Are You Saved #4

Last time we were saying that some people mistakenly believe that they are saved because at one time in their life they prayed the SINNER’S PRAYER

Now, some people who have prayed the sinner’s prayer will be genuinely saved, but some are not, some have become false converts and mistakenly believe they are saved

Salvation is not the result of a decision that we make to accept Jesus; salvation is the result of God’s sovereign decision to save us

Romans 8: 30 ‘Having chosen us, He called us to come to Him; Those He called, He made right with Himself’ TLB NIRV NLV

This time I want to talk about those people who mistakenly believe that they are saved because they FEEL saved

Let’s talk about feelings versus truth

The unbelieving world considers how we feel about something to be more important than the truth

Illustration: one of the ‘hot topics’ at the moment in the unbelieving world is gender identity

In preparing for this Message, I was browsing the web site of the American Psychiatric Association

The American Psychiatric Association says that someone can decide their own gender identity according to how they feel, despite being born a male or a female

They call this Gender Dysphoria

They say that Gender Dysphoria is “A strong desire (feeling) to be of the other gender or an insistence (feeling) that one is the other gender”

This ‘hot topic’ of gender identity is promoted by the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer + (LGBTQ+) ‘Community’

Ever wondered what the + means?

+ Pansexual = sexually attracted to male and female + Agender = self identifies as neither male or female + Bigender = self identifies as both male and female at the same time

Today there are even Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer + ‘Churches’ that claim to be Christian

Q Christian Fellowship of Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. says, ‘We are a rich plurality of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, intersex, questioning, queer, asexual, pansexual, polyamorous, and minority Christians’.

To the LGBTQ+ so-called ‘Christians’, feelings are more important to them than the truth, they mistakenly believe they are saved because they feel saved

And they excuse their homosexual behavior by attacking the truth – the Word of God

Example: They claim that the word ‘homosexual’ was only used in the Bible after 1945 as a way to discriminate against them

Now, it is true that the word ‘homosexual’ wasn’t used in Bible Versions before 1945; instead, these Bible Versions used other words that meant the same thing to condemn homosexual behavior like, 1 Timothy 1: 10 ‘those that defile themselves with Mankind’

The truth is, we are all made in the image of God male and female

Genesis 1: 27 ‘God created human beings in His own image…male and female He created them’.

Male gender identity is determined by the XY chromosome

Female gender identity is determined by the XX chromosome

It doesn’t matter how you feel about that, you were created by God either male or female

This whole thing about feelings being more important than the truth began when Adam and Eve sinned against God

Genesis 2:15-17 ‘The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

Genesis 3: 6 ‘She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her’

Adam and Eve rejected the truth of God’s Word in favor of their feelings

Now, let me give to a modern-day example of exactly the same thing

In 2006, Ted Haggard was the Pastor of the 14, 000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S.A

He was also the President of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals in America

Ted Haggard was married but he also had a gay lover and was also paying for a male prostitute

He is quoted as saying, that he did not believe the Word of God prohibited homosexual behavior and that, “you can be a man of God and have a bit of fun on the side”

In 2006 he got found out and was forced to resign as the Pastor of the Church but shortly after started a new Church which he continues to Pastor today

In a 2009 documentary called ‘The Trials Of Ted Haggard’ Ted was being interviewed and happily talked about how he invited a practicing witch to lead the Home-Group Bible study

Just like Adam and Eve, Ted Haggard rejects the truth of God’s Word in favor of his feelings

I wonder if Ted Haggard has ever read in the Word of God where it says,

1 Timothy 3: 2 ‘a church leader must be a man whose life is above reproach. He must be faithful to his wife. He must exercise self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation’.

Dear friends, our feelings do not determine what is true

God’s Word is our standard for knowing the truth about salvation, not our feelings – we cannot claim to be saved because we feel saved

Romans 10: 3 ‘They don’t understand God’s way of making people right with Himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God’

So, what is ‘God’s way of making people right with Himself’?

Our salvation begins with God’s sovereign decision to save us and call us to Christ

Romans 8: 30 ‘Having chosen us, He called us to come to Him; Those He called, He made right with Himself’ TLB NIRV NLV

If God is sovereign in our salvation, then what is our response to His call?

Romans 10: 9 ‘if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’.