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>> Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
It's so nice to see you all here for our Sunday morning service.
Find your seats now, grab a songbook,
go to Hymn 296.
We'll begin this morning, Hymn 296.
296 is Follow On, Hymn number 296.
Once you find your place, let's sing it out together on that first verse.
Down in the valley with my Savior I would go.
Hymn number 296.
Let's sing it out together.
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Down in the valley with my Savior I would go.
Where the flowers are blooming and the sweet waters flow.
Everywhere he leads me I would follow, follow on.
Walking in his footsteps to the ground he won.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus.
Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus.
Everywhere he leads me I would follow on.
Down in the valley with my Savior I would go.
Where the storms are skipping and the dark waters flow.
With his hands he leads me I will never, never fear.
Danger cannot fright me if my Lord is near.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus.
Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus.
Everywhere he leads me I would follow on.
Down in the valley or upon the mountain sea.
Close beside my Savior would my soul ever be.
He will lead me safely in the path that he has drawn.
Up to where they gather on the hills of God.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus.
Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus.
Everywhere he leads me I would follow on.
Amen.
I pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen.
Amen, up to hymn number 406, number 406.
Who is on the Lord's side?
Hymn number 406.
Let's sing it out nice and strong on that verse now.
Hymn number 406.
Who is on the Lord's side?
Who will serve the King?
Number 406.
Sing it out, number 406.
Who is on the Lord's side?
Who will serve the King?
Who will be his helpers?
Other lives to bring.
Who will lead the world's side?
Who will face the foe?
Who is on the Lord's side? Who for him will go?
By thy call of mercy.
By thy grace divine.
We are on the Lord's side.
Savior, we are thine.
Not for weight of glory.
Not for ground and palm.
Enter we the army.
Praise the warrior's song.
But for love and payment.
Lives for whom he died.
Even Jesus' payment must be on his side.
By thy love constraining.
By thy grace divine.
We are on the Lord's side.
Savior, we are thine.
Jesus thou has bought us.
Not with gold or gem.
But with thine own wise blood.
For thy diadem.
With thy blessing filling.
He too comes to thee.
Thou hast made us willing.
Thou hast made us free.
By thy grand redemption.
By thy grace divine.
We are on the Lord's side.
Savior, we are thine.
Fierce may be the conflict.
Strong may be the foe.
But the King's own army.
None can overthrow.
Round his standard ranging.
Victory is secure.
For his truth unchanging.
Makes the triumph sure.
Joyful we end this thing.
By thy grace divine.
We are on the Lord's side.
Savior, we are thine.
[Applause]
Thank you so much.
>> Congratulations to the Kohler family on the birth of baby Samuel.
He was born on October 24th.
7 pounds 15 ounces.
8 pounds 11 ounces.
Another great picture.
The annual chili cook off is this Thursday.
All the chilies must be made from scratch if you are entering them for the contest.
They must be here by 5 p.m.
It is Thursday evening and we will be providing the side dishes which is the bean dip,
the chips, the spice cider and so forth.
Also all the chilies will be there for us to eat so it will be a good time of food and fellowship this Thursday.
On the back the missions conference is just a couple of weeks away.
The detailed schedule is here from the 6th of November through the 10th.
Below that we have a few other upcoming events.
The one I want to pay close attention to is November 16th.
Brother Daniel is going to be out in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area.
He is going to be doing a Camden New Jersey soul winning marathon.
Camden is right across the river from Philadelphia.
It will be a great place for soul winning.
For those that are tuned in online, I want you to know about that on November 16th.
The Camden New Jersey soul winning marathon.
Or if you know anybody who lives in that Philadelphia area, let them know about that soul winning event.
If you have any questions about that, you can ask Brother Daniel for more details.
You should find the insert in front of your hymnal with the song entitled "Give of Your Best to the Master."
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand and we'll sing it out together on that first down.
Give of your best to the master, give of the strength of your youth.
Throw your soul's fresh flowing armor into the battle of the truth.
Jesus has set the example.
Godless was he young and brave.
Give in your heart's adoration, give in the best that you have.
Give of your best to the master, give of the strength of your youth.
Let in salvation's full armor, join in the battle for truth.
Give of your best to the master, give it first place in your heart.
Give it first place in your service, consecrate every heart.
Give and to you shall we give then, God if he love his son's name.
Gratefully speaking to certain men, give them the best that you have.
Give of your best to the master, give of the strength of your youth.
Let in salvation's full armor, join in the battle for truth.
Give of your best to the master, God else is worthy is love.
Give himself for your ransom, give of his glory above.
Lay down his life without murder, new trust is brewing to save.
Give in your heart's adoration, give in the best that you have.
Give of your best to the master, give of the strength of your youth.
Let in salvation's full armor, join in the battle for truth.
On the hill afar away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame.
And I look at old cross, where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.
All that old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me.
For the dear Lamb of God, left his glory above, to bear it to dark Calvary.
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.
In the old rugged cross, staked with blood so divine, a wondrous beauty I see.
For 'twas long on that old cross, Jesus suffered and died, to pardon and sanctify me.
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.
To the old rugged cross, I will ever be true, its shame and reproach let me bear.
And you'll call me someday, to my home far away, where his glory forever I'll share.
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Romans, Chapter 5.
Romans, Chapter 5, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with Brother Corbin Brock as he reads Romans, Chapter 5, beginning in verse number 1.
Romans, Chapter 5.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,
and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also,
knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.
And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which is given unto us.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commended his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more than, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom we have now received the atonement.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,
for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression,
who is the figure of him that was to come.
But not as the offense, so also is the free gift, for if through the offense of one, many be dead,
much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation,
but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.
For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace,
and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Father, please be with us today.
Bless the pastor, bless everyone here.
Allow us to have open hearts and minds to receive your instruction and protect us as we go through the day.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
All right, I'm starting over, all right?
Title of my sermon this morning is Why Bonhoeffer is in Hell.
There's a big movie coming out next month, Angel Studios production,
and I've seen at least like 40 advertisements for this thing.
I don't know if the internet just thinks that I want this.
If I said something, they heard me talking about something in German, so then they just keep promoting this to me.
But the bottom line is, you know, this is a big movie that's coming up next month.
And I've heard about this guy my entire life as being this wonderful Christian hero, martyr, whatever, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
But I did some research on the guy, and it turns out he was one of the worst false teachers of the 20th century.
There's a total damnable heretic.
