The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.
Isaiah 33:13-15
You who are far away, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge my power! The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: "Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?" He who walks righteously and speaks what is right.
So who are the Preston Revivalists? We are a loose group of Prestonite evangelical Christians whose lives have been changed by the renewing grace of Christ the Lord. We each have a testimony to what the redeeming love of our Lord has done in our lives, and we share the blessed confidence of the saints who have gone before us: That we are saved not because of anything we have done or even believed, but by God's grace alone- and because God is faithful even when we are faithless, we can have eternal life in Him. We who have received Christ as our Lord and Savior will be judged with mercy and given wonderful blessings in heaven. Taking into account that our sins have been forgiven, the basic human longing to rebel against God's commandments has been superceded by the knowledge of His righteousness. We are in the new covenant of eternal salvation- that is, it is not temporal, it is not conditional, and it will not be forgotten that we belong to Christ.
So where did we go before we were saved? We stumbled over God's commandments and knew that we were trampling the blood of Jesus Christ. But we did not see it necessary to turn to Him, because we believed in ourselves that we were good enough to stand before Him. But this is our testimony:
That we are all sinners, and that our sins keep us from the favor of God. Unless He personally reaches down to you to save your soul, we are lost to eternal damnation, and without hope. We are fully at His mercy- and God, the ultimately just Judge, will have no mercy for unrepentant sinners. See Deuteronomy 32:35 and Revelation 21:8.
That sacrifice- the shedding of the blood of a living creature- must take place before sins can be atoned for. Historically animals were slaughtered to demonstrate the remorse of all who seeked to live holy lives. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, shedding His own blood for others' sins, He eliminated any future need of animal sacrifice. He was innocent of sin, and yet He willingly took upon Himself the wrath of God for the sake of the elect. See Genesis 9:6 and Hebrews 9:12.
That only by confessing our sinfulness to God, confessing that Jesus is the risen Lord, and receiving Him as our Savior, may we be saved. See Ezekiel 18:30-32 and Romans 10:9.
That salvation is unconditional, hence it cannot be earned or lost. Salvation is each believer's confidence that he is predestined to eternal life. Anyone who does not have assurance of his salvation should seriously consider whether or not he has truly been saved. See John 5:39-44 and John 6:36-40.
That because we are under grace and not damnation, and because Christ has overcome the world and made His dwelling with us, we can overcome sin and the world through Him. We are freed by grace not only from the wrath of God but even from sin itself! True, we are still sinners, but because we have been saved from God's wrath we are no longer spiritually short-circuited to break His commandments. See John 8:36 and John 16:33.
That we cannot help but evangelize the world. Many people complain that we are judgmental and complain that we believe the Bible where it says that receiving Jesus as one's personal Lord and Savior is the only way to heaven. We believe that there are plenty of good ways to get to hell. But we also believe that Christ is not that hard to find. The words are in your mouth (Romans 10:8) and the desire to repent is in your heart. The only thing holding you back is your sinful nature, which you must confess to Him to be freed. Why can't we help it? See Jeremiah 20:9 and I John 5:10.
