Present Truth Magazine
Internet World Radio

Streaming the marvelous Christian message of the forgiveness of sin, acceptance with God, and eternal life. Unmasking the false religions, false gospels and false teachers so rampant in the media today.

An Evangelical Christian
Confession of Faith—
Part 2. The Denials of the Wine of Babylon—

This We Deny...

All have sinned and all continually fall short of the glory of God. There is only one Person who has ever perfectly fulfilled the righteousness of the holy Law of God. That Person is our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is good. He alone has met all the Law's demands for holiness and righteousness. And He alone is the One with whom the Father is well pleased. Believers will always be justified before the glory of God by the perfect imputed righteousness of the Lord.

The word of God clearly teaches baptism by immersion for believing, repentant sinners who are old enough to believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. While circumcision of infants was the covenantal sign of the children of Abraham in the Old Testament, the New Testament covenantal sign is water baptism by immersion for believers in Christ who are old enough to have faith in Him. Little children who are not of sufficient age to have personal faith in Christ are sanctified by the believing parent. Children are covered by the blood of Christ because of the faith of their believing parents until they reach the age of accountability.

The true Christian church is that fellowship of believers which adheres to and faithfully follows the same evangelical gospel which Christ and the apostles taught. Any man who teaches contrary to the doctrine which Christ and the apostles taught is an Antichrist regardless of his claim to "succession" or appointment to church leadership.

The true Christian church is built upon the Rock, Christ Jesus the Son of the living God. The "keys" to the kingdom of God which were entrusted to the apostle Peter were the words of his confession of faith in Christ as the Savior of the world, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Thus, it is the Gospel, not the personal word of Peter or one of his "successors" which contains the key to open the gates of paradise to any repentant sinner who puts his faith in the merits of the Son of God.

34. Woe to those who teach that a church leader can issue a decree, pronouncement, or ruling in matters of policy, doctrine, or morals which must be considered inerrant and infallible when this leader is speaking " ex cathedra ".

Predeterminism and Hyper-Calvinism:

43. Woe to those who teach that: 1.) God has foreordained and elected who will be saved and who will be lost and 2.) that the grace of God is irresistible for those thus foreordained and elected of God for salvation and 3.) that believers in Christ cannot turn back to unbelief and be lost.

Election for the believer is "in Christ". God has not foreordained who will be saved and who will be lost. God's foreknowledge must not be misconstrued as predeterminism. Our Lord died for the sins of the whole world. The Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel calls all to believe and repent. It is God's will that all should be saved through faith in Christ. However, the grace of God is not irresistible. Men and women can and do harden their hearts and refuse to believe to their own eternal loss. It is true that the natural man is in bondage to the prince of this world, Satan. But the Holy Spirit attends the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ and thus enables the hearer of the Word to believe and repent. But those who repeatedly resist the call of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel are in very real danger of committing the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit and being eternally hardened in heart when the promptings of the Holy Spirit to repent and believe in Christ as savior can no longer be heard by the unrepentant sinner.

The word of God affirms the ruinous natural consequences of sin, but further affirms that God will justly punish and destroy all who ally themselves with Satan.

The true Gospel teaches that justification is by faith alone. True sanctification however is by faith and works. It is a cooperative work in which the believer has an active part to play.

The miraculous ability to preach and teach and pray in an actual foreign language such as was manifested in the early church is a true gift of the Holy Spirit. However, the nonsensical babbling that is heard today in "Pentecostal" or "Charismatic" circles is an erroneous counterfeit of the true gift.

God has always saved repentant sinners by His unmerited grace alone through faith alone in the promised seed, Jesus Christ.

Those who wish to tithe, or observe the dietary regulations, or even be vegetarian may do so as a personal choice but not as a binding rule in the church.

The true Gospel teaches that each one of us lives on this earth for only one lifetime. The uniqueness and value of each individual as precious in the sight of our loving God is a glorious truth. God loves us as individual persons and He will preserve us as individuals even in our resurrected bodies.

Only the Bible is to be considered as authoritative in matters of faith and doctrine. We must not despise prophesying in the church, but any prophecy in the Christian church today must be judged by and found to be in harmony with the word of God. Immature apocalyptic interpretation and unfaithful doctrine must be repented of and abandoned.

Woe, woe, woe to those false preachers and teachers who teach the abominable "moral influence gospel" which denies the need of the substitutionary blood atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. These modern-day Sadducees are so puffed up with their own imagined holiness that they think that God could forgive sin without the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God and they blaspheme the word of God which clearly teaches that Christ suffered the wrath of God by enduring the punishment which all sinners deserve so that God could be just and justify all repentant sinners who put their faith in His blood. These false teachers also deny the literal Genesis account of the six day creation of the universe, the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, the existence of a literal Satan, and that God destroyed the antediluvian world by the world-wide flood of Noah. These false teachers will behold with their own eyes the full wrath of God against sin when Christ comes again and destroys them and all who deny the truth of the apostolic gospel which Christ and the apostles taught.

