Truth Magazine

By C.W. Fell

Notice in John 3:16 that God “gave” his Son. God did not owe us a plan of salvation. He was not indebted to give us a plan of salvation. This plan of salvation was given as an unmerited favor by God to mankind while we were still dead in our sins.

How does a sinner obtain salvation? People have different ideas about God’s plan of salvation. Overcoming these differences can be difficult at times, but it is not impossible. In fact, most of us are much closer to agreement than we realize.

For example, let’s take Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Here is a simple point we all agree on. Regard- less of what name you wear, whether Assembly of God, Baptist, Catholic, Church of Christ, Independent, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, or Presbyterian we all agree on this point.

Next, we all agree with Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.” This teaching transcends all the boundaries of division.

How Does One Escape?

Next, let’s consider how man can escape the condemnation of sin. What we want here is a Bible answer, not the opinions of men, but rather a clear book, chapter, and verse Bible answer. 

The following verses provide just such an answer:

. . . having now been justified by His blood . . . (Rom. 5:9).

. . . having made peace through the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20).

. . . and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

 

From these verses it is obvious that the blood of Christ is our hope for escape from the wages of sin. Without Christ’s blood we would be hopelessly lost.

I’m confident that most of us will agree up to this point. So, we now have three points of agreement.

• All have sinned.

• The wages of sin is death.

• Christ blood is our only hope of escape.

Man Did Nothing!

Let’s move on to the fourth point. I am certain we will agree on it, also. The fourth point is that man did nothing to merit the sacrifice of Christ. Again we turn to the Bible for solid book, chapter, and verse answers.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . . (John 3:16).

. . .Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6).

. . .while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses. . . (Eph. 2:1).

Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive. . . (Eph. 2:5).

Notice in John 3:16 that God “gave” his Son. God did not owe us a plan of salvation. He was not indebted to give us a plan of salvation. This plan of salvation was given as an unmerited favor by God to mankind while we were still dead in our sins.

Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). God eliminated all possible boasting from the plan of salvation. No man can boast that he has earned salvation.

We should now have four points of agreement.

• All have sinned.

• The wages of sin is death.

• Christ’s blood is our only hopeof escape.

• Not a single one of us deserves God’s plan of salvation.

To emphasize the fourth point a little further, consider the fact that this plan of salvation was designed and offered before you were born. You certainly did nothing to merit a plan of salvation that was given nearly two thousand years before you were born. You can also rest assured that the people of Christ’s day did not earn this plan. No one deserves salvation.

Saved By Grace Through Faith

In Ephesians 2:8 Paul introduced another element of salvation that we will agree on. Paul taught that we are saved by grace through faith. It is through the avenue of faith that we take hold of God’s grace and gain the salvation that is in Christ’s blood.

In Acts 15:9 we read, “. . .purifying their hearts by faith.” We see again that it is through the avenue of faith that we reach the saving blood of Christ. It is not faith that washes away our sins, but rather it is through faith that we reach the saving blood of Christ.

In Hebrews 11:6 we read, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Faith is absolutely essential because it is the only avenue by which we can take hold of God’s grace and reach the blood of Christ.

No doubt we are still in agreement through these five points.

• All have sinned.

• The wages of sin is death.

• Christ’s blood is our only hopeof escape.

• Not a single one of us deserves God’s plan of salvation.

• Without faith it is impossible to please God.

What Is Faith?

The next step is to identify and de- fine saving faith. What is its character and its nature? How does a person exercise saving faith? The Bible speaks of two kinds of faith. James tells us about one of these in James 2, starting at verse 14.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? (2:14).

Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (2:17).

You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons be- lieve and tremble (2:19).

But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? (2:20).

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? (2:21)

Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? (2:22).

You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only (2:24).

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also (2:26).

Why is the faith of this passage dead? Because it did not obey the truth. This dead faith recognized the facts and understood the truth but did not do the will of God.

James’ message is simple: An inactive faith is a useless faith. Only the Devil would encourage such a faith.

We have an example of this dead faith in John 12:42-43. John writes, “Nevertheless, even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” These men had an inactive faith, a dead faith.