And I'm going to read for you quotes this morning from his most famous book, which is called The Cost of Discipleship.
So I'm just preaching this sermon in advance of this Christian movie that's coming out because I know what's going to happen.
This movie's going to come out, and then people are going to get all excited about this guy because he's being lionized in this film.
And then they're going to go read his book, The Cost of Discipleship, and have their minds poisoned by his garbage.
Now, what's funny is that before I even did any research into this guy, I just already knew he was going to be a false prophet
because of the fact that he was so beloved by the world.
The Bible says, "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers unto the false prophets."
And so when you have a preacher that's just being lifted up and exalted by this world,
and he has a little special day on the liturgical calendar of the Church of England
and of these other Protestant denominations, you can pretty much take it to the bank he's a false teacher.
But why was Dietrich Bonhoeffer a false teacher?
Well, number one, he labeled the actual gospel as, quote, "cheap grace,"
and instead he taught what he called "costly grace" or "expensive grace."
Now, here's the funny thing about this is that I've heard this term for years
where Baptists, when they're teaching false doctrine and lies and teaching a workspace salvation,
will use this term "cheap grace," but I had no idea that it actually goes back to Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
this guy during World War II, and the reason that he's so famous is because he was executed by the Nazis.
He was against the Nazis in Germany, and he was executed and so forth.
We'll get to that later in the sermon.
But in his book, he has a whole chapter called "cheap grace,"
and basically what he's doing is he's calling the gospel "cheap grace,"
the actual plan of salvation, which is salvation by grace through faith.
And then he instead teaches what he calls "expensive grace" or "costly grace,"
which is, of course, an oxymoron.
But let me go ahead and read for you some clips from his book.
He says, "That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin
without the justification of the repented sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs."
So according to Bonhoeffer, in order to be saved, you have to depart from sin, and sin has to depart from you.
Well, there's a big problem with that because there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
The Bible says that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
He also said this, "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance."
He said about expensive grace, "Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow,
and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus.
It's costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."
Now, don't miss this. When he says it costs a man his life, he's not talking about costing Jesus his life.
He's saying it's costly grace because you have to give your life for Christ in order to be saved.
According to him, instead of Jesus giving his life for you, it's you give your life for Christ,
and that's the cost of being saved is that you have to give your life.
Well, why would I have to give my life? Jesus already gave his life to pay for it.
How many times does this thing need to be paid for?
Now, here's what he says, "Above all," then after that, a couple sentences later, he says, "Above all,
it is costly because it cost God the life of his son.
You were bought with a price, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us."
Yeah, you're right, because it's already paid for. It shouldn't cost anything.
And what's so dumb about this idea of cheap grace versus costly grace is that neither one of those things
know what grace is because grace by definition is free.
So, here's my problem with cheap grace, it's too expensive.
You know what's wrong with cheap grace? It's too expensive.
Because grace isn't cheap, grace is free. It's free.
Now, he says that it cost God the life of his son.
Sounds to me like it's already paid for. Sounds to me like it's free for me.
Okay, but he says, "Well, no, if it costs God the life of his son, if it costs a lot,
then it can't be cheap for you, it has to cost you a lot, so you have to do works,
you have to give your life, blah, blah, blah, all this workspace salvation."
Now, let's see what the Bible says. Flip back, if you would, to Romans chapter 3.
I'll read the super famous verse while you're getting there, Romans 3.23,
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
But then look at the next verse, verse 24, "Being justified freely by his grace,"
not cheaply by his grace, not expensively by his grace,
"being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
Flip over to chapter 5, verse 15. Chapter 5, verse 15 says this,
"But not as the offense, so also is," watch this, "the free gift."
You know, we always make a big deal when we're preaching the gospel about how the gift is free.
But the Bible flat out says that it's a free gift.
We don't even have to just derive that from the fact that gifts are by definition free.
The Bible just explicitly even spells this out by saying the free gift.
"For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God,
and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift.
For the judgment was by one to condemnation,
but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification."
Notice, salvation by grace is defined as salvation being a free gift.
It says in verse 17, "For if by one man's offense death reigned by one,
much more they which receive abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness,
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.
Therefore as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."
Notice, it is not our righteousness that saves us, it is the righteousness of one man, Jesus, that saves us.
And then the free gift is available to all.
Verse 19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of us," is that what it says? No.
It says by the obedience of one, the obedience of Jesus, "shall many be made righteous."
It is not our obedience that saves us, it is Christ's obedience that saves us.
Salvation is a free gift. If we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved.
Flip over to chapter 11, verse 6. Chapter 11, verse 6 of the book of Romans, it says,
"And if by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace."
Look, if you have to work at all, if you have to pay at all, I don't care if it's expensive,
I don't care if it's cheap, then it isn't grace, okay?
If it's of works, then it's no more grace, otherwise grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work is no more work.
There's works and there's grace, and then it says, "What then?
Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded."
Why read that verse? Well, it has nothing to do with what I'm saying,
but I'm reading it because that was another thing that Bonhoeffer was screwed up on,
thinking that the Jews are God's chosen people. That's not true.
Anyway, I digress. Revelation chapter 21, if you would, flip over to Revelation chapter 21.
You see, the real cheap grace is thinking that you can purchase salvation with a filthy rag,
because the Bible says all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God.
And so if someone thinks that their obedience, their good works, their discipleship,
giving their life for Christ, that that is somehow going to purchase their salvation, that is cheap grace.
As opposed to what? The real grace, which is free grace,
which is the free gift that is purchased by the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ.
The sacrifice of one Jesus that pays for this gift.
And thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. Right? So Christ paid the ultimate price.
Now, stop and think about this. It's costly because it costs a man his life.
Here's the problem with that. My life isn't worth anything. You know what I mean?
Like Jesus' life, Jesus' precious blood on the cross, that is beyond all comprehension.
But hold on. What is my blood worth? Not much. What is my life worth? Not much.
So how is that costly? You know, if I had to give my life for Christ in order to be saved,
that would be cheap grace because my life is cheap because my own value as far as who I am is cheap.
The only real value that I have is the fact that I'm in Christ and Christ is in me.
And Christ has made me a king and a priest unto God and his father.
That's why I'm important. That's why I have value.
But, you know, me and my unsaved condition giving my life to Christ is giving him filthy rags.
It's nothing. It's meaningless. That's cheap grace.
But Bonhoeffer rejected the free gift of salvation and called it cheap grace.