An Evangelical Christian
Confession of Faith—
Part 1. The Affirmations:

This We Affirm...

1. The Gospel of Jesus Christ—

We believe that the Gospel is the good news that the Lord Jesus Christ has died for the sins of the world! Because of His infinite love for the fallen sons and daughters of Adam, God Himself in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ has come into this sin darkened world, lived a sinless spotless life by perfectly obeying and fulfilling the Law of God, and then He died for our sins, in our place, as our atoning sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. As the Second Adam, our Lord took upon Himself the guilt, punishment, penalty, and death which we all deserve. The curses pronounced at the Fall of the First Adam fell in full measure upon the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sin bearer, substitute, and redeemer for the entire human family.

Active obedience— The Law of God requires of all perfect obedience to all of its holy commandments, and absolute holiness and sinlessness of life. This perfect righteousness Jesus performed for us as the sinless Second Adam.

Passive obedience— The Law of God also requires punishment and death to all who sin and come short of its righteous demands. This penalty Jesus bore for us when He suffered and died for us, in our place, at Calvary. The guilt of all the world was reckoned and imputed to Him while He hung upon the cross. In His sinless life and atoning death He became the divine Substitute, Representative, and Second Adam for every fallen child of Adam. He was reckoned and treated as a sinner in the eyes of Divine justice so that by God's unmerited grace alone, in Christ alone, atonement and redemption and reconciliation have been accomplished for all. He ransomed all by paying the debt of all. Jesus lived, died, arose again from the dead, and ascended into Heaven where He ever lives to make intercession for us as the one and only mediator between God and Man. On the Last Day He will come again to save all who eagerly await His return.

2. Justification by God's unmerited "Grace Alone" through "Faith Alone" in the sinless life and atoning death of the Lord Jesus "Christ alone"—

We believe that the Good News of our salvation and reconciliation through Christ's shed blood on Calvary is proclaimed to all the world and is attended by the outpouring power of the Holy Spirit. It is God's will that all should repent of sin and come unto a saving knowledge of Christ. Thus the Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the everlasting Gospel, invites and calls and enables whosoever will to accept the invitation to personally believe the gospel of Christ's finished work of atonement on the cross of Calvary, to personally repent of their sins and dead works, to be baptized by immersion for the remission of sins and to take upon them the yoke of Christ's lordship in their lives.

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance for their sins are justified freely by God's unmerited grace alone through faith alone in the perfect sinless life and atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. They are personally justified, forgiven, declared righteous and innocent, accepted, ransomed, redeemed, washed, pardoned, perfected, elected, set free from condemnation, reconciled, accounted righteous, chosen, adopted, cleansed, purged, sanctified, delivered from death and made alive, atoned for, found, brought back, bought back, made nigh, and predestined unto life eternal in Christ. By the unmerited grace of God they are accounted perfect and sinless in His merciful reckoning; and their sinfulness and guilt are covered by His sinlessness. The Law of God finds nothing to condemn in the repentant sinner who believes in Jesus. His name is recorded in the Book of Life and he is reckoned as righteousness in Christ and accounted worthy of eternal life.

This is what the apostle Paul calls — justification by faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ. Thus, we as repentant sinners are personally saved from our sins when we believe the gospel. No repentant believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can be ever be lost as we daily repent of our sins and continue to trust only in the sinless life and atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ unto the end of our lives or until Jesus comes in the clouds of heaven on the Last Day. There will never be a point in our lives where we will not need to be forgiven of our sins and justified by God's unmerited grace alone through faith alone in the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All saving merit is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is merely the instrumental cause of our justification and never the meritorious cause. In other words, there is no merit in faith, but rather all righteousness and merit is in the object of our faith, the sinless Lamb of God — the one Mediator between God and Man — Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

It is not God's will that any should perish, but those who resist the call of the Holy Spirit, refuse to repent of their sins, and will not believe the Gospel of their salvation in Christ are blaspheming against the Holy Spirit and are calling God a liar. Unbelievers will have to bear the full penalty for their own sins and stand alone without a sinless Mediator on the final Judgment Day.

3. The Sanctified Life of the Believer—

We believe that every justified believer in Christ receives the gracious gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit and is born again from above.

