73 Sermon Illustrations on Born Again

Cesar Guy was a well-off Filipino who was falsely accused of rape. The case was in the papers for weeks. He was sent to prison for 16 years. He turned to alcohol. After 7 years his accuser recanted after becoming a Christian and asked him to be pardoned, but three days previously Marcos imposed military law and the pardon got buried. One cellmate, Roger Arienda, was jailed for criticizing Marcos and droned on about politics. In 1975 he took a Bible out of the library and became saved. Then he droned on about Jesus. But his rage was replaced with compassion.

Chinese Pastor Hao preached at the prison and wouldn't take his eyes off Cesar. He visited Cesar personally and gave him a Bible, which he tried to trade for a cigarette but couldn't. He promised to read John 3 to get the pastor off his back. Nicodemus fascinated him, as did 2 Cor 5:17. He accepted Christ and looked up his old cellmate Roger. Cesar was released in 1982, complete with a press conference and a public apology from the publisher of the Manila newspaper that had defamed him. He now works with Prison Fellowship and gives jobs to prisoners.

Amid all the amusement and theme parks clustered in Orlando, Florida, there's one that is pretty distinctive. It's a Holy Land theme park that attempts to bring some of the scenes and the stories of the Bible to life. Our daughter and son-in-law were there not long ago with our two grandsons. And the kids, who are pretty up on their Bible stories, really enjoyed walking through those stories and meeting some of the characters (actually, people portraying some of those characters). The one that impressed our then two-year-old grandson the most was Jesus. A man portraying Jesus stood in the middle of the small crowd and He spoke some of the very stories that He told as recorded in the Bible. But then came the moment our little guy will not soon forget - Jesus came over and picked Him up, just like Jesus did with the children when He was here. The next day Mom and our little guy were talking about his upcoming third birthday party, and suddenly out of the blue, he said, “I want Jesus at my birthday party.”

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “No Birthday Without Him.”

That's a great idea - Jesus at your birthday party. Talk about a guest of honor! Actually, when it comes to the most important birthday of all, there's no birthday without Jesus. And if there's no birthday, there's no life. Eternal life, that is. The most important birthday of all is the day you get born into God's family. Isn't everyone God's child? Not unless they've been born spiritually into the family of the Heavenly Father.

Jesus Himself put it this way in John 3:3, our word for today from the Word of God. “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Obviously, Birth One was the day you were born into your parents' family. No birthday, no life. Jesus is talking here about Birth Two - the day you actually begin to belong to God. No birthday, no life. Whatever “born again” is, Jesus said you cannot enter God's heaven without it, because heaven is only for family - God's family. Anyone can be in God's family, no matter what their religion or their background, but not everyone is, because they've never been born ... again.

John 1:12 describes just how a person gets born into God's family: “To all who received Him (that's Jesus), to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” It's all about what you do with Jesus. Why? Because the only way to be in God's family is to take care of what keeps you out of being one of His kids. And that's sin. He's an all-holy, totally perfect God. You and I have turned our back on Him - sometimes with a lot of religion in our lives to give us a sense of being okay. That's called false security. We've used the mouth He gave us to hurt and to lie and to swear. We've used the hands and eyes and ears He gave us to touch and explore what we never should have touched. We've hurt most the people we love most, we've lusted, and boasted and been selfish. All that sin has to be paid for, but Jesus died as our substitute paying for it.

Jesus is the only One who can forgive your sin, because He's the only One who died for it and then rose again to prove He can. He's the only One who can get you into heaven. But you need a birthday, a definite beginning with Him or you have no chance of being God's child.

You may have had a baptism day, a communion day, a confirmation day, a lot of church days, but you've missed your spiritual birthday. Which only comes the day you “believe in” Jesus - which means welcoming Him into your life with total trust in Him as your only hope. If you've done that, you know you have. If you don't, you haven't. But you can ... this very day. He's let you live another day so you could have another chance. Just tell Him, “Jesus, I'm Yours.”

Today's date could become the most important day of your life if you make it your Jesus-day ... your birthday. The day you receive the most awesome, most expensive birthday present of all - eternal life paid for with the life of God's Son.

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #31]

A Chinese general put it this way: "If the world is to be brought to order, my nation must first be changed. If my nation is to be changed, my hometown must be made over. If my hometown is to be reordered, my family must first be set right. If my family is to be regenerated, I myself must first be."

First sermon in 1 Peter series. Theme of Salvation. 1 Peter 1:1-9

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A LIVING HOPE

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I. The life of a fisherman.

II. Salvation is God's doing. 1:1

A. "Election" is a much-abused term.

B. Election reveals the wonder of gospel. Deut 4:37; 7:6-8

C. Foreknown, then chosen. 1:2

III. Salvation is a process. 1:2

A. It is far more than a past decision.

B. Sanctifying work of Spirit.

C. Obedience to Jesus.

IV. Salvation requires a dramatic change. 1:3

A. It is not a gradual touch-up but a new birth.

B. Living hope.

C. We have an inheritance waiting for us. 1:4

V. Salvation protects us.

A. Shielded=guarded. 1:5

B. Revealed in the last times.

VI. Salvation is not always easy. 1:6

A. We can rejoice in spite of sufferings.

B. Real faith is an enduring faith. 1:7

C. Real faith brings glory to Jesus.

#2859

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George Brown, realtor, Presbyterian, has this to say about Christians:

I am not a born-again Christian and don't know any to my knowledge. Christians have talked with me several times but they came across sort of narrow-minded. It made me feel like they were condescending and wouldn't recognize other people's beliefs.

Is there anything about Christianity that I find attractive? Certainly. I guess if there is a Supreme Being, believing in a life thereafter, and a world of love, these are attractive.

In many ways I consider myself a Christian, just not a born-again one. I've already been born once. Why would I want to be born again? I think that too many Christians will not believe that there are other religious faiths in the world. To me that's the greatest shortcoming of the Christian church.

Did you see the results of that recent Barna survey about Christians and divorce? Depressing. According to George Barna, people who call themselves "born again" Christians divorce at higher even rates than non-believers -- three percent higher, to be exact.

Well, it would be depressing, and shocking, except it turns out the survey reveals less about how real Christians live their lives than it does about the confusion about what "born again" really means.

Wade Clark Roof is the author of a new book called Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. A religious studies professor, Roof says that one third of America's 77 million Baby Boomers identify themselves as "born again Christians." The question is, what do they mean by that?

According to Roof, it means that they've had a "highly personal spiritual experience that has changed their lives." To these folks, you are born again "because of certain feelings ... and experiences, not because you believe any particular set of doctrines."

And Roof says only about half of those who call themselves "born again" today attend a conservative Protestant church. Twenty percent don't belong to ANY church. Shockingly, a third of those who say they're "born again" believe in astrology and reincarnation.

In other words, you might call yourself a born again Christian, but so do people who call the Psychic Friends Network every week. And so does the guy down the street -- the one who lives with his girlfriend and smokes pot on weekends.

All of which helps explain the Barna results.

Many of those who call themselves born again, have no idea what the term means. We certainly can't expect them to lead Christ-like lives, or to know, for instance, that God says "I hate divorce" in the book of Malachi.

The good news is that divorce is much less common among serious Christians who conscientiously practice their faith. For example, research indicates that regular church attendance is linked with marital stability. And Christians who live by biblical teachings -- such as remaining chaste and abstaining from sex until marriage -- also enjoy much lower divorce rates.

Of course, far too many Christians do divorce, leaving behind broken hearts and broken homes - and we should do something about it.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and the best way to celebrate is by doing something other than exchanging cards with your loved ones. You can do something that will help lower America's divorce rate by helping your church begin a Marriage Saver ministry. It's a program begun by my friend Mike McManus.

Marriage Savers has a proven track record for helping couples solve tough marital problems.

And if your unsaved neighbors refer to polls about Christians getting divorced, set them straight. The statistics are misleading because they include a lot of people who aren't born again.

And we must lovingly tell folks, including some in our own churches, something else, as well: Christianity is more than some touchy-feely, emotional experience. Only when we accept by faith our Lord's sacrifice on the cross, and faithfully follow Him, are we truly "born again."

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[testimony changed from first person to third, below]

After I finished high school I decided to forget university and became a DJ in a disco instead. I spent everything I earned buying records, gambling, and doing drugs. Soon I was broke and in debt. Gone was the glamour this life once had.

In spite of the drugs and the music, I could not drown out the feeling that there was a God and I needed to learn more about Him. I remembered my mother telling me about God when I was a child. I remembered that we sometimes prayed together, but I sensed there had to be more to God and religion than just saying a prayer.

Late one night after I finished working at the disco, I went home and faced off with God. On my knees I literally shouted at God, “If You are here, and if You are real, then help me - now. I am willing to listen to You, but I need to know You are there and You can help me.”

I was in big financial trouble, and I knew I could not solve my problems myself, so I was willing to let God help me. I made a deal with God - I was willing to surrender my life to Him if He would help me. And God took me up on the deal, even though I had no idea at the time what “surrender” really meant.

I did not know where to start with God, but I entrusted my life into His hands, promising Him that I wanted to live according to His will if he would free me from the chains that bound me. And it worked: God took away my addictions to alcohol, tobacco, and gambling - all things that had chained me for years. I was free!

I felt great! I was sure God had done this, but I did not know yet how to live my life for God. Then one day I received a piece of paper that said, “I tried to contact you. Please give me a call.” A few weeks later I called the number. It was a pastor and he invited me for a meal and Bible study. I wasn’t sure about this. I wanted to see these Christians, find out what they were all about. The Holy Spirit impressed me to go, then to come back for another meeting. Soon I began to attend the weekly morning service.

I know now that the Holy Spirit speaking to me. I no longer wanted to fight against God and spiritual things; I was home. I continued attending the church. And I wondered why the people told me to be patient, to take time for Bible study and for talking with God. They were right though, even though I was so eager to move forward. But I slowed down, studied, grew deeper in my experience with God.

God never ripped anything away from me; instead, He showed me step-by-step what He wanted me to do. And as I look back over the past few years, I would ask to keep one thing. The music, the gambling, the “excitement”? No problem; I would rather have Jesus. God has a calling for me, and has given me a new life.

________

By Nicola Taubert, Stuttgart, Germany

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Converted to third person by Rev. Holwick:

After Nicola Taubert finished high school in Stuttgart, Germany, she decided not to go on to university and became a DJ in a disco instead. She spent everything she earned buying records, gambling, and doing drugs. Soon she was broke and in debt. The glamorous life she once had was a distant memory.

In spite of the drugs and the music, Nicola could not drown out the feeling that there was a God and she needed to learn more about Him. She remembered her mother telling her about God when she was a child. She remembered that they sometimes prayed together, but Nicola sensed there had to be more to God and religion than just saying a prayer.

Late one night after she finished working at the disco, Nicola went home and faced off with God. On her knees she literally shouted at God, “If You are here, and if You are real, then help me - now. I am willing to listen to You, but I need to know You are there and You can help me.”

Nicola was in big financial trouble, and she knew she could not solve her problems herself. She was willing to let God help her, so she made a deal: she would surrender her life to Him if He would help her. And God took her up on the deal, even though she had no idea at the time what “surrender” really meant.

Nicola did not know where to start with God, but she entrusted her life into His hands. She promised God that she wanted to live according to His will, if he would free her from the chains that bound her. And it worked: God took away her addictions to alcohol, tobacco, and gambling - all things that had chained her for years. She was free!

Nicola felt great! She was sure God had done this, but she did not know yet how to live her life for God. Then one day she received a piece of paper that said, “I tried to contact you. Please give me a call.” A few weeks later she called the number; it was a pastor and he invited her for a meal and Bible study. She hesitated, because she wasn’t sure what these Christians were all about. But the Holy Spirit impressed her to go, and she liked it so much she went back.

