No Crisis Experience #2

Introduction: The Spiritual Immune System and the Ninth Affirmation

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, November 29, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer, asking His special blessing upon the ministry of His Word here and in each of those places to which our brethren have gone to minister as well. Let us pray together. Our Father, we have taken into our mouths and upon our lips the words of the psalmist

0:45 that our eyes would be turned away from vanity to the end that our ways might be established in Your Word. And we therefore plead that as we turn to the study of Your Word, You would send us Your Holy Spirit as the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. That He would take of the things of Christ that are here in the Scriptures and make them clear to our understanding and enable us to yield our thinking and our affections to the impress of Your truth.

1:28 And what we pray for ourselves, we pray for each of the brethren who have gone out from us to minister that Word in other places. And we pray for that Word wherever it is handled responsibly this day, that upon Your Word will come Your own special and promised blessing to the salvation of sinners and to the building up and strengthening of Your people. Come then, O Lord, we pray in the ministry of Your truth. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

2:14 Those who understand something of how God has fearfully and wonderfully made these physical bodies of ours are aware that no little part of a pattern of good physical health is both the possession and the activity of a normal, healthy immune system. God has made our bodies in such a way that when foreign and negative influences would seek to set up shop in the body, to invade it in the form of a virus or some other invader that would not be to our physical well-being,

2:57 the immune system is alerted and called out like a kind of internal militia to destroy the bad guys. And while the physically healthy person may literally go days and weeks and months and not...

3:15 think of his immune system, he is indeed grateful if there is an epidemic of a particularly destructive kind and he finds that he has been immunized against it, either naturally or artificially by having received an immunization shot some period in his life prior to the outbreak of that particular disease. What is true? What is true physically is also true spiritually. No little part of good spiritual health is the possession and the activity

3:57 of a wholesome spiritual immune system. So that when the viruses of error would seek to set up shop in our souls, we find that truth has already set...

4:15 set up its immunization faculties and there is no ability for that error to take root in the soul and to work to its destruction because the soul has been immunized by the truth. And as we are working our way through the ninth affirmation in the manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church in many ways for many of you, it has been like...

4:45 frequent trips to the doctor's office for immunization shots. I've had not a few of you say to me as we have dealt with some of the matters we are dealing with, well I never encountered that kind of teaching that you exposed today and I have responded by saying thank God some of us were almost destroyed by it, but sooner or later it is most likely that you will. And hopefully, it will be at that time that you will come to some measure of an appreciation of having been immunized by the truth from that particular virus of error

5:28 that would otherwise seek to establish itself in your soul and work if not toward your soul's destruction to the crippling of its vigor. Now the ninth affirmation in the manifesto, The manifesto to which I make reference is this, that we are determined to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in our teaching and expectations concerning conversion, the Christian life, and the mission of the church.

6:06 And our present focus is on the matter of a New Testament perspective with reference to the doctrine of the Christian life. And my method in opening up this element of our concern is to state a principle, explain it, then to demonstrate its tap roots in scripture, and then to make what I regard to be some relevant application. We have considered together that there is no one master key to living the Christian life.

6:49 The second major principle, there is no escape from tension and conflict in living the Christian life. The third, there is no cancellation of the conscious activity of any of the faculties of our redeemed humanity. And we are now considering this fourth very vital principle, that there is no post-conversion crisis experience commanded or promised in conjunction with living the Christian life.

Recap: Defining 'No Crisis Experience' and Lack of General Commands/Promises

7:27 Last Lord's Day, I took considerable time to explain what I'm attempting to say in that principle. We asked the question, what is the principle? What is meant by a post-conversion crisis experience? And I gave you a brief overview of six major categories in which post-conversion crisis experiences have been taught in the Christian church and believed by multitudes even to this present day.

8:02 And then we considered the second question, what is meant by... What is meant by such an experience being neither promised or commanded in conjunction with the Christian life?

8:17 Then we had time only to begin the demonstration and proof of this principle from the scriptures, and we looked at one major block of biblical data. And it was this, that among all the general imperatives and all of the general promises of scripture, there is not one clear command or promise relative to a post-conversion crisis experience as God's will for God's people in every age.

