Polemics, Methodist & Wesleyan Churches
Ephesians 1:3; Hebrews 2:1-4; John 10:28 · Vern Peterman · Aug 27, 2006
Polemics, No. 22
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49260043127

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're looking at the Methodist and Wesleyan churches and, like I say, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the great-great-grandchildren of that particular group, all the offspring. Now, it starts back with the Wesley brothers. And what's real interesting, their father was a clergyman in the Anglican Church. And they were ordained as clergymen in the Anglican Church, and then they became Christians. Then they became believers. How about that? So real interesting. So that was actually in the late 1730s when they became believers and this was after they've been through all sorts of training and were already put in place to head churches. Their original intent was to revitalize the Anglican Church, which had just gotten downright dead.

One of their ways of doing that was to pour lots of enthusiasm and emotional expression into the meetings that they had. Everything is dead and cold, so let's put a lot of enthusiasm and emotional expression. That was kind of their means of going the other direction. There was also a fellow, George, it looks like Whitefield, I hear a lot of people pronounce it Whitfield, who was associated with the movement.

And he had some different beliefs from the other two, but nonetheless also saw the need to kind of revitalize the Anglican Church. Now, one of the things that took place there, they looked to revitalize the Anglican Church. How come we don't just see a revitalized Anglican Church out of this? What happened? Yeah, Tom? What's that? Oh, the king. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what's interesting is remember, we talked earlier about the reformers, like Luther and guys of that kind.

What was their original intent? They wanted to reform the church, but there was originally no intent of, let's start some new movement of its own character. They wanted to reform and change the existing church. What happened? The church that they were wanting to change says, no way, right?

And so they end up, oh heavens. So they, by default, had to end up starting something new, but not by original intent. Same song, second verse, okay? Here come the Wesley brothers, and they're working with some others here, including this fellow George Whitfield, trying to revitalize the Anglican Church. And the Anglican Church says, no way, no how, you guys are crazy fanatics. And so then, again, not by original intent, but by default, because their attempts at reform and change and whatnot were rejected, now you've got a new movement, okay? and boy what a movement it was.

They had a lot of comparatively emotional and dramatic meetings. That was one of the things, because things were so dead in the Anglican Church, it was like a pew full of coffins. So things were fairly stilted and so it was a matter of trying to bring it up. Art, you had your hand up? Yeah, and as a matter of fact that my understanding was Charles was even more reluctant than than John Yeah, it was interesting. There was this this move on the outside towards something new, but originally that original intent still hung with them, even though the practical effect was to start something different. Tom, you raised your hand. that same feeling long down through the ages because if anybody remembers the Beatles song Eleanor Raybould kind of laid it on the same way that I'm sure Charles and John felt back then.

It just Doug is mentioning a statue of Wesley at St. Paul's. I'm trying to think. I would assume so, but I don't know so. Was it? Yeah, okay. So there's the answer. Yeah, I would think that more Anglican would be likely. One other difference that I'd just point out is Wesley was really big at writing books. John Wesley, writing books. Charles, on the other hand, writing hymns.

I've seen a figure here of about 7,000. I've also seen figures of about 6,000. Probably it's hard to keep track of. You know, at some point it's, you know, did he have them somewhere written on a napkin or, you know, what do you count? So anyway, nonetheless, a lot of hymns. We actually sing a few of them. Now, what's that? Oh yeah, some great hymns. And one of the things you'll find that there are hymns that are on the spectrum, they're kind of lively, not always, but often. And that again goes along with the idea that they're wanting to put some spark into things instead of having everything be a funeral dirge.

Now, there was one other thing, and that is while While John and Charles Wesley didn't foster widely a lot of wild expressions, nonetheless there was a sympathy with, and even in written form, there was a sympathy with a second century prophet that we've brought up before, Montanus.

Montanus had two prophetesses who joined with him And so Montanus in the second century and the two prophetesses that were with him went about giving extra biblical revelations. And those revelations in some cases even said the Lord isn't coming back over in Israel. He's coming back over here, which was near Colossae and Laodicea and those places, right? So here's a kind of an openness to that sort of extra biblical expression, additional prophecies, things of that sort.

