Bible Truth #132 - Romans 14:23

Romans 14:23

But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Many people who are lost do good things every day - good things as we in the flesh see them. Some give millions to charity, some are good moms and dads, some are good neighbors, some do volunteer work to help the homeless. However, you have to understand the spiritual context of this verse, as well as the spiritual condition of lost people. If you believe every word in the Bible is Divinely inspired (2 Timothy 3:16), then these words are from God.

Everything, not just eating, but everything that does not come from faith is sin. EVERYTHING, no exceptions. The lost have no faith, period. According to Ephesians 2:8-9 faith is a gift from God, along with grace and salvation. And they are inseparable. God uses faith to save a man much the same way you would use a key to start a car. When God gives faith to a man it's because He is quickening his dead spirit. Why do I say that? Easy. Ephesians 2:8 - For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. God doesn’t give faith to a [spiritually] dead man without quickening his dead spirit. You'll never see a lost man with faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since the lost have no faith, everything they do, every minute of the day, is sin before God. Of course this would include the moment when they, according to the Arminian, “pray to accept Christ,” because they have no faith. If the Arminian will tell me that they do have faith, then that proves that God has already changed their nature by quickening their dead spirit and giving them faith proving that they are already saved - BEFORE praying some prayer that isn’t in the Bible. In reality, the prayer to “accept Christ” or the prayer of salvation “asking Jesus to save them” is the RESULT of what God has already done!

1 - a lost man has no faith

2 - a lost man has a dead spirit

3 - a lost man does everything “in the flesh” since his spirit is dead

4 - a lost man praying the “sinner’s prayer of salvation” is not doing it in faith

5 - a lost man is sinning when he prays the “sinner’s prayer”

6 - God gives a saved man faith, and even then, He gives different levels of faith to each believer (Romans 12:3).

However, if those who believe in decisional salvation still want to argue that every man has some level of faith but they just don’t exercise it to believe, I would like to point to 2 Thessalonians 3:2 where Paul tells us that God does NOT give faith to every man.

Bottom Line: a lost man can do NOTHING but sin every day, all day. This is why a lost man CAN’T please God, EVER. (Romans 8:8)

(I also use Romans 12:3 to remind myself not to get impatient with other believers who lack faith since it is God who gave them the faith they have - and what they don’t have. It’s harder to remember that fact when dealing with unbelievers. They don’t believe because God hasn’t given them faith.)