He rejected the free gift. That's why he's in hell right now.
Look what the Bible says in Revelation 21, 6.
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Says, Look, if you're thirsty, come, come to the cross, come to Jesus Christ.
And he said that if you drink of the water that I give you, you will never thirst again.
That water that I give you will spring up in you as a well of everlasting life. And it's free.
Flip over to chapter 22, verse 17. The spirit and the bride say, Come.
And you know what's so beautiful about this verse is that it's at the very end of the Bible.
So it's like you've gone through this whole message of the Bible, all the different stories and all the doctrines and everything that the Bible has.
And then you get to the very end and there's the one final plea to be saved, begging you to be saved.
The spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is the thirst come and whosoever will.
What does whosoever will mean? Whosoever wants to. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
Come and get it. It's here. It's free. The water of life. Salvation through Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. Look and live. It's that simple, my friend.
But number two, why Bonhoeffer's in hell is because he believed he could lose your salvation.
Now, here's the thing about that. That's just standard Lutheran doctrine anyway.
You know, I've talked to, I had lunch several years ago with a Lutheran pastor in the area and I asked him,
I said, Do any Lutherans believe that in eternal security? Do any Lutherans believe that you can't lose your salvation?
And he said, he said, Well, maybe people in the pew might believe that or maybe members might.
But he said, No Lutheran minister believes that. He said, That's not Lutheran.
He said, Lutheran ministers all believe you can lose your salvation. That's Lutheran doctrine.
That's what he told me. And you know what? I've found going door to door, knocking doors,
talking to Lutherans is that they typically believe you can lose your salvation.
That's just par for the course with Lutherans that you can lose your salvation.
But here's what he said in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. He said,
and if you would turn to Ephesians chapter one, in his book he said, Costly grace.
Because remember, according to him, the right grace is costly grace.
He said, Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again.
Right? So you have to get the gospel again and again and again and again.
You all remember that verse where Jesus said you must be born again and again and again and again and again, right?
No, he just said you must be born again. You don't have to be born again and again and again and again and again.
Okay. And then he explicitly talks about someone being thrown out of the church
and basically losing their salvation because they got thrown out of the church.
But the Bible says in Ephesians chapter one, verse 13,
and whom also ye trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
and whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
First of all, I want to point out the fact that the words trusted and believed are used interchangeably here in verse 13.
Because that's what it means to believe in Christ. It is to trust Christ as your Savior.
It is the fact that you are relying on Christ to get you to heaven,
not on your own good works, not on someone else, not on your own religious activities,
but you are relying on what Christ has done on the cross. You're believing on Christ.
You have trusted in Christ as your Savior.
After that, he said, after that you believed, what happened?
After you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory.
Now, what does this mean? Well, the earnest there is a word that means a down payment, right?
And so when you're buying something and you're not picking it up right away, right?
Like, for example, let's say you order something and it hasn't come in yet or you're buying something,
you're prepaying something, and so, you know, you put down money for it, right?
So, for example, you know, sometimes a vehicle is not in stock and they say, oh, we're six months out on these vehicles or whatever.
So then, you know, you say, well, I want to go ahead and reserve mine, you know, in communism.
It'd take like 20 years or something, you know, and you get the car and whatever.
But, you know, even in America, sometimes it'll be six months, a year, whatever, of certain vehicles are out of stock.
And so you basically say, OK, well, I want to order that new two thousand twenty six model whenever it comes out.
And then they they don't just say, OK, but they want you to put down some money to show that you're serious,
that you're actually going to follow through because they don't want a bunch of people signing up.
And then they're holding on to it. And then you don't show up and whatever.
And so that's what the earnest is. It's it's when you put down a down payment.
And so the Bible says here that the Holy Spirit of God sealing us is the earnest of our inheritance.
OK, so our inheritance is talking about our home in heaven, the fact that one day we're going to be glorified with Christ and everything.
So we have the first fruits of the spirit.
We have that down payment where God seals us with the Holy Spirit until the redemption of the purchased possession.
So we've been bought with the price. Right.
And then God gives us the earnest of the spirit in our heart and we're sealed until the day of redemption.
Right. Elsewhere, the Bible says we're sealed by the Holy Ghost on the day of redemption.
So God is not going to renege on this.
He has saved us. He has given us the earnest of the spirits.
We are sealed on the day of redemption.
He, which has begun a good work in us, will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus.
What did Jesus say? I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee.
What did Jesus say?
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That's what the Bible says.
One day Christ will say to the unsaved, depart from me.
I never knew you. Not I used to know you.
I never knew you. Now, if you would flip over to First John, Chapter five and while you're turning there, I'll read for you.
John 10, 28. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
I and my Father are one.
So no one can pluck us out of the Father's hand. We're saved. We're secure.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, John 5, 24, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me,
has right now, present tense, has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death to life. It's a done deal, my friend.
We are saved with a D on the end because it's done, saved.
And we have been passed from death to life. We will not come into condemnation.
We are in the Father's hand. We are in Christ's hand. We have been sealed by the Holy Ghost under the day of redemption.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which sent Christ Jesus our Lord,
and Christ said, "I will never leave you ever forsaken." Oh, just kidding. You messed up. You sinned. You did something wrong. I'm out.
Right? I guess that's what the God of these people is like that little Spongebob meme, like, "Aye, I'm a head out."
Like, as soon as a Christian sin, right? Christian commits a sin, "Aye, I'm a head out."
False. 1 John chapter 5 verse 10, "He that believeth on the Son of God has the witness in himself."
In context, the witness is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
And so he has the witness in himself. "He that believeth not God has made him a liar."
Now, that makes sense, doesn't it? If you don't believe someone, you're basically saying that they're lying.
People try to twist what believe means and try to make it mean something that it doesn't mean.
But believe simply means believe, right? If you tell me something and I have no way of verifying it,
then I have to trust you, right? That what you're saying is true.
If you say, "Hey, I'm going to come through for you. I'm going to do this for you," right?
Then I have to trust you that you're saying the truth when you say that you can do that, right?
And Jesus is saying that we're saved through faith in his blood. We got to rely on that promise of God.
And the opposite of that is saying, "Well, you're lying," right?
For example, I typed up my sermon this morning and I didn't have a printer handy.
And so I emailed it to Brother Segura and asked him to print it for me, right?
And so I said, "Hey, print this for me," right? So I'm trusting him.
I'm relying on him to print my sermon for me because otherwise I'm going to get up here
and I'm just going to be kind of like, you know, I don't know what to say.
