Biblical Basis for Membership

Introduction: The Central Question of Church Membership

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, June 9th, 1991, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 I begin our meditation in the Word of God this morning by asking several tremendously important questions.

0:25 The first is this. Who has a right of admission into the membership of a local church which claims to govern its admission policies by the Word of God?

0:46 Who has a right of admission into the membership of a local church which claims to govern its admission policies by the Word of God? Or, to put the question, when Christ himself stands at the entrance of his own institution, the church, what tokens does he demand and accept at the door of entrance that will bring his smile of approbation? Or what tokens, when presented, will provoke his frown and elicit? Or, to put the question one more way, what spiritual credentials are to be mandated for one to enter in and remain a member in good standing of a biblical church? Now, you see, I've asked three questions, but all of them really come down to this central issue. The issue of what comes...

2:05 What constitutes the biblical grounds of admission into the visible church of Jesus Christ? And these are just the questions with which we shall grapple over the next several Lord's Days as we continue our series of messages entitled, A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church. As we are approaching the 25th anniversary of the birth of this assembly, we believe it is vital that we go...

The Fifth Tenet of Trinity Baptist Church's Manifesto

2:36 that we go back and reconsider and articulate afresh those foundational issues which have constituted the very heart and soul of our life together. Since a manifesto is a public declaration of the intentions, the principles, the aims of a given group, we are speaking in these days of the fundamental aims and intentions of a given group. aims and intentions and principles of this institution called Trinity Baptist Church. And each tenet or affirmation in the manifesto has been couched in the language of present and ongoing aspects of spiritual resolution. Each one of them has been couched in the language of present and ongoing spiritual resolution. We've covered four thus far. We are determined.

3:41 That's the language of present and ongoing spiritual resolution. We are determined that the Lord Jesus Christ shall have His rightful place in the life and ministry of Trinity Baptist Church. Secondly, we are determined that all of our doctrine and practice shall be molded by the word of God. Thirdly, we are determined that we shall maintain a God-centered climate in the totality of our life and ministry and worship.

4:17 The fourth, one that we considered for some six messages, we are determined that all of our lives, life and ministry shall confirm the unique place of the church in the saving purposes of God. Now today we move to the fifth tenet or affirmation of the manifesto and one that we will consider for at least probably three weeks and it is this. We are determined to strive for a membership role in Trinity Baptist Church comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women.

5:06 This is a crucial, a vital element of our life together and the moment there is any erosion in the understanding of its biblical basis or of determination to live by its perspectives, it's the beginning of the end. We are determined. We are determined to strive for a membership role comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. Now in thinking our way through this vital issue, we shall follow the tracks of this outline.

Explanation of 'Truly Regenerate' and 'Genuinely Converted'

5:50 Number one, a brief explanation of the words in the affirmation. What do I mean by the words? Determined to strive for a membership comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. Then the bulk of our study will be taken up today with the second head, a demonstration of the biblical basis for this affirmation.

6:15 Once we understand what the affirmation means, then we ask the question, why be so concerned about it? What biblical basis is there for such a concern? And then God says, God willing, next week we will look at some of the practical illustrations of the outworking of this affirmation in our life together. First of all, then a brief explanation of the words of this affirmation.

6:45 We are determined to strive for a membership role comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. The words, we are determined to strive for point to the fact that there is serious intention and arduous pursuit of that intention. We are determined that speaks of seriousness of intention to strive for underscores that there is an arduous effort to follow through on that intention. However, the word strive for underscore, our realistic awareness that in the language of the London Confession of Faith, chapter 25, paragraph 3, the purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error. And we acknowledge that. We have no delusions that we are or ever shall be a perfect church in which none but truly regenerate and genuinely converted people are on the membership role. However,

7:58 we acknowledge that we do not have any hopes of attaining perfection in this life yet with only father is perfect. There is no biblical contradiction between the acknowledgement of an unattainable goal in this life and the arduous pursuit of that goal in this life. And what is true of individual sanctification is true of the corporate sanctification of the church. And so by the use of the words we are determined to strive for there is not only an acknowledgement of serious intention arduous pursuit but biblical that we are striving for that which we shall unlikely know at any given point in our life together. That is a membership in which every single individual is truly regenerate and genuinely converted. Now, obviously,

