Are you really sure that you belong to God?
Your baptism was ok (it’s just a symbol of your commitment to God)…but don’t you know that you must do some things to be a Christian?
You need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
You need to really work at not sinning. Where there is sin in your life, you must cut it out. Extinguish it.
You need to forget about worldly things and get serious about studying the Bible and get serious about sacrificing yourself for others.
Are you giving enough to the church?
Are you giving enough to the homeless and the elderly in the area where you live?
Are you focusing enough on the inward person, on your spirituality?
Are you praying enough?
If you think that there is room for improvement in any of these areas, don’t you think that might be a sign that your decision for God was really a lie? Maybe you were just trying to save your own skin and you really aren’t that concerned about pleasing Christ, or helping your neighbor.
If that’s the case, then you really ought to reconsider if you really are one of God’s children.
We’ll lay it all out for you. We’ll supply you with the proper list of what you should be doing, and what books you should be reading, and what Biblical principles you should be practicing. We’ll tell you exactly how emotional you need to get, and just exactly the best way to get those ‘feelings’ that will prove to yourself (and others) that you really belong to Jesus.
Remember, He really knows you and really knows all your most secret thoughts and fantasies. You can fool others, and even yourself…but you can’t fool God.
He knows all about you.
Are you sure you’re living the Christian life? Are you sure you are even a Christian?
_______________________________________________________
This is why the Reformation was necessary.
This is why it is still necessary.
What say you?
Filed under: Assurance, Doing, Reforming the Church |
The Old Adam Lives! 
Happy Reformation Day!
Sounds like you’ve been reading this website:
http://www.whatifimpretending.com/
Scary stuff.
Yes, thank God for the Reformation
“Remember, He really knows you and really knows all your most secret thoughts and fantasies. You can fool others, and even yourself…but you can’t fool God”.
And there’s the only real hope anywhere –
He knows us, ruined, wrecked, wicked people for what we are –
a miserable race, always standing on the brink of entire ruin and destruction, and it is right THERE, in that squalor, that God comes, and gives us Christ.
What a Savior! What a Redemption!
Post Tenebras Lux!
Semper Reformanda!
Good one Steve, as usual!
Again Luther was brilliant in sniffing out a theology of glory versus the theology of the Cross that is apropos to this. What is it? The real and true nominal Christian. Today the “nominal Christian” among the pietistic churches is viewed as the ones who don’t do pretty much most of what Steve has posted here in this, “are you doing enough x, y and z”. The “pew sitter” or the one who only goes to church and receives the Word and Sacrament (assuming you even HAVE a sacrament at your “church”).
However, Luther forever turning words against the false teachers of his day in Rome said that the TRUE and REAL nominal Christian is he or she who goes to church and receives the Word and Sacrament (again assuming here that you have that at all) and THEN goes home and gets busy doing a whole bunch of other things to increase their “holiness”, “grow in the faith/sanctification”, etc…
So that the real and true nominal Christian is really he or she who does these things seeing the Word and Sacrament as just a insignificant or trifling thing to get busy doing the other things.
Any one thinking “Sunday School” too? Not that SS is bad or wrong they are good when rightly taught. But I’ve found that in my own blood as well, especially having come from a Baptist background. In which you might miss the church service or part of it and feel fine, but you dare not miss SS or the other day of the week bible study.
That’s not to say that SS or bible study is wrong or bad, certain not! But it does go a LONG way at showing just how far from the real and true faith our day and age has gone due to the influences of pietism and heterodoxy. The church is just this necessary thing to get to the (so called) real meat of the Chrisitan faith (which is really the false faith, and nominal Christianity). So truly despised is the Word and ESPECIALLY the Sacraments, and thus by so, Christ and Him really crucified for us. That is truly a nominal Christian.
Larry
Larry,
Good thought. Do you have a reference for this? –> “Luther … said that the TRUE and REAL nominal Christian is he or she who goes to church and receives the Word and Sacrament… and THEN goes home and gets busy doing a whole bunch of other things to increase their “holiness”, “grow in the faith/sanctification”, etc…”
Patrick,
Yea I do, give me a bit to dig it up. I’ve read so much stuff in the past month I’m loosing track of them. I remember the quotes but I forget were I read them.
L
[“Your baptism was ok (it’s just a symbol of your commitment to God)”]
????
Glad to see you are warming up to the idea that God actually does something for us in baptism.