I don't have my notes. I had to rely on him. But you know what?
Then he sent me a picture of it and said, "Here, look, I printed it. It's on your desk. Here's a picture of it."
I don't have to trust him anymore. I don't have to believe that he printed it because I know we printed it
because I'm looking at a picture of it, right? Because that which is seen, we don't have to hope for or believe in, right?
We walk by faith, not by sight. Okay.
But when it came to my sermon this morning, I was walking by sight because he showed me.
This is it. But what if Brother Segura said, "I will get this printed for you.
Don't worry about it. I got it taken care of." And I said, "You know what?
I don't know if Brother Segura is going to come through. I'm going to go print it myself.
I'm going to go to Staples and print it myself just in case, a backup." Then I'm not trusting in him, am I?
But if I'm trusting in him, I'm not going to go print some other copy somewhere.
I'm not going to handwrite a copy. I'm not going to have some backup plan.
I'm just going to fully trust that he is going to get that sermon printed, right?
And then eventually when the picture comes through saying, here it is, you know,
someday we're going to get to heaven and we're going to see that Christ was telling us the truth.
And then it's going to be sight, not faith at that point.
And so he that believeth not God has made him a liar, right?
Two kinds of people in this world, people who believe the record that God gave of his Son
and the people that are calling God a liar.
Why is he calling him a liar? Because he believed not the record that God gave of his Son.
And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son.
There are three components here. God has given to us, not sold to us, not rewarded us for our deeds,
but he has given to us, he has gifted us eternal life.
What kind of life? Eternal life, not temporary life, not salvation until you mess up,
not something that you have to get again and again and again, as Bonhoeffer said.
But no, eternal life, he's already given it to us, eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
It's got to be through Jesus, right? It's got to be a gift. It's got to be eternal.
It's got to be through Jesus. Hey, guess what?
Every single person who's saved believes those three things.
Every single person who is saved, who believes the record that God gave of his Son,
it seems like such a simple statement that God has given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son.
Well, guess what? Every saved person believes that statement.
They believe that it was given to us because they're not trying to earn their way into heaven through works.
They believe that it's eternal life, not temporary life, and they believe that it's through Jesus.
Every saved person believes those three facts.
People who believe you can lose your salvation aren't saved.
And here's what, look, it shouldn't really be hard to see this because of the fact that by saying you can lose your salvation,
here's what you're basically saying.
Well, you don't have to do works to be saved. You just have to do works to stay saved.
Right? So basically, Jesus made the down payment, and now we've got to make the payments.
But no, no, no. Jesus gave us the down payment of the Holy Spirit until the redemption of the purchased possession.
Jesus pays everything, friend. It's not like Jesus paid the down and then we have to make monthly payments in order to stay saved.
That's false. Jesus paid it all.
Here's what Bonhoeffer said, and this is kind of, you know, out of context as far as understanding what he means by data.
It's not really important, but let me just read this for you.
But if grace is the data for my Christian life, it means that I set out to live the Christian life in the world with all my sins justified beforehand.
I can go and sin as much as I like and rely on this grace to forgive me, for after all, the world is justified in principle by grace.
So he's mocking the idea in the greater context here of the book.
He's mocking the idea that all your sins are paid for in advance, past, present, future. Your sins are already paid for beforehand.
And so that you can go out and live however you want and still be saved.
Well, guess what? You actually can go out and live however you want and still be saved.
Look at Romans chapter five, where we started Romans chapter five.
Now, here's the thing about this. Whenever you dig deeper with people on this, when they claim you can lose your salvation, what are they essentially saying?
They're essentially saying, well, you can't just live however you want. You can't just live however you want and go to heaven.
Actually, you can. Now, here's the thing. I'm not recommending living however you want.
Because if you, quote, live however you want and live the way of this world, you are going to be severely chastised on this earth.
There are a lot of reasons to follow Christ. There are a lot of reasons to live for God.
There are a lot of reasons why you should obey God's commandments. But trying to earn your way to heaven is not one of them.
Here are some good reasons. You want to avoid that chastisement, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth.
If you don't want to be scourged by God, you're going to obey God.
So, obviously, if you just go out and live however you want, there are going to be consequences. But losing your salvation is not one of them.
You cannot lose your salvation because you have eternal life.
He claims, oh, you know, these people who think that their sins have been forgiven beforehand. Of course they have.
Jesus died on the cross before I was even born. Right? So, when Jesus died for my sins, I hadn't done any of them yet.
So, the sins that I did last week, right, Jesus already paid for. The sins that I will do in the coming weeks, Jesus already paid for all of them.
And you say, you're planning on sinning? I'm not planning on sinning.
But here's the thing about that, is that the thought of foolishness is sin, even just thinking something stupid is a sin.
And here's the thing about that, is that I know for a fact that I am not going to be sinlessly perfect, because nobody is sinlessly perfect.
Because I know I'm still in the flesh, and I've got this battle every day between the flesh and the spirit.
And so I've got to put on the new man and so forth. But look what the Bible says in Romans chapter 5, verse 20.
It says, "Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound." And here's the key statement, my friend.
"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Grace is an unlimited supply.
And so therefore, the more you sin, the more God's grace is there to cover that sin.
You understand what I'm saying? It's like the American Express card that has no limit.
Okay? Now, I'm not an expert on the American Express card. Maybe that's not even true. I don't know.
But I seem to remember advertisements about how, like, it's never going to be declined because it just doesn't have a limit.
There's not, like, a credit limit on it. I don't know how that works, but whatever.
But the point is, you know, salvation, when it comes to God's grace, really is what American Express was promising.
You know, it's never going to be like, oh, you just went over your sin limit, grace declined.
The grace is never going to be declined because where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.
Okay? Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. It happened. It already happened, my friend.
Sin already abound. It's like, well, what if -- no, no, it already happened, friend. Sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
It's the story of everybody's life. It's the story of the world.
"That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ the Lord."
Now, just to prove to you that I am interpreting Romans 5:20 properly, look at chapter 6, verse 1, because this proves that that's what it means.
He says, "What then? What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"
He literally is saying that if we continue in sin, grace will abound. Otherwise, the sentence would make no sense.
The question would make no sense. He literally just said, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."
And then so he says, "Okay, so should we do that? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Of course we shouldn't.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Right? Why would we do that? Don't do that.
He's telling them, "Do not continue in sin so that grace will abound." But that doesn't change the fact that if you continue in sin, grace will abound.