One other thing too was the involvement of the women in leadership. That was another aspect that came out and the Westleys supported as well. Okay. As we say here, but that was just the beginning. All right. By quirks of history and geography, things developed over in Britain differently than they did in the American colonies and what soon thereafter became the United States. Why would some of those things develop differently? Why would you have different development and not just everything be the same? Yeah, communication was tough.

I couldn't just get on the cell phone and call my buddy over in Britain. Pardon? The computer crashed. Yes, it was a dial-up connection. That was the problem. So yeah, there can be a number of different things, but just the distance and the time it takes to get somebody or something or even information across. The kinds of interactions that would take place would be different.

Now in Britain, the culture there was more long established. How about in the United States? What was happening during the 17 and early 1800s? Yeah, the class system was not as well established, one, and then what was happening, people were moving across the United States, and so that had a different feel.

You get this moving frontier. And so you get a very different effect in terms of how things are developed, and what are people going to gravitate towards and that kind of thing. So Methodism in Britain and Methodism in the United States end up going in rather different directions, and in an almost unrelated denominational connections.

Okay. What you'll see here in a kind of a linear chart is this sequence. From Methodist you get into holiness groups and then Pentecostal first wave is what we have underneath that. We'll talk about that in a minute around 1920. Then you have The holiness were groups that were fundamentally Methodist, but they focus on personal holiness, that is, their own morality, their own personal dedication to the Lord and the expression of that. was a priority, and so you'll have groups. I would say one of the groups would be kind of of that category of the Nazarenes, Church of the Nazarene, if you've ever encountered that. There are others that have specifically the name Holiness in the name, and we'll run into that a little farther on here, okay? Then we have Pentecostal, first wave, and then Charismatic, second wave, and then Hypercharismatic, third wave. We'll go into a little more detail as to what that means.

But initially you had the Pentecostal movement, the Pentecostal Church. It had some development, but then around 1920 is when they started setting in place some denominations and giving it some definition and distinction. What would be some of the old-line Pentecostal groups? Some of the names? Some of the Pentecostal denominations?

Well, that would be a nickname. Yeah, the Holy Rollers, yes, the nickname. Assembly of God is one of those, right? Okay, what would be another? Church of God, okay. And actually, the Church of God is kind of a cross between the holiness and the Pentecostal. in there, right on the line, okay? And then what else?

There are churches that just give the name Pentecostal, and you see that in there, that's pretty much a giveaway. Well, we've got one right down the street, the Four Square Church, right? Okay, that was one that was an old-line Pentecostal denomination. Then in 1960 or thereabouts, people will debate about exactly the time, was the breakout from there into the charismatic churches.

What's the difference? The Pentecostal groups had specific denominations and they said it is the gift of tongues that is the specific evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, okay? John and Charles Wesley had said there's this second blessing and from then on you're sinless. The Pentecostals went and gave it some specific definition where they said we know what that second blessing is and it's the gift of tongues and until you've got that you haven't had the second blessing and you're not sinless. So that's the way that was taught.

In 1960, It jumped denominational lines because it then no longer mattered if it was one of these particular denominations. You end up having expressions like this that were in Baptist churches, Catholic churches, Orthodox churches, Lutheran churches, Episcopal churches. I even heard, you know, Baptocostals, you know? So all kinds of mixtures, and there was no longer a denominational distinction, that's one.

The other thing about the charismatic groups is they said, well it isn't just tongues, it could be other things. You might have other gift of prophecy or some other gift of healing or something of that sort. And so it wasn't just tongues. So those were two things. One is it jumped denominational lines. And then secondly, it didn't have to be just tongues. So there's where it kind of broke out. That's charismatic or second wave. Third wave is hyper charismatic.

John Wimber, who had been teaching at Fuller Theological Seminary and had been working with Calvary Chapel and had contact there with Chuck Smith. John Wimber was kind of asked to leave both Fuller Theological Seminary and Chuck Smith's, you know, Calvary Chapel. And at that point then he started off at what became the Vineyard Churches. Any of you had any contact with any of the Vineyard Churches or know somebody who's been with those? Okay. So that's what we mean by first, second, and third wave.