8:56 There is not one clear command nor promise with reference to such an experience. And we looked at a number of general commands. Even with reference to the Christian's relationship to the Holy Spirit. But among them we look in vain for any command to seek a post-conversion experience of a crisis nature in relationship to the Holy Spirit.

9:25 We looked at a number of general promises. Some of them even relating to the ministry of the Spirit and the grace of God in sanctification. But in none of those promises does God...

9:37 God hold out the promise of a post-conversion crisis experience that will materially change and elevate the level of our Christian experience. Now this morning we take up the second broad category of the biblical witness to this principle, and only this second this morning, and it is this. In addressing the broad spectrum of the thorny problems confronted, within the pages of the New Testament,

Principle #2: No Crisis Experience Proposed as a Solution to New Testament Problems

10:11 there is no indication that a post-conversion crisis experience is ever proposed as the solution to any one of those many problems addressed. We pick up our New Testament, and particularly the epistles and the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and as we read of the...

10:38 the planting of the church in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth, and then these letters that came to the churches, we see in that section of the New Testament the full spectrum of the thorny problems that have plagued individual Christians and communities of Christians throughout the past 2,000 years. Yet, as we confront those problems, and how the apostolic writers addressed those problems, we look in vain for one clear indication

11:22 that there is a proposal that the answer to any one, let alone to all of those problems, is a post-conversion crisis experience. Now if these post-conversion crises, are according to their proponents so critical if we are to truly make progress either in internal sanctifying grace or in power in witness and usefulness and fruitfulness in service, surely the apostles must have known of the availability of such an experience.

12:04 Surely as the universal pastors of the church, the apostles and those who labored with them, would have administered the best medicine to the manifold maladies that occur within the New Testament churches. And yet as we search the scriptures, we find that in addressing the broad spectrum of the thorny problems confronted within the pages, of the New Testament, there is no indication that a post-conversion crisis experience

12:48 is ever proposed as the solution to any one or all of these problems. What problems have we ever faced as individuals or as a church, which were not in principle or in a one-to-one equivalence, faced with the same problems that we have faced in the past? By the early churches. Not a one.

13:14 This is one of the reasons why we confess our confidence in the sufficiency of scripture as our rule of faith and of practice. And what I want to do in the time allotted this morning is to take up with you three specimen examples which accurately reflect the whole tenor and content of the New Testament, as problems of individual Christians and of churches are addressed. And as we look at these specimen examples of how the inspired physicians of the New Testament

Case Study 1: The Corinthian Church and Its Problems

13:56 apply the available medicinal means to these spiritual maladies, we will notice that not a one of them holds out a vial called a post-conversion crisis experience injection and all will be cured. First of all, as our first specimen example, we take the church at Corinth. In the first letter to the church at Corinth, what kinds of problems does the apostle explicitly address in this letter? Well, if you are familiar with the letter at all,

14:40 you will know that he is not long into the letter, after some general greetings and a paragraph of commendation. But we find the apostle addressing head-on one of the major problems that existed at Corinth. There were certain individuals who had allowed themselves to fall into the category of what we call a party spirit. That's not a spirit that comes from a church.

15:11 That's not a spirit that wants to party in the present usage of that word, but a spirit of dividing up behind certain leaders and claiming supreme loyalty to those leaders, thereby causing division within the church. Verse 10 of chapter 1, I beseech you, brethren, through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been signified unto me concerning you, my brethren, by them that are of the household of Chloe,

15:54 that there are contentions among you. Now this I mean, that each one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. So here was a problem of this party spirit creating divisiveness, creating contentions, obviously grieving the Spirit of God, denying many fundamental truths of the gospel, and the apostle deals with this problem here in chapter 1 until he comes to verse 16, and there is a transition into a second great problem,

16:39 the problem of worldly wisdom. And he deals with those two problems back and forth all the way through to the end of the third and into the fourth chapter of this epistle. So you have the problem of divisions in chapters 1 to 3, the problem of worldly wisdom at the end of chapter 1 all the way through chapter 2, and again a part of chapter 3. Chapter 5, you had laxity and discipline.

17:12 They were tolerating a form of immorality in one of their members, not even named among the Gentiles. Chapter 6, you had brethren going to law, one against another. In the opening part of chapter 6, in the latter part, you had patterns of immorality and fornication. Chapter 7, you had confusion concerning marriage and divorce.