Soon she began to attend the weekly morning service.

Nicola knows now that the Holy Spirit was speaking to her. She no longer wanted to fight against God and spiritual things; she was home. She continues attending the church and is growing in her faith.

God never ripped anything away from her; instead, He showed her step-by-step what He wanted her to do. And as she looks back over the past few years, she would ask to keep one thing. The music, the gambling, the “excitement”? No -- she would rather keep Jesus.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #2379]

When asked if she thought she would go to heaven, Barbara Walters — host of ABC’s December 20 special on heaven — responded, “I have no idea.”

I. What is Heaven? Answers given to Barbara Walters by religious leaders —

A. Cardinal Theodore McCerrick (Roman Catholic) — “...is to come to the end of your life at peace with the Lord so that you may find eternal happiness in heaven.” (He did not explain how this is accomplished.)

B. Rabbi Neil Gilman (Jewish) — “The purpose of life is to live a decent life...and that you do it for its own sake, not for getting a reward.”

C. Rev. Calvin Butts (liberal Baptist) — “...eternal joy and happiness because you are at one with God.”

D. Dalai Lama (Buddhist) — “...is the best place to further develop the spiritual practice...for Buddhist the final goal is not just to reach there, but to become Buddha....If someone do very bad, badly...kill or steal...could be born in an animal body.”

E. Ted Haggard (Evangelical) — “Jesus Christ guarantees eternal life to anybody that’ll follow him....The purpose of life is to glorify God and go to heaven...’cause heaven is our home.”

F. Ellen Johnson (President of American Atheists Society) — “No, heaven doesn’t exist, hell doesn’t exist. We weren’t alive before we were born and we’re not going to exist after we die. I’m not happy about the fact that that’s the end of life, but I can accept that and make my life more fulfilling now, because this is the only chance I have.”

G. Feisal Abdul Rauf (Islam) — “The real life is the next life...and...how we live this life, it determines where we shall be in the next. We are told we will be in comfortable homes, reclining on silk couches...so we’re given the delights of sex, the delights of wine, the delights of food with all of their positive things without their negative aspects.”

H. Jihad Jarrar (sincere Muslim, failed suicide bomber) — “...the Lord promised the martyr who lost his life and lost the world on earth, that he promised him these 72 women in paradise as honor, as respect for him.”

II. What is Heaven? Answers given by the Bible —

A. The Bible mentions three heavens: atmospheric heaven, where birds fly; terrestrial heaven, location of the stars and planets; and Celestial heaven, the location of God’s throne (Ps. 80:14; Isa. 66:1; Mt. 5:16, 45, 48)

B. Biblical Names for Celestial Heaven

1. Third heaven (II Cor. 12:2)

2. Paradise (II Cor. 12:4, Lk. 23:43; Rev. 2:7)

3. Glory (Col. 3:4)

4. The highest (Lk. 2:14)

5. The Father’s house (Jn. 14:2)

6. City of the Living God (Heb. 12:22)

7. Heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22)

C. Residents of the Celestial Heaven

1. The living God (Heb. 12:22)

2. Innumerable angels (Heb. 12:22)

3. Redeemed men and women (Heb. 12:23)

4. Jesus Christ (Heb. 12:24)

D. Characteristics of Heaven

1. Heaven is a holy place. There will be no evil or sin in heaven (Ps. 20:6; Rev. 21:8)

2. Heaven is a place of worship (Rev. 4:8-11).

3. Heaven is a place of paradise (Lk. 23:43; Rev. 2:7).

4. Heaven is a place without any unpleasant thing (Rev. 21:4).

5. Heaven is a place of active service (Rev. 22:3).

6. Heaven is a place where everyone is like Jesus (Heb. 2:10-11; Rom. 8:29; I Jn. 3:1,2)

III. Who is going to heaven? — Answer given by Jesus and the Bible

A. Only those who have been “born again” John 3:1-16.

1. Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Being “born again,” then, is absolutely essential if one would see God’s kingdom, heaven.

2. When Nicodemus questioned Jesus as to the matter of being born again, Jesus explained that belief is the prerequisite to being born again (John 3:14-16).

B. Only those who have believed in Christ for salvation (John 14:1-6).

1. Belief in God is not enough to get one to heaven. Even demons believe in God (James 2:19). One must personally trust Christ (John 14:1).

2. Jesus Himself claimed to be the exclusive way to heaven (John 14:6). No more intolerant, exclusive, narrow, non-politically correct statement has ever been made by any religious leader.

C. Only those who have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).

1. Only Jesus can save. All other religions lead to hell.

2. Jesus is the only way of salvation; there are no alternate routes.

IV. Who is going to hell? — Answer given by the Bible

A. All those who have not believed on Christ (John 3:18).

B. All whose names are not recorded in the Book of Life (Rev. 20:11-15).

C. All those who fit the description of Revelation 21:8.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1896]

How long has it been since you stopped to consider the glorious transformation of your rebirth?

In his letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul declared, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” That verse, 2 Corinthians 5:17, served as a life verse for me when I first became a follower of Jesus. It was probably the first verse I ever memorized. Even after quoting the King James Version thousands of times, it still rings with power and passion for me today.

Six simple words outline my Christian experience.

It began with woe.

I vividly remember as a little boy experiencing the conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit was at work in my life before I had any understanding of God’s powerful call to receive the Gospel. On occasion, I remember seeing the terrors of hell in a bad dream that, to me, seemed more real than any other dream.

As a young adult, working as a firefighter for the city of Clovis, New Mexico, I remember feeling the grip of fear whenever I considered the possibility of dying in a fire. The realization that dying in a fire would only mark the beginning of an eternity in fire horrified me more than dying in the fire itself. The thought of hell and the realization of my sin brought a sense of woe into my life.

My woe turned to wow on a December evening when God, amid my conviction, blessed me with grace.

I don’t know another way to say it, other than to state that I was wowed by the amazing grace of Almighty God. It amazed me that He loved me so much that He would do something for me that only He could do. Paul also said that Jesus, the only person who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we might experience and receive God’s righteousness through Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). After more than four decades of following Jesus, I can honestly say that I have never gotten over the wow.

In my life’s journey, the woe led to wow, and the wow led to what.

What is it that God would desire or expect from me? Also in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, Paul explained the “what.” God expected me to join Him in the ministry of reconciliation and for my life’s work to revolve around sharing the message of Christ with others. Candidly, I can say that I am still as excited today as I was the first time that I understood my identity and purpose in Jesus. When I consider all that God has done for me and in me, I am simply overwhelmed

And when the woe led to wow, and the wow led to what, the what led to walk. I realized that God promised me that I am now a new creation in Christ.

My new identity is wrapped in mercy and grace. I am no longer held captive by guilt and shame. I can now boldly proclaim that I am a child of the King. I can walk in the fullness of His grace with my head held high, not because of anything that I have done but because I look up to Jesus, who has done more for me than I could ever dream or imagine.

The woe led to wow; the wow led to what; the what led to walk; and the walk leads me to watch and wait.

Life prompts many sobering thoughts. But, perhaps, the most sobering is the understanding that life on earth is temporary. God calls us to watch and wait, anticipating that day when this earthly house will be destroyed (as the early verses of 2 Corinthians 5 explain).

I think of my friend, pastor and author Calvin Miller, who is now in heaven. Prior to his death, he said that the thought of death did not grip him with fear. In fact, death was a journey for which he had prepared throughout his life.

Stemming from my Christian experience outlined in the six simple words -- woe, wow, what, walk, watch and wait -- two simple statements now sum up my life mission: serve others and share Jesus. Still today, the foundation bedrock for those two statements lies in that first text of Scripture I ever memorized: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.”

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #969]

The basis for salvation is under attack today. The questions that many ask in response to the presentation of the gospel ("I'm a good person -- isn't that enough to be right with God?" "How can you say that Jesus is the only way to God?") mirror their confusion or disdain.

Somehow, they believe, the "God" of whom they conceive will be satisfied with their sincerity or with their good works.

Scripture makes it clear, though, that salvation does not begin with us. We are "dead in sin" (Ephesians 2:1) and thus unable to save ourselves.

Instead, God begins the work that allows us to become new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). We call this work "regeneration" or "new birth" -- that is, it is the act of God by which he imparts spiritual life resulting in salvation.

We first encounter the phrase "born again" in Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus (John 3). This phrase is so very descriptive of the work done in us in salvation. As we had no part in imparting life to ourselves at the time of our physical birth, likewise we have no part in imparting spiritual life to ourselves at the time of our new birth.

John 1:13 underscores this truth by stating that this birth is not due to "the will of man, but of God."

Scripture speaks often of this new birth. It is described as made effectual not only through the Word of God (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23), but also through the work of Christ on the cross (Eph 2:5; Colossians 2:13; 1 Pet 1:3) and through the work of the Holy Spirit (John 3:8; Titus 3:5). The evidence of the new birth is seen in the changed life of the one who experiences it (2 Cor 5:17; 1 John 2:29; 5:4).

But how is this new birth appropriated? Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again." If that same statement was made to someone today, what would he or she be expected to do?

In Scripture, the response needed is expressed in terms of repentance and faith. These two actions are often spoken of together under the heading of "conversion," and both are needed for salvation.

Repentance involves more than just remorse or a feeling of guilt over getting caught in sin. Rather, it refers to a genuine sorrow for sin accompanied by a desire and commitment to leave it behind. Or, as is often stated, it is "a change of mind that leads to a change of action."

The awareness of the need to repent is brought about by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-11). Its importance is evidenced by its inclusion as a key element in the preaching of Jesus (Mark 1:15), John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2) and the early church (Acts 2:38).

The noun "faith" comes from the same root word as the verb "I believe" in the Greek language of the New Testament. More than just acknowledging intellectually that something is true, biblical faith requires a personal trust in and commitment to Jesus based on the knowledge of who he is and what he has done in providing forgiveness for sin.

Often in the New Testament, the word "believe" is followed by the word "in" to express this idea. Most noticeably, John 3:16 states that whoever "believes in" Jesus will have everlasting life.

Paul also reminds us that it is because of God's grace that we are saved through faith and not by our own works (Eph 2:8-9). Which one of us could ever do enough "good deeds" to earn God's salvation?

Taken together, regeneration and conversion are both foundational to the biblical teaching of salvation. God has graciously given us his spiritual life which we experience as we respond to him in repentance and faith.

We declare with the author of Hebrews (2:3), "How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

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Article 4: Salvation

Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.

Genesis 3:15; Exodus 3:14-17; 6:2-8; Matthew 1:21; 4:17; 16:21-26; 27:22-28:6; Luke 1:68-69; 2:28-32; John 1:11-14,29; 3:3-21,36; 5:24; 10:9,28-29; 15:1-16; 17:17; Acts 2:21; 4:12; 15:11; 16:30-31; 17:30-31; 20:32; Romans 1:16-18; 2:4; 3:23-25; 4:3ff.; 5:8-10; 6:1-23; 8:1-18,29-39; 10:9-10,13; 13:11-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18,30; 6:19-20; 15:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; Galatians 2:20; 3:13; 5:22-25; 6:15; Ephesians 1:7; 2:8-22; 4:11-16; Philippians 2:12-13; Colossians 1:9-22; 3:1ff.; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:12; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:1-3; 5:8-9; 9:24-28; 11:1-12:8,14; James 2:14-26; 1 Peter 1:2-23; 1 John 1:6-2:11; Revelation 3:20; 21:1-22:5.

_________________

DeKlavon is associate dean and associate professor of New Testament at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky.

