Lordship Salvation is Satan's Stairway To Heaven

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Today, we're talking about Satan's stairway to heaven.
Colossians chapter 1 verse 27, To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
Be careful what and who you believe.
Some make up doctrine, and some misapply doctrine.
The made-up doctrines are not found anywhere in Scripture.
And then we have others who take Scripture out of context, Scripture written to and about Israel, and try to apply it to the Ephesians 1 church, which is his body.
They've built their own private plan of salvation, one that comes with a stairway, a stairway to heaven.
But it doesn't go up.
No matter how hard you pry, you struggle, you push, you pull, you twist, turn, or whatever, it's never good enough.
You fall short every time.
We're here to wake you up, feeding you the information that will get you off the stairway of works.
Satan's stairway to heaven is a stairway to hell.
This lordship salvation is nothing but a leaven of hypocrisy, works-based, legalistic.
It's a performance system, a system that has changed Christianity into selfianity.
And this group of selfians do nothing but pervert the truth, adding works with faith for salvation.
And the confusing thing is, now listen closely, the confusing thing is, works added to faith for salvation is in the Bible.
But these legalistic lordshippers don't know how to rightly divide that part of the Bible from the part that tells us today that we are saved by faith without works.
They fail to do so, and they fail to tell you that salvation today is by faith alone in Christ alone in his finished cross-work, which is also in the Bible.
We know there's a solution to the supposed conundrum.
The answer is to simply rightly divide the word of truth.
When we divide Israel's national truth from our individual truth, the individual members that make up the church, the body, well, we quickly discover that we're saved by faith apart from works.
Our salvation does not come with a maintenance plan.
These modern-day enemies of the cross have made the cross of Christ of none effect.
They've tainted the gospel by including the work of water baptism, the work of confessing sins, asking for forgiveness, repenting of sins, church membership, church attendance, tithing, good deeds.
Some include the work of praying a prayer to be saved.
Others say you have to live it to be saved.
The implication is salvation is based on how well you live your life, as if you could possibly live good enough.
Hey, if you could live good enough, Christ wouldn't have had to die.
They'll tell you you must live a faithful life to be saved.
You've got to overcome and endure until the end.
And of course you won't know if you're saved until then, until the end.
Just cross your fingers and hope for the best, which is nothing more than religious superstition.
You've got to earn it.
If at the end of your life your good works outweigh your bad, then abracadabra, click your heels three times and heaven's door will magically open for you.
You see, they've missed Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, that among many other verses.
But, here we have clear words that tell you what salvation is not.
And if salvation is not of yourselves, and every one of these things are about self, then all of these things are false ways of salvation.
All of these things that include you.
These false ways of salvation many times leads to doubt, confusion, depression.
And on the other side of the coin you've got the religious prideful do-gooders that, well, they've become self-righteous thinking that they've reached super-saint status, and God is pleased with them for basically spitting on the cross and trying to get to heaven by their own merits.
Paul said, In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.
Why not, Paul?
Hey, you've got to get with the program.
You're not watching the TV preachers, Paul.
Why can't we preach about ourselves?
Because salvation is, quote, Not of yourselves.
You see how this works?
Getting sins forgiven is not of ourselves, and neither is salvation of ourselves.
No work is involved in either one.
And scripture says if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
You need to get off Satan's stairway to heaven.
Now this can be hard to digest.
We see these who are doing good things.
They look and sound like what we've been taught Christians are supposed to sound like.
But they're doing these things, these good deeds, for all the wrong reasons.
Doing good to be saved or to stay saved instead of doing good because they are saved.
Working for salvation instead of working from salvation.
And as long as they continue on Satan's stairway to heaven, they'll remain lost.
Oh, they might look good to the naked eye, but they're just religious and lost.
In church or out of church makes no difference.
There are those going to heaven from a barstool and those going to hell from a church pew.
Wouldn't miss church for the Super Bowl, but are still trusting in something they did or are doing to save themselves.
So sad.
They've got the tail wagging the dog, and that dog won't hunt.
You can give away all your money, feed the homeless, say three Hail Marys a day, confess your sins, go to church every time the door is open.
But if you're working for salvation instead of from salvation, you're Romans 10:3 trying to establish your own righteousness, and you will not, listen, you will not be saved until you give up on self and submit to the righteousness of God.
God manifest in the flesh, the Son, S-O-N.