That's the only reason why he even has to explain this in chapter 6 is because he just finished telling us that if we continue in sin, grace will abound.
And that's why he has to say, "Okay, now should we do that?" And then he gives the reasons why we shouldn't do that and explains why we shouldn't do that, which would be meaningless if that weren't a thing.
But number three, so number one, we said Bonhoeffer, he labeled the actual gospel as cheap grace and instead taught what he called costly grace.
Number two is that he, you know, believed that you can lose your salvation, which kind of doesn't surprise us because he's Lutheran and that's a standard Lutheran thing anyway.
But number three, he taught that works are necessary for salvation. He taught a works-based salvation.
Listen to this quote from his book, The Cost of Discipleship. "Grace and active obedience are complementary." Listen to this.
"There is no faith without good works and no good works apart from faith. If the Christian would be saved, he must do good works, for those who are caught doing evil works will not see the kingdom of God."
Well, I guess just don't get caught. What does that even mean? Those who are caught doing evil works. I mean, everybody has sinned.
That is why it is a Christian aim to do good. There's only one question of paramount importance in the Christian life, and that is, how shall we survive the last judgment?
You know, it's funny, I never ask myself that question as I live my Christian life. I don't go through the Christian life going like, man, how am I going to survive the final judgment?
Because I'm already saved. Because I've been saved since I was six years old. So I'm not just like, man, how am I going to survive the final judgment?
I'm thinking more like, hey, I want to earn rewards for that final judgment. Let's do some reward maxing, but not sit there and say, oh, well, I just got to survive the final judgment.
Done. That's already finished. That's already taken care of. How shall we survive the last judgment?
And because we shall be judged according to our own works, it's vitally important that we should be trained to do good works.
I mean, look, how can you get any more clear that this guy believes in work salvation? If the Christian would be saved, he must do good works.
Those caught doing evil works will not see the kingdom of God. I mean, it's just a blatant work salvation.
Go to Romans chapter four, if you would, Romans chapter four. What a lot of people do is they'll say like, well, it works don't save you, but you just have to do works in order to be saved.
What is that? They're not saving you, but you just have to be there. They just kind of got to be there. You know what I mean?
Oh, you don't have any works. You're not saved. That's what they'll say. It's like, well, wait a minute. I thought I'm saved by faith without works.
Right? Like, I thought I'm saved by grace through faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
But they'll say, well, faith is always accompanied by works, they'll say. We've all heard this, right? Well, faith is always accompanied by works.
OK, then please explain this statement to me. Faith without works is dead. Because according to you, the statement should say faith without works doesn't exist.
If faith is always accompanied by works, then faith without works doesn't exist. But yet the Bible says faith without works is dead.
Meaning that if I have faith and I don't do works, well, then I am a Christian who is ineffective, unprofitable, unfruitful, unhelpful to other people.
Because my faith is dead. Like, think about this. What if a church were labeled as a dead church? If I said, oh, that church, they're doctrinally sound, but they're just a dead church.
What do I mean by that? Do I mean I'm going to walk in and there's just corpses everywhere? Oh, don't go there. It's a dead church.
Pastors slumped over the pulpit. No pulse. Right? Just a bunch of skeletons in the, it's just skeletons all over the auditorium.
Just nobody's been moved or anything. It's just like a lady with a fancy hat. She's just like a skeleton. Bible.
Is that what we mean when we say it's a dead church? What do we actually mean? No works.
If we say the church is doctrinally sound, but it's a dead church, we're saying that the church believes right, but they're not doing any works.
And let me tell you something. There are tons of churches like that. Tons of churches across this area and across America,
where if we ask them about their doctrine, they would have the right answers. And guess what? They're going to heaven.
Right? If we walked up to the pastor and said, hey, what does it take to go to heaven? He said, hey, you just got to believe in Jesus.
Put your faith and trust in his finished work on the cross, his death, his burial, his resurrection, and bro is saved.
And if we walked and asked the church members, they would tell us, oh yeah, salvations by faith, plus nothing, minus nothing.
Look, there are churches like this all over the place. And let me tell you something. Those people will be in heaven because they believe in Jesus.
Their faith is in Jesus. But are they doing soul winning? No. I mean, look, do the majority of doctrinally sound Baptist churches do soul winning or not?
The vast majority of, and I'm not talking about churches that believe wrong. I'm talking about churches that believe right.
The vast majority of churches that believe right on salvation are doing zero soul winning.
They do not have a single soul winning time throughout the week. And de facto, the people in the pew are maybe giving the gospel to someone once a year,
if you're lucky, maybe once every two years or something. Right? I mean, that's just I've been to these churches, my friend.
You've been to these churches possibly where the Baptistery is filled with Christmas ornaments from five Christmases ago.
And nobody's getting baptized. Nobody's getting saved. Nothing's going on. It's just you'd say this is kind of a dead church.
You know, you walk into a lot of these churches and it's just like 20 old people and the church is dying.
Literally in that case, because once those people are gone, it'll be over. Right? Because there's nobody to pick up the torch for the next generation.
And so here's the thing. When we talk about faith without works being dead, first of all, that is talking about, if we actually read the context in James 2,
showing your faith to other people, because it'll say, you know, a man may say, I have, thou has faith and I have works.
Show me your faith without your works and I'll show you my faith by my works.
So this is talking about perception by other humans, people looking at you. They're going to gauge your faith by your works.
Why? Because they can't see your heart. They don't know what you believe in your mind or in your heart, but they see what you do.
And so, therefore, people will look at us and judge us by our works. And not only that, but also, you know, when it comes to doing works,
that is the only thing that profits other people. What does it profit if I have a bunch of faith in my heart, but I'm not doing anything?
You know, yeah, I'm going to heaven, but what does that do for everybody else? Nothing. OK?
Now, it brings up in James chapter 2 specifically the example about Abraham, and it says,
"Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar?" OK?
So, according to James 2, Abraham was "justified by works when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar."
Now, look, does anybody actually think that that's when Abraham got saved? When he was 130 years old and offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
Of course not. That is what justified him in the eyes of other people.
Why does he go down in history as the greatest man of faith? Because he was willing to offer Isaac his son upon the altar.
I mean, how do we know, if you said, why do you think Abraham was a great man of faith? Tell me right now.
Why was Abraham a great man of faith? You'd be like, I mean, he left, he left Ur of the Chaldees and went to Canaan and he didn't even know where he was going.