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Jane Fonda has become a born-again Christian, enthusiastic in her newly found faith, and her conversion is making waves from Atlanta to Hollywood.

She's regularly attending church services and Bible studies in Atlanta, and one friend calls her faith "very real, very deep."

One of her longtime critics calls it a conversion "right up there with Saul of Tarsus." The story leaped from Internet gossip to mainstream newspapers following the disclosure last week that she and her husband, Ted Turner, have separated.

Miss Fonda has so far declined to talk to reporters about it, and her spokesman, Steven Bennett, Thursday told The Times: "We do not comment on her personal life."

She had said in an interview two years ago, on the eve of her 60th birthday, that she had asked herself, "Where do I want to go with the last third of my life?"

Friends say Mr. Turner's unhappiness with his wife's enthusiasm for her new faith in Christ contributed to the split-up. The couple said they hope to work out a reconciliation.

Her friends in Atlanta and Hollywood are rallying around her.

"I am extremely impressed with the genuineness and sincerity in [her] search for spirituality and wholeness," the Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta where Miss Fonda has attended services, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I think she's found a certain sense of peace among people who've found peace with Christianity."

Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission in Los Angeles, who worries that news of Miss Fonda's conversion will put the actress-activist under pressure as a "celebrity Christian," urges Christians to pray for her.

"We should be kind and gracious and thoughtful and respectful," says Mr. Baehr, who said he had been aware of Miss Fonda's journey toward faith for more than a year.

Joseph Farah, whose Internet site WorldNetDaily.com first reported Miss Fonda's conversion, said he had heard "rumblings" about her search for faith

for two years. "Then, last summer, I started hearing again from people who were close to Jane, that this was real, that she was really attending church and Bible study and had made a sincere commitment to Christianity. It resurfaced recently with the separation between Ted and Jane. I heard from one of my sources that the real reason was spiritual," he said.

Mr. Turner, who turned a bankrupt Atlanta advertising company into a media empire that grew even larger this week with the merger of Time-Warner and America Online, has been an outspoken critic of Christianity, calling it a "religion for losers."

At a meeting of population control groups last year, Mr. Turner ridiculed the Ten Commandments and told a Polish joke about Pope John Paul II, who was born in Poland. But later he appeared chastened and told the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., an Atlanta suburb: "From the bottom of my heart, I apologize for the things I said about Christians."

Mr. Turner has told friends that he had accepted Christ as a young man at a Billy Graham crusade, but lost his faith after the death of his sister.

Among those involved in Miss Fonda's path to Christ are several Christian friends in Atlanta. These are said to include Ginny Millner, wife of Georgia Republican leader Guy Millner, and Nancy McGuirk, whose husband is an executive in Turner Broadcasting Co.

The key figure in Miss Fonda's search, however, may have been her chauffeur, who shared his faith with her, Mr. Baehr said. When her husband became upset when she began attending Atlanta's fashionable Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Miss Fonda "asked her chauffeur where should she go." The chauffeur invited her to attend his church, the predominantly black Providence Missionary Baptist Church.

She accepted the invitation, and became a regular parishioner there, though she apparently has not joined the church. Miss Fonda, who founded the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, helped Providence Church establish its Fathers Resource Center, which educates young men about the emotional and social responsibilities of fatherhood.

She has not publicly talked about her political views, or whether she has changed any of them, but she is said to have declined to participate in a meditation ceremony at an environmental conference not long ago with an admonition that "it would be better to pray to Jesus Christ."

A member of Providence Church, who has worked closely with Miss Fonda, said telephone calls from reporters have flooded the church since the news broke of Miss Fonda's attendance at Providence Missionary. "It's been a zoo here.... It's been absolutely incredible," she said. That kind of media frenzy worries Robert H. Knight, senior director of cultural studies at the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy organization.

"I would hope, if her conversion is genuine, that Miss Fonda will not come under undue pressure before she is able to handle it," he says. "She probably needs time to grow in the faith and experience the joys of knowing Christ, before undergoing trials on His behalf."

Spiritual growth may be difficult for Miss Fonda because of her Hollywood background. The Academy Award-winning actress, who was called "Hanoi Jane" after her 1971 trip to North Vietnam, where she was photographed posing on an anti-aircraft battery, "has been in a cultural universe that is utterly hostile to Christianity," Mr. Knight says.

Speculation has grown in Atlanta that Mr. Turner might soon follow his wife in a search for his own discarded faith. "Nobody is beyond the grace of God," says Mr. Baehr. "That's why Jesus died for the sinners, not for the righteous.... Nobody is beyond God's grace whom God decides to call into His kingdom."

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This article was mailed from The Washington Times.

For more great articles, visit us at http://www.washtimes.com

_____________________

[Holwick - In late April 2001 Ted Turner filed for divorce and attributed the breakup to her conversion.]

*

Secret wife of Bob Dylan

The story is told for the first time -- the family he kept hidden from the world

In the fall of 1985, Columbia released Biograph, a five-record set of Dylan recordings. It was the first time a living popular music star had been given such a major retrospective.

To celebrate, Columbia hosted a party for Dylan at the Whitney Museum in New York on November 13. Carole Childs, an executive for Geffen Records, who had been dating him for three years, was his date for the evening, but she had only to open Biograph to see that she was not the only woman in his life. One of the two booklets that came with the set was liberally illustrated with photographs of Dylan with Clydie King. Childs knew about the relationship and claims it did not bother her. "Show me a fidelious [sic] guy," she says, "and I'll show you a liar."

The fact that Dylan was dating both Childs and King did not stop him picking up another woman at the party. Susan Ross was a blond, 33-year-old former road manager. Invited to the Whitney by a friend, she turned up in a five-dollar thrift-shop dress of blue lace. Almost every other woman was wearing chic black, making her feel out of place until she found herself standing next to Dylan. He asked what she thought of the party, and asked for her telephone number. Ross claims he came to her hotel three days later.

"We hung out and talked for about four hours, just necking." They did not see each other for the next few months, because Dylan was abroad, but they spoke by telephone, and when he returned to the United States they began seeing each other.

Ross says she became pregnant by Dylan, and that the pregnancy was terminated. It was the start of an often difficult relationship, she claims. Dylan was a "raging alcoholic" when they met, and reluctant to make any commitment to her.

Ross also knew Dylan was seeing other women. Indeed, he had an abundance of female admirers. Some were distinguished in their own right. Elizabeth Taylor was smitten with him. She made her feelings clear when they met backstage at a tribute concert to Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C., in January, 1986.

"We were sitting in the green room and I had Liz Taylor on one side of me and Bob on the other side, and Elizabeth saw Bob and just hit on him," says guitarist Ted Perlman. "She got all giddy over him.

"Bob was wearing this flannel shirt outside his dirty jeans and he's got work boots on, continues Perlman. "He's skinny and he's grungy and his personal hygiene -- he has no hygiene. That's just the way he is ... But women don't care. He has a kind of power over them."

Despite his labyrinthine love life, Childs maintains that Dylan is, at heart, a "wonderful, basic Midwestern family guy [with] tremendous principles." Nevertheless, apparently not content with the company of Childs, King and Ross -- and whomever else he could pick up -- Dylan had recently resumed his relationship with backing singer Carolyn Dennis.

Dylan had dated Dennis on and off since she started working for him during a 1978 world tour. Dennis then married a drummer and had a family. The marriage did not last long, and she began dating Dylan again.

Singer Maria Muldaur (Midnight at the Oasis) was friendly with Dylan, Dennis and several of the other backing singers who worked with him. "I think he [dated] some of these black girls because they didn't idolize him. They were real down-to-earth and they didn't worship him," she explains. "[They are] strong women who would just say, 'cut off your bullsh--.' "

Dylan's music was not popular in the African-American community. While women from his own white middle-class background often saw him as an overawing presence, he was just another guy to African-American women, and this was refreshing to him. "These girls all tell me that they had no idea who he was," says Muldaur. "But then, of course, they get on the tour with him and they see what a big deal he was and I do believe, despite everybody's pure Christian intentions [this was in the early days of Dylan's born-again period], there was a lot of jockeying for position to see who would end up being Bob's girl."

At the age of 31, Dennis became pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter -- Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan -- at the Humana Hospital West Hills in Canoga Park, Calif., on Jan. 31, 1986. The name of the father is given on the birth certificate as Robert Dylan. The birth was one of the most closely guarded secrets of Dylan's career. Not even close friends and members of his family knew at first, and the full facts have not been revealed until now.

Dylan was a father again, 17 years after the birth of his son Jakob. Although he was insistent that the existence of a sixth Dylan child should remain secret -- seemingly to protect Desiree, as well as his own privacy -- he would do everything to make sure Desiree had a stable family life.

The first step was to marry her mother. The wedding of Dylan and Dennis took place in Los Angeles on June 4, 1986. The certificate was filed as a "confidential marriage." There was not a hint in the press. Far from ending his relationship with Childs, however, Dylan continued to date her, and provided her with a US$500,000 house in Beverly Hills.

By the end of the '80s, Dylan had dispensed with using backing singers. So his wife stayed at home with their daughter. Owing to his touring and recording commitments, Dylan rarely visited. On Aug. 7, 1990, Dennis filed for a dissolution of their four-year marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.

In May, 1991, Dylan turned 50 and found he had to face the emotional and financial cost of a second failed marriage. In June, as the first step in the process, the family home (one of more than a dozen properties he owned) was transferred to Dennis's name.

Dylan was drinking heavily, downing brandy and other liquor as if it were Coca-Cola. He also became grumpy and unreasonable with his band. "He was going through a pretty rough time himself with one thing and another," says bassist Ian Wallace. "He'd stop in the middle of songs, kind of put his hand on his hips and look at everybody in disgust."

Dylan's divorce from Dennis was not nearly as expensive as his 1977 divorce from Sara Dylan, but he is understood to have paid Dennis a multi-million-dollar settlement. Dennis declines to talk about their relationship. "Mr. Dylan is a very private person," she says, "which is why the world had such a hard time trying to find out anything about his life."

Dylan took refuge in relentless touring. By the end of 1992, he would have played 105 concerts, the second busiest year of his career. The first was 1978, following his divorce from Sara.

(Copyright) 2001 Howard Sounes Taken from Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (Grove Press, $42.50), to be published May 24; Tomorrow: Flashback -- Getting rich on Blowin' in the Wind; and just how bad was that motorcycle accident?

"A gold medal? What could be better than that?"

Tim Mugridge said his question at the 1996 Summer Olympics brought smiles from the volunteers at the "More Than Gold" booth in Marietta, Georgia. That gave them the opening to share through the colors on the "More Than Gold" collector pin how a relationship with Jesus Christ could indeed mean more than gold.

The volunteers had probably done that a hundred times before, but what they didn't know -- as many others who share the same story in Olympic ministry -- is how that particular seed of the gospel was later cultivated to bear tremendous fruit: Not only was Mugridge's life impacted, but in a textbook case of how God uses individual evangelistic encounters, he has gone on to lead more than 20 other individuals to faith in Christ.

The story of Mugridge's transformation from a disenchanted Mormon to a follower of classical Christianity came to light nearly six years later in Park City, Utah, as he discovered Southern Baptists once again sharing the "More Than Gold" story with spectators. Except in this case, he was able to share his own real-life testimony of what that story meant to him.

Mugridge said he first became aware of an entirely different view of Christ during a two-year experience as a Mormon missionary in Houston. In talking with African American Baptists in particular, and later even visiting their churches, he began questioning his own view of God and Jesus Christ.

"That kind of opened my eyes," he said. "These people in the South who claimed to be Christians are talking about a Jesus that I don't know. It kind of dawned on me that there are two different Jesuses -- the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of the Book of Mormon."

