about justification and final salvation.

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Listen carefully to this. Quote, this is the Council of Trent. This is Rome. But when the apostle says that man is justified by faith and freely, these words are to be understood in that sense in which the uninterrupted unanimity of the

01:00:10

Catholic Church, they love to use that phrase, it's not true. The uninterrupted unanimity of the Catholic Church has held and expressed them, namely, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith because faith is the beginning of human salvation.

01:00:22

What does that remind you of? What John Piper just said. You get justified by faith alone, at final salvation you're saved by works.

01:00:30

Listen to the Council of Trent. Because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please

01:00:38

God. Here's what John Piper says, quote, but what makes that possible and pleasing to God?

01:00:44

We put sin to death and we pursue holiness from a justified position where God is 100 % for us already by faith alone.

01:00:52

Notice here that Piper's entire thought requires a hard distinction between justification and final salvation.

01:01:00

In his thinking, those are completely different theological categories. But the fact is, biblically, folks, here's the fatal error with what

01:01:07

Piper is saying. Biblically, the justification of sinners before God is final salvation. Our justification is our final salvation.

01:01:18

The justification of sinners by God is how we get into heaven. John Piper says, quote, so we should not speak of getting to heaven by faith alone in the same way we are justified by faith alone.

01:01:32

You see how clear that is in his thinking? Getting into heaven and how you're justified are completely different things.

01:01:39

And you should not think of getting into heaven by faith alone. You get justified by faith alone.

01:01:45

Getting into heaven is on the basis and grounds of your works. Piper says love, the fruit of faith, is the necessary confirmation that we have faith and are alive.

01:01:56

We won't enter heaven until we have it. There is a holiness without which we will not see the

01:02:03

Lord, Hebrews 12, 14, end quote. You see how clear it is in his thinking? Justification is not how you get into heaven, according to John Piper.

01:02:12

And this is why John Piper is so subtle and dangerous in his teaching. This hard distinction between justification and getting into heaven or final salvation, listen closely to me, it allows him to sound completely biblical, orthodox, and reformed when he's talking about justification.

01:02:29

And so if John Piper preaches and teaches on justification, he will say, emphatically, exactly what we would say.

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But because he thinks final salvation is entirely different from justification, he's a purveyor of a false gospel.

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Listen to what Piper says about justification. Listen to this. Listen to how good this sounds. Quote, If you choose to rely just a little bit on law keeping as a way of getting justified, as a way of getting into the position where God is 100 % for you, then

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Christ will be of no advantage to you. Paul says, if you want to go the route of justification by any law keeping, you must go the route of justification by total law keeping.

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Perfection. That's what Piper says. My response to that? Amen. Preach it. He's right.

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He continues, Galatians 5 .3, I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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There are two ways of justification. The way of law keeping, which requires your perfection, and the way of faith, which depends on Christ's perfection.

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Doesn't that sound good? He's right. These two paths into the position where God is 100 % for you are so distinct they cannot be mixed.

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If you are trusting Christ for a righteous standing, where God is 100 % for you, you cannot mix into that way of justification one ounce of effort to establish your own righteousness.

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And if you are seeking to establish your own righteousness, your own record of virtue, as your entrance into the position where God is 100 % for you, you cannot mix in the slightest faith in Christ as your all -sufficient righteousness.

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It is one or the other. Law keeping to establish my righteousness, or faith alone to rest in Christ for righteousness.

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End quote. Amen. Amen. Amen. But very shortly after that correct teaching,

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John Piper says this, quote, so we should not speak of getting to heaven by faith alone in the same way we are justified by faith alone.

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Here's the problem, and here's what you must understand. Folks, the biblical doctrine of justification is the doctrine of how you get to heaven and is the doctrine of final salvation.

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Justification is a legal act. Once for all, instantaneous act, it is not a process.

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It is an act made by God as our judge at the last judgment. Jesus Christ, our curse -bearing substitute, is nailed to Calvary's cross and takes the full judicial, legal, law -cursed punishment for all of our sins, both original and actual.

