I want to cover one more thing.
Here's an article, and you say,
why do you preach on this?
Why are you teaching this?
Why do you go through it line upon line?
Because it's a major false doctrine that's out there,
even amongst independent Baptists.
Now, even in our own area.
Now, I'm not going after anybody in our area this morning.
I have other times.
But this is an article that I found online,
and this article just blew my mind.
The blindness of anyone who wrote this article
or thinks that this article is the truth,
the blindness, it just blew my mind.
And let me show this to you.
This is written by a guy,
I've never even heard of this guy,
but it's written by a pastor called Matt McPhillips,
and he's a pastor from Port Huron, Michigan.
I don't even know who this guy is.
But this was on the website of a church
called Old Paths Baptist Church,
pastor by a guy named Jason Cooley.
And not only that, but at the end of it,
there's this paragraph added by a traveling circus evangelist
known as Brother Ted Alexander,
and he basically says,
I'm Evangelist Ted Alexander and I approve this message.
So three, three heretics and false teachers
are promoting this article.
In fact, when you go to that Baptist Church
where I found it, under Bible doctrine,
they have one article, one tab, repentance,
and this is the article.
Just listen.
You've seen what the Bible said.
You've seen what John said.
You've seen what Acts said.
Yeah, we didn't go through the other 64 books today,
but we saw a lot.
I'm going to attempt to write about the doctrine of repentance.
Okay, that's not how you start an article.
That's just something you think in your mind.
You think to yourself,
I'm going to attempt to write an article.
Then you start writing the article.
I mean, this is like when people write you an article
and they're like, Hi, how are you?
I'm fine.
You can go ahead and leave that out.
You know what I mean?
So I'm going to attempt to write about the doctrine of repentance.
About two years ago, I became so troubled
about my lack of study about the Gospel
and my acceptance of four points in a prayer
that I dove into studying it head first.
Now, when you hear that, don't you expect
he's going to get out the Bible?
I want to see what Luke says.
I want to see what John says.
I want to see what Acts says.
See what Romans says, right?
He says, I dove into studying it head first,
not knowing completely what my conclusion would be.
I saturated myself with Scripture, the Bible, the Word.
No, no, no.
I saturated myself with books, articles, and sermons by men.
That's literally, I'm reading it verbatim.
I saturated myself with books, articles, and sermons.
You're saturated with something else, buddy.
But anyway, saturated myself with books, articles,
and sermons by men of the 1900s, 1800s, 1700s, and 1600s,
only to find an amazing thing.
The issue of what is repentance and reference to salvation
is a modern issue.
What's he saying?
This is only controversial in modern times.
I mean, when you look at the 1900s, the 1800s,
the 1700s, the 1600s, you know, everybody's saying
the same thing about repentance.
This is modern.
Listen to what he says.
I looked at the numerous confessions of faith
only to realize that they all defined it as sorrow for
and turning and turning from sin.
This would include the London Confession, 1644,
the Armenian Confession of 1834,
the Philadelphia Association of 1734,
the French Confession of 1879,
the Swiss Confession of 1848, the New Hampshire.
Yeah, because when everybody in a country all gets to get,
all the Baptists in the country all get together
and agree on what they believe,
that's being an independent Baptist, right?
When the whole country of France gets together
and writes a confession, the whole country of Switzerland,
all the Baptists get together.
But, and many others, as much as it pained me,
I even began to look at non-Baptist confessions
only to find the same.
Even unsafe people are agreeing with my definition of repentance.
So, maybe it was that I would find men from the past
that would define it as a change of mind,
from unbelief to belief, or from one dependence,
you know, like depending on something else to save you,
to, you know, depending on Christ.
I was amazed at what I found.
Notice that all of these men agreed
as the true nature of repentance,
and he gives a bunch of quotes from famous preachers of the past,
most of which were not Baptists.
So, I'm going to read to you.
Most of which were not Baptists.
So, he's like, oh, it was really painful for me to look at non-Baptist.
Well, it must not have been that painful
since more than half of who you quoted was not a Baptist.
Otherwise, you were in a lot of pain when you wrote this article.
So, then after he quotes all these men,
which mean nothing to me,
then, at the end, he has these questions.
He's like, I'm going to leave you with these questions.
He confronts us, the reader, with these questions.
He gets five questions.
Question number three is this.
Can you find our modern-day definition of repentance
more than a hundred years ago?
So, what's he saying?
Hey, I looked at all this stuff.
Everybody agrees.
There was no dispute.
This controversy is a modern-day issue.
Everybody defines it the same way.
And he says, I defy you to show me anyone
that was more than a hundred years ago saying
that it's changing your mind
and turning from unbelief to belief
or just trusting in one thing or another.
But you want to know what's funny?
He gives the answer in the article.
Because one of the people that he quoted was Charles Spurgeon.
Listen to this.
From 1872.
Now, somebody help me out.
Is 1872 more than a hundred years ago?
This is in his article.
I didn't even have to go do reading.
Oh, I'm going to find people.
I'm going to go find people that define it.
No, no, no, it's right here in his article.
Listen to the quote that he gives from Charles Spurgeon.
Just now, meaning in what year?
G-W.
This is the first words out of Charles Spurgeon.
This is one of the first quotes he gives.
Just now, some professively Christian teachers
are misleading many by saying
that repentance is only a change of mind.
