Lost Doctrines Lordship of Christ

We are beginning a new series of messages, friends, on what I call the Lost Doctrines of the Church, meaning these doctrines are seldom, if ever, preached anymore. Our series will be comprised of four Lost Doctrines, which I feel are sadly missing in many of our churches today. I believe the fault has been a watered-down gospel in a politically correct society that doesn't have the power to save a flea, much less a lost person hardened in sin.

These four main doctrines that need to be recaptured today in the pulpits of the land and in the life of our churches are the following. Number one, the Lordship of Christ. Number two, the cross and the life of a believer.

Number three, the Christ life for the self-life. And number four, the Spirit-filled life. I'm going to cover these four heads in this series of Lost Doctrines, friends, and today we're going to tackle the Lost Doctrine of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

It was said that the prophet Isaiah died as a martyr by being placed in a hollow log and then being sawn in half. As shocking as it is, many today are doing the same thing because they like to get out a power saw and cut Jesus in half and choose the half they want. They'll take Jesus as a savior, but very few want to take him as their Lord.

They prefer to get out their pocket knife and carve out for themselves a God they can live with. They'll accept your Jesus as their savior so long as he doesn't get in the way of their daily living. They'd like a free ticket to heaven so they don't have to go to hell, but they don't want a sovereign Lord telling them what to do.

So they'll take Jesus as savior and still sit on the throne of their life and rule there. But the gospel of the Son of God has rights and claims on all followers of Christ. He must be a prince as well as a savior.

You cannot divide him into halves and choose the one you want. The Lordship of Jesus Christ means self must be dethroned and another enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll never forget the seminary trained Baptist pastor who told his congregation that if they wanted to go to heaven, all they had to do was to believe John 3, 16.

That's what the old boy told them. The trouble is a sinner can believe John 3, 16 and still go to hell. We tell folks today that they can have their cake and eat it too because we preachers tell them it isn't necessary to give up the pleasures of the world and sin.

You don't have to change. All you have to do is believe. But Jesus never preached sin and religion like we do today, friends.

That's why most of our church today are a sad mix of the unconverted and antinomians. Everybody just does what's right in their own eyes and calls that salvation. When at the very height of the revival in Scotland, William Chalmers Burns answered God's call to go spend the rest of his life in oblivion as a missionary to China, a friend said to him, I suppose you're going to go convert the Chinese? No, Burns replied.

I'm going to China to glorify God. Listen, brother preacher, the great design of the gospel is the glorifying of God. When we fail to preach a God-centered gospel, then we fail on all levels.

We must preach the truth in its purity. And the lordship of Christ is not an opinion or an option you can take or leave, friend, but a requirement for Christ must be a prince as well as a savior. Old time preachers understood this and made this doctrine of the lordship of Christ their primary message.

And that's why God so blessed their labors and attended their preaching with such powerful revivals. If you don't believe me, go pick up a copy of 50 Years on the Battlefront, the biography of Mordecai Ham, and you'll see what I mean. Whatever town Mordecai Ham went into, he turned that town upside down on its head in revival.

Listen, friends, to the doctrine that he preached. Here are his own words. I preached the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.

I allowed for no compromise, but hammered this one thought that Christ Jesus must have first place, first call, and first allegiance. I made that the keynote of all my meetings. My objective has always been to enter a town and change the thinking of the residents toward Christ to direct their lives to center on Christ.

Well, friends, that's how men in former times held up the lost doctrine of the lordship of Christ. Listen to this description of the effect of Mordecai Ham's ministry. When evangelists Ham preached, mockers were converted, families were restored, bars were closed, laws were changed, churches were filled to overflowing, even one advertised in the local paper that no more new converts should attend as there was not room for them.

Hundreds were called to preach, and crooked politicians either repented or feared the consequences. When some resisted God's work, God withdrew His grace in answer to Ham's prayers, and God's judgment fell. Listen, friend, do you want a ministry like that? Then recover the lost doctrines like the lordship of Christ that God is so blessed in former times and preach the full counsel of God for the glory of God, and just maybe, just maybe you'll see a transformation in your ministry, and perhaps somebody may come tug on your cold sleeve, and with a sob and a broken voice ask you, oh, what must I do to be saved?