"Easy Christianity" Churches Are Also Leading People to Hell
The heretical doctrine that should sicken any truly saved person is the doctrine of "Christian" Antinomianism. The term itself is an oxymoron because there is no such thing. I would agree that salvation is precious, it is not worked for, all sins were forgiven regardless of tense and I take my blessed assurance that salvation cannot be lost. However, even if salvation is grace through faith those points that were just mentioned are not the only point when it comes to salvation. One must realize that when there is salvation, there is also sanctification. 1 Corinthians 6:11 states that not only is there justification but also sanctification. Right after Paul warned the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, he mentions the wonderful change of the believer. Before they got saved, you can see how sinful they are but now they are saved then one can see the wonderful change in one's life of God's grace. If a person's profession of faith was made but there is no change, I remembered how I could only say that I have every right to question the person's conversion. If I am not living right then people have the right to question my conversion. If a person is a Christian then their lifestyles ought to be different because their doctrine is different.
Any sound-minded Christian even a babe in Christ would find the idea of getting saved and still sin all you want to be utterly heretical and not to mention repulsive because it is just not sound at all. The great Baptist preacher Charles H. Spurgeon said, "If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord's will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do not suppose that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their Saviour, while they are wedded to their idols, and their hearts are still in love with sin. If I do so I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness." What you must note is that he did not invent it but affirmed the truth that true salvation results to a change in life. But today, we have churches that ignores sin and repentance, we have "feel good" churches that teaches the easy gospel, when its members are wayward they refuse to warn of the possibility of a false conversion but rather say, "You are a Christian and you shouldn't be doing that." instead of, "Maybe you are not saved to start with." teaching that anybody who preaches true salvation results to a true change of life is preaching "works salvation".
I would agree that salvation is not by works, it is by grace through faith but true faith results to good works. To say that the Reformers contradicted themselves when they said, "Salvation is by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone." is a far-fetched accusation. The Reformers may have had some errors but they were sticking to the Bible. The idea of salvation results to works is not an invention of the Reformation but a Biblical doctrine declared by the Reformation. A faith that is not alone means that it will result to something. Good works are not the cause but the effect of getting saved and good works of the Christian's life are by God's grace. Hebrews 10:12 states that when get saved they are saved from their dead works (good works trying to get to Heaven) to become of service to the true and the living God. When I think of God's grace, I could not think of sinning all I want and I want more of it because I want to do better than good for Him that saved me. Ephesians 2:10 says that when God saves the person then He ordains them unto good works. Titus 2:11-14 says that when God's grace appears then it teaches those who are saved to live soberly, righteously and become people who are peculiar unto good works. What the Reformers were stressing was the apostolic truth that if you are truly saved then there ought to be a change in life. But what is so sad is that the Easy Christianity crowd are taking verses out of their context to justify their Antinomianism either directly or indirectly.
Spurgeon also said, "The LORD knows very well that you cannot change your own heart and cannot cleanse your own nature. However, he also knows that He can do both. Hear this and be astonished. He can create you a second time. He can cause you to be born again." I have no reason to really believe that when the LORD saves a person that He does not change the person. Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26 says that the process involves replacing one's heart of stone with a heart of flesh, there is a cleansing involved with water and when the person is saved, they are set to obey the statutes of God and they will no longer live in any way they want. When a person is saved, they cannot be saved and still live like devils because that is just Biblically impossible. What is the use of saving a person if God does not regenerate the person? It becomes pointless for the Lord Jesus Christ to die for sins if He would grant them permission to be committed all over and over again. When God saves the person, He does not go against His holy nature. There is really no room for people who want to be saved and sin all they want as much as there is no room for people who want to save themselves because both crowds refuse the real Gospel according to Jesus.
