There are many false gospels (Gal. 1:8). It does not matter who is preaching, if it is a false gospel, there can be no salvation. The most popular false gospel among those who call themselves Christian is the Arminian gospel. This claims that Christ died for all men without exception conditionally. The conditions vary, but mainly the conditions are faith, repentance, and perseverance. Some Arminians claim that once a person is saved they are always saved. Some claim that a person can be saved and then lost. Either way, it is a conditional salvation, and it is opposed to God's grace which teaches salvation conditioned on Christ alone and that Christ has met all those conditions.
 

Most professing Christians believe faith is the main condition of salvation. But this is not true. Righteousness is the condition of salvation, not faith. And we who are sinners cannot meet such a condition. Only Christ could do this, and He did. Sinners are commanded to come to God seeking salvation based not on faith, but on the imputed righteousness of Christ. Most believe faith is the God-approved substitute for righteousness. They believe God acknowledges that we cannot achieve righteousness and salvation by works, so He accepts an inadequate substitute. But they do not know and understand the Gospel and real salvation by grace alone. They do not understand real, justifying faith. Faith is the antithesis of works. Faith believes that Christ alone met all the conditions of salvation. This is how saving faith excludes boasting in sinners (Rom. 3:27).
 

Most of us were raised in Arminianism. We are all Arminians by nature because by nature we know nothing of grace. Grace has to be revealed, and it is revealed in God's Gospel. All we know by nature is salvation conditioned on the sinner. But because so many are raised in false religion, even when some come to an intellectual knowledge of the truth of God's grace, they still want to claim to have been saved under a false gospel. They use all kinds of things to try to prove this. We hear one's opinion and another's opinion. And they all go back to a favorite dead preacher to prove their position, but they do not go back far enough. They do not go all the way back to God's word, because they cannot prove such things by God's testimony alone.
 

In order to support their views, they raise smoke-screens. One of the most common is by misusing the truth of the sovereignty of God. The way they use the sovereignty of God to cover and excuse a false profession of faith is a smoke-screen. The Bible teaches us that we cannot use the great truth of God's sovereign power to cover our false conversions. I heard a preacher say, "God can save whom He will, when He will, with or without means." He went on to try to prove that it does not matter who is preaching or really what is preached but only that God empowers that word. But you see, this is a diversion tactic. He wants you to think that if you will not admit that God can save a sinner in ignorance of the truth of the Gospel, then you do not believe that God is sovereign. Consider the following --
 

1. What God can do is not the issue. Men do no honor to God's sovereignty in salvation when they try to reason themselves and others as converted before having a saving knowledge of Christ and His righteousness as the only ground of salvation. God is sovereign. He can do anything consistent with His character as a holy and just God. But this same sovereign God has revealed that He can save sinners only as it honors His character. He has revealed that salvation only comes when He is glorified in our hearts (2 Cor. 4:6). He has revealed that His glory is revealed in the Gospel, His promise of salvation conditioned on Christ alone, based on His righteousness alone. He has revealed that where this Gospel is not known, His glory is hidden, and sinners remain lost and under His wrath no matter what else happens to them or how they appear outwardly (2 Cor. 4:3-4).
 

These same ones will agree that the majority of professing Christians are Arminians. They go so far as to say that the Arminian believes in a Christ who cannot save, a God who is weak, an atonement that does not atone, yet they will claim that "evangelical Arminians" are brethren. Are they denying God's sovereign power to bring His elect to a saving knowledge of the truth? Why is God unable to bring His children to believe the doctrines of sovereign grace? Don't they believe in a sovereign God? And what is wrong with these who are "children of God," who have "bowed to Christ," that they will not bow to the truth but continue believing a system of doctrine that dishonors every attribute of God's character and denies the Person and work of Christ? Why do they deny grace? What these preachers are saying is this - "God is so sovereign in salvation that He can bring an unbeliever to salvation and still leave that person in unbelief."
 

2. God has promised to bring His elect to a saving knowledge of Christ and His righteousness as the only ground of salvation. God has promised to bring His elect to saving faith and true repentance. Read Jeremiah 31:31-34 --
 

• Jeremiah 31:31 -- Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: {32} Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: {33} But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. {34} And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

 

The main purpose of the Old Covenant was to slay them of any hope of eternal salvation and final glory conditioned on themselves, and to motivate them to seek salvation and final glory in Christ, the coming Messiah, based on the righteousness He Himself would establish for His people, God's elect out of every nation. Christ and salvation by Him alone was pictured in the priesthood, the sacrifices, and elements of that covenant. And the prophets were sent by God to tell these people over and over again that they were lost in their religion and that they needed to seek salvation in Christ and repent of their idolatry and dead works. And the people on the whole hated and murdered the prophets.
 

