To profess the name of Christ so adamantly, so sincerely and dedicatedly yet while showing nothing for it, what a terrible offense that is to Whom the Name belongs! Is it not axiomatic that the Narrow Way is the Way of Holiness? And if we are not in that path we have no cause to think that we are saved? What a sad fact it is that many professors today would still insist in their affiliation to the Name of Christ while raising their clenched fists to the face of God in their love for sin and the world. Better they be decided rebels than carnal hypocrites!
It was not so long ago that I was such a person, believing to be saved when there is no true and abiding fruit of a new heart. Professing Christ while totally unable to produce any real deeds of obedience (Rom 6:13). Why should there be any if the heart was never changed from stone to flesh (Eze 36:26)? How can I expect any marks of salvation when the roots are corrupt and bound in its lusts and sin (Matt 7:18)?
Let us further examine ourselves today, dear reader. God’s Wrath is Coming. Are you Ready? There is nothing more fearful than to be in the hands of an angry God. Nothing more tragic than to wake up before the gates of Hell all the while thinking we partook of the way to Heaven.
If, by His grace, God has brought to bear upon your soul that you are still in darkness, in the bonds of iniquity, then pray, repent and believe the gospel, that you may be brought from death to life. The God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ is a perfect Savior. No matter how vile and wicked you may be, He can save even such a one as you (1 Tim 1:15).
Another characteristic of saving faith is that it gives the heart victory over all the vanities and vexations of things below. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). Observe that this is not an ideal after which the Christian strives, but an actuality of present experience. In this the saint is conformed to His Head: “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Christ overcame it for His people, and now He overcomes it in them. He opens their eyes to see the hollowness and worthlessness of the best which this world has to offer, and weans their hearts from it by satisfying them with spiritual things. So little does the world attract the genuine child of God that he longs for the time to come when God shall take him out of it. Alas, that so very few of those now bearing the name of Christ have any real experimental acquaintance with these things.
Alas, that so many are deceived by a faith which is not a saving one.
“He only is a Christian who lives for Christ. Many persons think they can be Christians on easier terms than these. They think it is enough to trust in Christ while they do not live for Him. But the Bible teaches us that if we are partakers of Christ’s death we are also partakers of His life. If we have any such appreciation of His love in dying for us as to lead us to confide in the merits of His death, we shall be constrained to consecrate our lives to His service. And this is the only evidence of the genuineness of our faith.”
—Charles Hodge on 2 Corinthians 5:15
Reader, are the things mentioned above actualized in your own experience? If they are not, how worthless and wicked is your profession!
“It is therefore exceedingly absurd for any to pretend that they have a good heart while they live a wicked life, or do not bring forth the fruit of universal holiness in their practice. Men that live in the ways of sin, and yet flatter themselves that they shall go to heaven, expecting to be received hereafter as holy persons, without a holy practice, act as though they expected to make a fool of their Judge.
Which is implied in what the apostle says (speaking of men’s doing good works and living a holy life, thereby exhibiting evidence of their title to everlasting life), ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’ (Gal. 6:7). As much as to say, Do not deceive yourselves with an expectation of reaping life everlasting hereafter, if you do not sow to the Spirit here; it is in vain to think that God will be made a fool of by you.”
—Jonathan Edwards in Religious Affections
That which Christ requires from His disciples is that they should magnify and glorify Him in this world, and that by living holily to Him and suffering patiently for Him. Nothing is as honoring to Christ as that those who bear His name should, by their holy obedience, make manifest the power of His love over their hearts and lives. Contrariwise, nothing is so great a reproach to Him, nothing more dishonors Him, than that those who are living to please self, and who are conformed to this world, should cloak their wickedness under His holy name.
A Christian is one who has taken Christ for his example in all things; then how great the insult which is done Him by those claiming to be Christians whose daily lives show they have no respect for His godly example. They are a stench in His nostrils; they are a cause of grievous sorrow to His real disciples; they are the greatest hindrance of all to the progress of His cause on earth; and they shall yet find that the hottest places in hell have been reserved for them. Oh that they would either abandon their course of self-pleasing or drop the profession of that name which is above every name.
Should the Lord be pleased to use this article in shattering the false confidence of some deluded souls, and should they earnestly inquire how they are to obtain a genuine and saving faith, we answer,
Use the means which God has prescribed. When faith be His gift, He gives it in His own way; and if we desire to receive it, then we must put ourselves in that way wherein He is wont to communicate it. Faith is the work of God, but He works it not immediately, but through the channels of His appointed means. The means prescribed cannot effect faith of themselves. They are no further effectual than in instruments in the hands of Him who is the principal cause. Though He has not tied Himself to them, yet He has confined us. Though He be free, yet the means are necessary to us.
The first means is prayer. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezek. 36:26). Here is a gracious promise, but in what way will He accomplish it, and similar ones? Listen, “Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them”’ (Ezek. 36:3 7). Cry earnestly to God for a new heart, for His regenerating Spirit, for the gift of saving faith. Prayer is a universal duty. Though an unbeliever sin in praying (as in everything else), it is not a sin for him to pray.
The second means is the written Word heard (John 17:20; 1 Cor. 3:5) or read (2 Tim. 3:15). Said David, “I will never forget Thy precepts: for with them Thou hast quickened me” (Psalm 119:93). The Scriptures are the Word of God; through them He speaks. Then read them, asking Him to speak life, power, deliverance, peace, to your heart. May the Lord deign to add His blessing.
—A. W. Pink, Studies on Saving Faith: It’s Evidencesi
Read more of “Studies on Saving Faith” here.
Footnotes
- Pink, A. W. (19). The doctrines of election and justification. “… materials found herein were first published in 1932, 1933 and 1937 …”; Includes indexes. Swengel, Pa.: Reiner.” [↩]
