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John 3:36, the Second “Believeth” (Apeitheo), and English Translation of the Bible
The King James Version (KJV) of John 3:36 reads:
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
(1) in relation to God disobey, be disobedient (RO 11.30); (2) of the most severe form of disobedience, in relation to the gospel message disbelieve, refuse to believe, be an unbeliever.
not to allow oneself to be persuaded; not to comply with; a. to refuse or withhold belief
Sermons on the Sabbath & Lord’s Day: Old and New Testament Evidence, and Seventh-Day Adventism Examined
I have had the privilege of preaching a series on the Sabbath and its relationship to the Lord’s Day. Topics covered include the Sabbath as Israel’s sign of creation and redemption; the way the Sabbath points forward to redemptive rest in the Lord Jesus Christ; Seventh-Day Adventist, Lutheran, Puritan, and dispensational Baptist views of the Sabbath; the question of whether churches in the New Testament era need to meet for worship on the Sabbath or on the Lord’s Day; and a careful study of the heresies, not just on the Sabbath, but on the doctrines of Scripture, God, Trinitarianism, Christ, salvation, last things, and many other areas of Seventh-Day Adventism, as explained in “Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends.”
To listen to the sermons and/or watch the preaching, please:
Click here to watch the series on the Sabbath
and feel free to add a comment, “like” the videos, and/or subscribe to the KJB1611 YouTube channel if you have not already do so.
There is probably one more message on the Sabbath coming, so feel free to check back. You can’t end a series with six messages instead of seven anyway, can you?
–TDR
Updated Seventh-Day Adventist evangelistic pamphlet
The evangelistic pamphlet for Seventh-Day Adventists, “Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends,” has been updated to include Ellen White’s statement: “[T]hose who claim that their faith alone will save them are trusting to a rope of sand,” Adventism’s teaching that Christ’s blood is useless for those who have committed one wilful sin, and (relatively recently) the addition of their teaching that baptism forgives sin. If your church does not already have some good resources for members of this cult, I would like to commend this composition to you for your use. Your Baptist church can get its church name on it by downloading a Word doc of the pamphlet at the All Content page at FaithSaves and then personalizing it. Copies can be made through a Baptist printing ministry or by just making some on a copy machine.
–TDR
Bible Study #6: Eternal Security and Assurance of Salvation
I am pleased to let What is Truth? readers know that the video for evangelistic Bible study #6, “The Christian: Security in Christ and Assurance of Salvation,” is now available. The videos teach that once one is truly converted, he is always saved. Assurance is explained Biblically–it is based on the marks given by God in 1 John of a new nature–rather than being based on ideas made by man, such as that those repeating a “sinner’s prayer” should have assurance, or everyone who ever thinks he made a salvation decision should have assurance.
So now we have available video teaching of Bible studies #1-6:
Bible Study #1: What is the Bible?
Bible Study #2: Who is God?
Bible Study #3: What Does God Want From Me?
Bible Study #4: How Can God Save Sinners?
Bible Study #5: How Do I Receive the Gospel?
Bible Study #6: The Christian: Security in Christ and Assurance of Salvation
Only study #7, on the Church of Christ, does not yet have its video available.
I would encourage you and your church to consider doing these Bible studies one-on-one with people who are open to God’s Word, and if someone is unwilling to do a Bible study in person to share the videos. Those who are seeking an example of how to teach them to others will likely find the video helpful.
Click here to watch Bible Study #6: “The Christian: Security in Christ and Assurance of Salvation.”
The actual Bible studies can be downloaded as PDF files on the Bible study page here. On the All Content page at FaithSaves you can also download a Word document that you can put your church’s contact information into.
You can also help the content of this evangelistic Bible study get out by “liking” and commenting on the video on YouTube and subscribing to the KJB1611 YouTube channel.
–TDR
Worth Your Salt
When taking the opportunity to portray true Christian identity, Jesus used salt and light in Matthew 5:13-16. Through these two metaphors, He painted a picture of the expected nature of a genuine believer. In so doing, Jesus adhered to His original representation of salvation in the beatitudes (verses 3-12) and invoked the association with the Word of God (verses 17-20).