17:41 In chapters 8 through 11, problems concerning the subject of Christian liberty and its use and its abuse. Chapters 12 through 14, you had confusion and abuses of spiritual gifts in the public gathering of God's people. You had abuses, according to chapter 11, of the Lord's table. Some were actually coming to the Lord's table, burping away in their gluttony, and others staggering and bleary-eyed in their drunkenness.

18:15 These were the problems! And then it's capped off with chapter 15, where you had some flirting with a pagan error that asserted there is no such thing as the physical resurrection of the body. Now this is a broad spectrum, of pastoral problems. Problems of a corporate nature, problems that affected specific individuals within the churches.

18:45 Divisions, worldly wisdom, laxity and discipline, lawsuits among brethren, questions and problems relative to marriage, immorality, fornication, abuse of Christian liberty, et cetera, et cetera. And yet, as we go through Paul's letter to the Corinthians, not once is there the slightest suggestion that he thinks there is something fundamentally defective in their experience which can be remedied by a post-conversion crisis experience. Now if ever there was a group

19:29 that according to the teaching of those who propagate this notion, if ever there was a people who needed such an experience, many within this church needed just such an experience. But no such quick fix is offered by the apostle. Rather, let us notice how he deals with but two of these and we'll have the key to see how he deals with the others. Not a master key for all of your problems, but a key to how Paul addresses problems in the life of the church

Paul's Solution to Divisions in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1-3)

20:12 and in the lives of individuals within the church. Take the first problem addressed, the matter of divisions. How does he deal with this matter? He first of all clearly identifies the issue in verse 10 through 12 of chapter 1.

20:35 I beseech you, brethren, through the name of the Lord Jesus, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions, you be perfected together in the same mind and in same judgment. And as if someone said, well, Paul, why are you taking up such a subject? He answers, for it hath been signified unto me concerning you, my brethren, by them that are the household of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Well, Paul, what kind of contentions?

21:04 I'll tell you. Now this I mean, that each one of you saith, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. He clearly identifies the problem so that there is no misunderstanding among those who receive the letter that Paul is addressing a very real, specific, concretely identified problem at Corinth. Now when it comes to the solution, what does he do?

21:37 Does he hold out the vial of a post-conversion crisis experience and say, now, take an injection of this experience and you will be so perfected in love that all of your divisiveness will be removed. Wait upon God for a mighty baptism of the Spirit that will so fill you with love and so fill you with passionate love for Christ and one another that divisions will no longer have any place in your heart. No, he does not have a quick, fixed, one-shot solution. Rather,

22:19 by a process of asking probing questions, by scathing comparisons and denunciations of their sin, he seeks to bring them to own how utterly contradictory this divisiveness is to their experience, to major tenets of the Gospel, to the very nature of the Christian ministry and Christian ministers. In other words, he seeks to inform their minds with those particular truths of redemptive privilege and reality which are calculated in combination in the believing,

23:03 intelligent Christian heart put to death this spirit of divisiveness. Notice how he begins, verse 13. Christ divided? He doesn't tell them to go off and seek experience.

23:21 He tells them to go off and think about a question. Is Christ divided? Every Corinthian Christian who stops and thinks and says, is Christ divided? Of course not.

23:39 He is one Christ. He is our one Lord. He is our one Savior. And if we claim to be united to Him and representing Him, what a tragedy if we who are His body are divided up, lined up behind Paul, Cephas, Apollos and another group lined up, super spiritual, behind Christ but separate from their brethren.

24:08 Therefore we know it was pseudo-spirituality. It was a claim to an attachment to Christ which gave them warrant for detachment from their brethren. So it was pseudo-spirituality. So Paul does not give them a crisis experience is the answer.

24:26 He probes them with a question. Is Christ divided? Then he asks a second question. Was Paul crucified for you?

24:38 What a stupid question. Of course not. If I were crucified I wouldn't be writing this letter, you say to me, you Corinthians. Exactly, Paul says.

24:49 Therefore for you to line up behind me simply because I was an instrument in the hands of God to bring the gospel to you is foolishness. Your supreme loyalty is to the one who paid the supreme price for your salvation. Jesus Christ was crucified for you. Not I, Paul.

