Lighthouse Baptist Church, Crossville, TN

Lighthouse Baptist Church, Crossville, TN If you are new to the area, or are looking for a local church, we would enjoy having you come and wo

If you are new to the area, or are looking for a local church, we would enjoy having you come and worship with us.

09/17/2023

Still meeting on Sunday mornings, adult Sunday school is at 10am, and church is at 11am.

03/10/2023

Just an update about the church service times; we are meeting on Sunday mornings at 10:00am for Sunday School, and 11:00am for the main service. At this time, we are not having any evening services.

01/14/2020

Here is a booklet I wrote some time ago, but never got a chance to get printed...

I think that everyone would agree that one of the primary subjects in the Bible would be Salvation, for without Salvation all mankind would be lost and doomed to an eternity without God. But unfortunately, this is also a subject that is widely misunderstood. I would like to share with you some of what the Bible has to say about this topic. I will be the first to agree that this booklet will not cover every aspect of Salvation, but it will cover some points that are often overlooked and misunderstood in various verses.

The main goal of this booklet is to point out that not every verse in the Bible that uses the word “Saved”, or a form of that word, is in reference to being saved from our sin nature into a position where we will go to Heaven, either in the Rapture or at our death. If you study the subject, you will find that there are actually three separate and distinct types of Salvation that are taught in the Scriptures. You may be familiar with them under different terms such as; Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification.

A perfect example that not every “salvation” will give us a home in Heaven is found in Exodus 14:13 when Moses raised his rod and the Red Sea parted; “And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” Yes, the people saw “salvation”, but it was not salvation of the soul, it was salvation of life. Both of which we will go over in the next few pages.

A short summary of what we are about to cover would be; the first salvation is “Salvation of the Soul”, this is where one becomes a child of God and their soul will forever be with the Lord, many refer to this as Justification. The second salvation is “Salvation of Life”, this is where a child of God looks to their Heavenly Father for guidance as they live in the world, and is often called sanctification. And the third salvation is “Salvation of the Body”, and this is where a child of God goes home to be with Him either through death, or at the coming of Jesus to take his Bride, the church, back to be with Him. This event is called the ‘rapture’, although the Bible does not use that word, it says that we will be “caught up together” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Let’s start by taking a closer look at the first form of Salvation, “Salvation of the Soul”. I am sure that most everyone knows that the Bible is referred to as the Gospel, or Good News, of Jesus Christ, and we can see that in Romans 1:16 which is also our first verse on salvation; “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Notice that this verse refers “to every one that believeth”, that is because believing in the finished work of Jesus is the only way to obtain Salvation of the Soul.

And we see this again in Acts 16:29-31 which tells us about the Philippian Jailer who was watching over Paul and Silas while they were in prison; “Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” This man wanted Soul Salvation, he wanted the hope of eternal life that Paul and Silas had. But Paul doesn’t give him a long list of things he needs to do to clean up his life first, he doesn’t tell him to start attending church and doing good things for others, and he doesn’t say ‘prayer this pray after me’, he simply tells him; “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved…” Now if there were something else that the man needed to do to be saved, wouldn’t have Paul told him about it? Of course, he would have, but he didn’t tell him anything else because believing in Jesus is all that he needed.

For many years now, there has been another method of salvation taught and preached; it says that in order to obtain Salvation of the Soul, we must ask God to forgive us of our sins, but that is a man-made method and you will not find it anywhere in the Bible. Many will be thinking right now, what about Romans 10:13 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” They will say, ‘there it is, you need call upon the name of the Lord by asking Him to forgive your sins in order to be saved.’ But this is one of the verses that is misunderstood and taken out of context. To see this, simply continue reading in verse 14; “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” Verse 13 is used by many to refer to Salvation of the Soul, but if you take it in context with verse 14 you will clearly see that it is actually referring to Salvation of Life. It gives the outline in reverse order; first you must meet a preacher, then you must hear the gospel from that preacher, and then you “believe on him”, Jesus, for Salvation of your Soul, and after you are saved is when you “call upon the name of the Lord”. The word “saved” in verse 13 is not in reference to Salvation of the Soul, it is in reference to Salvation of Life. So, to paraphrase what these verses really mean; ‘anyone that is a believer may call upon the name of the Lord to receive help in defeating temptation and living a Godly life.’ That is Salvation of Life, not of the Soul.