What in the world?
So he just spent two paragraphs like,
I checked, nobody believed in this,
nobody's ever heard of this modern thing
of changing your mind, being repentant.
You can't find it anywhere.
I defy you to find it more than a hundred years ago.
Let me just show you.
Here's a quote from Charles Spurgeon in 1872.
And Charles Spurgeon says,
just now, some professively Christian teachers
are misleading many.
He's like, there's multiple preachers.
And they're misleading many people,
teaching them that repentance is only a change of mind.
Here's what he says next.
It is true that the original word
does convey the idea of a change of mind.
I'm not leaving anything, I'm reading this verbatim.
This is like a parody.
I mean, you can't even make this stuff up.
Well, it is true that, you know,
the original word does convey the idea of a change of mind,
but the whole teaching of Scripture concerning repentance,
you know, is more radical than that.
Okay, well, here's what's funny.
He doesn't quote a single Scripture in this quote.
In fact, there is virtually no Scripture quoted
almost in this entire article.
Four pages, no verses backing up their position.
Okay, one of the quotes, a guy references Isaiah in one quote.
The rest of it is just void of Scripture.
So what's funny is that you're like,
okay, Charles Spurgeon, give us, well, okay,
yeah, that is what repent means to change your mind,
but, okay, well, Spurgeon, give us a Scripture
to tell us that it means something different.
Well, it's just the whole Scripture.
I mean, don't you love it when you tell people like,
hey, can you show me, you know,
the pre-trib rapture in Scripture?
And it's just like, well, just the whole Bible.
Well, where does the Bible teach that you have to repent of your sins to be saved?
Whole Bible.
Well, can you point me to a specific verse?
The whole thing.
Just now some professively Christian teachers are misleading many by saying,
man, praise God for all that soul winning that was going on in 1872.
Sounds like to me that there were a bunch of faithful word Baptist churches
over there in England that were doing the real soul winning
while that phony Charles Spurgeon is just all famous
and everybody loves him and he's all interdenominational
and he's all big and popular.
Look, are all the popular preachers today phony?
Name a big popular named preacher on TV that's not a phony.
Name one.
Oh, he's not a phony?
You mean he is a phony.
All right, good.
You need to pay a little more attention.
Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Kenneth Copeland,
what's the haka la gondola?
Benny Hinn.
Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes.
So look, Billy Graham, Billy Balaam.
So when we name the big name preachers of our day,
if we look at the biggest churches in Phoenix,
Phoenix First Assembly, Cornerstone down in Chandler,
these are churches that are so apostate,
where do we begin?
Okay, and yet we have this weird idea.
Oh, the popular preachers of the past,
they all preach the truth.
No, it's all, even in Jesus' day he said,
woe unto you when all men speak well of you.
So they didn't have the false promise.
Why does everybody love Spurgeon?
Because he's a phony?
Why is he so popular amongst a whole bunch of denominations?
Because he was phony?
Because every popular preacher has always been a phony?
And you know what's funny?
We don't even know the names of all these Christian teachers
who are misleading so many people
by telling them it's by faith alone.
And their repentance is just changing your mind
and believing on Christ.
You know, we don't know who they are,
but you know what?
They're the ones with all the crowns in heaven.
We don't even know who they are.
But they were doing some major soul winning
to the point where Charles Spurgeon is like,
man, I need to deal with this.
This is spreading, this doctrine of faith alone salvation.
I need to get up and teach all my Calvinistic garbage.
I need to ramp up my teaching of Calvinism
and repent of your sin's salvation.
But this is what it is, folks.
Oh, I delved in and figured out my doctrine
by reading a bunch of men.
But not only that, you're reading the phonies.
You know why?
Well, everybody I read was a phony.
Yeah, because you know what?
The real preachers, they didn't get published
by all of Satan's media institutions.
They couldn't get a book published.
They couldn't get on TV.
They couldn't get on the radio.
Why?
Because they're telling the truth.
And that's what, look, think about it.
What if all of a sudden, what if our country somehow,
let's say our country was just nuked
and everything crumbled and collapsed
and everything's dead.
And then like hundreds of years later,
somebody comes and excavates it as an archeologist.
And they want to talk about what Christians believed
in America in the 21st century.
What are the chances that they're going to find
an After the Tribulation DVD versus finding a Joel Osteen DVD?
What do you think there's more of in circulation?
Yeah, they're going to be brushing off.
This artifact from 2015 is of a Joyce Meyer book.
You know, that's what they can find.
Look, go walk into Walmart.
And it's not like, hey, you get a deal
when you buy After the Tribulation
and New World Order Bible versions.
You get a discount.
No, it's going to be, in Walmart,
it's all going to be who?
Left behind.
Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, right?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, the harbinger.
It's everything that's false.
Don't even get me started on that.
I don't have the throat for that.
But let me tell you something.
Whoever wrote this article was blindfolded
while they wrote it.
Because how can you sit there and defy us?
Show me one.
Show me one person 100 years ago.
And then they provide it.
Here's the news to hang me with.
Here's a gun.
Shoot me with it.
You know, it's like, here, let me dig my own grave real quick.
These people are nuts.
Look, this is why we go to the Bible.
Well, but what's the historical position?
Not important to me.
I don't care.
What does the Bible say?
Amen.