The Most Abused & Misused Verses in The Bible (Pt. 4)

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Welcome to Trueology, where we study Christian theology, philosophy, and apologetics.

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But most of all, we want to glorify the Lord through our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.

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So, stay with us as we open up the Word of God and look into everything pertaining to life and godliness.

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My name is Belushi Prevalon, coming to you from the Boston area, and right now, you are listening to Trueology, the study of the truth, as it is in Jesus.

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Welcome to Trueology. My name is Belushi Prevalon, and I want to thank you for tuning in again to our very first series, which we will be continuing on this episode, which is called,

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The Most Abused and Misused Verses in the Bible. Now, I want to jump right into it, and hopefully we can reach our mark today, which is to keep this just about 45 minutes.

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So, if you will, let's just jump right into it, and we're going to be looking at, in this episode,

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John 3, verse 3. And it says, Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily,

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I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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Now, the common meaning is typically, you need to make the decision to be born again.

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In other words, you need to pray and ask Jesus into your heart, or make a personal decision to accept

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Christ in order to be born again. The biblical meaning, which I will be contending for here, is that spiritual sight and life is acquired only after the new birth has taken place.

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Now, why do I contend for that? Well, if we look at this verse, it is very obvious that Jesus is not setting before Nicodemus, the person whom he is talking to here, an ultimatum.

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He is not saying, Nicodemus, you need to personally choose to either do this rather than this.

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But rather, Jesus is explicitly here making a statement, and that statement is predicated upon the word, accept.

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Now, I know typically people will look at this word, accept, to mean that, oh, you need to make a decision.

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If you don't do this, then you will not be saved, but you should do this in order to bring about the grace of regeneration.

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But unfortunately, the word accept here is not setting that opportunity up for us, but rather, Jesus is making a clear statement.

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In other words, Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, I know you're saying that you have seen the miracles that I've been doing, and that you think that I'm a prophet, and you have surmised that, oh, this must be

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God at work. But I'm telling you that except the work of regeneration is already a fact in your life, you would not be able to see the things that God is doing, nor could you partake in the kingdom and rule of God and his economy for the saints.

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The reason why the common meaning has spurred amongst the Christian culture today is because of a modern heresy called decisional regeneration.

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Now, if you don't know what decisional regeneration is, allow me to explain it for you.

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Decisional regeneration is the belief that a person must make a personal decision for Christ, consciously accepting him as Savior in order to be saved.

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According to decisional regeneration, or decisional theology, the new birth occurs when someone, one, hears the gospel, two, is convicted of the truth of the gospel, three, understands the need for salvation, and four, chooses to accept

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Christ rather than reject him. Often the decision to accept Christ is marked by an action such as walking down an aisle, praying the sinner's prayer, signing a decision card, or any other activity similar to it.

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Now, I got that definition from gotquestions .org, which is very succinct, and I believe will help us in our understanding.

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And to be honest, this is a problem. Now, why is it a problem? It almost seems very biblical the way it is expressed there, but we cannot look at this superficially.

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We must actually delve into what is behind the theology of making a decision or accepting

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Christ mentality. So, why is this a problem? One, because this associates spiritual things with physical activities, such as walking an aisle and praying the sinner's prayer.

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You know, it also is a problem because this is based on emotional experience rather than the

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Holy Spirit. And why do I make that point? Well, because Jesus actually expresses and explains the work of the

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Holy Spirit and how we will know the Holy Spirit is at work. And before I go on, I just want to just predicate this real quick and say, or parenthesize this and say, we actually do not know when or how the

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Holy Spirit essentially works, but what we can see, according to what Jesus says in John 3, 7 through 8, is that the

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Holy Spirit works as the wind, and it's mysterious how he works. We can never truly tell when his effects will take place, but over time, we will see them because we will have seen that the wind has blown indeed.

