You Don't Receive The Savior As Your "Lord" To Be Saved

2nd Peter 2:1, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."

Damnable heresies exist everywhere today. The Bible foretold that in the last days "many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many" (Matthew 24:11b).

I visited a local Baptist church last Sunday. They are members of the apostate Southern Baptist Convention. I was frustrated by what I saw. Here is a photo that I took, showing the nightclub atmosphere created by shining ultraviolet black lights in the auditorium...

Today's Nightclub Churches With Blacklights

It reminds me of an episode from The Twilight Zone. The people are all glowing...lol. It is tragic that people won't attend church anymore unless it has a nightclub feel to it. The horrible Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) that they sing is spiritually lifeless, boring and woefully lacking of any heart-warming melody or Holy Spirit conviction. No doubt they would disagree.

I have a right to my own humble opinion. I am not accusing them of being insincere, they are very sincere. I do believe that some of the members are born again believers. However, whenever Lordship Salvation is being preached, the number of tares (false converts) increases significantly. Lordship Salvation is a perversion of the Gospel.

Worst of all, I heard the senior pastor announce that a young boy had received the Savior as his "Lord." That is totally backwards! We don't receive the Savior as our "Lord" to be saved, we receive the Lord as our Savior. Romans 10:9, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." All of the Devil's modern Bible perversions corrupt this passage, changing it to read: “If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” There's a big difference between declaring 'Jesus is Lord' versus confessing the Lord Jesus.

I learned a long time ago from Dr. Curtis Hutson (1934-1995), who was John R. Rice's successor at the Sword Of The Lord, that as a general rule we should never interpret an obscure passage of Scripture while ignoring a clear one. The entire Gospel of John, which is God's Gospel tract according to John 20:31, mentions the word "believe" 85 times, without any mention or requirement to "confess with one's mouth" to be saved.

In Acts 16:30-31 the Philippian jailer in Rome asked Paul and Silas: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Their simple but profound answer was: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." There is no mention or requirement to repent of one's sins, surrender "all" to Christ as Lord, give the steering wheel of one's life to God, have a relationship with Jesus, become a Christ follower, nor anything else that we hear foolishly being taught in churches everywhere today. 2nd Corinthians 11:3-4 refers to the Gospel as "the simplicity that is in Christ." God had to make His plan of salvation simple, because there are a lot of unlearned, ignorant, base and educible slow people on the planet.

Paul and Silas simply told the Philippian jailer to "BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST." Yet, it is very wrong and unbiblical for wicked infidel preachers to embellish this truth, by reading more into the Scripture than God intended, requiring lost sinners to surrender control of their will over to Christ as "Lord" to serve Him, and mandating that they repent "of your sins" to be saved (no such teaching exists in the inspired King James Bible).

I have heard countless lying preachers (e.g., Pastor Charles Lawson in Knoxville, Tennessee) falsely preach that a person who is still living an ungodly lifestyle of sin never really repented, so they are not saved and their existing faith in Jesus Christ is invalid. That is so wrong and unbiblical for Pastor Lawson to preach to his congregation (and tens of thousands of people on YouTube).

Bible repentance for salvation doesn't mean to forsake a lifestyle of sinning, it just means "a change of mind" from unbelief to belief. Repentance is simply admitting to God that I am as guilty a sinner as He declares me to be in His Holy Word. We must know what we are being saved from. We are all guilty sinners (Romans 3:19-23). As such we all deserve to die (Romans 6:23). This includes a second death in Hell, fire and brimstone (Revelation 21:8). But praise be to God, Jesus paid our debt of sin on Calvary's cross, applying that shed blood to the Mercy Seat in Heaven on our behalf before the Father's presence (Hebrews 9:12, 22-24; 12:24).

The Gospel is so delicate that it is easily corrupted from saving grace to damnable heresy. In Matthew 7:21-23 we read about an unfortunate group of people, false prophets, who had served Christ their entire lives, but now they are learning that they were never saved at all. They called Jesus "Lord, Lord" (there's Lordship Salvation), but Jesus denied knowing them as His sheep. They had made the dire and fatal foolish error of living the Christian life without ever being born again (which is by faith alone in Jesus Christ). Millions of churchgoers are guilty of this sin today. They faithfully attend some church, but have never been born from above by the Holy Spirit of God (Romans 8:9; 1st John 3:24). RIGHT DOCTRINE MATTERS!

Anyway, we will be seeing a lot more false teachers as we draw nearer toward the end of the world as we have known it for thousands of years. Each and every passing day brings us one day closer to Christ's glorious return. 

I was disgusted at a local Baptist church, seeing a young boy being misled about God's simple plan of salvation. The senior pastor said that the boy had "become a Christ follower." This is the new fake gospel, to "become a Christ follower." But Judas Iscariot was a Christ follower, one of His very chosen apostles, and yet Judas died in his sins and went to Hell forever.

The infidels in Matthew 7:21-23 were also Christ followers. They called Him "Lord, Lord." Yet, Jesus denied knowing them as His sheep, and they were cast into outer darkness in Hell. Thousands of people followed Christ in the Bible to receive a handout of food, but they were not saved (John 6:26). They did not believe who he claimed to be, the very Christ (the promised Messiah). Hundreds of millions of unsaved people today are following Christ as their "Lord," but they have never ceased from their works to trust Him as their personal Savior. They are blinded by religion.

“If you do not put a difference between justification wrought by the man Christ without and sanctification wrought by the Spirit of Christ within, you are not able to divide the Word aright; but contrariwise, you corrupt the Word of God, and cast stumbling blocks before the people.” —John Bunyan (1628-1688)

Bravo to John Bunyan! It is imperative that we always keep service separate from salvation. We must keep discipleship separate from sonship. 'Lordship Salvation' is the deadly consequence of combining service with salvation, confusing the two things. If we are to rightly divide the Word of Truth, then we must maintain separation between SERVICE versus SALVATION. Pastor M.R. DeHaan (1891-1965) made this helpful statement:

"There is a vast difference between coming to Jesus for salvation and coming after Jesus for service. Coming to Christ makes one a believer, while coming after Christ makes one a disciple. All believers are not disciples. To become a believer one accepts the invitation of the Gospel, to be a disciple one obeys the challenge to a life of dedicated service and separation. Salvation comes through the sacrifice of Christ; discipleship comes only by sacrifice of self and surrender to His call for devoted service. Salvation is free, but discipleship involves paying the price of a separated walk. Salvation can't be lost because it depends upon God's faithfulness, but discipleship can be lost because it depends upon our faithfulness." —Pastor M.R. DeHaan, “Hebrews”; Zondervan Publishing House; 1959 (p. 117)

You don't need to receive Christ as the supreme "Lord" of your life to get to Heaven, you simply need to receive Jesus as your personal Savior, by BELIEVING on His name (John 1:12-13).