9:14 if we're striving for a membership in which all are truly regenerate and genuinely converted we better know what those two things are truly regenerate what do I mean by those words by those words I am trying to pull together all that the Bible teaches about that amazing transformation wrought by the sovereign grace of God through the Holy Spirit that makes people new creatures in Christ Jesus. I am referring to that inward transformation which Jesus describes in John three as a birth except a man be born or born from above he cannot see he cannot enter the kingdom of God John three three and John three five I'm speaking of that spiritual birth which has its ultimate roots as to efficient agency.

10:14 T

10:49 But, which Europe the, which Europe the, which we're working on. living in Christ adding a new creation or ad jacks and two tens we are his workmanship orange conspiracy of God. created anew in Christ Jesus. Or Ephesians 2, 1, You hath He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.

11:00 In other words, when I speak of the truly regenerate, I'm speaking of those in whom God has wrought this amazing, all-encompassing work of spiritual renovation and transformation that is likened to a new birth, to a new creation, to a spiritual resurrection. It is not old Adam dressed up in respectable Reformed Baptist clothing. It is not old Adam with his nature which ordinarily would stink heavily perfumed with respectability and refinement, with a little bit of aftershave of religious activity. We're not talking about that. We're not speaking of the old acts of the new man like the old man. Like a robot while sweated to the idols of the world and of the flesh. No, we are speaking of nothing less than a gracious, powerful invasion of the soul by the life of God.

12:11 That's what I mean by truly regenerate, because that's what the Bible means. And by genuinely converted, what do I mean? I mean having truly turned in our own conscious experience from sin unto God, through the Lord Jesus. What is described in the scriptures this way, Matthew 18, 3, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.

12:39 And whatever is involved in that imagery, except ye be converted and become as little children, surely something of the dependantness of the child, the guilelessness of the child. Children don't often involve in the kind, the kind of role-playing that we do. And those other characteristics, even in sinful children that make them so attractive. Unless you be converted and become as, in other words, a turning away from a whole lifestyle of self-sufficiency and independence and role, to one who is a little child, acknowledging his utter dependence upon his God for all things, determined to live transparent, and honestly before him. Jesus said, Except ye become converted and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. By genuinely converted, I mean what Paul says happened to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1, 9. He says, How that you turned unto God from your idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son out of the heavens, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivereth us from the wrath, to come.

13:59 That's what I mean by conversion. A radical, deep heart thing that is an inordinate object of our heart's affection. You turned unto God from your idols, a turning not just from our idols unto a different set of idols, but unto the true and living God who made us and made us for himself and for whom our hearts are restless till they rest in him. And not just turning to get his forgiveness and get his pardon and get his acceptance.

14:33 But he says, Ye turned to God from your idols to serve the living and the true God. You turned to become the servant of that God whose you are. And you turned to serve him with a heart basically cut loose from idolatrous attachment to this present age. You turned to serve and to wait for his Son out of the heavens.

15:00 That is the fundamental focus of your soul was no longer your heaven here, your paradise, but your heaven there and your paradise there ushered in when Jesus returns. When I say genuinely converted, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Matthew 18, 3, 1 Thessalonians 1, 9. I'm talking about what Paul describes in Romans 26, 18 or is quoted concerning the words of the Lord Jesus in conjunction with Paul's commission.

15:35 He said, I send you out to do what? To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance or a lot among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Paul, I'm sending you out to do what? To get people to imbibe a few new notions about Jesus of Nazareth and start little groups of people who sit and talk about Jesus and sing songs about Jesus.