In Matthew 10:33 we read, “But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” The rulers mentioned in John 12 would not confess Christ even though they believed he was the Christ, therefore Christ will deny them before his Father.

Faith alone was not enough just as James had said. A faith that recognizes the truth but does not surrender to God’s will is dead and does not lead to the saving blood of Jesus.

What Is Saving Faith?

Obviously we want the opposite of this dead faith. We want a faith that is alive, surrenders to God, and actively does his will. Various Bible passages reinforce this idea of saving faith.

In Matthew 7:21 Jesus taught, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Later in Matthew 12:50 Jesus said, “For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister.”

The Hebrew writer wrote in He- brews 5:9, “. . .He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.”

In 2 Thessalonians 1:8 Paul taught that when Jesus returns he will take vengeance “on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We can see from these verses that the faith that leads to the blood of Christ is an active faith. It is a faith that does the will of God, making a personal surrender to whatever God may require.

We now have six points that we should agree on.

• All have sinned.

• The wages of sin is death.

• Christ’s blood is our only hope of escape.

• Not a single one of us deserves God’s plan of salvation.

• Without faith it is impossible to please God.

• Saving faith obediently surrenders to the will of God. 

The Terms of Surrender

Next, let’s consider the terms of this surrender that leads to the blood of Christ. Once again we want a solid Bible book, chapter, and verse foundation, and once again the Bible provides such an answer.

In John 6:28 the people asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”Jesus answered in the next verse, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” To the modern mind “believe” might sound like an odd answer to their question. People today tend to view belief as something that is passive, but the religious minds of Jesus’ day knew that faith without works is dead.

In the Bible, saving faith and obedient surrender are so closely related that sometimes the ideas are interchange- able. This relationship between the two is obvious in the following verses.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? (Rom. 10:16). (Did you notice in this verse that the gospel is something to be obeyed?)

And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief (Heb. 3:18-19).

Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient. . . (1 Pet. 2:7).

Saving faith is a firm conviction, a personal surrender, and a conduct of life based on that surrender. This is the first term of surrender. This first term by its very nature includes all the other terms of surrender. In other words, if a person truly exercises saving faith then all of the other terms naturally follow. If any of the other terms is rejected, then a personal surrender was not made.

Repentance as a Term of Surrender

So, what are the other things that the Bible connects to salvation? Once again we want solid book, chapter, and verse Bible answers to this question, and again the Bible gives us clear answers.

Several Scriptures connect repentance to salvation:

. . .unless you repent you will all likewise perish (Luke 13:5).

. . .God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life (Acts 11:18).

God . . . commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30).

The Lord is . . . not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9).

So what is this repentance that God commands upon all men everywhere? Repentance is simply a change of mind that turns away from sin and unto God.

The fact that God requires us to turn from sin and unto him is just common sense. To expect God to save us without us turning to him would be absurd. It would also be contrary to the obedient surrender of saving faith. So, while we can talk about saving faith and repentance separately on paper, the two cannot be separated in practice.

Notice also that repentance is something that God granted us (Acts 11:18). If God had not chosen to accept our repentance as part of his plan of salvation then repentance would be worthless. Repentance is only valuable in coming to Jesus’ blood because God made it so.

We should now have seven points that we agree on.

• All have sinned.

• The wages of sin is death.

• Christ’s blood is our only hope of escape.

• Not a single one of us deserves God’s plan of salvation.

• Without faith it is impossible to please God.

• Saving faith obediently surrenders to the will of God.

• God commands all men everywhere to turn from sin and unto him.

Confession as a Term of Surrender

The Scriptures also show that confession is vitally connected to salvation.

Whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before

My Father who is in heaven (Matt. 10:33).

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus . . . you will be saved (Rom. 10:9). . . . and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. 10:10).

If we deny Him, He will also deny us (2 Tim. 2:12).

So, what is this confession that we must make as part of our surrender? It is a confession that Jesus is our Lord, a declaration of our acceptance of him as our Lord and Savior. We cannot be like the rulers mentioned earlier in John 12:42; we must openly confess that Jesus is the Christ.

If a person is not willing to make this confession, then that person has not obediently surrendered to the will of God. He has not turned from the way of sin unto the way of God.

We should now have eight points of agreement. 

• All have sinned.

• The wages of sin is death.

• Christ’s blood is our only hope of escape.

• Not a single one of us deserves God’s plan of salvation.

• Without faith it is impossible to please God.

• Saving faith obediently surrenders to the will of God.

• God commands all men everywhere to turn from sin and unto him.

• If we deny Jesus, he will also deny us.

Most likely we are in agreement up to this point. We might have some technical differences, but hopefully those will be minor.

Baptism as a Term of Surrender

Now we come to the biggest hurdle of all: baptism. As always we want a solid book, chapter, and verse answer. Once again, the Bible is surprisingly clear.

He who believes and is baptized will be saved. . . (Mark 16:16).

But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him (Luke 7:30).

. . . unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5).

Repent, and lest every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins . . . (Acts 2:38).

Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins. . . (Acts 22:16).

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead . . . even so we also should walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:3-4).

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ(Gal. 3:27).

There is also an antitype which now saves us — baptism . . . (1 Pet. 3:21). 

Baptism does not merit salvation any more than faith does. It is rather absurd that anyone would think that the simple act of baptism could merit eternal life. Baptism is simply one of the terms of surrender that God designated. If a person truly surrenders to the will of God, then he will submit to God’s will in baptism. If he refuses to be baptized then he has not surrendered to the will of God (Luke 7:30).

Baptism and Grace

After surrendering to God in baptism a person should not think that he has done anything to earn the saving blood of Christ. Salvation is by God’s grace when one surrenders according to the terms God set.

 

Naaman the leper illustrates the point. God offered to cure Naaman of his leprosy upon seven dippings in the river Jordan. Dipping in the river Jordan worked for Naa- man only because God’s grace made it work. God chose to impart the gift of healing to Naaman by means of dipping in the river (2 Kings 5:1-19 ).

Likewise God has chosen to impart the healing blood of Jesus by means of baptism. It is not the baptism itself that washes away sins, but rather the blood of Christ. God has arranged his plan of salvation so that the blood of Christ is applied when a sinner surrenders to the point of baptism. Thus, the man dead in his sins is buried in baptism and a new man is resurrected from the grave of baptism by God’s grace.

Noah is another good illustration. Genesis 6:8 tells us that Noah found grace in the eyes of God. Does this mean that Noah had no part in saving his family from the flood? Of course not. Noah and his sons put in many long hours building the ark. Yet, all the work and efforts of Noah and his family were successful only because God’s grace was with them. If God’s grace had not been with them then their work would have been in vain, and they too would have died in the flood.

Likewise, our baptism would have no benefit if God’s grace was not with us in baptism. Baptism leads to the saving blood of Jesus only because God’s graces makes it that way. If God’s grace was removed then baptism would be absolutely worthless.

The Bible teaches that a person must believe, repent, confess, and be baptized unto the remission of sins. When a person has thus surrendered to God then that person’s sins are washed away by the blood of Christ.

Obedient surrender does not merit salvation. A person cannot point to his surrender and say that he has earned or bought salvation. God, in his wonderful grace, has simply allowed that if a person will surrender to him, he will cleanse that person by the blood of Christ, but we must first come to him on his terms.

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my father in heaven”(Matt. 7:21). Have you surrendered to God’s will?

By Morris Hafley

In the Ohio Valley there is a deadly virus. It has killed thousands already and more have been diagnosed with the virus. Small children and adults are dying horrible, lingering painful deaths. You may not have heard about it until this moment. The government is trying to keep it a secret. That’s the reason you have not heard about it.

There is a doctor in the Valley that has the cure. He is the only one, but for some unknown reason he is not sharing the vaccine with any one. I suppose he is waiting for the highest bidder and/or he is the meanest, most heartless doctor of all time. Perhaps he wants to remain friends with “the higher ups.” Government officials know this culprit and are saying that “he is an old man and has done much good in the field of medical research for many years.”

People (those who have heard) are moving from the Valley and getting as far away as quickly as possible. It is a mass exodus such as I have never seen. They are running as fast as they can lest they contact this deadly virus, leaving behind all they have ever known, and selling their land for little or nothing just to escape. They have no concern for their jobs or their possessions. They are only concerned for their lives.