They each have a certain characteristic to them. Now, one of the other things that happened here is then the hyper-charismatic stuff started bleeding into the other churches as well, and especially churches that were like Pentecostal, churches that had charismatic influence started getting some of this hyper charismatic. Now, what do we mean by hyper charismatic? Why would I use such a term? Are these guys just real hyper?

Yes, yes. Okay. They were all over the place. The speaker was speaking and people were speaking in tongues and running around and rolling in tongues. Yeah. Here's the idea. With the Pentecostal churches, and by the way, there are some Pentecostal churches who see a lot of this hyper charismatic stuff and are quite upset by it because they say, this is crazy. The Pentecostal churches, at least they looked at it and they said, well, the Bible has tongues. And so they were looking for something that we may not agree with them that it's valid, but at least it's there. With the charismatic churches, what they said was, all right, we're looking for these other expressions, but they're in scripture.

With a hyper charismatic movement, and this started about 25 years ago, here's the difference. You could express the Holy Spirit or manifest the Holy Spirit, so it was said, in all sorts of ways and it didn't have to be anything described in scripture. There's the difference. So in a hyper-charismatic church, if you look at the list of even apostolic era gifts, gifts of healing, gifts of various kinds of revelations and things of that sort, you could go beyond that in a hyper-charismatic church.

I have seen or talked to people who have done stuff like holy barking, holy mooing, holy barfing, holy laughter, drunk in the spirit, holy spirit glue, where you get glued to the floor and can't get up, all sorts of expressions that go beyond what scripture describes.

So that's this hyper-charismatic movement. So those are the five stages that the Methodist Church has spun off. That's correct. And I was just about to get to that. What you'll find is, this is not a transition that has shifted with everybody moving through those stages.

What you will find is that each of these groups that preceded the latest stage, which is the hyper charismatic, is still in existence in some form. And many of them don't accept how things have progressed. You'll find Methodist churches where they're not into this stuff at all. So you'll find Pentecostal churches where they don't like the hyper charismatic stuff. So Doug's point's well taken. There continue to be groups out of the original categories that haven't shifted.

So by showing these in sequence, this is when they cropped up, not necessarily a statement that everybody has moved in that direction. Thank you. Good point. Take a look as you've got several different handouts in the back there. The one on the very back shows the longer term breakout that you look at the Methodists having broken out about 1738 and some of the original groups from that and then the Pentecostals, the original Pentecostal establishment came just after the turn of the 1900s.

And then you see, after that, in the next few decades, different denominations getting started. And I have a fair amount of background with that. My grandfather was, I'm told, the first Assembly of God pastor in California. He was born and raised in Great Bend, Kansas, but he moved out to California and was their first assignment there.

You also have here, and here's the next stage, you have a sheet that goes like this. As a matter of fact, let me step through some of these. Like that. You have a sheet that looks like that. and this is the Methodist US family tree, and this is simplified.

It's actually more complex than this. I just couldn't get it on the paper, so my apologies. I just didn't want to make it so small you couldn't see it. So this has gotten really wild, hasn't it? Some of the groups, you may even wonder, heavens, I've never heard of such a thing. Some of the others you may well have heard of and are still around. Let's kind of step our way through some of them.

The Methodist denomination originally sprung out of the Anglican church. And so the associated name with that, that you see cropping up here is the Methodist Episcopal. And this is where you see it founded there. From there, some interesting, apparently groups that still exist, but again, one of the points that I made earlier was that things developed in Britain that didn't develop here and vice versa. How many of you have heard of the Republican Methodist Church before?

Isn't that interesting? Yeah. So, and this is one of those things where it's developed somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. But not, it's not, it's almost unknown here in the U.S. One of the things that you'll see several of here is the African Methodist or some similar thing. And here's what's interesting, that African title as a part of the denomination does not mean it came from Africa. It was originally a place where those who were oftentimes black slaves could get involved and they could have church involvement that was also kind of trying to deal with the slavery issue. And it was a U.S. phenomenon, not a British phenomenon. Right? Yes. In other words, the fundamental idea, obviously got the name African in there, it was dealing with the slavery slash race issue. And that's how it was originally founded.