Salt can and will retard corruption and enhance taste if it retains its fundamental characteristic of saltiness. Salt without saltiness is worthless. Jesus said, “Ye are salt.” Specific people are salt, those who have saltiness. Very often scripture portrays unbelievers as worthless. They aren’t functioning according to the image of God in which He created man. They are like the branches of John 15, bearing no fruit and so thrown into the fire. They are worthless branches.
At the time Jesus spoke, salt was of great value. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, which pay meant they operated in a competent way. They were worth their salt.
The blessed man, one with the ultimate fulfillment of true salvation and receives the kingdom of heaven, is persecuted for righteousness’ sake. The righteousness stands up to and contrasts and conflicts with evil. This is being salt. A true believer’s righteousness will clash with false doctrine and practice. He’s not salt if he doesn’t.
The standard for the genuine believer’s conflict to retard corruption is scripture. The true believer lives according to and propagates the Word of God. Scripture manifests the nature of God. To take on the nature of God, the true believer retards decay by detecting and correcting false doctrine and practice according to the Word of God.
The nature of the world conflicts with the nature of God. This results in persecution. Rather than succumb to the pressure of that persecution, the true believer will continue as salt, retarding the corruption. This doesn’t occur by destroying the law, but by fulfilling it, every jot and tittle (verses 17-18). The genuine believe retains saltiness in the face of persecution. It’s his nature and that won’t change with opposition, a characteristic Jesus front loads in His description of salvation.
The opposition to darkness isn’t selective. It’s every jot and tittle. As Jesus continues, it is teaching not just the “essentials,” but even the least of God’s commandments. The righteousness of true Christianity supercedes the righteousness of the Pharisees. It doesn’t dumb down righteousness to a standard that can be kept by men. This is the salt losing its saltiness and becoming worthless.
Churches today are becoming worthless at retarding the unrighteousness of the world, because they are not standing up for righteousness. They stand up for selective or relative righteousness, not every jot or tittle. They are ashamed of many points of scripture and refuse to be salt where Christianity most clashes with the world. They are not worth their salt.
Improved Evangelistic Bible Study #3 Is Now Available!
I am happy to report that a version of evangelistic Bible study #3, “What Does God Want From Me?” which covers God’s law and the penalty of sin to awaken or convict a lost sinner, is now available in an improved version. It is now nicely in color with good looking pictures and other features that make it more physically appealing than it was previously. Studies #1 and #2 in this “prettified” format are also available. Studies #4-7 are being worked on and, Lord willing, will become available in the not-to-distant future.
Please note as well that video files of the studies being taught are also being made available–#1-5 are currently live, and the videos for #6-7 are in the list of things to get done. We would appreciate prayer for helpers with the video projects.
You can watch Bible studies #1-5 or download the “prettified” studies #1-3, as well as the older versions of #4-7, at the page here:
Foundational Bible Studies
as well as viewing them on YouTube here. Feel free to “like” them, post a comment on the YouTube channel, or share them on social media (if you are on social media, I am not on it) as these things help other people find and watch the studies.
If you wish to personalize these resources by adding your church address to them, you can also do that by accessing MS Word files of the evangelistic Bible studies at the All Content page here.
–TDR
PATAS, Philippine Atheism, Agnosticism, and Secularism (Society) Debate live: Does History Validate the Accuracy of the New Testament Gospels? Ross / Maisonet
I am pleased to inform What is Truth? readers that the Thomas Ross – Benjamin Maisonet debate, “Does History Validate the Accuracy of the New Testament Gospels?” is now live and can be watched on YouTube.
Click here to watch the Ross-Maisonet debate, “Does History Validate the Accuracy of the New Testament Gospels?”
The debate took place in Manila, Philippines, in 2019, where I was teaching a class on the preservation of Scripture and preaching for Bro Billy Hardecker of Mt. Zion Baptist Mission in Manila, but issues with the audio and video lining up kept the debate from going live until now. The quality is still not absolutely amazing, but considering the non-first-world setting and the equipment used, I am thankful for the quality that is present. Mr. Maisonet was (and I assume still is) the president of the Philippine Atheism, Agnosticism, and Secularism (Society), or PATAS. He told me that he replaced the previous president because that person had been stealing money from the organization. Atheism and agnosticism are much less common in the Philippines than they are in the United States, which may be one reason that the president of PATAS was born in the United States and moved to the Philippines. In any case, Mr. Maisonet, as the president of PATAS, was a good representative of atheism in the Philippines. He made the sort of popular-level arguments that one will run across in personal evangelism, rather than the more scholarly type of arguments against the accuracy of the New Testament made by Islamic apologists such as Shabir Ally. I confess that I did not find his argumentation particularly convincing, but he seems to have thought he made a good case, and I will allow those who watch the debate to evaluate what was said based on facts and logic in God’s world.
