No Crisis Experience Commanded #4

Review of Previous Principles and Introduction to the Fourth

0:05 This adult Sunday school class was held on October 3, 1982, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Considering together in this, our combined adult class, some very vital aspects of biblical teaching under the general heading Some Major Principles of Living the Christian Life, and thus far in our study for some weeks together under this broad canopy of concern, we've examined three such principles and are in the process of opening up and demonstrating and amplifying a fourth. Now, class, please tell me what are the three that we've studied, and if you've been here longer than four or five weeks and don't know these, you get an F this morning. All right. Principle number one. Miss Hiller?

0:56 Yes. All right. All right. There is no one master key to living the Christian life.

1:04 That's her punishment for paying close attention. All right. You get called on. All right.

1:09 There is no one master key to living the Christian life. Now, don't all of you look out the window because I said that. All right. The second major principle, and we'll take a volunteer from this side of the class.

1:23 All right. Cliff? There's no release from tension and conflict in living the Christian life. All right.

1:27 No release from tension and conflict in living the Christian life, the great realities of indwelling sin, the reality of the world and its presence, the pressure, the activity of the devil, and the fact that we are saved in hope will mark the Christian life not only as a life of joy and peace and fulfillment, and it is that, but also a life of tension and of conflict all of our days. All right. This side of the class, the third principle we examined is, and you may give the abbreviated version.

2:01 All right. Rich?

2:05 All right. There is no area of passivity in living the Christian life. All right. All right.

2:09 All right. All right. All right. In the Christian life, all of our faculties of mind, affection, will, our hands, our feet, our judgment, all that we are and have as redeemed men and women is to be self-consciously engaged in living the Christian life.

2:27 And though the Christian life comes under the canopy of the broad biblical doctrine of the saving work of God in Christ by the Spirit, that work is not such as to negate, to cancel or suspend any of the conscious engagement of any of our faculties. God works in us to will and to work for his good pleasure. He does not work in us so as to bypass our willing and our working. He so works as to secure our willing and our working.

3:02 And now we're examining the fourth principle, and that principle is that there is no crisis experience commanded or prohibited. God promised as an essential element of the Christian life. Now what we did in addressing ourselves to this principle was first of all to consider many of the theories that are based upon a theology of crisis, which teach essentially that after one enters upon the path of the Christian life, he really cannot begin to live with a capital L, the life that God intends him to live, until he or she experiences, a definite crisis experience. And sometimes there are different dominant emphases as we have seen, but it is this crisis experience by which we begin truly to live the Christian life as we ought. And our assertion in the form of this negative principle is that no such crisis experience is either commanded or promised in the word of God as an essential element of living the Christian life. We are not saying that the Bible does not teach that certain believers have certain crisis experiences which did indeed bring them to new levels of spiritual reality. We're not saying that.

4:24 Nor are we saying that in the history of the Christian church, many of God's people have not had certain crisis experiences. We are not denying reality. What we are saying is that when we turn to the word of God with this question, what do I need? And what am I promised in order to live the Christian life as I ought?

4:45 There's nothing in the Bible that says you are promised a crisis experience subsequent to regeneration, and you must have such a crisis experience subsequent to regeneration and conversion if you are to live the Christian life as you ought. That's all we are asserting. And I want to keep pressing that issue home, because the longer I live, the more I'm convinced people mix up what preachers say, and what preachers say more readily than anything else. I am absolutely amazed when I hear the things I supposedly say, and things in which I've sought to qualify and say, I'm not saying this, I'm not saying that, but I am saying this, and it still comes back, Pastor Martin said, as though it were gospel truth.

5:28 So if for some of you you say, you know, at times I feel like he's insulting my intelligence. Well, I'm sorry if you feel that way, but I'm not insulting your intelligence, I'm just protecting my assertions. That's all I'm doing. All right?

5:41 Just protecting my assertions. And what we are saying is, no such crisis experience is promised or commanded as an essential element of living the Christian life. Now what we're doing is taking some of the common denominators of the various kinds of teaching which focus on this crisis experience approach to the Christian life. And the first common denominator, which we began to examine, and have already examined for two weeks, and try, as I would, or could put it in the present tense, try as I may, to press on to a second common denominator as I prayerfully considered what to bring this morning.