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So, why do I make the objection that this is a problem? Because it's based on emotional experience? Because when we associate people walking an aisle and praying the sinner's prayer or even crying for that matter as a work of the

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Holy Spirit, what we do is we actually undermine the true work of the Holy Spirit, which is seen by the effect of the

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Word of God taking place in their lives and not necessarily the physical responses that take place, such as walking an aisle, kneeling down, and actually repeating a prayer after somebody.

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So, I believe that, you know, decisional regeneration takes us down that avenue, and it can become very blurry of what the gospel is.

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It can blur what the gospel is because it takes us away from the precepts of Scripture on how to actually evangelize people in a proper manner.

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Thirdly, I think this is a problem because it is, because it's based on the emotional experiences that we're supposed to look for, it becomes very manipulative.

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And what do I mean by that? Well, I know many of us are very well -meaning, but unfortunately, if we are willing to admit it, we have adopted a culture of Christianity that is actually swayed away from true evangelism.

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I mean, if you go to most churches today, the way in which we actually set the stage for conversions to happen is by playing piano music or playing any music set in the atmosphere and having a sense of the wooing of the calling and Spirit of God so that people can, quote -unquote, respond and make a response to the evangelistic effort which we have, quote -unquote, proclaimed.

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This is manipulation. I'm sorry, if you hold to that, we must be careful because that is not what the first century apostles did, that is not what

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Jesus taught, and that is, you know, before the 19th century, that kind of method did not exist in the

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Christian church. Now, what I'm not saying is that having invitations is wrong.

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What I am saying is that setting the stage to gender a response in people in that fashion is swinging skewed away from the true evangelistic efforts of the

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Scripture, and what we can see is clearly taught in it. So that's why that is a problem, and I would caution you to consider that before you outright just wave your hand at it and say, that's not true, we must give people an opportunity.

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My response to that would be, where do the apostles teach that?

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Fourth thing that I see that might be a problem with this decisional regeneration method is that this is essentially calling you to cooperate with God.

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Okay, now stop, pause. Before you shake your head and wag it off at me, just listen for a second.

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I'm not saying that we cannot cooperate with God in the sense that we obey Him and we follow His ways and we do, and we yoke up with Jesus and we just fellowship with Him.

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That is cooperating with God in the biblical sense, but in the decisional regeneration sense, cooperating with God is essentially initiating the grace of God.

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See, if we have a true definition of grace that is unmerited favor, God acts out of the goodness and good pleasure of His heart and wisdom, then we cannot introduce decisional regeneration as the door through which we receive the grace and abundance and goodness of God and regeneration.

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What do I mean by this? Well, it seems like our definition of grace is undermined by our personal acceptance of Christ or our making a decision for Christ, and that is bringing us to a place where we are actually saying that the grace of God cannot save me unless I allow

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Him to save me. And we should really consider that, because if grace really means

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God acting upon His soul good pleasure, then there is nothing that can keep

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Him from accomplishing His will in us. So, therefore, cooperating with God has been a hindrance to true evangelism today, and you can see many people applying and adopting this method to the point where they will say,

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God cannot save you unless you do what Jesus says here, except ye be born again, right?

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Unless you allow Jesus to use

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His supernatural power to cause you to be born again. And that is really skewing what the

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Bible is teaching, because Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, the regeneration must be a fact in your life in order for you to properly see what

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God is doing. We have changed unmerited favor to earned unmerited favor when we suggest the common meaning in this text.

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I know that's an oxymoron, earned unmerited favor. You can't earn unmerited stuff.

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Well, if you consider it for a second, that is what typically the common meaning of this verse is usually saying underneath.

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We're saying that in order to get the grace of God, we have to earn it. Now, I know you might say, oh, expressing faith is not a work, and it's not.

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And, you know, believing is not a work, and it's not. But nevertheless, in some sort, in some fashion, it is an action that must initiate the grace of God to be able to happen in our life.

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And we must contest with that as not essentially being biblical. And it's really hard to gauge on whether, you know, the

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Holy Spirit must regenerate us first or we must have a different disposition to be able to choose in order to be regenerated.

