There's Denial In Our Sinful Human Nature

By David J. Stewart | October 2014

Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

       It's in our human sinful nature to deny our own wrong doing. We are all guilty of this sin. For example: At one time or another we've all subtly said, “I'm not gossiping about so-and-so, but,” and then we gossip, gossip, gossip! This element of denial is part of our human nature and it's been around since the beginning of mankind. Eve was in denial as she rationalized in her own mind the reasons why disobeying God would be a good thing. When Adam sinned he went and sewed fig leaves together to cover himself, being in denial about his sin. When Cain killed Abel, he was in denial about where he left his brother's dead corpse, whom he had just murdered in envy. The human race began in denial of sin, and it continues today 6,000 years later.

We read about the Old Testament Jews being in denial about their sins. Jeremiah 7:9-10, “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?” They literally claimed that it was God's will for them to commit all those horrible sins. We see this still today in many professed churches, who bring the sins of abortion, idolatry and homosexuality into the house of God and say that it is God's will. It is wickedness!

Here's an eye-opening article that you may want to read titled, “Unethical Rationalizations and Misconceptions” (this article provides dozens of common rationalizations used for hurting other people). Here are the first five rationalizations (excuses) that people commonly use to justify wrong doing in their own mind:

  1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it”
  2. The “They’re Just as Bad” Excuse, or “They had it coming”
  3. Consequentialism, or “It Worked Out for the Best”
  4. Marion Barry’s Misdirection, or “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical.”
  5. The Compliance Dodge, or “I'm just doing my job.”

We live in a dishonest society in the United States, in which shady contracts (full of legal bombshells) are written by crooked lawyers for greedy businesses. This is now the norm. Insurance company policies are as crooked as a dog's hind leg, full of loopholes and exemptions to deny someone's claim for losses. Many people have commit suicide because of unethical homeowner insurance companies, or died while waiting for their health insurance company to honor their claim. America's judges are so crooked that they'll have to be screwed into the ground when they die. America has become a nation without morality, because we have forgotten the God of the Holy Bible. Deuteronomy 6:12a, “Then beware lest thou forget the LORD...”
 

In Denial About the Gift of Eternal Life

Likewise, many people are in denial about the plan of salvation. It is in our sinful human nature to always try to save ourselves, which is why Adam went and sewed fig-leaves together. Also, Cain brought the best grain from his field that he had to offer. Man by nature wants to have a part in his own salvation; but God will not tolerate even the slightest bit of human effort! In fact, this is why God killed a man for merely gathering some sticks on the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath Day was a type (spiritual picture) of the Lord in Whom we completely rest for salvation. By picking up sticks on the Sabbath Day, it pictured adding human effort to the plan of salvation. This is why God had that man killed, to let the world know that HE WILL NOT TOLERATE HUMAN EFFORT IN THE PLAN OF SALVATION!!!

All of these preceding unsaved religious groups are in utter denial. Salvation is 100% of the Lord. Since proponents (supporters) of Lordship Salvation knows that it is wrong to add works to the plan of salvation, they start out by subtly saying, “Eternal life is a free gift from God which cannot be earned.” So far, so good; but then they will say something like, “but you also have to have works,” or as Dr. John MacArthur states in his heretical book titled, “Hard To Believe”...

Don’t believe anyone who says it’s easy to become a Christian. Salvation for sinners cost God His own Son; it cost God’s Son His life, and it’ll cost you the same thing. Salvation isn’t gained by reciting mere words. Saving faith transforms the heart, and that in turn transforms behavior. Faith’s fruit is seen in actions, not intentions. There’s no room for passive spectators: words without actions are empty and futile. Remember that what John saw in his vision of judgment was a Book of Life, not a book of Words or Book of Intellectual Musings. The life we live, not the words we speak, reveals whether our faith is authentic. [emphasis added]

SOURCE: Dr. John MacArthur, Grace To You, an updated quote from his book 'Hard To Believe', page 93.

MacArthur is a tricky false prophet who has corrupted the simplicity that is in Christ. According to Mr. MacArthur, if a person truly gets saved, then their life will drastically transform to authenticate their faith, otherwise he says they're not really saved. So it's a Catch 22 situation (that is, either way works are required for salvation). The fact that MacArthur says it is not easy to become a Christian clearly reveals that he is adding the human effort of one's changed behavior as a necessary requirement to authenticate (validate) one's faith. This is a 100% works-based plan of salvation. MacArthur has it all WRONG!