6:22 I had no release from the pressure on my own conscience that we needed to work this thing over at least one more time, because perhaps no principle, no common denominator is more fundamental to the wrong thinking of this kind of teaching than this first one. And the first common denominator, the second common denominator that we've examined, is that mere conversion leaves one inadequately furnished for living a biblically normal Christian life. Whether it's the old classic Pentecostal teaching, or modern Charismatic teaching, or Wesleyan perfectionism, or deeper life teaching, whatever these teachings may be, they have this in common. They all teach, whether explicitly or implicitly, and many of them, explicitly, that is right up front. It's not back there under the counter. It's right up in the display window. They teach either explicitly or implicitly that mere conversion, what God does on the threshold when we pass out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's dear Son, whatever God does here, leaves us fundamentally in an inadequate state to live the Christian life as we ought.

7:43 And so what we've done thus far is to examine the pattern of the teaching in the Book of Ephesians. We did that last week to show that that is not the perspective of the Book of Ephesians, nor is it the perspective of the basic pattern of the Book of Colossians. And we extracted that great principle that again and again, what we see in the Scriptures is that if we would live the Christian life as we ought, we are not to belong to certain ideas of past and present, but to the concept that we have in mind as we live the Christian life as we ought. We are not to belong to certain ideas of past and present, seek some additional experience, we are to reflect back upon that which God has already done when he brought us out of here into here, so that the imperatives, what ought to be the imperatives of the Christian life, rest down upon the indicatives, that is, what God has already done for us in Christ. And so we do not have stagnation, we do not have a theology that conversion is the beginning, middle, and end. The Christian life, and we saw this in the prayers of the Apostle, for additional illumination, for additional spiritual experience. But that experience is to be found in the spiritually intelligent and believing appropriation, assimilation, implementation of the various things that God has done for us when he brought us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of his own dear Son. Now, what I

Addressing the Problem of Sin: The Romans 6 Pattern

9:09 want to do this morning is to turn, as time permits, to at least three other passages in which we're going to concentrate on some of the areas which most frequently are addressed in this crisis-type teaching, and see when we come to the Scriptures with some fundamental questions about these areas, how does the Bible point Christians to the life of victory, or the life of success, the life of growth and development, as the children of God? Now, first area is the whole problem of sin in the life of a Christian. And almost all of these theories of the Christian life, to one degree or another, address themselves to the question how can a believer deal with the problem of his present capacity still to sin, of his present capacity and inclination to sin? And of course they say the answer is to have a crisis experience, either a baptism of the Spirit, or an infilling of the Spirit, which will cleanse us from inbred sin, or we'll come into one of the clichés of certain forms of the deeper life, is the exchange life. We give up our life to let Christ live His life through us. But the bottom line is, there is a concern for the problem of sin.

10:33 So let's turn together to Romans chapter 6, as Paul by the Holy Spirit addresses himself explicitly, to this problem.

10:44 Romans chapter 6.

10:48 Paul is expounding the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. May I say Romans 1.16 is a powerful text in this whole area. That's just a little aside.

11:03 The gospel is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone who believes.

11:10 In other words, upon faith, the power of the gospel begins to be operative in the life of everyone who believes. And Paul nowhere in the whole epistle says, what I meant by that is, it gets you started, but you need something more if you're really going to go.

11:30 It's from faith unto faith. For the righteous or the just shall live by his faith. So that emphasis stands right on the threshold of the epistle. Now we come to Romans chapter 6, in which we're going to, to see the apostle dealing with what particular question.

11:49 Now, you don't need to be a profound exegete, you don't need to know a letter in the Greek alphabet to know what the subject matter of chapter 6 is. Paul very conveniently sets it out very, very plainly on the threshold. What is the subject under consideration in chapter 6? Anyone?

12:08 Kim? Alright, but more specifically, you can use the very language of the text if you want to. Alright, Paul, okay, remember now that Paul has just concluded chapter 5, in which he has asserted that our acceptance with God is based upon the work of another. Verse 19, so for, I'm sorry, for as through the one man's disobedience, that's Adam, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, that is Christ, shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in besides that the trespassers might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did literally superabound. There is no mountain of sin raised by man's heart, a mountain seen under the scrutiny of God's holy law, but what grace rises above it. Where sin abounds, grace superabounds and overflows that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

13:30 Well, let's add to that wonderful statement the devil's logic. Well, if there's a mountain of sin this high and grace superabounds over it, then if we raise a mountain this high, then grace superabounds even higher. So the way to magnify grace is to do what? To sin. I mean, that's logical, isn't it? Logical. That's devil's logic. But that's the logic applied to Paul's doctrine of the grace of God being the basis of the sinner's acceptance with God.