Most people who use this verse to point to Salvation of the Soul say that you need to ask God to forgive your sins. But by doing this they overlook many other passages in the Bible, such as 1 Timothy 4:10, which says “For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.” Notice that God is “the Saviour of all men”, not just those who ask for forgiveness as many would teach, but “all men”. And when the Bible says “all men”, do you really think it means only some? No, it means “all men”. So, based on that, the sins of all mankind were forgiven when Jesus died on the cross. And the last phrase sums it all up, we don’t need to ask God to forgive us, because He already did that when He accepted the blood of Jesus at Calvary to forgive our sins; all we need to do is believe, like the verse says, that Jesus “is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe”. And if you study God’s Word, you will find that all references to being reconciled, or having our sins forgiven, are ‘past tense’, indicating that the work was already finished. We can see this again in 1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:” The Bible also says that “… and without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). So, based on this, if a person asks God to forgive their sins, what has to happen for those sins to be forgiven? Blood has to be shed. Was any blood shed when you asked God to forgive you? No. When was the ‘forgiving blood’ shed? At Calvary. So when were your sins forgiven? At Calvary! All we need to do is believe that to be ‘saved’, and that is Salvation of the Soul.

Another verse to look here is Hebrews 1:3 “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”. Do you see what Jesus did with our sins? He “purged” them, or took them completely away. And again, note that this term is ‘past tense’, meaning that my sins, your sins, the sins of the whole world, were purged by Jesus when He died on the cross. And if they are already gone, then why do people think that they need to ask God to forgive their sins? Because they have been taught the traditions of man for so many years, and have not taken the time to study their Bible and learn what the truth really says.

Romans 5:10 tells us the same thing; “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” This verse proves that “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son”, NOT by our baptism, NOT by the prayer that we prayed, and NOT by asking God to forgive our sins. In fact, that phrase even tells us when we were reconciled; it was “by the death of his Son”. This gives is a specific day (and not the one we wrote inside the cover of our bible), it was 2000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross. On that day we were all “reconciled to God”, before we were even born, so there is nothing we can do to ‘earn’ reconciliation since it was already provided to us by the death of Jesus. All we need to do is believe that, in order to be saved. And the verse goes on to show the second salvation also, Salvation of Life; “we shall be saved by his life”. This shows us that since we are already reconciled to God, that we can look to Him for the power we need to overcome the problems of this world and live a Godly life before others. This is Salvation of Life, which we shall look at next.

One of my favorite verses concerning Salvation of Life would have to be Philippians 2:12 “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Here Paul is commending the Christians at Philippi for their obedience to the word of God, and then he goes on to direct them to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. I have always thought of a gymnasium when I read this verse; you go there to “work out” in order to make yourself stronger, and the same is true in your Christian life, you need to “work out” your salvation – exercise it – put it to good use, in order to grow closer to Christ and thus be able to be a better witness to those around you. This is another verse that is often misunderstood and used out of context; it is often used to show people that they need to do ‘works’ in order to be saved, but that is not what it is saying. After all, if this verse were to say that, then we would have to cut Ephesians 2:8-9 out of the Bible because it says “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” I don’t know how many times I have heard someone use this verse to show that works will NOT get you into Heaven, but then turn right around and ask a potential convert to pray a prayer (which is a ‘work’) in order to be saved. And I can truthfully say that praying a prayer / asking God to forgive your sins, is a ‘work’ based on Romans 4:5 “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” If you believe on the finished work of Jesus on the cross, your faith is counted for righteousness, if you try to work your way to Heaven, you do not have the righteousness of Jesus upon you. This verse clearly shows that ‘believing’ is not a work, but everything else we do to try and reach out to God is a work.

