I moved from Guam to Pensacola, Florida in July of 2021. Just two days after
arriving in Pensacola, I attended the Campus Church at 250 Brent Lane,
Pensacola, FL 32503. I attended their church because their website presents
an accurate Gospel. On Sunday evening, July 18th, I heard their Senior
Pastor Jeff Redlin correctly preach the Gospel, using Hebrews 4:9-10 as his
text, teaching that we are saved by resting in Christ.
On the
'Campus Church'
website they rightly tell you to believe on Jesus Christ. Their senior
pastor Jeff Redlin rightly teaches to simply rest in Jesus to be saved
(Hebrews 4:9-11). But Pastor Tim
Zacharias errantly says you must repent to have a change of behavior to
get to Heaven. These are NOT the same plan of salvation. Campus Church needs
to make up their minds on God's plan of salvation. There are not two
different Gospels. You either have to have a change of behavior to get to
Heaven, or you don't, but it cannot be both. Respectfully, Dr. Zacharias
teaches that repentance will lead to a change of behavior. That is not the
Gospel.
Here is a quote from their website:
“We believe
that salvation is a free gift of God for “whosoever will”; it is by
grace, through faith, plus nothing, and believers are eternally secure
(John 10:27–28, Eph. 2:8–10). Salvation is received only by personal
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work.”
SOURCE:
https://www.campuschurch.com/About/Beliefs.aspx
Amen, I fully agree! Why can't they
just leave it at that? Really! I mean, why teach something completely
different in Wednesday night Bible study? I felt sick in church tonight as I
listened to Pastor Zacharias frontload the Gospel, teaching 1,000 people
that there is no salvation apart from some drastic form of grieving over
sin, full repentance in the moral sense, understanding the consequences of
your sin, and a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior. It makes
me cringe in my church pew when preachers frontload and complicate the
Gospel. Why can't they just teach people to make sure someone knows they are
a sinner when they lead them to Christ? Why say this kind of crap? ...
“I
need to be clear, there can be no salvation without repentance in the
full moral sense. You need to be grieved about your sin. You need to
come to a place where you understand the consequence of sin. You come
under the condemnation and conviction of the law of God, and it causes
you to change and to turn to Christ, and to call out to
Him for salvation.”
SOURCE
Folks, that is a deeper-life theologian
talking, not a Bible preacher! There are so many things wrong with the
preceding quote from Pastor Zacharias. Where does the Bible teach that you
must repent “in the full moral sense”? What does that even mean? Where does the Bible teach that you must be grieved over your sin? It does
not. Can anyone really understand the consequences of our sin? Where does
the Bible teach that we must “change” to be saved? God knows my heart. He
truly does. I am not trying to be unkind, but all this theological garbage
is not taught in the Gospel of John to be saved.
It loathes me when pastors do this,
pressuring people to depart from a lifestyle of sin if they want to be
saved. How then is eternal life still the free gift of God? Romans 6:23,
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.” There are no toll booths to enter into God's
Kingdom. All this talk about grieving over sin, changing one's behavior and
repentance in the full moral sense is reformation, penitence and penance,
not Bible repentance. Remember, God called the Gospel “the simplicity that
is in Christ” (2nd Corinthians 11:3-4). There is nothing “simple” about all
the stuff Pastor Zacharias said tonight at church. I have been saved for 41
years and I didn't understand some of what he was talking about, so how can
a lost person or babe in Christ understand him?
What bothers me immensely is that
nowhere in the entire Gospel of John are we taught this theological garbage.
The Gospel of John simply tells us 85 times to “BELIEVE” to have eternal
life. John 6:47, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on
me hath everlasting life.” The Gospel of John is God's Gospel tract.
John 20:31, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his
name.” That is so simple! How then does Pastor Zacharias come up
with all this extra stuff? Repentance is automatic. When we witness the
Gospel to a lost person, we simply need to make sure that they know they are
a guilty sinner in God's sight. They need to know what they are being saved
from.