The truth of the matter from the Bible is that it is very easy to be saved. So easy in fact that 3,000 people were saved in just one day in Acts 2:41. Amen! Your faith is authenticated the very second that you place your faith in Christ. Biblically, you simply believe that Christ died on the cross for your sins, was buried, and rose up; and you're saved! It's that simple. You are now born again, born into the family of God by the Holy Spirit Who has come to indwell (live inside) your body forever.

Dr. Ray Stanford (1917-2012) provides the following excellent rebuttal of the heresy of Lordship Salvation in his classic book titled, “Handbook of Personal Evangelism.” Dr. Stanford explains the deceptive nature of false prophets...

Just as you receive the Saviour by faith and He becomes YOUR Saviour, when you allow Christ to control your life, He becomes YOUR LORD. There is an increasing number of "evangelicals" today who are preaching that in order for a man to be saved he must not only receive Christ as his Saviour, but also must make Him absolute Lord and Master of his life.

This doctrine has been termed "Lordship salvation" and has absolutely no support from the Word of God. It is, in fact, another subtle way Satan has invented to get Bible-believing men to add works to salvation without, perhaps, their realizing it, and to do it in such a way that it sounds spiritual and good.

What could SOUND more spiritual or honoring to the Lord than statements like: "Either Christ is Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all. And if He is not Lord then He is not your Saviour. You are lost. You must turn over all the strings of your life to Him-then He will save you. Give your life to Him if you want to be truly saved." This is what is taught.

The truth of the matter is that salvation is not a "give" proposition at all; it is a "take" proposition. We don't give our hearts, lives, wills, or anything else to God in order to get Him to save us. This would be a form of bribery, a way of meriting or deserving to be saved-but God says salvation is "NOT OF OURSELVES"-and especially, it is not offering anything to God.

SOURCE: Dr. Ray Stanford, Handbook Of Personal Evangelism, chapter VII, page 45.

What you've just read is well written, exposing the Satanic lie of Lordship Salvation. What I quoted to you earlier from John MacArthur sounds good. It appeals to our sinful human nature, which is inherently self-righteous. It deceitfully sounds good and proper that a person can't just believe  the Gospel to be saved, but also, they must also mean business and surrender their life to live for God. But this is not what the Bible teaches! The Bible says that anyone can be saved by simply receiving the free gift of eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ.

Here's some more excellent information from Dr. Ray Sanford's “Handbook of Personal Evangelism,” exposing the satanic fraud of Lordship Salvation...

Salvation is receiving! We simply receive His Son. John 1:12 says, "But as many as RECEIVED Him, to them gave He power (the right) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name." God does the giving. We do the receiving.

God GAVE His Son (John 3:16).

God GIVES eternal life to those who trust His Son (John10:28).

God GIVES believers everything they need through His Son (Rom. 8:32).

Christ didn't come to have us sacrifice, or minister, or give our life to Him . . . but He came to be OUR sacrifice, to minister to US, and to give His life a ransom payment for OUR sin. "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

God offers to save us as sinners and doesn't require us to stop sinning and start obeying Him before He saves us. "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." I John 1:8 tells us that "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." No one can say that he stopped his sinning and THEN the Lord saved him. It is impossible. Be careful not to ask a person to do the impossible. Remember, God did not require it of you either. It is only after a person is saved that the Holy Spirit will give him the power to control his old nature and live a life pleasing to the Lord (Philippians 2:13).

"Lordship salvation" is sometimes preached by men who are sincerely sick of the low spiritual level of the "average" Christian. So these men begin preaching a message they hope will bring more lasting and noticeable results. We can sympathize with these preachers. The spiritual condition of believers is often deplorable. But even a casual reading of the New Testament reveals that the early church had the same problems. See I Corinthians 3:1-4; 5:1-5; Galatians 4:8-11; Hebrews 5:12 14; and II Thessalonians 3:6-15.

What did the early apostles do to combat this problem of spiritual weakness? Did they change the gospel message from "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" to "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, give up sin, and let Him rule over all the details of your life, and thou shalt be saved"? Of course not! That isn't the gospel! God doesn't give the Holy Spirit in response to a "grace plus works" message for salvation.

