Featured True Saving Faith = Believe, Repent, Obey

Probably about as many times as you think is necessary to come to the conclusion that I am not going to accept it.

That is how I had to learn.
With respect, explaining it in detail does not mean the person having it explained to, will accept it.

I've found that in my own experiences.

I find "Prevenient Grace", a teaching of John Wesley and others, nowhere in Scripture.

I assume this was meant to say, "Grace #2".

Again, I see no progressive impartation of God's grace to all sinners, while select sinners are being progressively sanctified ( made holy ).
Wesley and others taught this as well, to great effect.

However, I do not see progressive sanctification quite like he did.

I see God choosing sinners from among the mass of God-hating humanity, and then imparting His grace to them.
They then respond, out of an already-changed heart, believing on His Son for the forgiveness of their sins, and they then do His will and follow His commands willingly out of love.

Their eternal sanctification was already accomplished at the cross, while their earthly sanctification occurrs over time, growing through grace and knowledge, and subduing the flesh through the power of the indwelling Spirit.

At 41 years as a believer, this came to me over a long period of in-depth study of His word.
I can assure you, it wasn't lightly arrived at, and I think, at least with me, you're wasting your time.

 

This point is something that I've found no loss of salvation advocate can ever answer with definite certainty.

"What sins and how many times they are committed, does it take for one to fall away permanently?"

This seems to vary with every person or organization that is asked, whether they be Bible Missionary, Nazarene, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Apostolic, Methodist, Churches of Christ or "Wesleyan".

No.
They are simply struggling with the wicked flesh that they are trapped in ( until the first resurrection or their death, whichever comes first ), and which the Holy Spirit, as they grow in grace and knowledge, will eventually give them power to overcome.

What you see as "progressive sanctification", I understand as true spiritual growth.

I disagree.
It simply proves that a person is temporarily losing their battle, which they will ultimately win because of my immediate point above.

Unbelief is a result of a sin nature that is trapped in disobedience.
Change the nature, and the disobedience also changes...permanently.


Obedience out of a heart-felt love of Jesus Christ and His work on the cross for them...not a mortal fear of losing their gift.

 

Yes.

It is the taking of a mark by a mass of humanity that is deceived into believing that the "beast" is their saviour.
They will recognize him as being one of their own, and will follow him.
They will follow anyone but the real Christ, whom they hate ( John 3:19-20, John 15:18 ).

All men naturally hate Jesus Christ, and will accept anyone who claims to "have a fix"...as long as it's not Him.
They have their "shepherds", and His sheep have theirs.

 

Samuels, what is a BAC?

Thanks.

 

No. Repenance is before faith. And the obedience is faith in God's grace alone.

 

"Born-Again Christian".

 

The writings of the Apostles dealt more with issues of the church than with the methods of salvation. For this reason it is an easy thing to struggle with the assurance of salvation. Salvation in itself is very easy!

Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. - Acts 16:30-31

I had a book ministry at work in which some guy, after reading one of the testimonial books, wanted to get saved but not in my Pentecostal Holiness church. I had a friend I knew as Ray who was baptist, so I took him to a Baptist church. Well, they had a Franklin Graham testimonial film that Sunday night and my friend goes up to get saved... Only... There is no altar! Some guy gets my friend and takes him to a Sunday School room and begins to talk all that doctrine.... Now get the picture... Here is a guy ready to receive Christ with tears running down his cheek and he is getting doctrinalized! I was thinking to myself for the crying out loud say the sinners prayer! Let him acknowledge Christ so he can go through to salvation! I do not remember butting in, but my friend did get saved, so I thought the trip worthwhile.

...The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. - Romans 10:8-9

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. - 2 Corinthians 11:3

The most spiritual people I have met were able to simply acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ, and then believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. And then happily go from there. I find myself fearing, along with Paul, that too much doctrine can damage the simplicity of it all.

 

Once the author of this post comes to really know the Lord, he will know the law better, and when he looks into that law, he will more clearly see his reflection and cry out, Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall save me from the body of this death?!

 

Thanks!

 

It's not easy...
It's impossible except God do the work.