So he had faith. OK? Give me more. Well, the big one is when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar.
That took an incredible amount of faith to be willing to sacrifice Isaac his son on the altar. OK?
That's what it means. But now let's take what we've learned from James 2. Let's take that over to Romans 4 verse 1.
It says, "What shall we say then that Abraham, our father, has pertained to the flesh hath found?
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath were of to glory, but not before God."
And so here's the thing. James 2 says Abraham is justified by works.
But here in Romans 4 it says, "Well, if he were justified by works, he hath were of to glory, but not before God."
So was the justification in James 2 before God or before man? It has to be before man.
Which is why in the context it says, "Thou hast faith, I have works. Show me your faith.
Without your works, I'll show you my faith by my works." We're talking about being justified in the eyes of other people.
But when it comes to being justified before God, by the works of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
So of course, what is justified means? To be seen as righteous or to be declared as righteous.
What makes us look righteous to other people is our works.
What makes us look righteous to God can be one thing and one thing alone, Christ.
Faith. Believing in Jesus, being covered by the blood of Christ.
So it says, "If Abraham were justified by works, he hath were of to glory, but not before God."
See, we're super impressed when we read that story. Right?
And you know what? He could really brag to us about it, but he can't really brag to God about it.
Because in the end, the one thing that justified Abraham before God, verse 3,
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." That's what justified him in the sight of God was his faith.
Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. Right?
If I work for someone, they owe me a paycheck. It's not them being gracious when they pay me for the work I did. Right?
That's a debt that they're paying. "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justified the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
Okay, back to the point we were making. People claim, "Well, faith is always accompanied by works."
Okay, is that what Romans 4-5 says? Does Romans 4-5 say, "Faith is always accompanied by works"?
No, it says, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth."
Look, according to these bozos, this guy doesn't even exist. Right?
The guy who worketh not, but believeth? According to the Bible, he exists.
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justified the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man, "Unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works."
Without works. "Saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered."
Verse 8, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."
And then, just in case you weren't sure about it, it says this, "Come at this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also.
For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned?
When he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
So the Bible is crystal clear, Abraham was saved when he was uncircumcised. Okay?
So here's the question, how old was Abraham when he got circumcised? 99.
Abraham was 99 years old when he got circumcised. He got circumcised before Isaac was born.
Okay? Then, how about this?
How old was he when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Right?
We don't know an exact age, but since he's offering Isaac, and Isaac was born when he was 100, he'd been circumcised for a long time.
Decades later. So decades before he offered Isaac on the altar, he's already circumcised.
And the Bible says he was already saved when he was uncircumcised.
Obviously we know in Genesis 12, he's calling upon the name of the Lord, he's already saved.
He's already saved as a 70-year-old man. Okay?
Let alone when he's 100. Let alone when he's 120, 130.
So that justification in, you know, late in life when he offers Isaac his son on the altar, that's not his personal salvation.
That's not justifying him before God, because he's already saved when he's uncircumcised, according to Romans chapter four.
But you see, false teachers, they want to take James 2 and isolate it from Romans 4.
The right way to read James 2 is to compare scripture with scripture, study James 2, study Romans 4, decide they're both true, and then you'll have the right doctrine.
So number three, Bonhoeffer taught that works are necessary for salvation.
And by the way, another passage I like to bring up to people is 1 Corinthians chapter three,
where it talks about how at the judgment seat of Christ, some people, all their works are going to be wood, hay, and stubble.
But then it says, "But he himself shall be saved."
How does that work if supposedly saving faith has all these works attached to it?
How come a guy can believe in Christ, have all of his works burned up at the judgment seat of Christ,
all of its wood, hay, and stubble, yet he himself shall be saved?
How does that work?
You know why it works?
Because works aren't required for salvation.
That's why.
But number four, Bonhoeffer conflated salvation and discipleship.
See, in his book, it's called The Cost of Discipleship.
I guess he might as well just call it The Cost of Salvation, because he's constantly mixing up discipleship and salvation.
See, what it takes to be saved is just faith in Jesus, but what does it take to be a disciple?
Way more than that, right?
Look, Jesus had like 12 disciples, but he had thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people believe in him and get baptized.
Even in the early church in Acts chapter one, there's only 120 people there, including women and children.
Does that mean only 120 people are saved?
No, they had thousands and tens of thousands of people saved and baptized,
but how many of them are willing to forsake everything and follow Jesus?
Only a select few.
Think about your own life.
Think about how many people you know that are saved.
Would you say that the average saved Christian has forsaken everything to follow Jesus?
Of course not.
Very few Christians are willing to give up everything and just put it all out there and just lay it all on the line for Christ.
Now look, here's the thing about that is that, yeah, that's what Christ wants us to do.
He wants us to be willing to give everything and sacrifice everything and put it all out there,
but if every Christian did that, the world would be a dramatically different place.
And you know, sometimes I just want to ask people who believe in the stupid thing of,
well, everybody who's actually saved will do works or you have to forsake everything to follow Jesus to be saved.
What I want to say to them is, okay, so please explain to me why that's not how the real world works at all.
Please explain to me why there are just this tiny, ridiculously small amount of Christians actually doing that.
And so in order to make this theology work, here's what people do.
They make the bar really low.
So then they're like, you got to do all this stuff.
But then it's like, well, you're not doing anything.
Yeah, well, this is all we need to do, man.
I just need to just need to warm a chair three times a week or sorry, once a week, Sunday morning.
Right. Just warm a chair once a week.
You know, don't say any potty words and just kind of, you know, live a life where I don't really hurt anybody or something.
You know what I mean? Like they just look.
No, the Bible is telling us we need to be out there preaching the gospel to every creature.
The Bible has given all kinds of rules and all kinds of things.
And look, those of us who actually believe salvation is free, we admit like, yeah, we come short.
Yeah, we're sinners. You know, yeah, we're not perfect.
But it's just so funny when people have this view that, well, if you're really saved, you're going to you're going to just do all this stuff.
But then you actually de facto look at their life and they're not doing much.
You look at all these other people that believe this, they're not doing much.
What in the world, man? Doesn't even make sense.
Look, I wish that if I believed in Christ, it would just automatically make me just be this awesome person that just did all these awesome things automatically.
Because that's what these people believe. Like, well, if you're really saved, you know, you're going to do all this stuff.