What did the apostles do? They emphasized the proper doctrines to meet the needs of the people. Such great life transforming truths as the Holy Spirit of God indwelling the believer, Christ's at-any-moment return, the eternal destiny of the lost, and the fact that "every one of us must give account of himself to God"-these were brought to bear on the children of God, and the Holy Spirit did His work of convicting and changing lives.

The problem does not lie with God's message of salvation. That is eternal and unchanging. It will always be sufficient to do what it is intended to do-to save souls. The problem is that God's people have not had the great Biblical truths applied to their lives, and so they are living at a spiritually low ebb.

SOURCE: Dr. Ray Stanford, Handbook Of Personal Evangelism, chapter VII, pages 45-46.

The way that we live has absolutely NOTHING to do with our salvation. We belong to God. We have been bought with a price (1st Corinthians 6:20), the price of Jesus' broken body and shed blood (1st Peter 1:18-19). If a believer chooses to continue in unconfessed and unrepentant sin, then God will chastise (discipline) and scourge (whip) that child into submission (Hebrews 12:6-8), or maybe even take them home prematurely to Heaven. Romans 8:8 says that no one can please God in the flesh.

Romans 3:31 says that although we are no longer under the curse of the law by grace, we are still expected to fulfill the law in Christ. No Christian has God's permission to sin. Galatians 5:13, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”
 

The Holy Bible On Being Deceived

The Holy Bible has much to say about self-deception. Being wrong sometimes leads to death, both physically and even spiritually. I'll get to this more in a moment. Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” The highway to Hell, fire and damnation is paved with good intentions. Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life without ever being born-again! A man with no hope is far better off than a man with false hope, because a man with no hope is still looking.

Some people are in denial concerning how they treat others, including animals. Proverbs 12:10, “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” Wicked people are cruel to animals, but they think they're being merciful by feeding them in their misery. They are deceived.

Many people are in denial about having an alcohol problem. Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Binge drinking amongst teens is epidemic in America. FoxNews reported that 1-in-10 children have an alcoholic parent.[1] Hundreds-of-thousands of serious injuries and deaths are still happening every year because Americans are in utter denial about the evils of booze! BOOZE IS A SCHEDULE 1 DRUG THAT KILLS!!! Schedule 1 means that it is a highly addictive drug, but has no medical use. The Bible calls beer drinkers fools (the opposite of wise).

Today's standard beer is “strong drink” by Biblical standards, because it contains highly-concentrated alcohol produced from a distillery. All it takes is one drink to degrade a person's driving performance, which makes it deadly even in small quantities. M.A.D.D. (mothers against drunk drivers) ought to get mad at themselves and stop being in denial. The only message that works is total abstinence, and it will only be taken seriously when the parents stop drinking beer too. Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter!

The Bible teaches that you are deceived if you place any credibility in this world's philosophies; such as, Evolution which denies Biblical Creation, secular psychology which ignores the reality of sin, humanism which worships man as God, and secularism which attempts to solve man's problems apart from the regenerating and saving-power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ...

1st Corinthians 3:18-21, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours.”

Dr. Stephen Hawking is considered by many people to be the smartest man in the world; but in reality, he is a totally mad fool without Jesus Christ. The world (men) glory in fools like Hawking, because he attempts to substitute intellectualism and speculation instead of obeying the Word of God. The Bible teaches that man's greatest wisdom is foolishness to God. True wisdom begins by becoming a fool in your own eyes, humbling yourself at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ in the fear of the Lord. The unbelieving world is in denial.

A lot of people have much knowledge about the Bible, but they don't do anything with it. James 1:22, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” The Bible says that only the person who hears and obeys is blessed by God. James 1:25: “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”

It's a strange paradox—men either think they can be saved by adding works to the plan of salvation; or else as born-again Christians we think that we can please God by subtracting works from the Christian life. Isn't that weird? People disobey God, corrupting the Gospel by adding works to faith. Eventually, when they are told the truth and some of them truly get saved by completely resting in Christ, then they make the opposite mistake by thinking that they can please God as a Christian without ever lifting a finger for God. What a paradox! We add works to the plan of salvation, but then subtract works from the Christian life! Lost religious people are trying to do good works to be saved; but Christians won't do good works who are saved. We're all backwards as humans!

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