When that happens, their whole world turns upside-down and their desires towards God change.
Then the real trials and tribulations start to come...
People who once loved the new believer before their calling, will begin to despise them and think them strange.

There is no "method".
God saves, and He uses the preaching of the Gospel to notify people of that salvation ( 1 Corinthians 1:21 ).

"Wanted to 'get saved' "?
How does one do that...by saying a "sinners prayer"?

I'm not sure where that is, but I don't see the "sinner's prayer" anywhere in the Bible.
What I see is people believe the preaching of the cross, and they then repent and are baptized ( Acts of the Apostles 2:37-39 ).

It sounds to me as if the man you're referring to in your story had already believed on Christ.
He wasn't "waiting to receive Him".
He was waiting to confess Him.

I praise God for everyone I meet that has truly done this, as I know that they are my brothers and sisters.

I also know many outwardly godly people, at least on the surface, that resemble this...but for all their lives they have believed and hold to false doctrines and reject parts or whole sections of His word...which no true believer will ever do ( John 8:47 ).

In other words, some of the most "spiritual" people I have ever met, reject sound doctrine right and left.
Does this mean they are not saved?

Ultimately, I am unable to see their hearts, so I cannot say for sure ...
I can only judge all things according to His word and His commandments.

 

To me,
There is no such thing as "too much doctrine", as we find the admonition in 2 Timothy 2:15 and other places, these words:

"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane [and] vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness." ( 2 Timothy 2:15-16 )

" Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." ( Titus 1:9 ).

" But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:
2 that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 [to be] discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
6 Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.
7 In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine [shewing] uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, 8 sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
9 [Exhort] servants to be obedient unto their own masters, [and] to please [them] well in all t[hings]; not answering again;
10 not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." ( Titus 2:1-10 )

Granted, these statements are aimed at those who would be ministers of the Lord...but I think that all believers should pay them heed.
Other passages about the importance of the word and doctrine are these:

Romans 16:17.
1 Timothy 1:10.
1 Timothy 6:3-5
2 Timothy 4:3-4.
Matthew 4:4.
Luke 4:4.

and many others.

The simplicity of Christ is what is contained in His word.
All of it.
What "complicates it", is man's wisdom, vain philosophy, and men teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

So to me, the most godly people should be the ones that know their Bibles, inside and out.

 

After examining Samuels OP's,

No it can't!... Because I don't maintain my Salvation... Jesus Christ does... He my representational representative... He stood where I, and no other man could ever stand and obtained Salvation for us... You included even though all you see of Salvation, is of the law... Saul saw it that way too until Jesus opened his eyes... Then by the Grace of God, Paul saw the Grace Of God in Jesus Christ!... Then Paul understood the law that you and I broke in Adam and the wrath of an offended God... We couldn't appease God if we tried... Because we are sinful and only Jesus is sinless... It took a sinless sacrifice and Jesus is that sacrifice... I read of no other in scripture, and I am not my own savior... I'm saved by Jesus Christ and nothing else!

Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

2:17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.

2:18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

2:19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

2:20 I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Btw... With all these posts that emphasizes following the law Samuels... Uh... You wouldn't happen to be a Lawyer now, would you?... Brother Glen

 

George Clark Rankin tells of two ministers in the 1800's.

1. Educated - The old Dr Minnis, cold, educated, complicated, and ineffective
2. Uneducated - The illiterate Robert Sayers Sheffey

And to tell the story...

The Educated - "Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin

The Illiterate - The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work (Wytheville Circuit). They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

 

George Clark Rankin himself got saved in the old illiterate type atmosphere and tells about it! ... In the course of an hour I was at my uncle's. He was surprised to see me, but gave me a cordial welcome. The first thing he did was to disarm me, and that ended my pistol-toting. I have never had one about my person or home to this good day. And I never will understand just why I had that one. A good dinner refreshed me and I soon unfolded my plans and they were satisfactory to my kind-hearted kinsman. He was in the midst of cotton-picking and that afternoon I went to the field and, with a long sack about my waist, had my first experience in the cottonfield. We then would get ready for the revival occurring that night…

After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.