14:05 Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And now you have his strong revulsion in the very presence of that thought. God forbid.

14:18 God forbid. So whatever is going to be said is going to be a calculated attempt to show the total unwarrantedness, if I may coin a word, of that deduction. And now the heart of everything that follows is bound up in this next statement. Look at it. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? And that is the Bible's own key to this chapter. In the face of the question, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? No sooner does Paul express his revulsion at the very thought, let it never be. God

15:06 forbid. He comes to the heart of why that cannot be so. Now notice what he says. He doesn't make a statement of what we ought to do.

15:16 He doesn't make a statement of something we ought to seek. He simply makes a statement of fact. We who died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? Now notice what he does.

15:33 He grounds everything that is going to follow on the statement of something that has already happened in our own past spiritual experience. We who died to sin. That's a fact. If we are believers, we have died to sin. Now in the light of that fact, he says, how shall we live in that to which we died?

16:09 When a man dies in this present world, all his fundamental relationship to this world ceases at the moment of death. We who died to sin, viewing sin as a cosmos of spiritual existence. He said, we died to that. How shall we live in it?

16:28 Now he goes on to say, notice the next language of the next verse, and the language of it, or, are you ignorant that all we, not some who had some additional experience, not some who have sought an additional experience and obtained it, all we who were baptized into Christ, all of us who have been brought into union with Christ were baptized into his death. Now he gives some instruction. He says, now you may be ignorant, of what has happened to you, but it has happened to you if you're a Christian. And what you need now is to have your mind instructed not with reference to something out here that has not happened, that you need to seek, that you need to carry for, so that you may begin to live a life that is not characterized by bondage to sin. He doesn't do that. He points them backward to the facts, that derive from their initial faith union with Christ. And he says, if you've been planted into Christ, symbolized in your baptism, then these facts are true of you. And then for the

17:55 next verses, he opens up those facts. Now, having done that all the way through verse 10, now he says in verse 11, even so, reckon. Put it to account. Not go on to experience this, but reckon this set of facts to be true.

18:20 Even so, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. And in the light of that reckoning, now he tells them to do certain things. Verse 12, let not sin reign in your mortal body. That's an exhortation.

18:38 Neither, verse 13, present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness. There's a negative command, and the positive, present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. And now another statement of fact. For sin shall not lord it over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

19:02 So you see what he does? He grounds the imperative,

19:08 reckon, yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, count it to be so, and in the light of that, don't present your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, present yourselves to God, your members instruments of righteousness unto God, the imperative rests down upon the what? The indicative. This is what happened to you. And now you need to begin to think and live and act and react in the light of those great realities, those great facts that are true of you if you are indeed a believer.

19:48 So he does not say that they are inadequately furnished until they have some experience. He says God has established a relationship with Jesus Christ in the whole complex of his saving work in you on the threshold which makes it possible for you, yea, makes it actual that sin shall not exercise lordship over you. And then of course he goes on to unfold further dimensions of this. It is not my purpose to give a detailed exegesis of the passage. I want you again to feel the overall thrust of the pattern by which Paul addresses himself to this question of the problem of sin in the life of a child of God. And then of course he goes on in the further part of the chapter with that same kind of a motif. Verse 17 thanks be to God that whereas you were the slaves of sin you became obedient from the heart to the form of teaching where unto you were delivered. It is a beautiful picture. Here he says

Crisis Experiences as Incidental to Biblical Truth

20:57 the gospel came as a form of teaching like a mold and when under the power of the spirit you embraced that gospel you were cast into the mold of that teaching. You were delivered unto the teaching. That's the emphasis of the original. It wasn't that the teaching was delivered unto you.

21:16 You were delivered unto the teaching. You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching where unto you were delivered and what happened? And being made free from sin you became slaves or servants of righteousness. And then he says I speak after the manner of men and he draws out some implications from those facts.

21:38 So you see the whole pattern is not to urge them to go on and seek some news, some distinct some second level, second story experience. He presses upon them to be aware first of all of the facts. Are you ignorant? This is what happened. Get the facts straight. And then in the believing appropriation of the facts do certain things. Now let me ask this question. Suppose there's a man or a woman who's a true believer.