Now, it's still, there's still an existence. The church where I grew up in Palo Alto, just about a block down, has an AME Zion church. They call it AME, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. So that was, you know, curious, but that's, it's again, still in existence, even though it was founded based on conditions that were quite different from anything we see today.

Yes, oh yeah, they are around and that doesn't surprise me at all. I wouldn't be surprised if you find several of these categories here in the Denver area. Good point. One of the other things you'll see in here is both some branching out and then rejoining. So you see that phenomenon taking place.

The biggest and largest of which was the 1968 United Methodist formation, which was originally just a group called the Methodists and the Evangelical United Brethren. When those two joined in 1968, then that formed the largest of the Methodist denominations. And it was a year after that that I went to their conference.

So when I was in high school, that was the only church in town, almost. So then another one, and I had to almost put it as footnotes and it almost dropped off too. And that is you got in 1897, the Pilgrim Holiness, now there's this name holiness cropping up, right? Pilgrim Holiness Church. And then in 1968, the Pilgrim Holiness Church joined up with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America to form, in 1968, the Wesleyan Church. Complicated, isn't it? Now, some other names that you might recognize here are the Salvation Army. Booth was a Methodist. So there's the Salvation Army back in 1870. There's actually another Methodist offshoot.

And we tend to think of them as these places where they have, you know, youth clothing and various kinds of public services, but they also have churches. Any of you had contact with any of the churches and talked to them? Kansas City, you had contact with them? Yeah. And they have a military hierarchy, you know, you have people with military levels of assignment in the church, so kind of interesting.

But it was basically started off as a Methodist organization. Another one that crops up here is Church of the Nazarene. So you don't have the Methodist name in it or Wesleyan or something like that, but that is also a Wesleyan family of churches. What's that? The Church of the Nazarene is right in the middle and it says 1908. It's right above the word South in brackets there.

So those are some that you might have had some contact with. This is simplified. There's a whole bunch of them that I didn't even touch on. One of them, let's see. Yeah, here's a Christian Missionary Alliance. That's also of a Methodist background. And Simpson was the guy who founded that. I know I had several friends of mine over the years that have gone to Simpson College in California, which is a CMA church. Several friends at different times and places have been involved with CMA churches, and that's of a Methodist background. And there was, at one point, this little chart here which goes into, you can see there's massive detail more than I can possibly try to portray here but it shows on there you know this is what Simpson did here and here and then this next place and it shows where Simpson got got the baptism of the spirit you know and that that's on the map to there so gotta gotta have that so all right now you got these different groups let's look at page oh you know there's an error and the way this thing got printed out my apologies all three pages say page one of three which doesn't help So this is the actual second page titled, and now they're off.

Yes. Yes, it originated in England. Yes, and really following a similar pattern, A similar pattern to the Reformed. In other words, Reformation was substantially on the continent. And there was, of course, the involvement of John Knox there. But this was an attempt, similarly, to reform the Anglican Church. It started in Britain. because that's where the Anglican Church was, but the place of movement was over in the American colonies. So those were the primary areas, Britain and the American colonies, and it's gone worldwide since then.

Yes. Yeah. All right. Now, let's kind of go through each one of these groups. This Methodist group here has everything from the theologically more conservative, That is where they take the Bible as the inspired word of God and infallible. And then you have another end of it where they would take the Bible as inspiring. You hear the difference? It's inspired when it's inspiring. And of course other things could be inspiring too. So that's where you run into some variation there.

One of the difficulties I mentioned earlier that I was in the latter part of high school, I actually attended the Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, which had just the prior year formed. Well, one of the problems that has occurred there, because I have had ongoing contact with that church and that area because that's where my family lives. I would say there's been at least two that I know of pastors sent to the various Methodist churches who I know are not saved. And that's tough to have a church where that's not the case. So it can get to the point where you're talking about someone who just simply doesn't have truth. That can be a problem.

Now, among the teachings that they had were one is in the title we use here is Arminianism. What am I talking about when Arminianism? Is that an ethnic group? Yeah, the Arminian and the key point, we could talk about other details, the key point is that you can lose your salvation. That's the Arminian idea, and that's what the Westleys taught.