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Jesus Christ's cross fully discharges the debt of punishment to God's holy law and delivers us from its punishment completely and perfectly.

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Paul said in Galatians 3 .13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse in our behalf.

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For it is written, Curse is everyone who hangs on a tree. The curse of the law, Christ bore in our place instead.

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Folks, please hear me. That is the final judgment. What happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross?

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That was the day of wrath. That was the day of judgment. That is the day of final salvation, brought back in time and applied to us once for all at the moment of our effectual calling when we repent and believe and are united to Christ.

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The cross is the final judgment. Reflect on that. The doctrine of the legal, forensic justification of the sinner before God is itself the very basis upon which sinners go to heaven.

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There is also the positive requirement of God's law upon all human beings. Not only are we forbidden to transgress and disobey

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God's law, we are also required to positively produce a perfectly righteous life. Folks, this covenant of works, forbidding disobedience, requiring perfect obedience to the law, is one of the clearest and simplest teachings in the

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Bible. When Paul describes how a person gets to heaven, he describes it as two imputations, two creditings.

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Romans 4, 6, just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

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That's the positive law -keeping. It is imputed to my legal account. It is taken from Christ, transferred to my legal account before God.

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I now stand before God under my new federal covenantal head, Jesus Christ. His law -keeping is accepted by God the

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Father as my own. The satisfaction of my sins at Calvary's cross, that my sins will not be charged against me, is the negative imputation.

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Paul says in Romans 4, 6 through 8, just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose transgressions are covered. Listen. Blessed is the man, verse 8, to whom the

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Lord will not impute sin. Why will my sins not be charged against me?

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Because Christ bore them on the cross. They were legally transferred in their entirety from me to him.

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He bears the curse in its entirety. His righteousness, as Romans 4, 6 says, is charged, imputed, credited to my account.

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I now stand before God, dressed in the obedience and righteousness of Christ, and my sins are forgiven.

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And folks, that is the only way a human can get into heaven. That's not just, well, initially you're justified by faith alone, but then you're saved at the last day by the fruits of your faith.

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Folks, that is not true. The fruits of your faith could never stand before God's holiness.

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Never. That's why we need someone else's righteousness. That's why we need the obedience of someone else.

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That's why Paul says over and over and over in Romans 5, 12 -19, by the obedience of the one man, many will be made sinners.

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How much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall live through the one man,

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Jesus Christ. You see how clear it is? It is so clear in Scripture.

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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Folks, that's not talking about initially.

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Initially we have peace with God and then, well, whether or not we're going to have peace at the last judgment depends on how much fruit you've borne.

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That is not true. That is not the case. Paul says in Romans 8 -1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

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You know what else that means? At the last judgment, there will be no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Paul even asks rhetorically,

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Romans 8 -33, who will bring a charge against God's elect at the final judgment?

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That's what he's talking about. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?

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You see that? Justified and condemned. That is talking about the day of judgment. Who will bring a charge against me?

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Nobody. Why? Because Christ, my curse bearer, took it all away. And I stand justified once and for all eternity in him.

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What about the word saved? And what about the biblical term salvation? John Piper points out a lot that while the term saved is often used in a broader context.

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It's used to encompass more than just justification. Aren't those words saved and salvation sometimes seen as including more than justification?

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The answer to that question is yes. And how do we know if saved is synonymous with justification or if it's being used more broadly in any specific passage?

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Well, there's the three rules of exegesis. Context, context, and context. The context tells you.

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And we also bear in mind as well that if our interpretation of any given text of scripture is at odds with what is clearly taught in lengthy passages and chapter after chapter after chapter of teaching on that topic then we are wrong.

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In Ephesians 2, 8 -10 Paul uses the participle sosmonoi of the verb sozo,

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I save. And he uses it as a synonym for justification. For by grace you have been saved.