22:13 All of these things stated in Romans 6 are true of him. But because of poor teaching he has been ignorant of those facts and because he's been ignorant of the facts his faith with respect to them has been weak and inadequate. Now suppose under a careful exposition blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit to the heart of this believer he comes to an awareness of those facts and realizes he does not have to be the slave of sin in any area. The Lord Jesus has declared and made his emancipation proclamation in union with Christ. The bondage of sin has been broken. Is it possible that the discovery of those facts and the believing response to them would constitute an amazing crisis in this man's spiritual experience? Is that possible? Hmm?

23:07 Well sure. So what happened? He may have been living alone and under say a regular preaching through the book of Romans. His eyes are open to see things about his inheritance in Christ that he never knew before. And as a result of that over a period of a given week or even a day or maybe two hours going home and praying through what he's heard expounded. These things come home to his heart with power and he says Lord how could I have been so blind for so long? And there's a believing response to it. What happens in this Christian life? There may be a very radical crisis in which he comes to a new level of spiritual experience. Now are we denying the validity of that? No. All we're saying is it is not a crisis experience which is promised or commanded.

23:58 What is commanded is get your head sorted out with regard to what God has done for you in Christ. And when you get your head sorted out then let your heart and your life comply with what your newly enlightened head tells you based on the Bible. And if that gives you a glorious experience that's only incidental to the reality. Do you see it?

24:21 Do you? Alright.

24:25 Now in the same way in the same way any chronic area of disobedience as we'll see when we get into the matter of conscience God willing in the next hour can act like a virus does in the body. And you may have a virus that is just sapping all your strength and making you feel just dull and lifeless. You may have the best diet the right mixture of ordinary and health foods and all the rest see how compromising I am by please everybody I please everybody. And you have an excellent diet and you get plenty of exercise you do everything that's prescribed for good health. But if that virus is at work in your system you're not healthy. Now that's like some believers. They may be under the best of ministries. They may even be reading their

25:18 Bibles and going through the motions of prayer. But if there is a conflict of conscience there is a spiritual virus eating away at the soul. Alright. Now suppose because this is fresh in our minds suppose that virus was the virus of an insensitive dwelling with one's wife. Alright.

25:39 Here's a man who's just thought that headship means iron fisted ching of his wife into submission. You do what I say on the head. Alright. Now suppose under the ministry of the past few weeks. Pastor Nichols opened up 1 Peter 3. This man's heart is crushed under the pressure of the word of God. Man oh man. I've been in a real sense a godless husband though I'm a Christian.

26:06 And I see now why I felt uncomfortable but now the light has come with such clarity. I see what I've done wrong and he repents and he deals with that sin and seeks his wife's forgiveness and gathers the family together with children at home and confesses his sin and says pray for me as I seek to have my life radically altered by this. Will that constitute a spiritual crisis in this man's experience? Of course it will.

26:32 But now how stupid it would be for him to call up all the conferences and say look I have these secrets now to the victorious Christian life. May I come and go pound my secrets. If only husbands will start loving their wives it will transform their lives. Transform mine? Yeah it did because that was your particular area of chronic spiritual sickness you see. But now to build a whole doctrine on that is totally unwarranted in the life of Scripture. So you see the pattern of Romans 6 is know, understand on the basis of the word and spiritual perception granted only by the Holy Ghost. Understand what God has done for you in Christ. What is yours

27:21 in him in whom you are made full in the language of Colossians 2 and then believingly and then practically respond to the light of those realities. Alright? Do you see that? Alright any question now on what we've extracted from Romans 6 with respect to this question of the problem of sin? Yes Ralph? That's it. That's right. And if that creates some glorious experience I mean that's fine.

28:02 I mean as I tell people if you've got hallelujahs and glory to God in your soul don't batter them down. You know? Ride the crest. If you wake up feeling gloriously happy fine nothing wrong with that. But if you wake up the next morning and feel ingloriously gone has anything changed that really matters? You see? No. So you learn how to ride out the glumness.

28:29 I liken it to the difference between the waves on the ocean and the ocean floor. Now if you wake up in the morning and you're right in the crest of a big wave fine. Ride it for all it's worth. But tomorrow morning you may be there.

