This video moved me to tears. It is an encouragement for those who belong to the Lord to see Him glorified so beautifully in song in the unlikeliest of places. I liken this video to things yet to come in two ways:
1). The beautiful worship of the Lamb that was slain by His redeemed one’s that will take place in Heaven.
2). This performance was done in spite of most in the mall where the glory of God was the furthest thing from their minds, much like those on the Day of Judgment will bow their knee and proclaim Jesus as Lord in spite of living their lives where the glory of God was the furthest thing from their minds. Those on Judgment Day will have no way to stop their compulsion to proclaim Jesus as Lord, much like those in the food court had no way to stop those who were singing praises of the risen Savior .
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the thirteenth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the twelfth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
Faith, let us remember, is the root, and assurance is the flower. Doubtless you can never have the flower without the root; but it is no less certain you may have the root and not the flower.
Faith is that poor trembling woman who came behind Jesus in the press and touched His garment. (Mark 5:27) Assurance is Stephen standing calmly in the midst of his murderers, and saying, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:5-6)
Faith is the penitent thief, crying, “Lord, remember me.” (Luke 23:42) Assurance is Job, sitting in the dust, covered with sores, and saying, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” (Job 19:25) “Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.” (Job 13:15)
Faith is Peter’s drowning cry as he began to sink, “Lord, save me.” (Matthew 14:30) Assurance is that same Peter declaring before the Council in after-times, “This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:11-12)
Faith is the anxious, trembling voice, “Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) Assurance is the confident challenge, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who is he that condemeth?” (Romans 8:33-34)
Faith is Saul praying in the house of Judas at Damascus, sorrowful, blind, and alone. (Acts 9:11) Assurance is Paul, the aged prisoner, looking calmly into the grave, and saying, “I know whom I have believed. There is a crown laid up for me.” (2 Timothy 1:12, 4:8)
Next in this series, we look through the Book of Acts to see that Jesus is declared to be “Lord” there. The clearest examples are placed first, here:
Acts 2:34-36—“For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”‘ Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus…both Lord and Christ.”
Acts 10:36-37—“The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all—that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached.”
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The apostles of Christ refer to Him as “Lord”
Acts 1:4-6—And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father,“which,”He said,“you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Acts 15:25-26—“It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Peter
Acts 1:21-22—“Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”
Acts 2:16, 20-21—“But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:…’The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.'”
Acts 11:16-17—“Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?”
Acts 15:11—“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”
The following sobering piece comes from the Fruin family currently serving as missionaries in Mexico:
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The Meeting
It was dusk on Friday evening as we were driving up the dirt road that we call the short-cut to our home that sits in the middle of a ranch in northern Mexico. We were on an uphill, curving section that is very stony and rutted. The combination of road conditions and deep shadows required my undivided focus. “Watch out,” cried my wife, “I think that’s a man!” I had not seen anything but, directed by her gaze, I saw what did indeed appear to be a man just beside the right front corner of our full sized van. His dingy clothing served as camouflage on the unpaved road. I had just missed putting our wheel directly through his body lengthwise. He did not jump up. He did not dodge. “He must be passed out,” I thought to myself. He had moved ever so slightly assuring me he was not dead. The terror of nearly accidentally killing someone began to fade and, as will happen at times like these, was replaced by anger and indignation. “Some fool had become so inebriated that he passed out in the middle of the road,” I reasoned.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the eleventh in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the tenth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
Part 1 of a new series, going through the Scriptures and showing that Jesus is not waiting for us to call Him Lord–“HE ALREADY IS!!”
Over the last few years, a growing heresy has crept into the church. It is the belief that you can get saved today, call upon Jesus as your Savior, and then, when you feel up to it, sometime down the road, you can give Him the privilege of confessing Him as Lord. Or not—it doesn’t matter! Whatever you want—it’s all about you! You may hear, in many churches, an appeal for the people to “Make Jesus Lord today!” That is about as heretical a statement as you will ever hear.
The people who teach this atrocious doctrine accuse us of linking salvation with works—as if confessing Jesus as Lord is a “work.” Whenever I hear these accusations I often wonder—“Why would they want to deny Jesus His rightful glory as Lord? Do they not want people to think that He is Lord?” What I hope you will take away from this series is the fact that if you want to be saved, you MUST confess that Jesus is Lord.