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You have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

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For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

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Remember what Piper said? We are saved by the fruits of our faith. We are saved by our works.

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What did Paul say? We're saved by grace through faith, not by works, lest anyone should boast.

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If Piper's correct, we will boast on the day of judgment. Those that go to heaven will be there because of the fruits of their faith.

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They will be there on the grounds of that fruit. Paul is using the word saved here as a synonym for justified.

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Thus it is said to be not by works, lest anyone should boast. If at the final judgment I was saved from God's wrath against my sin through works

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I have done, then I would boast and I would have every right to do so. Here's another passage where salvation and being saved is likewise synonymous with being justified.

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Again, how do I know this? How do I know that saved in the passage I'm about to read is a synonym for justified? The context.

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Romans 5, 8 and 9. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners

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Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

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There saved is again synonymous with justification. How do I know that? Because it's right there in the passage. Having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

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God saves us from his wrath because Jesus' shed blood has justified us legally. Wrath is the legal punishment of God against us for having broken his laws.

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We are saved from wrath because we have been justified by the blood of Christ. Christ bore the curse and wrath of God in our place on Calvary's cross.

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John Piper cites two passages as his basis for believing that final salvation is by works or by the fruits of our faith in our lives and not by faith in Christ alone.

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He cites 2 Thessalonians 2 .13 and Hebrews 12 .14. 2 Thessalonians 2 .13 reads as follows.

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But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the

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Spirit and belief in the truth. Piper sees an association in this verse between salvation as being something that is accomplished through sanctification by the

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Spirit and belief in the truth and he concludes, see, final salvation is through the works that we do as the fruit of our faith.

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The problems with this interpretation are several. Number one, the translation that Piper's quoting is not a good translation.

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The preposition through in Greek is dia and it's not used there. What it says is because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation unto salvation in sanctification of spirit and belief in truth.

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That's what it literally reads. We have been and are being sanctified by the work of the Spirit in us to be sure but, folks, it is not on account of this or on this basis that salvation comes to pass.

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That is being read into the passage. It does not say that. The term soteria, salvation is also being used here in that broader sense to encompass all of the work that God does in the life of the redeemed person.

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But this passage, 2 Thessalonians 2 .15, is not discussing the entrance of a person into heaven, nor is it discussing this entirely anti -scriptural idea of final salvation.

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Nor does it say anything at all about the instrumental cause of our salvation nor of the grounds of our entrance into heaven.

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It is simply stating this glorious truth. God chose us from the beginning for salvation in being set apart of spirit and believing in the truth.

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That's all that passage is saying. There is absolutely nothing here at all that would support John Piper's false teaching.

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Quote, In final salvation at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit.

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And I have to wonder once again, why would John Piper go to a passing statement like that in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 to ground such an earth -shattering and important teaching?

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John Piper says clearly and emphatically, We should not speak of getting into heaven by faith alone in the same way we are justified by faith alone.

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I want you to think about how absurd that statement really is. I want you to reflect on how anti -biblical it is and how much it detracts from the perfection of the work of Christ.

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To be justified before God as opposed to condemned in scripture is talking about final salvation and the entrance into heaven of all of God's children at the last day.

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Remember how I began the sermon. Heaven or hell. The justified go to heaven.

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The condemned go to hell. It's that simple. And allow me to elaborate a little bit more here.

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When the question is asked, how can I go to heaven and not hell when I die? That is the same question as how can

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I be justified before God as opposed to condemned? That is the same question. Asking how can

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I go to heaven instead of hell is asking the question on the day of judgment when God sits on his throne and renders the verdict.

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How can I be sure my verdict will be justified instead of condemned? You see, those who repent and believe the gospel of Christ have all of their sins forgiven, have

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Jesus Christ's perfect righteousness credited to their legal account before God, and thus they are once and for all eternity justified before God at the final judgment.

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That final verdict is brought back in time and applied to them the moment that they believe.

