Posted on 10/20/2013 11:29:26 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Once upon a time, Groucho Marx hosted the popular game show, “You Bet Your Life.” At the start of the show, a “secret word” was revealed to the studio audience. If a contestant said the word during the course of the show, a reward would descend from the rafters (a one hundred dollar bill).
Whether we know it or not, we are all, Christians and non-Christians alike, contestants in the spiritual equivalent of “You Bet Your Life.” If we bet wisely, our reward is eternal life. But if we bet foolishly, we condemn ourselves to eternal damnation.
That brings to mind Pascal’s Wager, credited to the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal. He famously posited that every human being bets his or her life on whether or not God exists.
“Let us,” he wrote, “weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
To put this in terms to which most of us can relate, even if the odds of God’s existence are, say, 1 in 175 million – the odds of winning Powerball on a single ticket – it is worth the wager.
Because, if we have bet on God, and God does not exist, we lose nothing. That is, save for indulging in certain behavior proscribed by God, including sexual promiscuity, idol worship, adultery, homosexuality (and other sexual perversions), thievery, greed, substance abuse, slander and robbery.
But if we bet against the Almighty, and indeed He does exist, we shall be cast into the lake of fire, eternally separated from God. We shall be condemned to place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Where we will be burned with unquenchable fire. Where we will be tormented day and night forever and forever.
Most of us are rationale. So we heed Pascal’s advice.
Even if we are uncertain there is a God, we hedge our bet. We respond to an altar call at some point in our lives. We say we accept Jesus as our personal Savior. We get baptized.
In so doing, we believe we have ensured our eternal security. We believe that, because we went through the ritual of being “saved,” we have a lifetime “Get Out of Hell Free” card. And that we can live our lives as it pleases us – not God – with impunity.
But what if we are wrong? What if this doctrine of “Once Saved, Always Saved,” espoused by many Godly pastors, preached in many purpose-driven churches, is errant? What if it actually is possible for us to forfeit our eternal salvation, to condemn ourselves to hell, by living brazenly and unrepentantly in defiance of God’s law?
That presents a corollary to Pascal’s wager, one that has not been considered by those who profess themselves Christ followers, but who are not truly leading a Christian life.
Let us call this corollary the Salvation wager, in which we weigh the gain and loss in betting on “Once Saved, Always Saved.”
Those who reject the doctrine, who believe those of us whom the Son sets free, must go and sin no more, must faithfully strive to live in obedience to God, have everything to gain if the doctrine is wrong and nothing to lose if the doctrine is right.
But those who subscribe to the doctrine, who believe that, having been saved, they can commit any and all manner of sin and it doesn’t matter in the eternal scheme of things, have hell to pay if they are wrong.
So what might Pascal advise?
That even if it’s more likely that once a person is saved, there is absolutely nothing they can do to lose their salvation, and that even if the odds are, say, 175 million to 1 that the widely-accepted doctrine of “Once Saved, Always Saved” is right rather than wrong, it still is wise to bet against the doctrine.
Because there are many who claim themselves Christians, who think their names have been written in the book of life, who will appear before the great white throne of judgment, who will find themselves sinners in the hands of an angry God.
They will look to Jesus and say, “Lord, Lord,” hoping He will spare them from punishment. But He will declare to them, “I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice wickedness.”
That’s a warning to those abiding unabashedly and unrepentantly in sin. They have bet their lives on “Once Saved, Always Saved.” And if they are wrong, eternal torment awaits.
“Then why John 3:16?
If Jesus knocks and you don’t answer the door... What then?
Biblical evidence of free will yes?”
Not at all, since the presence of a command does not imply a moral ability within mankind to obey them. Amongst the commands is “sin no more,” and yet we do not have the free-will to cease sinning. Our wills, actually, are slaves to our sins. But not unwilling slaves, but voluntary slaves.
The Gospel is offered to all, but it is only believed by those by whom the Holy Spirit regenerates, “and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Co 12:3), and again, “no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” (John 6:65), and again, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). If you had free will, you would not need the Holy Spirit to believe, since you are always able to make your own decision for right or wrong. But the Holy Spirit is necessary, because unless one is born again, they cannot even understand the scripture let alone believe in Christ (1 Co 2:14).
If there is something you can DO to lose your salvation, then there MUST be something you have to DO to maintain it.