The overarching Scripture for this series is Romans 10:9 (ESV)—IF you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. What is the opposite of this statement? That if you don’t confess that Jesus is Lord, you will not be saved. It’s really that simple. Remember, these are not my words—this is what is clear from the Scriptures (unless you don’t want to believe the Scriptures).
The best place to start is in the Gospels themselves. We’re going to see that in the gospels that Jesus is declared to be Lord. In fact, Jesus is called “Lord” 124 times in the gospels alone. Granted, many of these are simply repeated in more than one gospel. But since it is the Holy Spirit who spoke to the writers, don’t you think that maybe God thinks this is a wee bit important?
So let’s begin, and see who it is that calls Jesus “Lord.”
Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5—“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Matthew 21:2-3, Mark 11:3, Luke 19:30-31—“Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her…And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them…”
John 13:13—“You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for I am.”
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the ninth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
And still, man, in the wickedness of his heart, is so depraved that he has the audacity to shake his fist at the sky and proclaim God doesn’t exist . . . or he goes to church and lives his life like God doesn’t exist.
In the whole debate over “Lordship Salvation”, John MacArthur has had a big red target painted on him, and those who teach “easy-believism” have strung him up and flung him into the depths of Hell because of one paragraph of one book he wrote 7 years ago (“Hard To Believe”). See, the “easy-believer®” doesn’t want to hear the fact that if a person is saved, they will show evidence of their salvation through good works (even though the Holy Writ is clear in many places, such as James 2:14-24 and Ephesians 2:10) that believers are saved in order to perform good works–not that those good works save them. They are so focused on painting Johnny Mac as a heretic, that–well, why bother letting the facts get in the way?
Now, let me ask you this: who would give you a better and more accurate picture of what I believe–someone who heard me say something seven years ago–or someone who hears me teach every week, who knows me personally, and has heard me explain my beliefs over the last several years?
The same question can be asked of those who continue to bash Dr. MacArthur. Who would give you a better and more accurate picture of what he believes–someone who read one paragraph of one book written seven years ago–or someone who knows him personally, works with him every day, and in fact is the editor of most of Dr. MacArthur’s books?
Phil Johnson is the editor of Dr. MacArthur’s books, and is closer–much closer–to Dr. MacArthur than those who continue to smear Dr. MacArthur’s name with accusations based on a statement that Dr. MacArthur never made to begin with. The statement in question is:
Salvation isn’t the result of an intellectual exercise. It comes from a life lived in obedience and service to Christ as revealed in the Scripture; it’s the fruit of actions, not intentions.
Now, it certainly sounds like Dr. MacArthur is teaching salvation by works. But, here’s the kicker–Dr. MacArthur never wrote those words! Here is the explanation from Phil Johnson, posted over at Paleoevangelical (Phil Johnson’s words are in green, Lou Martuneac’s words are in blue, text pertaining to the revision is in purple)–
Any church that does not look like the ‘norm’ is always trying to explain itself. This is a fact we know all too well at Grace Family Baptist Church. We explain ourselves to those who visit us, those who call us trying to determine if it is a good idea to visit, those who are interested in finding or starting a church like ours, and those who are sure that we are some kind of “Patriarchy” cult. Sometimes we explain ourselves in painstaking detail. At other times we use shorthand. One example of that ‘shorthand’ is our ubiquitous and somewhat enigmatic statement, “The church is a family of families.”
For some people, this captures the essence of the distinction between the FIC, and the neo-traditional church.1 For others, their presuppositions, and/or misconceptions about the FIC (along with the lack of clarity inherent in the phrase) get in the way. This last group ranges from people who simply wish we were clearer in our statement, to those who find in the ‘family of families’ terminology the theological ‘smoking gun’ for which they have searched in an effort to discredit this “extreme overreaction” to the current crisis in contemporary youth ministry.2
We recognize that this may be an unnecessary stumbling block for those with a genuine interest in the Family Integrated Church concept, as well as those attempting to explain it to others. Therefore, allow me to offer a bit of clarity as to what we mean when we use the term ‘family of families’ to describe the church.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the eighth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the seventh in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
Is it necessary, for a person who is saved, to confess Jesus Christ as Lord? Well, the answer to that question is, of course–YES!! I have put together a couple videos, based on Romans 10:9-10, to show that if one desires to be saved, then confessing Christ as Lord is a necessary requirement.
