Great Doctrines of Salvation
Mike Doyle · Jan 10, 2010
Great Doctrines of Salvation, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492615149915

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

Okay, we're still in chapter one. Does everybody have a notebook that wants a notebook? You don't have a notebook. You better have one. This is the lesson we started in last week. I've got the next lesson here. Have any of you had an opportunity to begin to read the book? The book, The Three Ring Binder Book, The Great Doctrines Pertaining to Salvation. When Vern came here a bunch of years ago, after he'd been here a few years, he brought this book forward. And it's probably the best one I've ever seen that just focuses on salvation and the elements of salvation.

What exactly happens? And also defines those 25 cent Christian words, which nobody ever knows what they really mean. This book defines those words. And that's important to us because when we are either settling down in the tenets of our own salvation, or we're in the process of talking to somebody else, it's important to know the grace that's been provided for you. Sometimes you look at these words and they don't really have a lot of meaning, so that's why we're doing a whole course. Primarily what this course is, is a word study.

If you've looked at the book, it's a different word every week, every chapter. So, we started in last week on the first word, which was repentance. He probably couldn't have picked a better word to start with. For those of you who were here last week and were paying really close attention, what does repentance mean?

It means to have a change of mind, right? What doesn't it mean? It doesn't mean being sorry. What we talked at the end, does weeping and crying have anything to do with repentance? It can, right? It can be a result of it. But you have to look at repentance as only one thing, to have a change of mind. And as we talked about last week, is it necessary or is it an additional element to salvation? In other words, do you need to believe and repent in order to be saved? That's the big question. Repentance comes after believing.

What do you think about that? You can't really change your mind and your life without God's presence in you. Not very thoroughly, at any rate. Let's talk about, let's pick on your friend. who has an issue with alcohol. He needs to repent, doesn't he? Which means he needs to have a change of mind about what? Well, he probably already has that change of mind. His position with God. What's that? His position with God. Okay. Courtney? Who Christ is. Yeah. The repentance really has to do with changing your mind about who Jesus Christ is. Do you see that? That's the issue. Who is Jesus Christ?

When you study Acts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, when the apostles were going around in Jerusalem, Judea, spreading the gospel, you'll see in there that they kept presenting Jesus of Nazareth. Like we talked about last week, that's like saying Courtney from Commerce City. It wasn't a term that would ingratiate you. Nazareth was not Cherry Hills.

But the message was, you Jews need to change your mind about who Jesus Christ is. That's what repentance means. Lots of people have read Acts 2 and thought what Peter was really saying was they needed to repent about their sinning. If you look at the context, that's not what he says. He says you need to repent about Jesus Christ. Now, so back to what Bruce said. Do you believe first? Do you repent first? Are they included or are they separate acts? What are they? Well, you have to first know what you are repenting about. You have to have the information, don't you?

So, in the case of a Jew, What was the message that the Jews were to change their mind about Jesus Christ? What did they need to change about Him? They had just recently crucified Him. What was their opinion or their view of Him? They didn't like Him. He was a man. They didn't believe He was the Son of God. And they certainly didn't believe He was the Messiah of Israel, did they? So when Peter preaches, Jesus Christ, what is He preaching? Son of God, Messiah of Israel.

And you Jews need to change your mind about Him and who He is. Well, isn't that true today? If you're a non-believer and I present you with the Gospel, what am I really saying to you? I'm not asking you to do anything other than to change your mind about who Christ is. Who is He? What did He do? He paid the penalty for your sins. Well, if you don't know that you're a sinner, but let's say you discover that you are a sinner, what are you going to do about your sinfulness?

If you're a typical person walking down the street, you think your sinfulness isn't as bad as the guy sitting next to you, God's going to grade on the curve, God's going to grade on the curve, and so you're probably going to be okay. But that's not the Gospel message. The Gospel message is very clear. Christ died on the cross for your sins. He was buried and resurrected. and, you know, accept the Lord. Yeah. And it's like totally right.