The government is warning all not to tell others, but as you can see I am not listening. I want you to know as quickly as possible. I would want you to tell me if the situation were reversed. The government says it will create a panic and the economy will be destroyed if the rest of the country knows about this.

Though the above is not true I am reminded of a virus that indeed has infected us all, the virus of sin (Rom.

3:23). It is a virus that kills (Rom. 6:33). I also know of a Physician who has the cure and is not hoarding it for the highest bidder (Mark 2:16-17; 16:15).

Do we want to hear of “outbreaks” of sin? Certainly not! After all it separates us from the one who loves us most (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; Isa. 59:1-2). If it is a deadly disease it does not matter with whom it starts. We want to know ASAP! Why would we want to protect someone who could lead us to torment with a deadly doctrine (Matt. 15:13-14)? It, too, is a slow, lingering, painful death (Luke 16:19-31; Matt. 8:12; Rev. 20:14).

I want to go on record right now by saying if I teach a doctrine that is contrary to the Word expose me if I refuse to repent. Tell all who I am and what I am teaching just as God did in 1 Timothy 1:20 — “Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” Warn all that my “word will eat as cloth a canker” and that I have “erred concerning the truth” (2 Tim. 2:17-18).

Refusing to repent I may in all honesty, as sweet as a little lamb, cry, “I’ve been misrepresented.” Do not let that deter you from exposing me (John 3:20-21). Some think that before one may be labeled as a false teacher, he must have horns and fangs and be rude, crude and tattooed with a devil insignia.

Do not allow how long I have been preaching to stop you. Do not allow our longtime friendship to sway you. Do not allow my friends and what they may say or write about you to scare you. Paul, in all honesty, went about making “havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3; 23:1). His sincerity did not make him right.

The Lord stopped him (Acts 9). Please! “SOMEBODY STOP ME” before the judgment!

Stop the virus of sin. Do not wait until it has a good head of steam before you try to stop it. It could steamroll right over you and any in its path. “But there were false proph- ets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber” (2 Pet. 2:1-3, NASV).

By Connie W. Adams

It is common these days to blame every sin, whether murder, theft, adultery, addiction, or whatever, on somebody or something other than the perpetrator of the offense. The offender was abused as a child, either by parents or others. Or, maybe society as a whole failed the felon. Maybe it was the influence of wild-eyed, radical, right-wing, religious extremists that caused the accused to go into a fast-food restaurant and shoot down fifteen people, or a student to shoot ten of his fellow-students in a prayer circle before the school day began. It was not long after the tragedy at Paducah, Kentucky before the press was speculating that the student arrested for killing three of his fellow-students and wounding seven more, was small for his age and had been picked on by others.

I suppose it is natural to try to figure out why people commit criminal and other sinful acts. But the notion that such behavior may be shifted away from the guilty to others, whatever they may have done, or not done, is faulty. It stands opposed to common sense and certainly to the teaching of Scripture.

Ezekiel 18 is instructive on this matter. The scene here is one of captivity. Ezekiel prophesied to those who had already entered Babylonian captivity. In the first four verses, Ezekiel brought up a common proverb among the people which was being pressed into service to explain why they had gone into this dreadful captivity. They said, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (v. 2). In verse 3 he said, “You shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.” Why was that? “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (v. 4). The Lord was teaching them not to blame their troubles on their fathers. It is true that parents have influence on their children and they will have to answer for how they use it. But if a child eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge because he ate sour grapes, not because of what his father did or did not do.

Good Fathers and Bad Sons

Ezekiel proceeds to describe a man who is “just” and who does what is “lawful and right” but who has a son who becomes a robber, a murderer, an idolater, and who does “abominations.” Who is to blame? Look at it: “He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him” (vv. 5-12). Is a just father to blame for his son becoming a renegade? Absolutely not! He ate his own sour grapes.

Bad Fathers and Good Sons

Then Ezekiel paints a different picture. This time he presents a man who is a rascal but who bears a son who turns away from the evil ways of his father (vv. 14-18). In verse 17 he plainly said, “he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.” Then in verse 20 he said “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” Each person bears responsibility for his own actions regardless of what others have done.