Mugridge eventually left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1993, more out of disenchantment with its teachings than a true belief in anything else. But he was searching.

"I kept getting a very, very strong premonition," he said. "I just felt something deep within that something big was going to happen, and it was something I would be willing to give my life for."

It was then that he had the encounter at the "More Than Gold" table during the Atlanta Olympics. He still did not fully understand all of it, but he kept the pin -- and the basic idea of a relationship that could mean more than gold. His next encounter with the gospel came a few months later during an evangelistic Christmas Eve service at Southeast Baptist Church in Salt Lake City.

Finally, in the spring of 1997, he attended a church service in Denver on a business trip and attended a service for businessmen at a local church. The speaker, Jimmy Head, made an appeal that "if you consider yourself a real man, you'll turn your life over to Jesus." Mugridge did so, went back to Salt Lake City and joined Southeast Baptist Church.

With the help of some VeggieTales videotapes that he watched with his daughter -- and later intense personal Bible study and in-depth discipleship from Southside staff member Don Smith -- Mugridge began to fully understand what it meant to have a relationship with Christ.

It was a transformation that was catching, as he found more and more opportunities to tell friends and colleagues about what God had done in his life. Now living in Park City and attending an Assemblies of God congregation, he often encounters people who have faced some of the same struggles he has been through -- and he is able to share how Christ brought him through.

"They meet me and hear my story. And they think, 'Whoa! If you can do it, I know I can do it. How did you do it?'" Mugridge said. "And that just opened up doors for me to share with them that it's not 'how;' it's 'who.' It's not me; it's he [Jesus] who is in me. "

And it has been only recently that Mugridge said he realized the meaning of his premonition in 1996, when he believed something big was going to happen that he would "be willing to die for." He made the connection after meeting the More Than Gold volunteers in Park City.

"It dawned on me what that meant," he said. "I did die. I died to my old self and became new. I was born again."

For dog groomer Linda Lee Justice, her six years of college and graduate degree work were a “waste of time.” It wouldn't be until January 1999 that Justice would discover God's plan to use her academic background to graft her into the family of God.

Born into a non-Christian family that made frequent moves, Justice changed schools every year for seven years. Describing herself as a “high-stress person” with no coping mechanism, Justice experimented with drugs during junior high school and later turned to alcohol. The addictive habit soon sent her life into a downward spiral. Rock bottom came when her college fiance announced he “got saved” and was returning to his wife.

“I thought he had joined a cult, but looking back now I think he was saved,” the 41-year-old recounted. “It seemed so outlandish to me that he had become a Christian. He changed his behavior so radically. The fact that he got religion and went nuts from my perspective made me interested in religion. So I decided to investigate this religion thing.”

Because Justice couldn't distinguish between the world religions, she enrolled in classes at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill to find the reason behind her former fiance's lifestyle change.

“The first class I took was an introduction to the New Testament,” she said. “That class made me so mad, and I remember I was mad at Jesus in the parables, because I thought they were so stupid. Anyone who said they understood what they meant was a liar. They were stories that went nowhere. I didn't like the New Testament, but I liked the Old Testament.”

In discovering that she enjoyed studying the Old Testament, Justice also discovered she had a talent for linguistics. “I took all the language classes they offered,” she said, adding, “but no New Testament Greek.”

As an Old Testament language and literature major, Justice took Hittite, rabbinical Hebrew, and Akkadian, a Semitic language written in cuneiform script with about 600 different signs for either words or syllables. She also enrolled in German, French and Latin.

In studying the Old Testament and its ancient languages, Justice also learned that her professors held little regard for the veracity and truthfulness of the Bible.

“They didn't believe Moses wrote any of the Pentateuch, or that it was a unit. They were happy to show you how to chop it up until it didn't make any sense at all -- how it is not historic or true or written by anyone who claimed to have written it,” Justice said. “I believed what they said, and it seemed pointless to me [to continue]. If the epic of Gilgamesh is more meaningful, then why aren't we studying it?”

After two years of master's level work, Justice withdrew from UNC and spent five months in dog grooming school. In 1987, Justice began grooming dogs and cultivating a great love for border collies.

Although Justice dismissed the Bible as a viable religious outlet, she was still interested in religion.

“I was interested in Buddhism, because I was in a lot of pain and turmoil, and Buddhism offered a relief from that. It offered an absence of pain -- absence of emotionalism,” she said. “There's a lot of emphasis on cleansing yourself, and I fasted a lot, and I didn't eat meat for 12 years. I was trying really heard to clean myself up. I had a sign in my house that said, 'Suffering leads to salvation.’ It kills me now, but it was His suffering that led to my salvation.”

Justice's search for cleansing and peace was ultimately noticed by two Southern Baptist women who befriended the dog groomer and invited her to church.

“They knew I was in a mess. They witnessed to me. They gave me books. They knew that I was going to go to hell and that I was miserable on earth, and they were broken about it,” Justice recounted.

“They were moral and had a clear conscious. They weren't afraid of anything, and that had so much appeal,” said Justice, who over the next two years began to notice a difference in her friends.

Still desiring to “clean herself up,” Justice agreed to go to church with her friends the week after Christmas. At Cool Springs Baptist Church in Sanford, N.C., Justice heard the Gospel for the first time.

“The youth group was doing a re-enactment of the crucifixion. I got something about blood and some really good person was murdered -- that was my understanding of the Gospel.”

For three weeks, Justice attended the church, searching for more information in much the same way she picked apart the ancient languages of the Old Testament seeking answers.

“The very first Sunday, I went to Sunday School and the ladies were going to a nursing home to sing hymns. I would have chosen to jump in a pit of fire over that, but I went and had a good time and the ladies were really nice to me. They said, 'Sing watermelon,' because I didn't know any of the words,” Justice recounted. “I thought, 'If I can do that, I can do anything.'“

Some older women in the church began to befriend Justice as well, taking time to answer her questions about Christianity.

“I went to one woman's house to eat with her, and she just talked to me about God. She really thought the Bible was true and that Jesus really said all those things. I went over to her house, and I'd listen to her for hours. As people were clearing the dishes from the lunch table, I would just sit and listen to her.”

Justice was amazed to discover that not only did the church members believe the Bible was true, but the pastor did too.

“In one sermon, the pastor was talking about Moses writing the Pentateuch. He actually believed that, and he seemed sane!” Justice exclaimed. “He didn't know that was my background. He couldn't have said anything more calculated to make me think. I was shocked that adult, intelligent, reasonable people believe the Bible is true.”

The church gave Justice a tract and the Gospel of John. Although Justice had read the book as a part of her college studies, she began to notice it made sense. “I kept reading it, and it was amazing. It is a different book when you're reading it believing it rather than [thinking] it's not true. I was hungry to read more and to talk about it and hear sermons on it.”

Justice's garbled understanding of the Gospel message finally translated into “I was a sinner, and He loved me and died for me,” she said. In an appointment with the pastor, Justice admitted she needed help.

“I had a panic attack while he was sharing the Gospel with me and went in the bathroom and got sick,” Justice recalled, noting she was fearful of the life changes that coincide with Christianity. “He made it sound like my whole focus [was] going to change. He made it sound hard,” she said. “But, that appealed to me. I wanted my life to change. I was sick of myself.”

After she finished saying the sinner's prayer with the pastor, Justice said she couldn't stop smiling.

“I felt so happy and light, like things that were wrong were going to be better.”

Although the Cool Springs pastor led her to the Lord, it is the prayers of her two Southern Baptist friends for which Justice will be forever grateful.

Post-conversion, Justice's life radically changed.

“I told everybody [about my salvation],” Justice said. “The pastor told me I had to. That's one of the things that you're supposed to do, and I did. One of the things that surprised me was so many people said, 'I'm a Christian too,' and I said, 'Then why didn't you tell me?'“

A few months after Justice made a profession of faith, she attended a dog show. Word had spread among her friends about her conversion.

“I saw a friend, and he said, 'I heard you got saved.’ He broke down and said, 'I never thought you'd be interested.’ He was crying, and now he witnesses a lot more.”

Soon after her conversion, Justice moved to Franklinton, N.C., to care for her mother who was diagnosed with cancer. A friend invited Justice to take a class at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. Discovering the seminary was only 20 minutes away from her home, Justice agreed to sit in one class to learn more about her newfound faith. The class she attended was Introduction to the Old Testament.

“I went in the class and immediately people were saying amen and praising the Lord, and I was blown away. I thought it was so great,” Justice said. “Dr. Gary Galleoti made [the Old Testament] make sense.

“I also took Prayer and Evangelism with Dr. Alvin Reid because I thought, 'Well, I need to know how to do that as a Christian.’ If he said, 'Read this book,' I read it. I drank it all in.”

Justice has continued to take classes while working fulltime grooming dogs. When people ask her how she plans to use her degree work, Justice responds: “What I'm finding out seems to be the minimum that someone should know to be an effective witness. So many things I hear in class I use the next day when I'm talking to someone. People ask me what my plans are, but I'm still trying to be a good Christian and learn about the Bible and how to witness to people.”

From alcohol to Buddhism, Justice found the value of faith in Jesus Christ to be “everything.” “Every aspect of my life has changed from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night,” she said.

Watching God unfold his plan for Justice's life through the loss of a fiancé and studying the Bible and biblical languages as an unbeliever continues to amaze her.

“I know I chose the Lord. But looking back, He so much more chose me. I was so pitiful and had so many problems and was just a useless person that it seems He chose me and saved me to show how powerful He is,” said Justice, who currently attends Faith Baptist Church in Youngsville, N.C.

“No matter how low a person is, He can change you completely. It is for His glory, because no one else would have done that. I can see how He'd save an attractive person, or a smart person, or someone who can sing, or someone who has something to offer, but I had nothing.”

*

Arrested and taken to the “godfather” of Israeli politics, Jesus was judged and sent to the High Priest. Condemned, He was dragged before the Sanhedrin. Declared guilty of blasphemy and condemned to death, He was sent to Pilate. Shuffled to Herod, examined, returned to Pilate, Jesus was bound over for crucifixion.

Two executions had already been scheduled. Jesus was added to the list, thus fulfilling the prophecy “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12; Mark 15:28).

On Skull Hill “two robbers were crucified with Him.... And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads.... Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing” (Matthew 27:38,44).

Naked, impaled, dying, muscles quivering, lungs gasping, arms being pulled from sockets, memories seared, minds clouded by pain, these two embittered thieves squandered their last moments by joining their executioners in reviling the only Perfect Man who ever lived.

Then at noon one thief had a change of heart.

One thief cursed Him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!” But the other thief said: “Have you no fear of God? You're getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him -- he did nothing to deserve this.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” Jesus said, “Don't worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.” (Luke 23:39-44, The Message)

Cursing God, cursing the Romans, cursing the Jews, one of the thieves cursed his way into a Christless eternity. What a glimpse of the depravity of man! Faced with death, you'd think a man would cry for mercy. But, increased pain results in increased obstinacy in a heart hardened against God.

In Revelation, when the tribulation came with its awful anguish, the sinful and blasphemous became more sinful, more blasphemous. When the Lord offered hope, they yelled, “We will not have You rule over us!”

But one thief had an eleventh-hour change of heart. Acknowledging his guilt as he hung there next to the Savior, he somehow knew this Man could rescue him. Lord, he said, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. He called Him Lord, recognized He was a King, and understood that Jesus could give him eternal life.

All the bad things he had done were nailed on that cross next to him, and he went to be with Jesus in paradise that day. The repentant thief started the day as a condemned prisoner and ended it in paradise fellowshipping with Jesus.

We can learn three things from the thieves.