There is a movement that has been around for quite some time now. It is based on the absurd belief that a person can be saved, even if they do not confess Jesus Christ as Lord. It is not new by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, John MacArthur preached a message on this very subject back in 1988. Allow me to share a couple of quotes from that message:
This view is so popular that recently when I was doing a Bible conference at one of the major Christian institutions in America, a man spoke to the student body every day for the week, as I did as well, he said to them, “The point at which you really become a disciple, the point at which you really make Christ Lord of your life usually comes some time in your thirties.” And I was shocked, to put it mildly, that he had just basically told a group of young people to put their spiritual commitment on hold until they reached their thirties. He was holding to a view that it’s enough to accept Jesus as Savior, take your forgiveness, take your guarantee of heaven and then live any way you want until you come to some crisis point, hopefully sooner than later, when you make Christ Lord.
I’ve had parents say to me, “I know my…my son is a homosexual. He has chosen that life style. I know my daughter has absolutely no regard for the things of Christ. But I know they were saved. I remember the time they made their decision.” Parents cling to this. Spouses may cling to this for their partner. Friends may cling to this for someone they love deeply. It conveys the idea that salvation is some momentary transaction that secures forever but doesn’t necessarily transform your life and does not involve acknowledging Jesus as Lord of your life and submitting your life to Him. That kind of thing is behind most contemporary evangelism. You listen, when do you hear someone say, “Are you willing to commit your life to following Jesus?” When do you hear someone say, “Are you willing to repent of your sin and bow your knee in submission to the Lordship of Christ?” “Are you willing to allow Jesus Christ to take over as King and ruler of your life?” What you hear is, “Accept Christ…receive Christ…make a decision for Christ.”
I watched a film this afternoon for the second time, I watched it a day ago because the first time I watched it I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was sent out to our church. It was sent to me because it was to be distributed all across this entire country to every church that had an AWANA program. It was a film designed to instruct people how to lead someone to Christ. The film used some graphics, posed some questions and then asked if they were true or false. Let me tell you what some of the questions were and what the answer was.
In presenting the gospel, the narrator of the film said, should you ever ask these questions? Here are the questions.
* Question number one: Should you say to someone, will you give your heart to Christ? Answer: False, you never want to say that to anyone. You never want to ask anyone to give anything to Christ. You don’t want to ask them to give their life to Christ, you just ask them to believe.
* Second question: Will you surrender your life to Christ? Answer: False, don’t ever ask anyone to surrender anything.
* Question number three: will you commit your life to Christ? Answer: False, don’t ever ask anyone to do that.
* Question number four: will you make Christ Lord of your life? Answer: Don’t ever ask anyone to acknowledge that He has to be Lord of their life.
* Question number five: will you repent of your sins? Answer: False, don’t ever ask anyone to repent of their sins.
* Question number six: are you willing to forsake your sins? Answer: False, don’t ask anyone to do that.
It is enough then, said the narrator, to ask them: do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? That is enough. That is enough? The devils believe and…what?…and tremble.
Another writer says, and I’m quoting, “It is possible, even probable, that when a believer out of fellowship falls for certain types of philosophy, if he is a logical thinker he will become an unbelieving believer. Believers who are agnostics are still saved. They are still born again.” Listen to this one. “You can even become an atheist. But if you once accept Christ as Savior, you cannot lose your salvation even though you deny God,” end quote.
He finishes up the message thus:
Jesus wanted the two things to come clear to that young man [The rich young ruler in Mark chapter 8–4*P]. When you want into the Kingdom, when you want eternal life, it is not as simple as just a decision, believing some facts. There must be an acknowledgment and turning from sin and there must be a willingness to submit to My authority even if I ask you to do the most difficult thing in your life…to give up that which you love the most. Let’s establish, number one, the depth of your sinfulness and, number two, the height of My sovereignty, that’s the issue. The man left.
So today we are starting a new series showing that whether or not you say Jesus is Lord, He still is! It is not US who make Jesus Lord–God has already made Him both Lord and Christ.
Romans 10:8-10 (NASB)—8 But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART”–that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the sixth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at Community Bible Church in Reno, Nevada. May it bring conviction to each of us as we realize our deep lack of prayer, which should be elemental to our Christian faith. Sadly, our prayer lives tend to reveal more about our self-sufficiency than of our utter dependency on the Saviour of our souls.
We are pleased to continue the Saturday Sermon Series again. This is the thirteenth in a series of messages from John 17. It was sovereignly delivered by Akash Sant Singh, who is one of the elders at 
Christ Alone Wyoming 