Unsaved People Refuse to Accept Their Helplessness as Sinners Because of Pride

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The more I analyze the four types of converts in the parable of the sower, the more it is evident to why the first three are false converts.  Just because the person hears of the Word of God does not automatically mean they are saved.  People today just love to fight the Biblical truth that Christians so lovingly tell them that they are helpless in their sin.  Just because something is well-accepted does not make it automatically acceptable to God.  Sure the world can accept the works of charity from Christian organizations while hating the core teachings of Christianity.  Many wanted to follow Jesus because of His miracles but they hate His teachings.  His teachings were not only hard against the obvious sins but also against the sin of pride.  By nature, fallen humans have a huge degree of pride that must be broken.

The idea of works salvation is generally acceptable because it appeals to the pride of life.  If a man does not fall because of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, there is always the pride of life to how man can fall.  There is a difference between a person who does what is right for selfish motives and a person who does what is right out of God's grace.  The difference between the saved person and the unsaved person also has their motives.  The saved individual only abandons a life of sin because they were converted and it was the grace of God at work.  The unsaved individual only does good works for the approval of men or hoping to bribe God.  If salvation were either maintained or kept by works, then those works did not spring out from a genuine love for God.  Salvation is not by works yet is is incredibly hard to believe the Gospel because of pride and arrogance in the fallen man.

Some say that Satan only makes you do what is is obviously not right such as stealing, lying or murder.  What they ignore is that 2 Corinthians 11:14 warns that Satan can also appear as an angel of light.  If Christians do acts of charity then so do pagans which again something is wrong not because pagans do it but because it goes against God's Law.  Satan can win people over by good works or opposing evils that harm other people.  One may see the blind followers of Satan who are fighting against acts of evil like abortion, homosexuality, genocide and the like.  Pope Francis may oppose several evils in the world today but that does not make him a man of God but a wolf in sheep's clothing.  The Dalai Llama may renounce the evils of Communism but he is not a man of God.  As the wise preacher Charles H. Spurgeon says that good work is not wholly good unless it is done for the glory of God.

People who believe their own good works will justify them are no better than people who believe God's grace grants them license to sin.  The first three soils represent the problem of unregenerate man to why they need to be conditioned.  The works salvationist's heart is hardened against the fact that they need the Lord Jesus Christ, it has a lot of thorns of worldly desires to do good works for one's own personal credit and they end up having that pride of life that prevents them from having a genuine conversion.  When they are told that they are sinners and Jesus is the Savior, they are bound to reject it and thus it becomes really hard to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because of their pride.  The Gospel message is hard to believe on because of the fallen person's fullness of pride within.  It only becomes easy for them when the person has already been humbled and broken.  Before you get a good soil - it must be removed of weeds, it must be broken and conditioned before the seed can grow.

The idea of works salvation where one must work for their salvation is hard to swallow.  Most people think that there is nothing wrong with them even if their lifestyle may suggest otherwise.  A habitual adulterer may think nothing is wrong with him because he is deeply religious.  The Bible breaks their pride revealing in Romans 3 the whole total depravity of man especially verse 19 that calls all of humanity to be silenced before God.  James 2:10-11 shows that even the slightest sin is ready to condemn the person to Hell.  Isaiah 64:6 shows us how our righteousness is a rag used for women during their menstrual period.  They want to change but not on God's terms.  In God's terms for salvation and a new life, one must trust in Him and Him alone.  New life in the Lord Jesus Christ must first begin by recognizing one's total depravity, repentance of one's sins and pride and trusting in Him alone for salvation.  That is quite different than a new life of the unsaved man who just simply changes lifestyle for one's own selfish reasons rather than the grace of God abounding in Him.

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