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It's really hard to kind of gauge that. But I think the common meaning has taken us far away into the left lane rather than keep us in a place where we can actually consider what is actually happening in time and space.

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You know, we're limited creatures. We're living in time. God is outside of time, so all the things that he knows and sees, we cannot actually comprehend.

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And what he is doing in the earth in time and in history in our personal lives might seem as though it comes through a different sort of sequence.

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But I think what we need to do is put the brakes on this and say, what does the Scripture say? And according to this text,

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Jesus is saying, Nicodemus, I know you're seeing the works of God are properly being exercised right now.

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But I'm telling you, the grace of regeneration, unless that was a fact in your life, you would not be able to see what is going on.

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In other words, Jesus is either saying, Nicodemus, you are saved because you're able to see God is working, or he's saying you're not saved because only those that are saved can truly see the works of God being exercised.

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So I know that sounds like an oxymoron, earned unmerited favor, but I would challenge you to deeply consider exactly what we mean when we render the common meaning as you must make a personal decision in order to be born again.

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So the fifth problem that I see with this common interpretation is this. It leaves people to themselves.

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And what I mean by this is we will exalt Christ. We will preach the gospel.

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We will lift up the need to trust in the blood. We will explain who

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Jesus is. And then after all that elevation, we will turn around and say, the ball is in your court now.

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We guide everyone's attention to Christ and who he is and what the scripture is saying.

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And sometimes for those of us who are better at it, we're able to show the proof of the messiahship of Jesus Christ in the truth, in the word.

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But then we'll say, all right, turn away now. Now look inside of you. You must do right.

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We lead people away from Christ and back to themselves. And that is a problem.

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We must realize that the call to repentance and faith was a call that is going to be effectuated by the

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Holy Spirit when the wind comes to blow. And we will not know when the wind comes to blow.

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But what we must be faithful to is preaching the truth in love. So shall we be concerned with these five problems that I've listed here?

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Well, the answer is yes, we should be concerned. Why? Because nowhere in the Bible are we told to make a decision for Christ.

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It's not mentioned anywhere. Nor is any command anyone commanded to accept Christ or to take him into your heart.

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Now I know some people would want to run and jump and try to justify themselves by saying, oh,

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Revelation 3 says Christ is knocking and you must let him in. But unfortunately, if we have any respect for the

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Bible at all, we should seek to read it in context to what even that is saying. Jesus is not saying you need to invite me into your heart in order to be saved, but rather he is correcting a wayward church who is dealing with some issues in pride.

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So is this a problem? Yes, because the language that is commonly used in this interpretation is not found actually in the scripture.

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And furthermore, for us to be able to have a sort of reference point in a way to kind of gauge and corroborate what we believe the sexist be saying, we do not see this in history at all.

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At least not until about the 19th century onward. So where did the common meaning come from?

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Where did it originate? Who was the one who invented this new way of seeing regeneration come about in the lives of people?

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Well, lo and behold, I've been doing some research and I've come to the conclusion that this has actually come from the 19th century revivalism and has been added onto and enhanced by the 20th century reductionism.

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Now, I want to go through those briefly for you so that you can catch up on what I am saying. Okay, so the origins of decisional regeneration.

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19th century revivalism is where we'll start. In the 19th century, this was when the second great awakening took place.

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Now, the difference between the second great awakening and the first great awakening was that the second great awakening was really centered on the affections and the personal aspiration of the heart.

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Whereas the first great awakening was actually centered around the effect on the head in the mind and the soul in the theology of God.

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So the first great awakening was about the effect of the head. The second great awakening was about the effect of the heart.

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They were diametrically opposed because there was a lot more going on during the second great awakening that ultimately was not biblical.

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And unfortunately, a lot of it did influence the direction this went. So the second great awakening brings us to a prominent figure during that time by the name of Charles Finney.

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Now, if you want to know more about Charles Finney, I would recommend going on YouTube and typing in The Revival of Religion by Charles Finney.