28:45 But spiritual reality is determined by the ocean bed unchanged. This is what is. And sometimes this may only be one third due to certain spiritual things some may be the weather some may be the time of the month if you're a woman. Some may be your own particular relationship to people. I mean this crest can be the result of any number of things. Some of which may be spiritual to a greater or lesser degree. Some psychological. It just may be you've got a good nine hour sleep when you needed it.

29:20 I mean there could be any number of things. We're fearfully and wonderfully made and we're so mixed up and all intertwined.

29:28 But now imagine you see if a person the thing that sort of brought him up here. So he was sort of climbing a crest and then he brought to the crest because he was meditating on Psalm 37 4 and looking at the sunrise and he really got here. That was the final thing that brought him up here. You say how stupid it would be for him now to write an article on how to live the victorious Christian life. Meditate on Psalm 37 4 while looking at the sunrise on Tuesday morning. Those are simply incidents. Circumstantial things that have nothing to do with the real issues that ought continually to be before the child of God. Alright? Any further comment or question on this point?

Addressing the Problem of Assurance: The 1 John Pattern

30:14 Alright, let's move on then to another area to which these teachings address themselves and that is the whole area of assurance. And since Mr. Lee is bringing up a series on assurance, perhaps we can say some things that will help not steal his thunder but prepare his platform. You notice that one of the teachings that we examined as representative of this crisis theology is the teaching that if you lack assurance, what you need is a sealing of the Holy Spirit.

30:49 And I quoted some of those quotes from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones who is perhaps the most well-known and able proponent of these things in contemporary literature. He's gone to be with the Lord, but while he was alive, particularly in his last years, very strongly emphasized this. And the teaching is that if we lack assurance, the way to get it is to seek until we obtain a distinct, definite, second work of grace, a baptism in the Holy Spirit which he preferred to call a baptism which should be conceived of as a sealing which gives this level of assurance that will make our lives qualitatively different when we have it, and I could substantiate this from his writings, we'll know it. This is not something at the level of unconsciousness. We will know that we've had it. I remember one young man challenged him in a given situation about the basis on which he was teaching this from a certain passage and his answer was, have you had the experience?

31:55 Don't talk to me if you haven't had the experience. You're incompetent and then you've often heard the terminology one experience is worth a thousand words. So in a sense you see, someone who claims to have the experience can just say, well you are speaking out of ignorance, you don't know what it is, and therefore you're not in a position to discuss the matter. Well, we saw last Lord's Day evening that one of John's major purposes for writing his first epistle had to do with what issue?

32:24 Hmm? The issue of assurance. Where did we learn that? What text?

32:31 Anyone? Alright, 1 John 5 13. Notice the language of John. This is not his only reason.

32:39 This is his only reason for writing because there are several times in the epistle where he says, these things I write in order that. You have a clause of purpose. These things I write in order that. Alright, one of the reasons, one of the purposes here, verse 13.

32:55 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. So, he's writing to believers. Alright? They have passed from the state of death into life and he says I'm writing these things to you believers that you may know that you may have for the first time a deep assurance that you may have your assurance strengthened augmented. I'm writing to believers that you may know. Now, what was John's prescription? For believers who either lacked this certain assurance or needed a deepened and increased measure of that assurance. What things did he write to them? Well, if you read

33:56 through the epistle, you will read in vain for one hint that he wrote to them. What you need is a baptism in the Spirit. What you need is a sealing of the Spirit. There isn't a hint of suggestion.

Assurance Through the Birthmarks of a True Christian

34:12 However, what we find is a series of tests. What I have called in past caves, he delineates the birthmarks of a true Christian. And what he says is that if you will look upon these birthmarks as I have described them and under the scrutiny of God's eye and by the enablement of the Spirit see whether or not those birthmarks are present in you, you then have a basis for knowing. Now, notice how that emphasis comes through again and again in the epistle. Turn back to chapter 2 and verse 3. And hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that says I know him and does not keep his commandments, is a liar.

35:19 And the truth is not in him. But whoso keeps his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected. Hereby we know that we are in him. We know these things have I written unto you that you may know.