Matthew,
Now you are starting to see it, my friend!
So is it a baptism a baptism without faith? For this is the crux of the issue.
If an adult is baptized at 25, then falls away/never was (depending on your genre of baptist belief arminian/calvinistic respectively) and then 20 years (at 55) later he comes to/back to the faith (depending on your confession) was he then baptized when he was 25?
If “yes”, rebaptize, then what was that that happened 20 years ago, what was that ceremony.
What is the essence of baptism.
Note here we are not speaking of infants for the sake of argument, but an unbelieving adult duly baptized as a professing adult and just for the sake of neutralizing any further rabbit trails or escape hatches we shall say he was fully 100% every hair of his head immersed.
L
Larry,
Please help dispatch the argument that ‘spirit baptism’ is the analog of St Paul’s use of the term ‘circumcision of the heart’ to define the true efficacy of the Hebrew rite. That’s another anabaptist argument that gets bandied about a lot.
Erich,
True, “spirit baptism” is really the essence of the gnostic/enthusiam (i.e. ALL theologies of glory). It’s just a matter of degrees. The doctrines espoused by such whether it be true Calvinist (the Reformed), pseudo calvinist (TULIP baptist) or arminian varieties (other baptist/methodist, etc…) is really a tearing asunder of the Word from the Spirit. Impossible in reality and truth but possible doctrinally (like covering up a light, it still is light but covered up). It’s not even an issue of “just the sacraments” but of the Word itself.
E.g. Two men sit under the pure preaching of the Gospel, one comes to faith, another never does…same time and space, sitting right next to each other. Calvin would say the Spirit was in the Word working with the Word with the one that came to faith and not the other. The Word was “efficacious” and therefore, in the first, had the Spirit there, yet not in the second. Calvin via his gnostic ToG “wets his finger” and sticks it up into the spiritual air for the direction of the wind (i.e. the Spirit), a theology of glory or gnosticism or enthusiam (all really are the same). What he fails to see is that the Spirit is operating in both men period. That one rejects is irrelevant and above us. That’s why the Spirit is really and truly resisted, not a facade of the Spirit.
This divorcing of the Spirit from the Word concept permeates all the above groups doctrines to lesser and greater degrees, extending like wise to lesser or greater degrees to the sacraments, which is really just an extension of divorcing the Word. Thus they are left with what they confess, “just water”, “just bread” and “just wine”. Like Nagel says, “Ask them what they have THEY will tell YOU”. Their systems make since within their paradigms. Sure if it was truly “just water” or just bread and wine, then there would really be no point whatsoever to them and they could over time be eschewed or reduced (hence the “lord’s supper” has fallen into practical non-use in terms of frequency in such churches.
But it really shows itself when the issue is forced to make the doctrine clear. Infants need not at first enter the debate, for is a baptism a baptism if an adult confessing is baptized then either falls away (arminian baptist) or never was converted (TULIP baptist). That reveals what the essential definition of baptism is according to the doctrine – that it is NOT the name, promise, or Word of God but the subjective faith of the person. That’s why rebaptism occurs. They cannot confess with the church ancient in the Nicene Creed, “I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin”. Not even if they try to slip in and say, “It’s not rebaptism but the ‘now’ first real baptism due to faith. Because the creed plainly says with Peter in Acts 2, “I acknowledge one baptism FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN”. The real purpose of baptism whether you believe it or not, whether or not both the receiver, pastor and 99% of the congregation is utterly false confessors.
As Luther said, “God is still God EVEN in hell” (e.g. the Cross). Consequently this is why Luther said he would rather drink blood with the Pope (the antichrist) than just wine with the sacramentarians. Because God is still God even delivered at the hands of Judas or Pilate themselves.
L
Okay….I just read this post. (I know I’m late)
…but NOW I see why I’m so jacked up. I thought I was not a Christian because of this whole entire post and I messed myself up listening to preachers and reading books saying this VERY SAME THING.
Oh gosh….
P.S. I love the sarcasm, LOL. I wish I read this post about seven months ago. 😦
Erin,
Thanks for the compliment!
It’s sad that this type of preaching and teaching is so common place today…but it doesn’t have to be!
I hope and pray that the Lord will lead you to a congregation that knows the freedom of Christ!
They are few and far between…but they are out there.
Take care, my friend!
– Steve
Steve… Is Larry Hughes still around? I asked him a question about a Luther reference above… I’m still interested in knowing the reference.