25:10 Then he asks a third question. Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? When you openly declared your allegiance to Christ and to the Christian faith, did the name of Paul enter into your baptism? No!

25:27 You were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, for that very reason I thank God I baptized none of you save Crispus and Gaius, lest any man should say that you were baptized into my name simply because you were baptized at my hands. Now you see how he begins to attack the problem by probing questions that bring them, listen carefully, not to look for some experience yet unknown, but questions that take them back to realities already embraced and confessed. Do you see that?

26:09 Do you see that? I can't read you. Do you see that? Now that's not playing with words.

26:18 He doesn't say you've got the progressiveness being you've not yet had. He says you have the problem because you're contradicting what you've already come to possess and confess. And I call you back to line up your practice with what you've confessed and with what God has already done in your life. And then he proceeds as he takes up the matter of divisiveness again in chapter three because once he mentions gospel and uses wisdom of words then he launches into his treatment of the problem of worldly wisdom.

27:00 But then he picks up this theme again in chapter three and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk not with meat for you were not yet in me. For you were not yet able to bear it. Nay, not even now are ye yet able for ye are carnal.

27:20 Now notice he's not saying the totality of your life in every area is marked by carnality. He's focusing upon this specific problem that was present among some at Corinth. For whereas there is among you jealousy and strife are ye not carnal in that area? Are you not men of flesh?

27:43 Do you not walk after the manner of men? Party spirit gains and rules among unregenerate men. And to the extent that you've been taken up with this you are walking after the manner of men. For when one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos are you not men?

28:05 Now he comes back to some questions. What then is Apollos? Or what is Paul? He says reflect not on who died for you in whose name were you baptized but reflect on this question.

28:24 What is a minister of the gospel? Your party spirit has been occasioned by the fact that God has blessed you with a multiplicity of eminent ministers and ministries. Now he says you've used that blessing to become your purse and you're using that to act like men of the world. In this area acting like men devoid of the spirit you have forgotten the nature of a true minister.

28:50 What is Paul? What then is Apollos? Ministers through whom you believe and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase.

29:05 So then neither is he that planteth anything neither he that watereth but God who giveth the increase. Lining up upon behind Paul and Apollos and Cephas as though they had some direct and significant contribution to your salvation apart from the will and working of God you're lining up behind nothing. Paul is nothing. Apollos is nothing.

29:36 God is everything in your conversion. They were simply instruments through whom you were brought to faith. Now he that plants and he that waters are one. They're out to produce the same harvest.

29:52 They are one in purpose, one in goal, one in intention, one in message and now you've split them up to be the occasion of division. You're contradicting the very nature of the ministry. It is instrumental. That's all.

30:09 God is the great effector of change and transformation. Furthermore, that ministry is united in its goal and purpose. He that waters and he that plants are one. And if there's to be any reward don't you try to preempt it by a party spirit in elevating your man now.

30:32 Wait till the day comes and the God who alone can measure a man's true worth will parcel out the rewards. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor for we are God's fellow workers. You are God's tilled field, God's building. And then he enlarges on that imagery and says, because you are the building I came along and as a wise master builder I laid the foundation who is Christ.

31:06 Others come along and they labor to see the church built up but a day of qualitative analysis is coming. Not quantitative, qualitative. A day of quantitative analysis is coming. Verse 13 Each man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it is revealed in fire and the fire shall prove each man's work of what sort it is.

31:36 What is its quality? Is it wood, hay and stubble? Will the fruits of that man's labor be found to go up in smoke in the day of judgment? Temporary professors, those who became apostates or will it be gold, silver and precious stones?

31:57 Those who are truly built up into God's living temple only the last day will infallibly reveal it. So you Corinthians, what you're doing in essence is you're preempting God's day of judgment. You're seeking to heap up rewards now according to your estimation of these men. You're playing God.

32:19 Stop it. Stop it. And then he goes on in verse 16 dealing with the same problem. Don't you know that you are a temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you?

32:31 Now he brings another motive of fear. He says, if you don't stop this divisiveness that could eventually fragment and fracture and destroy the living temple, if any man destroys God, destroy. Now he brings the motive of fear. Then in chapter 4 he goes on and elaborates even further on the nature of the Christian ministry.