16:08 No poor spiritually blinds of the devil

16:22 who have no lot nor inherit among my people. They are without the gifts of the devil and I'm sending you out to open their eyes. Let them begin to see reality about who they are and who God is and what sin is and what awaits them to open their eyes and then to turn, not just the department of their thinking, their whole humanity to darkness, to light unto God. And in that turning through the Lord Jesus, they receive forgiveness of sins and they receive a lot among my people. Folks, that's what I'm talking about. Now I just quoted scripture after scripture after scripture with few little comments to show what the sense of the words is. So in this affirmation, tenet number five manifesto, we for a membership role comprise men and women, that is, adult, male and female.

17:47 And when we come to show the biblical basis of that, I will do so at that point. In summary then, this brief explanation of the words should be clear. We, acknowledging human imperfection, that the best of churches will have in this life a mixture of truth and error and all kinds of varying degrees of unmortified sin in its members. There will be some who are very, very clever hypocrites, self-deceived people who may not be truly regenerate, not genuinely converted, but that being said, what will be, will be. Any more than we say, though I know I'll not be perfectly like Christ in this life, I'm striving to be perfectly like him by the grace of God. And though I cannot be as holy as God is holy in this life, he commands I for it, and I'm determined to. So we as a church are determined to for a membership role comprise truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women.

Biblical Basis: The Prophesied State of the New Covenant Community

19:06 The explanation clear? Now then, secondly, I want to give a demonstration of the biblical basis for this affirmation. Why is this part of our spiritual vision and commitment spiritual determination? Why should it be a prominent part in our manifesto?

19:25 Well, as I wrestled with the organizing principles, the biblical materials are so vast and Pastor Nichols and all who've gone through his soteriology course will know how vast that material is. I felt it would be helpful to try to organize what I want to say under two simple headings in demonstrating the biblical basis for this affirmation. I set before you. Two major categories of evidence.

19:50 Number one, a membership. That is a membership comprised only of truly regenerate, genuinely converted people. Such a membership of regenerate and converted men and women is the prophesied state of the New Covenant community. And then secondly, such a membership of regenerate and converted men and women is the assumed state of the New Covenant community.

20:18 Now, those two heads shouldn't be hard to remember. Should they? Prophesied state, assumed state, P.A.

20:24 Just remember next time you write to your doctor so and so, M.D., P.A., all right?

20:30 Prophesied state, assumed state. All right, let's look at several lines of biblical evidence. Such a membership, that is, truly regenerate, genuinely converted, is the prophesied state of the membership of the New Covenant community when God speaks of it through the prophets. Turn, please, to Jeremiah chapter 31.

20:55 In those Old Testament days of preparation under the New Covenant, what the Bible calls the day of God's people's minority under age, hedged in by the law and all of the mosaic trappings, waiting for the time when Messiah would come and the fuller and greater blessings of the New Covenant would flow and all of the trappings would drop off and as sons full grown, we would have the glorious privilege of adoption before God and the liberties that come with it. As the prophets look down to those days of New Covenant blessing, how did they envision the New Covenant community? As a mixed community? Some regenerate, some unregenerate, some converted, some not converted? Well, let's see, Jeremiah 31. And we know that this passage refers to what has been accomplished in Jesus Christ because of the Spirit-inspired use of it in the book of Hebrews.

21:58 So it is not forcing the passage to say it speaks of the New Covenant ratified in the blood of Christ. We have biblical warrant for it. Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 31. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.

22:30 But this is the covenant that I will make with them, with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah. I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor. Within this new community there is no need for internal evangelism.

23:01 They shall no more teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, know the Lord, you ought to know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin will I remember no more. Within this new covenant community where God promises the full and final putting away of sin, He says that everyone whose sins are put away comes to a heart, experimental knowledge of God and comes to a knowledge of God in which the will of God becomes the delight of his heart.

23:47 What does that? The new birth. When God is pleased, as we shall see in Ezekiel, take out a heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, place his spirit within us. This is the community where God's law is written upon the heart, taking away the disposition of Romans 8, 7.

24:09 The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, but ye are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. And if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his.

