Layman363 and Laura,
I found the answer to my question about the beliefs of A.B. Simpson and A.W. Tozer regarding 'salvation by faith alone'. They did not believe it or teach it, as you can read what the taught in the devotionals below.
This seems to be a new teaching in the ranks of the C&MA Denomination. I know that I was not taught that 'salvation was by faith alone', by my father, a C&MA pastor.
I have been doing a bit of reading and study on the doctrine of "Sola Fide." The concept has been around for some time but was really brought to attention by Martin Luther. A brief acquaintance with his writings did not remind me of the words and life of Jesus. He was a man of many struggles. He appeared to me as one that made his beliefs and the doctrines he taught, fit his own good, rather than to purely follow the teachings of the entire Word of God, the Heart of God.
The worst thing that I learned about Martin Luther was his hatred for God's people, the Jews. What Martin Luther wrote about doing to the Jews and mentally handicapped, Hitler acted upon.
It is the doctrines of this man that most of the Protestant churches of America hold as sacred.
We are told by Paul to, "Follow me - as I follow Christ".
Paul repeats this three times - to emphasize the fact that we should also follow the example of truly godly men who follow in Christ's footsteps. (1 Cor.4:16; 1 Cor.11:1; Phil.3:17).
Jesus said, "Follow Me" (Mt.4:19; Jn.21:19; Lk.9:23). He taught how to gain eternal life by word and example.
Who do people follow? What teachings do men hold in highest regard? The Bible? or.... the books and documents that are written by men explaining away the Truths of the Bible? ...making the Bible more livable or suited for the culture, man's personal experiences.
The leadership has not responded but I was encouraged, in my spirit, tonight to read a group of devotionals written by A. W. Tozer. I was surprised to find the answer to my question regarding his beliefs about 'salvation by faith alone' in his devotionals.
Below are a few of A. W. Tozer's devotionals for the current week which are in opposition to, the erroneous idea of 'salvation by faith alone'.
https://www.cmallian...ns/tozer?id=990
Thu, November 09, 2017
God Encounter
It is fear of falling into the hands of God that makes us so eager to get things reduced to a formula. We feel that if we can learn the “secret” of salvation or the “steps” into the blessed life, we can control our future and (though we would not admit it) control God Himself to a large degree. This saves face and preserves our self-confidence, but it also mutes the voice of power in the gospel and weakens the operations of God in the soul. Only the despairing heart can know the inward witness.
In the final analysis, no one can lead another to God. All he can do is to lead the inquirer to the door of the kingdom and urge him onward. Between God and the returning soul there is a zone of obscurity through which he cannot see. It is the light that no man can approach unto and past which no one can go on his feet or by means of reason or theological knowledge. There faith must make its leap of pure trust into the arms of God crying with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15), or with Newton, “O Lord, I trust in Thee completely, and if I go to hell I’ll go down standing on Thy Word.”
It is this utter desperation that brings the witness, and yet I cannot tell anyone how to reach such a state. All I can do is to urge everyone to repent and believe on Jesus Christ. If the repentance is genuine and the faith real, all human confidence will come crashing down and the humbled soul will be forced to make its leap of faith alone.
The reader that cannot find his way from here is in all probability still impenitent. And let him beware of seeking cheap comfort from a text jockey who will cry “ `Peace, peace,’. . . when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). He had better by far take his Bible and retire to the secret place to seek God alone. If there’s hope for him, he’ll find it there. But he’ll find it nowhere else.
Verse
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. Luke 24:45
Thought
Salvation is wholly God's work. By His enablement we can share the Good News and pray. It is God who opens minds to understand. Imperative is one-on-one encounter with God.
https://www.cmallian...ns/tozer?id=991
Fri, November 10, 2017
Mistaking Word for Deed
The genuine philosopher, Epictetus used to say, was not one who had read Chrysippus and Diogenes and so could discourse learnedly on the teachings of these men, but one who had put their teachings into practice. Nothing else would satisfy him. He refused to call any man a philosopher who showed evidence of pride, covetousness, self-love or worldly ambition.
Epictetus was not impressed by eloquence or learning. It was a waste of time for the student to recite the list of books he had read. “What has your reading done for you?” he asked his students, and looked not to their words but to their lives for the answer. He required of the young men who sought him out that they bring their lives into immediate harmony with the Stoic doctrines. “If you don’t intend to live like a philosopher, don’t come back,” he told them bluntly. He drew a sharp distinction between a philosopher in fact and a student of philosophy, and would have nothing to do with the mere student. With him it was all or nothing. There was no middle ground.