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There is a seven -hour audiobook you can listen to by Charles Finney, and you can see his own point of views being displayed in that book.

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Charles Finney also wrote a systematic theology book, which some would contest is not really systematic or theology at all.

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But that's for you to decide after reading his own writings yourself. But another resource

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I can point you to if you want to know more about Finney is Robert Godfrey on YouTube. You can look him up.

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Robert Godfrey is a church history teacher, and he has a course going through some stages in church history.

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And there's a part where he talks about Charles Finney. So I'll point you to those resources, and you can go through them yourself and do other research that will help you understand the 19th century revivalism and the prominent figure

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Charles Finney. But furthermore, I just want to say that Charles Finney was not just a prominent figure, but he did bring about a sort of paradigm shift in how evangelism and revival in God's people would actually take place.

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Now, I took these notes from Robert Godfrey's series, so I hope this will be helpful to you as you listen and learn from the origins of decisional regeneration.

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So then, Charles Finney, 19th century revivalism, was around the second Great Awakening, 1830s on, he began to preach on the excitement of religion.

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In other words, his sole basis on how revival would come about was basically to become very excited about having a sense of revival in yourself, deeply moral, which would eventually pour out into God responding to the ethics of his people and bringing about the tremendous blessing of restoring many other things such as slavery, women's rights, alcohol, and the millennial kingdom.

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So Charles Finney did have a sense of post -millennialism in him during this time, but this is when post -millennialism really started going down the slide shoot, so to say, because Charles Finney's version of it was not actually the puritanic version of post -millennialism, neither was it the one that is advocated for on this program.

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But Charles Finney introduced the excitement of religion. We must have a personal zeal and self -proclaimed incitement and devotion to Jesus Christ in such a way that it will stir us up to be able to allow

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God to respond to our faithfulness and personal moral dedication. Charles Finney taught that.

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He was also noted to have been someone who wasn't absolutely orthodox in his teaching of doctrine because he departed from cardinal teachings of scripture, such as justification and the atonement.

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And once again, what I'll do is I'll also leave a link to an article that is very helpful in considering the legacy of Charles Finney and the show notes.

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So if you want to know more about Charles Finney, I'll leave perhaps Robert Godfrey's series and an article that talks about the legacy and effects that is seen in the modern church through Charles Finney in terms of what he actually believed in his theology.

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Furthermore, Charles Finney actually invented or created what is known today as protracted meetings.

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Now, if you've ever wondered where tent revivals come from, Charles Finney was a key component, key player in the development of that.

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You know, protracted meetings were essentially, you know, consecutive church meetings night after night building up to the point of revival.

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You know, today, you know, typically modern churches will schedule a time usually in the fall where they'll have an evangelist come through who will preach on personal revival.

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And it will be day after day, night after night, just basically focusing on how we personally can dedicate and devote ourselves to make sure that we cleanse ourselves in such a way to make

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God respond and bring his revival to the world, which would eventually lead and end in mass conversions.

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So if you've ever wondered where that came from, that actually came from the 19th century era. Charles Finney also introduced to the church what was known as the anxious bench or what we would recognize it as today is the altar call.

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That's right. You know, before the 19th century, you know, people didn't, you know, churches didn't necessarily have such a thing as the altar call.

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They actually preached the gospel faithfully and expected God to work. Whereas when Charles Finney came along, he believed that he could bring about the conversion of a person so long as he invited them to sit in the very front where he could personally direct his preaching towards them to bring about their salvation and transformation.

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Because he would ask, you know, whoever, whichever, whoever of you is anxious about your soul, come to the front and he will try to convert you at that point.

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So today we see that played out in the altar calls after every service. You know, we have the music playing.

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We have people come to the front. Sometimes we have people raise their hand. Hey, if you're, if you are afraid that you might go to hell tonight, if you're anxious about the way you are feeling in regards to what has been preached, come to the front and we will have someone walk you through the scripture and bring about your conversion.

