Postscript to Analysis of Skelly Gospel Video

When I wrote the post on the Skelly video for Monday, I knew that far more people could or would be upset, unhappy, or just ambivalent about my writing something like that, than they would be likewise with the actual video and its contents.  Not only in independent-Baptist-land is someone better and better off leaving that kind of thing alone in most theological and practical outlooks, but many men don't really have a problem with what Skelly said.   For some, who cares?  They don't care, or they don't even think it is wrong.  It's fine.  As a matter of fact, probably most independent Baptists think that what Skelly is doing, what he said, is better than my analysis of what he said.  To them, he's right and I'm wrong.   To them, what he did there was fantastic.  Please, rethink that.

Hopefully you are evangelizing.  If you are evangelizing, you are telling people what the Bible says. Skelly and those like him mainly use (emphasis on "use") Bible verses to give a pre-packaged presentation.  The authority for what they are saying doesn't have to come from the verses themselves.

Romans 6:23 doesn't tell how to "receive the gift of eternal life."  Skelly though tells you that receiving the gift of eternal life is "trusting Jesus as your Savior," that's how you receive it. Romans 6:23 doesn't say that, but it is what Skelly reads into the verse.  Since "receiving the gift of eternal life" is "trusting Jesus as your Savior," then how do you "trust Jesus as your Savior?"  You "call upon the name of the Lord to be saved," which means "praying a scripted prayer to trust Jesus as your Savior."  This instruction follows from something that wasn't in the verse in the first place.  The first step isn't biblical and then none follow from the other.  If someone does any of what Skelly teaches, it's because he trusts what Skelly is telling him is true.  He's not starting with the Bible, but with Skelly.

As evangelism regards preaching something from the Bible, I briefly want to consider from the Bible what was needed.  It is true that Jesus died for us, died for our sins.  He is the Savior.  That is true.  However, the threshold through which we are saved by Him is through "believing in Jesus Christ."  "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ" is not the same as "trust Jesus as Savior," the latter something the Bible doesn't anywhere tell anyone to do.  The latter is an invention.

I would be quite sure that Skelly and others like him would say that they believe in the truth of John 3:15, 16, 18, and 36, the latter three verses saying essentially the same thing as verse 15:

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

We must believe in Jesus Christ to have eternal life.  That is different than "trusting in Jesus as Savior."  At this point, I think Skelly would say that "believing in Jesus Christ" is "trusting in Jesus as Savior."  Those are not the same.  The latter falls short of what the former means.

John 3:15, 16, 18, and 36 are found in the gospel of John.  John at the end of his gospel writes in John 20:31:

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

"Believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" must be the same as "believing in Jesus Christ" and then "being born again," the latter what Jesus said to Nicodemus earlier in chapter 3.

I don't believe that explaining this is complicated, but it is a world of difference from what Skelly does or says.  Someone needs to know what "believing" is and then who "Jesus Christ" is, which must mean that "Jesus is the Christ."  The concept of "the Christ" carries with it the story of the entire Bible and all history.

Jesus is the Messiah Who will sit on the throne of David and rule forever. Someone must believe that Jesus is King, which is the same as believing that He is Lord.  When someone sins, he is doing what he wants against the authority and righteous standard of God.  He is not submitting to Jesus as King at that moment.  The person, not Jesus, is king at that moment.  Believing is more than intellectual assent, but includes volition.  One doesn't believe it without his will relinquishing to the truth.  If he believes in Jesus Christ, then he doesn't want to do what he wants anymore, but what Jesus wants. He believes that because it is true, but also so that Jesus will save him, because Jesus is Savior.  This is what Jesus was saying when he said in Luke 9:23, " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."

You can't be on the throne and Jesus on the throne.  When you are on the throne, you are rebelling against Jesus.  He isn't king.  You are.  This is where repentance comes in.  Denying yourself to follow Jesus is repentance.  Jesus also calls this "losing your life" in the very next verse in Luke 9.  It is also confessing Jesus as Lord in your heart and with your mouth, a verse Skelly referred to in Romans 10.  It isn't just praying a prayer.  If you don't receive Jesus Christ, like John said in John 1:12, you will not be saved.  That means you must receive Him as who John revealed Him to be in his gospel.  That's why the signs are in the book. They show that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, is God, is the King, and sure, is the Savior.

