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Discussion Forum : General Topics : Can we lose our salvation? Let's ask the "Prince of Preachers"

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 Re: gators52 on 2012/4/12 11:35:04

I hope you don't mind me offering some thing to think about dear brother. Every one of us who truly belong to God in Christ are concerned about the question of salvation. Can there be a more important topic for us to look into.

I have found my best answers from reading those passages of Scripture which deal with eternity directly as well as the kingdom age; rather than the present age of the church.

Scripture is full of seeming difficulties in this age of the church. If you read the last 4 chapters of Revelations you are bound to accept various difficult facts. In that even in the new heavens and the new earth there are remarkable distinctions to be made between peoples as well as individuals. For example there are kings named. These are individuals. There are nations named. These are peoples. There are those who dwell with the Father and the Lamb in the new city, New Jerusalem. There are those who can only visit the city. There are some who have to continually eat of the tree of life year on year, watered and fed by the river which flows from the presence of God and The Lamb into the external regions outside the city. Then there are those who never leave the city at all but dwell eternally in worship of God and the Lamb.

No doubt these things are presently mysteries and yet they are stated clearly by John.

Read the passages which directly follow the 1000 year kingdom and see what has happened (prophetic) to those who have lived in that kingdom as a result of their conduct. Its really quiet remarkable. In these last 2 or 3 chapters of the bible I find extraordinary clarity in seeking to explain what salvation means today. I hope this exercise will help you.

The Lord by the way doesn't actually say what a person is cut out from if they 'do not abide'. Pre-cognisance is most likely to blame. We all do it. We read ABC and we understand BCD because we have unknowingly been taught BCD and have not had a chance to understand ABC. The natural mind! What a pain!

Salvation as an experience of God and Christ is not one thing. It is various even to the individual. If when we say a man is saved today then we have to have a basis for so saying otherwise we are deceiving him into a terrible falsehood which may cause that man to continue in sin without any true repentance. Jesus said it is what a man is able to believe which makes this determination., because 'no man can believe in the Son unless the Father draws him'. But even if a man says he does believe in Christ and say wants to join with us in fellowship, the elders and those who are given as prophets have an absolute responsibility before God to discern the man.

Too many brethren who serve Christ boast in their calling and fail to recognise that if they are indeed called to the prophetic, evagelistic, pastoral and teaching ministries, they are the gift, and their labour is easy; according to the calling of God. What happens seems to often go the other way. Some brethren claim to be working hard, demand pay and respect, but they labour in the power of their souls and not their spirits, towards the people of God, towards whom they make a claim, and before whom they are mere servants. Their labour is easy if the calling is true as the Lord promised.

Discernment is what is needed. Its a strange thing brother but I am writing this and feel a sense of kinship with you. I am suddenly burdened to share something else which may be relevant.

I once heard my friend and brother in Christ exclaiming how he had brought another man to Christ that very day. I immediately had a terrible witness in my spirit and looking straight at the man who was said to be saved I knew that he had not been born again. After taking him to one side and then to my home I laboured with him for 24 hours to get to the root of the problem. He certainly understood what sin was and why Christ died, but still I was disturbed. In the end it came down to what he himself was able to believe was possible in his own life. He was worried about a particular sin which he fell into some years earlier and couldn't accept that God had or could forgive this particular sin.

The brother without discernment who had witnessed to him was simply acting foolishly when he realised that this young man was willing to believe with his mouth. He failed to see his heart. 'I will write my Law upon your heart, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. This is the only true measure of salvation. Without it everything we say or do is vanity. And this is what we should look for when we lead souls of men to Christ. The Lord bless you richly.

 2012/4/12 10:42
passerby
Member



Joined: 2008/8/13
Posts: 742


 Re:

I often hear that our final salvation depends upon our abiding and perseverance to the end.

But who can assure us that we will indeed abide and persevere to the end?

Can we promise that to ourselves? Have you been tempted to the full extent of your lust, or tortured so severely for your faith that you can say that?

Will you dare say to yourself, surely I will not fail if even in such trivial matters you forget the Lord so easily.

The reality is, our strongest attempt to abide and persevere to the end is so precarious, it is a losing game.

 2012/4/12 10:46Profile









 Re:

Quote:
But who can assure us that we will indeed abide and persevere to the end?

Can we promise that to ourselves? Have you been tempted to the full extent of your lust, or tortured so severely for your faith that you can say that?

Will you dare say to yourself, surely I will not fail if even in such trivial matters you forget the Lord so easily.



Thank you!

 2012/4/12 10:53
passerby
Member



Joined: 2008/8/13
Posts: 742


 Re:

Greetings sister, the Lord bless you. Please let me post another question:

How will I survive if the whole force of evil is summoned to destroy me, am I strong enough to fight them? Is anyone of us strong enough?

