Doubting salvation

[RAIDER]

On another thread there was a discussion about preachers "boosting their numbers" by causing people to doubt their salvation.  I would guess that most Christians have had some doubt in their life at one time or another.  Of course, making sure of your salvation is the most important decision one can make.  Here is the question - Have you experienced a preacher majoring on causing people to doubt their salvation?

 

[IFB X-Files]

On another thread there was a discussion about preachers "boosting their numbers" by causing people to doubt their salvation.  I would guess that most Christians have had some doubt in their life at one time or another.  Of course, making sure of your salvation is the most important decision one can make.  Here is the question - Have you experienced a preacher majoring on causing people to doubt their salvation?

No.

 

[rsc2a]

On another thread there was a discussion about preachers "boosting their numbers" by causing people to doubt their salvation.  I would guess that most Christians have had some doubt in their life at one time or another.  Of course, making sure of your salvation is the most important decision one can make.  Here is the question - Have you experienced a preacher majoring on causing people to doubt their salvation?

Majoring on? - No.

Have I heard a preacher tell various groups in certain contexts that he believed most of them didn't actually know Jesus in spite of the fact that they knew a lot about Jesus? - Yes. And my guess is that this preacher's observation was probably spot-on.

 

[RAIDER]

I have personally known two preachers that border on this and a third that I only heard preach once. 

The first preacher was a pastor.  He was very strong on repentance.  If someone who professed to be a Christian fell into sin, this preacher was quick to proclaim that they were probably never saved.  He constantly mentioned that some of the greatest harvest fields in America were in the pews of Baptist churches.  He bordered on Lordship Salvation.  He was asked to leave two churches.  A major split took place at his third church and they recently closed the doors.

I heard the second preacher speak at the first preacher's church.  They were friends.  This guy actually said, "If you miss a day of reading your Bible I don't believe you are saved".  Needless to say, the host pastor took a little heat about this one.

The third fellow was an evangelist.  To quote a famous preacher, "If I said this guy's name most of you would know who he is".   He was a tent evangelist for many years.  I attended several of his meetings through the years.  90% of his messages were salvation messages.  His meetings would be a minimum of a week long.  He had the philosophy of "If I can make you doubt your salvation, you probably aren't saved".  His famous line was, "If you are not saved you will go to Hell and fry like a sausage!"  His invitations were lengthy.  At every week meeting I attended I saw many church members doubt their salvation and make a profession.

 

 

[IFB X-Files]

His invitations were lengthy.  At every week meeting I attended I saw many church members doubt their salvation and make a profession.

They went forward just to end the service!

 

[RebeccasRants]

I mentioned on another thread that I don't remember a lot of what Dr. Hyles said, but I do remember him saying once that there are evangelists that preach and cause people to doubt their salvation so they will get "saved again" because the evangelists feel pressured to produce results (numbers).

A certain evangelist preached at our church a few years ago and caused one of my sons to be in agony about his salvation.  My son had accepted Christ with me as a child and reaffirmed that decision with his daddy before.  My son showed much spiritual growth and love for the Lord in his life.  I personally do not doubt for one minute that he was already saved before the evangelist came.  However, if making a new decision helped him to get assurance of salvation, I was not going to stop him.  So he prayed with his father and was baptized again.

This is a VERY SORE SPOT with me because as a child I doubted my salvation for many years and prayed almost nightly to be saved again because I would hear a preacher say, "If you never trusted Christ, you are not saved," and I would think, "Did I really trust him?" and pray again.  Another would say, "There must be a definite, obvious change in your life, or you are not saved."  I was a small child at the time, and could not think of definite, obvious changes that took place in my life.  It took me years to get the matter settled and have peace.

I mentioned to our youth pastor at that time that I did not agree with preachers causing people to doubt their salvations because of my own experience of struggling so hard with doubts.  He had a completely opposite opinion.  He stated that he wished more of the young people would doubt their salvation because he saw no fruit in their lives and thought they were trusting in a repeated prayer said when they were young without any signs that they were genuinely saved now.

So there are definitely different ways of looking at this.  What think ye?

 

[4everfsu]

I heard a preacher say if you don't remember the day of your new birth he  questioned your salvation. Forgive me but at the age seven I did not think to write down the date, etc.

 

[IFB X-Files]

Forgive me but at the age seven I did not think to write down the date, etc.

Just another reason to start Church Ed classes in the 1st grade.

