15. Chapter 14: Conclusion

Chapter 14

Conclusion

I want you to look at this verse very carefully. Romans 10:9 says, “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.” Did you notice anything peculiar about this verse? Romans 10:9 limits salvation to only those who can speak with their mouths. What about those who cannot speak, can they go to heaven also? Let us examine the learned opinion of Dr. A. Ray Stanford concerning this verse:

“This is the primary verse used to try to prove the teaching of ‘Lordship salvation.’ The King James translation reads, ‘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.’ A more literal rendering of the part of this verse is, ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord...thou shalt be saved.’ This is where the advocates of ‘Lordship salvation’ get their basis for the doctrine. However, notice several things about the context of this verse. First of all, Paul is writing primarily of unbelieving Israel. From a human standpoint, the Jews had a very real part in crucifying Christ; see Acts 2:22-23; Acts 2:36; Acts 4:10-12. Had they realized that Jesus was God Himself, they certainly would not have had a part in His death (1 Corinthians 2:7-8). Therefore, unbelieving Jews (and anyone else who wants to be saved) must own up to the fact that Jesus is the Lord — that He is God Himself — and all who call upon Him in this way are saved (Romans 10:9-10; Romans 10:13). The emphasis here is not upon making Jesus Lord of someone’s life, but rather on recognizing His true identity — that He is God! (Stanford, 90)”

If you understand the meaning of this verse, you can see easily how it has been used of Satan to convince people to “serve Christ” as a knight would serve his king. This addition of “service” to the Lordship of Christ is just one of the ways that Satan cons people into “adding works” to the plan of salvation. Adding your service to His Lordship means adding “something of self” to Christ’s plan of salvation which is based solely upon faith in His death, burial and resurrection from the grave. In essence, it is like standing upon a bathroom scale and having someone give you a gym barbell. It is an “addition” to the original. It is extra weight that will cause you to sink into the lake of fire after Christ passes sentence upon you at the Great White Throne Judgement.

I will never forget the displeasure upon my father’s face and in his voice when I was around the age of four. We had just enjoyed a wonderful show at the Ringling Brother’s Barnum & Bailey Circus. On our way out from the circus, we walked down a steep flight of stairs. We inched slowly down as my father held me tightly by the hand so that I would not fall. In front of us was a little girl about my age who, like myself, was being held by the hand by her father. She dropped a nickel. It landed on the ground, wobbled, and came to a quick standstill before her foot landed on the next step in front of her. That nickel looked as big and pretty as anything to me, and I quickly picked it up. The little girl saw what had happened to her nickel, and I looked up at my father with the nickel in my hand and he nudged me to give that nickel back to that little girl, but I did not understand the fact that it was “her nickel” and not mine. My father gave a stern grunt of disapproval and at that moment I realized that I was wrong for not giving that nickel back to her. But we were moving with the crowd, shuffling along with the busy flow of people in a hurry to get home, and to this day I regret not giving that nickel back to that little girl. When you stand before Christ at the Great White Throne Judgement, you will remember all the chances you had in life to trust Jesus Christ alone. You will wish you could go back in time to trust Christ alone the way He said you must do, just as I wish that I could go back in time to return the nickel to that little girl that I essentially stole from her in my ignorance.

I want to reiterate my stance once again in an effort to make something very clear to you, the reader of this work: I take zero pleasure in pointing out the salvific flaws which constitute the most deeply held beliefs that each of these pastors espouse to their global audiences, neither do I take pleasure in tearing down that which has been built by the honest efforts of these good people, nor do I receive a twisted thrill as I cut them to the soul with a verse when I wield my King James Bible in a sincere attempt to have them focus solely upon faith in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection for their salvation. The enemy, in this case, is Satan; however, these pastors, with their false gospels that mistakenly commingle grace with human efforts in hopes of attaining that which is given by God freely through faith alone in the shed blood of the Messiah (apart from human efforts) are oblivious to the fact that they are being used by Satan to both damn eternally in the lake of fire that which God loves the most (humankind) and to greedily rob Him of the everlasting pleasure and fellowship that He desires for every human being to have with Him in heaven. If Satan could have his way, he would kill God and have all of humanity to worship him. Satan tried this once by leading one-third of the total number of created angels in a rebellion against God, yet all were struck down, instantly. To make up for his shortcomings, Satan has reverted to what can best be described as mafia tactics. Since he cannot harm God, he instead harms those whom God loves the most — human beings created in His image. If the mafia are unable to hurt you, they will instead hurt the people that you love the most. By doing so, they strike a painful blow to which there is no relief, no remedy, and no recourse. When a person who has placed his or her faith in a false gospel dies, there is no hope of that person ever entering into heaven. This grieves God, yet, He can do nothing for the lost person once their dead spirit has been separated from their lifeless body. With the passing of each person who has fallen for a counterfeit plan of salvation, God is robbed and Satan rejoices. Worst of all is the horror that all unsaved people must accept as their new reality when their souls consciously enter into a special holding place known as hell, where they will await judicial sentencing at the Great White Throne Judgement before being cast into the eternal lake of fire.