32:58 What's all of this teaching for? It's to deal with the problem of the party spirit. Now surely if the presence of a party spirit is so wretched those who are under its domination for a period of time that unconverted men, if anyone needs a second work of grace, it's people with that problem. Paul holds out no promise nor exhortation for a second work of grace, for a crisis of sanctification, for a baptism of the spirit.

33:37 No, he marshals a whole array of arguments and, as it were, floats out before the Corinthians by means of questions and questions by means of assertions by means of close reasoning all the way from the felt acknowledged reality of who baptized them into what name and to what end in confession of what savior to the day of judgment when there'll be a quantitative analysis of men's labors. All of this to do what? To deal with the

34:21 crisis of divisiveness. Now, let me ask you a question. If, as the proponents of a post-conversion crisis experience teach us, there were such an experience that would so purify these Corinthians guilty of the party spirit, what would have been easier for the Apostle Paul? To describe the experience?

34:47 To tell them they should seek it and marshal all of this argumentation to bring, as it were, a whole host of God's soldiers of truth against this bastion of a party spirit and seek to see it conquered? Well, you see, the quick-fix way would have been very attractive to the Apostle, but he didn't know a quick-fix way. Therefore, he didn't hold out quick-fix way and anyone who holds out for you so far as he holds out such a quick-fix, he is a false teacher and not a teacher of the sound

Paul's Solution to Fornication in Corinth (1 Corinthians 6)

35:31 apostolic. And the requirement for an elder according to Titus 1.9 is this, that he may be able to exhort, to encourage in the healthy teaching and to convict the gainsayers. Then look at the second problem to show that this is how Paul dealt with all of these problems at Corinth.

35:57 We are looking at the two specimens under our first case history, the Corinthian problems. Take the problem of fornication or sexual impurity. And I mention this because this is something that again all are aware of was a problem at Corinth and is a very current problem. And there are some in our day who would say to those who struggle with lust and impurity, what you need is, and then they hold out the promise of the Lord to bring a woman to the place where this is no longer a harking, crushing, sometimes wearisome problem.

36:39 Is that how Paul dealt with it? He starts out in verse 13, Meats for the belly and belly for the meats, chapter 6, but God shall bring to naught both it and them, but while there is a divinely instituted congruity between the belly and meats, God made the stomach to receive food and made food for the stomach. We cannot say because the body can fornicate, therefore it was made for fornication. No, but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord.

37:20 And the Lord for the body, this body was given to be the instrument through which the Lord would accomplish His will to bring glory to Himself through His creatures. And the Lord is committed to the well-being of this body, so much committed to it that He's going to raise it from the dead at the last day. That's Paul's argument. Verse 14, And God both raised the Lord and will raise us up through His power.

37:53 That's what it means the Lord is for the body, not what Dr. A.B. Simpson taught and the Christian and Missionary have healing services that they entitle the Lord for the body's service.

38:06 And this is the text that they wrench out of context. Wretched use of Scripture. No, Paul says the body's not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body and the proof that God is committed to the body and therefore it's right that our bodies be committed to His service is that even death is not the end of these bodies of Christ. Now notice that your bodies are members of Christ.

38:38 How's he going to deal with fornication? Not by saying know ye not that there is an experience in the Holy Spirit that will so fill you with the Spirit that bodily passions and appetites will no longer be a struggle. Seek it, obtain it, claim it in the name of Christ and all will be well. No, he doesn't deal with the problem of the body of Christ.

39:05 He says look don't you know he takes them back to what already is. Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? You mean even true Christians who have fallen into fornication their bodies are members of Christ? And then he states the unthinkable.

39:29 Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of Christ? When you fornicate or know ye not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body for the twain said he shall become one flesh. He said you Corinthians were the first to imbibe the notion of casual sex. He says don't you know there is no such thing as casual sex.

40:10 Sexual intercourse makes you one flesh. When the male and the female join an intercourse there is no such thing as casual sex. He says know ye not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body for the two saith he shall become one flesh. See what he is doing?