You could lose your salvation. So here's an interesting thing. You could go on sinless if you had the second blessing, but you could also lose it all. You could lose it all. So what's the problem with that? Well, it's not scriptural. Okay, all right. Well, heavens, that does seem to matter. So they would have that teaching. And here's a part of the problem with that.

If you think, look, once I have the second blessing, I'm continued, guaranteed sinless unless I blow it and completely lose it altogether. It really implies there's no such thing as spiritual growth, doesn't it? There is no spiritual growth if you're already, you get the second blessing and then you're sinless. I'm right there. Okay. And then the second thing, Art, let me not lose track of your thought here.

If we could lose our salvation, wouldn't it also mean that the Lord's sacrifice wasn't sufficient? Yeah, the Lord's guarantee, and we've been sealed with the Holy Spirit. And by the way, it says that's a guarantee. How good a guarantee is it if you happen to go whoops? You know?

What's interesting is that the scripture lays out you've been seated with Christ, and of course we've been crucified, buried, raised, ascended and seated with Christ. All those five things. Nowhere does it even threaten to unseat you or uncrucify you. So, real interesting, the opposites never said. But that was one thing, and then the second blessing idea that goes along with that. So you have an extreme. One is I could be sinless, and the other is I could lose it all, all together.

What's difficult is that they will point to, like Hebrews 6.4, which they will point to as proof of loss of salvation. What really scares them, is when you point out, it says, impossible to renew unto repentance. So if you lose it, you've lost it for good, if that's what it means.

Now, the next one here is the holiness groups. These churches are often similar to Methodist churches, but they underscore personal holiness as central to the teachings. They are often, but not always, theologically more conservative. Some have been prone to legalism. On my wife's side of the family, we've had some relatives that have been involved with groups of this sort.

It was interesting to go to one of the weddings that they had. The wedding party was not all that fancy looking because you couldn't get all fixed up because that was against the rules. So you couldn't really tell any difference between the people who were guests and those who were part of the wedding party. Because you were not supposed to get all fixed up.

So real interesting. This would be Nazarene, the Church of God, and we have even some major offices here of some of those groups. Okay, now in the Pentecostal groups, what they did is to focus on the second blessing instead of being something more vague. Now it's very specific. It's the gift of tongues. If you get the gift of tongues, then you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Let's ask a question. What would be wrong with their claim? By the way, I never got to ask my grandfather that question, but anyway. What would be wrong with their claim? Is everybody supposed to get the gift of tongues? Okay, one is a question of ceasing, okay? And what else would be wrong? And you certainly got a good point. Ah, so Paul has these series of questions in 1 Corinthians 12. Do all have this? Do all have that? And they ask the various questions, including on the list, do all have tongues?

The answer is no. And that's Paul's very point, that there is variety. So to make this a universal requirement just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit at all. There's variety. Paul asks the question, is everybody an eye? Is everybody an ear? So yeah, to have everyone have that as a requirement doesn't fit. What else, Doug?

There are various places we can point to, and we'll look at one of them and make reference to others, that is a temporary gift. There are apostolic era gifts that were specific to that time when the apostles were in place, but before the New Testament was completed.

And then you have churches of that tradition, the Assembly of God, Foursquare Church, high-profile names, Amy Semple McPherson, early in that group, Catherine Kuhlman, my grandmother used to sing for her. So those are some of the high-profile names and one of the things you notice early on, some of the high-profile names are women founding the group and the leadership. But see that was already fostered in the Methodist Church right in the 1700s. So then it just sprung forward to the point of them actually founding the denomination, yes.

Ah, okay. Methodism, what they look for is some sort of an emotional expression, okay, that indicated, and we have kind of a sense of that. We'll look for people to get, you know, Oh, he looks like he really repented. You know, he's sweating a lot or he's, you know, he's been on his knees for three hours or something that indicates he went through this, you know, definite experience.

Then what happened with the Pentecostal denominations is they made it more specific. They said, it's this tongue sting and settled on that particular expression. Then you get the charismatic groups. This did not bring up with a particular set of denominations as much as the Pentecostal groups did. And remember the reason? Because it was more a jumping of denominational lines.

