“The Way Which They Call Heresy…”

Acts 24:14-16

      Paul was accused of heresy by all the religious world around him. The fundamentalists and the liberals, the Jews and the Gentiles, all with one voice said he was a pestilent thing, a mover of sedition, a cause of strife, division and anarchy and a heretic.

      When he stood before Felix to answer their charge, the apostle Paul boldly and plainly declared, “After the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers.” I declare the same thing to you.

      “They” — They are the entire religious world which is set in opposition to the gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace in Christ. It matters not what denominational name they take. Their religion is essentially the same. They all teach that to some degree salvation depends upon and is determined by man: his will, his works, his decision, his choice, his baptism, etc.

      “THE WAY” — There are just two ways of religion: the broad way and the narrow way, the way of Cain and the way of Abel, the way of Babel and the way of Noah, the way of works and the way of grace, the way of man and the way. — “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man.” It seems right to all men by nature that what a man is and does, by which he vainly imagines that he distinguishes himself from other men, must count for something with God. All the religions of this world, all the religions of “the great whore,” Babylon, adhere to this way. Arminian, freewill, works religion is the wine of Babylon’s fornications, by which the nations of the world are intoxicated and deceived. “But the end thereof are the ways of death.” It does not matter which of Babylon’s roads you take, all her ways are the ways of death.

      There is only one way to God, only one way to heaven, only one way to life, only one way of salvation. The Son of God, our all-glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ says, “I am THE WAY. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Christ is the way. He alone can put us in the way; and he alone can keep us in the way. If you would be saved, you must be saved in this way. You must trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone as all your Wisdom before God, all your Righteousness (imputed and imparted), all your Sanctification and all your Redemption (by blood at Calvary, by grace in regeneration and in resurrection glory). If you look to yourself, in any way, to any degree, for any of these things, you are not in THE WAY (Galatians 5:2, 4).

            “SO WORSHIP I THE GOD OF MY FATHERS.” — I do not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, my physical fathers (Philippians 3:4-8). Flesh and blood have nothing to do with the knowledge and worship of God. I worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, my spiritual fathers. Like them, I bow to, believe, worship, adore and praise the one true and living God. — “We are the circumcision, (the true Israel of God, his true covenant people), which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

Don Fortner

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