Posted on 01/26/2018 1:04:07 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
We are in a time of the first ever mass conversions of Muslims,” Father Mitch Pacwa SJ told me in a phone interview. “God is doing a mighty work among them.”
Pacwa said that mass conversions are happening even in very fundamentalist countries. There is rapidly growing number of conversions especially on the edges of the Muslim world in the western and southern parts of Africa, he said. “Africa is now growing predominantly Christian despite crackdowns,” Pacwa said.
Some of the noteworthy countries he mentioned include Iran, reported to have 3 million Christians, and Indonesia with reports of 2 million a year converting.
“In Mongolia, the president opened the country to Christians and there’s even an archbishop,” Pacwa said. “They built a Catholic school there too. If I was younger, I would have gone.” He said that the desire for a Western education was the impetus to open up the country to the Catholic Church.
There are even conversions happening in many strict Muslim countries, according to Pacwa. He did not want to go on record with particulars for fear of increased retribution. Mass conversions are also being reported among refugees that are filling up the Christian churches left empty by Europeans. Many wonder if those are authentic conversions or just a response to improving their chances for amnesty, but time will tell.
Signs of this conversion are showing up in the U.S. too, Pacwa said. “I was about to celebrate Mass at a Maronite church in San Diego and I said hi to a man who introduced himself as Achmad. I asked if he was a Christian. He said: ‘Yes, I was recently baptized.’ He said he from Morocco. Christians do not have the name Ahmad—that’s a form of Mohammad.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
“I would say anyone can lose one’s salvation by final impenitence.“
Only if this impenitent person had never come to saving faith in Christ.
Once sealed to the day of redemption, the believer has assurance of salvation and is an heir of Christ.
“27 My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.
29 My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.…
Jesus (John 10)
Believers are held in the Savior’s hand, inside the Father’s hand.
Then you'd be wrong.
When we turn to Christ we are born again in the spiritual birth.
We are given the Holy Spirit who seals us and is the guarantee of our inheritance in heaven.
Ephesians 1:13-14 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
The record of sin debt that condemned us is canceled out and Christ's righteousness is credited to our account and we are transferred into the kingdom of the Son.
Colossians 2:13-15 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
We are NOW seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:4-7 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
We have become new creatures in Christ and the old self is crucified with Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Our salvation is a present reality in the spiritual realm, not something that we attain if we manage to hang on to the bitter end.
They're not saved because they never were.
A saved person cannot lose their salvation if they fail to repent of some sin before they die.
I would say anyone can lose one's salvation by final impenitence.
I would not say that at all. I think it’s more accurate to say, instead of “losing” one’s salvation, I would say the odds are, they never had salvation in the first place. One cannot lose what one never had. We must correctly define our terms here, or we really can’t even have a conversation.
As I understand it--- correct me if I'm wrong --- you're saying a person who is lost, was never saved. That is true per definition, ~IF~ you define saved as incapable of being lost.
It brings us around in a circle, since if a person says he is saved, and believes he is saved, turns out to be finally impenitent, he is lost and never was saved. He ought not to have said he was: it is presumptuous.
Per definition, the sin of presumption is saying you're now saved no matter what you do. The similar but opposite sin of despair is saying you're now damned no matter what you do.
That's why Catholics generally don't talk about being "saved." It is because that determination is made only at judgment upon the moment of death. Then it is final and ireversible: and it is Christ who judges. We don't even judge ourselves.
1 Cor 4:3-4
I care very little if I am judged
by you or by any human court;
indeed, I do not even judge myself.
My conscience is clear,
but that does not make me innocent.
It is the Lord who judges me.
Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time;
wait until the Lord comes.
A short answer can result in misunderstanding. I recently debated someone who essentially taught that believers must confess every sin they ever committed as believer or else they go to Hell. Others think one can live and die like devil and be saved as along as they believe Jesus will give them eternal life. Then you have RCs who believe one must become perfect in character to be with God. But what we see in Scripture is that it is penitent faith (Ps. 34:18) in the Lord Jesus that is counted for righteousness, (Rm. 4:5) and believers in Scripture confessed their sins to the Lord when convicted of them, (2 Corinthians 7:10-11) as David did. And God works to bring souls to repentance lest they be condemned,(1Co. 11:32) and somewhere along the line God gives space to repent. (Revelation 2:20-23)
But "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." (Proverbs 29:1) And which Hebrews 6:1-8 relates to, and thus to answer your question, wayward members cannot gain final salvation if they do not repent of their sins when convicted of them (and we have lots of sins were are ignorant of) but harden their heart against this, which is contrary to faith. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12)
The promise of salvation is appropriated by faith, which is a living effectual attitude of the heart, which effects obedience to the Object of faith, relative to the light and grace given. Conversely, one who lives contrary to the known will of Christ is effectively denying the faith, no matter how much he professes faith in a promise. Saving faith is in a person, the risen Lord Jesus, to save the damned and destitute sinner on His account, and is not faith merely in a promise, abstract from who Christ is.
I think this is a good answer.
Well,m with the plethora of Catholic claims of "special revelation" some might claim to fit thru a loophole.
No one, moreover, so long as he is in this mortal life, ought so far to presume as regards the secret mystery of divine predestination, as to determine for certain that he is assuredly in [Page 40] the number of the predestinate; as if it were true, that he that is justified, either cannot sin any more, or, if he do sin, that he ought to promise himself an assured repentance; for except by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God hath chosen unto Himself. [Trent, The Sixth Session, CHAPTER XII, http://history.hanover.edu/early/trent/ct06.html]
. No one can be absolutely certain of his or her salvation unless--as to Magdalen, to the man with the palsy, or to the penitent thief--a special revelation be given (Trent, Sess. VI, can. xvi). http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06701a.htm
However, although the "no true Scotsman" reasoning seem to apply to the final perseverance OSAS. one can know that they no have eternal life, and can attain to a condition in which they will never fall as they walk therein.
These things [4+ chapters] have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13)
Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:10-11)
“Per definition, the sin of presumption is saying you’re now saved no matter what you do.
Not something from Scripture, but from Roman religion.
Such a revelation may be a good warning or a good consolation, and may conduce to renewed fervor in the faith. But it is not a source of dogma.
Such an attitude is rejected in the Catholic Catechism as being sinful.
Don't some folks say that one HAS to be baptized to RECEiVE the HS?
No 'Father' or 'Holy Ghost' mentioned?
And yet; demanded a 'sacrament'.
HMMMmmm...
When (and how) was Mary baptized?
And them Rome has added even MORE...
And Rome has determined that we need to 'know' more&more as the times roll by.
Even Mary has to get in on that little game.
How many 'visitations' are claimed to be Marian?
In the thousands?
As short as a YES or a NO?
“Which Roman religion is that, that says “You are saved no matter what you do”?
None. They are wrong.
“Such an attitude is rejected in the Catholic Catechism as being sinful.
Wrong, as measured by Scripture.
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