Wouldn't that be great if you just believed in Jesus and all of a sudden you just like don't want to sin anymore and you just want to do all the right things
and you're just automatically just following the commandments and doing all this stuff. It's it's it's foolish, my friend.
That's not real. OK, when you get saved, the Holy Spirit moves in.
When you get saved, your spirit is quickened. When you get saved, there's a lot of potential for good deeds, a lot of potential for good works.
There's an inward desire to do what's right. But you know what?
That flesh is still with you fighting against you every day and always will be. That's the true story.
And didn't Jesus say, if you follow me, I'll make you fishers of men? So why are all these bogus Christians teaching work salvation?
Why aren't they fishers of men? I don't see them out soul winning.
But supposedly they're just, you know, repented of all their sin. How about your repenting of your sin of sitting on your butt and not soul winning?
How about that sin? Do you repent of that one?
But he conflated salvation and discipleship. These are two different things, right?
Salvation is in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. Discipleship is a process. Discipleship is a lifetime. Discipleship is a huge commitment.
Discipleship is a big subject. But let me just read for you what Bonhoeffer says in his book.
The gracious call of Jesus now becomes a stern command. Do this. Give up that. Leave the ship and come to me.
When a man says he cannot obey the call of Jesus because he believes or because he does not believe,
Jesus says well first obey, perform the external work, renounce your attachments, give up the obstacles which separate you from the will of God.
Do not say you've not got faith. You will not have it so long as you persist in disobedience and refuse to take the first step.
So here's what he's saying. He's saying you can't believe in Jesus until you first do a bunch of works first.
He said first you have to take the first step which is doing work. Let me read this for you again.
Don't miss this. Jesus says first obey, perform the external work, renounce your attachments,
give up the obstacles which separate you from the will of God. Do not say you've not got faith.
You will not have it so long as you persist in disobedience and refuse to take the first step.
So he's saying first obey, first perform the external work. So how does that jive with Romans 4-5?
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the end godly, his faith is count for righteous.
He's saying no, no, that will never work. You're never going to be able to just believe in Jesus.
First you've got to do the work first. Give up everything, quit this, quit that, do this, do that, then you'll be able to believe.
I mean is this guy a horrible false teacher or what? This is bad man.
Oh I'm so excited about Bothoffer the movie. Oh he's going to fight the Nazis for us.
You know what? I'm sorry but the real enemy today is not the Nazis.
You know what the real enemy is? Is works based salvation.
You know what the real enemy is? A false gospel, false doctrine.
The Nazis don't even exist anymore. They already got defeated a long time ago.
You say well I know this guy who's a neo-Nazi. He's a poser. He's a wannabe. He's fake.
And you know what's so funny is these so called neo-Nazis, it's amazing how they're so loose in their standards of living
and they're so worldly and loose because last time I checked the definition of fascism was cultural revival.
I mean I know this is another sermon but I did a sermon a while back where I talked about political ideologies in light of the Bible.
Is that what that sermon is called? Does anybody remember?
It was called like political ideologies in light of the Bible and I talked about the definitions of these things
and socialism and fascism and capitalism and these different things. I was examining them based on scripture.
Here's the thing, the definition of fascism is cultural revival.
Fascism isn't a mini skirt.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Fascism isn't hey we're going to use people's pronouns and we're going to be wearing and girls are going to be in mini skirts
and we're going to disrespect our parents and disrespect our grandparents and we're going to just go out and be worldly.
You're a poser wannabe. You're not even a real Nazi.
But here's the thing, nobody's a real Nazi because the Nazi party is done. It's over.
They got defeated. The war ended in 1945, long before virtually any of us were born.
And so you know, ah you know, Bonhoeffer is so wonderful because he fought against the Nazis.
You know what, here's the thing about that is that number one, he didn't fight against the Nazis.
He was part of a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. He didn't even get, he didn't even succeed.
He was like one part of like, and then you look at the list like these are all the people that were involved in the conspiracy.
It's just this giant list of people. He's just one of them.
A failed assassination plot. Oh my hero.
It's not like the guy actually assassinated Hitler, okay.
Newsflash, the assassination attempt didn't work.
And I digress.
How did we get off on the Nazi? Oh yeah, people are so excited like, oh the movie, oh Bonhoeffer, oh.
And this was funny, the promotional materials for the film, the little tagline was,
"Pastor, Spy, Assassin."
Like bro, you didn't assassinate anybody. Do you really get to be called an assassin?
Because you like teamed up with like 50 or 100 other people and failed to kill someone?
Does that make you an assassin? Like he's just some cool guy, like first of all, why is it cool to be an assassin anyway?
Like since when is being an assassin a Christian virtue?
When did God call us to assassinate people?
Show me a verse in the New Testament where I'm called to go assassinate anyone, let alone fail to assassinate someone.
Let alone fail to assassinate with someone with like 100 people helping me.
Oh, Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer sucks.
Okay, but here's the thing, he's like one of the worst false prophets of the 20th century
because I've been hearing this cheap grace nonsense my whole life and then I find out it comes from Bonhoeffer.
And now I'm thinking back to these independent Baptists who are saying these stupid things,
then I'm looking at the Bonhoeffer book and it's verbatim.
And I'm thinking, they probably got all excited about Israel and got all excited about the Jews,
so then they're just like, they watch Indiana Jones and then they're real mad at the Nazis and whatever,
and then they go read Bonhoeffer's book because they're like, yeah, we hate the Nazis, yeah, bad, you know.
And then they read the book and the next thing you know, they're preaching a perverted gospel of Christ,
which is more important than any political ideology in this world.
And by the way, go back and listen to my political ideology sermon.
I'm not a fascist. I don't believe in fascism. I am a libertarian.
But here's what's funny is, but again, at the end of the day, the Bible means more to me than any political ideology.
My political slant, my political bent is toward libertarianism.
You know, economically, I would be considered a classical liberal, okay.
But here's the thing about that is that none of those things matter compared to what the Bible says.
Okay, but fascism doesn't work. It sounds good on the surface.
Cultural revival sounds great, you know, getting back to Christian morality,
Christian virtues, old fashioned way of life sounds great.
But the thing is, you can't really enforce that through government.
It needs to be preached from the pulpit and it needs to be done willingly by people, not forced by the government.
But then you got a bunch of neo-fascists and neo-Nazis in a miniskirt.
Yeah, explain that, buddy. What culture are you reviving?
What are you reviving, the 90s? The 70s? What is that?
What kind of fascism is that anyway?
