We Are Denying the Lordship of Christ!

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I have been teaching for many years that we do not understand the role of Divine grace in our salvation. God has given Divine grace to us as an alternative to the Law of Moses; but we are viewing Divine grace as an alternative to moral change, an alternative to righteous, holy, obedient behaviour.

It is as though God is going to relate to us forever in terms of forgiveness rather than in terms of our change into His image. Grace, as we understand it today, is God’s apology for our lawlessness. It marks a change from every other covenant God has made with man.

(11/20/2005) I began today by stressing that ours is a day of preparation. We are in the time of the fat cows. The days of the lean cows are just ahead of us. If we take advantage of all the spiritual blessings God is providing today, we will be able to stand and help others to stand when the lean cows come. But if we do not take advantage of what is being offered today, we and our loved ones will perish during the period of moral and physical horrors now on the horizon.

I have said many times that our understanding of grace is the common denominator of the several errors that have sprung up rather recently, such as belief in a pre-tribulation rapture; the faith and prosperity messages; imaging; and other unscriptural emphases that view salvation as a plan to benefit man. These aberrations do not realize that the Christian salvation is a program to satisfy God’s needs and to fill the roles and activities necessary for the establishing of the Kingdom of God on the earth.

These ideas to a great extent have destroyed the moral strength of the American churches, and of the American government which depends on the Christian churches for its moral compass. It is not possible that moral guidelines can proceed from the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. They must proceed from the churches, and the members of the churches more often than not are not being delivered from the sinful nature.

As if the destruction of America that shall take place because of our immorality were not enough, an even more sinister aspect of our misunderstanding of Divine grace may be perceived. It is that we are denying the lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We place great emphasis today on the fact that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour sent from God. He is the only Saviour and is able to save to the uttermost those who trust in Him. I do not mean He is able to bring them to Heaven, for that is not the goal presented in the New Testament. Rather Christ is able to save us from the Person and works of Satan and bring us to the Person and works of God—a terribly important distinction if we are to understand the program of redemption.

However, we have lost sight of the fact that Jesus Christ is our personal and collective Lord. If we are to receive Him as our Lord, then we must do all He commands.

Because of Augustine’s emphasis on the depravity of man, apparently, we recognize that we cannot save ourselves. But we have ignored the numerous passages in the New Testament that inform us we can be changed through the power of Christ. We indeed can gain victory over our sinful nature until we no longer are walking in known sin.

Because of the misunderstanding of Divine grace, plus the belief that we are hopeless sinners and must be saved by forgiveness alone, we have decided that we can love Christ, worship Christ, receive the salvation of Christ, and yet not obey His commands or those of His Apostles. In other words, we will accept the Savior but not the Lord. And this is a terrible state of affairs! We are stressing the Savior at the expense of the Lord. How wise Satan is! It is the Lordship of Jesus Christ that Satan fears. Satan wants to be our Lord. We have been deceived!

How often do we say to sinners, "Let Jesus into your heart and you will be saved." Search the Old and New Testaments. Underline the passage that tells us to let Jesus into our heart if we would be saved. The message to the unsaved is to turn away from sin, put your faith in the atoning blood for the forgiveness of your sins, be baptized in water, and you will receive the Spirit of God, which is eternal life.

What about "let Jesus into your heart"? The only supporting passage would be in Revelation where the Lord is knocking at the door of our heart. But this passage is not directed at the unsaved but at the seventh Lampstand of God, the church of Laodicea.

Apparently the church of Laodicea was filled with self-direction. It claimed to have need of nothing; but it was in a wretched condition, just as is true of so many Christian churches of our day.

To the church of the Laodiceans (it certainly wasn’t the church of Jesus Christ)—to us if we will receive it—the Lord Jesus is asking entrance. Christ wants to dine with us. We dine on His body and blood. He dines on our obedience and worship. If we will do this we will be seated on the heavenly throne with Him.

Now the question is, why does Christ want to enter and dine with us. Who is This who wants to enter us and commune with us at the deepest level of our personality?

The answer is, the King of Glory; the Lord of Forces, of Hosts.

Why does He desire to enter and dine with us (shades of the Song of Solomon)? It is so that He can drive the enemy from us, and then through us from the earth. It is the spiritual fulfilment of the Jewish Blowing of Trumpets, the celebration that occurs after the feast of Pentecoast.

Today Christ, the King of all other kings, is knocking at the door of your heart and my heart. Will we obey Him? Will we obey His commands and those of His Apostles found in the New Testament? Will we listen to Jesus and do what He tells us to do personally?

If we claim "grace," stating that we are not saved by works but by His forgiveness alone, we will be guilty of denying His right to be our Lord. If we deny the right of the Lord Jesus Christ to be our personal Lord, then we can forget about His being our personal Saviour.

Would we say to the Lord Jesus: "You have to save me and take me to Heaven because I am saved by grace, even though I am not doing what you have commanded; I have been saved by a sovereign grace, so you have no right to tell me I have to obey You in order to go to Heaven?

At night we touched on another aspect of the manner in which grace is being misunderstood. Using Romans and Ephesians he expounded the following:

Paul strove in chapters three through five of the Book of Romans to set people free from the Law of Moses so they could look only to Christ to bring forth the fruit of godly behaviour. He did not, as is believed today, strive to set people free so they could continue to obey their sinful nature and still be counted righteous in the sight of God.

We are considered righteous when we turn from the Law of Moses and place our faith in Jesus Christ. Then we are to continue in righteousness and inherit the Kingdom of God by putting off our old sinful nature and putting on the new Nature of Christ.

Paul had to emphasize repeatedly that we are justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ apart from works, meaning the works of the Law of Moses. This is because until we are released from the observance of religious laws we are not free mentally to follow the Holy Spirit in bringing forth the fruit of righteous, holy, obedient behaviour.

Any sort of religious guidelines, whether the Law of Moses or another set of rules, will hinder our walk with Christ. We will look to the rule rather than to the Lord. Such rules may help us at first. But eventually they will prevent the fullness of our ability to look to Christ for every thought, word, and action of the day and night, a practice necessary if we are to be conformed to Christ’s image and dwell in the centre of God’s Person and will.

You can hear the sermon at listen. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

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