This is not to advocate the teachings of the Stoics, but to assert that many of “the heathen in their blindness” appear to have more light than some Christians and that the children of this world often show more real wisdom than some of the children of God. For the snare Epictetus warned against is the very one into which multitudes of professed Christians are falling, viz., mistaking the word for the deed and falsely assuming that if they know the teaching of the Christian faith they are therefore in that faith.
Verse
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. James 2:26
Thought
Speaking "church" language, even quoting Scripture, is not the same as practicing it. Faith will express itself in faith deeds not just words. Is our practice consistent with our profession?
https://www.cmallian...ns/tozer?id=992
Sat, November 11, 2017
Living Out Faith
. . . the snare Epictetus warned against is the very one into which multitudes of professed Christians are falling, viz., mistaking the word for the deed and falsely assuming that if they know the teaching of the Christian faith they are therefore in that faith.
The One who said, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways, and be wise” (Proverbs 6:6), would hardly be displeased if we were to humble ourselves to learn an important lesson from an old Greek philosopher.
It will help us to locate ourselves spiritually if we face up to the rather ungracious question: “Are you a Christian in fact or merely a student of Christianity?” A lot will depend upon the answer, and if ever we should be frank, it is when we examine ourselves to see if we be in the faith. Multitudes tread a hazy path to death because they will not bring themselves under the searching eye of God. They prefer to assume everything is all right, though so to assume is always dangerous and may be deadly.
Verse
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:17
Thought
Are we living out our faith? If not, is ours genuine faith? In Christ there is enablement but it has to be appropriated and exercised.
https://www.cmallian...ns/tozer?id=993
Sun, November 12, 2017
Submitting to Christ's Lordship
No one has any right to believe that he is indeed a Christian unless he is humbly seeking to obey the teachings of the One whom he calls Lord. Christ once asked a question (Luke 6:46) that can have no satisfying answer, “Why do you call me, `Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
Right here we do well to anticipate and reply to an objection that will likely arise in the minds of some readers. It goes like this: “We are saved by accepting Christ, not by keeping His commandments. Christ kept the law for us, died for us and rose again for our justification, and so delivered us from all necessity to keep commandments. Is it not possible, then, to become a Christian by simple faith altogether apart from obedience?”
Many honest persons argue in this way, but their honesty cannot save their argument from being erroneous. Theirs is the teaching that has in the last fifty years emasculated the evangelical message and lowered the moral standards of the Church until they are almost indistinguishable from those of the world. It results from a misunderstanding of grace and a narrow and one-sided view of the gospel, and its power to mislead lies in the element of truth it contains. It is arrived at by laying correct premises and then drawing false conclusions from them.
Verse
Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? Luke 6:46
Thought
If Christ is really our Lord we will submit to His Lordship, not just in selected areas of life but in all we are. For Christ to be Lord there can be no restrictions placed on His Lordship.
https://www.cmallian...ns/tozer?id=994
Mon, November 13, 2017
The Inseparability of Faith and Obedience
The truth is that faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin and are always found together in the Scriptures. As well try to pry apart the two sides of a half-dollar as to separate obedience from faith. The two sides, while they remain together and are taken as one, represent good sound currency and constitute legal tender everywhere in the United States. Separate them and they are valueless. Insistence upon honoring but one side of the faith-obedience coin has wrought frightful harm in religious circles. Faith has been made everything and obedience nothing. The result among religious persons is moral weakness, spiritual blindness and a slow but constant drift away from New Testament Christianity.
Our Lord made it very plain that spiritual truth cannot be understood until the heart has made a full committal to it. “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:17). The willing and the doing (or at least the willingness to do) come before the knowing. Truth is a strict master and demands obedience before it will unveil its riches to the seeking soul.
For those who want chapter and verse here are a few, and there are plenty more: Matthew 7:21; John 14:21; First John 2:4, 3:24, 5:2; First Peter 1:2; James 2:14-26; Romans 1:5; and Acts 5:32.
To sum it up, saving faith is impossible without willing obedience. To try to have one without the other is to be not a Christian, but a student of Christianity merely.
Verse
Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. Romans 1:5
Thought
Genuine faith generates obedience to the one in whom our faith rests.
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Now here is what God has shown me, today, in the same miraculous way that he revealed A.W. Tozer's beliefs on the subject of 'salvation by faith alone'.
This is not A.B. Simpson's personal devotional, but it is a Godly woman's devotional, who is quoting what impressed her from A. B. Simpson's writings.
Here is the devotional from....
Streams In The Desert
November 13
He Knows Us
I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then the Lord will give to Abraham what he promised him.”—Gen 18:19 NET
God wants people that He can depend upon. He could say of Abraham, “I know him, that he will command his children … that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken.” God can be depended upon; He wants us to be just as decided, as reliable, as stable. This is just what faith means.