This prophecy shows that it will not be like this in the New Covenant. God's elect out of every nation will be His in a spiritual, eternal sense. They will all enter the kingdom of God in the power of God the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Gospel. "For all shall know me"--Under the Old Covenant, the vast majority of that nation "continued not" (Heb. 8:9) in the knowledge of God taught nor in the truths of the law given. But under the New Covenant, everyone of God's elect, spiritual Israel, shall know and continue in that covenant because of its absolute and unconditional nature! All of these promised blessings are in reference to Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, who fulfilled all requirements and conditions to secure the absolute certainty of every blessing. Read John 6:44-45 --
 

• John 6:44 -- No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. {45} It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

 

• Romans 9:30 -- What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. {31} But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. {32} Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; {33} As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. {10:1} Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. {2} For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. {3} For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. {4} For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

 

• Hebrews 3:19 -- So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. {4:1} Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

The "rest" mentioned here is the glory of God and the satisfaction He took in the revelation of His redemptive character as Christ met all the conditions of salvation and wrought that righteousness which enables God to be both a just God and a Savior and which demands the salvation of all whom He purposed to save. Now, how can one who believes salvation conditioned on the sinner enter into this rest? It is impossible.
 

Another argument that false preachers will use to prove their own salvation and the salvation of others under Arminianism is that they were ignorant of these truths. They did not know any better. Well, first of all, the Bible tells us that ignorance is no excuse. It also tells us, as we have seen, that to be ignorant of Christ's righteousness as the only ground of salvation means going about trying to establish a righteousness of your own. Again, consider Romans 10:1-3. Why are they ignorant of these things? It must be because the promise is not preached. The Gospel is not preached, and the Gospel is the "power of God unto salvation." God is going to bring His people into His kingdom by the preaching of the truth of His Gospel (Rom. 10:13-17; 2 Thes. 2:13-14). God is going to bring them from being servants of sin to being servants of righteousness by the doctrines of Christ delivered unto them (Rom. 6:17-18).
 

Many of these same false preachers have embraced the doctrine, yet they do not see it as life and death. Most of them agree that Arminian preachers are telling lies on God and on Christ, but they will not call it idolatry, and they will not confess that they and others were lost in such lies. They think this is graciousness and compassion, but it is only compromise. What they are guilty of is one of the very things they cry out against the most, and that is a mere intellectual knowledge of the truth. This is evidenced by no fear of God before their eyes and by lack of repentance. True faith and true repentance comes by a saving knowledge of Christ (Phil. 3:7-10).
 

They even claim we must separate the person from the doctrine. They claim that even though the doctrine is heresy, the person is still saved. But this will not hold up Scripturally. In the Bible God continually divides this whole world into two groups of people: saved and lost. There is no middle ground. And the division between these two groups begins with their doctrine (1 Cor. 1:18-20). Remember, our state before God is determines whether or not our deeds are good or evil; our ground of salvation reveals our state before God; and our doctrine reveals our ground of salvation. All believe in a conditional salvation, all who are ignorant of the only ground of salvation, reveal that their ground of salvation is something other than the imputed righteousness of Christ. This means they are lost. There are millions of people who claim to believe in Christ, who claim that salvation is all of grace, but who believe that a person can be saved and then lost. This is their doctrine. It may not seem like much of a difference to some, but God reveals that this is a complete denial of Christ. His righteousness cannot be their ground of salvation. They must look to something else in order to complete this thing of salvation. They are lost.
 

This is not revealed to make sinners angry. It is revealed to encourage sinners to seek salvation through Christ based on His righteousness alone. It is revealed to encourage sinners to repent of their self-righteous religion and their religious efforts and experiences. It is revealed to encourage sinners to embrace Christ, trust Him and Him alone. Even these false preachers will tell people that if they put anything in place of Christ and His righteousness imputed, they are lost. Remember, God has revealed that He will not save any sinner who seeks after or expects salvation based on anything other than the imputed righteousness of Christ. But He has also revealed that He will save every sinner who seeks after and expects salvation by Christ based on His righteousness alone.