The third and final form of Salvation is Salvation of the Body, this is when we go to Heaven to be with Jesus, either through death or when Jesus comes back to claim His bride, the church. Unfortunately, there are verses that refer to this third salvation that people mistakenly use for Salvation of the Soul also. One of those verses, Romans 13:11b, can be confusing if you don’t understand it correctly; “for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” As we covered earlier, when we “believe” the record of Jesus “as the scripture hath said” (John 7:38), we have Salvation of the Soul, but how can our salvation be nearer than when we were saved? The answer is in the fact that this verse is talking about two of the different types of salvation; the portion that says “when we believed” is talking about Salvation of the Soul, but the phrase “for now is our salvation nearer” is talking about Salvation of the Body. So, with that in mind, let’s paraphrase this verse also; ‘for now is Salvation of the Body, the time when we go to Heaven, nearer than the when we believed in Jesus for Salvation of the Soul.’

I trust that you are seeing the point that the Bible certainly does talk about three different ‘Salvations’, and that we need to be careful not to confuse the three as they are presented in the various verses we come across. And the best way to do that is to follow Paul’s admonishment to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Don’t take someone’s word on a subject as important as the Salvation of your Soul just because they have a college degree or have been preaching for many years, study what they say and make sure it lines up with God’s word. And if it doesn’t, believe God and not that man. Eternity is at stake, and you don’t want to get this one wrong.

Take a look at Romans 3:22; “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe…” Here we see that the righteousness of God, placed upon us when we believe (Salvation of the Soul) is “unto all”, but only “upon all them that believe”. It is available to everyone since Jesus died for the sins of the whole world as we just read. But just because is it available to you, doesn’t mean you have it, you must first believe, just as the verse says. Think of it as the electricity that comes into your home, that same electricity is available to everyone, in sufficient quantity to meet every need, and your bill has been paid in advance. But if you don’t believe that it is there, you won’t bother turning on the light switch and will thus live in darkness. But if you simply believe that the electricity is there for you, then you are free to turn on the switch and live in the light. Salvation is the same way; it has already been paid for, forgiveness was provided for everyone when Jesus died on the cross, all we have to do is believe the record the Bible states, and our Soul is Saved.

And don’t forget about 1 John 2:2; “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Here John refers to Jesus as the “propitiation for our sins”, the atonement, the sacrifice that satisfied God; so, if God is satisfied with what Jesus did with our sins, why should we be trying to add on anything else to help get us to Heaven? But the verse doesn’t stop there, it goes on to say “and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world”. John is writing to believers here, and in order to clarify to any unbelievers that might hear what Jesus did, he added this phase so that all would know that Jesus died “for the sins of the whole world”. He didn’t die for some elect few, He didn’t die only for those who ask Him to forgive their sins, He died for the whole world.

Please don’t fall into the same trap I did. For nearly 30 years I had trusted in a prayer that I had prayed for the Salvation of my Soul; I had asked God to forgive my sins, come into my heart, and save me. But in all those years I ignored the many verses that say He already forgave my sins when Jesus died on the cross. Remember, one of the verses we looked at said that Jesus is “the Saviour of all men”. I thought I had to ‘do something’ to obtain my Salvation, but then I learned that anything I do to obtain Salvation is a ‘work’, and works will never get you into Heaven.

Many people have said that this is simply ‘splitting hairs’, that in order to ask God to forgive our sins, we first have to believe in Him and that He is able to save us. I used that argument myself for a while, but I was still lost and on my way to hell. Until I came to another question; ‘what did you believe when you got saved?’ Did you believe that God ‘can and will forgive’ your sins when you ask Him to? Or did you believe that God ‘already forgave’ your sins when Jesus died on Calvary? If that’s splitting hairs, then spending eternity in Heaven or hell is just splitting hairs also.

And finally, keep this in mind; just because many people believe the same thing, or the same way concerning salvation, that doesn’t make it right. Jesus even pointed this out in Matthew 7:13-14 when He said that many will enter the wide gate that leads to destruction, but few will enter into the strait gate that leads to eternal life. Just because there were “many” who took the wide gate, didn’t make it right. So make sure that what you believe is what the Bible teaches, make sure you believe what “the scripture hath said” (John 7:38), and not what some man has said. Eternity depends on it.

01/15/2019

This may be a bit long, but it's worth your time.