The PATAS debate was set up at short notice, so I employed a lot of the material from my debate with Dr. Ally on “The New Testament Picture of Jesus: Is It Accurate?” which is also in my study on evidence for the New Testament from archaeology, prophecy, and history. In my view, which is admittedly biased in favor of God and His Word, the arguments made for the historicity of the New Testament have now stood up well against both Muslim and atheist apologists.
Feel free to subscribe to my KJB1611 YouTube channel,”like” and comment on the debate, and share it with others, if you believe it deserves it. Also, if you would be interested in sponsoring a debate with a non-Christian philosophy or a pseudo-Christian cult, please contact my church.
–TDR
How Jesus Relates Persecution to the Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount and His Example to Us In Doing So
In what is called “the Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5-7, Jesus preaches salvation to a Jewish crowd of people and pulls down with supernatural wisdom and authority their unique strongholds. For instance, in the very first statement, one of the Beatitudes, He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Jews didn’t see themselves as spiritually poor, but spiritually wealthy. They were by rights, God’s chosen people. Of course, they were already “blessed” through the Abrahamic covenant, and even in their own eyes, the Mosaic covenant, according to the Deuteronomic code. None of their thinking was true on this, so Jesus eviscerated it in the Sermon.
Another Jewish thought is “the kingdom.” They would have considered themselves already the beneficiaries of the kingdom through the Davidic covenant. “Heaven” is the abode of God and they saw themselves as the children of God, so wherever God was, they would be, even as God resided in the tabernacle through the wilderness. Jesus confronts their wrong thinking when he shows the rich man is in Hell, not in heaven in Luke 16. None of this, the kingdom or heaven, was theirs, however, unless they were poor in spirit, which meant that they acquiesced to their own spiritual poverty, that they really were lacking and in dire need. They needed to do what the Apostle Paul did and count their own spirituality as loss and as dung for them to win Christ or find themselves under the reign of the Messiah in His kingdom with all its promised blessings.
The Jews already saw themselves as sadly and badly not receiving their just desserts, their appropriate reward. According to their own assessment, they were persecuted by the Romans as they had been by many other various empires previously. This would fly in the face of being a blessed people and a kingdom people. It was an unacceptable circumstance that should be turned around and would be reversed by a true Messiah. That’s not what Jesus said though.
Just like the people in the kingdom of heaven would be first poor in spirit, they would also be persecuted for righteousness sake (Matthew 5:10). Persecution is the guaranteed cost of a truly saved person and Jesus frontloads this in His gospel presentation in Matthew 5:10-12. As people enter into true salvation through Jesus Christ, they need to expect persecution. They need to count the cost. Jesus said in Luke 9:23, that if any man will come after him, let him take up his cross daily. Jesus issues that understanding right up front to those who might receive the kingdom. It’s a narrow road with few on it.
Churches today do not give their targets for attendance or membership the impression that they will suffer or be persecuted by joining up. That’s a way to shrink the numbers. However, it is the method of Jesus. He included that in His gospel presentation and more than once. Do not expect to have it easy if you’re a Christian, and that’s not why you’re receiving Christ, for what you’ll receive in time, because that’s going to be persecution. Very likely why less are truly converted today is because they do not see the Christian life as worth suffering for. They would choose a Christianity full of pleasure, but not the one with guaranteed pain, so they reject genuine Christianity for the placebo. Churches offer the placebo, because that’s what people want. Then the entire program of the church revolves around various pleasures, especially for the young people.
The Jews thought they were persecuted already, but they were were persecuted for unrighteousness. Daniel prophecies why Israel would be dominated by the Romans. He was downhearted by the lack of enthusiasm for God among the captives in Babylon, comfortable to just stay and not return to the land for true worship of God. They would keep being chastised because of their faithlessness and then they took that as persecution. Actual persecution is for righteousness and not unrighteousness. Just because the Jews of Jesus’ day were suffering didn’t mean they were persecuted and neither did it mean they had a future kingdom for them. No, that kingdom was only for those persecuted for righteousness.