You don't have to make any other changes. And that's, you know, I'm not worthy enough to do it. I'm not clean enough. I'm not going to get my act together first before I do this. And that's, you know, I have to go after God. There's simplicity in the message, simple faith in Christ is. Yeah, that's it. We try and put all this other stuff. Now we do. You've got to look this way, talk this way. that, and we complicate it. Yeah, we do complicate it.

We add so much to the salvation message, it doesn't need to be there. Like believing that we can change sin in our lives without relying on God first. Or, you know, I know a lot of people do that, which try to, oh wait, I really can't go to God because I've got this malady that keeps me from being worthy of being in His presence. what's going to give us the ability to overcome whatever that is, but the presence of God, you know.

But as far as the message, there's nothing you have to change except who Christ is. Well, in terms of the message, there's no change in the message. The change has got to be in my view of the message. Right. But who Christ is only. That's right. That's all it's about. Nothing else. I can be a drug and still be saved. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. No question about that.

The next word we're going to discuss is the word conversion, which you can be converted and still be lost. So, what's interesting about this word is that I could say, well, does sorrow accompany repentance? And the answer is sorrow in and of itself is not repentance. It may be associated with it.

But do you think, I mean, years ago I went down and taught some ladies in Parker. They were wonderful ladies. I stood up there one day when I was teaching this class and I said, now listen, I want a show of hands. I'll do it to you. I want a show of hands. Is God going to forgive this group on this side of the room faster than he's going to forgive this side of the room because these people are really sorry?

I'm sorry isn't an ethic if you don't follow it up with resolve and action. Sorry has nothing to do with repentance. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. When the definition is to change your mind, it has nothing to do with how sorry you are. As weeping, as, how about making resolutions? This side, boy, they wrote them down. put them in their pocket, they're not going to sin anymore. This group went, I'm not doing anything. That has nothing to do with repentance either. It may be involved in it, but it has nothing to do with it.

Or, how about penance? You do a couple spiritual push-ups and you're much more sincere than this group over here who didn't do the push-ups. So, the change of mind can include these things, but they are not part of the definition. You alright with that?

So when I say to you, you need to repent about the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm not asking you to be sorry. I'm not asking you to make resolutions. I don't want to see any tears or spiritual push-ups. What do I want? I want you to change your mind about who Christ is. And when we teach the grace class here, you talk about the word repentance. That's the big issue in the grace class. When we teach the grace class, what are we trying to do? We're trying to get you to repent about your mindset about what grace is.

Do you see that? If I can convince you that grace is God's unmerited and unlimited blessing towards you, full on all the time, based on what Christ did and not anything what you did, I've caused you to repent. You've changed your mind about grace. Holly? Can you repent about God first and work your way into Jesus? Repentance can be a lightning bolt, but it can also be a process.

I know that when I was led to the Lord, I had changed my mind about who Christ was in terms of salvation as a thing of eternity based on His provision, not my keeping the rules. It took me a while to get that whole mindset changed. And I think also that if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that you are saved, it'll take a while for the Spirit of God to educate you about dependency on Christ alone. That your efforts are not, you know, relevant at all.

So, and I think for believers, the biggest example of repentance is when you learn about grace. When you start to understand that grace has nothing to do with your effort, it has everything to do with what God has done. What do you do with grace? Those of you who have been in the grace class, here's a whole bunch of grace on the table. What does God want you to do with it?

He wants you to take it. You didn't earn it, you can't earn it, you never will earn it, and oh, by the way, you don't deserve it. Just take it. have a change of mind? Yes, it does. It's a severe change of mind. Because we're all too religious. You guys are all religious. You're always trying to do push-ups so that you're deserving. No, you're not. Not when it comes to grace. Let's look at some verses.

Matthew 3.2. Whoever gets there first gets to read it. So if I see somebody who got there and they're stalling, So what's he asking him to do? Just substitute, change your mind. Where the Kingdom of God is his hand. What's the change of mind he wants him to do? Who's the Kingdom of God? Yeah, who's the Kingdom of God? I should have said, what's the Kingdom of God? But who is the Kingdom of God? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's standing right in front of him. You see that? So he says, change your mind about who I am.