Let’s face some facts: we’ve all told lies, we’ve all sped through red lights while cops weren’t looking, etc., and because we do wrong things quite often, either knowingly or unknowingly, we are — at the core of our being — blackened by the dirt of our anger, selfishness, pride, etc., and by attitudes and feelings which are normal because they are a part of our daily lives. In short, we are sinners. We were born as sinners. Nobody had to teach us how to lie or how to steal toys from our classmates at Kindergarten. But the bible says that God loves us. You wouldn’t think that, though, judging by what you see in the world today, such as all of the cruelty we see in our world. Despite that, God does love us. But we have a problem. Sin. All of those wrong things we have done carry a price. The price for all the wrong things we do is a spiritual death penalty of sorts. But because God loves us, He has made a “way out” for us, and this way out is through belief in His Son. Let me explain the Gospel: The Gospel is another term for “good news.” This good news is this — Jesus died on the cross (just like in the Mel Gibson movie a few years ago), He was buried in a grave, and He then arose from the dead three days later. That is the simple message of Christ’s plan of salvation. When we realize there is a price for the wrongs we have done, and then believe that Christ paid for all of those wrongs by His death, burial, and coming back to life, God saves us. Sadly, what you see and hear on television and on radio from today’s heaviest hitters in the Christian business is not real. Most everything you have ever seen or heard about church, about religion, and about Christ has all been done in the name of greed. Many in today’s Christian movement are nothing more than hypocritical snobs with a lust for cold, hard cash. They don’t care a thing about you, reader. But Christ does. He will erase your criminal records in His books the very instant you believe that He paid for your crimes by His death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. Christ said “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47). Salvation has NOTHING to do with promising to stop smoking, drinking, cursing, extra-marital affairs, etc. Christ does not tell us to clean up our act before we take Him up on His free gift of heaven. He offers it to all of us just as we are at this moment. He does not demand that we change our way of living or give anything up in order to be saved. But reader, once you trust Jesus as your savior and become His child, He will not allow you to live as you please. He will correct you. Salvation is not a license to sin, but because of the eternal nature of the gift of salvation, you will never lose your salvation no matter what you do in this life. We see several instances in the bible where God cut short the lives of certain born-again people because they would not stop evil things.

Tell me, if you can, what’s wrong with this particular salvation statement: “Believe on Christ, turn from your sins, be sorry for your sins, and you will go to Heaven.” I will tell you what’s wrong with it — it is not biblical. It is not what Christ said to do. When we consciously “turn from our sins” as so many teachers and preachers tell us we have to do “in order to” be saved, that amount of “effort” on our part actually makes “us” the savior, not Christ. It is a subtle form of “works” that becomes added to what Christ alone has already done for us on the cross. Why is this so serious? Because works of any kind, no matter how sincere or genuinely good they may be, will cancel out the grace of God. If we trust Christ “plus” trying to live the “Christian Lifestyle” in order to get to heaven, we will not make it to heaven because we are not trusting in the plan of salvation that God the Father has set into place as the “only means” by which we can be saved. Salvation occurs immediately when a person trusts that Christ’s death, burial and resurrection from the grave “alone” is what erases their criminal records in His court, so to speak. You see, to go to heaven, one simply understands that God cannot allow any sin to enter heaven; the price for being a sinner is eternal death in the lake of fire; but Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He was buried in a grave, but He arose from the dead three days later. God says that belief (trust) in what Jesus did for us is what saves us from the lake of fire. It has NOTHING to do with trying to live the “Christian Lifestyle.” Instead, it has EVERYTHING to do with believing that Jesus paid for your sins-in-full by His death and subsequent resurrection from the grave. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Yes, it does. And it is! He made it that way so that there wouldn’t be any confusion; however, all we seem to have today is confusion on the subject because wolves disguised as sheep have entered into our churches and have polluted the plan of salvation according to Jesus Christ. They have completely adulterated the message of His free gift to the point that few will ever trust Him no matter how many times the true gospel is presented to them.

Let me just say one thing to all of the people who have doubted their salvation, who have never felt sure of where they would go when they die even though they say they know to your face, who have asked Christ into their hearts repeatedly, who have tried to change their behaviors, who have done everything their pastor has told them to do, and who have never had that inner sense of security that they know is missing in their lives: this book is for you! Read it again and again. You will know beyond any doubt what Christ requires of you. Simply put, we must trust Jesus Christ alone as our only hope of reaching heaven, because if we don’t trust Him alone, we are not saved. Isaiah 64:6 says that all of our best works and deeds are like filthy rags in His sight, so, no amount of good deeds, law keeping, or any amount of Christian living and behavioral changes will count toward getting us into heaven; yet, innumerable masses of people continue to be deceived on a daily basis by thoroughly unscriptural and woeful counterfeit plans of salvation that have been inspired by Satan himself. It’s all a form of spiritual warfare designed by Satan to both deny “you” the joy of living in heaven for eternity and to deny God of as many souls as possible from entering heaven. But where is God in all of this deception? Why does He allow it to continue? He is near. He is in the room with you now. He is reading your mind. He uses people like me who are not afraid to tell others the truth about what Jesus Christ Himself says concerning salvation in the bible. But, He gives you the choice of believing Him or of not believing Him. He lets you choose your eternal destiny. Please, trust Jesus Christ ALONE as your savior. Take Him at His word. He cannot lie. But reader, if you do not trust Jesus Christ alone as your savior, you will stand before Him in horror at the Great White Throne Judgement, where He will say, “I NEVER KNEW YOU.”