24:28 He's no part of this community in which the spirit does this work. There is God's law implanted in the heart. God's person is known and loved and there is an experimental acquaintance with him in the joyful experience of full pardon of sin. Jeremiah 32, 37 to 40, similar prophecy.

24:55 God speaks of gathering his people together, verse 38 of Jeremiah 32, and they shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children after them and I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from following them to do them good and I will put my fear in their hearts that they may not. That they may not depart from me. What does God do? God so changes them that they are by transformation bound to love him, to serve him, to follow him, not perfectly but purposefully, resolutely as the pattern of their lives. They are brought to live in the fear of God. They are brought to the place where God's smile means more to them than life. Life itself and God's frown is the very essence of death to them.

26:04 That's the vision of the New Covenant community given through the prophet Jeremiah. And when we turn to Ezekiel, even more graphic language is used, Ezekiel chapter 36. What will that community look like? What will be its distinguishing traits?

26:23 God says in Ezekiel chapter 36 these words, beginning with verse 24, I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of the country, sprinkle clean water upon you. You shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. Sound familiar? You turn to God from your idols.

26:47 Using the imagery of those instruments and those elements that were used in ceremonial cleansing, God says I will affect internally and really and spiritually what those things symbolized, materially and externally. From all of your filthiness and your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart will I give you. A new spirit will I put within you.

27:12 I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. Long after Dr. Barnard or Bernard performed the first heart transplant, guarded by his mighty grace and power, I will take out the stony heart. I will give you a heart of flesh.

27:32 And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. And ye shall keep mine ordinances and do them. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. You see, the covenant community envisioned as coming into being in the latter days is one in which all the members of that community will be given a new heart to which God's spirit placed.

28:03 And under the dynamics and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they will love.

28:11 It's no longer an external pressure from mom and a merely conscience. This is within my heart.

28:36 You will walk at me when I have breathed unto all thy commandments. Is it a burden for a bird to be set loose from a cage to split the air with its wings and to sit in the treetop and sing its beautiful song? No, that's freedom. My friend, it is no burden to obey the God who made me for himself.

29:00 To do the will of the God who made me for that very purpose. It is God.

29:07 Be shut up in the cage of thinking you can live by doing your own thing. All of your own imposed self-will. In the new covenant, God says, my people will be truly regenerate and truly converted. Now that's the covenant community that is prophesied in the Old Testament.

Biblical Basis: The Assumed State of the New Covenant Community

29:37 And God says that this blessing shall come to all the members of that community. So in demonstrating the biblical basis for this affirmation, we are determined that we shall strive to have none on our membership role who are not truly regenerate and genuinely converted. It is only by that effort in the power of the spirit and by the standards of the word of God that we become part of the community envisioned in Old Testament prophecy. But now, turning to my second category of evidence, such a membership of regenerate and converted men and women is the assumed state of the new covenant community. It is assumed that the new covenant community is a community of regenerate and converted men and women. Now, how do we know it? And again, trying to organize the massive materials, but I've reduced them under two heads.

30:41 This is not all of them. And I'm only going to give you a few texts under each. The materials are profuse. But here are the two subheads.

30:48 The descriptive names and titles by which all the members of the new covenant community are addressed. The descriptive names and titles by which all of the members are addressed. And then secondly, the assumed experience on the basis of which the new covenant community is instructed, exhorted and comforted. So when we turn the New Testament, what do we find?

31:16 Well, we find that there is an assumption of a membership of converted and regenerate or regenerate and converted people. And how do we know it? Here's the first line of evidence. The descriptive names and titles by which they are all addressed.

31:35 Open up your Bible with me to the opening words of five different epistles. And we'll just read them and see how evident this is. As Paul contemplates writing to the new covenant community at Rome, the church at Rome, how does he envision that community in his own mind? Does he envision it as a field in which there are many stalks of real wheat and then many, many stalks of tares?

32:03 Does he envision it as a community made up of wheat and of tares? As some would try to tell us, the church is comprised. Does he envision it as a net of fish, some good, some bad, as some would say with reference to that parable and improperly use it? No.