1 John 4:1 “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

Many people will ask you to listen to them or read what they have to say with an open mind, but based on the verse above I will ask you to read this booklet with an open Bible. What I am going to show you comes from the Bible, but in many cases, it will not coincide with what you have been taught about the Bible. I ask that you don’t do as I did at first and brush it off as some odd idea, but rather do as God said and “search the scriptures” for yourself to see if I am right. Don’t take my word for it, take God’s word.

Starting with the assumption that you are saved, let me ask this question; have you even doubted your salvation? Based on the fact that I had doubts on several occasions, I would guess that many who read this have had similar experiences. And what do you do when that happens? Let me tell you what I did and see if your experience is similar; when I would doubt my salvation, I would go to the altar at the end of a service to pray. I would think to myself that Satan is trying to cause me to stumble by making me doubt, and just to make sure that everything was settled regarding my salvation, I would say something like this to God; “I know that I asked you to forgive my sins years ago, but Satan is causing me to doubt, making me wonder if I am saved or not. I know that I am a sinner, and that the only way to get to Heaven is through you, so if I wasn’t sincere before, I certainly am now, please forgive me of my sins.”

Your prayer might have been a little different, but have you ever had a situation like that come up in your life? If so, I would ask you to consider this story...

Imagine yourself as a diamond currier, you must deliver a fortune in diamonds to another city, and you must be on a 5:00 flight in order to arrive on time. Now imagine you have 15 minutes to get to the airport, and the road you’re on will take 30 minutes to get there. Also imagine there's a thief who wants to steal the diamonds, and he knows that if you get on that plane, he will have no chance to get them.

Suddenly, you feel as if someone tapped you on the shoulder, saying ‘you are on the wrong road and won’t make your flight, but if you turn around and take the right road you can make it to the airport on time.’

Who was it that tapped you on the shoulder, the owner of the diamonds who wants you to arrive on time, or the thief who wants you to be late? Obviously; it would be the owner of the diamonds. The thief would let you stay on the wrong road and tell you everything was fine.

So why is it when someone doubts their salvation, they blame the devil, when they should consider it may be God telling them they are on the wrong road? Satan doesn’t want us to go to Heaven, so why would he cause us to doubt our salvation and point out that we need to turn around?

Be careful, here is where some people might put this booklet down and not read any further, but again I ask you to read this with an open Bible. If you have ever doubted your salvation, let me ask you; based on the scenario above, could it be possible that Satan was not causing you to doubt, but rather it was the Holy Spirit tugging on your heart saying ‘you were never saved to begin with’? Let me add that for me, this was the case.

For over twenty years my wife and I had been faithful in church, helping out in various positions within the children’s programs, teaching Sunday School and Junior Church. I have been a deacon, and filled in as pulpit supply on many occasions. Then a few years ago we moved and started attending a local church in our new home town. Wanting to continue our service for God, once again we became active in various ministries within our church. But after a few months we were starting to become uncomfortable over what we were hearing from the pulpit. The pastor was saying that a person does not have to ask God to forgive their sins in order to go to Heaven. In fact, he went so far as to say that if you asked God to forgive your sins in order to be saved, that you were most likely not saved at all.

But why would he say that? After all, most of us have been taught the “Romans Road” to salvation, which includes Romans 10:9-10 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

There it is, right in the Bible, that you have to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus in order to be saved, or in terms we are familiar with, you must pray the ‘sinner’s prayer’. And to back it up we go on to Romans 10:13 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

But I would ask you to continue reading this passage; it goes on to say in verse 14, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” You can’t call upon Jesus if you have not already believed in Him. And we see in other verses, such as John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” that we only need to “believe”. There is no mention here of having to ‘call upon the Lord’, so either we can’t get saved with John 3:16 or we don’t need to ‘call upon the Lord’ to be saved.

If a pastor was to get up before the church and preach John 3:16 as ‘whosoever believeth in him and goes to church every Sunday, should not perish’ the congregation would know that he was not preaching the Word of God correctly. And if he were to say ‘whosoever believeth in him and puts money in the offering plate, should not perish’ we would know that he was preaching a salvation of ‘works’. If he were to preach ‘whosoever believeth in him and reads their Bible, should not perish’ we would likely not invite him back to our pulpit. So why is it that a preacher can say ‘whosoever believeth in him and asks God to forgive their sins, should not perish’ and most people will say “Amen!”?