40:38 He is marshalling arguments from realities that already exist. And he says surely you are willfully forgetting it when you fornicate. Keep it in the uppermost chambers of the mind and fornication will be so abominable in your sight that you will say God forbid that I should fornicate. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

41:10 Flee fornication. He doesn't say get raised above such base and foul and animal like appetites. No. He assumes the service of Christ is committed to the dignity of this body.

41:31 He is going to raise it from the dead at the last day. In the entirety of my humanity I am united to Christ. My physical members are members of Christ. In a way I can I am not only with my Lord I am joined when I sleep in the grave.

41:53 I sleep in union with Christ Jesus. And furthermore in spite of keeping all of those things before me I don't presume fornication is always just one careless look away one careless set of physical circumstances away. One second look one illicit from it marshal all your faculties and realistically face every and any situation which could leave you vulnerable

42:35 to unclean do it Joseph not just with a potter's wife hands on you saying come to bed with me but everything that in principle would put its vile hands upon your mind and your spirit and say be guilty of uncleanness with me run and say you've and he tried to show them I'm feeling the self interest every sin that a man does is without the body he that commits fornication since against

43:19 his own but he said it's a form of self immolation by sexual impurity then he moves to high redemptive motives or no you your own, for you were bought with a price. The sanctuary of the living God, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, shall such a noble thing indulge in so base a sin as sexual

44:02 impurity. Now you see, dear people, what he's done, as he did with divisions, he didn't give one slick little answer. He didn't hold out to the immune sexual impurity. Surely Paul would have known about it, and if ever he was going to use it, it would have been

44:44 here. But he doesn't use it. He doesn't use it! Rather, he brings a whole phalanx! As the

45:08 mind and heart are well furnished with the intelligent, believing grasp upon these realities, plus a determination to keep situations, only then will we be kept sexually pure. Now dear people, if that doesn't convince you, I'm going to hang it up. I say that in all of the news, I'm going to hang it up. I'm going to hang it up. I'm going to hang it up.

45:42 In the full array of the thorny problems faced by the apostolic writers, not a hand basis experience is the answer to any, let alone to all of those fundamentals. No quick fix, no one medicine to cure all spiritual diseases, like the elixir sold and the traveling salesman in the old west, do everything from cure of gout and infertility to whatever. And people were fooled.

46:19 By the millions are buying the promises of the slick salesman of crisis experiences that will give them a. They don't want to assess his true worth. They don't want to think about such things as I'm united. My body is slated for resurrection. I was purchased to be the

47:00 temple of the Holy Ghost. I am so united to Christ that joining myself in a sexually illicit relationship. My Lord. In front of their television, listen to their shallow modern gospel songs and still be delivered from gross sins in a crisis of ten. My friends, it isn't going to work and that's why Christian

Case Study 2: John's Purpose in 1 John and Assurance

47:30 leaders, five very quickly. I said, I would give you three lines of evidence under this general principle. Pastor Lamar is leading us in a study in the book of first John. You remember in the introduction, he said that one of the concerns of John addressed in chapter five and verse twelve was that those who believed on the Lord Jesus might have their assurance

48:08 strengthen John five. I'm sorry, verse thirteen. These things have I written unto you that you may know that you have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the son of God. One of John's major purposes, not the exclusive purpose, but the major purposes was to strengthen the assurance of young believers. Now then, that to have the highest form of

48:42 assurance is to have a baptism in the spirit under the imagery of a sealing of God attesting his own commitment to own us as his own. If ever an apostle would teach it, it would be in an epistle where one of the major purposes is to impart assurance. You follow my line of reasoning? If his major purpose, or one of his major purposes, is to impart assurance, and if a

49:14 crisis experience subsequent to conversion, like a medicine bag, we'd find it here. But John doesn't do that. Whenever he makes reference to the Holy Spirit, he never once says, seek an experience in the spirit, where it has already and is already doing. For example, look at chapter four and verse thirteen.

49:52 We know that we abide in him and he in us, because given us. When he mentions the spirit, he says he has been. Chapter two and verse twenty-seven, referring to the ministry of the spirit and the presence of the spirit as a divine anointing as for you, the anointing which you received. Past tense. You've already received of his in you, and you need not to

50:31 let anyone teach you, but as his anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is no lie. And even as it taught you, ye abide in him. Well, if my concern is that believers might have their assurance strenghthened, and I don't tell them to that, it will give them an attestation of their acceptance with God, the assurance, what then does John tell them to do? He doesn't give them a command to seek

51:15 seek a baptism or a sealing of the Spirit. He doesn't give them a promise that such a sealing or baptism is available. What He gives them is a string of tests that we could call the birthmark.

