What does the Bible say?

What is a Berean anyways?

Friends, we are living in a time where it’s a really noble thing to be a Berean (Acts 17:11). To be like a Berean, we must ask the question, ‘does the Bible say that?’ Too many pastors and preachers (and FB teachers) may or may not be well-meaning, but they are declaring things that the Word does not. Here are some of them.

Sayings not found in word or deed in the Scriptures:

“I have always been 100% sure I am saved, and if you are only 99% sure, that 1% will take you to hell”.

My comment: Where does the Bible tell us to put a percentage on it?

What about faith the size of a mustard seed? Why didn’t Jesus say we must believe 100% without ever doubting? Didn’t His already clean disciples doubt? Didn’t Peter, Barnabas and James get carried away with error and become hypocritical and not straightforward about the gospel? (Gal 2:11-21)

I am told some use the passage about Abraham being fully persuaded to make their case. But Abraham’s faith wasn’t in the quality of His faith but in what God said in Gen 12:3. Abraham’s actions often didn’t show that he was fully persuaded he would have a child with Sarah, although this is what Rom 4:18-22 is addressing. He believed God, but he doubted at time. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have gone in to Hagar. Or said that Sarah was His sister in order to save his own life. 

Examples in Scripture of Believers who doubted

Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. Rom 14:1

Over and over in the Scriptures we see many believers who already possessed eternal life who doubted God. Just in the New Testament, I won’t even go into the Old, let’s start with a few.

Jesus’ disciples were all declared CLEAN by Jesus in John 13. All but one, which was unbelieving Judas (not believing Him for eternal life-John 6:64). The rest of the disciples believed He had the words of eternal life (John 6:68-69). After Judas left (at the time of the Upper Room discourse), Jesus told the rest of them that He would be going away and sending them the Spirit. And these disciples were already declared positionally clean.

♦ So why did Jesus say right after He declared Peter clean that Peter would deny Him (John 13)? (One told me that this was ‘before the Holy Spirit’ so he wasn’t assured of salvation. WRONG! The just have always lived by faith, saved by faith, declared righteous by faith).

♦ And what about ‘doubting’ Thomas (again, already clean) ? (John 20:24-29)

♦ If Peter had 100% faith, why wouldn’t he accept that Jesus had to die (Matt 16:21-23)?

♦ What about Jesus calling His disciples a faithless generation for being unable to heal the mute boy (Mark 9:17-24)?

♦ The father of the boy said ‘I believe, help thou my unbelief’. Sometimes we need to do the same.

♦ What about all the disciples who fled when they captured Jesus (Matt 26:56)?

♦ What about the disciples on the Road to Emmaus that Jesus chastised for being fools who were slow of heart to believe (Luke 24)? 

♦ Why did Jesus have to chasten the disciples after He arose for their unbelief and hardness of heart (Mark 16:11-14)?

♦ What about the church at Galatia who had become bewitched regarding how they were saved or IF they were saved (Gal 3:1-5)? 

♦ What about the Hebrew believers who were being warned about departing from God with an evil heart of unbelief (Heb 3:12)? 

♦ What about those believers in 2 Timothy 2 who had been led astray by Hymenaeus and Philetus?

♦ Or those in 1 Corinthians 15 who started to doubt the resurrection? Were they at a perfect 100% if they were doubting that portion of the gospel? Not possible.

♦ The church at Galatia was doubting they were saved without works and were bewitched into thinking they could finish in the flesh. Is that 100% (Gal 3:1-5)?

Believers can doubt

1 John was written TO believers, and just as in other epistles we see believers who doubt.

I like the NKJV translation of this verse because it gets the parsing right. The second ‘believe; is in a continuing sense, even though the word ‘continue’ is not there, the tense is. So basically John is saying he has written to BELIEVERS so that (purpose) > BELIEVERS might KNOW that they have eternal life, (so they might continue in faith vs. doubt).

These things I have written to you >>who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. 1 John 5:13

Jesus warned us about not offending one of the little ones who believes in Him:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. Mark 9:42

1 Corinthians 6 warns us not to make our weaker brother stumble (also Rom 14) by the food we eat. Shouldn’t we also include our words as part of what might make them stumble? Words we don’t find in Scripture?

Wouldn’t it be better if you were unsure they believed, to simply go over the gospel and trust it’s power to work in them (Rom 1:16-17; 1 Cor 1:17-18)?