The statement by Pastor Francis Chan was, "Lukewarm people don't want to be saved from their sin - they only want to be saved from the penalty of sin." I remembered the statement that I said, "I am a Christian and I desire to be free from sin, not to sin freely." Every sin carries a penalty and a consequence and though not all consequences are immediate but you will reap what you sow (Galatians 6:7-9). No true believer will ever think that they can sin all they want and be saved from the penalty and/or consequences of such actions. Whenever I do a rereading certain passages of the Bible with how sinners come to the Lord Jesus Christ, I do not see any people who are still hardened in their sins but they have been fed up with it. Matthew immediately left the whole highway robbery business in the form taxation when Jesus called him. He did not say, "Well I better ask the Roman authorities first." but no, he immediately resigned and became a full time Christian worker. When Zacchaeus was convicted of his sins when Jesus wanted to eat at his house, look at the wonderful change in the man. Whenever the Gospel is preached, sin is diminished as a result and people were not sinning all they want. Should a Christian ever fall down, there is a difference like Peter wept for lying and David was willing to pay the price for his adulterous affair he had with Bathsheba. Would have it been anybody unsaved, they would just have a fake repentance which will only result to more sinning in the future. Many people have a kind of repentance that only says, "I should have not done it because of the consequences." rather than a repentance that sees God is ultimately the one who is offended by the action. Ahab may have sat on ashes and wore sackcloth but he was still an enemy of God even after that incident.
If they think that it was John Calvin's invention that only those who endure to the end for the sake of Jesus Christ are the ones who are saved, I really ask them to read the Bible again. 1 John 2:19 states that those who did not endure to the end were not saved to start with. That verse has been purposely missed or misinterpretated by either Antinomians or the conditional security crowd. There is no reason for me to believe that Judas Iscariot is in Heaven or he is in Hell after he lost his salvation as he never had it. The fact that he was called a devil because he was not saved. John 17:12 has Jesus declaring that none of his disciples are lost but the "son of perdition". If the whole idea of only those who endure to the end is just an invention by Calvin then it should not be even in Scripture. Philippians 1:6 says then God begins a good work in the Christian then He is bound to finish it. I have the blessed assurance that as a Christian, what God begins He is bound to finish and I am confident that by His grace, I will not live like the rest of the world. I just thought that if these Easy Christians think that it is unbiblical then I suggest they better delete some of the verses I had just mentioned showing that true Christians endure to the end because Calvin did not say it, the Bible said it. Even if some Christians may not be enduring right now but sooner or later they will endure to the end as a result of God's grace and not of themselves. True Christians stand the test sooner or later while fake Christians will just fall away.
Worse, these "Easy Christians" are ready to play dirty whenever they could against the true preachers of righteousness. I find a lot of Roman Catholic apologists with their offensive language and behavior, I also find that among the "Easy Christians" are just like the people in Jeremiah 6:16 where they are called to seek for old fashioned revival from God but they would not walk in them loving the foolishness as quoted in Jeremiah 5:31 that false preachers are the new norm for them. They only want to have their ears tickled as 2 Timothy 4:3-4 warns that false preachers will also preach according to their own lusts and not according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A Gospel that says, "Come to Christ and He will clean you up." is not appealing to the sin loving crowd as, "Get saved and you can live in any way you want." Repentance of sin is not a popular topic because people want to justify their sinful lifestyles rather than be cleaned up from it. Since they do not want to listen to sound doctrine then they are ready to lump sound preachers with false preachers who teach works salvation. Any sound preacher may find himself accused by two crowds namely the works salvation crowd of teaching a license to sin while the "Easy Christianity" crowd may accuse him of teaching salvation by works. They can come up with every dirty game they can like character assassination (ex. calling a sound preacher to be secretly a Jesuit agent when he is not even working for the Vatican) or any dirty tactic just to justify and enjoy their heresies after they were so lovingly warned against it.
"Don't be deluded, people. I don't care what you verbally claim and Jesus doesn't either. If you don't do it you're deceiving yourself. And I care not what you may listen to and hear and take in. Unless you build your life on biblical truth you are deceiving yourself." were words that Pastor John F. Macarthur said about many who claim to be Christians. Anybody who thinks they are saved just because they supposedly said a sinner's prayer but they do not have any changes in their lives are deluded where they trusted a prayer instead of the Savior. How can they even truly ask Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior if they have not even understood the real seriousness of sin that it deeply offends God who is far more offended than we are? How can a person have Jesus Christ as their Savior but not as Lord when He is Lord? If your Jesus is not Lord then your Jesus is false. A true Christian is built on biblical truth and not on some fancy doctrine that cannot be found in the pages of Scriptures.
See also: