The purpose of learning God’s Truth is to shed light on the darkness of professing Christendom’s false truths.  See the Introduction to this website for a short list of such “darkness”/”truths.”  In the previous series I used God’s Truth (Word–Jn. 17:17) to expose Satan’s perverted interpretation of Romans 6:23.  Satan has successfully used his perversion of that verse to keep billions of salvation seekers away from the only One Who can award it.  He has used that one verse to convince the church masses that, because of God’s grace, Jesus died so that they can sin at will, “knowing” that His blood will wash away their sins as fast as they repent of them.  What the previous series revealed was that GOD’S GRACE DOES NO SUCH THING.  That series showed that His grace enabled the repentant sinner to received forgiveness of all PAST sins (Rom. 3:25).  The removal of sin made conversion possible.  With true conversion the convert would receive God’s Holy Spirit (power) which would enable him to overcome Satan’s temptations and to walk in “newness of life,” the walk of Jesus of Nazareth (1 Jn. 2:6).  The church masses reject that portion of God’s Truth along with those who proclaims it.  Their “Come as you are (a sinner)–stay as you are (a sinner) religion allows them to continue to sin.  Jesus supposedly turns their sins into righteousness.  Satan has convinced them that the Lord ignores the sin and sees only Christ’s blood.  As a preacher friend of mine once said: “God can’t see through the blood.”  The previous series destroyed that Satanic theological precept.

We will now study those Words of God which reveal HIS ATTITUDE toward those who call themselves by His name while clinging to their interpretation of Romans 6:23 which allows them to satisfy their sin addiction with impunity.  This is the same mindset they had before being “saved” by the One Whose Word they continue to rebel against.  This study will open the eyes of Truth seekers as to God’s view of so-called “Sinners Saved By Grace” (SSBG).  It will reveal what He has to say about their “walk.”  What the reader does with the information found in these two series is his/her call.  I can only hope that he/she obeys God’s command to–“Come out from among them (church members) and be ye separate, touch not the unclean thing (the church) …. (then) I will be a Father to them and they will be My sons and daughters” (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1). In this passage God makes it clear that there is NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HIS CHURCH AND SATAN’S CHURCH.

The Scriptures proclaim that the Lord’s #1 enemy is Satan, which makes his followers also God’s enemies, just as they were during their pre-salvation days.  In Acts 13:10 the Apostle Paul calls one (each) of the devil’s servants the “enemy of all righteousness.”  In 1 John 3:7,8 the apostle states that “whoever sins is of the devil” and “has not seen Him (Christ) and does not know Him.”  Note the word “whoever.”  This proves that ALL SINNERS SERVE SATAN because he is their spiritual father (Jn. 8:44).

Nowhere are church members exempted from the Truth that sinners, including SSBG, are the enemies of God.  In Philippians 3:15 Paul states that sinners in the church are “enemies of the cross,” meaning that they actively fight against what Jesus accomplished by dying on the stake.  See Did Jesus Die on a Cross? and The Message of the Cross.  The truth that, prior to conversion, sinners are enemies of God is brought out in Romans 5:10 where Paul tells parishioners: “For when we WERE ENEMIES (of God) we were (at conversion) reconciled to God by the death of His Son.  The Apostle James tells us in 4:4 that to be friends with the world is to have “enmity against (conflict with) God.”  In Romans 8:5-8 Paul confirms James’ words,  telling us that sinners “think about the things of the flesh,” that they are “carnally minded” which means that they do not obey God’s Law, which puts them at “enmity against God” (1 Jn. 3:4).  Therefore  they “cannot please God.”  In verses 12 and 13 Paul tells the church then and now, “Therefore BRETHREN, if YOU live after the flesh (sin) YOU will die.”  As Paul tells us in verse 14, the reason people live after the flesh (obey Satan) is because they are not led by the Holy Spirit.  Only the truly converted have received the Holy Spirit, are led by that Spirit and are therefore sons of God (Rom. 8:14).  Therefore, SSBG HAVE NOT BEEN CONVERTED,  HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT,  ARE NOT SONS OF GOD and therefore lack the power to resist Satan’s temptations to sin.  Which explains their love affair with his interpretation of Romans 6:23 which turns their sins into righteousness.  As this and the previous series reveal, church sinners are no different from the world’s sinners.  They proudly profess that they are exactly as they were before their supposed “salvation experience,” only now they are “Christians” and can get away with sinning.  This series reveals God’s attitude toward such “Christians.”

