Balancing The Gospel

Moore's Corner Church

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Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

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Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

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D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

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If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

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Hey, just believe in Jesus and then go out and do whatever you want. Typically, I've never heard a

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Christian preacher say that, but in a roundabout way, oftentimes that is what is believed and preached.

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Just to use a modern example, there is one famous pastor who infamously preached a sermon years ago teaching that Christians must unhitch from the

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Old Testament. We're talking about license here. There's legalism and now license.

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He said Christians must unhitch from the Old Testament. Why would he say that? Because the

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Old Testament has all of this violence. The Old Testament has all of these stories like Adam and Eve in the garden,

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Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel. It has all these stories that people just find really hard to believe.

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You know, now that we have modern science, how can you believe in Noah's Ark? So his attitude was the

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Old Testament was a stumbling block, so we need to kind of unhitch from the

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Old Testament. Never mind with all that, he said, all you need to do is believe in Jesus.

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Okay, and if that wasn't bad enough, he said the morality and the whole worldview of the

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Old Testament needed to be unhitched from Christianity. In a sermon, he actually said, thou shall not obey the

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Ten Commandments. Not thou shall, he said thou shall not obey the

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Ten Commandments. How could you say that? Because believing in Jesus and the resurrection is all you need.

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That's his whole argument. As long as you believe in Jesus, that's all you need. Do you know what that is?

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That's license. That's what we're talking about. Now I can preach the book of Galatians and leave this in the past.

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What good is that if you don't apply it in the modern day? So I think it's necessary we give modern day examples.

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That same pastor, and the only reason I bring this up, because he's probably one of, if not the most famous pastor in the

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United States of America. Now he has taken it a step further, and now he's saying that not just the

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Old Testament, the Bible itself is not necessary. You don't need to believe the

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Bible. It's not about the Bible. All you need is Jesus, which is kind of crazy if you think about it, because the only thing you know about Jesus comes from where?

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From the Bible. From the Bible. Have you heard of the term deconstruction?

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If you're not familiar with the term, check it out. Deconstruction. Basically what's happening is people's faith in Christ is being deconstructed.

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This is what some of these pastors are doing. They are trying to deconstruct people's faith.

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The Judaizers were trying to deconstruct the faith of the Galatians. Paul had gone in, preached the true gospel, they believed, they were saved.

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The Judaizers came in and they tried to deconstruct. So what these people are doing is they're chipping away, they keep chipping away at the foundation until there's nothing left except this empty profession.

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Hey, I believe in Jesus, but now I'm free to go and do whatever I want.

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Do you think people, well we know the Judaizers were doing this in Galatians, right?

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We've been reading about it for the last several months. Do you think that still happens today? Of course, of course it does.

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And yet when you bring cases like this and show, here's a clear example, people are sometimes slow to believe it.

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I suspect the Apostle Paul was really frustrated at times when he was writing to the

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Corinthians and to the Galatians. Do you think he got frustrated? He had to have been frustrated.

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Like why are you listening to the Judaizers? Why are you listening to them?

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You remember what the Pharisees and the scribes are doing? What did Jesus say about them?

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He called them blind guides. And he said, if the blind leadeth the blind, both will fall where?

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Into the ditch. And that's what's happening today. All right, you're in Romans three, flip over to Romans chapter six.

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So we need, what's the point? We need to avoid the ditches. Avoid the ditch of legalism.

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Avoid the ditch of license. That famous pastor that I mentioned, based on the sin that he tolerates in his church, yeah, that's license.

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Just as long as you say you believe in Jesus, nothing else really, really matters. So Paul in Romans, he's been preaching

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God's grace. You're saved through faith, faith alone. Now, so that nobody gets the wrong idea, look at chapter six.

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Chapter six, starting in verse one. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

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Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

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Skip down to verse 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it and its lusts.

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And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

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For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under what?

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Grace. You are not under law, but under grace. Some people will filter out all of those verses.

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Filter it out, filter it out, and latch on. I'm not under law, I'm under grace. And that's the only thing they hear.

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Not under law, under grace. But you can't do that. Keep reading. It says in verse 13, what then?

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Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not.

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Or God forbid. So anytime you get the wrong idea or someone gets the wrong idea from reading the

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Bible, just keep reading. That's why we always talk about taking the

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Bible in context, reading the verses before and reading the verses after.