Acts 2.38.

By the way, who's he speaking to as we talked about in Matthew 3.2? What group of people? Jews alone. No Gentiles, just Jews.

Acts 2.38.

Then Peter said to them, repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Okay, here's Peter. Standing up in front of all those people that heard that noise of Pentecost and they come to investigate it and Peter stands up and begins to explain what they're seeing. And he says to them, repent. Who's he talking to?

Jews or Gentiles or both? Actually more Jews in that case than Gentiles. Because they were all in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. That was one of those mandatory feasts that they had to be there. Mostly Jews. I doubt that there were Gentiles there, but could have been.

Romans 2.4.

Somebody read it. Do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Who's he speaking to there? Gentiles, because it's a book of Romans and it's written to... Now notice the way, the phraseology in terms of what causes a person to repent in that verse. It's the goodness of God, right? I dare say we could keep that in mind, that the goodness of God is the thing that causes somebody to change their mind.

It's not the big stick, it's the goodness of God, okay? Acts 20, 21. evangelical work. It's evangelism. It's not the gospel. It's not your job to convict the Holy Spirit. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's important to know that. Yeah. All right. Acts 20, 21. Somebody read that. Two things there. Talking to Jews and Gentiles. He gave us two steps there, didn't he? Repentance towards God and faith towards Christ. So does that mean... Ooh, that sounds wonderful. So does that mean that salvation is a two-step process? Well, it might be simultaneous.

It might be simultaneous. What would repentance towards God be there? What would the change of your mind towards God be? Be a belief in His testimony, which is the gospel. That's right. You would change your mind about who God is and what He's done. And faith in Christ is what He's presented. You see that? Well, that's the testimony that we're being given. Yeah, that's right. Okay, one last one.

Revelation 3.19. Alright, who's he talking to there? Jews, Gentiles, or a new person? The church. He's talking to the church there. So the church is in a position where they should at some times change their mind. Change their mind. Now here's the $64 question. Ready? I don't have a prize for the one who comes up with the right answer. Has God ever changed his mind? No. Easy for you to say. Read Exodus 32, 9-14. He's going to wipe us out. Let's see what he says. It's kind of about Sodom and Gomorrah. No? It appears like he's changing his mind, so let's look at it. Exodus what? Exodus 32, 9-14. Alright, let me read it.

The Lord said to Moses, I have seen of this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation. Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God and said, Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt? with great power and with a mighty hand. Why should the Egyptians speak and say He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the desert, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people.

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars in heaven. In all this land that I have spoken of, I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. So the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would do to his people.

Sounds to me like God changed his mind. Okay, but that was before Christ. What does that matter? God's eternal. He made a promise to Abraham that he was going to make him a great nation, etc, etc. And he said, you know, now that we got this nation here called the Jews, they really upset me.

I'm going to blip them out. And you know what? Moses is going to start over with you. And Moses says, no, no, no. You know what? You made all these promises. You got to stick to your word. So what do you think? Did God change his mind? He knew Moses was going to say that. You know, Moses was going to say, well, you're tricking them, right? No, it's good. He didn't change his mind, did he? I see it kind of as a almost as a frustrated parent, because I know my parents probably get frustrated with me all the time. No, you think you're done? Yeah. The same concept.

I mean, God. had a master plan, he didn't change his mind on that. I think you just made an interesting point. God has a master plan, right? And when he puts something in play, the great thing about us as believers is to understand that when God says it, it's done. Let me give you a good example. In the Old Testament, God would make a promise to the people.

And in the Septuagint, that promise would be in the perfect tense. It would not be in the future tense. In other words, if I said to you, you know, if so and so, and I'm going to do such and such for you, you would say, well, that's the future tense, right? I'm going to do this.

But when God made a promise in the Old Testament, He always did it in the perfect tense. And what the perfect tense is, is a completed action in the past with abiding results in the future. So he said it in such a way that you can count on the promises I made as though they have already happened.