In 1 John 2:4 the apostle tells us that anyone who says that he knows Jesus but does not obey Him is a liar.  In Revelation 21:8 Jesus tells us that all liars will burn in the Lake of Fire.  Note that church liars are not exempted from that Law.  In 1 John 5:10 the apostle writes: “He who does not believe God’s Word HAS MADE HIM (GOD) A LIAR” by proclaiming that the Bible is a lie.  SSBG proclaim that GOD IS A LIAR, THEREBY MAKING HIS WORD A LIE.  In Ephesians 2:12 we find Paul describing those who claim to be Christs’ but refuse to obey Him.  Here he says to the church (then and now) that, prior to conversion, they were: “without Christ, were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel (spiritual Gentiles), strangers from the covenants of promise,  had no hope and were without God in the world.”  Church sinners, like those outside the church, are “without Christ,” “without God,” “without hope” and are “strangers from the covenants of promise” God made with Israel.  Today the biological descendants of the ancient Israelites comprise the vast majority within the true church, which God calls “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16).   Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 provide a condensed version of the “covenants of promise” mentioned by Paul.  Note both the positive and the negative parts of those covenants.

Two of the most important and most misunderstood statements in the Bible are comprised of two words: “in Him” and “in Christ.”  True Christians are “in” Christ.  All who claim to be one with Christ “know” that they are “in Him.”  Only those who are in fact “in Him” are His true spiritual “brethren” whom He defines in Matthew 12:46-50 as “… they who obey the will of My Father in heaven.”  These are Christ’s “friends.”  In John 15:13,15 we find Him speaking to His hand-picked disciples, telling them that He would die for His friends.  Then he said to them: “You are My friends IF you do whatsoever I command you to do.”  JESUS DIED ONLY FOR THOSE WHO OBEY HIM AND HIS FATHER.  What does it mean to be “in Him?”  One description is explicit: “In Him is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5).  In 3:5 John clarifies the meaning of darkness: “In Him is no sin.”  Therefore, those “in Him” have no darkness/sin at all.  Those “in Him” identifies the living and the dead who will be raised from the earth during the first resurrection.  These–living and dead–will rise to meet Christ in the air at His second coming, then descend with Him to the Mt. of Olives.  From there they will go with Him into Jerusalem where He will establish the Kingdom of God.  These are His “firstfruits”–His “Very Elect,” His “remnant,” His “little flock” who found His strait gate, entered it and walked His narrow path to God’s kingdom (Mat. 7:13,14).  These are His “brethren,” His “friends” for whom He died.  Having qualified for salvation, they will rule and reign with Him forever (Rev. 22:5).  He tells us about the first resurrection–the “resurrection of the saints”–in 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17: “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead IN CHRIST shall rise first, then we who are alive (and IN HIM) shall be caught up together with them (the formerly dead) in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”  Christ and His newly born again saints will then descend to the Mt. of Olives.  See The Kingdom of God.  Note that only those “in Christ” will rise to meet Him in the clouds.  Recall that “in Him is no darkness/sin at all.”  If we claim to be “in Him” and are sinners, then we are lying.  Liars, we are told, will be cast into the Lake of Fire.  Those who want to spend eternity with Christ must walk the walk of Christ (1 Jn. 2:6)?  Those who do will “ever be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:17).  Jesus said in Matthew 7:13,14 that only a few will count the cost of true discipleship and pay its cost.   L.J.