World Religions in a Nutshell (24 page)

My Testimony (in a nutshell)...

Wendy Branam

For many years I longed for peace

And something that would bring relief

From all the sorrow, guilt and shame

Resulting from mistakes I’d made.

Time and time again I prayed

Jesus, come into my heart today

Each time I thought I had figured it out

But a short time later returned the doubt.

Then one day on the radio

I heard a different kind of show

The Way of the Master was the name

Law then grace they did proclaim.

Each day I listened so I could hear more

Then came conviction too strong to ignore

I wrote and asked for help one day

The response: We’ll gladly show you the way.

In the mirror of God’s law

The magnitude of my sin I saw

Like a light the Law did shine

On all the sin I’d tried hide.

With my conscience having done its part

By making ready for grace my heart

I understood that I needed to be saved

From the wrath of God on Judgment Day.

The good news of the gospel now made sense

I could be pardoned at Christ’s expense

Jesus bore God’s wrath for me

When He bled and died on Calvary.

Humbled, on my knees I bowed

And asked God to save me now

For all my sin I said, “I’m sorry”

And promised to live for His honor and glory.

With a contrite heart, I did pray

From these sins I’ll turn away

I put my faith and trust in Christ

And at that moment received new life.

Modern Christianity

Perhaps one of the largest groups of unsaved “religious” people in the world are those who sit in the pews of our churches. Those referred to as false converts are not what are often called “traditional churchgoers” (“Christmas and Easter Christians”) or “nominal Christians.” Rather, these are people who profess to be born again, but have never found a place of biblical repentance. They don’t have “the things that accompany salvation.” There’s no fruit in their lives to say that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. They sit
among
the Church but they are not
part
of the Church.

Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote, “Here in the United States, one-third of all adults identify themselves as born-again, evangelical Christians. More than 100 million attend church each Sunday and more millions listen to Christian radio and television programs regularly. But we have a serious problem. These facts are not reflected in the life of our nation. According to our surveys, fewer than 50 percent of the church members in America are sure of their salvation...and a bare 2 percent regularly share their faith in Christ. Obviously something is tragically wrong.”
³²

Background

Something certainly
is
tragically wrong, and it has been wrong for the last 100 or so years.
³³
The contemporary Church has forsaken biblical evangelism. Modern Christianity has failed to use God’s Law to bring the knowledge of sin, and has therefore filled the Church with false converts.
³⁴
These false converts have named the name of Christ, but have never departed from iniquity (“lawlessness”—transgression of the Ten Commandments).

It is a neglect of the Law that has resulted in our churches being filled with tares among the wheat, foolish virgins among the wise, bad fish among the good, and goats among the sheep. This is why so many profess Christ and have no assurance of salvation. They have no assurance
because they are not saved
. This is why so many profess to have the love of God in their hearts, and at the same time couldn’t care less that the world is going to Hell.
Every
Christian should be horrified beyond words that any human being could be cast into Hell. Such thoughts should take us from our knees and drive us to reach into this dark world with the light of the glorious gospel. If it doesn’t, something is radically wrong. Listen to Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers: “Someone asked, ‘Will the heathen who have never heard
the gospel be saved?’ It is more a question with me whether we—who have the gospel and fail to give it to those who have not—can be saved.”

So it’s very common to meet people who are products of the modern gospel—they say that they are Christians, and yet you find yourself suspecting that something isn’t quite right. Let’s look at their beliefs about God, Jesus, the Scriptures, Heaven and Hell, and see why they believe as they do.

Who Is God?

Idolatry is the fertile soil from which a false profession grows. Any sinner who truly captures a glimpse of God’s true character, will (like Isaiah) fall on his face in true repentance (Isaiah 6:1–8). The Scriptures tell us that “by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6). So few fear God because so few pulpits preach the fear of God. Rarely do sinners hear that God is angry with the wicked every day,
³⁵
that if they are friends with this world they are enemies of God,
³⁶
and that His wrath abides on them.
³⁷
Every time they sin, they are storing up His wrath that will come upon them on the Day of Wrath.
³⁸

Rather, they hear the unbiblical gospel of “God has a wonderful plan for your life” or simply that God wants them to prosper. Instead of being told to repent because they have offended a holy God, they are told that God will solve their problems and fill their God-shaped vacuum.