Now, it appears like God changes his mind, doesn't it? I mean, there's a whole school of theology now, coming out of Dutch Reform in Iowa, that says that God doesn't know the future. It's called Open Theism. So if you run into it, their premise is that God sort of observes and watches what happens in the events of mankind, and makes best guesstimates of what's going to happen in the future.

Isn't that scary? That's really scary. To add to this, let's look at Acts 15. Yeah, what actually did happen here? Do you think this is a test for Moses? What do you think? What do you think happened here in Exodus 32? It could be that. Could you say, well, you know, God was a little upset that day, and he was going to, you know... We need to see if God truly was, I mean, if Moses truly believed. Could have done that. Could have done that. Because it is, I mean, Moses goes on and on reinforcing what God had already said. Yeah.

And what's cool about these verses is that it shows you how informed Moses was about the promises made to Abraham. and how he looked at God and said, wait a minute, this isn't what I believe in. If you're going to change your mind, this isn't the God that I believe in. In other words, it's impossible for you to change your mind. Now, a couple of other verses help to answer the question.

In Numbers 23.19, God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent or change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good? Acts 15, 18.

Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Here's the thing about God, Jen, I think that maybe it will help you understand. Help me understand anyway. We think sequentially. Understand what I mean by that? I have this thought now, now I've got another thought, now I've got another thought, and I may forget the one that thought I had two minutes ago. You know, one of those curses of getting older.

God doesn't function that way. God has all knowledge in play right now. You see that? He does not think this event, this event, this event, this event. He has all knowledge in play right now. If that's true, then he can't repent. Understand what I'm saying? That he has made determinations based on his knowledge that is not time-restricted. It's eternal.

In play right now. And so, when you say that God is all-knowable or knows everything, it isn't that he just can click on his computer, go into the memory banks and draw these things. All of these things are in play all the time right now. Now, I don't know how that fits in my mind, but that's the best way for me to describe what omniscience means.

And that helps, I think, understand that God could say what he said in Exodus, and it would sound like he had changed his mind. If you are functioning in the now, all the time, with all knowledge, How do you change? You don't change. Because you're God, and you have all knowledge working all the time, well, not all the time, but at one time right now, there isn't any room for change, because there isn't any time.

Millau used to do a great job on eternity. How do you think of eternity? Stretched out forever? Is that how you look at it? Millau used to think of it this way, that it comes in, it doesn't go out. and everything comes into right now. And that's a better way to look at eternity. Because there's no time involved, but it's all in play right now. So if that's the case, there isn't a mind change in the future. These are the good old days. These are the good old days.

For a non-believer, would repentance come in for his or her salvation? Absolutely it would. Do you understand the question? For a non-believer, in order to be saved, does repentance have to be part of his agenda? I think so. I don't think you can be saved without changing your mind.

You can't believe part of what God said, so your behavior or whatever would naturally change when you become saved because you either believe what God says or you don't. And if you believe what God says, then you're going to care about those things in your life. I mean, you're going to abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. I mean, that's something that having a spirit inside of you will sort of just naturally make you want to do.

You either believe that or you don't. And if you believe him to the point of salvation, it's a whole package deal. You can't just I think God doesn't tell the truth some of the time. He's not gracious some of the time. Either this is true or it's not, and you can't get your big old thing to light out. I think that's the point.

Everybody in this room, like I said before, is religious. Like it or not, you're religious. And you always have thought at some point in your life there was something that you could do to enhance your standing with God, right? Coming out of Catholicism, boy, that's what the whole system's about.

It's the hope for reward and the fear of punishment. In order to be saved, you're betting your entire existence on the person and work of Christ, not anything you've done. And then, somebody explains to you what faith is, and that faith is a non-meritorious act. I don't get any credit for believing, but I get saved.