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But when we say we get to heaven by faith alone and Christ alone, which is what I pray all of you say,

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I am getting into heaven by faith alone. What we're really saying when we say that is this, the sole grounds of our justification is the shed blood and the righteousness of Christ alone.

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When I say I believe I am going to heaven by faith alone, what I am really saying to you is I believe

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I'm going to heaven on the basis of the work of Christ alone. When God summons us forth for judgment,

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God will examine only the righteousness of Christ in our account and the perfect cross work of Christ as the full payment for our sins.

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And thus we will be justified at the last judgment solely, completely, and only because of what

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Jesus has done in our behalf. Jesus paid the full punishment our sins deserve at the justice of God.

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Jesus' preceptive and perfect obedience to the law of God is accounted or reckoned into our account before God so that we appear before God as if we had kept all of His holy laws our whole life.

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That is the only way a person can get into heaven. There will be no assessment of our transformation as the grounds of our salvation.

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There will be no inspection to see if we put sin to death enough or pursued holiness enough to get us into heaven.

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Putting sin to death and pursuing holiness is the fruit of justification, not its cause.

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When the apples grow on those apple trees over there by the manse, those trees are not turned into apple trees by bearing apples.

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They bear apples because they're apple trees. In addition to being justified before God, God by His awesome and gracious power makes the dead sinner alive in Christ.

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He implants a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. He causes us to mourn for our sin and to see our poverty of spirit.

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He creates in us a desire to put sin to death, to love our brothers and sisters in the Lord, to pursue righteousness, to love

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His church, to care about the people around us, to hate idols, to love God and to live for the one who died for us and rose again.

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But that's not justification. That's not how you get to heaven.

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These are all of the other saving graces that always accompany justification and how we get into heaven, but they are not justification and they are not how we get into heaven.

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John Piper is wrong about that. As soon as even the smallest iota of our own works enters into the equation as the grounds or basis upon which we enter heaven, we have destroyed the gospel and the grace of God and turned it into a sham.

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Galatians 2 .21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, if final salvation comes through the fruits of my faith,

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Christ died in vain. If getting into heaven comes by the life of love

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I live in response to God's initial justification, then Christ died in vain. Galatians 5 .1

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-4 Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

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Indeed I, Paul, say to you, I'd like to modify this to fit our situation, I say to you that if you trust in the fruits of your faith,

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Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify to every man who trusts in the fruits of their faith to save them on the last day and to get them into heaven that you are a debtor to keep the whole law.

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And Christ will be of no benefit to you. You have become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified by the fruits of your faith.

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You who attempt to get into heaven by the fruits of your faith. You who think that final salvation is on the basis of your works.

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You have fallen from grace. Remember the key to John Piper's error in his false gospel is this.

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He makes a radical separation without, and this is what what stuns me, without even attempting to argue for it from scripture.

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He makes a radical separation between how a person gets justified before God and how we get to heaven.

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In his thinking, entirely different matters. But folks, justification is how we get to heaven.

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Justification is how we get into heaven. Justification is itself the final verdict on the last day.

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What does our shorter catechism say? What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? At the resurrection believers being raised up in glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment.

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Folks, why are we going to be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment? Christ! Him!

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Not because of the fruits of our faith. We are all either justified or condemned. And John Piper's subtle, deadly error allows him to go on and on and on and on about how justification is by faith alone apart from any works at all, even the slightest work.

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If you go the direction of justification by a little law keeping, he says, you go the direction of justification by total law keeping.

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And we all say, amen! But someone needs to stand up and say, yeah, but he doesn't think that that's what gets you into heaven. And all the dyed -in -the -wool

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Calvinists and Protestants jump up and shout, amen! Piper's one of us. And then he shows us his cards.

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How do you get to heaven? You don't get into heaven by faith alone. You don't get into heaven by the righteousness of Christ alone.

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You don't get into heaven by the cross of Christ alone. You get justified by faith alone. You get justified by the righteousness of Christ alone and the cross alone.