Pastor Jack Hyles makes this truth very
clear in this classic sermon titled: “Fundamentalist
Heresy.” The Jack Hyles' camp have often been accused of running people
through a quick-prayer “1-2-3, follow me” gimmick shallow type of salvation
profession, just to count numbers and then brag to others. In the preceding
sermon Dr. Hyles refutes those who would dare claim somebody as being saved,
who hadn't been properly dealt with concerning sin and the Gospel. I am
confident that this is what Pastor Zacharias was teaching, in his own words.
Yet, as I sat there in church I cringed in my pew in back, as he made
getting saved sound so challenging and difficult. Surely that is not the
simplicity that is in Christ (2nd Corinthians 11:3-4).
Dear friend, the only requirement for
you to be saved is to simply come as a needy sinner to God, placing your
childlike trust in His only begotten Son, receiving His sacrifice on the
cross as payment for your sins. Pastor Zacharias makes the Gospel sound
utterly complicated! Where does the Bible say all that junk? I fully agree
that a person must admit they are a guilty sinner, so they will see their
need for redemption in Christ (Romans 3:19-23; Galatians 3:24-26). But the
way Pastor Zacharias explains it, it would scare a person! Where does the
inspired King James Bible say we must “change” to be saved? It does not.
Repentance is a change of mind unto the Gospel itself, not a profound
willingness to reform, grieve, change and depart from sin. Oh why can't men
just leave the Gospel alone?
I got saved when I was 13 years old. I
did know that I was a sinner, and for the first time in my life I felt the
conviction of the Holy Spirit. The church pastor said that Sunday morning,
that if you don't have the indwelling Holy Spirit convicting you about sin
you're not saved. I knew there and then that I wasn't saved. That morning
from my pew, I called out to Jesus for the first time and asked Him to save
me. I believed that Christ died on the cross for my sins, was buried, and
resurrected three days later. I knew that.
I found out many years later that I
could have just BELIEVED on Christ, without calling, and still been saved.
We are saved by BELIEVING, even before we call. I didn't feel grieved over
my sins. I didn't experience REPENTANCE IN A FULL MORAL SENSE. I wasn't a
theologian back then, and thank God I'm still not a theologian today 41
years later! God deliver us from theologians!!! I just knew that I had been
a bad boy! God saved me because I trusted Christ. Galatians 3:26, “For ye
are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” I dare you
to show me even one place in the New Testament, where we are taught to do
all this repentance junk that we hear from preachers today. Over and over
the Word of God simply teaches us to BELIEVE. John 6:28-29, “Then said
they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus
answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on
him whom he hath sent.” It is high time for all preachers to stop
focusing on what the Bible does not!
I think Evangelist John R. Rice
(1895-1980) had the right idea about repentance and faith:
There are those
hyper-dispensationalists who think that John the Baptist preached a
different Gospel from Christ when he commanded repentance (Matt. 3:2).
But it is the same repentance Jesus commanded in Matthew 4:17, in Luke
13:3 and 5, and the same repentance that Paul preached in Athens that
God “now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30 31).
Repentance is not a different plan of salvation from having faith: it is
part of the same plan of salvation. Or rather repentance is simply
another way of describing or looking at the plan of salvation.
One who turns from sin to God has done so by trusting
in Jesus Christ. A change of mind toward sin is
necessarily involved in saving faith. [emphasis added]
SOURCE: Evangelist John R. Rice, “Acts: Filled With The Spirit,” pp.
251-252; Sword Of The Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee; ©1963
I couldn't agree more. The way you
repent is by BELIEVING. Dr. Zacharias rightly teaches that sometimes in the
Bible “repentance” is used as a euphemism (the substitution of an
expression) for salvation. For example: Luke 5:32, “I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” That is essentially what Dr.