The Holy Spirit urges, teaches, empowers, and enables all believers in Jesus to begin to live loving, sanctified lives and enter into the life-long battle against sin. This daily growth in character is called sanctification or the rebirth. Christ lives in the believing community, the church, through the anointing power of the Holy Spirit. In Christ, we will begin to bear the fruit of God's Spirit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. We are called to unite with Christ to use the spiritual weapons He has made available for Christians to enter the battles of life as we struggle against sin and hardness of heart. Daily the spiritual qualities of God's Law, the Ten Commandments, are impressed and written upon the heart and then expressed and reflected in the life as we earn a living, raise our children, are faithful in marriage, help our neighbor, reach out to our enemies, wrestle with inbred tendencies to evil, and actively labor in the name of Christ to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the fallen world in which we live. Thus, the good works of believers are the "fruit" of our justification and never the "root" of our justification.

In Sanctification: we resist the Devil; strive against sin — take up our cross and follow Jesus — hunger and thirst after righteousness — overcome the love of the world, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life — love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls — love our neighbors as ourselves by doing unto others as we would have others do unto us — endure hardships and persecution — bless those who persecute us and not curse them — labor to proclaim the gospel to all the world — pray without ceasing — use every talent we have for the glory of God as we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, not conforming to the world but rather being transformed by the renewing of our minds — rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep — do not set our minds on high things but associate with the humble — pay no one evil for evil, not avenging ourselves — show mercy to all with cheerfulness — teach all — minister to all — give to all — show love to all — do not lag in diligence — do not think more highly of ourselves than we ought but think soberly — are kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love — rejoice in hope — are patient in tribulation — distribute to the needs of the saints — pursue hospitality — despise all forms of adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, and ungodly associations. In all things we are to be zealous of good works, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not make any provision for the flesh.

However, even as we mature in Christ — obey the Commandments of God — partake of the divine nature — grow in faith and a knowledge of His word — and deepen in our repentance — there is no point in the Christian life where we will not need repentance and forgiveness and justification by God's unmerited grace alone through faith alone in Christ's imputed righteousness. Our prayer, this side of eternity, to our Heavenly Father will always be — "Father, please forgive us of our sins, for Jesus' sake" and — "Lord, I am an unprofitable servant. Be merciful to me a sinner, for Jesus' sake." Thus the Christian church is always a forgiven community and therefore is to always be a forgiving community. This is true now and even unto the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven.

4. Immortality and Eternal Life—

We believe that "he who is justified by faith shall live ". All who are justified by God's unmerited grace alone through faith alone in the sinless life and atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ alone have the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life and immortality.

Just as the believer is reckoned perfectly righteous by faith alone, even so we have the gift of immortality by faith alone. The life and righteousness that we possess now are merely the small down payment of the righteousness and immortal life that we will have "by sight" at His coming.

After the Fall of Adam, a flaming sword hedged the way to the Tree of Life so that Man could no longer eat of its fruit and "live forever". Thus sickness, suffering, and death entered the creation through Adam's sin. But that flaming sword of judgment has pierced our dear Savior's side, so that — by the unmerited grace of God — the redeemed sons and daughters of Adam will once again eat from the Tree of Life. At the coming of Jesus we shall shout, "O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?" Death has been swallowed up in victory through the blood of Calvary !!!

And so death to the believer is a mere moment of sleep from which we shall arise to be like Him. In a moment — in the twinkling of an eye — we shall put on perfect righteousness and immortality at the Last Trump. Just as in water baptism Christians are "buried" in the likeness of our Lord's death and "arise" in the likeness of His resurrection — even so we who fall asleep in death shall arise on the Last Day to everlasting life through the promise of the resurrection. The resurrected believers, together with those believers who are alive without seeing death, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

5. The Last Days, the Judgment Hour and the Restoration of the Gospel—

We believe that the "Last Days" and the "Hour of God's Judgment" began at the cross of Calvary. Satan has been cast down to the Earth and knows that his time is short. Since the days of the apostles, the Enemy of truth has sought to destroy the true Gospel of Christ by bringing false doctrine into the Christian church and severely persecuting Christ's people.

However, God in His mercy and providence has raised up the "always reforming" Protestant reformation to recover all the precious truth of the Gospel that the Antichrist has sought to destroy. Now in these last days of Earth's history, the fully restored Gospel in all of its apostolic purity is once again being proclaimed to every nation, language, and people in the "latter rain" power of the Holy Spirit. All the world is being invited to repent of their transgressions of God's holy Law and receive the "seal of God" in the free gift of the forgiveness of sin and justification unto eternal life by the unmerited grace of God alone through faith alone in the sinless life and atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ alone.