35:40 Well, John, what did you write? A series of exhortations to seek a baptism in the Spirit, to seek a divine, sealing by which you'll come to assurance that is not what he wrote that is not what he wrote he wrote saying we know that we know him if birthmark number one we are keeping his commandments if I find in me not a perfect but a purposeful earnest pursuit of obedience to the commands of God and of Christ out of a motive or a complex motive I know that in me the love of God has been perfected that is it has accomplished its goal the love of God revealed in Christ is intended to take a rebel sinner and turn him into an obedient son and servant and if I've been made into an obedient son and servant there's only one reason why I am thus found a son and son God's love in Christ has conquered me and if it has conquered me I have grounds to know that I know him my flesh would not conquer flesh and the devil would not conquer flesh and the world why if I find that I who was natively rebellious and indifferent to

37:08 God's precepts find a light in the path of obedience there is but one rationale for that that is that I have come to know him you see John's reasoning hereby do we know that we know him he that keeps his commandments has reason to be assured that in his experience the love of God has been perfected hereby do we know that we know him alright turn on to chapter 2 and verse 29 if you know that he is righteous you know that everyone also that does righteousness is begotten of him here's another no passage if you know that he is righteous that is God then everyone who is practicing righteousness everyone who is doing what is right is bearing the family likeness he has been begotten of God because by nature he did not do righteousness he practiced sin he drank iniquity like water as Paul said in Romans 6 we gave our members instruments of unrighteousness to sin in some cases very blatantly and evidently in other cases more subtly and more refined but the thing is true nonetheless

38:34 our minds our affections our interests our passions our desires our time our energies were given to the service of sin well if you find someone who is now engaged in the practice of righteousness he's bearing the likeness no longer of the devil ye of your father the devil in the lust of your father it is your will to do he's bearing the likeness of his new father and such a person has grounds to know to know that he is born of God to know who his father is and then on to chapter 3 and verse 10 in this the children of God are manifest in the children of the devil whosoever does not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth his brother 3 13 and 14 marvel not brethren if the world hates you we know that we passed out of death into life because we love the brethren we know because and he does not say we know because we have had this glorious experience of the baptism of the spirit bringing this divine and direct sealing and attestation which makes evidences utterly unnecessary and I heard a man teach this until it just made me just cringe with horror and he used the illustration when a man is

40:03 away from home a family man who loves his wife and children he doesn't have them so what does he do he takes along a photograph of them and when he doesn't have them this representation of them is a good substitute or the best substitute if he can't have them at least he can have them so he sets up a picture in his motel room and when he gets up in the morning he looks at his wife and his children he thinks of them that representation sort of is a substitute for them though it can't really fill the place that they fill he went on to say in his illustration if he's over his business trip and back home and has his wife in his arms and his kid on his knees and all the rest a rather big fellow he can get all that at once and uh... he said don't you see how silly it would be for him to set down a picture on the table and look at the picture he said if he has them why does he need representations of them he said now if you're content simply to have evidential assurance that's like a picture now that's alright if you want second best but if you want real assurance get this baptism in the spirit get this divine sealing and now you have god himself telling you directly you're his and you don't need the evidence he didn't say the evidence has become secondary he said you don't even need you see what that does

41:31 that opens the heart to the grossest forms of deception and antinomianism that people can live like the devil but say god has given me the witness of the spirit and i get excited brethren it's because that's butchering the souls of men and the devil does enough work to send people to hell for a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day and a half a day thinking you're going to heaven without preachers claiming to believe the bible and offering an an additional coat of many colors of experience helping him in his task we never get beyond the teaching of first john in conjunction with the subject of assurance and if i'm sure mr lee will begin to lay the foundation tonight our assurance does not rest solely upon the evidences not solely but neither do we possess it exclusively of the evidences that's what you're going to teach isn't it what'd you say i'm just making sure he's straight on this before i turn him loose

The Indwelling Spirit and Assurance at Conversion

42:51 one thing you know these guys get through the academy they've learned how to take it on the chin but i'll clue you in they know how to dish it out too i take it as well all right now finally you see the point we're making now if you have a cup of wine my can is a Monte but only my when it's alright such an reason that great thing is you and if from the beginning shall abide in you you shall abide in the Son and in the Father and this is the promise which he promised us even life eternal these things I have written unto you concerning them that would lead you astray and as for you the anointing which you ought to receive no, the anointing which you received of him abides in you, you need not that anyone teach you but as his anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is no lie even as it taught you you abide in him and he says everyone who has so been taught of God as to embrace Jesus Christ

