COME AS YOU ARE DEAR SINNER, BUT COME WITH A WILLINGNESS TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND FORSAKE YOUR SIN.

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” [Prov 28:13]

The ‘Church’ is not a museum of finished products, but a hospital for the sick! Yet not altogether the sick who LOVE THEIR DISEASE AND ARE AVERSE TO THE REMEDY, who refuse to be healed; but rather the sick who have the faith and the confidence that He who has the power to justify them will surely supply the needed grace to sanctify them. “For just as weight cannot be separated from a stone, or heat from a fire; so cannot justification from sanctification.”- A.W. Pink.

The Church doors should always be open for the most wretched of sinners WHATEVER their sin might be, for ‘all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men’ (Matt 12:31) IF they will but acknowledge and repent of it. For the good news is: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will ABUNDANTLY PARDON.” [Isa 55:7]

But the doors of the true Church of God are NOT OPEN for that wicked sinner who refuses to acknowledge his sin and forsake it! [Matt 18:15-17] And I say this with direct reference to opening up our Churches to practicing Gays and Lesbians who refuse to see it at a heinous Sin which God hates! The prime design and end of the Church of Jesus Christ is NOT the conversion of sinners but the glory of God and the upholding of the Truth! For the ‘Church of the Living God, is the pillar and ground of the Truth!’ [1Tim 3:15]

‘Converts’ should not be gained at the PRICE OF TRUTH! The Truth of God should never be sacrificed on the altar of Evangelical success! God is more concerned about preserving the truth of His Word in the church than so-called ‘peace’, ‘love’ and unity. As Owen rightly said, “For what peace in the Church without truth? All conformity to anything else is but the agreement of Herod and Pilate to destroy Christ and His Kingdom”. And again, “An agreement without truth is no peace, but a covenant with death, a league with hell, a conspiracy against the Kingdom of Christ and a stout rebellion against the God of Heaven”. – Michael Jeshurun.

The following is quoted verbatim from A.W. Pink’s article

‘PRESENT DAY EVANGELISM’ (must read)

Once a man makes the conversion of sinners his prime design and all-consuming end, he is exceedingly apt to adopt a wrong course. Instead of striving to preach the Truth in all its purity, he will tone it down so as to make it more palatable to the unregenerate. Impelled by a single force, moving in one fixed direction, his object is to make conversion easy, and therefore favorite passages (like John 3:16) are dwelt upon incessantly, while others are ignored or pared away. It inevitably reacts upon his own theology, and various verses in the Word are shunned, if not repudiated. What place will he give in his thought to such declarations as “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. 13:23), “No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him” (John 6:44), “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:14)?

The teaching of Holy Writ on this point is unmistakable: man’s plight is such that his salvation is impossible unless God puts forth His mighty power. No stirring of the emotions by anecdotes, no regaling of the senses by music, no oratory of the preacher, no persuasive appeals, are of the slightest avail.

Is it a message of glad tidings from heaven to make God-defying rebels at ease in their wickedness? Is it given for the purpose of assuring the pleasure-crazy young people that, providing they only “believe,” there is nothing for them to fear in the future? One would certainly think so from the way in which the Gospel is presented, or rather perverted, by most of the “evangelists,” and the more so when we look at the lives of their “converts.” Surely those with any degree of spiritual discernment must perceive that to assure such that God loves them and His Son died for them, and that a full pardon for all their sins (past, present and future) can be obtained by simply “accepting Christ as their personal Savior” is but a casting of pearls before swine.

The Gospel is not a thing apart. It is not something independent of the prior revelation of God’s Law. It is not an announcement that God has relaxed His justice or lowered His standard of holiness. So far from that, when scripturally expounded the Gospel presents the clearest demonstration and the climacteric proof of the inexorableness of God’s justice and of His infinite abhorrence of sin.

No, my reader, the Gospel is very, very far from making light of sin. The Gospel shows us how unsparingly God deals with sin. It reveals to us the terrible sword of His justice smiting His beloved Son in order that atonement might be made for the transgressions of His people. So far from the Gospel settling aside the law, it exhibits the Savior enduring the curse of it. Calvary supplied the most solemn and awe-inspiring display of God’s hatred of sin that time or eternity will ever furnish. And do you imagine that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to worldlings and telling them that they “may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their personal Savior” while they are wedded to their idols and their hearts are still in love with sin? If I do so, I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel, insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.

