Saving Conversion Or Decision

That there is a vast difference, friends, between making a decision for Jesus and being savingly converted by Jesus. The main reason why the majority of church members today are going to hell lies in the methodology we use today. We use a man-centered methodology whereby the existence of church is for man's pleasure.

We make our buildings full of only the best creature comforts money can buy in an effort to pamper a people so they won't leave. Then we try to reach more folk with a man-centered gospel that's centered around the happiness of man. Won't you come to Jesus, we tell folks.

He will solve all your problems, health-wise, money-wise, and happiness-wise. And then we offer folks a rosy picture of the God of love and the Jesus who just wants to be your pal. And by these means we grow our churches so we can look good within our denomination.

While 90% of us go on to hell as unconverted church members. But the old gospel was God-centered. The end of salvation is the glory of God, not the happiness of man.

The old gospel was not diluted of its saving power to be more palatable to sinful man. The old gospel emphasized the doctrines of grace which are rune, election, blood redemption, repentance, and regeneration. That man enters this world with a rune nature and a bent toward sin.

Man is totally depraved and drinks iniquity like water. He's blind to his condition, dead in sin and in amnesty against God. And that if a hardened sinner will come to Christ for salvation, then he first must be enabled by grace, drawn by the Father, which is a gift from God, and awakened to his lost condition, brought under conviction of sin by the Spirit of God, which leads to repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ, that a saving conversion would occur as the Spirit of God wrought a work of grace upon the heart through the new birth and regeneration, which is a supernatural act of grace, whereby the Spirit of God takes away the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh and implants in the individual a new disposition for holiness.

Now you won't hear that on Sunday morning from 98% of our churches today. No, they'll tell you that if you want to be saved and go to heaven, all you have to do is make a decision to accept Jesus as your personal Savior. It's as simple as that, friends, and you can be saved.

And on your way to the altar as you walk the aisle to accept Jesus, it can take place. That's all there is to it. Now, won't you come to Jesus? Come to Jesus and you can be saved.

And once you're saved, you're always saved. So you can sin all you want to and still go to heaven. That's what we tell folks today.

That's our methodology. But the old gospel was a proclamation of divine sovereignty and mercy and judgment. That a sinner must throw down his shotgun of rebellion and repent to an offended sovereign.

That salvation is of the Lord and he can save you or damn you and still receive glory. Former preachers knew better than us today. Both John Wesley and George Whitefield preached the law before grace.

They believed that a sinner must be confronted with his rebellion against an almighty God to be awakened to his lost condition. In fact, Whitefield used to comment that a sinner must first be brought to Mount Sinai and see it all together on a smoke before it can be brought to Mount Zion. But today we've taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men.

You can become a Christian anytime you want to when you're good and ready. You decide. Our evangelism says God loves you.

Just believe in Jesus and you will go to heaven. Is there no wonder friends that our congregations are mixed herds of sheep and goats who cannot get along and bite each other's tails? The subject of the old gospel was God. In the new gospel it is man.

A man makes the decision. God is on the sidelines as a spectator. This is why many pastors are lost and their congregations are lost as well.

They merely made a decision and missed Christ and a saving conversion. In the book of Jeremiah we see the answer to our present-day dilemma. Jeremiah 6 16 declares, Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls.

But they said, we will not walk therein. So folks today go out and get them a pastor who won't disturb their peace and they go and serve a little God who won't get in the way their daily living while they live for the world and its pleasures on their way to hell and its fires. Let us pray.