32:23 Listen, listen to the apostle as he sits down under the guidance of the spirit and the pressure of the pastoral heart and his missionary vision to use Rome as his launching pad for a new missionary frontier up in Spain. He writes, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. Romans one one separated under the gospel of God. And then he goes into orbit for a few verses on that gospel.

32:52 Now, when he addresses the people at Rome, look at verse six, among whom to all Jesus Christ. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you. Paul, your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. Now, how does he envision the community there at Rome made up?

33:37 It is not a community of those who are called.

33:49 And it doesn't mean they're merely designated Jesus Christ. They are those whom he has called unto himself,

34:01 distinguishing eternal possession of Christ. But they have been set apart from the world service to God.

34:28 And they are spoken of throughout all the world. Does that sound like wheat and tares? That sounds like a half mixture of good fish and bad fish. No, he visions that community in terms of its new covenant identity as a community of regenerate and converted people.

34:54 Turn then to first Corinthians one, that church with all of its problems, where they had a man that was not manifesting the marks of being converted. So Paul didn't say, well, leave him around, sit him under the ministry and maybe eventually he'll get saved. He said, cast him out of your next meeting. He living like an unconverted man.

35:15 It's a pattern of his life. Cast him out. Why? He's a contradiction to what the community is supposed to be.

35:23 That's why Paul acted so forcefully, as indicated in Chapter five. But the community at large, how does he envision it? Chapter one, verse one. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ to the will of God in Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth.

35:43 Even them that are sanctified is Jesus. That is set apart unto God from sin in the world in with Christ. Jesus call thanks. That is not those who've merely taken upon themselves the name of Christian, but by God's mighty work them out of darkness into marvelous light.

36:08 They are set apart unto God. With all the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he goes on to describe the things he knows that happened to them in the realm of spiritual experience.

36:31 Culminating in verse nine, God is faithful through whom ye were called into the koinonia, into the experiential fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. When he envisions the congregation at Corinth with all of his problems, and those problems were in his mind when he picked up his pen, because he starts right in in verse ten. Now it's been reported unto me that you have this problem and this problem and this and the other. He envisions that community as a community of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women.

37:11 And you can read, through the other epistles, time will not permit. I had down Philippians 1, 1, 1st Thessalonians 1 and following Jude 1. Read for yourself. You'll see that when the communities are addressed, they're never addressed as a mixed bag.

Biblical Basis: Assumed Experience for Instruction and Exhortation

37:30 They're addressed for what they are supposed to be and what they are by the grace in what they are in great measure by the grace of God, a community of truly regenerate and converted people. But now then, let's look at the second line of evidence, the assumed experience on the basis of which they are instructed, exhorted and comforted. This is one of the most amazing things in the New Testament. When problems begin to be addressed within the community, there is an assumed experience of regeneration on the basis of which the instruction, the exhortation, the encouragements, the rebukes are given. For example, in Romans chapter 6, Paul has opened up the marvelous doctrine of justification by faith, concluding with that statement that goes to the heart of any legalist, where sin abounds, grace does superabound. No mountain of sin can ever be raised which is higher than God's grace has ability to bury that mountain. Someone says, well, then the more sin there is, the more grace there is.

38:50 Oh, boy, that's good. Let's go on sinning, then we'll magnify grace. He said, no, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never.

39:00 And now notice why he says that. Romans 6 to we who died to sin. How should we no longer live therein? Or are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into Jesus Christ were into his death?

39:19 Verse 6. Our old man was crucified with him ye through this chapter. He's telling them, look, look, it's utterly infused. Grace is an excuse for sin, because you who are within the canopy of grace have died to sin.

39:41 You've risen to newness of life. Now reckon it. So he doesn't say. Now, for those of you who've never really been converted and turned from sin, you better start and do that.

39:51 And then know he assumes that the whole community to whom he's writing have experienced union with Christ in the power and virtue of his death and resurrection, which means a radical cleavage with sin. He assumes that and all of his teaching is predicated upon that assumption. The same is true when he's dealing with the Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter one with all of their problems.

