What must I do to be SAVED?

I am trying not to slam certain circles or Christianity in general. However, I think we all to some degree have given in and given over to doctrines of great compromise in the past 100 years and have turned away from the true gospel.

The biggest error I think we are making is in looking at numbers and "results" of our techniques and assume that if it draws a crowd it must be of God.  Whether we mean to or not, we allow sinners to merely ADD the doctrines of salvation to their present lives without that true repentance where people turned into new creatures.

The reality is this: if I try anything new, there is that honeymoon period. People can get excited, maybe even get baptized, and have an emotional response to the gospel, but that seems to be the extent of a lot of our converts. Praying a prayer, asking Jesus into my heart, trusting Christ, asking the LORD to save me --- all these are perhaps have a degree of truth to them, or perhaps at times manipulating scriptures, but regardless, if people are not convinced of the disease, trying to push the cure does not cause salvation because they respond with that just in case attitude.

Once they "accept the cure" they are inoculated to the real gospel, and have this attitude of "God, I let you save me, what more do you expect from me?" By our actions we act like we did God a favor to let him save us! Also, at some point of emphasizing some of God's positive attributes and neglecting, ignoring, or downplaying his negative ones creates a False Christ.  A false Christ will not save anyone.

What must I do to be saved? should be the most important question that we make sure gets answered correctly.

The battle today is WHAT is the GOSPEL and HOW do MEN get SAVED?  I think what is important to first address is how men are not saved.  In the last 100 years from what I've studied, modern evangelism methods have replaced the old fashioned Bible Christianity.

What seems to be the clear method of the Bible that produced a great harvest of truly regenerated Bible believers was:

1) sowing of the fear of God

2) real true conviction to the point people naturally cried out,"What must I do to be saved?"

3) genuine repentance and genuine conversion that impacted the world around them and left no doubt they met the risen Christ.

Today I think we have a two fold problem ---

A) we don't deal enough with sowing the right seed, combating their already false Christ they have grown up with, and instead we teach them what to do with their false Christ.

 It is like someone who survived the Atomic Bomb of Hiroshima keeping a bottle of arsenic around because he believes that it is potassium iodide for radiation exposure. The earthquake hits, and there is radiation exposure again, and the man digs out the bottle he's held for years, and I counsel him about treatment, I counsel him about how to take the medicine, I explain the side effects. Problem -- I didn't think to see if his medication was expired or if it was even the correct medicine. We both thought we are talking about the same cure, but we weren't.

 B) (Addressed in the Flu shot posts) We're pushing a cure on a world who doesn't think they are sick. That is why we try and repackage it and sugar coat it and offer great rebates and incentives to take it. Instead if we spent more time convincing the disease, it wouldn't be that hard to get someone to accept the cure.

I want to look at some false cures today. Modern evangelism has bad fruit, but it looks impressive because it produces decisions. Decisions are not to be always taken as serious as our missionary prayer letters make them out to be. In the Gospel of John, Jesus had a whole bunch of shallow followers who "decided to follow Christ". When Jesus brought them to a point of conviction, and revealed their shallowness, many turned away.

Words don't mean much.

Not everyone that saith unto me LORD LORD says Jesus, shall enter the kingdom of Heaven. He makes little of our words, so why does modern evangelism let everything hang in the balance by our measly professions? I've been to sodomite parades (preaching at it!) where practicing sodomites profess they know God and claim the love of God for themselves. Be not deceived!

Here are some lies and bad doctrine of today's Christianity:

1. The Sinner's Prayer Saves. (Salvation is a person, not a prayer.)

2. You just gotta believe. (True saving faith vs. the devils believe and tremble)

3. Just ask Jesus into your heart. (You can do that in your sin!)

4. Follow the Romans Road. (too generic! it takes the great doctrines of the past and makes it a 5 point formula you have to just nod your head to--i.e. it produces head knowledge!)

5. IF you want to go to heaven, pray this prayer. (it emphasizes heaven and produces a selfish motive for salvation)

6. Try Jesus. (Jesus is Lord, not an experiment)

7. The only sin that sends a person to Hell is rejecting Jesus Christ. (why does it say in Revelation listing the people headed for hell that both unbelievers and all liars are hell bound if there is only one sin?)  Also, neglecting a cure is just as damning as rejecting that cure.  

8. Eat the meat and spit out the bones. (What about poisoned meat?)

9. Whosover shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. LORD, SAVE ME. (it neglects the context of that verse. you can call on the Lord if their is conviction and repentance mixed in, but you can't contradict Matthew 7 either)

10. Repentance is agreeing with God and merely a change of mind. (no, no, no. God saw their works in the book of Jonah. Jesus called that repentance. their must be some fruit if their is genuine repentance!)

Good night for now.