My dad's sister was a charismatic Catholic. If you want to get online and Google or ask or whatever, you can look up things like charismatic Catholic. You can look up charismatic Lutheran. All the different denominational groups and put the word charismatic in there and you'll find the combination somewhere. And there are churches where there are subgroups within the church who do that, and other churches where the whole church is even labeled by that.

The charismatic thing is taken over. Pardon? Charismatic Holly Hills Bible Church. Well, yeah. This has been called second wave. I would say, although it's hard to point to denominations, the closest thing to that has been Calvary Chapel. I mean, they've had contact with Calvary Chapel at some point over the years, yeah.

I would tend to call them light charismatic because if you've ever had any involvement with them, there tends to be their main services a little more normal and then the they'll have a kind of a side or after service that's got some of the other charismatic expressions. So they don't, it's not front and center, and it's not brought out in the extreme in the main meetings of the group. It's not the hollering and rolling around and everybody hooping. Okay, and then the hyper charismatic, again, those are the vineyard churches is the name that is kind of the central core of that, although there are other ones.

Toronto, have you ever heard of the Toronto Blessing? It used to be Toronto Airport Vineyard was asked to leave the Vineyard Church because it was too wild. It was even farther out and so they were asked to step aside and not call themselves a Vineyard Church anymore.

So it had gone beyond that. And so this is called the third wave. About four years ago, I spoke on this topic at a conference down in Texas, and one of the questions that was asked was, if this is first, second, and third wave, what's next? What's fourth wave like? I said, well, only the Lord knows the future, but to think about what avenues of widening do they have? And because you figure, okay, first you'll, the Pentecostal first wave is a fairly narrow expression.

You know, you can find something in scripture about it even though it doesn't fit. Their tongues is mentioned. They went and made the whole church based on this thing, but it's mentioned. With the charismatic movement, it's still, what does scripture say? With the hyper-charismatic groups, they're expressing things that are not in scripture, but it's still vaguely Christian. I think if you look at it, what latitude do they have to change into something else, it's to extend beyond Christian boundaries. and begin going into other things that are way outside of anything you could call Christian. Yeah, Art?

Would you say that the charismatic influence of Calvary Chapel is due to Chuck Smith? Yeah, I mean, he was the one who founded and led it. You pretty well have to settle with that. He has had a personal influence that has set it off in that direction.

Individual Calvary chapels may have a different flavor, particular ones. And so you'll find this one will have this character and this one will have another character. It's interesting, the church that I was at in Carson City that Nancy and I had to leave because it went hyper charismatic. The Vineyard Church had a huge split and they came over to where we were and basically took over the church. So we were basically driven out. That church has been through a change and is now a Calvary Chapel. So it sort of went wacko and then kind of came back to something a little bit less extreme. So, interesting changes can take place. Other thoughts, questions? Yeah.

I used to listen to Charles Smith on the radio. What's that? Charles, what is he? Founded Calvary Chapel. Oh, Chuck Smith. Yes, yes. He is a good Bible teacher. He, I would say he... He can say anything that sounds good. Yeah, yeah. What you will find in the main services is, generally speaking, some pretty good stuff. When our son Ed went down to Phoenix for just sort of a year for mechanic school down there, he lived about three blocks away from a church that was a Calvary Chapel church. And we went there because my cousin was going there.

And we told him, we said, there's some things that they'll do in the after service that we wouldn't suggest, but the main church service seems OK. And the pastor had been a Seventh-day Adventist pastor And he began studying the scripture and the leadership kind of caught wind that he was just teaching the Bible. And they said, are you going to teach our prophetess, Ellen G. White? And he said, no, I'm going to just stick with scripture. And they said, bye bye. And so anyway, he was pastoring that church, which was a Calvary Chapel there. And the main service, you're right, the main service is often pretty good. There will be, when they get in the area of gifts, then they've got some issues, spiritual gifts, then they've got some issues. But in general, quite often, good. Yeah, Doug? Yes. Who's this? Ah. Yeah. Yes. Here's what's interesting.