To present the vicarious sacrifice of Christ to those whose dominant passion is to take their fill of sin, is to give that which is holy unto the dogs. What the unconverted need to hear about is the character of Him with whom they have to do, His claims upon them, His righteous demands, and the infinite enormity of disregarding Him and going their own way.

The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day “evangelist.” He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness. The very first thing said of Him in the New Testament is, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people (not “from the wrath to come,” but) from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21) Christ is a Savior for those realizing something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who feel the awful burden of it on their conscience, who loathe themselves for it, who long to be freed from its terrible dominion; and a Savior for no others. Were He to “save from hell” those still in love with sin, He would be a Minister of sin, condoning their wickedness and siding with them against God. What an unspeakably horrible and blasphemous thing with which to charge the Holy One!

Salvation is by grace, by grace alone, for a fallen creature cannot possibly do anything to merit God’s approval or earn His favor. Nevertheless, divine grace is not exercised at the expense of holiness, for it never compromises with sin. It is also true that salvation is a free gift, but an empty hand must receive it, and not a hand which still tightly grasps the world.

Something more than “believing” is necessary to salvation. A heart that is steeled in rebellion against God cannot savingly believe: it must first be broken. It is written “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” (Lk. 13:3) Repentance is just as essential as faith, yea, the latter cannot be without the former: “Repented not afterwards that ye might believe.” (Matt. 21:32) The order is clearly enough laid down by Christ: “Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

Repentance is sorrowing for sin. Repentance is a heart-repudiation of sin. Repentance is a heart-determination to forsake sin. And where there is true repentance grace is free to act, for the requirements of holiness are conserved when sin is renounced. Thus, it is the duty of the evangelist to cry, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him.” (Isa. 55:7) His task is to call on his hearers to lay down the weapons of their warfare against God, and then to sue for mercy through Christ.

It is in His office of Lord that Christ maintains God’s honor, subserves His government, enforces His Law; and if the reader will turn to those passages (Luke 1:46, 47; Acts 5:31; 2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:18) where the two titles occur, he will find that the order is always “Lord and Savior,” and not “Savior and Lord.” Therefore, those who have not bowed to Christs’ sceptre and enthroned Him in their hearts and lives, and yet imagine they are trusting in Him as their Savior, are deceived, and unless God disillusions them they will go down to the everlasting burnings with a lie in their right hand. (Isa. 44:20) Christ is “the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him” (Heb. 5:9), but the attitude of those who submit not to His Lordship is “we will not have this Man to reign over us.” (Luke 19:14)

The “Gospel” which is now being proclaimed is, in nine cases out of every ten, but a perversion of the Truth, and tens of thousands, assured they are bound for heaven, are now hastening to hell as fast as time can take them. Things are far, far worse in Christendom than even the “pessimist” and the “alarmist” suppose. We are not a prophet, nor shall we indulge in any speculation of what Biblical prophecy forecasts — wiser men than the writer have often made fools of themselves by so doing. We are frank to say that we know not what God is about to do. Religious conditions were much worse, even in England, one hundred and fifty years ago. But this we greatly fear: unless God is pleased to grant a real revival, it will not be long ere “the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people,” (Isa. 60:2) for the light of the true Gospel is rapidly disappearing. Modern “Evangelism” constitutes, in our judgment, the most solemn of all the “signs of the times.”

What must the people of God do in view of the existing situation? Eph. 5:11 supplies the divine answer: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them”; and everything opposed to the light of the Word is “darkness.” It is the bounden duty of every Christian to have no dealings with the “evangelistic” monstrosity of the day: to withhold all moral and financial support of the same, to attend none of their meetings, to circulate none of their tracts. Those preachers who tell sinners that they may be saved without forsaking their idols, without repenting, without surrendering to the Lordship of Christ, are as erroneous and dangerous as others who insist that salvation is by works, and that heaven must be earned by our own efforts.