First, it's always too soon to quit praying for our loved ones. God can snatch a sinner into heaven from the deathbed. Jesus said that we “always ought to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).

Second, it's dangerous to wait so long to be saved. Warren Wiersbe says, “The dying thief was not saved at the last opportunity he had, he was saved the first opportunity he had!” -- the first time the thief had ever heard of Christ. The Lord says, “Come now, and let us reason together, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow and Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 1:18, 55:6).

Third, it's never too late to be saved. It's presumptuous to believe we can wait until our final moment, then say a prayer and go to heaven. On the other hand, it is never too late to come to Christ.

Living alone in London, a 100-year-old woman came to Christ when a missionary stopped by to see her. “How wonderful,” she said, “and how good the Lord has been in sparing me these 100 years that I might learn the way of life!” Her epitaph: “Born 1825; Born Again 1925.”

Think you've sinned too much for Christ to forgive? Wonder if it's too late or you're too old? Jesus died on the cross for you and now is the time to trust Him as your Savior.

Because Charles H. Spurgeon, one of the worlds' greatest preachers, could not put his finger on a definite day or date for his new birth, which occurred in early youth or childhood, a certain contentious man assured him that he had never been born again. He claimed that an experience such as he himself had gone through was the necessary “birth certificate” of a child of God, and that anyone who did not have this so-called “birth certificate,” and could not vividly remember the very instant of conversion was not born again.

But Spurgeon, the man of God, replied: “Years ago I was born as a baby into this world, and my birth certificate was lost, or nobody took time to make one. Therefore I suppose you would contend that I have never been born and do not exist.”

Of course the other brother admitted that Spurgeon had certainly at one time been born-his presence in the world proved it. “And so,” concluded the great preacher, “does a man's true Christian experience now prove that he has been born again, even though he may not always be able to put his finger on the date when it occurred?”

“By their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20) The old orchard test still holds good.

________

H. M. S. Richards, Signs of the Times, Copyright (c) October 20, 1942, Pacific Press, http://www.signstimes.com

Nicodemus was confused. He had come to Jesus by night professing what he thought he knew. “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2). Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He was highly regarded, most likely explaining the veil of night by which he sought to meet Jesus. Even so, it was an act of faith to seek out this controversial young man from Galilee; it was an act of humility to grapple with a message that thoroughly confused him, a message that seemed to call the very basis of his faith into question.

In reply to Nicodemus's admission that night, Jesus offered one of his own, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (3:3). The ensuing conversation is one of mystery and semantics.

“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb” (3:4).

Again Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (3:5-8).

Nicodemus replied as many of us reply on the journey to faith and belief -- as one reaching for light to see the dim outline of the picture before him. “How can this be?” he asked, and the conversation that followed showed a man not asking hypothetically but actually, as one really longing to understand the logistics of rebirth. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the obscurity of darkness and found himself confronted by a conversation about flesh and spirit and light. “[W]hoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (3:21).

G.K. Chesterton once said that it is important for a landlady who is considering a lodger to know his income, but it is more important to know his philosophy. Likewise, for the general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's worldview. “[T]he question” writes Chesterton, “is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.”(1) The big picture is always the most important picture. And when the picture is God, He outgrows every frame through which our eyes begin to see Him.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “You're bigger.”

“I am not,” said the lion. “But every year you grow; you will

find me bigger.”

For Nicodemus, the entire picture was turned on its head. Everything he knew was cast into shadows by the light that stood before him. “How can this be?” are the last words we hear from Nicodemus this night. The darkened exchange of Christ and the Pharisee is one that ends without clarity. True to our own lives, his confusion does not seem to disperse in the expanse of one chapter. But there are two more references to Nicodemus in John's Gospel and they suggest that that this initial meeting with Jesus was the beginning of something of a journey. In the darkness faith, Nicodemus seems to have discovered the God who is there and the light who draws us further up and further in, until standing before Him, we are reborn.

________

1. G.K. Chesterton, HERETICS (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2003), 15.

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Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Believe it or not, Sylvester Stallone says the infamous movie character Rocky was meant to reflect the nature of Jesus, and the sixth film in the series, “Rocky Balboa,” carries an intentionally Christian theme.

“It’s like he was being chosen, Jesus was over him, and he was going to be the fella that would live through the example of Christ,” Stallone said of Rocky in a conference call with pastors and religious leaders. “He’s very, very forgiving. There’s no bitterness in him. He always turns the other cheek. And it’s like his whole life was about service.”

Stuart Shepard, managing editor of Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink, took part in the teleconference and reported in a Nov. 15, 2006, commentary that Stallone considers himself reborn.

“I was raised in a Catholic home, a Christian home, and I went to Catholic schools and I was taught the faith and went as far as I could with it,” Stallone said. “Until one day, you know, I got out in the so-called real world and I was presented with temptation. I kinda like lost my way and made a lot of bad choices.”

Somewhere along the way, Stallone realized his fame was not the most important part of his life. Now he says God can help a person overcome his past.

“The more I go to church,” he said, according to CitizenLink, “and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel as though the pressure is off me now.”

Stallone, in the conference call, compared the need for church to the need for a physical trainer.

“You need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself,” he said. “I feel the same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church is the gym of the soul.”

With that, the culmination of the Rocky film series is another story about redemption. And Stallone said he couldn’t have written it without the personal journey he has endured.

“I needed to actually go through my trials and tribulations,” he said, “before I could be man enough to know how to write that kind of story that ‘Rocky Balboa’ is.”

A growing number of Roman Catholics are familiar with biblical terminology about salvation, such as born again, and some have been trained to reply affirmatively to the question, “Are you saved? Have you been born again?”

The problem is that they do not mean by this what the Bible means. Rome’s doctrine of salvation is not full and sure salvation through personal faith in Christ. It is a gospel of works that is sometimes presented under the guise of grace.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH’S DOCTRINE OF SALVATION CAN BE SUMMARIZED AS FOLLOWS:

Rome’s gospel centers in the Catholic Church, the pope, and the sacraments. While Catholicism teaches that Christ died on the cross to purchase man’s salvation, it is not satisfied simply to invite men to receive this salvation by faith directly from the resurrected Christ. Rome teaches that Christ, having purchased redemption by His blood and death, delivered it to the Catholic Church to be distributed to men. Consider the following quotes from the Vatican II Council:

“For ‘God’s only-begotten Son ... has won a treasure for the

militant Church ... he has entrusted it to blessed Peter, the

key-bearer of heaven, and to his successors who are Christ’s

vicars on earth, so that they may distribute it to the faithful

for their salvation. They may apply it with mercy for reasonable

causes to all who have repented for and have confessed their

sins. At times they may remit completely, and at other times

only partially, the temporal punishment due to sin in a general

as well as in special ways (insofar as they judge it to be

fitting in the sight of the Lord). The merits of the Blessed

Mother of God and of all the elect ... are known to add further

to this treasury’” (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred

Liturgy, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences,

Chap. 4, 7, p. 80).

“For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the

universal help towards salvation, that the fullness of the means

of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college

alone of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord

entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to

establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those

should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people

of God” (Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism, chap. 1, 3, p. 415).

THE PLAN OF SALVATION AS TAUGHT BY ROME HAS SEVERAL STEPS.

The First Step is Baptism. According to Rome, salvation begins with baptism. It can be infant baptism for those born into Catholic homes or adult baptism for those who approach the Roman Church later in life. Either way, the Catholic Church teaches that through baptism a person receives spiritual life.

“By the sacrament of Baptism, whenever it is properly conferred

in the way the Lord determined and received with the proper

dispositions of soul, man becomes truly incorporated into the

crucified and glorified Christ and is reborn to a sharing of the

divine life” (Vatican II, Decree on Ecumenism, chap. 3, II, 22,

p. 427).

Next Steps are the Other Church Sacraments.

After baptism a person is considered to be born again and part of the body of Christ, the Church. This new life is said to be nurtured and kept alive through Confirmation, Mass, Penance and the other sacraments.

“Just as Christ was sent by the Father so also he sent the

apostles ... that they might preach the Gospel to every creature

and proclaim that the Son of God by his death and resurrection

had freed us from the power of Satan and from death, and brought

us into the Kingdom of his Father. But he also willed that the

work of salvation which they preached SHOULD BE SET IN TRAIN

THROUGH THE SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENTS, around which the entire

liturgical [ritualistic] life revolves” (Vatican II, Constitution

on the Sacred Liturgy, Chap. 1, I, 5,6, pp. 23-24).

“THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS ARE THE NECESSARY MEANS ESTABLISHED BY

CHRIST THROUGH WHICH HIS REDEEMING, LIFE-GIVING, SANCTIFYING

GRACE IS IMPARTED TO INDIVIDUALS’ SOULS. You must centre your

life upon the sacraments established by Christ if you want to

save your soul. means of salvation. ... The sacraments are the

source of your real life, the divine life that will unite you

with God in this world and in eternity. Let nothing make you

think that you can get along without the sacraments. Without

them your soul must die. ... IF YOU DON’T RECEIVE THE SACRAMENTS

AT ALL, YOU DON’T RECEIVE GRACE. If you don’t receive them

properly, that is, if you receive them seldom and with little

devotion, you receive less grace” (L.G. Lovasik, The Eucharist in

Catholic Life, pp. 14,15).

Thus we see that the Roman Catholic plan of salvation is faith in Christ PLUS baptism PLUS continuing in the sacraments.

ROME TEACHES THAT SALVATION IS BY THE GRACE OF JESUS CHRIST AND IS THROUGH FAITH, BUT IT DENIES THAT IT IS BY GRACE AND FAITH ALONE.

Let us hear this in the words of a modern Catholic theologian. The following statement is made by a Roman priest well known for his emphasis upon the necessity for personal faith in the exercise of the sacraments, yet he is careful to remind us that the sacraments are as necessary as the faith.

“In recent years the church has reiterated again and again that

we are saved by faith AND the sacraments of faith. BOTH ARE

NECESSARY” (J.D. Crichton, Christian Celebration: The Sacraments,

p. 65).

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH REDEFINES GRACE.

This confuses many people. When a Roman Catholic priest speaks of salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ, he does not mean the unmerited, free grace of Christ whereby a man is eternally and completely and once-for-all saved from sin when he puts his faith in Christ. By “grace,” the RCC means divine help to live a righteous life.

Consider the following quote from Vatican II:

“All children of the Church should nevertheless remember that

their exalted condition results, not from their own merits, but

from the grace of Christ. If they fail to respond in thought,

word and deed to that grace, not only shall they not be saved,

but they shall be the more severely judged” (Vatican II, Dogmatic

Constitution on the Church, chap. 2, 14, p. 337).

This is a strange kind of grace. It is a grace that does not provide eternal certainty, but only the POSSIBILITY of living up to God’s requirements. It is a subtle and unscriptural MIXTURE OF GRACE PLUS WORKS that is severely condemned in Galatians 1:6-8.

THE BIBLE’S ANSWER TO ROME’S DOCTRINE OF SALVATION

1. Sacramental salvation is contrary to the examples of salvation in the book of Acts (Acts 10:43: 11:16-18; 14:27; 15:9-11; 16:30-31). The souls that were saved in the early churches were saved once and for all by putting their faith in Jesus Christ. Their salvation was not a process of sacramentalism.

2. Sacramental salvation is contrary to the teaching of the book of Romans. This book is written expressly to reveal the way of salvation (Romans 1:15-17).

Consider Romans 3:21-24; 4:4-6; 11:6. Notice in the last reference that God says it is impossible to mix grace and works for salvation. We are saved by grace or we are saved by works; it cannot be a mixture of the two as the Catholic Church teaches!

