Godly Christians

There is an evil, friends, that has permeated our American churches in the last 80 years. And this evil rears its head from time to time, in different generations. And it must be dealt with.

It must be dealt a deadly blow. It will wrap itself around a church like a python's death grip. This evil to which I refer is called Anti-Gnomianism.

Anti means against, and gnomis means law. An Anti-Gnomian is one who takes the principle of salvation by faith and divine grace to the point to where they believe that Christians aren't bound to follow the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments. The best definition I've ever found of this heresy was written by the Bible commentator Adam Clark, who wrote The gospel proclaims liberty from the ceremonial law, but binds you still faster under the moral law.

To be freed from the ceremonial law is the gospel liberty. To pretend freedom from the moral law is Anti-Gnomianism. This describes the people of God, friends, who claim there's no need to obey God's law any longer because we live in an age of grace, therefore holiness and godly living are thrown out the window because once saved, always saved, you can still go to heaven and still sin all you want to.

Wesleyan Whitfield had to fight this battle in third day, and it rears its head from time to time. My Bible says without holiness no one shall see the Lord, and that means you, even if you are the chairman of the deacons. The title of my message today, friends, is Godly Christians with a question mark because I'm afraid most in the church today would fall into the category of worldly Christians.

But you cannot serve God, friend, with a divided heart, and you cannot be a follower of Christ unless you are willing to have Christ as your Lord. When you get saved, self is dethroned, and another must sit and rule there, the Lord Jesus Christ. The doctrine of holiness is a forgotten doctrine in most of our churches today.

We believe we can walk with God and still have one foot in the world, but in Amos 3.3 it declares, can two walk together except they be agreed? Of course not. You can't join the church and walk with Jesus if you're still holding hands with the devil. You cannot love your sins more than you love God.

Holiness is seldom preached from our pulpits today because few want to pursue a godly life for Christ Jesus. Turn in your Bibles, friends, to the book of Titus, for there are two companion verses there I'd like to draw out for us today. Titus 1.16 and Titus 2.12, and let me read this to us at this time.

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His holy word. Titus 1.16 describes the majority of the American church today. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him.

Being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate, that pretty much sums up the result of our modern evangelism, flooding churches with goats and not sheep, but baptizing pagans and telling them they are now saved, and the pagans believe church membership is salvation, and they live their lives in the same way before they join the church in their same sins because they were never changed by the new birth to begin with. Godliness and holiness are strangers to them. Now look at Titus 2.11 and 12, which portrays the true believer.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Listen, friends, Christ died to make men holy. Salvation is in Christ.

You cannot have an interest in Christ without being vitally joined to Him in your daily living. A man's heart, by scripture, is represented as incurably sick. When a person is saved, a new nature, a new principle of holiness, is planted within the heart of a rotten sinner.

Regeneration is the implantation of the divine nature of God in the heart of sinful man. And the result through the new birth is a new way of walking that is pleasing to God. Christ died so that sin should no longer lord over us, that our lives should be lived under the lordship of Christ in a daily victory over sin.

The gospel that stops at justification and omits sanctification is not the gospel, friends. Listen to me, friends. Many pastors today run a church like a business, and they are the CEO.

All that is required is that they grow their church membership with a bunch of unsaved church members who put a tithe in the storehouse to promote a program. And many church members today have gotten out their pocket knives and have whittled out a God for themselves who won't get in the way of their daily living. Holiness is the way you live in your day by a day-by-day walk with a holy God.

A man who calls himself a child of God, but who lacks the evidence that the work of grace is real in the heart, is a man who has no evidence that God saved him. Bible holiness is not pharisaical self-righteousness where you boast, I do this and I avoid that. It's not having a high opinion of yourself.

It is living with a new purpose, by a new principle, implanted within by the spirit of God, which changes the heart to want to please Christ Jesus on his throne by our daily lives. Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my commands. We live in a lawless age and a moral breakdown in society to such a sad degree that many church members can sit and rule on the throne of their lives and not submit to the lordship of Christ in their lives.

Holiness is obedience to the will of God. When a person has been touched by the grace of God, his heart wants to do the will of God. That's what godliness is.

A crucified savior will have crucified followers. Listen to me, friends. The Lord Jesus Christ came down here to change the disposition of sinful men and to make them not only want to escape hell, but to walk with the Lord in utter subjection to all the rights and claims he has on a follower of his.

When you get saved, your life is no longer your own. Your body is not your own. Your time is not your own.

Your money is not your own. Christ must be a complete master. The doctrine of antinomianism has spread throughout our Baptist churches to such a sad degree.

I had an old pastor tell me he believed Elvis was saved. He said, look at all the gospel hymns Elvis recorded. He was a nice Christian man.

I guess nobody told that Baptist pastor that you can't be saved and still live like the devil. This generation wants to go to heaven, but they don't want to obey God. They don't want to go to hell, but they don't want to walk with God.

It lies a surrender to him. God didn't come down here to make a mockery of us. He didn't come down here to regenerate me and plant something in me that longed to be holy without giving me the power inside where practical holiness could be a truth in my life.

He came down here not to make fun of us by requiring the impossible, but to liberate us and empower us that the righteous demands of God's law might be fulfilled in us. A true work of grace upon the heart will result in a new way of walking that is pleasing to God. I want to end this sermon, friends, with a story about my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Alford, who was one of the most holy men I've ever known.

When he stepped into the pulpit, heaven came down because heaven's mantle of authority was upon him, and he could cut you to pieces with his preaching as if he held two swords in each hand to hew you down. At the time, Dr. Alford was the pastor of a Baptist church in Manhattan, New York, and he jumped into a cab, which was driven by a man from Jamaica. Stephen Alford immediately recognized the accent and inquired if the cabbie was from Jamaica, to which the man replied, Oh, why, yes, mon.

Then the cabbie asked Stephen Alford what his business was. Dr. Alford told the man he was a pastor of a church in New York City, to which the cabbie replied, Oh, mon, how can you live in a dirty, rotten city like this? Stephen Alford asked the cab driver if he ever saw a Jamaican lily. The driver informed him, Oh, yes, mon.

The lily, she grows in the blackest bog. Oh, what a sight to see that white lily as she stands out in that dirty bog. To which Stephen Alford replied, My good man, that's exactly why I am here in New York City.

I am a lily in the bog. And do you know what, friends? That's the best description of what a Christian should be to this sin-sick generation in our day. We are to be a lily in the bog as we live for God in the spread of the gospel.

May our daily prayer to God be, Oh, Lord Jesus, today by your grace make me to be a lily in the bog for your great glory. Amen.