When we believe upon Christ and His work, Heb 10:10-14 tells us we are perfected forever by His one sacrifice. Colossians 2:15; Acts 13:39 assures us all our trespasses were forgiven when we believed. John 5:24 says we are passed from death unto life, and Colossians 1:13 says God places us into the Kingdom of His dear Son.

When the enemy accuses you, ask yourself, ‘does the Bible say this?’

Don’t let even possibly well-meaning pastors lead you astray or shipwreck your faith by their clever catch phrases from their favorite denominations. The disciples never asked these questions or made these statements. In fact, we see quite the opposite. They simply told people to believe.

Paul was abandoned by many in the end. Some went back into the world. Why would they do that if they believed with a 100% certainty (again words not found in Scripture) with no doubts? Because we are human and there is bad doctrine out there, and we still have evil present within our flesh (Romans 7), which means we can doubt at times. Remember though, it is not God who gives us a spirit of fear, so the remedy is to get back into His Word to build up your faith and to be able to answer the enemy with.

I hope these men who make these statements will not doubt a little sometime later in their life and then be in a state of fear that they are somehow going to hell. Yes we need to believe the truth. Don’t add qualifiers to it, because no one is perfect in faith in this lifetime and Jesus says He has revealed it to babes. Don’t make these babes worry that their faith isn’t 100%. Yes, they need to believe 100% of what is in the gospel. But don’t put that qualifier on the simple word BELIEVE.

Again — Lord I believe, help my unbelief (Mark 7:24 paraphrased).

Another false statement not found in the Bible

If thou dost harbour one of those accursed vipers in thy heart, thy repentance is but a sham. If thou dost indulge in but one lust, and dost give up every other, that one lust, like one leak in a ship, will sink thy soul.  (From Charles Spurgeon’s ‘Turn or Burn Sermon’).

All Spurgeon had to do is ask his wife or children if he had stopped sinning. Trust me, he didn’t turn from all of his sin. He didn’t stop harboring one of those accursed vipers. We are not capable, so simply put, he believed in works plus faith. His own works of turning from sin, which was not harboring one of those vipers, and not indulging in one lust… (or so he said).

Note:

To those who are quoting Spurgeon? Stop it! He had much false doctrine, quit leading the sheep to a wolf.

To those who want to chasten me for saying this about Spurgeon? Kindly, save your breath, I’ve heard enough from you who will defend him.

We’ve all heard the qualifiers: 

“It must be more than ‘mental assent'”.

“You can’t just believe in ‘easy-believism’ (huh?)”

“You must have a ‘saving’ faith, or a ‘real’ faith, or you must ‘truly’ believe”

But throughout Scripture, the one thing that we are asked to do is BELIEVE. These qualifiers are not found it Scripture. Men find these phrases catchy, but you might ask yourself if your clever words are setting themselves up against the truth of His Word.

I am not going to do make this a lengthy post, but I felt the need to address this today. We simply need to believe the gospel as His Word asks. Preach Christ and Him crucified. Stop causing people to look at themselves, trust in the quality of their faith or mistrust the quality of their faith. Salvation is found in His name, not ours (Acts 4:12).

Those who are sharing these kinds of comments, need to remember this.

The Gospel is the POWER of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16-17). Trust in it’s power. Stop trusting in your own words. It is HIS Word that is able to make one wise unto salvation (2 Tim 3:14-17), PLEASE quit inserting your own words into His living and powerful Word (Heb 4:12). If the Word doesn’t make those kinds of statements and we don’t see the apostle saying, ‘friend, I know you say you believed, but do you believe 100% and have never doubted?”…. Never have I seen that.

And friends….

Please, I beseech you. Stop listening to those who keep making these statements with no Word of God backing it up. Stop jumping from video to video. Stop depending on man. Pray, confess your worries directly to Him. Ask HIM to help you. Trust that He will if you apply yourself.

Be like a Berean, be noble, it’s not as hard as you may think. Find the Scriptures to answer the enemy with as Jesus did in the wilderness (Matt 4). Ask others you trust to give you some Scriptures to consider. Don’t let people bewitch you or trouble you by their own words (Gal 3:1-5; 1 Cor 2:1-5), we should all have fear and trembling when it comes to His Word (Is 66:2).

Love in Christ to each one of you.