Based on the verses in Romans 10, a person does not confess their sins in order to obtain Salvation; we “believe” to receive salvation. These are not my words, these are God’s words. Salvation does not take place when we ask God to forgive us of our sins; Salvation takes place when we believe that Jesus already forgave our sins when He died on the cross.

Remember when Jesus died on the cross, He said “it is finished”. His blood was shed for the forgiveness of sin. Hebrews 9:22b says “and without shedding of blood is no remission.” So when Jesus shed His blood, our sins were placed under that blood and we received remission of our sins at that time, in other words, we were forgiven at the cross, not when we asked Jesus to save us.

Take a look at 1 John 2:2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” The only way Jesus can be the propitiation, the complete payment and the satisfactory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world is if His blood forgave all sin when it was shed on the cross. And since our sins were forgiven at the cross, then why would we need to ask God to forgive them again now? The answer is that we don’t. All we have to do is believe that they were forgiven at the cross. Just like Paul said to the Jailer in Acts 16:31 “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Nowhere in the Bible will you find any instruction that we are to believe and pray; we are only told to “believe”. So why do most churches add to God’s word by saying that we need to ask God to forgive us?

Some people will say that this is splitting hairs, but continue reading and you will see that it is actually Satan’s way of making a lot of people think that they are saved when they really are not. Believe me, this was true in our lives and it was true in the lives of many people we know.

I believe that most of us are familiar with the passage in Matthew 7:22 where we read “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” Here we see what sounds like a group of religious people who in their minds have done great thing in their service to God, but what is God’s reply? We see it in verse 23 “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” God will call their good deeds “iniquity” because He never knew them, they were never saved. It’s only logical that the people who would fall into that category are the people who think they are saved and serving God. After all, who in their right mind would follow after the lusts of this world and call that doing ‘many wonderful works’ in His name?

So in the end, these people find out that they really didn’t have it right when it came to salvation. And up until 3 years ago, I was in that group. As I mentioned before, I was serving God in many ways just like these people in verse 22. And like them I was following the wrong road for salvation until I realized that the Bible does not say that we are to ask God to forgive our sins in order to be saved, it says we are to “believe” that our sins were forgiven when Christ died on the cross. And when I realized that, I stopped relying on the prayer that I had prayed, and I “believed” that Jesus paid for my sins on the cross and that He had already forgiven my sins with his shed blood. I will add that after three years I have not had one single doubt about my salvation like the many that I had in the previous 20 years.

And to back this up, take a look at Colossians 1:13-14, talking about Jesus, it says “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins”. Notice near the beginning of verse 13 it says “hath delivered us”. This is past tense meaning it is already done. And since He “hath” already delivered us in the past, we already have forgiveness of our sins. Jesus said “it is finished”, all the work was done, there is nothing else left but for us to “believe” on Him.

Also consider Galatians 3:6 “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” It doesn’t say that Abraham believed God and prayed, it says that he “believed God”. And every other passage in the Bible that talks about salvation says that we need to “believe”. Yes, there may be mention in the same passage to confessing as we saw earlier, but if you take the entire passage in context, the confessing is always after salvation.

Hebrews 1:3 has a similar theme, “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”. Here we see that Jesus “purged” our sins, He ‘wiped them away’, He ‘forgave’ them, and once again that is in the past tense, it was already done at the cross.

And the verse that finally hit home for me was Romans 4:5 “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” It was when I heard this verse that I realized that anything we add to God’s word in order to have salvation is a ‘work’, and that includes asking for forgiveness. Only our believing will be counted for righteousness; not or works, and not our prayers.

We see in Hebrews 10:12 “But this man (Jesus) , after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” Why did He sit down, because He was tired? No! He sat down because His work was finished. And as we read on in verse 14, “For by one offering he hath perfected (past tense) for ever them that are sanctified.” We also see in verse 17 that “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Thus, the perfect work of salvation is completed already and our sins no longer exist in God’s eyes. So why would we ask God to forgive our sins when He has already done just that?