The Christian era — metaphorically called the "1260 days" — "42 months" — or the "3 and ½ years" — is a time of judgment, tribulation, and terrible plagues upon the Earth. In this time of judgment, those who refuse to repent of their sins and will not trust in the blood of Jesus will receive the final verdict of condemnation and will receive the "mark of the Beast" and the "seven last plagues" of God's wrath against sin.

God's people who "keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" will pass through this terrible time shielded by the power and mercy of God and be delivered when Jesus returns. When Jesus comes in all of His glory those with the "mark of the Beast" will be destroyed by the brightness of His coming.

6. The Second Coming of Christ

We believe in the literal, visible Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power and great glory. All the world will see Him come in the clouds of heaven with all the holy angels. The Lord will raise His redeemed people who have fallen asleep in death and, together with the living saints, they will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

The redeemed saints on that day will be accounted worthy of eternal life only by the unmerited grace of God. God's blood-bought people know that only the "imputed" righteousness of Christ can enable them to stand before the unveiled glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. They know that even after an entire lifetime of wrestling with evil tendencies from within — wrestling with temptations from without — and at the same time seeking to be a blessing to others — their sanctification always falls short of God's holy and righteous Law. The sanctified life of the Christian always bears the taint of imperfection even unto the coming of the Lord in the clouds of glory.

Unbelievers who are alive on that Day and who have rejected our Lord's call to repentance from sin and His free offer of mercy through faith in the blood of Christ and who have fully aligned themselves with the Lawless One in the final rebellion against the Truth will be destroyed by the brightness of His coming.

7. The Millennium, the End of Sin and the Eternal Punishment of the Lost—

After our Lord comes to take His people to Heaven, Satan and his evil angels will be bound to the desolate Earth for 1000 years. The redeemed will spend this 1000 years reigning in Heaven with Christ.

At the end of this 1,000 years, Jesus and His people in the "New Jerusalem" will return to the Earth. The wicked lost from all ages will be raised from the dead and then Satan and his angels and the wicked lost will make one final attempt to destroy the New Jerusalem. But as they come up to the City, eternal fire from heaven will rain down upon them and they will be punished according to the measure of the wickedness of their lives.

After Satan, his evil angels, and all the wicked lost are completely burned up and consigned to eternal death, God will make a new heaven and a new Earth where sin and sinners will be no more. God's people will live eternally in the beautiful Earth made new where there is no more curse or sorrow or death.

8. The One True God—

We believe in Almighty God — the Creator and Redeemer of Heaven and Earth. The only true, merciful, and loving Eternal God — who is the all-knowing, all-powerful, immortal, self existing One — without beginning or end — who alone possesses life unborrowed and underived, is the source of all life and righteousness, — and through whom all the creation is sustained, upheld, and exists moment by moment by the power of His Word.   

9. The Triune God—

We believe that the one true God has revealed Himself to us in His word as the Triune God from all eternity — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.        

10. Jesus Christ, "The LORD" of the Old Testament

We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is the same LORD who....

—called the universe into existence;
—walked in the Garden with Adam 
—saved Noah and his family from the flood 
—called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
—wrestled with Jacob and thereafter called him Israel 
—lead the children of Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea and into Canaan land 
—established the sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood to pre-figure His death as the Messiah 
—raised up the many Judges and major and minor Prophets to deliver the sinful and disobedient people of God 
—delivered Daniel from the lions and gave him the vision of the "seventy weeks of years" from the command to rebuild Jerusalem unto the Messiah's being "cut off" 
—and finally sent His angel Gabriel to Mary to announce His arrival as the Messiah.

The LORD of the Old Testament is the same Lord and Savior of the New Testament...The Lord Jesus Christ!

11. The Incarnation of Christ—

We believe that in His incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ was truly and uniquely both fully God and fully Man . Our Lord Jesus Christ lived an absolutely sinless life as the Son of Man, the second Adam, but also retained all of His eternal divine nature as the Son of God, the second person of the Godhead. The sinless human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, although affected by sin, was not in any way infected with sin. His human nature was conceived by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary.

12. The Holy Spirit—

We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead. He convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment, attends the proclamation of the Gospel, and invites and leads sinners to faith and repentance and justification by God's unmerited grace alone through faith alone in the sinless life and atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ.— prevenient grace.

The Holy Spirit teaches us the perfect will of God through the word of God, the Bible (sola scriptura). He urges and empowers believers to live sanctified lives of good works of unselfish love for God and neighbor. He continues to reveal to us our secret sins, reprove us of our known sins, and lead us to a deepening repentance towards God and trust in the merits of Christ. Christ dwells in the heart of the born-again believer by the word of God through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.— indwelling grace.