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So if you've ever known, if you've ever wondered, yeah, that's where that comes from. Essentially, this was not a typical thing in churches and many people actually protested that during Charles Finney's time on earth.

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Furthermore, Charles Finney would announce people immediately church members once they were supposedly converted.

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Yes, immediate church membership was also not something that everyone during that time typically held to.

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Now, I know you're probably thinking, oh, in Acts chapter two, you know, people get saved and then they get immediately baptized, which means they're immediately into, they're immediately members of the church and they continue in fellowship in the breaking of bread.

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Well, you know, in the first century, we had the apostles who could clearly vet people. And in the first century, there was no such thing as a sinner's prayer mentality and theatrical wooing atmosphere brought forth after a service.

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So those things didn't exist back then. So yes, in the beginning, it was clear that someone was saved when they profess the lordship of Jesus Christ before the apostles and they were granted baptism.

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But in the 19th century, Charles Finney actually adopted the idea that the minute someone is saved, they are immediately church members.

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We can proclaim them saved and there was no vetted needed in order to establish them as members of a particular church.

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And yes, many people, especially people in the reformed circles, did contest against that as a means of actually proving whether someone is actually saved or not.

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So I want to read a quote following that statement by Robert Godfrey, who quoted a man by the name of John Williamson Nevin during the time of Finney, who was a another proponent of, well, who was against Finney's revivalism and actually critiqued him greatly.

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So John Williamson Nevin said this, American Protestantism is faced with two choices.

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Will we follow the method of the anxious bench or the altar call or will we follow the catechism?

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All right. Or, you know, for those of you that are afraid of the word catechism, you know, usually Baptists are afraid of anything that sounds

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Catholic. Catechism is just a religious resource to be able to disciple people. For example, you might not know, but many of us do catechisms.

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If you wake up and you have devotions with your kids and you ask them questions and you give answers to those questions using scripture, that's a form of catechism.

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Actual catechism, like the Baptist catechism of the early 1800s, would just help disciple people into the truths of scripture.

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So Williamson Nevin put forth this before the American church.

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He said, are we going to follow the method of having people come forth in altar calls and declaring them saved?

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Or are we going to follow the method of actually going through a catechism and making sure people know the essential truths of Christianity to prove that indeed they are disciples and members of the church?

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So that was something that really spurred and was contended against when Charles Finney introduced his new methods.

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Williamson Nevin continued saying in his quote, either you believe Christianity is about excitement and Southern conversions, or you believe that Christianity for most people is a matter of gradual development and instruction.

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Now, of course, I would hold to the latter, because that is the truth of the

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Bible, that we come to Christ professing him as Lord. And it is up to those that are in leadership and those that are already members to disciple us in the truth so that we might mature into what we ought to be for God's sake.

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Someone else during this period, or what I should say, is way after Finney, someone who critiqued him on his new methods was by the name of Charles Hodge.

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Charles Hodge, Reformed Presbyterian, said this in regards to the methods of Charles Finney.

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He said, He continues to say,

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So what was Charles Hodge critiquing about Charles Finney's method here? What he was saying is that we lead people all the way to Christ, and then we make them the mediator of their eternal destinies.

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Whereas the true mediator is Jesus Christ, and the one who can effectuate your salvation is the

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Holy Spirit of God. Whereas Charles Finney really turned the situation all the way to you.

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You are able to stir yourself up through either moralism or just personal, dedicated, devotional excitement.

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You can work yourself up to be able to get God to respond to the blessing of regeneration and revival.

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Hey folks, thank you so much for tuning in to Truology. My name is Belushi Prevalon, and if this has been a help to you in any way, please like, share, and subscribe.

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And if you haven't already done so, right now on Spotify, you can vote for the next episode. Now, I already have a bunch of things lined up, but I want to give you, the audience, the opportunity to participate on what

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Truology will be covering next. So, go to Spotify, type in Truology, vote for the next episode, and I will see you next time as we study the truth.