2 Peter 2:1 warns us “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them...” Studying the word “bought” in this verse, it is the same word used in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” And the same Greek word is translated “redeemed” in Revelation 5:9 “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation”. So even the false teachers were “bought” or “redeemed” by the Lord, and I doubt that any of them ever prayed a sinner’s prayer.

We have already looked at John 3:16, but let’s go on to verses 17 & 18 “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Who is it that is condemned in these verses? Those who do not believe on Jesus. And why are they condemned? Because of their sins? No! They were condemned because they did not believe. How do we enter into the position where we are not condemned? We 'believe' on Jesus.

I have seen preachers many times use the illustration that repentance is a 180 degree turn away from your sin and towards God. But even after we are saved, we still have a sin nature, so our sin is still in front of us no matter what way we turn. If you look in a concordance, the word 'repent' does not mean turning away from your sins, the word means 'to think differently'. Repentance is not turning away from your sins; it is changing your mind about Jesus and believing His record of salvation.

So we need to 'repent' to be saved, we need to 'think differently' or change our mind about Jesus and 'believe' His record that he died on the cross and forgave our sins. There is nothing in the word 'repent' that leads us to pray and ask for forgiveness, because once again, or sins are already forgiven.

And to prove this further, take a look at Revelation 20:12-13 “And I saw the dead (the unsaved), small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”

The only way to enter into Heaven is to have your name written in the Lamb's book of Life. And at the judgment, if your name is not written in that book, then you will be judged from the other 'books' mentioned here, which list the works that you have done. Notice that it doesn't say that a person will be judged for their sins, it says they will be judged for their “works”. Why? Because Jesus already paid the price for ALL sin at Calvary, and if God were to judge us for those sins again, He would not be a 'just' God.

Asking God to forgive us of our sins implies that if a person does not ask for forgiveness that they will have to pay the penalty for those sins themselves. But we just read in Revelation that the unsaved will be judged for their 'works' not their 'sins', so there is something wrong in the reasoning of asking for forgiveness. It does not agree with what the Bible has to say about salvation.

If you have a credit card bill that is stamped “Paid In Full”, how many more payments do you need to make? None! If your mortgage is stamped “Paid In Full”, how many more payments do you need to make? None! If your account with God is stamped “Paid In Full”, what else do you need to do to be saved? Nothing!

So you have a credit card bill or mortgage statement that is marked “Paid In Full”, but what if you didn’t believe what you read? You would keep sending in payments. Would that get you any closer to paying off your bill? No, because the bill is already paid, all you need to do is believe it.

The same is true with salvation. Your account with God is stamped “Paid in Full”, written in red letters by the blood of Jesus, and there is nothing you can do that will get you any closer to salvation because the account has already been settled. All you have to do is believe it.

In closing, I would like to take a look at Colossians 1:20-21 “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled”. In this passage we see that God made peace with us, we don’t make peace with God, and He did this through the blood of Jesus. And through this blood, He reconciled all things to Himself, He marked everyone’s account “Paid In Full”, and as the passage ends, “yet now hath he reconciled”. Not when we asked Him to, but at that time when the blood was shed. And twice in this passage we are told that being reconciled with God is not by anything we do, it is “by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say”.

And notice the middle of that passage; if we ever think that God is still mad at us, or that we are alienated from God because of our sin, it is all “in your mind”. Because when God looks at us, all He sees is the shed blood of Jesus. Whether we have believed in Him or not, the blood is still covering our sins. We can believe that and go to heaven with all our sins forgiven, or we can not believe that and end up in hell with all our sins forgiven. The payment has been made either way; the choice is up to us.

As I stated before, I thought I was saved for many years because I asked God to forgive me of my sins. But I have since found out that what I was taught all those years was not what the Bible teaches. If you believe you are saved based on asking God to forgive you of your sins, I would challenge you to consider what I have written here and ask yourself if you are really saved, or if you are trusting in your ‘works’ of praying a sinner’s prayer to get you to Heaven. If you are trusting in a prayer, it’s time to set that aside, admit to God that you are not really saved, and “Believe” in Him.

Will you believe?

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456 Woodlawn Road
Crossville, TN
38555

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