If you believe you can lose your salvation, then your concept of salvation is based on works... not Grace.
When is it that someone actually gains salvation? When we ask God to forgive us and invite Jesus into our hearts? or when we die and face judgment?
This is the question which must be asked... because if you are TRULY born again as a believer in Christ Jesus, AND you believe it possible for Him to “give you up”, then you simply do not understand your salvation and your witness is disabled.
Bible was written in small words and short sentences. We like to make it more complicated than it is. The red letter stuff is lots of agricultural stories.
So you can take a knock on the door analogy and the choice of answering it and make it complicated? It does not say that Jesus and the Holy SWAT team no knocked with a warrant for arrest does it?
I am not sure it follows that if we are created we have to have been created for a purpose. God could have created us on a whim with no purpose in mind, except perhaps to pass the time.
I believe we were created for a purpose (and I acknowledge that is a matter of faith). The purpose was to love and worship God, of our own free will.
“Bible was written in small words and short sentences. We like to make it more complicated than it is. The red letter stuff is lots of agricultural stories.
So you can take a knock on the door analogy and the choice of answering it and make it complicated? It does not say that Jesus and the Holy SWAT team no knocked with a warrant for arrest does it?”
I don’t know what you mean. But this I will say, that you must stomp beneath your feet your human reasoning, and submit to the truth of the scripture. The reason of man is, by nature, offended and confounded by the Gospel. What good is the scripture if you believe it is “lots of agricultural stories,” and therefore you are not bound to believe it when Christ says, “you cannot come unto me, unless it is given to you by the Father?” So give up whatever it is you mean in these things and pray to God for the understanding and the heart to believe the scripture.
I don’t know..but this page will help people truly get onto the path..https://www.facebook.com/readealsalvation
Succinct and to the point. I think I posted something similar but it took me 4X the lines to do so:)
Praise God!
“God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another — God alone.” (Martin Luther)
So your contention is that God had to come back for what reason again?
If God created us for no purpose, that would have been the purpose. We are also enslaved to the physical world we live in. If you choose to not put gas in your car you run out gas. If you choose to not look both ways before crossing the street you may get squished.
So some are created for the purpose of being squished, or, we live in created system of laws, physical laws and otherwise with a higher purpose of some kind. I don’t have the answer to this one if you think it through. Lot’s of good people get squished, electrocuted or whatever for no apparent purpose.
It is instructive to notice a ratio to traffic deaths and seat belt laws. If you can increase seat belt usage, deaths go down. What does this say about individuals mystical purpose? I don’t know.
It is all of the above and more. It is the starting line, the race and finishing the race strong. In each phase the salvation belongs to God. He is the Author of salvation.
I will also note if the object of our salvation is false to begin with, the finish line will end badly.
Instead of damnation being the result of wrong educated guesses, what Scripture teaches is that what you do with the spiritual moral light given you, which is innate on a basic level, reveals what you really want. (Mt. 13:12; Jn. 12:26; Rm. 2:7) Obeying what is right leads to more light, ultimately to Christ, The Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." (Jn. 1:8) Ultimately not doing so essentially reveals one wants sin over Him.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3:19-21)
There is far more to salvation than simply knowing the name Jesus, and far more to damnation than simply ignorance of him, or a wrong choice. It is what's behind it that is ignored, but which the Judgment will reveal. And in which the lost shall be punished according to their deeds, consistent with their rejection of salvation provided as God's expense. Eternal life or eternal punishment.
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. (Romans 2:16)
You lost me at being created for no purpose is a purpose. No purpose = Purpose.
Doesn’t compute for me.
“So your contention is that God had to come back for what reason again?”
To save us from our sins, because He knew we could not save ourselves, exactly as I said before.
No slander anywhere in my comments. Direct quotation of your own words
Who gave us sin?
Why did God create us and put us here on earth? I don’t know, but it’s obvious we’re in some sort of school.
We have to learn certain things, say, how to love. Easy to love God, he’s so great. Hard to love our nasty neighbors, especially when they are mean to us. Christianity has been trying for 2000 years to help us learn to love those neighbors. Belief in Jesus is supposed to make it easier. After we die we find out if we did okay or not.
John 13 is interesting to take a look at. Jesus told Peter he was clean and only needed his feet washed.
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