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Thank you. John Nevin also commented, and in contrast to the definition of revival that Charles Finney adopted and presented before the church in the 19th century, and he said, real revivalism is the extraordinary blessing of God on the ordinary means of grace.

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And now, before you get nervous again, especially if you're Baptist, if you're not used to this kind of language, the ordinary means of grace is not talking about means by which you are saved, but rather means of grace as in ways

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God works in his people to be able to disciple them and develop them and mature them into what he wills, which is through preaching, teaching, communion, and fellowship of the saints, and things like that.

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So, God blesses those ordinary means, and he brings about the revival of obedience to his laws and Christlikeness in his people, and it is not through the insatiable sense of revival, working up in people, that will bring about God's response.

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So, that was a time interesting to most, where Charles Finney had really just changed the paradigm of Christian history, and right now, in the 21st century, we are feeling the effects of that, because many people use his methods unknowingly, and some even knowingly, promoting

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Finney as an orthodox teacher of the truth. But personally, I reject that, and I hold to those that were contending that conversion was not through personal revival, but rather through the grace of God acting upon his means of grace, which is through preaching, communion of the saints, and the fellowship thereof.

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So, that's the first thing that I can say in regards to the origin of decisional regeneration.

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The second thing that I want to spend some time on, as a matter of fact, I will actually hustle at this point,

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I'll just say a brief thing about this. The second thing I want to bring to you in regards to the origin of decisional regeneration is the 20th century reductionism.

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Now, reductionism is essentially just taking the full story of the gospel, and just funneling it down to just three simple points, right?

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This gave roots to things like the Romans Road, and the sinner's prayer, and the salesman method of evangelism, where, you know, you knock on the door, you talk them through the points, you point people to the

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Romans Road, you go through the steps, and you get them to say yes to these things, and then you pray with them, and you conclude them saved at that point.

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So, that's reductionism, basically. It's just boiling down all the truths of Scripture to just three basic checkpoints that everyone needs to understand in order to be saved.

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In contrast to that is actually the full story of the gospel, which the apostles preach, which

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I will explain in just a moment. But reductionism was furthered and enhanced by prominent figures like D .L.

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Moody, for example. D .L. Moody was quoted to have said that he could fit the entire gospel on a dime, meaning that all you really needed to know about the gospel was that God loves you,

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Jesus is the way, believe, right? Whereas in the Bible, in contrast to that, we see the apostles saying way more than that in order to be able to give understanding of who

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Jesus is and what he actually did. So, let's look into that for a second. In contrast to revivalism and 20th century reductionism, we have the gospel of the apostles.

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So, I'm going to go to the Bible for a second. Give me one moment. Okay, so Peter at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, starting at verse 14, it says,

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So, the them is the Jewish audience at Pentecost, and Peter is going to lift up his voice to preach to them and proclaim many things.

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And where does he get these things? Well, he gets them from the Scriptures. He doesn't begin with Romans 3 .23.

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He begins with the actual unfolding story that tells the truth of what God has done in history through Jesus Christ.

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He says, So, Peter is not going through the basic checkpoints of modern -day evangelism.

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He is actually just preaching freely the story of the gospel, everything that makes it make sense.

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Why should you believe in Jesus? Because the Scripture reveals him as the Messiah, the

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Christ, the Anointed One. And in order for this Jewish audience to be able to understand that, they would have to hear the

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Scriptures unfold before their eyes through the mouth of a preacher. So, Peter continues on to say things in regards to Jesus as being the fulfillment of David's promises.

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And he says this, And what is he going to say?

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So, you see where Peter is actually bringing his gospel? He did not just say death, burial, and resurrection, but he continued to the full story of the gospel, which was that Christ, raised up from the dead, ascended into heaven, and was seated and made exactly what he was from the beginning, the

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Son of God in his authority, which was this, God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both

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Lord and Christ. That is the preaching of the gospel. We must never forget those vital elements of the preaching of the gospel by reducing them to just a convenient, optimal, quick explanation that will hopefully just resonate with people so that we can get them to understand just the basic, quote -unquote, steps to salvation.