All right, I got to hurry. I'm almost out of time and I'm not, we're not leaving until I'm done with this sermon.
So here's another quote from Bonhoeffer.
"The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus."
Here's another quote, "The only man who has the right to say that he's justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ."
So according to him, if you didn't leave all and follow Christ, you're not saved.
Virtually no one has done that. He would basically be saying that like five people are saved.
Luther had said that grace alone can save.
His followers took up his doctrine and repeated it word for word, but they left out its invariable corollary, the obligation of discipleship.
And then he reinterprets the life of Martin Luther to claim that he was saved and right with God while he was a Roman Catholic monk.
Now, look, whatever you do or don't believe about Martin Luther, that's not how the story goes.
The story goes that he's a Roman Catholic monk, and then he reads the Bible that, you know, "The just shall live by faith," and then gets saved. That's the story.
Okay, that's the -- but no, no, no, not according to Bonhoeffer.
Here's what Bonhoeffer says, "When the Reformation came, the providence of God raised Martin Luther to restore the gospel of pure, costly grace."
So according to him, Martin Luther's job was to teach everyone that grace is expensive.
That's what he says. "Luther passed through the cloister." Cloister is another word for a monastery.
"He was a monk, and all this was part of the divine plan. Luther had left all to follow Christ on the path of absolute obedience.
He had renounced the world in order to live the Christian life."
So according to him, like, him being this Catholic monk is God's will and that he's just following Christ that way.
That's not how the story of Martin Luther goes, even for Martin Luther fans. He's trying to, like, rewrite history here.
"He had learned to be obedient to Christ and to his church," talking about the Roman Catholic church, "because only he who is obedient can believe."
"The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life, but God shattered all his hopes.
He showed him through the Scriptures that the following Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction."
So he's telling him, look, the only problem Luther had in the monastery is that it's just him in there.
We all need to be living that monastic life.
He's literally saying that monasteries, the people in monasteries, the monks, they're doing the right thing. They're doing good.
But the problem is that we all need to be doing stuff like that.
That's funny because when Martin Luther ended up leaving Roman Catholicism and not being a monk anymore, he literally, even though he'd made a vow of celibacy, what did he do? He got married.
So he apparently renounced all that as being wrong and bad and switched to something totally different to the point where he even broke his vow and actually got married.
You know, which is obviously kind of a hard decision for him to make because he's like, well, you know, if you make a vow, you're supposed to do it at the same time with some stupid, weird Catholic crap.
So it's like, you know, and so eventually he, you know, he ended up getting married.
Does anybody remember what his wife's name was? It's real famous.
We don't care. We're Baptist. We don't care. We don't give a rip.
Hundreds of people here this morning and nobody knows her name and nobody cares.
I don't even remember it. Amen.
But isn't that, I mean, it's just, he rewrites the history of Luther. Well, being a Catholic monk was great for him.
But, you know, it's just everybody needs to be renounced and everything.
And then lastly, this I'm in a big hurry, but lastly, this he twisted words or redefined words to change the gospel.
This is what false prophets will do to change the definition of words.
Right. See, the devil wants you to, he wants to just change the Bible.
That's why there are all these new modern versions of the Bible that change things.
But if he can't get you to change your Bible, if he, if you still got a King James, here's what he'll do.
He'll just get you to change the definition of word where believe doesn't mean believe anymore.
Eternal doesn't mean eternal. Right. All these twisting of definitions.
Let me just give you a few quick quotes. I'm going to be done in like 60 seconds here.
Okay, maybe 120.
Only he who believes is obedient and only he is obedient who believes.
So again, just believing and obedience are just the same to him.
But then wait until you hear this one.
Lust is impure because it's unbelief.
Therefore it is to be shunned.
So the problem with lust is that it's unbelief.
So according to him, if you lust, well, you just don't believe in Jesus.
But you see how they're just twisting words.
Well, yeah, you're saved by believing, but as soon as you lust, you don't believe anymore.
Now, the reason why we avoid lust is because when lust is conceived to bring it for sin and sin, when it's finished, bring it for death.
Okay. We avoid lust because we don't want to sin.
Not because, well, because, you know, lust is unbelief.
Well, no, lust is unbelief, right?
And so conclusion, Bonhoeffer is not even a martyr.
He's a false prophet.
He lived by the sword and he died by the sword.
Bro was hanged by the neck until dead because he tried to assassinate someone.
Okay, that's what happened.
Okay, and look, obviously Hitler was a super evil guy who was responsible for millions of deaths.
Okay, obviously that's true.
You know, Hitler is not a good person.
He's in hell, too.
Maybe Bonhoeffer and him are hanging out.
I don't know.
Why do you try to kill me, bro?
You got here before I did.
You warmed up my spot for me, Bonhoeffer.
He's not a martyr.
Literally, churches will honor him as a martyr. There are statues of him as Bonhoeffer the martyr.
Folks, the word martyr means witness.
It is Greek for witness.
The English word martyr has to do with someone dying, being a witness for Christ,
not dying in a political assassination plot where they foiled it and they got hanged.
Let's pray and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
We thank you so much for the Gospel being so clear.
Thank you for salvation by faith.
Thank you for all the verses that make it so clear for us that we can have assurance that we're saved by grace through faith, Lord.
Help us not to live by the sword lest we die by the sword.
Help us not to take up the sword because all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword, as Jesus said in the garden.
And Lord God, I pray that you would just help us not to be deceived by these worldly heroes that are presented to us
because, Lord, it's really just a Trojan horse to bring in false doctrine through this evil book, The Cost of Discipleship.
Lord God, bless us as we go our separate ways.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Men, take your songbooks together.
We'll go to hymn number 402.
Hymn number 402.
Our best.
Hymn number 402.
We'll sing it out together on that first now.
402 begins, "Hear ye the Master's call, give me thy best."
Number 402.
Hear ye the Master's call, give me thy best.
For me, in great or small, that is my task.
Do then the best you can, not for reward, not for the praise of men, but for the Lord.
Every work for Jesus will be blessed, but he asks from every one his best.
Our talents may be few, these may be small, but unto him is to our best our own.
Weigh not for them too long, keep not their sight, winning the smile of God brings us delight.
Gaining the good and true, there goes unblest all that we think for duty in the best.
Every work for Jesus will be blessed, but he asks from every one his best.
Our talents may be few, these may be small, but unto him is to our best our own.
Weigh not for them too long, keep not their sight, winning the smile of God brings us delight.
[piano solo]