Modern Concepts and Sin

Many today are uncomfortable with the idea of sin. Sin has been softened and minimized. And if there is no sin, there is no sinner. But somebody or something is to blame. So, the search for the scapegoat begins. The wayward son in Luke 15 “came to himself” after he had spent his money and time in wild living. Reduced to dire circumstances, he resolved to go back home. When he got there he said to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son” (Luke 15:21). Isn’t it interesting that he did not blame the government, the synagogue school, the community recreation project nor even his father. He did not say, “Well, if you had not been such an authoritarian father, so unfeeling and unreasonable, I never would have been tempted to leave home in the first place.” I can guarantee you that is exactly what some of the social engineers of today would have said. He took his inheritance. He wasted it. He was profligate.

The common defense of the mass murderer is insanity. Are there mentally unbalanced people? To be sure. Are there terrible things sometimes done by those who are not rational. Without doubt. But every criminal act is not to be explained on that basis. There is such a thing as sin and those who commit them are sinners. There are those who have the rationality to plot, scheme, build elaborate devices to carry out their intents. They are not crazy. They are sinful. They had choices to make and made the wrong ones.

The Principle of Personal Accountability

Both the strong brother and the weak one in Romans 14 are held accountable for their behavior toward the other. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12). Should we place a stumblingblock in another’s way? No. The one doing so will have to answer for it. But it must also be said that each one of us is responsible for walking “circumspectly.” We must all watch where we are going. It is like the man who gets a speeding ticket and defends himself on the ground that this driver in front of him was just poking along and finally in frustration he sped around him and exceeded the limit. The issue is “Who was driving your car?” The pokey driver or you? You may have been tempted by the circumstances, but who yielded to the temptation?

I have endured a lifetime of teasing because of my first name. So has my wife over hers. But you know, neither of us ever decided to go to school with guns and shoot down fellow-students because of it. What others may do may very well annoy us, frustrate us, but whatever we say or do is still a matter of personal choice and responsibility.

It is high time that people in this land stopped blaming everyone but themselves for their actions. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).

By Mike Willis

In the September-October 1997 issue of Wineskins an article was published entitled “I Just Want To Testify” by Dan Dozier. The magazine Wineskins is published by those supportive of Rubel Shelly, Max Lu- cado, and the Nashville Jubilee, if that helps you to identify its doctrinal stance. This article by Dozier tells us about the practice of “testifying” in worship assemblies.

The word “testify” is a Bible term. The word is translated from the various cognates of ma/rtus: ma/rtur, marture/w, marturi/a, martu/rion, martu/romai. The basic meaning of the word group is conveyed by ma/ rtus: “a witness (one who avers, or can aver, what he himself has seen or heard or knows by any other means)” (Thayer 392). The word is used throughout the New Testament to relate what the witnesses of Christ saw and heard from him. They could testify about his miracles, his words, his death, his resurrection because they had seen and heard the things that transpired. The words of the New Testament are the testimonies of eyewitnesses and the inspired words of men who recorded what they had seen and heard or had personally investigated.

However, the modern practice of testifying is something quite different. Men who lived nearly two thousand years after Christ are not qualified to give testimony about anything Christ did. They have never seen him nor heard him speak. Can you imagine a lawyer calling someone to give testimony about whether or not a man committed a crime, but the “witness” was on another continent and was not even born when the crime occurred? Such a lawyer would be laughed out of court.

Yet, the modern practice in many churches has “witnesses” “testifying” in churches about “what Christ has done for me.” These witnesses cannot testify about seeing Christ, for they have never seen him. They have never heard him speak one word. They have never touched him. Hence, all that they can testify about is their own subjective experience, whatever its nature may be.

Our brother became convinced that such testimony services were good in the church he attends, not because he found book, chapter, and verse to teach that it was good, but because of an experience his local church had. He tells how six teenagers and two adults related their experiences on a mission in poverty stricken regions of Mexico and Nassau. As they related their touching experiences of washing a child, feeding the hungry, and clothing those who were ill-clad, our brother said he changed his mind about testimonies in worship. Scripture did not change his mind, but experience did.