44:19 for what he is true God and true man the Christ of God as revealed in apostolic testimony such a person has received the spirit for no man can call Jesus Lord except by or in the Holy Ghost he can mouth the words but he cannot truly savingly perceive him for what he is and properly be related to him apart from the operation of the spirit and John says you have received this divine anointing, continue in the light of its teaching with respect to Christ and your relationship to him and to the Father through him and in him and you find a similar emphasis further on in the epistle with respect to the work of the Holy Spirit I should say back up to verse 20 you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things I'm not going into the exposition of that what does he mean you know all things the important thing is he says you have an anointing and then again in chapter 4 I'm sorry chapter let me check my references here yes 4 13 and hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit he doesn't say and hereby we can know that we abide

45:48 in him if we will obtain the spirit but we know because we have received the spirit and I challenge you to go through one or two other references to the work of the spirit and you'll find this same emphasis not a shred of evidence that he exhorts them to seek an experience in the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the subject of assurance and what's so interesting is that this is the only epistle to my knowledge in which an apostolic writer under the guidance of the spirit explicitly addresses himself to the subject of assurance as a dominant concern of the epistle now I'm not saying the doctrine of assurance is not taught in any other epistle it is Romans 8 14 to 16 Galatians chapter 4 sections in Hebrews but I'm saying it is the only epistle to my knowledge where it is one of the explicit purposes of an apostolic writer to impart a basis of either a first full assurance or a strengthened and augmented assurance and in addressing that subject explicitly not inferentially or secondarily but explicitly the mind of God revealed in the Apostle John's letter indicates that this crisis theology has no

47:16 foundation in the apostolic testimony with respect to the subject of assurance do you see that? are you carried in your judgment by that? I hope you are so that we're setting up these many walls of defense against any of this teaching that again as someone has pointed out always appeals to the deepest instincts of the person who is in a state of grace the person who is in a state of grace and lacks full assurance is vulnerable to the appeals wouldn't you like to know with certainty and as Mr. Lee so accurately stated once we've resolved the question what must I do to be saved then the other question that haunts us day and night is can I and how can I be certain that I am saved and when someone is wrestling with that question and someone comes along and says look you can come to that in one glorious coat of many colors experience that will settle the issue once and for all that's something very appealing very appealing to that and you'll be vulnerable if you're not well grounded in this aspect of biblical teaching alright any question on that I just looked at the clock for the first time and it's three minutes from quitting time already so I can't take up the third passage you'll have to hold off on that yes Jim

The Danger of Works-Based Crisis Teaching and Defective Conversion

48:38 oh it's possible to lose it yes it's possible to lose it well then you've got to get back on the track and get it back again yes oh yes most would teach that you can lose it I don't know any that teach you can never lose it I haven't encountered any such teaching no so it's not as though once you get up there you can't fall back down here yes Frank recently I was at a church with a man who was teaching the crisis experience in terms of the penthouse experience very late he was he was saying look we've got a lot of problems in this church he didn't say that but knowing the background he was saying look we've got all these problems we've got guys checking up with girls and we've got parents houses and all kinds of drug problems what we need is the penthouse experience again and at the end it was the typical thing where everyone went forward to wait to see you all for the blessing of this spirit it occurred to me that he was just declaring out and out that they didn't have at all

50:01 what their whole experience claimed and the passage came to mind that Jesus said that the Father gives the spirit to those who ask and in the context he's saying that God is one who gives freely and graciously and that if we come to him he will indeed give it and give it without delay so one of the things that they that that we find is that that these people they have to wait for the spirit they have to wait for the experience they have to wait and wait and wait and pray and pray and pray and they've really got to get very earnest and very engrossed in this whole waiting mentality but that's not the essence of the scripture at all the scripture is that God gives when we earnestly pray yes as we'll see in one of the other common denominators there is built in to most not all there are one or two exceptions that I've encountered in my reading and in my exposure but most of these by and large have a subtle system of works in which they will teach you get here by grace you're going to pass over that barrier out of condemnation and death you've been into the state of grace and salvation by grace but if you're going to get here you've got these interesting often the books say

