PROFESSERS & LATITUDINARIANS

 

PROFESSERS & LATITUDINARIANS

"I will worship toward Thy holy temple, and praise Thy name for Thy loving kindness and Thy truth: for Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name" (Psalm 138:2).

We live in a day when everyone from politicians to athletes, even an occasional entertainer, will invoke God's name. Billions of people today identify themselves as Christians.

Whenever a prominent person has a religious experience, we put them on the tally board as a Christian. Whenever a person dies for their faith many professing Christians talk as if that person has automatically gone to Heaven.

Many are convinced that Elvis Presley is in Heaven because of his love for Gospel music (and I'll grant that many of his gospel recordings are reverent and theologically correct). He's in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, for Pete's sake!

I had a gentleman tell me he'd been a Christian his entire life. His mother took him to church when he was knee high to a grasshopper and he still attended church regularly. Of course he was a Christian!

A prominent singer, better known for his bar attendance than his church attendance, died some time ago. Said one who knew him well, "He was the kindest and most generous man I've ever known; he was constantly helping people. If he doesn't make it to Heaven then nobody should be allowed in."

Many sincere and devout persons have been convinced that because they spoke often about God, then they were ready to go when death came calling.

The problem is that many, if not most, of these folks hadn't a clue about what it meant to be a genuine, Biblical Christian.

Charles Spurgeon spoke, nearly two centuries ago, of latitudinarians: people who assumed that everybody who said they were Christians were Christians.

You may be baptized and attend church a minimum for four services a week; you may have committed to memory the words of scores of hymns and even cry when you sing "The Old Rugged Cross;" you may give faithfully and pray beautifully. Yet all these things no more make you a Christian than taking residence in a stable, sleeping in a stall, whinnying and eating hay make you a horse.

Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

If you are trusting your baptism, your good works, your church or even a "genuine religious experience" to get you into Heaven, you're going to be deeply disappointed when you stand before God. Only by acknowledging your sinfulness and hopeless condition, then turning away from sin in humble repentance and coming by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting only God the eternal Son as your perfect Sacrifice, your only Substitute, your Savior from sin and the Sovereign of your life, can you be made fit for Heaven.

If you cannot say there was a time in your life when you experienced pardon and forgiveness through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, don't delay another day. Jesus calls, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." If you have any doubts or questions about your salvation, message me or even give me a call [(770)630-3054]. I may not have all the answers but I know where they can be found: God's inspired, inerrant, infallible and authoritative Word; the Word which He has magnified above all His Name.

Keith Jenkins