So instead of the prodigal leaving the pigsty of his sins, and returning to his father in repentance because he has sinned against him, he returns because he has run out of money and he is hungry. The motive for responding to the “wonderful plan” gospel is that he has issues and problems, and he wants God to be his divine butler. In his lukewarm state, he looks upon God not as his Lord, but as his servant
—as one who will come running at his beck and call when He is needed.

There is no fear of God before his eyes because the fear of God has not been put before his eyes. What Bill Bright saw in his survey was the tragic result of another gospel that produced another harvest.

Who Is Jesus?

Think of a rebellious youth who gets drunk and drives through a small town at a dangerous speed of 65 mph.
³⁹
As everything in the town was horse-drawn, they had no law against speeding. The speedster therefore hadn’t broken the law because there wasn’t one.

The town counsel gathered and passed a law stating that 30 mph was the maximum speed. A massive fine would
be imposed on anyone who violated the law and endangered lives.

The drunken speedster came through again, this time at 75 mph. When he was stopped, he had no concern about what he was doing wrong because he knew nothing about the law. It was only when the law was read to him that he understood that he was in big trouble. It was its threat of punishment that sobered him. He had no money and no words of defense, so he was thrown into prison.

As he sat in hopeless despair, his father came to the prison door and explained that he had paid the fine in full. The youth was free to go. The man had sold all his worldly goods to pay his son’s fine. Knowledge of his father’s sacrifice left the son broken, and wanting nothing more than to live a life that was pleasing to his father.

To the false convert, the Savior is the One who died for his sins. He paid his fine. However, you will find that there is a shallow understanding of the sacrifice of the Father. This is because he has no knowledge of God’s Law. It’s only when
he sees his terrible sin (that he is a terrible Law-breaker) and that he deserves consequent damnation, that he will understand the unspeakable sacrifice that the Father made in Jesus of Nazareth. The Law makes grace abound. It makes
make Jesus precious to him.
⁴⁰

Scriptures

A false convert may believe that the Scriptures are God’s Word, but he usually doesn’t see them as his life’s sustenance. He doesn’t
desire
the sincere milk of the Word that he may grow, because he hasn’t tasted of the goodness of the Lord. The saying is true: “This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this Book.” Because he doesn’t soak himself in the Word, he is ignorant about subjects such as the holiness of God, the Law of God and its true function, and the reality of true and false conversion.

Heaven and Hell

A false convert usually lacks any depth of sound doctrine. He couldn’t explain the basics of how we are justified or sanctified. He may say that Jesus is the only way to God, and yet with a little probing you will find that he usually ascribes to a form of universalism. This is because, without the Law, God seems unjust to condemn sinners (most of whom he sees as reasonably good people) to eternity in Hell. More than likely he will believe that everyone goes to Heaven, except people like Adolf Hitler. Hell is a place for those
he
thinks are worthy of punishment.

Sin and Salvation

A false convert thinks lightly of sin. This is why he believes he can be a Christian and still have sin in his life.
⁴¹
He is like the pig that wallows in the mire. Pigs wallow to cool their flesh, and because the false convert hasn’t repented, his flesh needs to be continually cooled through sin. He is truly a “worker of iniquity” (see Matthew 7:23) who sees nothing wrong with fibs, not keeping his word, taking (small) things that belong to other people, and giving himself to sexual lust.
⁴²
His reasoning is, “Who doesn’t do that?”
and “God understands.” He has his weaknesses. You may even hear blasphemy slip from his lips.

The false convert has often been through the motions of modern “conversion” (responded to an altar call, prayed a “sinner’s prayer,” etc.), and has consequently been given assurance by the preacher that he is saved.