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You get into a position where God is 100 % for you by faith alone. And in order to get to heaven, that faith must bear the fruit of love, pursue the holiness without which no one will see the

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Lord, put to death the deeds of the body, and you will live. Piper says we should not speak of getting into heaven at the last day, through the last judgment, when all of our lives this is a quotation, when all of our lives are assessed for whether there's been any transformation confirming the reality of our faith, which alone justifies.

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We should not say you can live like the devil and get to heaven. You can't."

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Think about that again. Has the Christian church ever heard that objection before? You know who heard that objection all the time?

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The apostle Paul did. Well, Paul, this idea that you get into heaven without any works at all, that the grounds of your acceptance with God is the righteousness of Christ alone.

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Are you just saying people can live like the devil and go to heaven? Justification is one thing, according to Piper.

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Getting to heaven? Totally different matter. Let me just say it the way it really is. For John Piper, justification has nothing to do with getting to heaven.

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Justification has nothing to do with getting past the final judgment. When a man stands up and announces to the world that you don't get to heaven by faith alone, what he is really saying is you don't get into heaven by the righteousness of Christ.

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That is what Piper is saying. That is what he is teaching. Why is that word alone so critical when we speak of justification by faith alone?

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When we say we get into heaven by faith alone, we say the scriptures teach that we are justified by faith alone.

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Why would anyone think that that word alone, as I just read it in that statement, is not only worth fighting for, it's worth dying for.

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It's worth denouncing reformed royalty for, as John Piper is. In order to explain this well,

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I want you to think about the real controversy between Rome and the Reformation regarding how sinners are justified before God.

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The question that separated us from Rome and continues this very day to separate us, and rightly so, is this.

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What is the grounds of the sinner's justification before God on the day of judgment? What is the grounds of our acceptance with God?

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In other words, what is it that God as judge will examine when we are summoned forth to the judgment seat to hear our verdict?

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Upon what grounds are sinners pronounced righteous in the sight of God and justified as opposed to condemned?

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The question in the 16th century during the Reformation that came into the foreground was not, does God require us to be righteous to get into heaven?

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The question was, where do we get the righteousness? Where does it come from? Protestant reformers, following Scripture, answered it with this, the only righteousness that has the merit to meet the requirements of the holiness of God and thus get us into heaven and pass the last judgment is that righteousness that was achieved and performed by Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ alone.

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So when we say we're getting into heaven by faith alone, what we're really saying by that is, the righteousness of Christ is the only thing that God will examine on my day of judgment to get me into heaven.

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That's where the word alone comes into focus. Historic Protestant theology has always acknowledged that what the phrase justification by faith alone really means is justification by the righteousness of Christ alone.

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The Roman Catholic Church and John Piper would say that the way in which

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God will declare a sinner to be just and for them to get into heaven is that they have to have a righteousness that adheres within them, an intrinsic righteousness that is brought about by the works of the sinner.

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Now, Rome and John Piper would say that you can't be just without the grace of Christ, without the help of Christ, without the power of Christ, without grace or without faith.

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But added to that grace, added to that faith, added to that Christ must be the personal contribution of the sinner, must be the fruits of our faith, without which

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God will not let you into heaven. John Piper's gospel is so much the same as Rome's.

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It's really quite remarkable. By radically separating justification from final salvation, Piper would have the sinner to rely on the final analysis upon this assessment of the fruit of his faith as being that which will get them into heaven.

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He says it himself. We are saved through that fruit. You're not saved by Christ. You're not saved by his righteousness, not by his cross.

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You are saved through that fruit that you bear by your works. And just in case people are wanting to accuse me of misrepresentation,

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I just want to read it again. This is John Piper on Desiring God's website.

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In justification, faith receives a finished work of Christ performed outside of us and counted as ours, imputed to us. In sanctification, faith receives an ongoing power of Christ that works inside us for practical holiness.

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In final salvation, at the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne, and we are saved through that fruit and that faith.