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So, this is the gospel of the apostles in contrast to reductionism.

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I'm not saying the Roman's road is wrong. I've said that in the shows before. I'm just saying we cannot reduce the gospel to simply just those things.

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Now, if you need a launch pad to be able to get things going and rolling in your head about how to preach the gospel, then what you need to do is you need to spend time actually knowing the full story so that way you can be ready always to give an answer to people when they ask about the hope that is in you.

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Not just reverting to just the stencil of the Roman's road to be able to walk people through, quote -unquote, steps to salvation.

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There are no steps to salvation. You are preaching the gospel and God will be at work to the faithfulness of his people obeying him and his command to go make disciples of all nations.

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So, according to the apostle Peter here, God has made Jesus Christ both Lord and Christ.

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He has made him, he has set him at his own right hand in the supreme authority of the universe.

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In other words, Jesus is ruling and right now his kingdom is established through the means of the church.

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And we ought to recognize that because that's what the apostles recognized in the first century. They recognized that he was ruling and that rule had some effect down here on the earth, which was predicated upon his authoritative claim in Matthew 28 to go ye therefore, because I have all power, go make disciples of the nations.

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Not just simply the individuals or a little spotted church here, here, here, and the mass vastness of darkness in the world, but rather go make disciples of the nations.

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I believe Jesus met that and the proof that he met that is the fact that he ascended to rule over all that he owns, which is everything.

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So, to continue on, we have here the apostle Paul also preaching to a different audience, the audience of the

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Gentiles in Acts 17, where he is speaking to a bunch of,

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I don't want to say secular, but I would rather say his audience is more like secular religious

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Greeks. Okay, we'll just say that for now. He was preaching to this secular religious crowd, and he began with this,

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God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with man's hands.

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So, Paul begins with the lordship of God, the one who is owner and creator.

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He is supreme. His aseity is clearly made manifest here through the preaching of Paul in his precise words to this audience so that they wouldn't have any confusion on who exactly

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Paul is talking about. He is talking about the God that made all things and everything therein, and that God has so ordained things in a particular fashion to be able to give the opportunity for his will to be accomplished in the earth.

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You see, the thing is, I am not against personal decisions. What I am against is explaining personal decisions outside of the light of scripture.

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You see, God has ordained all things in history to come about, and the things that are developing is his will working out in all that is being done through the

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Holy Spirit working in his people. And here, this text is clearly saying much in the lines of that.

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So, furthermore, Paul continues to say, in the times of this ignorance, God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.

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Is Paul still preaching the gospel? Of course he is. And here is the call to repentance. That which will bring about the will of God in the salvation of man through his spirit.

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The call to repentance, the illumination of the mind, and bringing them to the obedience of faith, which he talked about in Romans 1 later on in his life.

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And, you see, this is way different than what modern evangelism actually is, isn't it?

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It is not reduced. It is not convenient. But rather, it is upfront. It is in your face.

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It is bold. This is the true definition of bold. Speaking the truth to crowds that might want to kill you.

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Right? Crowds that might have a few bad things to say about you. These people were bold.

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They were audacious. And they were faithful to the development and the story of the gospel.

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They did not simply minimize it to just a few points to walk people through.

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But rather, they proclaimed it. And guess what they did after they preached it? They did not turn around and ask people to come to the front or do what

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Charles Finney did, ask them to raise their hand and preach them directly so that he could bring about their conversion.

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But rather, they depended upon the power of the message, which was the Holy Spirit of God bringing about those whom he had foreordained.

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So then, let's kind of head towards wrapping this up. I see we're headed towards the 45 -minute mark here.

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So, what is the difference between the Gospel of the Apostles and the modern gospel presentation?

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Well, the Gospel of the Apostles was in -depth. It was theological. And it was bold.

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And it was a true work of the Spirit, whereas the modern gospel today is trite. It's simple.

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It's really unhistorical by its methods. It's unbiblical by its inherent contradictions.

