What Is Really Your Bible?

 

So many people say loudly and clearly that they are "Bible Believers." They say the Bible is their guide and rule for living. They say the Bible is the "final authority" for all faith and practice. It is the standard by which we judge all things - IF we are really "Bible-believers."

Isn't it strange then that so many of these same people pay no attention to what the Bible clearly says when it disagrees with their judgment, or assessment of another person's spiritual condition. For example, when confronted with a Bible truth that is hard for them to accept, they run to some experience they, or someone they know has had. They try to prove what they believe because of what happened in that experience. These people base their doctrines of Salvation, chastisement, and God's attitude toward sin on experience rather than the Word of God, and at the same time say they are "Bible-believers!"

The Baptists used to raise their voices against the Pentecostals for basing their relationship to God on their experience. But now the Baptists have become experts in doing the same thing, except they do it in almost all areas of Christian living and Salvation itself. For example, most seem to believe now that a person is definitely saved forever if he can remember a time and a place where he prayed the "sinner's prayer." Once he has had this "experience," it doesn't matter if the Spirit of God bears witness with his spirit or not. It doesn't matter if he ever turns from sin to live a holy life for God or not, because he has that "experience" to stand upon. In fact, many say that it doesn't matter if he ever goes to church; he is still saved because of his "experience." He can even hate the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and everyone in it, and still be saved because of his "experience" at that one time and place. It doesn't matter anymore that his whole life is contrary to the Word of God and what it teaches about a child of God. No one can question his salvation because, after all, he did have that experience.

As a rule, men determine what they believe from what they see in other people and from their own experience and then they twist the Scriptures to fit what they already believe. Instead of seeking after the Truth, accepting it as the authority, and judging themselves and other men by it, the Truth is subject to their opinions, based on their experience. If you don't understand what we are saying think about this: Most professing Christians today are very well indoctrinated in situational ethics. It is the common practice among them to invent situations in which they try every truth that is presented to them. These situations are usually far from reality, but could conceivably happen. You have heard it: "Well, what if you were in a situation like this, what would you do them?" With such thinking the law of God is nullified and the truth is made a relative thing instead of an absolute. Every man is a god unto himself and does what is right in his own eyes. With this kind of religion there is a situation for every kind of sin to be excused and accepted. We live in a day when men have separated sin from the sinner in order to "love" him. Now he has become a victim instead of a transgressor of God's law and everyone strives to understand his side of things instead of God's side, and the reasons why he committed the sin.

Unless the Bible is our absolute authority and we judge ourselves and others by it's standards, we have a worthless religion indeed. Our feelings toward those we love must not enter in here. That is where most people stumble into this error. "I know that person is saved!," they will say, because of the experiences they have that they consider to be evidence of salvation. Then they proceed to find a way to explain or excuse that person's ungodly behavior, and in so doing compromise the Truth of the Word of God. When people do this with their children, which is the most common case, they forfeit any hope of ever seeing their children saved, and they both are left in deception. For the only hope for any son of Adam is to realize the Word of God is the absolute Truth, judge himself by it, and receive it as the guide and law of his life. The Law of God (the Bible) doesn't conform to us, but we are to be conformed to it. One of the most sure signs of a real born-again person is that he CONTINUES. To those who are really born again the Bible says: "But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition." These people have the assurance of eternal life, but the Bible nowhere gives that assurance to those who turn back to wallow in sin! If we hope to ever see that loved one truly come to a saving knowledge of God, we must hold the Truth before them without compromising. The Truth will set you FREE! If a person doesn't measure up to what the Scriptures describe as a Christian, then we must treat them as lost sinners. We must NOT back up and try to make the Bible concur with their ungodly life. Now, you be honest with yourself; what is your Bible?

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