Is that a change of mind? I would think so. Because what's the world's definition of faith? How does the world define faith? If I believe it hard enough, it's probably going to come to pass. But that isn't a biblical view of faith. Faith is a belief in something that's already a fact. Do I change my mind about that in order to be saved? Yes! Jesus Christ is the Savior. He's not going to be. He is.

And I really do change my mind about what I thought I would contribute to my own salvation. I change my mind that I know that there's nothing I can do to contribute to it at all. Now, that's true of a non-believer. How about a believer? Can he repent? Yes? All right, give me an example. Do you think I'm just going to let you get by with yeah or no? Yes, they can. They can. Let me give you an example.

You're cruising along in your Christian life, right? And you know your sins have been paid for. Pretty happy about that, right? And you're struggling with sin a little bit, but somebody comes and introduces you to Romans 6, that your old man was crucified.

And you think, what the heck is that? So you study it, and you begin to discover that what God has put in place, not only has His Son died to pay the penalty for your sins, but He has replaced your sin nature with Himself. Are you going to buy that? Is it going to take a change of mind to buy that? Yes it is. Yes it is. For you to buy into identification truths takes a change of mind. So you become stronger and you fail. Well, yeah, because you have more information than you... Right.

You know, I mean, when you're cruising along in the Bible and it says, since you be risen with Christ, and you think, what does that mean? I'm still the same old slug walking around above dirt like I do every day. What do I mean? What does he mean by risen?

Takes a change of mind by that, doesn't it? Sometimes we don't recognize the sin in our lives, too, and we can, you know, nearly recognize something and go, ooh, and realize that it needs to go, and that would involve, I mean, that is an example of repentance. I think one of the biggest things that we discovered in the grace class we taught was the intensity with which God loved us, and the grace that's there overpoweringly all the time and it's almost like we can't handle it so we won't enter in. You know what I mean?

In other words, the news is way too good. It can't be that good. So I'm not even going to go there. There's going to be a mess up in there someplace. It takes a change of mind for you to let God full on grace you. Now granted, you have to study and learn and hang out and talk about it and all that kind of thing. But as this information comes to you, you either accept it or you reject it.

And you and I are not built to understand grace. I'll put it this way. When we came to Christ, we knew nothing about grace. And grace is one of those things that once you learn it, start to learn it, you learn it every day until the day you leave the planet. Every single day you're learning about grace.

And so when that begins to be the modus operandi of your life, it isn't so much, I'm saved from being a really bad guy. It's more, I've changed my mind about this. I know that I'm bad, but I expect God to bless me. That's a different mindset. And so I'm going to accept his blessing. I'm going to let him do it. Yes, that's right. He loved me first. I'm supposed to love God with all my heart, my mind, my soul. Right? It's the greatest of commandments. But then I discover He loved me first. And that's why I love Him. Change of mind? Sure it is. Sure it is.

Because someone told me I should love Him, and now I discover What he wants of me is a response to his love, not an initiation of love. So believers, I think, repent all the time. As you learn, you change your mind. Your mind gets changed about all kinds of stuff. For a believer, would you agree with the following statement? Repentance is mostly an exhortation. to someone who is positionally separated but not living that way.

You understand what I'm saying? Maybe I better explain the question. Who should I pick on? How about you? So I come to you and I start to talk to you about position. And you've come to me and we've talked about, you know, you've been speeding and you want to stop speeding because it's sinful. So I say to you, rather than you let up on the gas pedal, let me explain to you who you are in Christ. That you are a brand new creature, and I begin to change your mind. So your focus goes off of the issue of speeding or not speeding, and the desire to be pleasing to your Lord no matter what it is.

You don't care. Pick any subject like that. You learn and your mind gets changed because you have discovered your position in Christ. You see that? I think rather than being an exhortation, it's more of a manifestation. How do you mean? Repentance is more of a manifestation of Christ's presence within us You know, I mean, and it happens more and more the more open we are to Him, like you're talking about, like, you know, I'm not going to focus on my individual sins.