He did the work necessary for your never-dying soul's salvation, and faith in him and that alone, apart from even one of your filthy rags' works, hey, that's your only hope.
If you keep working for it, you'll remain a whited sepulcher, one that appears on the outside to be so beautiful, but inside you're just full of dead men's bones.
Galatians 4:16, Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
Today we're talking about Satan's stairway to heaven, a stairway prepared by the lordship legalist.
They appear good on the outside, and they appeal to your ego.
They'll have you jumping through hoops for salvation.
And it doesn't matter how small the hoop, if it includes you doing anything other than believing the gospel for your salvation, it's false.
I had a book store encounter with a bona fide proud legalist.
He read a card that I gave him, and said, Praise the Lord, I'm a Bible teacher also.
We were standing there, and he read the part of the card that speaks on salvation, and
he said, I believe salvation is by grace too.
So we stood and talked for a bit, and it didn't take long to see that he really did not believe in salvation by grace.
You see, many say they believe in salvation by grace, but it's a watered-down version of grace.
It's man-made.
Salvation by grace means unearned salvation, unmerited salvation, salvation minus self.
No selfians allowed, Christianity not twisty-anity.
And while people give it lip service, most don't really believe it.
Most know 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 to 4, but most don't believe 1 Corinthians 15:1 through 4.
They say, Oh, I know Christ died for my sins. He was buried and rose again.
To that I say, But do you believe it?
And as we stand and talk a little bit, it doesn't take long to find out and to separate who knows it from those who believe it, those who trust it, those who place their trust in the finished cross-work of Christ, those who rest their faith in that alone.
And that's the hard part.
That's where the feathers get ruffled.
When you take man and his performance out of the equation, which is exactly what I did to the bookstore guy, that's when the trouble starts.
I reminded him that on this side of the finished cross-work of Christ, concerning salvation, there are no more sins to be forgiven because they already are.
Christ did it all.
His performance, not mine, his performance was perfect, and God was satisfied.
Well, He said, Oh, no, I have to ask God to forgive me every day.
You got to ask for his forgiveness.
He simply couldn't digest the fact that saved people would not ask for forgiveness for their sins.
Saved people trust that Christ died for their sins.
He brought up 1 John 1:9.
Well, I had to first show him that his claim didn't even match the verse.
Nowhere in the verse does it say to ask for forgiveness, a truth that almost no one knows
until you point it out to them.
Mama said, daddy said, preacher said, so surely that's what it says.
But it doesn't.
So I read the verse to him, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Then I said, Where does it say to ask for forgiveness?
You see, after hearing something taught wrong for so long, the wrong becomes right to you.
And while I do know 1 John 1:9 is not even written to us, the Church, the Body of Christ, its specific instructions written to national Israel, but I didn't even want to go there with this guy.
I didn't have to.
I showed him the error he's been taught by demonstrating that the denominational religious system don't even know how to teach a wrong thing right.
I mean, if you're going to wrongly believe that 1 John 1:9 was written to you and claim to follow what it says, it would be real nice if you actually knew what it said, would it not?
There was an awkward period of silence as I watched him stare at the verse, trying to figure out where it says to ask anything.
And he stared, and he stared, as if the longer he stared the verse would eventually change and say what he thought it said.
You see, confessing and asking are spelled different for a good reason.
They're different.
The verse is dealing with Israel on a national level.
It fits rather nicely, too, by the way, with Matthew 3, there when John the Baptist came on the scene.
Most of you know the verse.
In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent
ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And if you drop down to verse 6 there it says, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
That's 1 John 1:9.
The confessing of sins as a part of salvation is always dealing with Israel and not us, the church which is his body.
A good question we must ask, how many times?
Come on, I need some Bible scholars, some real students of the word, how many times in Paul's letters, he wrote 13, how many times in those letters, those 13 letters which make up most of the New Testament, how many times does he tell us to confess our sins to get them forgiven?
How many times?
13 letters in all, but in not even one does he tell us to confess our sins to be forgiven.
This is surprising to most people.
But people blindly take one scripture written to Israel, 1 John 1:9, that doesn't even say to ask for forgiveness, it says to confess your sins, and they misapply that to the church which is his body.
Hey listen, sin is such an important issue, God hates it.
It's so important you'd think that if confessing sins for forgiveness was something we're to do, Paul would have definitely told us, right?
But he didn't.