40:20 He says in verse 30 of chapter one, but of him. Are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorious. Let him glory in the Lord. Why should they glory in the Lord and not in themselves or in their various preachers?

40:44 Because he says, by the mighty act of God and Christ has made everything in your experience, in your privileges, make him everything in your boasting, because this has happened to you. Therefore, I exhort that this be true in your conduct. And when he takes up the thorny problems of immorality and people going to law against one another, et cetera, what does he assume about these people? Chapter six, verse 11.

41:12 Such were some of you. He says, now anyone living this way, a pattern of immorality, a pattern of covetousness. Notice covetousness is put right among thieves and drunkards. And revilers, they'll not inherit the kingdom of God.

41:27 And such were some of you. But you have been war.

41:35 I've been saying to you were justified. He assumes that he's writing to a community of washed, justified, sanctified saints. There it is in the text. He doesn't say a few of you, some of you, he says to the church as a new covenant community.

41:54 You are the community of the washed ones. The sanctified. The justified ones. Therefore, when he starts dealing with fornication, he says, look, this is why you cannot.

42:06 As part of that community, truly regenerate, truly converted. Go on dabbling in sexual impurity. Why not? He gives seven reasons in this chapter, and I don't have time to expound that.

42:19 But notice what he assumes in his culminating reason. Verse 19 and 20. What don't you know that your body is? A temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which you have from you are not your own.

42:38 You were bought with a price. Draws his conclusion. Glorify God. Therefore, what is he doing?

42:45 He's taking the privileges that are common to every member of the new covenant community to these things. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Now, I'm making sense. Or am I talking to myself and just getting excited within myself?

43:03 You go through the epistles. I have before me Ephesians 2, 8 to 10, Ephesians 4, 30, Galatians 3, 26 to 29, Colossians 3, 1 to 3, 9 to 13, 1 Peter 1, 3 to 5, 2, 9 and 10. One could arbitrate and put ink on the end of his fingers and open anywhere in the New Testament and come up pretty well with 9 out of 10 fitting in this whole motif. Why can they do this?

43:33 Because such a membership of regenerate. And converted men and women is the assumed state of the new covenant community. The descriptive names and titles by which they are all addressed. This the assumed experience on the basis of which they are all instructed, exhorted and comforted assumes this.

43:54 But now some of you say, but Pastor, Pastor, are you saying that everyone in all of them? No, no, I didn't say that. Because in the midst of these epistles, there is a call to self examination. I'm in yourself, prove yourself, whether you be in the faith.

44:12 And then for those who say, oh, well, I'm in grace, I'm one living as I please. He's addressed me as sanctified, washed. He says, no, you're not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If you go on in any of these things as a pattern of your life, you show you have no part or lot in the new covenant community.

44:28 So either repent or you'll get thrown out. Why? Because the community must be what it's supposed to be. That's the emphasis.

Addressing Hypocrisy and Self-Examination

44:36 That's why John could say, if any man say, I know him. He's not his commandments. He's a liar. The truth is not in him.

44:42 Well, if he's a liar and the truth isn't in him, he doesn't belong in the church. And John says they went out from us. Oh, yes, there were some that went out from us that it might be made manifest that they were not of us. Now, he said, as long as they were among us walking by the principles of the new covenant community, we treated them as brethren.

45:01 When they went out, it showed they were hypocrites all along. But that doesn't change the fact that prevailing complexion of the new covenant community is that. Of a regenerate, converted community of your people. When I say as the fifth tenet in the manifesto, we are determined that we shall strive for a membership rule composed of those ten.

Application 1: No Biblical Warrant for Unconverted Membership

45:33 This is why it comes down in this issue. And I want to make two final words of application. Then God willing, next week, this has been primarily teaching. As I said last week, some of this stuff, the only way you can get is have it taught to you.

45:58 And that's my task and the task of my fellow elders and preachers. But I want to make two very pointed applications as I close. The first is this. There is no biblical warrant for receiving into the membership or retaining in membership.