3. Sacramental salvation is also contrary to the Gospel of John, which was written expressly to lead men to eternal life in Christ (John 20:31).

The first twelve chapters of John describe Jesus’ ministry to the world of lost men. In these chapters, we are shown by unmistakable emphasis that eternal life and salvation are received by faith in Jesus Christ and faith in Christ alone. “Believe” is the key word in these chapters. See John 1:12; 3:16-18, 36; 5:24; 6:28-29; 7:38-39; 8:24; 9:35-38; 11:25-26; 12:36-37. Notice that in all of these verses we are told that salvation is obtained through faith in Christ and there is no hint of sacramentalism.

4. Sacramental salvation is contrary to the summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. Here Paul summarizes the gospel that he preached, and it is faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Period. There is no sacramentalism whatsoever. No priests; no church; no works; no sacraments.

5. Sacramental salvation is contrary to the summary of the gospel in Ephesians 2:8-10. This passage teaches that salvation is a free gift of God’s grace and that works follow as the evidence. This puts everything into proper order and perspective. It is God’s will that men live holy lives, but holy living is the product of salvation and not the way of salvation.

6. Sacramental salvation is contrary to the summary of the gospel in Titus 3:4-8. This passage also teaches that salvation is a free gift of God’s grace and that works follow as the evidence and product.

This is true Bible salvation. Eternal life, forgiveness of sin, righteousness, and the Holy Spirit are received when an individual acknowledges his sinfulness, repents of his sin and trusts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is only after this that a person can do any work to please God. Works and ceremonies, such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in themselves have nothing to do with forgiveness of sin, eternal life, the new birth, or becoming a child of God. Rather, obedience to God follows salvation as naturally as living follows ones natural birth. First we must receive new life through personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Then, having life, the regenerated believer serves his Master.

QUESTIONS TO ASK A PERSON WHO CLAIMS TO BE A SAVED ROMAN CATHOLIC

By Alex O. Dunlap

Occasionally, some well-meaning Christian thinks he knows a “saved Roman Catholic.” We invite such a person to introduce us to his friend so that we may, in his presence, ask the Roman Catholic these questions. His answers will easily determine that he is not saved in the true, biblical sense. The new “accommodation” approach of the Roman Church in these ecumenical days of apostasy is to use the same expressions as Fundamental Christians. Christian love is not shown by permitting these people to believe they are saved, when they are not. Christian love is shown by making the true Gospel plain and clear so that the “religious but lost” person will realize his unsaved condition and his need of a Savior. He must receive the true Christ of the Bible, not a counterfeit, as in the Roman, Greek and many other churches. The Apostle Paul said that he was free from the blood of all men because he did not withhold from them all truth. May the same be true of every genuine witness for Jesus Christ! Here are the questions:

1. When were you converted?

2. How were you converted?

3. To what, or to whom, were you converted?

4. What do you believe now that you did not believe before your conversion?

5. What does it mean to be saved?

6. On what scriptural promises do you base your salvation?

7. What does it mean to be born again?

8. Are you sure today that if you die tomorrow, or at any time in the future, you will be in heaven immediately after death?

9. What do you believe about Purgatory?

10. What do you believe about the Mass?

11. Do you still participate in the Mass?

12. Do you believe that any sinner can be saved who dies without trusting in Jesus Christ alone for the salvation of his soul and forgiveness of his sins?

13. Do you believe that Mary and Roman Catholic saints can answer your prayers or help you get to heaven?

14. How do you believe that the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ is applied to your soul?

15. Have you told your priest you have been saved?

16. Do you believe you will still go to heaven if you leave the Roman Catholic Church, receive believer’s baptism and join a fundamentalist Bible believing, non-Catholic church?

17. When and where do you plan to do this?

As questions such as these are discussed in detail, it will become evident that the person is trusting in his works, merits, baptism, confirmation, sacraments, or something BESIDES, OR PLUS, Jesus Christ; and not in Christ and Christ ALONE. He can then be shown the difference between his unbiblical form of salvation and the saving faith of the Bible.

________

Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service.

Author Maxie Dunnam heard a dramatic story of a new life in Christ from a friend named Tom, who was a preacher. One night Tom was called by a church member to come to a serious accident on a major road near his house.

When Tom got there, one young man was in the ditch near his smashed car. His face was so muddy and bloody that Tom didn’t recognize him. In the other ditch was a member of Tom’s church, not seriously injured.

Tom asked him who the other guy was. When told that his name was Jim Bob, Tom remembered him. His mother was a member of Tom’s church, and occasionally Jim Bob had attended. Tom had visited him in jail on a couple of occasions, because he had lived the kind of life that often got him into trouble with the law.

Tom knelt down beside Jim Bob in the ditch and stayed with him as they awaited the ambulance. “Would you like to pray?” Tom asked. “Preacher, I don’t know how to pray.” The ambulance was coming, but Tom prayed with Jim Bob before he was put in the ambulance.

During the following time of hospitalization, Tom visited often with Jim Bob. He shared his concern over his injuries, but he also shared about the new life that Christ could give him.

Then the medical verdict came: Jim Bob was permanently paralyzed from his waist down. Tom moved away from that city about a month after the accident. But his successor in that church told him the rest of the story.

About three months later, a wheelchair came down the aisle one Sunday morning at the close of the worship service. It was Jim Bob, and he made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ and asked to be baptized.

After the service, the preacher asked him, “Jim Bob, how do you feel? How are you handling being paralyzed for the rest of your life?”

“Preacher, I’d rather be paralyzed and in this wheelchair for the rest of my life, than to be walking around without Jesus Christ.”

Want to know a secret? If you’re a Christian, you were saved before you knew you were.

Now, I’ll bet that the vast majority of you reading this think that you made a personal decision — all on your lonesome — to receive Christ, and once done, you were a child of God in the faith. John Chipman believes this, as evidenced by his article, “Which comes first in salvation order: Faith or regeneration?” [see HolwickID #66857]

He says, “Faith precedes regeneration. Always. For everyone.”

Many think that the reverse is heresy and short-circuited. Still, I’m going to ask you to give me a few moments to make a case for the position of regeneration (the Spirit’s supernatural work of giving spiritual life to us, transforming the heart, and enabling faith, so that we become a new creation in Christ), preceding faith. I used to believe the reverse in my earlier Christian walk, but am now convinced that we can’t make that move of commitment towards God until He enables us to do it.

And few things glorify God more than that truth.

It’s not you, it’s Him

R. C. Sproul was just like me. In a short article, he reflects back on getting his theological bell rung by one of his seminary professors who taught regeneration precedes faith, saying, “These words were a shock to my system. I had entered seminary believing that the key work of man to effect rebirth was faith. I thought that we first had to believe in Christ in order to be born again.”

But Sproul got a crash course on the topic and ended up becoming one of the staunchest defenders of regeneration coming before faith. What turned him around?

First and foremost was the biblical teaching of our moral inability to choose God. Simply put, Scripture says we can’t believe and have faith in God until He acts first on our behalf.

This is why Jesus said: “I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father” (John 6:65) highlighting our lack of moral power to choose God, and why Christ also showed a distinction between those granted faith and those not when He said: “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been granted” (Matt. 13:11).

It’s also why Paul writes, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), indicating everyone’s initial dead-to-God spiritual state. He goes on to write elsewhere: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Rom. 8:6–7) and “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).

If a person’s natural mind is not able to subject themselves to God, thinks “the things of God” are so foolish to the point where they “cannot understand them,” can you tell me how they’re able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, muster up faith that isn’t there, and receive Christ?

Augustine saw this inescapable predicament and ruffled many feathers back in his day when he summed up Christ and Paul’s points in this short written prayer: “Grant what thou commandest, and command what thou dost desire.” The second part none of his contemporaries had trouble with, but the first statement? He got the same dirty looks from them that we, who believe God must first grant us the ability to trust Him, do today.

Augustine and those holding to regeneration preceding faith acknowledge that people have free will but lack spiritual liberty when it comes to exercising our will towards God. Our initial state is one where we’ve not lost the ability to make choices — it’s just the choices are bad where God is concerned, meaning you can’t exercise faith and choose God without Him enabling you first.

Martin Luther takes this position when he writes: “Free will without God’s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good.”

Jonathan Edwards describes it like this: “Hence the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration is often in Scripture compared to the giving of a new sense, eyes to see, ears to hear, unstopping the ears of the deaf, opening the eyes of them that were born blind, and turning from darkness unto light ... [it] is compared to raising the dead, and to a new creation.”

Which is exactly what the Greek word “regeneration” (palingenesias) means “new genesis,” a “coming back from death to life.” This being true, faith is understood as the fruit of regeneration, not the cause of it.

So, given all the biblical evidence that speaks to our moral inability to exercise faith in God on our own, doesn’t it become fairly difficult to believe that some of us just muscle through, overcome our spiritual deadness, and choose God on our own? We figure it all out where others don’t?

And thus, even the weeniest bit of credit for our salvation goes to us in choosing it?

Nope. Instead, we see Christ affirming the proactive work of the Holy Spirit in bringing about our faith when He says: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). John says the same thing earlier in his Gospel when he references believers as those “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

That’s pretty clear, wouldn’t you say? Your faith and new birth are not “of the will of man, but of God.” In other words, it’s not you, but Him, where your faith is concerned.

Or as Paul wrote, any faith we have “is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). He underscores this again and again, telling us: “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions” (Col. 2:13, my emphasis) and “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29, my emphasis).

These truths are why Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards referred to their books on this topic (Luther: Bondage of the Will; Edwards: Freedom of the Will) as their most important works. And why I’m laboring hard on this point, where the regeneration preceding faith debate is concerned. If you’re spiritually dead and morally unable to choose God as Scripture says, regeneration has to precede faith.

In the end, I do agree with one thing John Chipman wrote in his article: “ ... if we get this wrong, we start down a path that leads to an unbiblical god and a hopeless corruption of the Gospel.”

Good advice.

To avoid that, remember two things:

First, He chose you before you chose Him, just as Jesus said: “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain” (John 15:16).

Second, as much as we’d like to think we’re always on the same wavelength as God on these weighty matters, sometimes His way of doing things doesn’t jive with our human logic. As He says in the Psalms: “You thought I was just like you” (Ps. 50:21).

Give all this some prayerful thought and see if you don’t come around to embracing regeneration preceding faith.

________

Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist

A danger that is at least as damaging to evangelism as Calvinism is the “Easy Believism” or “Quick Prayerism” that is so prevalent among fundamental Baptists and many other groups. I prefer to call it “Quick Prayerism” rather than “Easy Believism” because the fact is that salvation is by believing (John 3:16) and it is not difficult. Those who practice Quick Prayerism are characterized as follows:

(1) They are quick to “lead people to Christ” even when the gospel presentation has been shallow and insufficient. Consider the following statement on “What is Salvation?” from Saddleback Church pastored by Rick Warren of Purpose Driven Church fame: “Our disobedient nature has eternally separated us from our Creator. No matter how hard we try, we can never earn our way back into God’s presence. Our only hope is to trust Jesus as God’s provision for our disobedience.” This statement is so shallow and insufficient that it is difficult to know where to begin, but briefly, salvation is much more than a vague, undefined decision “to trust Jesus as God’s provision for our disobedience.” There is no mention of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, even though this is how Paul defined the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. There is no mention of the blood. No mention of repentance. The Saddleback paraphrase of the gospel is no gospel at all, and to lead a person in a sinner’s prayer when this is all of the “gospel” they understand is a crime and a disgrace to the cause of Christ. The shallowness of this type of evangelism is why I could sit next to a church member at Saddleback last year and have him tell me that he has always been a Christian. This was in response to my question, “When were you born again?”