13.The Bible—

We believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the sacred scriptures in their present Old and New Testament canon. The Bible is the infallible word of God which leads the reader to find eternal life by the unmerited grace of God alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ our Lord alone. All Christian faith, practice, and doctrine must be derived solely from the scriptures.

14. The Creation of the World—

We believe that in six literal days, approximately 6,000 years ago, God created a perfect, sinless universe without death or decay, sin or rebellion. All creation was a perfect expression of the will of God. Having free access to the Tree of Life, Adam and Eve were to live eternally in their beautiful home.

15. The Fall of Man—

We believe that sin and suffering and death entered God's perfect creation as a result of Adam and Eve's first act of rebellion against God. Because of the original sin of Adam, all the natural-born children of Adam are born legally and morally separated and alienated from God; having no hope, and without God in the world.

Legal corruption: in Adam all die. As the legal Head of the human family, when Adam sinned he sold all of his children into the slavery of sin. All are born as sinners in the eyes of God's holy Law and thus the wages of sin is death for all. Bondservants give birth to children who are bondservants, and so it is that all the children of Adam are born under the condemnation of God's holy, just, and good Law. Sin and guilt and death have come upon all the natural-born sons and daughters of Adam.

Moral corruption: because Adam came under the condemnation of God's Law, he cut off himself and all his descendants from the original indwelling of the Holy Spirit. All are born without the indwelling Holy Spirit, and thus Man in his very heart and mind and spirit and soul has a fallen human nature which is morally polluted with inherited and cultivated tendencies and propensities to sin. All are now born with a fallen, sinful moral nature and all have lost their freewill to live righteously and are under the bondage of a sinful human nature. The natural Man is by nature selfish, unholy, unkind, unloving, pompous, self-righteous, and he by nature despises God's holy Law of unselfish love for God and neighbor — the Ten Commandments.

16. The Christian Church—

We believe—

A.) that the Christian church is composed of all who are believers in Christ as Savior and Lord. Any sinner who repents and believes in Christ has his name written in Heaven in the Lamb's Book of Life.— the invisible church.

We believe—

B.) that all new believers ought to be baptized by immersion and join a local fellowship group. There they can grow and mature in the faith, enjoy the blessings of Christian fellowship with like-minded believers, and share in the communion table of the Lord's Supper. Members of the body of Christ should work unitedly to support the proclamation of the gospel through the various evangelical outreach programs, educational institutions, medical ministries, and publishing efforts of an organized evangelical Christian church.— the visible church.

17. The Sabbath School and Worship Service—

We believe that the Sabbath fellowship meetings of the local church ought to inspire the congregation through beautiful sacred Christian music, scripture reading, teaching of true doctrine, partaking of the Lord's Supper, solemn prayer, giving of thanks, praise, pastoral exhortations, and the baptism of new believers. Children ought to be included and not separated from the general service. A little childish background noise should be tolerated.

18. The Gospel Ministry—

We believe that the church ought to elect pastors, teachers, evangelists, administrators, elders, deacons, and deaconesses to serve in the Gospel ministry. They ought to be mature Christian believers who fully embrace all the doctrines of the true evangelical Gospel without reservation. They ought to be carefully chosen individuals who are ready to serve in those roles which are in harmony with the biblical counsel and who are always ready to teach the truth and speak in defense of the Gospel and the word of God . The distinctive roles of men and women in Christian service as outlined in the word of God should be recognized.

19. The Great Gospel Commission—

We believe that the great commission of the church is to proclaim the Good News of salvation to every nation, people, and language and to invite all to repent of their sins and be forgiven and justified by the unmerited grace of God alone through faith alone in the sinless life and atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary. It is the duty of all believers to actively proclaim the Gospel regardless of their field of human endeavor and vocation.

20. Water Baptism of the New Believer—

We believe that all who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord ought to be baptized by immersion in the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a public declaration of faith in Christ's atonement, and a symbol of the believer's commitment to die to sin and be raised up to the newness of life in Christ — that is, it symbolizes both justification and sanctification.

21. The Lord's Supper—

We believe that Christians ought to partake of the Lord's Supper as a symbol and remembrance of our Lord's giving of Himself as a ransom for our sins. The elements of the bread and new wine proclaim the truth of the Gospel until Christ shall come again.

22. The Sabbath Day—

We believe that the Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week, is a day for Christian believers to set aside the secular affairs of life and come together to worship, pray, and fellowship in Christ our Creator and Redeemer. As we rest from our labors on the Sabbath day, we celebrate and rejoice in the "rest" that we have by the unmerited grace of God alone through faith alone in Christ's finished work of redemption and atonement for our sins upon the cross of Calvary.