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He's very clear. He's very clear. In the final analysis of the final judgment, which by the way, his thinking, that has nothing to do with justification.

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Your justification is not the final judgment. How are you saved? By your works. By the fruit you bear. Anathema. Curse.

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My final words to you this morning are some warnings. The most dangerous people to the biblical gospel at any given moment are never atheists.

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They're never defenders of other religions. The most dangerous people to the health of a church and to the gospel of Christ have always been and always will be ordained ministers.

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Paul warned the church about this at Ephesus in Acts 20, 28. He said to the elders of the church, take heed to yourself and to all the flock among which the

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Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

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Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

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Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11, 13, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.

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And no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their works.

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Who are the most deadly, dangerous people in the church today? Guys that get in pulpits. Guys who are ministers of righteousness supposedly.

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2 Peter 2, 1. But there were also false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies.

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Folks, so many people, so many people have been duped by what Piper is saying. It's really amazing to me.

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Secretly bring in destructive heresies. Even denying the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction.

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In my entire life as a pastor and as a ruling elder, John Piper's false gospel is by far the most crafty and subtle I've ever heard.

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And frankly, I hold him to be one of the most dangerous men alive today. I want you to know, I take no delight in saying that at all.

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But when someone can shout and yell and preach with every fiber of his soul, justification is by faith alone.

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And if you add even any works at all, you go the direction of justification by total law keeping.

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It's all Christ and it's all his righteousness. That is the only way you can be just before God. Christians are going to hear that and go, hey, that's right, that's the gospel.

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But he's not sliding in the other card there. That has nothing to do with how you get to heaven, folks, in Piper's thinking.

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How do you get to heaven? By works. See, justification is not how you get to heaven in his thinking.

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Isn't that subtle? When I first listened to it, I thought, that sounds like what we're saying. But by one sentence, he just throws the whole thing away.

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In final salvation, we are saved through the fruits of our faith.

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Not by faith alone. Not by Christ. Not by his righteousness. Not his cross. John Piper made a comment that made chills run down my spine.

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He said, we should not say you can live like the devil and get to heaven. You can't. And how does

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Piper answer that objection? He conditions final salvation on works.

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What's God's answer to the very same question? I've had people say to me, you're saying you can just sin all you want and still go to heaven.

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Would I ever say in response, oh, no, no, no, no. You're saved in the final analysis by the works you do. That's not the answer.

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What's the answer? Regeneration. Romans 6 .1, what shall we say then?

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Why is Paul asking that? What shall we say then? Because that's what people said to him all the time. Romans 5 .20, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

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A dangerous sounding teaching, isn't it? Paul says, what shall we say then? Shall we tell people they can live like the devil and still go to heaven?

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What's Paul's answer? Does he say, in final salvation, there's an assessment of your fruit and that you're saved by those works.

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Is that Paul's answer? No. It is not. How does Paul answer it? How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer?

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Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death.

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Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

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Romans 6 .14, sin shall not have dominion over you. Romans 6 .18, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

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The biblical answer to the most common objection to the free grace of God in the full justification that we have by faith alone, a full entrance into heaven by faith alone and Christ alone.

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The biblical answer to the question, you're just saying people can live like the devil and still go to heaven. Our answer to that is no.

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God regenerates us. A justified person, the person who will be entering heaven at the last judgment on the basis of the cross and the imputed righteousness of Christ alone has been made new.

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Their heart of stone has been replaced with a living beating spiritual heart of flesh that loves

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God, that loves neighbor, that hates sin, that pursues holiness, that puts sin to death. John Piper is actually agreeing with Paul's enemies.

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He says, we should not say you can live like the devil and still go to heaven. And John Piper believes that if we teach justification, which is final salvation at the last judgment, if we say that you get to heaven by faith alone, that we're actually telling people you can live like the devil and still go to heaven.

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And Paul's answer and the answer of the Christian church to that objection is may it never be. Certainly not.

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How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer? Remember what Paul says?

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I was crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

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And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul would never say.

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And the church has never said. And the reformers never said. And the Westminster divines never said.

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Well, justification is by faith alone, but you get into heaven by works. That's not the answer. Ezekiel 36 27.

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Here's the answer to Piper's problem. Ezekiel 36 27. Listen to the way

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God describes every person who's in the new covenant, every person that he saves. Listen to what he says.

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These are God's words. Here's Piper. We should not tell people they can live like the devil and still go to heaven.

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Here's God's answer to that question. Piper's answer is we've got to condition heaven on works. No, that's a false gospel.

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Totally wrong. That's the religion of the natural man. You're stockpiling the line of people who are going to say,

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Lord, Lord, didn't I do this? Didn't I bear this fruit? Didn't I bear that fruit? And Jesus is going to say, depart from me.

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I never knew you. Here's God's answer to the problem. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and you will keep my judgments and do them.

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God does that in the life of every believer without fail.

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Justification, our legal verdict on the great day of judgment is by faith alone. And that verdict is pronounced upon the legal grounds of the cross work of Christ and Christ's righteousness alone.

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Justification is by faith alone because justification is by the righteousness of Christ alone. We get into heaven by faith alone because we get into heaven by the righteousness and blood of Christ alone.

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John Piper is dead wrong on this point. We put sin to death and we pursue holiness for one and only one reason.

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God puts his spirit within us and causes us to walk in his statutes and we will keep his judgments and do them.

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And praise be to God, our walking in God's statutes and keeping his judgments and doing them is not and does not form any part of the basis upon which we are saved or upon which we enter into heaven.

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Those for whom Jesus Christ has died on Calvary's cross and those whose legal status has been changed from condemned before the law to justified before the law of God will never have a charge brought against them.

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And I say to everyone here and all whoever hear this message justification is final salvation.

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Justification is how we get into heaven and the only righteousness that has the merit necessary to meet the requirements of the holiness of God is that righteousness that was achieved and performed by Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.

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And if your confidence at the last day is that the fruit of your faith will be what

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God sees in order to let you into heaven, I testify to you as Paul testified to the

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Galatians Judaizers, Christ will be of no benefit to you. What will get you into heaven?

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Christ alone. What will get you past the final judgment at the last day? Christ alone.

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And I want to close with two stanzas of Augustus Toplety's great hymn, Rock of Ages. Here's a man who wrote this hymn who really understood justification, he understood the gospel, he understood how you get to heaven, he understood what the last judgment was all about.

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Listen. Not the labors of my hands can fulfill the law's demands.

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Could my zeal know respite? No. Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone.

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Thou must save and thou alone. Nothing in my hand

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I bring and I would just break in. Not even the fruits of my faith. Not even the good deeds

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I did as a Christian. Not even my transformed life. Nothing in my hand I bring.

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Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress.

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Helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly.

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Wash me, Savior, or I die. Let's pray. Our God in heaven, we are so thankful to you for the one true and living gospel that can save us.

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Lord, I pray you would shut John Piper's mouth. He's obviously not open to correction. So many have tried.

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The scriptures teach us so clearly. Our entrance into heavenly glory, our entrance into heavenly glory is upon the grounds of the obedience and crosswork of Jesus.

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Nothing else. And Lord, the fruit that we bear is our response of gratitude to you.

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It is the fruit of your work within us. The faith that justifies us, yes, it is always accompanied by all those other saving graces, but those other saving graces are not our salvation.

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They are not our justification. Our justification before you is that we appear on the day of judgment dressed in the perfect pristine robe of the righteousness of Christ.

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As the prophet Isaiah foretold long ago, you have clothed me in garments of salvation and have arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.

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We thank you for the perfection of the work of Christ. We thank you that for us who know Jesus and are in him by faith alone, the final judgment has already taken place.

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It was born by Christ at the cross. Our sins have been borne away, and we bear them no more.