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And it's not really compelling. How are we going to get secular religious people in our modern day to be able to actually repent and believe in Jesus Christ?

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Well, the truth is we're not going to. We cannot do it. But rather, we are to do what the apostles did, depend upon the preaching of the gospel.

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Paul left the scene in Acts 17 without asking anyone to come to the front and accept Jesus. But rather, he walked away, and those who followed him willingly, it was manifest that those are the ones who truly believe because God had worked in them to bring them to follow

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Paul as he was following Christ. So, the modern gospel is not compelling. It's not spiritual.

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So, what is the solution to this? Well, the solution is to do what the apostles and what the scriptures explicitly show us.

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And that is to preach the person of Christ. We can't just say we love Jesus without actually explaining and knowing what the theology behind I love

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Jesus actually means. We can't just say Jesus died for me without actually having a theology that actually gives depth to what it means for Jesus to be the substitutionary atoned one for your sin.

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Right? So, the solution to this is to explain the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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I mean, just think about it. We have an entire book about just that. The book of Romans.

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If you look in chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, it tells you everything you need to know about the gospel and its actual effects.

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And nowhere in there will you find what we commonly misunderstand John 3, 3 to be telling, which is that you need to make a personal decision to accept

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Christ. So, secondly, the solution to this will also be the status and expectation of Christ.

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We must actually understand that. Because Peter did not just simply stop at the resurrection, but rather he continued to explain that Christ is ascended.

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And Paul echoed this in Philippians chapter 2, telling us that there's coming a day. It's not just coming a day, but an ultimate day where, yes, every tongue will confess

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Christ. But rather, he recognized that since Christ is established and ascended, that indeed, he is the one to be confessed.

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And Peter mentioning to the Jews that were persecuting him that they would rather obey

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God than man. Because the only one who has actual authority to be able to tell them what to do was the ascended

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Lord Jesus Christ who had commanded them to go preach. So, the status and expectation of Christ is that he is ascended, he is

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Lord, he is the Messiah, and that all enemies are to be placed under his feet in due time.

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We are not to expect that since Christ is ruling, it's just simply in a spiritual sense without any actual manifestations down here on earth.

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But rather that because he has all power, he indeed is expecting his people to live out and be willing in the day of his power, as we see in Psalm 110.

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So, what is the conclusion to the argument I have advocated for here?

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Well, John 3 .3 does not teach that someone needs to make a decision to be born again. But rather, that the spiritual birth is the only reality that prompts spiritual sight.

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As Jesus said, except the spiritual birth takes place, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

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That's what Jesus said, and that's what he was saying. This modern new excitement from the dense theological education era of the church, which brought about the need to have a sense of new revival in people, is something that we need to realize was not really a historical

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Christian position until the 19th century. Therefore, we ought to be curious and rightly skeptical when we see

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Christianity swinging in history from a method of actually personal theological discipleship to an instantaneous aspiration of conversion and personal revival.

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So, with that being said, I'd like to thank you for tuning in to Truology. And it looks like we're just about at the 46 -minute mark, so almost made it.

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Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you if you've listened this far. You can like, share, comment, and subscribe to any of the outlets that I have.

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And you can participate again in Spotify for what we'll be discussing next on Truology.

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So, if you have not yet done that, go to Spotify. I leave a poll there for people to be able to participate and vote on what

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Truology we'll be discussing next. But until then, thank you so much for listening. God bless you. Keep studying the truth.

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Truology is a podcast that seeks to equip, effect, and engage the world through Christ and his wonderful gospel of the kingdom, against which he has promised that the gates of hell shall never prevail but increase by his government, his law, and grace, till it be presented a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.

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If there's any fear, threat, or worry, remember that the one that has called you according to his purpose and grace has also promised that all enemies will soon be placed under his feet.

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Now, I want you to believe that not because I said it or because it sounds really nice and spiritual, but primarily and wholeheartedly and only and biblically because it's the truth.