Rice just explained. Jesus was calling them to salvation. The man who
believes has repented! So why teach that a person can BELIEVE in the name of
Jesus, but still be lost if they have never repented of their sins? It is
IMPOSSIBLE to believe on Christ and still be lost. You may follow Jesus, or
call Him “Lord” and not be saved (Matthew 7:21-23), but those who believe on
Him as Savior are saved (Acts 16:30-31).
Now, in fairness to Dr. Zacharias, I
think what he intends to teach is that you cannot merely add Jesus to your
life in a positive sense, without realizing the negative aspect of one's
sinnership and deserved penalty in Hell. You've got to know what you are
being saved from. You must admit that you are a sinner to be saved (1st John
1:10). Pastor Jack Hyles preached a helpful sermon titled: “The
Sin Question And The Son Question.” In this sense I fully agree with
Pastor Zacharias, and he does cover this aspect of salvation in his Bible
study.
However, Dr. Zacharias is WRONG to add the extra meaning to
repentance of “a change of behavior” ...
“Repentance is a change of mind resulting in a change of behavior.”
SOURCE
You cannot show me anywhere in the Word
of God where repentance for salvation is taught as a change of behavior,
which would be works. I am contending for the faith once delivered unto the
saints (Jude 1:3).
Dr. Zachariah also makes some confusing
statements, such as:
“Not only do you
need to understand that your works can't save you, but you need to
repent of your dead works.”
Bible repentance is a simple “change of
mind” (metanoia), but Dr. Zacharias teaches repentance as a separate act in
addition to faith. This is where he goes stray in his theology. Proof of
this is his statement:
“If we don't
include repentance in our Gospel presentation, then people are led
to believe that they can simply add Jesus to their ungodly life.”
SOURCE
The true Gospel always points you to
Christ; a false gospel always points to you. If you listen to the entire
Wednesday night Bible study by Pastor Tim Zacharias, he definitely POINTS TO
YOU! His entire main emphasis is that you cannot merely come to Christ
without YOU going through some kind of radical moral transformation, and
that creeps me out theologically! Dear friend, you can come to Christ as an
ungodly sinner and simply trust Him to be saved. Dr. Zacharias implies that
your behavior must change, which is not the Gospel. His teachings are
subtle, but off base Scripturally.
I agree with most of what Pastor
Zacharias says, but he subtly requires repentance as a separate act from
believing, which is not the Gospel. The man who believes has repented!
Pastor Tim Zacharias adds repentance as a separate act from believing, which
is inaccurate. I fully agree that a person cannot merely follow Jesus, or be
saved without admitting that are a guilty sinner. If that is all that Pastor
Zacharias was teaching, I wouldn't be writing this article. But he goes too
far when he teaches that repentance is a change of mind that leads to a
change of behavior. Modifying one's behavior is not a part of the Gospel.
I didn't want to email the senior
pastor about this, but I need to know what the church's official position
is. I've probably made enemies already, which is the last thing I wanted. I didn't want to write this
article, but as a believer I am commanded by God to “STAND” (Ephesians
6:13). This is how heresy creeps into a church, when no one nips it in the
bud. Well I'm nipping Dr. Zacharias' false teaching in the bud, BUD!
My online friend Aaron wrote to me
today, asking how I'm doing. He has an
internet radio ministry, with the motto: “Asking the Questions that Get
You Kicked Out of Bible Study and Sent to Therapy.” My writings have caught
his attention, because churches like to kick me out for asking too many
questions...lol. I made the decision before I went to Campus Church not to
cause any divisiveness there, and I won't. For now I have nowhere else to
go. I love their church so far, I just got frustrated on July 21st when I
heard Dr. Zacharias saying if you are really saved your behavior will change.
That is not Bible repentance, that is human reformation. Judas repented
(turned away from) of his sins in Matthew 27:3 and still went to Hell
forever. Judas didn't experience true Bible repentance, he merely turned
away from his sins, which is reformation.
