Why "Christians" aren't Christians?

A person who hears the Gospel, repents and believes in Jesus Christ as the one true Lord and Savior is saved. However, why are there are so many professing Christians who have heard the Gospel and yet have continually lived in sin and carnality?

First of all, let us define salvation. Salvation is the supernatural redemption of man from his sins along with its eternal consequences. This is made possible by the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus on the cross. Salvation is the removal of the eternal condemnation tied to every unconverted soul. However, it does not end here. God supernaturally puts His Spirit on the one He saves as a mark of ownership and also as a means to correct and direct the person's life. Man, who once belong to the devil, now belongs to God. It is also the Holy Spirit that makes the converted soul a new creature by supernaturally creating a new, God-fearing nature within him. This is the very reason why Jesus calls a person who repents of his sins, accepts his helplessness and believes in the Messiah as one who is "born of the Spirit" or "born again" (John 3:3). The Bible never taught that it is possible to be saved and yet continue to live in carnality. In fact, the Bible always refers to the elect as "new creatures" or men who have once been in bondage with sin but are now slaves of righteousness. In other words, it is impossible to have an encounter with God and not be changed.

Going back to the question, there are two Biblical and logical reasons why a professing believer who has heard the Gospel is not living a transformed and renewed life.

1) They heard the true Gospel but rejected it. (Written throughout the New testament)
2) They heard a false gospel. (Paul, Peter and other New Testament writers warned us about this)

The second reason is the most common reason. They did not hear the real Gospel. They heard a gospel that has been reduced that is why their commitments to Christ do not last. That is why adding more discipleship programs will not solve the problem. They must first be transformed by the Gospel before they can grow in Christ. Whenever we train unconverted souls we are training goats to act like sheep. As Christ said, we do not pour new wine into old wine skins for this would cost them to burst. The old wine skins must supernaturally renewed first before we start pouring the wine of God.

If we want to see the Holy Spirit move again as it did during the last 2000 years, we must go back and start preaching the fullness of the Gospel.

Modern, seeker-sensitive preachers no longer talk about the condemnation brought about by sin and have therefore taken away the offense of the Cross. A half-true gospel is still not the Gospel and it will only result to false fires. It is only through realizing the darkness of our souls that the Light of Christ can be seen. If we do not preach the depravity of man and the eternal disease that all mankind suffers in, we will have no Gospel and no true conversion. A person has to first understand the dark and hopeless prison he is in before he can desperately seek out the keys out of genuine need. Its not only that we have a God-shaped hole that needs to be filled in. It is also not only that our sins have separated us from God. Rather, it is our sins resulting to eternal damnation in hell and only through this understanding can we come to know the love of Christ on the cross. He offered His life freely as an atonement for our sins. If a person comes to Christ in ignorance without understanding the true state of his unconverted soul, he will not fully repent and he will not fully believe and will therefore not be saved at that moment. A patient who does not believe he is terminally ill will never seek a physician with a burning desire. That is why when a physician heals him, he gets no reaction, does no appreciate the fullness of the healing and simply goes back to world to once again indulge in carnality.

Watch this supplementary video and take note of every detail. Understand how modern preaching works: we take the desires of the people into consideration and change the message in accordance to the wants and whims of the people. We get applauses but we never get true conversion. We get more numbers but none of them have really been converted. This is not true evangelism. Evangelism is taking the hard truth of Scripture and preaching it regardless of what the people think. This is true evangelism and this is how the Gospel must be preached among the nations.



In the second video, Paul Washer's explains the psychological and emotional manipulation brought about by modern cultural evangelism. Also take note of his very first statements. It is only by the preaching of the Truth that true conversion by the Holy Spirit can take place. When we water down the Gospel into some sort of: "sin separates man from God-Christ died for you-do the sinner's prayer" we get an unconverted soul thinking that he's saved. But when we fully discuss the condemnation of sin, the depravity of man and the sacrificial substitutionary work of Jesus in the cross and the result of repenting and believing, the person would be exposed to the fullness of the Gospel and he, one way or another (it may take minutes to months), would manifest the works of the Spirit if he repents and believes.