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- What is a presbytery?
- The word presbytery comes from the Greek word for 'elder',
presbuteros. A presbytery can be defined in more than one way.
1) It can refer to a group of churches in a defined geographical
location. 2) It can refer to a meeting of pastors and elected
elders to represent the churches in a defined geographical location.
- What is distinctive about Cumberland Presbyterians?
- This question can be answered in more than one way.
- Cumberland Presbyterians have a Confession of Faith that is distinct
from other Presbyterian bodies.
- Cumberland Presbyterians have a distinct history as a separate
Presbyterian body since 1810.
- Cumberland Presbyterians emphasizes what is called the "Whosoever
will" Gospel. By this we mean that the Gospel is to be preached to
all proclaiming that whosoever believes will be saved. This is
over against a hyper-Calvinistic view that the Gospel is only for the
elect.
- Since Cumberland Presbyterian were born in the revival movement of
the early 1800s many of our churches still use revival meetings to stir
up the church and to seek lost people.
- How can a person know if they have eternal life?
- One of the purposes that the Bible was written is to assure the
believer that they can know that
they have eternal life (I John 5:13). Jesus promised that anyone
who believes in Him shall have eternal life (John 6:47). To
understand how this is possible from God's viewpoint is to understand
what the Bible teaches about Grace, Man, God, Christ, and Faith.* (Click
on this sentence to read what the Bible teaches.)
- Grace means that heaven (eternal life) is a free gift (Romans
6:23; Ephesians 2:8,9). This means that man can not earn
eternal life or does he deserves it.
- That he does not deserve it can be seen from the Bible's
teaching that all persons are sinners (Romans 3:23). Sin is
serious. It is a violation of God's perfect standard for man
to live by (I John 3:4). All persons will stand before God
guilty of breaking his perfect law multiple times.
- But the Bible reveals that God is merciful and loves his
creation. (I John 4:8. God does not want to punish man.
The Bible also teaches that God is just and as a holy and righteous
Judge He can not allow, nor will He allow sin to go unpunished
(Exodus 34:7). Now this righteous, holy, and loving God solved
our problem of not being able to save ourselves and for God to
forgive us of our sins and remain a holy and righteous God by
sending his Son, Jesus
Christ.
- He did this by sending His Son to earth to be our Lord and
Savior. Jesus Christ is the God-Man. He is the perfect
man who lived on this earth without sin and He is God the Son (John
1:1, 14) who is qualified to paid the infinite debt of our sins. What He did to grant us the free gift of eternal
life is to die on a cross and rise again on the third day to pay the
penalty of our sin and purchase for us a place in heaven. God
offers His free gift of salvation or eternal life to whosoever will
believe. How God can grant us the free gift of salvation and
remain a just God is by placing all our sins on Jesus when He went
to the cross and giving you the perfect record of Christ's sinless
life as your record (II Corinthians 5:21)
- Are all people saved then? No, there is only one key to
heaven and that is saving faith (Acts 16:31). Saving faith is
not merely believing that Jesus lived and died, nor is it temporal
faith, i.e. believing God to provide a temporal need like a safe
trip on an airplane from point A to point B. Saving faith is
trusting Christ alone for eternal life. To trust Christ
alone is to transfer your faith that you may have in yourself, or in
anything you have done or can do to make you acceptable to God and
to trust Christ totally for what He did for you through his life,
death, and resurrection.
- To express this trust is you are to receive Christ as the living
Savior (Revelation 3:20), receive Him as your Lord (Romans 10:9),
and be willing to turn from your sin to God.
- This can be expressed to God in sincere prayer. (Romans 10:13)
- Now read John 6:47 and answer the question, "Am I truly
believing in Jesus Christ as outlined above?" If you can
answer yes, then Jesus says that you have eternal life.
- *( This presentation is from the Evangelism Explosion
training. If you have questions, contact
Rev. Don
Winn.)
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