'Campus Church' Horribly
Shuns Divorced People
I wrote to Pastor Jeff Redlin on July
22. kindly asking him if I am welcomed as a divorced man who desires to meet
a wife there at Campus Church. He blew me off and never wrote back. So I
decided to approach him, to go shake his hand, on August 1st after Sunday
morning service. I could see the tension on his face as I approached him. He
glibly said he hadn't had time to get to my e-mail. That is not a very nice
way to treat someone who is new to your church. He hadn't responded in 10
days! I thought that was horrible of him.
When I first attended Campus Church on
July 4th, the pastor made an impression on me, when he befriended a total
stranger on the church grass. I was happy, thinking I had found a new church
home and family. But then on July 21st, at the Wednesday night Bible study,
I was saddened to hear heresy being taught by Dr. Tim Zacharias from the
church pulpit, as I have documented in this article. I am sick and tired of
hearing junk theology preached in today's churches! Repentance is a simple
change of mind, period, end of story. The Bible doesn't even tell us what to
change our mind about. So why should we try to explain what God doesn't? The
Gospel of John is abundantly clear that we are saved by BELIEVING, not by
turning away from anything. I am tired of preachers embellishing the Gospel.
Dr. Zacharias is WRONG to teach that
“repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior.” He
cannot back that up with the King James Bible!!! When I wrote to Pastor Jeff
Redlin that very night, when I got home from church, he replied the next day
defending Pastor Zacharias, saying that he fully agreed with his teachings.
Well then they are both HERETICS! Pastor Redlin did make clear that the
church doesn't agree with “Lordship” salvation, but unfortunately the church
is GUILTY of preaching a Misunderstood Repentance. Nothing has been the same
since I made an issue of their doctrine and called them out about it. As I
suspected, they couldn't care less if I leave, and they haven't welcomed me
to stay. I don't feel welcomed in a church that corrupts the Word of God,
teaching a false idea of what repentance really means.
Nor do I feel welcomed in a church that
shuns divorced people, making them feel unwelcome and contemptible. I asked
Pastor Redlin today, when I greeted him after church, what are my chances of
finding a wife at Campus Church. He evaded my question and simply said that
he couldn't answer my question. He told me to pray about it. I expected as
much from him, refusing to give me a direct answer. I think it is shameful
that many churches today shun divorced people. Where are such people to go
to church? Pastor Jack Hyles is correct that the Christian army is the only
army in the world that kills its wounded. It bothers me that married men,
who enjoy intimacy with their wives every night, will shun and drive
divorced men out of their churches, for wanting to remarry. I wish they
could become a victim of divorce, and see what it feels like to be on the
other side of the fence. Our churches are filled with a bunch of
self-righteous hypocrites.
I know Ill never hear from Pastor
Redlin again. It is obvious to me that I have offended them, because I
questioned their false teaching on repentance that leads to a change of
behavior. I also put them on the spot by asking about where divorced people
fit into their church, and I was right that they do indeed shun divorced
people in the Pensacola Christian College (PCC) camp. There is a spirit of
arrogance at Campus Church toward sinners. I love Pastor Jack Hyles
(1926-2001), because
he continually addressed the reality that people are sinners, and we
ought to love the hurting, the weak, the bereaved and those who have sinned,
not shun them out of our churches.
It is clear to me now that I am not
welcomed at Campus Church. Pastor Redlin made me feel like garbage for
simply asking him if a divorced man is welcomed in their church. He was far
more concerned about avoiding the issue than making me feel welcomed into
their church. Pastor Redlin refused to even return my email. After 10 days
of him ignoring me, I finally went to ask him, and he brushed me off by
saying he couldn't answer my question. Good night man, either I am welcomed
at Campus Church or I am not. Sadly, if you are a divorced person, Campus
Church is NOT the place for you, because they will NEVER accept you, unless
you have made a vow of celibacy. Campus Church is for the self-righteous,
not hurting sinners. The churches have become pathetic today. Even so, come,
Lord Jesus!
