Beware of Sheep Imitations!

In our present day when, ostensibly, it is quite a simple matter to become in the vernacular of the evangelical church, “saved” as simply as “A,B,C”, i.e. “Accept”, “Believe”, and “Confess”, I have become very concerned about such formulaic presentations especially in light of our Lord’s words to His contemporaries when He stated quite emphatically,

“"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'”

There are a lot of wonderful passages in Scripture that many pastors will never touch on, and this is surely one of the more prominent ones of this group. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this, but in a time in which the “seeker sensitive” movement has taken over in many quarters there is little point in hearing from the pulpit, if there is actually one in place, that all those wonderfully converted saints may really not be saints after all. Of course that’s not really their fault because they did follow through with the “raised hand, walked aisle, and sinner’s prayer” formula, and shortly thereafter were welcomed into the family of God as if “what they did .. did it!!” The fact of the matter is, however, that from the Scriptural point of view, absolutely nothing of what they or we do in terms of salvation has anything whatever to do with our salvation. That’s why we read that salvation is “…by grace alone”. Most churches that I have looked into do in fact affirm this very essential truth, yet so many of them go on speaking about the new birth as if men were and are very much a part of it coming to pass. Often the wording of church statements of faith include such affirmations, to wit, “…when the unregenerate receives Christ for salvation, then they are born again.” they are In other words, men who are spiritually dead do nonetheless have the capacity to “make a decision” that results in their own regeneration. This would be interesting and downright miraculous if it were true, but it is not. Yet this is precisely the evangelistic message that is proclaimed far and wide every day. Every time a church holds evangelistic services; every time a major crusade is conducted men are told that in the doing of such and such, they will be saved. And what happens usually follows a scenario similar to this – a gospel message is proclaimed; people are invited to come forward to “receive Christ as personal Savior” – nowhere is this to be found in Scripture; the choir sings [often] “Just as I am”; counselors gather and hand out literature and pray with those who’ve walked the aisle. And when all is concluded, the “new convert” is welcomed into the family of God and given further instructions. Are any saved? Yes, I believe that God in His Sovereign mercy does save some. What of the others? That’s hard to say, but once the emotion of the moment has worn off, so does the sense of being saved or of having had some wonderful new experience.

Recently I re-read a tremendous little book that has been in my library for over twenty years. The book is entitled, “Today’s Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic” by pastor Walter Chantry. It’s less than one hundred pages in length. In it he tackles the whole matter of preaching the gospel and uses as his base text the account in Mark 10 of the rich young ruler coming to Jesus for the express purpose of “inheriting eternal life”. It’s a classic account of what the church today would look upon as being a “seeker” coming to Christ. Beyond that however, it would appear that the Son of God in His meeting with this “ripe candidate” for salvation, actually blows the whole encounter. From the standpoint of “Salvation 101”, Jesus does everything wrong. Right from the getgo when the man comes to the Master and pays Him a great compliment, Jesus shoots him down. And then instead of getting on with the four spiritual laws, He starts quizzing the man on whether or not he had been successful in keeping the commandments. For the average student of evangelism the whole account must seem like a real exercise in futility. Every modern day rule of evangelism is seriously maligned so that in the final scene in this little drama, the man goes away in great sorrow not saved after all.

For most evangelicals the reason for his not being saved is simple – he didn’t “do” what he was told to do, and hence Jesus couldn’t save him. But is that really the crux of the matter? Was Jesus rendered helpless in light of the man’s will, or lack thereof, in complying with Jesus’ instructions? It does seem that way as we consider all that transpired but surely we must ask and seek an answer to the man’s supposed inability to reach the goal for which he had made this overture in the first place. The Scriptural fact of the matter is – no man, woman, child, young or old person of any tribe or people can be saved unless something rather miraculous takes place within and that is the work alone of God through His Holy Spirit. Unless and until man turns completely from his sin and bows to Jesus Christ alone for his salvation he cannot have eternal life. Jesus here put His finger on one all important fact of this man’s life, the man’s sin. He was still married to his god, his gold. He wouldn’t give it up. Dare we say that though this fellow had stated emphatically that the commandments that Jesus had named and that needed his obedience, there were in fact others there that had received little if any obedience at all? The gold had become for him an idol; to get and keep so much of life’s riches he was ever in a state of covetousness. This was his heart attitude and Jesus knew it. And He called on the man to give it up; to turn completely about face from it. But his heart, his nature would not allow it. With respect to those commandments that he had given lip service to for his whole life, he felt fine. But with his heart attitude toward his real ‘god’ there was no change. He loved it still. He could not give it up – even for eternal life. Unless God by way of His Holy Spirit wrought a new life within the man, there was no way that he could change.

And that is not the “evangelism” of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Do you see what Jesus did here? The Master defined sin and in doing so made it abundantly clear to this young man that in and of himself there was nothing he could do to rid himself of it. To gain eternal life we must obey; our whole lives must be lives of obedience. Our evangelism today is very simple: “Accept God’s free gift; Believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for sinners; Confess your sinfulness”. This is how we end up with sheep imitations. The truth is not in them, because they haven’t had the truth delivered to them. To become a follower of Jesus Christ one must make a complete, total and unequivocal turn from the life that he or she has lived and so dearly loved. From that point on they must walk in a new life of obedience and that will not, though it is frequently claimed otherwise, be easy. That’s why Jesus spoke so strongly of the cost of being His disciple. This life could and frequently does, cost everything. It is not simply a matter of being added to a long roster of “new converts”. It’s a matter of having now, residing within, the life of Jesus Christ and living that life before a watching world that hates Christ. Yes, that’s a cost. This is not simply an outward “confession”, it is an inner reality that God must originate in the hearts of men who hate Him and until that happens all the confessions and tears and prayers of contrition will not amount to the proverbial hill of beans.

Until men come to the realization that they must come to the cross having offended a thrice Holy God and there in total repentance of the lives that they’ve lived, beg for mercy, they will not be saved. Yet countless thousands make the empty profession every year without an inkling of the sin that is theirs, and one day will stand before God proclaiming all their “good” in vain only to hear those words, “…depart from me, I never knew you”. The number of sheep imitations on that day will be staggering. And so many of them will have come from having made their earthly “professions” in situations such as the illustration below. Watch it carefully and learn from it.

At the risk of sounding a mite harsh I will say only this – this is an heretical and soul destroying practice that comes out of a system that in reality thinks very little of God. It is a system that does not preach the law, so men don’t know how or why they have offended God. This is a practice that does not call for repentance. This is a system that waters down the gospel to the mere offering of Christ and salvation “as a gift” and never mentions that we must bow to Christ’s rule and bear a cross. Men might be deeply affected by truth and never be converted. They end up in quite illustrious company for even the devils believe, and they tremble.