I'm going to focus on my God and His gift to me and the fact that I am to be His person. I mean, I'm not my own, I'm His. And so I need to live according to what makes Him happy. And so I think that repentance as a manifestation of his presence in us. She's just sort of been to my next question. The question is, who's the author and initiator of repentance? Which person?

It's the Holy Spirit. Have you not experienced in your life, not that anecdotal evidence, is the final evidence. Have you not experienced the Holy Spirit changing your mind about something? All the time. That's part of what He does. He's here to reveal Christ to the believer. And as He does that, you change your mind. You change your mind about a whole host of things, about His person and His character.

Yeah, free will. Choose to change it. It's sort of there that you can choose whether or not you're going to accept it. Here's what's interesting about free will. Free will is an interesting concept because if you buy into the concept of free will, it means that everything in the Garden of Eden fell except my will. I have the ability to choose, right? Do I have free choices?

How about a non-believer? Does he have a choice not to sin? What do you think? He can choose which sin, but he can't choose not to sin. And the reason he can't is because he has a sin nature that dominates him, and no matter how hard he tries, he's going to sin. As a matter of fact, Paul says, the harder I try, the worse it gets. So what's the choice really about?

Is it about activity? Is my will engaged in implementing the life, or what's it engaged in? It's engaged in whether I'm going to believe or not. Do you see that? I use my will to believe. I discover information. My goodness, I am not a slave to sin anymore. Why? Because I've discovered in the Word of God what God did about my slavery. I choose to believe Him. That's my choice. I don't choose to implement it. God already did that. I choose to believe.

It's the same thing with growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're growing in understanding what that position is and how that, in repentance, affects our condition. Things change as a result of that growth, not changing to growth. Sometimes it's painful because we're stubborn, and other times The Lord is so gracious to us that we have a different mindset about something that's just different. I think the first one that I discovered is that I love Christians. I didn't like them before I was saved. I didn't want to be around them. They were weird people. But now, how did my mind get changed? How did I repent about that? Because you believed. Because I believed and I have the life in me now, like you do. And so, wow, that's kind of cool. It makes an automatic communication and acceptance. Yeah, we couldn't communicate before. And I thought you were the dummy.

So if the Holy Spirit through whom true repentance is accomplished, then what is the means by which he accomplishes it? How does the Holy Spirit get you to change your mind about things? Come on, easy question. By repentance. How does he get you to repent? By consequences. Consequences? Revealing what? What's the main tool he uses?

Right there. It's the Word of God. The Holy Spirit works through the Word of God. That's the number one thing. He always shows you in the Word what he's about and what the truth is regarding the Lord Jesus Christ or your position or condition or lack thereof. So he never gets away from the cross and he never gets away from the word. Never. And a good example of this, I can probably finish this up.

In 1 Corinthians 7-8, Paul writes the second letter to the Corinthians and he really would bang them hard on the first one. So in the second one he said, for though I cause you to sorrow by my letter, I don't regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that the letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while. I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us." There are times that the chastisement of the Lord will make you sorrowful, primarily to get you to change your mind about some circumstance.

So last question. Repentance and faith issue are revisiting. Are repentance and faith two separate acts required for salvation? Are they or aren't they? Two separate acts that are required for salvation. I think they're unified. They go together. Yeah, I think that's right. They are not two separate acts, but repentance is included in faith.

Do you see why? You would not believe what you believe unless you had a change of mind. You can't do one without the other. Maybe that's a better way to say it. say though, you repent, you change your mind towards God and you have faith in Jesus Christ, so it's kind of the same but kind of different. Yeah.

If you keep in mind that repentance only means a change of mind, you've changed your mind about how you're going to be saved, what Christ did on the cross, who God is, all of those things, and then you believe the Gospel. In order to believe the Gospel, you have to have a change of mind. Because if you believe the Gospel for your salvation, you had to change because you were working really hard to save your own self before then, weren't you not? Next week we'll talk about conversion, so read up.

Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word. We thank you for your grace and the fact that you constantly are moving towards us to have our minds and our thoughts be as your minds and thoughts are about everything. Father, we thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.