51:29 And He says, look in the mirror of the Word and see if you have the birthmarks. Hereby do we know that we know Him, chapter 2 and verse 3,

51:45 His commandments. These things I write unto you that you may know. What things did He write? Not come from death unto life, 3.14,

52:16 because we love.

52:20 And there are six or seven birthmarks delineated by John giving people solid assurance that they're true.

52:38 Write a whole epistle and give all the birthmarks if there is of it inferred or what people call syllogistic.

53:04 Well, you see, the reason John didn't give that medicine, it wasn't in. His medicine bag. And the reason it wasn't in his medicine bag is it doesn't exist.

Case Study 3: Christ's Dealings with the Seven Churches (Revelation 2-3)

53:17 And then the third strand of this basic one argument that I lay before you this morning, remember what I'm trying to do is to give you a specimen of different sections of the New Testament to validate my assertion that in addressing the broad spectrum of the thorny problems confronted within the pages of the New Testament, no indication that a post-conversion crisis experience is ever held for the answer to any one of these problems, let alone to all of them. A witness of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, our major seedbed of argument. If you look briefly at the book of 1 John, let's look equally briefly

53:59 at the Lord Jesus himself standing in the midst of the seven churches of Asia Minor, Revelation chapter 2 and 3.

54:11 Hear the Lord Jesus himself as the faithful and true witness I say it reverently, the last book of the Bible contains the last model, pastoral dealings of Christ with his churches. Christ himself is dealing directly now with the churches. It's not John hearing about their needs, aware of the influence of the Gnostics and others and writing to help them. It's not Paul hearing a report from the household of Chloe and seeking to address problems on the ground.

54:49 It's not Paul hearing a report from the household of Chloe and seeking to address problems on the ground. It's not Paul hearing a report from the household of Chloe and seeking to address problems on the ground. It's not Paul hearing a report from the household of Chloe and seeking to address problems on the ground. to the inspiration of the Spirit, but it's the risen Christ himself in the midst of the Lamb stands as the exalted Prophet, Priest and King of this church.

55:00 And he speaks directly in the first person to the messenger of every church. Chapter 2, verse 1. To the angel in the church at Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars. Every message begins with an allusion to one aspect of the church.

55:19 To the angel in the church at Ephesus write, of the vision of chapter 1, the vision of the exalted, glorified Christ, which when John saw it, left him as a dead man. It takes him back to that vision. Christ in the midst of the churches in all the splendor and glory and majesty of his exalted position. These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars, he that walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

55:46 I know thy works and thy toil and thou canst not bear evil men and didst try them that call themselves apostles and are not and didst find them false and thou hast patience and didst bear for my name's sake and hast not grown weary but thou didst leave,

56:10 didst forsake the first love amidst all of the maintenance of doctrinal integrity, amidst all the maintenance of church purity, amidst all of the maintenance of works of charity and benevolence, think against you, that to me at the first left me in that you've left that love to me that was yours at the first. The vision Christ's experience puts us in a state of, quote, perfect Wesleyan concept where the heart is no longer

56:53 deeper like teachers say those words say. How often have I sung, prone to wander, Lord, I fear, prone to leave the God I fear. That has been heresy in my mouth for X number of years since I entered into the higher life. I am no longer prone, that's right.

57:20 Well, if ever there,

57:31 remember, he doesn't say seek, he says remember. For something I'll never receive. Make your mind go back to what you once knew back there.

57:46 He doesn't point them to more. He points them back to what was. Remember all and end from everything and anything that began like little suckers on the vine to sap the life of your devotion to me and radically prune them off no matter how painful it may be. Remember and repent and then don't sit around waiting for something to happen.

58:22 Some glorious manifestation of my presence, some rending of the heavens, some fluttering of angels' wings, some whispering of my voice in your ear. Remember!