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How many times have you heard that from this church? Just think of not enough.

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Yeah, I like that answer. So anytime you open your

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Bible, that little voice in the back of your head, read the verses before, read the verses after.

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This is what we need, so it's just second nature to us. It'll do us a lot of good.

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Okay, so certainly not. Now let's turn to Ephesians chapter 2. So a point is, a true saving faith is a faith that is accompanied by good works.

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See, you cannot love Jesus and love sin. That's not possible. If you love sin, you do not love

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Jesus because Jesus was tortured and killed to die for sin. You cannot love

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Jesus and love sin. Now part of you and your flesh, you are trying to hold on, your flesh is trying to hold on to sin because that's what the flesh does.

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But a true believer regenerated by the Holy Spirit, you may sin, but you hate your sin.

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You have that desire to want to overcome it and to kill the sin in your life.

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You cannot love Jesus and love and celebrate sin. It's just not possible.

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So every time the Bible talks about salvation by grace through faith, it always gives the other side.

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You're in Ephesians 2. Let's look at it. Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through what?

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Faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast.

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There it is. Perhaps the most clear verse in all of the Bible. Salvation is by grace through faith, not of works.

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Couldn't be more clear. But in case someone would be tempted to misunderstand, keep reading.

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Look at verse 10. For we are what? His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for what?

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Good works. Which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

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All right. Let's look at another verse. We're going to look at some of these main. But we're almost done. Look at some of these main verses that teach salvation by faith alone.

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We're going to see. If you keep reading, Paul always gives the other side. So turn to Titus chapter 3.

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Titus 3. And by the way, when

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Paul says, you know, we should walk in good works. He isn't saying, you know, well,

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I mean, you should, you know, if you feel like it. If you want to. That's not what he was saying. So we've seen in the book of Galatians, faith alone.

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Amen. But then you get to chapter 5. Faith working through love. Don't use your liberty as an occasion to the flesh.

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Ephesians 2. Salvation is by faith, not by works. And then verse 10.

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We are his workmanship. We're going to see this again in Titus 3. Look at verse 1. Paul says, remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities and to obey and to be ready for what?

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Every good work. To speak evil of no one. Be peaceable. Gentle.

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Showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

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But when the kindness and the love of God, our Savior appeared toward man, not by works of righteousness, which we have done.

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But according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

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Holy Spirit. So you see that statement? Not by works of righteousness.

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Verse 5. Right? You see that? Not by works. We are saved according to what?

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His mercy. But unless someone gets the wrong idea, go down to verse 8.

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This is a faithful saying. In these things, I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain what?

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Good works. These things are good and profitable to men.

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You know, if the Bible is anything, it's true, it's powerful, but it's also consistent.

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It's also consistent. This teaching of legalism, that you're saved by what you do in some institutional churches, this is what they believe and this is what is being taught.

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And there's no peace in that. People are taught that they have to work and work and work until the end of their life.

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And at any one moment, if they mess up, they could be cast into hell. There's no assurance. There's no peace.

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That they have to work and work and work to please God. And they never really know. The salvation is by...

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That's a false gospel. But yet many are taught that. On the other hand, there's license.

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Here's the other ditch. Hey, just say you believe in Jesus and you're good. See you later.

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Do whatever you want. Both are false gospels. So anyone who tried to accuse the

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Apostle Paul of preaching some sort of easy believism, say a prayer, walk an aisle, affirm the name of Jesus and believe and do whatever you want.

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They've either never actually read the Bible or, again, there's this filter where they only hear what they want to hear.

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And, again, true to the message of Galatians, I believe the main reason is false teaching.

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I believe this is the main reason. The Judaizers who taught salvation came to the law, they were trying to lead people into one ditch.

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The license crowd, that's a whole other thing, trying to lead people into the other ditch.

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It's also called antinomianism. It's being against God's law.

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Again, thou shalt not obey the Ten Commandments. That's classic antinomianism.

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So there's people who want to lead you in one direction. There's another crowd who wants to lead you in another direction.

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Where do you need to be? You need to stay in the middle of the road. That, yes, we will always affirm salvation is by grace, through faith, not of works.

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So salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone. In Christ alone. But the faith that saves is not alone.

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It will be accompanied by good works. Galatians 5, verse 6,

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For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love.

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Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornet Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website,

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MorrisCornetChurch .com We'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett.