Show #321, Sinners Saved by Grace

Transcript from show #321

(Please note that the transcripts are written pretty well as they were delivered on air).

Radio Show...

This program continues on various series of different topics on theology such as end times, prophecies, daily living, etc. as the subject matter comes up.

The e-book on end times and Revelation, answering the questions “where are we in the events of the end times?” and “Are we now in the tribulation?” is available on this web site, which you can find throughout the pages.

Opening Narrative

I recently heard some people in the church say that Christians are no longer sinners.. and that even some pastors don’t like to hear people express the statement that Christians are “sinners saved by grace”.

I didn’t realize there was such an issue.

Now I wasn’t going to pursue this any further , because I know that we shouldn’t argue over controversial inconsequential issues.

However, I found out through a bit of research that this issue is actually a wide-reaching matter that many people support and even teach ….

And so that was enough to drive me to the Word of God and find out what God says about it. It could be a consequential issue. Is a born-again Christian a sinner or a saint? That is the question…

I’ll report my findings on this according to the Word of God in a moment, right after this wonderful piano rendering ...

(Let us pray...
The Lord's Prayer...
Praise God Doxology...
Worship Music...)

Narrative #1

So let’s get back to our message for today “Are Christians Sinners or Saints.

I did a search in the King James bible for the words sinner and sinners and the result came back 21 for sinner and 48 for sinners.

All of the scriptures in the O.T. containing these words refer to unsaved people. In the new testament, we have the same thing, except for the scriptures that specifically refer to this subject matter…

Here’s a couple of examples:

“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” (1 Timothy 1:15).

Here Paul considers himself a sinner after he was saved. Now many people will be quick to try and say that this does not mean what it says. However, yes it does.

That’s what the devil does, he tells people that God didn’t really mean what he said… remember in the Garden, “Hath God said?

Romans 3:22-23,

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”

This letter is written to the saints at Rome.

…” and then Paul proceeds to explain that it is by faith that we are justified, and not by works.

Then in chapter 6 of the book of Romans, verses 1 to 9, Paul continues to explain the freedom from sin’s power that we have by faith which is something that we still strive to overcome -- because we are sinners -- but that we can overcome through Christ – because He has overcome…

Then in verses 10 to 23, Paul teachers that we have an abundant life through a yielded life…. In other words, we give way to our sinful nature, through grace….

Then in chapter 7, Paul speaks clearly about the struggle of the two natures within us, the old nature which seeks to sin and the new nature which seeks to overcome the old nature….

Again why is there a struggle? Because we are naturally sinners – but, again, through Christ Jesus we are able to overcome….

”… verse 23, “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

So that was Romans 7:23-25

We don’t like hard scriptures, we like all the easy and fluffy ones… but just as the alcoholic has to admit that he is an alcoholic before he can get help, so do we have to admit that we are sinners before we can overcome it… otherwise, we are deceiving ourselves. It is better to know who we are in Christ and that we depend on him every day, rather than to think ourselves as saints who are unable to sin! Although we are saints... howbeit through the grace of Jesus Christ.

But we are still sinners who have to struggle with the sinful nature within us.

I’ll come back to that in a moment.

It is amazing that some Christians actually make this an issue for disagreement… it should’nt… because it's all clear in the Word of God... but there again there are quite a few issues that Christians disagree on…

And that’s ok, that’s how we learn and grow, as we discuss these differences… as long as it doesn’t break up our Christian fellowship and friendship….

(Music Interlude and Station ID)

Narrative 2

Continuing on the matter of disagreements, it is some such disagreements that gave birth to the various church denominations… one believes in once saved always saved according to one man in a previous era… another that the old testament is no longer relevant today according to another person or group… another that we do not have an immortal soul… and on and on…

Paul faced the problem of divisions many a time in the Bible…

We read in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1 and verses 10 to 13:

10_”Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”

In other words, we don’t follow every person that says one thing or another about the word of God… we follow THE WORD OF GOD… Jesus Christ Himself who IS the written word…

And then in 1 Corinthians 3:4
Paul speaks again: “For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?”

And I’ll talk more about being ‘carnal’ in a moment.

The Word is right and true

So, that’s sad… how can we disagree on the Word of God? The Word is right and true…
When we disagree, that means one has some idea, or understanding of an issue one way, and the other another way… that means that one is right and the other is wrong.

And if the Word of God is right (which it is all the time)… then where there are disagreements, it is because of misinterpretations….

And the misinterpretations are either from the Christians reading the Word of God wrongly…

or the pastors teaching the word of God wrongly… which would first come from misinterpreting the Word wrongly in the first place.

And unfortunately, there are more than one issue here and there that find their way to disagreements….

And as I have already mentioned at the beginning of this program, we as Christians should not have contentions in the church… but we do…. Because we are sinners…

If we were saints unable to sin – wow – how different the church would be!

we see through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12), we are babes on the milk for some time unable to receive spiritual things (1 Cor. 3:1)…

there is so much in the Bible to learn, and we are all at different levels in our growth…

So where do we draw the line as to disputing misunderstandings?

We read in Jude 1, v. 3,

3 “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

What does contend mean? – compete, challenge, argue…

But, again where does one draw the line?

Personally I draw it at the responsibility of the teacher of the Word of God. That is a serious matter. It’s one thing to have the sheep argue over an issue… but when you have teachers, teaching the flock the wrong by misinterpretations, that’s a serious thing… and it needs to be contended… but in love and understanding.

That’s the tough part for many of us because not all will receive or discern the Word of God.

The whole point of it is whether or not an issue is inconsequentional or consequentional… in other words if we discern that an issue has a consequence critical to our Christian life or death, then we need to discuss or even contend for the truth…

In the case of this issue is it critical? I think it is… it may be alright for one isolated Christian to think himself or herself a sinless saint, but what about teaching that to those hundreds and thousands in our midst who have major struggles with pornography (and it is known that there are at least 50% of them in the church)…

or with other addictions of all kinds, anger, impatience and other sins that even damage marriages and family relationship with spouses and children – and there are plenty of them – even in the ministry… how does that sound to them when we say – you are not a sinner … so continue to do as you are doing… because you are not a sinner you are a saint… so to them, that will translate into saints can sin and there are no consequence…

more on that in a moment…

(Music Interlude)

Narrative #3

Yes why do we do the things we do… when we know that they are wrong… because we are sinners… and we struggle with our sinful nature…

But we don’t need to stay there… we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father (1 John 2:1)

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins…
John is writing to the saints.

The verses just prior to this verse are these:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:verses 8 to 10).

We are all sinners and the gospel comes to us and tells us that we need to get saved – that Christ came to take away our sins …

As it says in Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

But once we are made free from sin, we become servants to God and have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Rom.6:22)

1 Peter 1:15-16 says: “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy”

Saints are not sinless, but the lives of saints do reflect the reality of the presence of Christ in our hearts, in whom we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Some people say that we are no longer sinners, that we no longer can sin… as many preachers even are teaching that in so many tv programs and videos…

The truth is that even though we are Christians, we still sin. And we still have a capability to sin. The Word of God even tells us that anything that is not of faith is sin. . But the Bible adminoshes us and exhorts us to live holy before God, It’s something that we have to do

There is nothing wrong with admitting we are sinners.

As we have already seen, The word of God says "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.". 1 John 1:8

Some of these people also say that there is no such statement in the Bible as “sinners saved by grace.” Neither is there a statement that says “saints are not sinners”.

But there are many statements that point to the fact that we are sinners. Ephesians 2:8-10 “by grace you are saved through faith and not of works, lest any man should boast” … in other words “by grace you sinners have been saved… so we are “sinners saved by grace”…

In a Christian event that took place some time ago, one of the congregation members addressing the group said very sincerely to his brethren there, “If I am being deceived, please come and let me know, come and tell me, because if I am being deceived, I would’nt know it—that’s what to be deceived is!

Yet, often when someone does come forward to try and show the truth of the Word of God to another who is being deceived, they don’t want to hear it and even fight it…

All human beings are sinners because we are born in sin. But not all humans are saints – only those who have received the gift of salvation. And we have to keep that gift going and growing, as God works on us to be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ.

How did we become sinners? Through the first Adam at the very beginning, the physical Adam… so we are all born sinners eversince the Fall of the first human being…

Then the second Adam, we are told in the Word of God, came to redeem us… this is the spiritual miracle of salvation that takes place in us when we receive the gift of grace and mercy from Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:45 --

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

In the flesh we are still sinners. But we are made overcomers by that spiritual birth. Jesus told us that we can overcome because He has overcome. He didn’t say that because we are no longer sinners. We have to fight and overcome our sinful nature.

Christians are also still carnal for some time. The word “carnal” in the Greek actually means “fleshly.” The flesh is sinful as we have seen Paul teach on that earlier.

This descriptive word is seen in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3.
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

We saw earlier that no one is sinless in 1 John 1:8. Every time we sin, we are acting carnally.

The truth is that even though we are Christians, we still sin.

Being saved by grace does not mean we are no longer sinners… it means we are saved by grace…. As long as we continue to abide in Him…

1 John 2:28 says: “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

This means we have to make the effort to abide in Him. We have to work at it.
If we were not sinners, we would not need this scripture.