Is this not chasing the wind? Who shall be saved then?

 2012/4/12 11:18Profile









 Re:

HI passerby, that is why it is so important to abide in Christ for we know that greater is He that is within us than he that is in the world. He is faithful, He will never leave us nor forsake us, yet we can leave Him and forsake Him and on our own the devil, the wolf will tear us apart or leave us to the sepctacle that we would become. We always have a way of escape, Jesus Himslf and His presence is the way of escape. We must choose this path in life, that is why we are called to come to Him, to draw near to Him.

Those who walk away, and I believe we are talking about a very small number, for I also believe that so many who supposedly walk away were never saved in the first place, walk away because they become embittered and angry and cynical and hateful becuase of lives circumstances. So, storms always do their work, it certainly tests the faith of those who claim to believe and in the morning, the house that stands on a firm foundation still stands and the house to the left has been swept away..............bro Frank

 2012/4/12 11:30
passerby
Member



Joined: 2008/8/13
Posts: 742


 Re:

I have said that to myself, I abide I will survive, but who knows that in the future I will otherwise just leave and forsake Him afterall, who will assure me that I will never do that?

Let the future tell?

 2012/4/12 11:40Profile









 Re:

1Pe 1:17 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear


Rom 11:19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
Rom 11:20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
Rom 11:21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
Rom 11:22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.


2Cor 7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.


Phil 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.


Heb 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.


Heb 12:28,29 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.


Brother Passerby, I lived in the Bible belt long enough to get a good taste of what becomes of those that take advantage of the Grace of GOD and sit back and expect His blood to cover it all, as they say but I'm also thinking of the testimony of the martyrs - as I read your post. Of how many walked away in order to save their own lives or betrayed others in order to do so. Richard Wurmbrand even writes of this.
I believe far too many have not seen our 'relationship' as a two-way-cooperative union. We're exhorted to remain in the vine. "If ye abide in Me.."

The LORD knows those that are His, by His foreknowledge of whom will remain faithful unto death and calls them His "elect" and He "keeps" them. It is a two way co-operative relationship.


Bless you and appolus for his post on our freewill. Thank you!

 2012/4/12 11:42









 Re: You can survive

Brother you can survive because the Lord Himself is able to keep you.

 2012/4/12 11:50









 Re:

Quote:
I have ALWAYS fought against "easy believism" and "say this prayer and you're saved".

Well now, ahem...lets not go too far with this either. It's easy to do isn't? It sure is.

Can it be that "Easy"? Yes it can. This is the exact struggle that I struggle with brethren and the reason why so many of us get into trouble. It can't be that easy! And God says it can be.

Look at the thief on the cross. It can't get any easier than that. Oh yes, he was in the process of dying, but still, Jesus was saying that to everyone in His ministry, "If thou wilt believe". That was His message, a message of faith. Simple, easy, believism if you like.

I was watching a program last night on the journey of a turtles life. We can say that the ground to which the eggs were put by the Mother turtle is the grave and the ocean that they are to reach is the Life. With just a mere 40 yards from their incubation grounds to the sea is an eternity between life and death. Life had come into them and they break forth out of the ground and now they are racing to the sea. Though they be in the millions that try to get to the sea, only half of them will make it. It's just the way things are.

The same is true to anyone who comes to the altar and just simply believes the gospel. Millions will come, but there may only be half of them that will actually take what they have believed and go forward the rest will fall away. They both believed, but some take root others do not. Even when the turtles made it to the ocean they still had attacks from birds diving into the water and plucking them out of the sea. Though people come to the Altar, they get to the sea, they feel refreshed by the sea and then be engulfed and be taken swiftly by a bird of prey. Whether they were truly saved is not up to us to decide.

We've have defined repentance as a deep remorseful experience, when all that it really is is a turning away from our own ways and turning to God's. Simple adjustment.

The simple gospel requires simple believing.

Paul's gospel to the jailer was to just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and all his house would be saved. Cornelius and his household just sat there listening and God approved the whole lot and baptized them all with the Holy Ghost. Their repentance was obedience.

 2012/4/12 11:51
passerby
Member



Joined: 2008/8/13
Posts: 742


 Re:

Christian salvation is not just sitting back and lay idly or wantonly expecting His blood to cover it all, there is an asssurance of wrath to someone who will do that.

We need to abide in Him and persevere in righteousness to the end, that is the reality of it, but if it is just by foreknowledge that somebody will be faithful unto death then our salvation is just a play chance and it is a losing game. The Lord indeed knows who are His, but how do we know?

It is a two way cooperative relationship, that is true but the paradox is, really as humans we can do nothing at all.

...'And He Keeps them'...Have we really thought about that so seriously, or sought the Lord about this in a matter of life and death?

 2012/4/12 12:05Profile





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