God is looking for men on whom He can put the weight of all His love and power and faithful promises. God’s engines are strong enough to draw any weight we attach to them. Unfortunately the cable which we fasten to the engine is often too weak to hold the weight of our prayer; therefore God is drilling us, disciplining us to stability and certainty in the life of faith. Let us learn our lessons and stand fast. —A. B. Simpson
God knows that you can stand that trial; He would not give it to you if you could not. It is His trust in you that explains the trials of life, however bitter they may be. God knows our strength, and He measures it to the last inch; and a trial was never given to any man that was greater than that man’s strength, through God, to bear it.
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The following is a supporting and maybe more easily understood rendering of what the Bible has to say about the idea of 'salvation by faith alone'. You must follow the link for the entire article.
Here are just are a few excerpts from a very well written and Biblically documented article including a quote from A. W. Tozer.
http://www.inplainsi...aith_alone.html
Myth of Faith Alone
Carol Brooks (Edited By Vicki Narlee)
I dread to think what would happen if someone in a modern church were to preach that you have to attain a certain level of righteousness to be saved. The hue and cry would be deafening, with the preacher soundly denounced, from one end of the Christian world to the other, as a false teacher who is teaching salvation by works. But, consider for a moment Jesus' words in the sermon on the mount.... ""For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven". [Matthew 5:20 NASB.
"A world of confusion and disappointment results from trying to believe without obeying. This puts us in the position of a bird trying to fly with one wing folded. We merely flap in a circle and seek to cheer our hearts with the hope that the whirling ball of feathers is proof that a revival is under way”. A. W. Tozer
Our Options
As always, we have a couple of options open to us at this point..
A) We can ignore, to our eternal detriment, all the Bible verses that contradict the modern, and very popular, salvation by faith alone myth.
B) We can treat the Bible as an integrated whole, and choose to believe the 'whole counsel of God'. "Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word the proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4)
And, if we choose the latter, we are faced with the fact that we are not saved by any one thing, but by a combination of faith and hope, repentance, calling on the Lord, obedience, and endurance to the end etc.. And then, and only then can we go about working out our salvation with fear and trembling.
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My conclusion is that we have a master deceiver who has not changed his tactics. Satan picks the tools that he would use very carefully; he chooses the best, the shrewdest.
Gen 3:1 Now **the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals** that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Is it really true that God said, 'You must not eat from any tree of the orchard'?"
Gen 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, "Surely you will not die, ..."
Satan told the woman, in concept, you do not have to obey God and you will not really die.
Is there really any difference between that deception between 'obedience and life' and today. You are 'saved by what you believe, have 'faith' in. You can not be saved by obedience because that would be a 'work'!
Satan tells believers today, in concept, you do not have to obey God, just believe, have faith, and you will live eternally. (No man can be perfect, it is impossible to live without sin, nothing you do can save you, "surely you will live").
May the Holy Spirit help you, if you can not see the parallels in deception; may your eyes be opened.
**{ Gen 3:14 The LORD God said to the serpent, "***Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life.}
***(...because you have permitted Satan to use you?)
So Satan worked in the beginning!
Revelation tells how Satan was still working in the same manner, in the early Church. (Teaching that you can live in sin and not be punished.)
But I have this against you: that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess [claiming to be inspired], and who is teaching and leading astray my servants and beguiling them into practicing sexual vice and eating food sacrificed to idols. [1Ki. 16:31; 2Ki. 9:22, 2Ki. 9:30] I gave her time to repent, but she has no desire to repent of her immorality [symbolic of idolatry] and refuses to do so. Rev 2:20-21 Amplified
We are all tools or instruments!
We are spreading Light or spreading Darkness! There is no fence post to sit on any more as we approach the closing moments of time! We are either a servant of righteousness or we are a servant of selfishness, evil, deception!
Please, this is not just Tozer's or my beliefs; this is the Word of God!! This has nothing to do with our personal opinions, whether you reject what has been revealed or whether you accept it!!
You are the only one to benefit if and when you turn to the Truth, repent and daily fill yourself with the Holy Spirit, walking in obedience to His still small voice!
I could not have put all of this together, at this time, even if I was the most brilliant scholar. I am simply an instrument!
The choice is yours!
Martin Luther, Salvation is by faith alone! “Be a sinner and sin?? boldly,? but believe and?? rejoice in Christ even more boldly.”
Jesus Christ, Turn away from sin, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. If a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him. Anyone who does not [really] love Me does not observe and obey My teaching. And the teaching which you hear and heed is not Mine, but [comes] from the Father Who sent Me.