To the contrary.
Paul tells us that God is no longer even imputing sins, 2 Corinthians 5:19.
So ,if there's no sin in my account, no sin that's imputed, what sin do I confess?
What sin do I, quote, Ask forgiveness for?
The good news that we're told is that Christ took our sins, 2 Corinthians 5:21.
The sins were placed on him, and that we've been forgiven all sins, Colossians 2:13.
If our sins were put on Christ, and we've been forgiven of all of them, what sins would
we ask forgiveness for?
And right about here is where the religious unsaved say, Well if you believe that, then you believe you can just do whatever you want.
Bingo!
Correct.
We have ourselves a winner.
But my wants have been changed.
Doesn't mean I won't sin, just means I don't want to sin.
My spirit man now wants and desires to please God.
And I'm not always successful in that.
I fail at times, and so do you.
God deals with each of us on an individual basis, and we all have our own unique walk in Christ.
We're daily growing in his grace and knowledge.
Some may struggle with a sin issue longer than another, but we're all still saved and in the body of Christ.
And you know, some may never be able to stop a certain sin.
It may be a continuous struggle for the rest of your life.
And that can affect our day-to-day state while here in this walk of life, but it does not affect our eternal position that we have by grace through faith in Christ.
There's a lot of uncertainty in this old world, but that's a place of security.
We're secure in him, in Christ.
Now I may suffer loss of reward when I get to the judgment seat, but I cannot suffer loss of my eternal life that I have in Christ.
And that, my friend, is simply something the legalistic lordshippers don't understand.
They don't divide one from another.
They think we who teach grace promote sin.
No, you're the one that teaches that all you have to do when you sin is go ask forgiveness for it.
So it's you we've got to watch out for.
God's grace has never taught anyone with arms wide open to just welcome in a sinful lifestyle.
No, the grace of God that bringeth salvation teaches us how to deny ungodliness and worldly lust.
How to live soberly, righteously, and Godly in this present world. Titus 2:11.
We're the ones that says God hates sin, and He hates it so much that you saying some words you asking Him to forgive them isn't good enough.
Sins can only be taken care of by a death, the death of a perfect son.
Bloodshed, not words.
Your words, your confessing, your asking, your praying, your crying crocodile tears, hey, that won't save you.
That won't get your sins forgiven.
Your sins are already forgiven, and they were forgiven by the perfect son who shed his blood on Calvary's cross.
The payment for sin was bloodshed.
So, back to my bookstore encounter, I continued my conversation with this gentleman, and I said, you ever heard the song, What Can Wash Away My Sins, and about that time he chimed in, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I said, yeah, yeah, that one.
He said, oh, yeah, we sing that all the time at church.
I said, well, tell me then, how can it be both?
He said, both what?
I said, how can it be what can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus, while at the same time be what can wash away my sins, asking for his forgiveness?
I thought it was nothing but the blood.
Crickets, more awkward silence.
You see, it's either nothing but the blood, or it's the blood plus something.
I thought nothing but the blood meant nothing but the blood.
Religion sure has done a number on things.
You need to get off Satan's stairway to heaven.
It won't lead you to your desired destination.
I'm happy to be a politically incorrect minister of reconciliation.
Be careful of those who walk according to the course of this world.
They'll have you believing that salvation comes to those who work for it, those who
merit it, to those who overcome, endure unto the end, to those who at the end of their life their good deeds outweigh their bad.
They'll have you busy confessing your sins to get them forgiven, and you'll not have time to serve anyone.
As long as you're using 1 John 1:9 as a bar of soap, you'll never get out of the shower.
You won't have time to spread the good news.
As long as you're busy keeping a short sin account with God, you won't have time to minister reconciliation as you're told to do.
A minister of reconciliation does not go to the world telling them ways to get their sins forgiven.
A minister of reconciliation tells them their sins are already forgiven, that God is not counting their sins against them.
He stopped doing that at Calvary almost 2,000 years ago.
But it's Satan's ministers of righteousness who have done a fantastic job veiling this liberating truth.
I'm no longer amazed at how many people, after hearing me teach on 2 Corinthians chapter 5, have
come up to me and made the confession that they've never heard about the ministry of reconciliation.
They've never heard verse 19 that speaks of the finished crosswork and that God is no longer imputing sins to anyone's account.
They've never heard verse 21 that the reason he's not imputing sins to anyone's account is because he imputed them onto his Son.