51:29 three, four, five, six, seven ten what steps to being filled with the spirit ten steps or X number of conditions of receiving the baptism or the sealing and what is that it's a subtle form of works it's Galatianism receive ye the spirit by the hearing of faith or by the works of the law that's Paul's question yes Pastor Nichols this is sort of a general statement and I think it applies to the first area the first area here is that and I remember what you're saying is that there is not the power in conversion in the conversion experience sufficient to live the Christian life there's something else to do and I think that one of the things that is creating climate to lose this mentality is that it will radically impact the world's conversion absolutely people think that people are converted whereas in reality they're lost and it's easy to leave it in which we're setting the stage for this like what like what Francis was talking about you know this horrible situation existing in the church and what we need is the baptism of the spirit it sounds like what those people needed to say and I think that could be multiplied

52:57 again and again and again because you have a climate of each and every one of us where to be saved is simply to don't know where to raise your hand or where to be saved is to pray the sin of prayer be led through a pure spiritual Lord people don't understand by and large what it means to be saved and they have that defective view of conversion and because of that it's no wonder that that conversion is not sufficient for a Christian life that's true if that's what conversion is then conversion is not sufficient exactly to give you what you need to be able to live your life and so I think the answer to that is to see that what is so often claimed as conversion is not conversion at all and that one of the major dimensions of the antidote to this mentality is to have the right idea of conversion and to go after this easy religion which is around because that's creating the climate which is making it all very conducive both for carnal Christians and for Christ's experience yes to give these people comfort and then also tell them they need something more to come up to the biblical standard and both of those things are wrong when we go to the word of God the Bible has a standard of what is expected of those who are converted on what basis can someone assume that this work of conversion is done well when that standard is relinquished and a sub-biblical standard accepted the point that Pastor Nichols has made is a vital one

54:25 it not only gives comfort to people who shouldn't have any see as long as you're telling them now you're telling them look you're converted but you're a mess I mean here you are shacking up with girls and you're doing this and doing that and doing the other thing listen listen you're a mess now you're converted but you're a mess you need this to really live the person says oh well if you tell me I'm going to make it so I make it second class so what I make it that's all that matters so you give them comfort where they should have no grounds for comfort and you create a climate for a false teaching of what they really need yes Mr. Dixon yeah that's right it works it works yeah it is it works religion not by grace not by faith well our time is gone let me just give you a quote I'll never forget it is I don't think he's here so I won't embarrass him when I first came into this area over 20 years ago we came into a situation where the denomination we were part of taught in its official statement of doctrine that there was a crisis experience of the Holy Spirit subsequent to regeneration particularly in conjunction with sanctification and the first system animatic expository preaching I ever did I preached through large sections of the book of 1st John under the heading the birthmarks of a true Christian and I'll never forget the thrill I had when someone who had been in this teaching for years met me in the little passageway from the back room where we'd meet to pray out to the sanctuary where we'd come to worship

Conclusion: The Magnitude of the First Work

55:53 and I'll never forget it's as though it happened yesterday he said to me he said you know Pastor Martin I think I'm seeing something as you've been preaching on the book of 1st John he said to read this and then he mentioned the denomination the reason the so and so put so much emphasis on the second work is they don't understand the magnitude of the first work and I said thank you Lord some of it's starting to get through some of it's starting to get through starting to get through the reason they put so much emphasis on the second work they don't understand the magnitude of the first and it's only in the context of a biblical view of what real conversion is that we're not going to be that the whole doctrine of the Christian life that is in the Bible fits and so it's really a call also to reconsider this and that's of course what we're dealing with this common denominator says mere conversion is not enough well the point that Pastor Nichols has had to do is the doctrine of their mere conversion it is not enough because it's not real conversion it's spurious conversion well our time is gone let's pray that God will help us as we seek to absorb and live out the implications of what we've studied together Father we do thank you again for this hour that we've been privileged to spend with our Bibles open before us and you know our hearts that we take no pleasure in examining error

57:21 and yet your word says that those who are elders and teachers of your people must not only exhort in the sound doctrine but must refute the gainsayers and Lord in favor and in pursuit of that duty laid upon us by your word we have sought this morning further to expose the unbiblical nature of this crisis teaching and we ask that you will so ground your people in the truth that they will never be vulnerable to this teaching preserve us from error for we know that the truth is that which accords with godliness and we do not ask to be instructed that we might be censorious of others that we might be full of pride that we know it all but our father we desire to be instructed that we may live more holy lives more useful lives lives more fully conformed to your dear son seal them the word to our hearts and continue with us in this day through Christ our Lord Amen