Bud Robinson - My Objection to a Sinning Religion

My Objections to a
Sinning Religion

Bud Robinson

FIRST PRINTING, 1962
eISBN 978-0-8341-2679-4

Printed in the United States of America

BEACON HILL PRESS

Kansas City, Missouri

Preface

One of the stimulating facts of a publishers life is the thrill when any authors book remains a perennial favorite. We wish that would happen more often. But it has proved to be the case with the writings of Uncle Bud Robinson.

We are presenting in this little book, My Objections to a Sinning Religion, some of the material that was previously printed in a book Bees in Clover, That book has long been out of print, but the demand for the material is such that we are providing it in this fashion.

This little book lets you meet Uncle Bud Robinson again at his courageous, forthright best. Here he presents his arguments against the Calvinistic teaching that Christians must sin daily. As you read, you will see him again: see him as he marshaled his scriptures, see him as he punctuated his preaching with humor and tears.

THE PUBLISHERS

Contents

For a few minutes we just want to give you a few of our objections to a sinning religion. For almost everywhere we go the good people tell us that their pastors preach to them almost every Sunday that they are sinners now and always will be while they are in the flesh. They tell them that they sin every day in word and thought and deed, and that they are just as good as anybody else. They say that everybody else sins just like they do and yet they never stop to think how inconsistent it is.

Of course, if a man is religious and sins every day he must have a sinning religion, and a sinning religion evidently is not the kind of salvation that Jesus purchased for a lost world. We read in Jas. 1:27, Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The reader will see here that the very fact of a pure religion denotes the fact that there are impure religions in the country. For when you hear a man say, This is a genuine dollar, he means to say that it is not a counterfeit dollar. Of course a religion that is a pure religion would denote that many religions are counterfeit. A pure religion would denote that there are counterfeits in the country, but also a pure religion denotes that a man has been saved from all sin, and purified, made pure.

Now my next objection to a sinning religion is that the atonement provides a salvation from all sin, for all men, for we read in Titus 2:11-14, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Now in this quotation the author says that we were redeemed from all iniquity, and then he adds, and purified. Then he tells us that we are to live lives of holiness and righteousness in this present world, and not in heaven.

Of course we expect to live holy lives in heaven. There is no disputing that. But the war breaks out when some claim we can live holy lives here on earth. The man that says he can is evidently in harmony with the teachings of Gods Word. The man that says he cant is without doubt out of harmony with God and the teachings of the Book.

Then the Lord tells us also in this quotation that we are to be a peculiar people. Now in the minds of some people a peculiar man or woman is a person that wears a peculiar kind of a dress. They take a ribbon off their hat or leave off their necktie, or cut the two little buttons off their coat sleeves, or they eat in a certain way, or else things they dont eat.

Some people believe if they dont eat pork or oysters they are peculiar and fulfill the Scriptures. Many people imagine that if they dont wear certain things or dont eat certain things, that within itself will make them peculiar people. But, according to the Book, there is but one thing that makes man peculiar, and that is to be saved from all sin, and then good common sense will regulate his eating and his wearing.

My next objection to a sinning religion is found in the fact that the least religion a man can have to have any at all must settle the sinning question. For we read in I John 3:9, Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

I want the reader to see that, as great as the new birth is, and as far-reaching and as eternal as it is, and as wonderful and glorious as is the experience of the new birth, still it is the least experience that God gives to man. For if a sinner gets anything below the new birth, he gets nothing. However, we dont teach that the new birth is a small blessing or a little, insignificant experience. It is a tremendous experience, and, sorry to say, so much bigger than the average man has nowadays that the average man in the church when he meets a man that is really born again often accuses the fellow of professing holiness.

My next objection to a sinning religion is found in the fact that a sinning religion would make no distinction at all between a sinner and a Christian, There should be a distinction between them, and the lines of separation between the two should be so clearly marked that any man could detect it, Now we read in I John 3:8, He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. Then we read in the ninth verse, Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin"; and then in the tenth verse, In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.

Now if this means anything in the world, it means Gods children dont commit sin and the devils children do. We have just read in the preceding verse that if a man is born again he cannot commit sin, and that doesnt mean if a man professes holiness that he cant commit it. It simply means that any man that is born of the Spirit of God has been brought into such a relationship with God that he has gone completely out of the sin business.

We have often heard worldly church members accuse the holiness people of saying that they couldnt sin if they wanted to. But the Bible said that the converted man cant do it. We next notice that a sinning religion would make God swear a lie. But somebody might say, Brother Robinson ought to be honest, and if a man cannot be saved from sin, God is a liar. We say it, not to be rude, or unmanly, but because from what we read in the Bible it is impossible for us to say anything else. For we read in Luke 1:73-75, The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

Now here the reader will notice that God put himself on oath that He would deliver us from the hands of our enemy, that we might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. And, beloved, all the days of a mans life are not the last days. So some men are ready to tell us that they believe in being made holy in death, but God said we are to have it all the days of our life.

You will notice the two expressions, holiness and righteousness; it means that inward holiness will produce outward righteousness, and there is no better condition than that in this countryholy on the inside and righteous on the outside is Gods standard, so he is clean on both sidesinside and out.