I don’t know the exact story, but I heard that during 911 (nine-eleven), a woman convinced a large group of people to go up to the roof of the building by insisting that no one could make it down the stairs. However, two men, that didn’t take her word for it, did make it through a small opening and lived to testify about it.
In the same way we can be taken captive by philosophy (Colossians 2:8) and led away by the error of people who do not know what they are talking about (2 Peter 3:17).
For example, did you know that Christians can “fall away from grace” (Galatians 5:4)? Check and see what your Bible says. There is one quote that I have heard over and over for the past twenty years; “I didn’t know that.” God’s people experience destruction in their lives because they don’t know something and not because we face a big old mean devil (Hosea 4:6).
If I asked a thousand Christians today if we could fall away from grace, I would not expect to get one right answer in accordance with what is written even in the Bible they are using. Why? We have been taken captive by philosophy. Someone we have trusted for years has taught us that we can’t even miss grace, and so that is our attitude; it’s our viewpoint. We didn’t ask questions because we didn’t “figure” we needed to, but the Bible also says that we can miss grace (Hebrews 12:15). I don’t know how many sermons I have heard on grace over the past twenty years, but none of them were in line with scripture. Do a word search on grace and read it for yourself.
Christian philosophy is an attitude, a viewpoint, and a way of reasoning, but when the information is off, it can be deadly. Comparing human wisdom to the Word of God is like comparing chaff and wheat (Jeremiah 23:28); at least God’s thinks so (Luke 16:15, 1 Corinthians 3:19).
How can we fall away from grace? Get this! The church attending people today who try to obey Moses (the Laws of Moses) after accepting Christ Jesus as Lord are in danger of falling away from grace. Read the verse below before you speak against them or me. I’m including the NKJV, and the Amplified.
Galatians 5:4-5
4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. NKJV
Galatians 5:4
4 If you seek to be justified and declared righteous and to be given a right standing with God through the Law, you are brought to nothing and so separated (severed) from Christ. You have fallen away from grace (from God’s gracious favor and unmerited blessing). AMP
We who are in Christ, die to the Law in order that we may serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way (Romans 7:4-6). No one will be declared righteous by observing the Law (Romans 3:19), but righteousness is still a requirement (Matthew 5:20). Check that verse. It can only come through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21-26), and faith in Jesus Christ will produce love (Galatians 5:5-6), and love makes us share with our Brothers in need (1 John 3:16-19). Check it!
You might say that you are not under the Law, but if you are not under the Laws of Moses, how is it that you tithe in accordance with the Laws of Moses (Hebrews 7:5)? Tell me this. If this one verse comes true (Romans 4:14), will anyone who does not die to the Laws of Moses make it?
Romans 4:14
14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, NKJV
Romans 4:14
14 If it is the adherents of the Law who are to be the heirs, then faith is made futile and empty of all meaning and the promise [of God] is made void (is annulled and has no power). AMP
It is only through faith that we “gain access” into grace (Romans 5:2). So far, that’s three verses on grace that you have never heard on Sunday morning. Imagine that.
Christ is the end of the Law for those who believe (Romans 10:4). In fact, the King James, New King James, Amplified Bible and any other older Bible says that those who do not teach in accordance with godly edification, which is by faith with the command of love (1 Timothy 1:4-5), but continue to require that people remain under the Law, have no understanding (1 Timothy 1:7). Imagine listening to someone for years and his own Bible says that he doesn’t have any understanding.
The Law is “not made” for the righteous (1 Timothy 1:9), but yet we follow right along without even the slightest chirp. They rob God and yet preach that you rob God of His tithe. Read this passage of scripture and notice we die to the Law, and notice the verse on grace for those who don’t (verse 21 below).
Galatians 2:15-21
15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
17 “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” NKJV
If we rebuild what was destroyed we make ourselves a transgressor (verse 18 above). What are you building? Learn more about Law and how is connected to our ability to stop sinning in my book “How To Stop Sinning.” I’m Alan Ballou; a servant. If you have any questions or if you have a verse that you think I have violated, please send it. There are a lot of things that every Christian should know and it doesn’t hurt to ask.
http://www.howtostopsinning.com