As a matter of fact, our brother belittles those who want to find Scripture for such testimony services before they practice them. He wrote,

Most Churches of Christ have not practiced personal testi- monies. One reason has to do with the view held by many that the New Testament is a blueprint for every practice in worship. This view holds that there is a clear pattern of worship in the New Testament, and it is to be replicated exactly in every age. It doesn’t seem to matter that the New Testament does not give a standard order of what worship was to be for any church. The reasoning goes like this: If a worship practice was present in the primitive church, that act of worship merits repetition today. If the New Testament is silent on certain activities, they had best be left out of our worship today. If you follow the reasoning, the conclusion is that we should not do “testimonies” because we have no specific, unquestionable illustrations of such being done in an assembly of worship in the New Testament.

At least this view takes Scripture very seriously, and that should be applauded. However, to use the New Testament as a detailed description of worship that outlines every form and sequence of the service is a mistake. . . . How one congregation orders its worship making use of those various elements, is up to each congregation. That is why Christian worship services look different in different cultures, and yet each one may be thoroughly acceptable and honoring to God (Wineskins 3:5, 31).

Obviously, this person has rejected the “blueprint” of the New Testament as the answer to whether or not one should have testimonies in worship. Having rejected the Bible as a “blueprint,” what use is there to quote the Bible to such a person? If one found a direct statement that said, “Thou shalt not have testimonials in worship,” he could set that aside as a legalistic interpretation of the Bible, binding cultural items of worship on people of another culture, or just reply, “I know that is what the apostle thought, but I do not agree with him.”

If there is no fixed pattern for worship, there can be no unscriptural worship. Paul said, “. . . for where no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15). Consequently, any kind of worship is just as scriptural as any other. The group that brings in a rock “Christian” band, does not partake of the Lord’s supper (or partakes of it using light bread and water), who prays in Mary’s name, who teaches tithing, and preaches from the Book of Mormon is just as scriptural as the church in Jerusalem that “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42), according to this logic. Without a divinely revealed pattern, there is no unscriptural worship.

What Is Wrong With Testifying?

The thing that is wrong with testifying is that it makes faith rest on uninspired words rather than inspired words. Brother Dozier shows that is true from his own article. He related an incident in which his daughter Amy had “testified” to a Japanese friend and concluded, “Yasuyo was interested in the teaching about God, but what touched her heart most were the personal testimonies my daughter and others shared with her. . . .The message of Christ is of primary importance, but it very well may be Amy’s personal testimony that someday helps lead Yasuyo to Jesus Christ.” Note that Amy’s personal testimony would carry more weight than the divinely revealed message of first century eyewitnesses!

Our faith does not rest on the fallible testimony of people such as Amy, but it rests upon the divinely revealed word of God. Paul wrote, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The personal testimony of Amy or anyone else cannot produce saving faith! Our faith rests on the miracles that Jesus performed in the presence of eyewitnesses. John wrote, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30-31).

The Muslim who visits poverty stricken regions of Mexico and Nassau can produce the same kind of testimony as the children in his local church. Does their washing a filthy baby, clothing the ill-clad, and feeding the hungry prove that Muhammad is a prophet? If not, how can our children doing the same prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? A person giving his personal, subjective testimony about some religious “encounter” proves absolutely nothing about Jesus!

This issue focuses attention on the heart of what is wrong with some preaching among us. Gifted speakers are able to relate some emotionally moving human interest story that will move one to tears, relate another story that causes one to break out in laughter, and wrap up his “sermon” with a third story that makes one feel warm inside. However, such stories do not and cannot built faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. Churches that are fed a steady diet of preaching that has little or no Bible content are filled with men who, at the very best, have a weak faith!

Conclusion

We do not need to change our public assemblies to have “testifying.” We already have all the testimony we need to create and build faith — that is the inspired words of the first century witnesses. What can the words of a person born 2000 years later prove about what occurred in the first century? Rather, let us preach the testimony of the witnesses. One who will not hear the witnesses of the Bible is not of Christ. John wrote, “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6).