(2) They are quick to lead people in a prayer even when there is no evidence of conviction or regeneration, in contrast to the Apostle Paul who, like John the Baptist, required evidence of repentance. (Acts 26:20).

(3) They are quick to ignore repentance or redefine repentance to have nothing to do with sin or a change of life. The typical soul-winning plan doesn’t even hint at repentance, that there is going to be a change of direction, a submission to God. Many have rejected traditional definitions of repentance as “a change of mind that results in a change of life” and have re-defined repentance, instead, as merely “a change from unbelief to belief.” If a large percentage of their “converts” show no sign of a change of life, it does not greatly concern them, because they do not believe that repentance always results in a change of life.

(4) They are quick to give people assurance even if there is no evidence of salvation. Biblical security is only for those who are genuinely born again and those who are such will give clear evidence of it (2 Cor. 5:17). To give assurance to someone, especially a complete stranger, merely because he has prayed a sinner’s prayer or has walked down an aisle and professed Christ to a church worker is very dangerous, because it tends to give false hope to large numbers of unregenerate people.

(5) They are quick to count numbers. Those who practice Quick Prayerism typically report large numbers of “salvations” even though a significant percentage of their professions give no evidence of salvation. In my experience, it is not uncommon that 90% of the professions produced under such ministries are fruitless.

1969 - The Year That ...

Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil A. Armstrong became the first person to walk on lunar soil.

Woodstock happened – 500,000 attended a 3 day rock concert in Upstate New York, making it the largest rock concert ever.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove off a bridge after a party and Mary Jo Kopechne drowned.

Sesame Street made its debut.

Charles Manson cult members murdered five people.

First ATM (automated teller machine) installed in Rockville, New York.

The Beatles’ last recorded album, Abbey Road, was released.

The Brady Bunch premiered.

Richard M. Nixon became the 37th President of the United States of America.

Rev. Ian Paisley was jailed for three months.

Peter Ramsay struck it rich!

40 Years on the Road to Heaven! June 2, 1969 I started.

You can research world events for the year 1969 and you will not likely find any reference to what you are about to read. I want to share with you my personal story of how I became wealthy. To me it is the single most important event not only in 1969, but in my entire life.

Living a Good Life

It was quite a shock for me to discover that I had no chance of ever making it to Heaven based on personal merit. Somehow, I thought I would qualify. After all, my parents read the Bible to us every day. As far back as I can remember, reading the Bible and praying to God was an important daily activity for my parents as they raised the six of us.

If attending church improved my chances of being accepted by God, my score would have been very high. As a minimum, several times a week our family attended meetings and listened to messages from the Bible. My father, once a big-time party animal and fiddler, was a Gospel preacher. His life had been completely changed. I could see reality in the lifestyle of my parents. But as for me – I was empty. No peace.

I memorized verses from the Bible; I attended Sunday School and for the most part, behaved reasonably well. If getting to Heaven was something like accumulating air miles or personal merit points, I had a head start on most people. But something was missing in my life. I had no personal relationship with God. The connection that real Christians had, just was not there for me. So often, when I was alone I would think about where I would be in a hundred years’ time.

Worried and Vulnerable

I was worried about my future. I felt vulnerable and exposed when I thought of God. He could see right through me. As good as I appeared on the outside, He knew what I was really like. I didn’t like the uneasiness, the lack of peace, the bad conscience, and the absence of joy and security in my life.

I tried to ignore my spiritual problem. I tried to cover up my emptiness and hide my worries. I enjoyed my friends – our common ground was music and general neighborhood fun. I did well at school and my home environment was stable and loving.

Despite all the positive things in my life, I was hounded and haunted by the fundamental question of my status with God. I was not willing to cross my fingers and take a chance. 1969 was the year I stopped running from the question.

Alone in the Attic on my Knees

I will never forget the evening I climbed the attic stairs of 32 Gerald Street, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island – our homestead. I had just eaten a special bed time snack of lobsters! With pressing matters on my mind, the lobsters didn’t seem to be quite the delicacy they usually were for me. I was preoccupied with spiritual matters.

I bowed on my knees beside my bed. I knew I had to be honest with God, but it was so hard that night! I told Him I was a sinner but I wanted to qualify the admission of guilt - “Yes I have done some wrong things, but I am not bad enough to go to Hell. There are many people who really deserve to be there – but I don’t.”

On my knees, I opened the Word of God, my Bible. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. I read every relevant verse I could think of. “By grace you are saved, through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any one should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

No Personal Merit Points

The Bible was clear. I could not get to heaven on personal merit points. I had none. I was a sinner. I could not hold anything up to God and tell Him to accept me because of my parents, or my decent behaviour, or my religious upbringing. The very last thing I wanted to do was to let go of the things that I thought earned me favor with God and gave me a special status. That night, on my knees, I learned from the Bible the only status I had with God was that of a helpless sinner.

Up until that time, I was completely occupied with myself; but things changed quickly. When I discovered I was stripped spiritually naked before God and I had nothing to offer Him for my sins, I was devastated. The last thing any human being wants to admit is ‘helplessness.’ Even a person at a beach, swept out by a rip tide, will desperately try to save themselves before they yell for help.

Cry of Helplessness

On June 2, 1969, I cried out to God words to this effect: “I am helpless. I am a sinner. I am going to Hell. Lord, save me.” For the first time, I looked away from myself and looked to the Lord. That night, I appreciated why Jesus died. He died for me. He took upon Himself my sins and was punished on the Cross in my place as my Substitute. “But God commendeth (proved) His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

There was nothing I could contribute towards my salvation. When Jesus cried on the Cross: “It is finished,” He announced to the world that He paid for our sins in full. The debt was fully paid by His death. It was up to me to either accept or reject His payment.

God is Satisfied

How could I be sure that God was satisfied with Jesus’ death as the full payment for my sins? I read in Romans 10:9 words like these: “If you shall confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” The proof that God was satisfied with the death of Christ as the payment for my sins, was the resurrection. He raised Him from the dead, indicating His full acceptance and satisfaction of the death of Christ as payment in full.

I am Satisfied

That night by my bed, I thought: “If God is satisfied that Jesus paid for my sins, who is a little pip-squeak like me in Charlottetown, PEI, to not be satisfied!” For the first time in my life, with joy I thanked God for sending His Son Jesus to die for a sinner like me. I too was satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Historians probably don’t rank my life-changing, destiny-altering experience very high in their analysis of noteworthy events in 1969. That’s okay. It may never make it to the history books of this world but the Bible tells me my name is recorded in God’s book in Heaven and will never be erased.

Spiritually Wealthy

I can lose my health; I can lose my home; I can lose my friends but I can never lose Christ. He is mine forever. I am a possessor of eternal life. In 1969, I became wealthy for eternity. I have been enjoying peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ for 40+ years. I am absolutely sure of Heaven. I am secure for eternity.

No matter who you are or what you have done and regardless of your beliefs or religion, Christ is available to you. The inner peace and permanent joy for which you are seeking is found in Christ alone.

Jesus said: “Come unto Me, all of you who are weary and over-burdened and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 God loves you. Jesus died for you. Christ is available to you right now. Will you trust Him as your Saviour? Will you accept Him? Without such a moment of acceptance you will never be in Heaven.

Oct. 27 is an important date for me.

On that day, many years ago, I was a young kid walking alone under a starry sky in my hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi. I was grappling with who I was and what my life would mean. And there, looking up into the vault of space up there overhead, I trusted a Stranger in the Night to forgive me, and to take me wherever He wanted. The Gospel wasn’t new to me, and the teachings of Jesus weren’t new to me. Years and years of Sunday School and Baptist Training Union and Vacation Bible Schools were all back there. But, somehow, I just knew at that moment that the central point of all those things was true: the Gospel. It was as though I heard a voice.

The reason I write this is because my story isn’t at all typical of most Christians I know, and many kind of feel guilty about that. Many believe if they really have embraced the Gospel, they ought to have a moment, a date, they can point to as the instant they passed from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

Sometimes our churches reinforce this misunderstanding. Preachers talk about assurance of salvation as though it were about remembering a past experience, and doing a mental autopsy on the sincerity of that. The people we allow to give testimonies in our churches and in our publications all seem to have a dramatic tale to tell.

That’s not what the Gospel is about.

In our culture, we make a big-to-do about birthdays. Other cultures don’t. I could ask you right now, “When were you born” and you could probably tell me month, date and year. But how do you know that? It’s because there were people there, usually your parents, who could tell you that information. You don’t remember emerging from the birth canal (and that’s probably a very good thing).

Other people, in other cultures at other times, don’t recognize dates but seasons. They might not know what day on the weekly calendar or what year in the solar calendar they were born. But do they then question whether they are alive? Of course not. How do you know if you were in fact born? You look to see if you’re alive ... now.

It’s no accident that Jesus compares entrance into the Kingdom of God to physical birth. There is a kind of helplessness that we experience in the biology and history of our births. No one can boast about an easy delivery. No one should feel guilty about prompting a Caesarean section. The important thing is that you’re here.

The same is true for the Gospel. Some of you were brought to Christ suddenly and dramatically. Your past life as a prostitute or a drunk or a warlord gave way to a radically different direction as a disciple. In that, your situation is quite similar to the Apostle Paul’s. Others of you, though saved just as truly in some point in time, aren’t able to identify that time. Your memory is of a slow realization of the Gospel, and you can’t necessarily pinpoint when you were converted in that time frame. Your situation sounds more like that of Paul’s disciple Timothy. The point of the Gospel isn’t celebrating an experience; it’s believing a Man who is your crucified, resurrected, reigning Life.

It’s important to mark dates as ways of prompting thanksgiving. If you know when you met Jesus, set up an Ebenezer of remembrance in your mind and be grateful. If not, be thankful for life in Christ and mark other dates when He showed himself real and faithful to you.

The crucial matter isn’t whether you remember when the Shepherd pulled you out of the thorn bushes. Maybe you were barely conscious. The critical thing is whether you hear His Voice, maybe somewhere out there in the dark in front of you, calling you forward, right now.

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Russell D. Moore is dean of the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Doubting our salvation and false assurance are both exacerbated by the clichéd ways in which we speak about the gospel.

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If there were a Guinness Book of World Records record for “amount of times having asked Jesus into your heart,” I’m pretty sure I would hold it.

By the time I reached the age of 18 I had probably “asked Jesus into my heart” 5,000 times. I started somewhere around age 4 when I approached my parents one Saturday morning asking how someone could know that they were going to heaven. They carefully led me down the “Romans Road to Salvation,” and I gave Jesus his first invitation into my heart.

Both my parents and my pastor felt confident of my sincerity and my grasp on the details, and so I was baptized. We wrote the date in my Bible and I lived in peace about the matter for nearly a decade.

One Friday night during my 9th grade year, however, my Sunday school teacher told us that according to Matthew 7:21-23, many people who think they know Jesus will awaken on that final day to the reality that he never really knew them. Though they had prayed a prayer to receive Jesus, they had never really been born again and never taken the lordship of Jesus seriously. They would, my teacher explained, be turned away from heaven into everlasting punishment with the terrifying words, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.”

I’ll never forget the impact those words had on me. Would I be one of those ones turned away? Had I really been sorry for my sins? And could I really have known what I was doing at age 4?

So I asked Jesus to come into my heart again, this time with a resolve to be much more intentional about my faith. I requested re-baptism, and gave a very moving testimony in front of our congregation about getting serious with God.

Not long after that, however, I found myself asking again: Had I really been sorry enough for my sin this time around? I’d see some people weep rivers of tears when they got saved, but I hadn’t done that. Did that mean I was not really sorry? And there were a few sins I seemed to fall back into over and over again, no matter how many resolutions I made to do better. Was I really sorry for those sins? Was that prayer a moment of total surrender? Would I have died for Jesus at that moment if he’d asked?