There was a lady who used to be my Sunday school teacher in the Methodist Church. She now goes to the Bible church that my brother is pastor of. And she said that she became a believer when she started going to that Bible church, even though she'd been teaching Sunday school in the Methodist church for decades. Well, let me tell you one other story. This hyper-charismatic, last category, my brother had another gal who had spent years in one of the hyper-charismatic churches and became a believer at the church where my brother is at.

And here's what can happen. I think in some cases you actually, as I mentioned before, can have pastors that are so sidetracked they're not even believers. or they've got such a foggy notion of what the gospel is, they may be saved but not much more.

Because frequently the thing that sidetracks them is the secondary activity. Because the Methodist, remember, had the second blessing from the start, right? And the secondary activity, because all five of these groups have this after-salvation activity thing that takes over. And if that ends up just completely overwhelming the message, then you can end up having people get involved, and they may be having the Holy Spirit glue and barking and everything else, and they never heard the gospel. So it's a good question.

And the truth is, the only place the gospel is presented is the places it's presented, and there's an awful lot of reason to get distracted in a number of these. And the farther down the line you get, the more distracted you can get. You go into a place where people are barking and mooing and barfing and everything else, it's really tough to hear the gospel in the middle of that. It is profoundly distracting.

I know because I've been in the room where I've seen this crazy stuff going on. It's just real tough. Here's this guy over there and he's vomiting on the floor. Oh, he's just barfing up demons. And this person over here is mooing. Here's three people over on the floor having mock births of Christ. Crazy stuff. In the middle of that, to take seriously that Christ died for your sins and He was buried and rose again is tough to hear. Just tough to hear.

Here's a neighboring facility we have here. This is Methodist, Anglican, and Lutheran here at Iliff School of Theology. Not too far from DU. I was over with Brian White at a coffee house nearby there, and as I was waiting for Brian, I looked over at some of the books these guys had. One of the titles was The Myth of the Resurrection.

So the problem is, if you think the resurrection is a myth, how are you even going to get saved? How are you going to present the gospel if that's what they're being taught? So there are some serious problems right there. If Christ is not raised, what? Our faith is in vain. This is worthless, right? So the problem is if the guy who is up there teaching does not believe in the very basics of the gospel, he can't present them, and he can't know them himself. So that puts it at a severe disadvantage.

One experience I had, this Methodist church, they have changeovers of pastors. And under a prior pastor, they'd arranged to have people from the Bible church that I had grown up in come and do a vacation Bible school. And just that week, they brought in a new pastor, and he was very upset.

He says, I'm a liberal existentialist. What are you doing teaching all this Bible stuff? Well, before the end of the week, he became a believer. That was really a turnover. So how about that? The new pastor comes in and becomes a Christian. So, wild. It can be a real challenge when the basic points of the gospel become foggy to undermine. At very minimum, highly distracted from the gospel. It can be tough. Now, the third page, where does that leave us?

John 10.28 is, I think, one of the premier passages on underscoring that you are not going to lose your salvation even of your own doing.

The middle voice in there, in John 10.28, says that you cannot lose that eternal life even of your own doing. And it uses the Greek term who may, which doesn't sound like much to us, but it means not the slightest chance. There is not even a tiny chance, not the slightest chance that you're going to lose your salvation of your own doing.

That's what he said. And he says, nobody's going to take them out of my hand and my father who gave them to me, nobody can take them out of his hand either. So that sounds pretty definite, and that is what Jesus responded with when they asked him, this was the skeptical Jews, if you're really the Messiah, if you're really the Christ, tell us. That was his answer. I'm going to save him, and they're going to say save for good, and I am constantly going to be giving him life. Nobody's going to be taking him out of my hand, and nobody's going to be taking him out of my father's hand, not a chance, not even a little bit, forget it. At that, He finished off with, the Father and I are one, and then they picked the rocks up. He spoke with strength, with certainty, and we can count on it. We've run out of time here.

I guess the other thing is, do you need a second blessing, or have we been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus? Do we need to go around looking for that other one, or do we need to know about the ones we've got? That's the question. Okay. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at these things, we are thankful for the certainty we have. We do pray as each of us has had some kind of contact, maybe ongoing contact, with people of some of these groups. And Lord, how wonderful that we can count upon you and who you are and what you've said and what you've done. We thank you, Lord, and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.