They've never heard this.
Where are the ministers of reconciliation?
Satan's religious do-gooders have overshadowed this good news for far too long by spewing their look-at-me, look-at-me selfianity that takes a marker and marks through the words not of yourselves.
Found in Ephesians 2 verse 8.
They mark it out and act as if it never existed.
There, the question of how to be saved is spelled out with great simplicity.
It says, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
Salvation is not of yourself.
Not of yourself.
Get this today.
Anything you can do, just fill in the blank, anything that you add will make your salvation
of none effect.
You will walk this walk thinking you're saved, but you're really just religious and lost.
You look the part, but you're a counterfeit.
You may talk the talk, but you're a counterfeit.
I can't do enough good to earn it.
That's the attitude of a saved person, one who has put their full trust in the person of Jesus Christ and his finished crosswork, that he went to the cross, died for your sins, was buried, and then resurrected on the third day.
Rest in that truth.
That alone is all that can save you today.
And anyone preaching otherwise, they don't have it.
Satan has their mind off the cross and in the mirror.
Listen, I walk in newness of life and not on eggshells.
To walk in newness of life is to walk fearless in Christ.
It's easy to do good works because you have no fear.
I don't fear losing my salvation, and I don't fear losing friends for telling them the truth.
In Christ, there is no condemnation.
That's not no condemnation from man.
That's no condemnation from God.
Men can condemn me all day every day, and all I'm going to do is rear back and yawn real big and keep resting in his finished crosswork.
We're called to not walk in craftiness, to not handle the word of God deceitfully, but to study and to rightly divide his word of truth.
We're to walk uprightly according to the truth of Paul's gospel.
Paul exhorts us in the fifth chapter of Ephesians to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.
To walk circumspectly is to be very attentive to our surroundings, to recognize the false doctrines swirling around.
Those false doctrines are dangerous and have been known to subvert whole houses.
In Philippians chapter 3 Paul says this, Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk, so as ye have us for an ensample, for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.
Some enemies of the cross are behind pulpits.
They teach works for salvation, not works after you're saved, hey, we teach that, but works to be saved, and works to stay saved.
Those that teach that may wear a nice suit, they may come from a quote, Good family, smile real big and deliver speeches that drip with honey, but God calls them enemies of the cross.
The message of the cross is the only valid message for salvation today.
It's a narrow way, and it's so narrow that your works won't fit.
Ephesians 2:8, Salvation is not of yourself, not of works, but they teach it is.
They're enemies of the cross.
They give lip service to the cross of Christ, but they do not think it is enough by itself
to save anyone.
So they add human effort to it, and God calls them enemies of the cross for doing so.
Teaching false doctrine is a serious thing, so serious that it needs to be dealt with swiftly.
Titus 1:11, Paul said, whose mouths must be stopped, whose subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.
Those mixing works with faith for salvation, they're everywhere from the corner denominational
church to the Bible seminaries and plastered all over your television.
Titus 3:5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.
And verse 7 says that we are justified by his grace.
And Paul goes on to say, This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
Are works a bad thing?
No, they're good and profitable.
We just read it.
Your works will profit you when you appear at the judgment seat of Christ.
But don't put the cart before the horse.
As religion teaches, they have the tail wagging the dog.
Works come after salvation, not before.
The Spirit sealed you at the moment you were saved.
You were baptized by the Spirit into the body.
Paul plainly tells us why we do need good works.
Titus 3:14, learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that we be not unfruitful.
So do we do as the legalists tell us?
Do we maintain good works to stay saved?
No.
We just read it.
We maintain good works to be fruitful.
Saved people can be fruitful, but being fruitful won't save.
Cart before horse.
Perhaps the legalist doesn't read his Bible.
Or he does, and he's just a deceitful worker.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 15, Paul warns us of ministers of Satan.
Today, they're behind pulpits on radio, television, and internet.
They author books, write Bible commentaries, and hold large conferences.
Paul, speaking of Satan, said, Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose ends shall be according to their works.
I close today by asking you to examine yourself.
And if you've been deceived by this strong delusion, repent.
Change your mind.
It's not too late to get off of Satan's stairway to heaven.
It's a counterfeit way of salvation that leads to hell.
Listen.
You only get two educations.
The one you're given, and the one you give yourself.
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold.
And she's buying this stairway to heaven.