What people like Skelly most often will do is call what I just explained, "discipleship."  They would say that what I'm teaching is not the gospel, but something that comes (might come) after someone "trusts Jesus as his Savior."  They are messed up in that way, not from studying the Bible, but under the influence of false teachers.  Jesus as Savior of the world cannot be separated from the figure that is the King of the world, the One who will transform the entire planet when He comes.  That, by the way, is when men in a time of severe judgment on earth will "call upon the name of the Lord" to be delivered (read Joel 2:32).  They will recognize and receive Jesus as this Messianic figure, the King of the earth, something far different than "praying a prayer" or "trusting in Jesus as Savior."  The latter is not a right or even honest interpretation of that verse, what Skelly calls his favorite verse.

Jesus preached to "repent."  When Jesus gave the message of the Great Commission that He wanted his disciples to preach, the only spot where He explains it in Luke 24:47, He says,

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Skelly doesn't preach repentance.  If people don't repent, they don't get the "remission of sins," that is, they don't get "Jesus as Savior."

In the comment section on Monday, James Bronsveld (whom I've never met in person) mentioned 2 Peter 3:9.  When Peter writes his second epistle, the problem of apostasy is with the lordship of Christ.  They "despise the Lord" (2 Peter 2:1).  They despise God's authority, His government, and speak evil of dignities (2 Peter 2:10).  They walk after their own lusts (2 Peter 2:10, 3:3).  For that reason, they attack the second coming of Christ and then the Word of God, which warns about His second coming.  They don't want any accountability for what they do.  This is what most characterizes the apostate, who turns away from the Lord.

When Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:9, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," he says literally, "all make room into repentance."  The same word is used by Jesus in John 8:37, when He says to the religious leaders that His "word has no place in you."  Someone must make room for repentance, or he will perish.  This glove fits the person who has room for what he wants, what he wants to do, so he denies the Lord.

In thirty years of preaching, I have found that where the plan of salvation, the gospel, most breaks down with people is with their desire to keep their lives for themselves.  Most people want to be saved.  However, they want to remain lord of their own lives.  If someone won't receive Jesus Christ, he's not serious enough about his sin or he isn't convinced enough of the judgment of God.  Those are the two other places where everything breaks down.  Skelly soft pedals both of those points too, and then soft pedals his third point about how a person is saved.

If someone wanted a message of salvation that would be acceptable to the world and more successful at gaining more adherents, lordship is the part to remove.  People want the salvation part, but they don't want the lordship part.  2 Peter makes it clear that lordship is the problem of apostasy.  Self-will is the issue, even as Romans 1 says they know God, but glorify Him not as God.  They worship the creature rather than the Creator.  Skelly didn't concoct this.  He's taking it from others, but it is a message tailored to the spirit of the age.

If someone receives Jesus Christ, he receives Jesus as the Christ.  He knows that he isn't remaining in charge.  He doesn't want to remain in charge because he knows that is a failure.  He repents -- he turns from his will and his life.  Someone who will not lose his life continues in rebellion against the Lord.  You can't be saved continuing in rebellion against the Lord.  You have to give in to Him.  This is also what Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount.  When someone understands his spiritual poverty, that he is poor in Spirit, he will relinquish control, that is, he will be meek.  Only they will receive the kingdom of heaven and and inherit the earth.  Only they will get into the Lord's kingdom.

Skelly didn't invent his false message, but he is a continued purveyor of it.  You really do have to come down on a side on this.  You can't straddle it.  If you are reading this and you think that you can see it both ways, you are wrong.  What Skelly and others like him are preaching is wrong.  They are deadly wrong.  If you think you can accept it, then I won't have anything to do with you.  You are wrong.  Please stand against this deadly false teaching that Skelly represents in his presentation.  As well, I believe we must separate from those who will not separate from it.  They are indifferentists, indifferent to the gospel of Christ.

Think about the aspect of indifferentism with me.  Skelly is invited to and preaches with Crown College and Clarence Sexton.  Bob Jones III and John Vaughn, president of the FBFI, preach with Sexton at his church and college, as does Skelly.  Sexton preaches with Mike Sproul, Kevin Bauder, and other fundamentalists.  Do these men repudiate what a Skelly would preach? Skelly fits in with most of fundamentalism.  He preaches at a Camp Cobeac in Michigan with crossover to Ambassador Baptist College.  The indifference is how it spreads.  I see the indifference.  I see it also among unaffiliated Baptists too.  This all relates to the gospel.  Will you stand with a true gospel?