People in the future kingdom do not fit into the present one, the kingdom of this world. The people under the future reign of Jesus are those who want a present reign of Jesus. People who want Him to be king in the future have got to want Him to be king in the present. Those over whom Jesus reigns will be persecuted. They will not fit in. They will be despised, reviled, and accused falsely by men. That will be the norm for those following Jesus Christ into the kingdom and He wants them to know that right up front.
Jesus isn’t going to take away persecution in the short term. He offers the future kingdom as a motivation for present rejoicing. The basis for being exceeding glad now is the reward in heaven for all eternity. There is a lack of joy in churches and in professing Christian families because of something far less than persecution. The church and family members are not getting their way and they don’t like the discomfort now. They expect to be treated better and have their rights protected. When they get hard preaching from scripture they become easily offended. When they are required to live like a Christian, they are put off and threaten to quit, if not just to find another church where they’ll be treated like they want.
Professing Christians aren’t looking for a church where they will suffer. They are looking for a place of creature comforts with lots of friends. This is not what Jesus told true believers to expect. He told them just the opposite and He included it in His gospel presentation.
The Beginning of a New Church and the Place of Discipleship In That
When you arrive into a town or city as a missionary, let’s assume it’s just you. You don’t have anyone else. You start with evangelism. You start with preaching the gospel. You really don’t know that anyone will be saved, but that’s how you start if you are a missionary.
A church is built on the gospel, which is seen in part when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” The grammar of Matthew 16:18 refers “this rock” to the confession of Peter, which could be described as his faith in Christ. The church is built on the gospel, belief in Christ. A church is built with saved people by their hearing the gospel and receiving it. The goal in an area is to get the gospel to everyone who is willing to hear it.
Something else you can do is let saved people know that you are in town. If you are there with a goal of a church starting, then you think there needs to be a church there. That is in part because you don’t think you could say, “Just go to that church.” Depending on the size of the area, there are probably believers there that need your work and you want them to know about it. They could join you. However, no missionary should think that he’s coming somewhere to take people from other churches. He’s there to evangelize first.
If the gospel is going to be preached to everyone, that could be done by the missionary doing it himself. He never stops preaching the gospel until everyone hears it. Is that the way intended by God for everyone in an area to preach the gospel? It isn’t. The command of the Great Commission is “teach all nations” in Matthew 28:19. The word “teach” comes from a Greek word, which means, “make disciples.” The priority in evangelism is making disciples.
The first amount of time, let’s say, year, emphasizes evangelism especially. The goal is to evangelize as much as possible and to disciple those believing the gospel. As soon as someone is converted, you start with discipleship. A main goal of discipleship is to train an evangelist. Your disciple at least by year two himself starts evangelizing. What you’ve done then is multiply the number of evangelists. For that reason, discipleship is the priority. If you had a choice to go evangelizing or spending time in discipleship, you disciple someone. Get in as many discipleships as possible, really disciple everybody.
You disciple even the people you meet, who are already believers. When someone claims to be saved already, he also is discipled. This way everyone is prepared to be an evangelist. You want to take everyone as far as they can spiritually.
Yes, everyone needs to start assembling for church. A church is starting. You start to get everyone you are discipling into every meeting. You will be preaching on all the things from the Word of God these new believers and new members need.
As you move along the first year, you will be baptizing new believers. That is part of discipleship, teaching them on baptism and then baptizing them. Each of them will be baptized into the church. Baptizing is part of discipleship even as seen in Matthew 28:19.
I try to evangelize every day and do most days. I will do less evangelism as more people are saved, because I have to disciple these people. Also part of what I do is to take new converts to evangelize, part of discipleship. Maybe you think that spending less time in evangelizing will mean less evangelism. Over a longer span far more evangelism will occur if new converts are baptized.
New converts need to be made disciples. This will result in more evangelism. When it comes to the church planting phase of the history of a church, discipleship must occur for a church even to start. You aren’t going to have a church without discipleship, so no new church will occur. Even more so, not related to a new church even starting is the glory to God that will go through the increased obedience of a discipled saint. God wants to be followed and new converts don’t know what to do. They need to be taught. They have to be taught so they will live like God wants people to live.
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