46:16 Any person who does not manifest ongoing fruits of the new birth. And tangible evidence of genuine conversion. No biblical warrant for receiving of a church of the fruits of the new birth and the evidences of conversion. Why don't we let every sweet nice little spit and polish young man or young woman who obeys by me and daddy and sings hymns and can quote the catechism says I love Jesus. Why don't we throw the doors open? Because the Bible says men and women. People who've come at least to the threshold of adulthood and can contemplate and consider the issues of discipleship and the liabilities and responsibilities of church membership.

47:27 And we find no warrant in the word of God for seeking to sort out in the developing soul and and emotions and psyche of a child. Whether or not. God has indeed done. Such a work.

47:40 Do we believe God regenerates children? Yes. Believe apostles were wiser than a lot in our day and believing under the guidance of the Lord Jesus. But until they come to manhood and womanhood it is not right that the door of the church should be open to them.

48:01 At which time they can emotionally and psychologically separate themselves from mom and dad and everything else and say if the preacher who taught me the gospel denies it. I'm ready to die for it because it's my gospel. Now. Jesus who came to me with my mother's way of milk and with my problem and with my Gerber strange spinach that I tried to spit out on everybody at the table.

48:23 The whole world may spit him out but I'm going to cling to him because he's my only hope of life and salvation. That's why you wondered why that's why and why are we concerned when there are people who continue to faithfully attend the stated meetings. But you never hear them spontaneously speaking of Christ. You don't see in them the marks.

48:48 Of an intimate warm devotional relationship to Christ and I'm not just talking about someone who's low places and can run off at the mouth. Some of the most devout people I know in this assembly of the most quiet. You get him alone quiet as they are and you start talking about their Savior and you'll see the tear come in their eye. And when you try to get them to speak they may not be able to articulate three sentences in a logical way about what God's done for them.

49:14 They stumble and choke into tears after the first one. And you sense. God's real to them. Christ is precious to them.

49:23 Holiness is the great passion of their hearts and you see them growing more and more like Christ. And when the few gray hairs become the thatch of all gray and when gravity takes its toll on loose holes of the skin. Though you see the outward man decaying you see the inward man being renewed day by day and they're getting so right. You wonder if the Lord isn't going to say I'm going to transplant them soon.

49:50 That's what we're talking about. That's what the charge of people and we have no warrant for receiving into the membership or retaining in the manifest all of regeneration and ongoing fruits of true conversion. We read in the book of Acts the Lord added to them such as should be saved the same day. They were added unto them 3000 and these all continued steadfastly and Luke wrote that 30 years.

50:30 After the fact of regeneration and when a hypocrite rose up in the midst God said this is such an anomaly. I want to make a message clear for the rest of the history of the New Covenant community. God took the first two hypocrites in hand and he disciplined them. He killed Ananias and Sapphira.

50:57 He said in my house no hypocrites and what were the hypocrites over? Are they out going to singles bars? Were they out in group sex? No, they're just lying about the money.

51:10 They gave to God. They were covetous liars and God said a covetous liar is not a true member of the New Covenant community of those who have a new heart and have my spirit in them and who fear me and walk in my way. So I'm going to take them out and God killed them. That's in my Bible folks.

51:29 Same Bible says God so loved the world says Ananias fell dead and then it says Sapphira dead and they carried him out and buried them. You ought to bless God that God said. I put the lesson in there once for all. I won't do it every time.

51:45 It's true. We have a lot of young men active this morning. I'm afraid carrying some people out. Oh dear people take seriously take seriously if the Lord Jesus carries and if this would be a church and instrument in his hands for his glory.

Application 2: Membership Standards are Not Fanaticism

52:04 Take this seriously the church in its membership should be comprised of those who are inverted who are truly regenerate. And manifest ongoing fruits of the same. Then my final word of application is this. It's more a word of vindication to determine to have none but the truly great generate and genuinely converted in the church membership is not fanaticism.