So I prayed the sinner’s prayer again. And again. And again. Each time trying to get it right, each time really trying to mean it. I would have a moment when I felt like I got it right and experienced a temporary euphoria. But it would fade quickly and I’d question it all again. And so I’d pray again.

I walked a lot of aisles during those days. I think I’ve been saved at least once in every denomination.

Because I understood baptism to be a post-salvation confession of faith, each time I gained a little assurance, I felt like I should get re-baptized. Four times, total. Honestly, it got pretty embarrassing. I became a staple at our church’s baptism services. I got my own locker in the baptismal changing area.

It was a wretched experience. My spiritual life was characterized by cycles of doubt, aisle-walking, and submersion in water. I could not find the assurance of salvation no matter how often, or how sincerely, I asked Jesus into my heart.

I used to think I was alone in this struggle, but as I’ve shared my story over the years so many have come forward to tell me that my experience was theirs (usually minus the baptisms and the OCD tendencies) that I’ve concluded this problem is epidemic in the church.

The Other Side of the Problem: The Falsely Assured

On the other hand, Scripture indicates that there are a vast number of people who seem assured of a salvation they don’t actually possess. My Sunday school teacher was telling us the truth: according to Matthew 7, Jesus will turn away “many” on that last day who thought they belonged to him. There’s no doubt that many of those will have prayed a sinner’s prayer.

In his parable about the different types of soil, Jesus spoke of a group who heard his word and made an initial, encouraging response of belief, only to fade away over time. These are those, Jesus explained, who hear the gospel and respond positively to it — pray the prayer, walk the aisle, get baptized, or do whatever new converts in your church do. They remain in the church for a period of time. But they do not endure when the sun of persecution comes out and will not in the end be saved (Luke 8:13; Matt. 5:13; John 15:6).

These sobering stories teach us that many are headed into eternal judgment under the delusion of going to heaven. Many believe their eternal destiny has been settled because of a time when they invited Jesus into their life. They were told that if they prayed the prayer, Jesus would save them, seal them, and never leave nor forsake them.

A 2011 Barna study shows that nearly half of all adults in America have prayed such a prayer, and subsequently believe they are going to heaven, though many of them rarely, if ever, attend a church, read the Bible personally, or have lifestyles that differ in any significant way from those outside the church. If the groups described in Matthew 7 and Luke 8 are not referring to them, I don’t know who they could be referring to.

An Unhelpful Gospel Cliché?

I have begun to wonder if both problems, needless doubting and false assurance, are exacerbated by the clichéd ways in which we (as evangelicals) have learned to speak about the gospel. Evangelical shorthand for the gospel is to “ask Jesus into your heart,” or “accept Jesus as Lord and Savior,” or “give your heart to Jesus.” These phrases may not be wrong in themselves, but the Bible never tells us, specifically, to seek salvation in those ways. The biblical summation of a saving response toward Christ is “repentance” and “belief” in the gospel.

“Belief” means acknowledging that God told the truth about Jesus, namely that he is Lord and that he has finished forever the work of our salvation.

“‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ ... (And Paul said) ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30-31).

“To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

“Whoever believes in the Son has everlasting life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).

Repentance means acting on that belief. Repentance is not subsequent to belief; it is part of saving belief, like two sides of the same coin. Repentance literally means “a change of mind” (in Greek, metanoia: meta — new; noia — mind) about Jesus. Repentance means understanding that Jesus is Lord and that you have lived in cosmic treason to him and reversing your direction based on that. Repentance was the first response Jesus called for in his preaching of the gospel (Mark 1:15); the first command Peter gave to those who wanted to be saved after his first sermon (Acts 2:38); and what Paul said God had commanded all men everywhere to do now that Jesus had been resurrected (Acts 17:30). (See also Acts 3:19 and 26:20.)

Belief and repentance are the only prescribed biblical instruments for laying hold of salvation. They might be expressed in a “sinner’s prayer,” but they are fundamentally postures of the heart toward God. It is possible to pray a sinner’s prayer and not have repented and believed. It is also possible to repent and believe without articulating such a prayer.

Conversion to Christ is like sitting down in a chair. If you are seated right now, there was a point in time in which you transferred the weight of your body from your legs to the chair. You may not even remember making that decision, but the fact you are seated now proves that you did.

Salvation is a posture of repentance and faith toward the finished work of Christ in which you transfer the weight of your hopes of heaven off of your own righteousness and onto Jesus Christ. It does begin in a moment, but it persists for the rest of your life. The way to know you made the decision is by the posture you are currently in. The apostle John almost always talks about “believing” in the present tense because it is something we do continually, not something we did once in the past (e.g., John 3:36; 20:27-28; 9:36-38; 1 John 5:13). The posture begins at a moment, but it persists for a lifetime.

The book of Leviticus provides a wonderful picture of this. Once a year each Jewish father would appear on behalf of the family to offer a sacrifice for sin. When the moment of sacrifice came, the father would lay his hand on the head of the sacrificial lamb and the priest would slit its throat. The resting of the hand of the man on the head of the lamb symbolized the transference of the guilt of the family onto the head of the sacrifice. As the lamb bled out, the guilt of the family was removed.

Faith is placing our hand upon the sacrificial head of Jesus. When we do so, Paul says, “our faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). There is a moment when we first lay our hand on the head of Jesus. It is to rest there for the rest of our lives. When we want to know if we are saved, we should look at where our “hand,” our hope for heaven, is currently resting.

The Moment It Made Sense to Me

I remember the moment this finally all made sense to me. I had begun to despair that I could ever find assurance, that I could ever experience a moment that would establish once and for all that I was born again. A friend directed me to Martin Luther, whom he said had gone through his own bitter struggle with assurance. I went to the library and checked out Luther’s commentary on the book of Romans. I’ll never forget that night reading his words on Romans 10:9:

Paul says, “If thou ... shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” That is true, for, as we read in 4:25, “Christ was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” Whoever believes these two facts will be saved. ... We obtain the true righteousness of God by believing sincerely the promises of God, as we read in 4:3, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

In that moment, at last, it all made sense. Salvation was obtained by simply resting on the two “facts” God had promised about Jesus: he was crucified as the payment for our sins; he was resurrected as proof that God accepted the payment. Just as Abraham was saved by believing God would keep his word, I was saved by believing he had.

Those two facts were true whether I believed them or not, but when I rested my weight upon them — that is, when I placed my hopes for heaven on his finished work — they became mine.

When you first assume that position, you might express it in a prayer. Or you might not. The posture is itself a cry to God for salvation, whether you articulate it or not. But just because you prayed the prayer doesn’t mean you assumed the posture, any more than telling a chair you’re about to sit in it equates actually sitting down.

So, when it comes to assurance, the only real question is: Is your hand resting on Jesus’ head now?

Clarifying Two Things I Am Not Saying

I am not saying that asking Jesus into your heart is heretical. When we are “saved,” Jesus does indeed “come into our hearts,” at least in a manner of speaking (see, for example, Romans 8:9-11; Ephesians 3:17; Colossians 1:27-28; Galatians 2:20). But there are lots of other things that happen at the moment of salvation, too: we are washed in Jesus’ blood, sealed by his Spirit, guaranteed a dwelling place in the new heaven, grafted into the vine, have our names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, Satan’s claims against us are nullified, etc. Asking Jesus to do any one of these for us at the moment of salvation is not heretical, but by focusing on any one of them we run the risk of obscuring the one thing necessary for salvation — a posture of repentance toward and faith in his finished work (Mark 1:15; John 3:36; Rom. 4:5; 10:9-10).

For example, if we go around telling people that if they want to be saved they should ask Jesus to “begin construction on their home in heaven,” or “put my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life,” that would not be wrong, per se (John 14:1-3), but it could be misleading. People with no remorse for their sin might still be excited about Jesus providing them with an eternal vacation home or getting their name onto some heavenly honor-roll list. By highlighting one or two of the things Jesus said he’d do for us at salvation we might obscure the one thing Jesus said we must do to be saved: repent and believe.

Ultimately, my concern is not on what words or actions we might use to express our faith in Christ, but that we don’t substitute those words or actions for repentance and faith. “Praying the sinner’s prayer” has become something like a Protestant “ritual” we have people go through to gain entry into heaven. As “gospel shorthand,” it presents salvation as a transaction one conducts with Jesus and moves on from rather than the beginning of a posture we take toward the finished work of Christ and maintain for the rest of our lives.

I’m also not saying that we should not press for a decision when we preach the gospel. Preachers in the revivalist traditions called for sinners to respond immediately to the gospel. That response often took the form of walking an aisle or asking Jesus into one’s heart. While this may not be my preferred technique, the gospel is indeed an invitation and each time it is preached that invitation ought to be extended in some form (e.g., John 1:12; Matt. 11:28; Rev. 22:17). In fact, if we do not urge the hearer to respond personally to God’s offer in Christ, I do not believe we have fully preached the gospel.

Calling on sinners to seek salvation on the spot is not something invented by the Finney-revivalist tradition. Throughout history, even some of the most Reformed evangelists have invited hearers to pray a sinner’s prayer. Charles Spurgeon said at the conclusion of one of his sermons:

Before you leave this place, breathe an earnest prayer to God, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner. Lord, I need to be saved. Save me. I call upon your name.” Join with me in prayer at this moment, I entreat you. Join with me while I put words into your mouths, and speak them on your behalf — ”Lord, I am guilty. I deserve your wrath. Lord, I cannot save myself ... I cast myself wholly upon you, O Lord. I trust the blood and righteousness of your dear Son; I trust your mercy, and your love, and your power, as they are revealed in him. I dare to lay hold upon this word of yours, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lord, save me tonight, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

So did George Whitefield. John Bunyan described one of his characters, “Hopeful,” being led through a sinner’s prayer by another, “Faithful.” The apostle Peter invited 3,000 people to come forward for baptism in response to his first sermon. Ananias led Paul to call on God’s name for forgiveness of sins after their first conversation (Acts 22:16).

So I am not, in any way, trying to discourage calling for a decision when we present the gospel. I am saying that above all else we must emphasize the absolute indispensability of repentance and faith for salvation.

I am also saying to those who, like me, have asked Jesus into their hearts thousands of times, that they can “stop asking Jesus into their heart” and start resting in the finished work of Christ. Salvation is not given because you prayed a prayer correctly, but because you have leaned the hopes of your soul on the finished work of Christ. When and how you began the posture of repentance and faith is less important than that you are in that posture now.

Shorthand phrases for the gospel can serve a good purpose, insofar as everyone knows exactly what they mean. But in light of the fact that so many in our country seem assured of a salvation they give no evidence of having, and so many others are unable to find assurance no matter how often they pray the prayer, I believe it is time to put the shorthand aside and preach simply salvation by repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ. Or, at least, to be careful to explain exactly what we mean when we call for a response to the gospel.

The apostle John described a large group of people who “believed in Jesus” but to whom Jesus would not commit himself because he knew “what was in them” (John 2:23-25). He knew their belief was a temporary fad and not something that would endure the test of time and trial.

Scripture teaches that salvation happens at a moment. We are born again (John 3:1-3); our sins are forgiven (Acts 22:16); Christ’s righteousness is credited to us (Rom. 4:5); and we are filled with God’s Spirit and baptized into his body (Acts 10:44; 1 Cor. 12:13). There was a moment that you made the decision to sit down in the chair. The way that you know made the decision, however, is not by remembering with absolute clarity the moment you made it, but because you are seated there now.

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J.D. Greear is lead pastor at the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.