58:44 My candlestick out of its place, except Jesus does not tell them. The reason your love waned is you see your problem was you stopped with the first work of grace and I've allowed, I've allowed all this to happen that you might painfully feel that you desperately need this higher, this second level of my grace to work in you so that this will never happen again and therefore it's been worth it to go through the pain of your loss of first love that I might prepare you to tire this glorious.

59:27 No such words are found on the lips of Christ and wherever Christ is ministering his true prophetic office in his church, he never promises such to anyone and wherever any man is,

59:47 not reflecting the true prophetic ministry of Christ. Another example from these chapters, verse 12 of chapter 2, writing to the church at Pergamos, these things saith he that hath the sharp two-edged sword, referring back to chapter 1, where you dwell,

60:10 Satan, Satan's throne is, you held fast my name, you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one who was killed among you where Satan dwells. He commends them for their tenacity even in the face of martyrdom. But he said, I have a few things against thee because thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to cast the stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. So hast thou also some that hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner whatever the teaching of Balaam is and the teaching of the Nicolaitans is.

60:53 Our Lord has a complaint. You have grown, he said.

60:58 Sickeningly, you've imbibed the quote, unconditional love craze that is a non-dating evangelicalism.

61:13 You have ceased to have a holy distaste and resolute actions in the face of religious error. I have this against thee. There are those among you who teach the false doctrine of the Nicolaitans and the Nicolaitans. What are they to do?

61:30 He doesn't say, seek a baptism in the Holy Spirit that will so nerve you that all false teaching from here on in will be met with resolute resistance and where necessary, church discipline. No. He says, repent therefore or else I will come to thee quickly. He says, you are now possessed of everything you need to deal as you ought with this abnormality.

61:55 He doesn't point them to something more. He points them to do what they must do with what they already have. What they already possess in Christ. No, dear people, I close by asking you to go home with this text tucked away in the folds of your heart.

The Apostolic Path: Continuing in the Faith

62:13 The old path that the apostle and his companions laid upon the young Christians is the only path of true, successful.

62:25 Acts chapter 14.

62:29 Young believers who had seen the apostle, some of them run out of town half dead, beaten for the cause of Christ, they come back. Acts 14 and verse 24. 2. Confirming or strengthening the souls of the disciples.

62:50 And how did they do that? Exhorting them to go on from being mere believers to have a glorious post-conversion experience that would establish them and strengthen them. No. Exhorting them to keep on continuing in the faith and that through many tribulations we must enter, and when they had appointed for them elders in every church and prayed with fasting, what did they do?

63:26 They commended them to the Lord on whom they had believed. They said, now the Lord upon whom you will ever need of grace and wisdom and power and forgiveness and strength to face whatever in the many.

63:55 So continue to hold to the apostolic and continue in the subjective exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus. Who is the great center in the universe of apostolic truth. It did not even suggest there was something more beyond Christ.

64:20 Exhorting them to the fact that the relation and difficulty between now and the consummation but that Christ was enough and that his church now furnished with competent overseers was to be the crucible in which they would carry on their life until life was over. So when we stay, it is no crisis experience subsequent to conversion commanded or promised as essential to living the Christian life. This teaching that I'm setting forth

65:03 is not based on an isolated text here or there. But it takes within its compass the whole suite grounded in that truth and kept.

Prayer and Final Exhortation

65:27 Our Father, we are so thankful that you have given us your holy word. We thank you for the realism of scripture. We thank you that you have not hidden from us the thorny problems faced by the early Christians both individuals and groups of Christians. We thank you that you've left the record of how the apostles by the wisdom given from the ascended Christ addressed those problems.

65:55 And we confess, O Lord, that there is probably not a one of us who would not like some magical vial of one injection of one truth. That would forever fix us. But we acknowledge, O God, that this is nothing but and we pray for grace to take to heart the things we have studied today and that by the power of your spirit your people in this place will be kept from the errors that surround the many kinds of post-conversion crisis experience teaching. And may we as your people

66:38 be like those early disciples and be like those early disciples who heed the exhortation to continue to those among us who have never turned from their sins and never believed upon him. May their hearts be drawn to see in him there is a fullness of grace and salvation that answers to their deepest need as well. Hear our cry and dismiss us with your blessing. We ask in Jesus' name.