52:37 It's not an unbiblical idealism nor is it an oppressive ecclesial ecclesiological position. It is not fanaticism. It's not. It's not unbiblical idealism and it's not an oppressive ecclesiastical perspective.

52:55 Our confession of faith state so clearly in its chapter on the church in these very words. You get the right page all persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto God by Christ according to it not destroying their own profession by any errors averting the foundation or unholiness of life. They hold to the truth. They walk in the truth are and may be called visible saints and nations to be constituted those who profess the faith of the gospel in those who live in the faith of the gospel of such of the churches to be comprised. That's no novel position. John Owen stated. So powerfully in his little catechism on the worship of God.

54:05 What is an instituted church of the gospel? Here's his answer a society of persons called out of the world or their natural worldly state by the administration of the word and spirit onto the obedience of the faith or the knowledge and worship of God in Christ joined together in a holy bed or by special agreement for the exercise of the communion of Saints in the do observation of all his ordinances in the gospel. What is a church in its biblical sense? It is the society of people called on with their natural children.

54:46 We went to more of this next week. Why don't we baptize children or sprinkle them and call them members of the church having a right to be members by birth because no Christ Church no one's definition won't even stand with his practice of baptism. He was closer to his Bible in this definition. Then he was when he wrote about baptism and dear people of God.

55:19 You see all the implications just to tease you prepare you God willing for next week as we come to the close. What happens when you try to persuade the judgment of a congregation by the word of God? If God the Holy Ghost has not put his fear and his law into the heart of that people they rise up and they rebel against the word of God. And say this is our religious club will run it the way we want.

55:50 That's when entertainment comes into the worship clowns come into the pulpit smooth talking ear tickling soul damning creatures come into the pulpit airlessness in the membership. That's where it's the desire for not the desire to be the desire.

56:19 Some churches can't remember the when they refuse to candidate for membership. My Bible says no man dare. Join himself to them. But the Lord added such you should be saved.

56:32 People were scared to death join that crowd God may kill you if he ain't for real. Scott gonna have to kill a few around here before some fear comes on you. You young people you listen to me especially you make sure that you're coming forward for membership not because of peer pressure. Where once your peers all stood outside the church and they were your buddies.

56:55 Now someone are moving in. You better come for other reasons. Social peer acceptance the possibility of getting a husband or wife. God have mercy if anybody uses this church as a means to satisfy your itch to get a wife or husband.

57:11 I'm praying if that's true of any of you young people God will expose you because that will be the seed deacons and state the policy and this place goes down the tubes dear people. This is no secondary issue. Now you see why I put it in the manifesto. We are determined to have a membership role comprised only of truly regenerate men and women genuinely converted. And my friend if you're not regenerate and you're not converted we can't give you those things. You go to God in Jesus Christ and he stands ready to give but we cannot give we would if we could. But he can if you will go to him.

Prayer for God's Grace and Purity

58:26 Let us pray. Our father we're so thankful for the Holy Scriptures this blessed book the sufficient as well as the only rule of faith into practice Lord right upon the heart of this congregation by the Holy Spirit according to your own promise under the new covenant this part of your law and may it burn within the heart. May we buy this truth and sell it not. Oh God so work in the younger generation sitting here this morning that in years to come should our Lord Jesus tarry the things learned in these days will be brought to remembrance and tenaciously held to in the power of the spirit. Oh God for the glory of your son. Don't allow this place to become a synagogue of Satan because of careless. Membership practices help those of us in leadership Lord what an awesome responsibility is ours.

59:39 What a tragedy if we would refuse any whom you have received but oh Lord we know that that would not keep them out of heaven. But what a horrible thing should we receive those whom you have not received and cooperate with them in their own damnation in the undermining of this place. God help us help us have mercy upon us. Be with those who sit here who are not yet converted who've not turned from their idols.

60:06 Oh God make them so miserable. May their idols become as it were like a sour stomach until they vomit them out and run to Christ and feed upon him who is the bread of life. Oh Father seal your word and may your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place. We ask in Jesus name.

60:28 Amen.