There is so much more in the word of God, one would need to write a book to cover this misinterpreted issue… and that’s what it -- is a misinterpretation of the Word of God…

(Music Interlude)

Narrative #4

In that devotional booklet I mentioned earlier written by the pastor of a popular television program and church ministry, one of the statements made is that when Jesus died for us, His perfect behaviour made it possible for us to regain our saint classification…

how can we ‘regain’ our saint classification, when we were never saints to begin with, we were sinners from birth…

To be a saint, as already mentioned earlier, is to be sanctified by the blood of Christ which is a ‘spiritual’ classification – the flesh is still a sinner.

Then there is another statement, which is used by people who have read this booklet to justify these misinterpretations, “If you are from China, eating Mexican food doesn’t make you Mexican!”

How is this applicable to the argument of whether a Christian is still a sinner or not?

Then this pastor says: “in the same way, you are a saint no matter what you do”.
“if you sin, you have ‘an advocate who pleads your case before the Father”.

Well this is an oxymoron – in 2 ways because,

1. if you sin, that makes you a sinner.
2. if you need an advocate to plead your case… that is evidence that you are a sinner.

Back to Christians being carnal...

The word “carnal” refers to the old nature, the animalistic, fleshly, sensuous nature of man, that which pertains to the flesh rather than the spiritual, as in the warring that goes on between the flesh and the spiritual in us.

Christians who are carnal in their behavior can expect God to discipline them, so they can become better and stronger in their faith. (Hebrews 12:5-11)

Then in the next verses of the book of Hebrews it goes on to give warnings against disobedience.

Another thing that some people keep bringing up all the time is that a Christian cannot sin.

They say to this that “oh they would never do something wrong, they would never sin”. Well we remember the Word of God that say “not to boast, lest we fall”.

Remember Peter in the bible? I’ll never deny you Lord!... He cried bitter tears later on over this.

They say that if some one does sin -- like turn from God or commit adultery, etc… their salvation is then in question in the first place.

Well there have been many a Christian and a pastor who have fallen from grace and I’m sure that most of us listening to this program today could name a few.

The book of Hebrews is very clear that for those who have known the truth, judgment will be even worse for them. And I covered that in a previous radio program… may be I should replay that one next time.

Those who have known the truth will be held accountable and are to be above reproach.

God’s desire after we are saved is to progressively bring us closer into the image of Christ (Romans 12:1-2), making us to become increasingly spiritual and decreasingly carnal -- a process known as sanctification.

The whole armor of God

Why does the apostle Paul admonish the saints to take up the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6:10-18? Because we are sinners and will be fighting attacks and temptations.

We are still sinners, vulnerable to sin. We are not sinners because we sin… we sin because we are sinners!

Then this pastor and many others who think the same way conclude his article by saying “Stop thinking of yourself as a sinner – it’s destructive because you identify with sin, not with Jesus. You are a saint in God’s eyes… and He helps you to live like one!

If we teach that, our guards are down and we become vulnerable as it is with the many who fallen from grace. This is deception.

If we are honest with ourselves before God, we will admit that we are sinners saved by this wonderful Grace and Mercy that is in Christ Jesus who died on the cross… this is humility before a holy God…

One might feel that he or she is personally not a sinner -- but there are thousands and millions of people out there who are weak in their faith and vulnerable… and we have to think of them and not of ourselves if we are mature and strong in our faith... as the Word of God says, we have nothing to boast, it is all in Christ Jesus and by faith…

Yes all is in Christ by faith… we live by faith… faith in Jesus Christ because we are sinners saved by grace – oh that wonderful grace that came into my life, the moment that I received Him as for Who is is – the Saviour of mankind and of every individual, like you and me…

Closing Narrative…

Before I dismiss the service today, I want to read to you the Blessing that was read to the people of God in Numbers 6:24-26 which is the benediction from God to you today:

“The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

I hope and pray that you will come back next Sunday at SpiritFM.ca, 7 am and 7 pm pacific time. And if you want to hear the service again at any time, you can go to my website at TimingRevelation.com, and click on the Radio Shows navigational tab along the left side. The replays are available there for five weeks, then they are transcribed into articles as new radio shows are put up.

I encourage you to go to your Bible and read further on the scriptures that were given throughout the program today. And if you like these programs and you've been blessed, call or write the station and let them know... if you said the prayer and have accepted the Lord or you've been healed or touched in some way by the Holy Spirit, write to me on the contact form of this web site...

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Until next week, Maranatha, the Lord is coming, very soon. Goodbye and Blessing.

/DMH

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/DMH

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Blessings,