How to be saved and go to Heaven

[Doug Brents]

Lol. It's righteous to say "No, Lord, I'm not going to do what you say" when the Lord tells you to do something?

You're gonna double down on that?

So, you would not contend that the one acceptable answer is "Yes, Lord. You are in control. I will do what you say."?

No, I would contend that Peter was righteous in his response, but God then told him that He was changing the rules; the unclean of the Law of Moses was no longer unclean, but was now clean and acceptable (both food and Gentiles). This is the same as King Ahab did in 1 Kings 22. The prophets were all telling him to go up to battle and he would win, but he sought a second opinion. The true message from God was that he would die, but the other prophets from God had a deceiving message from an Angel of God. Peter was on the watch for deceiving spirits, and rejected the message until he realized it was truly from God.

Thanks for clarifying. That's what I thought you meant... a saved person becomes lost when he sins, then gets his sins forgiven after repenting and returning again to walking in the light. Since that is what you believe, how many times can a person sin, repent, and be saved again? Is seventy times seven the lifetime limit?

There is no limit. Seventy times seven is a euphemism for unending. As often as a person comes back in repentance, God is waiting there to forgive (Luke 17:3-4).

So, you're saying that over time, as we train our flesh to be good, we sin and lose our salvation less frequently and we gain back our salvation through repentance more quickly? I heard a famous preacher from Texas say in a sermon that he had gone as long as 3 days in a row without sinning once. Let's assume his clame was right. Would you say that he needs to beat his flesh some more to stretch out the number of days that his salvation lasts to several weeks or months or years instead of just 3 days?

I do not believe that we lose our salvation when we stumble and immediately come right back into the light. If I gave that impression, then I apologize for the confusion. When we are continually trying to walk in the Light and our focus is still on God (even when we stumble), we are still covered in God's forgiveness. It is when we take our eyes off of God and turn to a focus on sin that we lose our salvation, but there is still hope of return if we return to repentance.

As for the minister from Texas, I would say that he has done very well to go three days in a row without sin. But is is it possible that he had pride in himself over that fact? And if so, then did he really go 3 days without sin? Was he not sinning in his pride over his ability to go without (other) sin? The flesh is so terribly wicked, and as long as our spirit remains in our flesh we will constantly be bombarded by temptations and opportunities to sin, even without our knowledge.

I don't know exactly what you're saying. The idea of training our spirits to be in tune with His Spirit is not a scriptural concept. On the contrary, gaining new life in Christ gives us new spirits that are rightly aligned with Him in every way. Our new spirits are rightly aligned with Him by virtue of the fact that they were created when He gave birth to us by His Spirit, meaning we are His offspring. But I do agree that we walk in lock step with His Spirit more effectively as we learn through use to train our spiritual senses to discern good and evil.

Why does an athlete train? To gain strength in his sport. Paul compares the Christian life to sport. We train to gain strenght so we can run the race set before us so as to win. Yes, our spirit is reborn righteous and pure, and aligned with God in every way. But it is reborn as a weak, infant spirit in Christ, and it must be strengthened and grow roots in the faith and in the Word so that it cannot be pulled out by any storm. That is what I mean by training our spirit to be in tune with the Spirit.