8. "Ye shall not surely die”
Today, the devil is still using this lie, “You will not surely die” in the form of the doctrine of eternal security. In a nutshell, this doctrine says to this effect:
“After you receive Christ ( say the sinner’s prayer) with sincerity, there is nothing you can do that will cause you to lose your salvation”.
See how the devil says to you today, “You will not surely die”?. You can do anything you want, and you will not surely die.
About 10 years ago, when as a new Christian, my wife and I attended a funeral wake; at Jinjang, I think. It was a Christian funeral. There were non-Christians there, too. And being new Christians, fresh and hot, we began to evangelize the non-Christians there with boldness. Now, among them was a young Buddhist couple and one of them said, “But your God is so unfair. Once a person becomes His follower, the follower can continue to lie, cheat and commit crimes; and all he has to do every time is to turn to your God and say ‘Forgive me’ and your God will forgive him”.
The Buddhist just pointed out something very valid. Where is the holiness and righteousness of God in this matter? Is not our God's holiness and righteousness His two foremost uncompromising qualities? If His holiness and righteousness can be compromised, is He still a God worthy of honor and praise? No, I believe these two qualities are the core qualities of God which are not compromisable. Correct me if I am wrong.
Now, have you ever noticed how ambivalent is your church leadership’s stand on this issue of “eternal security”? By saying "no", it is afraid of losing membership. By saying "yes", it is also afraid of losing membership.
But surprising though, the vast majority of the Christians that I have spoken to in private, I am glad to say, ( except for the followers of Joseph Prince, and those who chase after the extreme grace teachings of American and Western preachers, especially the television personalities ), do not really believe in the doctrine of eternal security! So that is a definite conflict between the official stand of the church leadership as against the personal stand of the majority of the believers. But the believers, as usual are too chicken to voice out and demand the leadership correct itself formally.
All that time, my wife and I had learned of the doctrine of eternal security from the church leaders and older members. They would tell us that once a person is a Christian, his salvation is guaranteed. Wow! What good news indeed! And this is what we in turn, used to tell others as well, because it sounds so good. Consequently, some Christians have become very offended with the slightest suggestion that there could be a possibility that some of us may not be saved. To them, for us to say that we may lose our salvation is to accuse our God of being incapable of keeping His promise of salvation to us. So out of this, the doctrine called “eternal security”, or “once-saved-always-saved” had been developed, so that our God can be projected as a ever faithful and loving God. In their earnestness to assure themselves of this guarantee, they have twisted the actual teachings of the bible, and even Jesus’ warnings on this matter. They do this by totally ignoring clear and distinct verses that tell us that only true followers of Jesus Christ will be saved.
Even normally reliable preachers like the late Walter Martin, Chuck Missler, Chuck Smith – all preachers of renown, have arrived at the conclusion that there cannot be such a thing as an untrue Christian. To put dissenters down, some of these renowned preachers even come up with silly questions like “Do you mean to say that a person is unsaved in the morning because of his sin this morning and becomes saved again when he confesses his sin at night?” This is their attempt to ridicule those who do not take their side, and sadly most people are taken aback by this ridicule. But famous preachers can also take stupid stands. They did not realize that when they ask a question like this, they also saying that Jesus judges his followers by the minute. Is that what the bible says about judgment? Surely not. The books will only be opened at judgment day ( See Revelation 20:12). In their blind attempt to ridicule others, they make fools of themselves.
So, scriptures are indeed being interpreted out of context in order to conform to this teaching of the serpent. The fact that such a doctrine goes against the doctrine of the holiness and righteousness of God is conveniently ignored. The meaning of the word “works” has even been expanded to include any conscious act of showing belief in Christ, showing faith in God, or confession of sin, which would nullify God’s grace. What nonsense! Think of it. Faith is works! Confession is works! How silly can teachers be!
How in the world can they ever postulate that that holy and righteous God would compromise on His holiness and righteous for the sake of His people. To do so, God would not longer be holy and righteous!
To this therefore I say “NO! God’s holiness and righteousness can never be compromised; his grace and love is still subject to His holiness and righteousness”
Now, do these teachers know that their stand is actually indefensible? Yes, actually they do. Remember Judas? Remember what Jesus said of Judas in Mar 14:21;
The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
Remember also names like Hermeneus or Alexander, or Diotrephes in the epistles? These were obviously people who started off as believers, who later strayed the other way.
Since the scriptures cannot be denied, these teachers have twisted themselves into a knot trying to stubbornly defend that doctrine of the devil. And here is the silly statement from them to get out of the fix they created for themselves - “Those so-called Christians who turn away from God were never Christians in the first place, so Judas was never a follower of Jesus!”. So we see, they do agree that Christians who turn away from God are really not saved after all, and since they cannot find disagree, they came up with that silly desperate statement of defense.
We know that today, not all theologians are Spirit-led. As a matter of fact, some of these theologians are not even Christians. They merely studied for the degree as a degree of learning, in order to earn a qualification to earn a living. They have twisted scriptures into new packaging in order to market themselves as experts, thereby doing evil to the scriptures. These theologians have written many books on Christianity which are being used by bible colleges, and many are also lecturing in bible colleges and seminaries. The devil has surely put his people in strategic places to deceive the elect.
Beware therefore, of the serpent who said “Ye shall not surely die”. For Eve believed the serpent and died, taking Adam and the whole human race along. Jesus have provided us THE WAY to life again, why fall for the same lie?
Now, God is surely able to protect His Word as recorded in Proverbs 30:6
“Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
In the next article, I will list out some of the scriptures will clearly says that not all Christians will be saved, and these teachers of false doctrines are surely put to shame.
The unpleasant truth is false teaching abound. The bible warns us so. But we do not pay heed to the scriptures. We only pay heed to people with titles and status.
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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