At least he had the good grace to move on.
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Not so much. He wrote a book professing the Gospel as not true. I hope the book took no one away from their faith.
On faith, as so many people have stated that it is faith that makes you eligible for Grace.
This is a tough subject but the concepts are rather simple. Grace is something that because The Lord loves all, His Grace is offered to all. While His love is unconditional His Grace IS conditional. Many say just believe on His name and you will receive His Grace. I say not so. Yes of course you must believe on His name to receive His Grace but the Devil, even Satan or Lucifer if you prefer believes on His name. The Devil is not eligible for The Lords Grace.
Many believe they can simply say Lord save me and they will be saved, perhaps, but I do not believe that. If you are evil your whole life and fear at the last moment and call on Jesus to save you He will tell you the same thing as he told those who cast out devils in His name but were not followers of Him, they were cast out after His saying He never knew them. What is it to “know” Him? That is the $64000 question really isn’t it. If you know Him when you call on Him He will answer. If you have had faith enough for instance to help the widow, orphans, homeless, penniless then perhaps you do know him. So as James says, “show me your works and I will show you your faith”. It is faith that saves for sure but again as James says, “faith without works is dead.”
A person can have tons of good works but not know The Lord. Perhaps those that were casting out devils in Jesus’ name were doing something good it just wasn’t of Christ.
We need to follow Christ, not just say His name.
While it is not for us to judge, it is likely that someone who acts like they don’t know The Lord, probably doesn’t even though they may say His name.
I get that. But by that time, he was on the other team. I would rather have such a person in the enemy camp than as a fifth columnist in my camp.
I don't quite agree with everything you assert, as I look at grace from a Calvinist perspective. But I do agree that it takes more than a phony profession of faith to be saved. A person who is evil until his dying day is not likely to have an actual conversion at the eleventh hour. Many people seem to think they can fool God by uttering a secret phrase at the moment of death. I think that is nonsense.
...and Him only; too...