 

[Fresh Air]

On the one hand, I can appreciate this, for I experienced it. A camp I attended in 7th grade had a preacher whose whole sermon consisted of, 'Do you know that you know that you know that you know that you know you are saved?' It put great doubt in my heart, and led me to a private meeting with God some months later. To this day I do not know whether I was saved before then, as a child, or right then, as a young teen.

...but having said that, aren't preachers supposed to call on people to examine themselves?

2Co 13:5  Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

In my experience, although impressionable children can be easily confused or manipulated, the average adult sitting in the pews at church is a little too convinced of the certainty of his own profession for my taste. So many lead a life that shows no sign of an appetite for God, and the things of God, a life that is filled with the world, and lived in pursuit of vanity - and yet they blithely sit there quite secure in their own mind of their eventual spiritual destination.

Mt 7:21  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22  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?
23  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

I do not want to confuse people. I do not want to lead people to doubt, but rather to faith. I do not want to manipulate people for my own ego, or my ministry's reputation. I do not want to teach, or even imply, a works based salvation....but I do want people to examine themselves, whether they are in the faith. I think a bit more of that would be a healthy medicinal dose for the average Sunday morning glory in the average church in this materialistic, narcissistic, worldly Vanity Fair we live in.

 

[patriotic]

I have heard it said that only about 50% of professing born again Baptists are truly saved.  This was said by a man who pastored for many, many years.  His reasoning was that many professing saved folks have a "head salvation" and not a "heart salvation". 

In my years in the ministry, I can often concur, but not always.  As with all things of the heart, God only looketh there. 

I do know when our daughter was 14, she was at a camp and "got saved".  I, like Rebecca, was right there when she made a profession as a child.  I was happy for her, but as she and her brothers told about the week at camp after we were all home, come to find out, the invitation for that final camp service was 2.5 hours long.  (My son timed it.)  The preacher kept extending and extending the invitation saying he knew there was yet another unsaved soul in that open-air tabernacle.  Eventually someone else would go forward.

I don't know if all those people needed to get saved that night.  I'm happy that they made sure.  I rejoice there are no doubts. 

But, as I said, our daughter was 14 and throughout the next several months, believe me, there were many times I said to my husband in private, "That girl needs to get saved again another time!"  (Parenting can sometimes be quite fun. )

 

[Vince Massi]

Bruce Foster had been coach at Tennessee Temple before he became president of Vineyard's college. A Godly man who had been fired by a public high school because his teen-age Sunday School class was attracting too many students, Foster told us this story:

At Temple, he got suspicious of students who "got saved." They had a lot of demerits, and these demerits were erased when they "got saved." They would do well for a little while, and then the same sins and same problems would return. Some "got saved" a few more times, and the same thing always happened.

Foster didn't believe that they were faking. After questioning them to make sure that they really were trusting Christ, he told them that they had habitual sins that were getting them into trouble, and they needed to accept the fact that they were disobedient Christians and start obeying God.

He told us that sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.

 

[rsc2a]

[quote author=Vince Massi]A Godly man who had been fired by a public high school because his teen-age Sunday School class was attracting too many students...[/quote]

Whaaaat?

 

[Vince Massi]

[quote author=Vince Massi]A Godly man who had been fired by a public high school because his teen-age Sunday School class was attracting too many students...

Whaaaat?
[/quote]

Honest to goodness, Old Buddy. I read the story in Sword of the Lord, and several of us questioned him about it. As a public school coach, he was forbidden to witness to kids, even if they aproached him or if he was counselling them. But the teens in his Sunday School class spread the word, a bunch of high school kids started attending his class, and a bunch got saved. Unfortunately, not all of them had their parents' permission to attend. Other kids were giving their parents a hard time because they were forbidden to attend. He got enough complaints that the principal (who was a decent man) felt bad about firing him, but it was ordered by the schol board.

 

[rsc2a]

[quote author=Vince Massi]A Godly man who had been fired by a public high school because his teen-age Sunday School class was attracting too many students...

Whaaaat?

Honest to goodness, Old Buddy. I read the story in Sword of the Lord...[/quote]

Well, there you have it.

 

[Just me]

Get them doubting Salvation, Don Parker comes to mind.

 

[North]

No. Not majoring. I have unfortunately heard a lot of muddying of the simple Gospel of faith through the years.

This belief that someone isn't saved if they do or don't do such and such is very ear tickling. A lot of preachers have caught that bug.
Yes, we should examine ourselves, and yes there will be some who profess, but are like the seed that grows no root. But to mix those concepts with the gospel is not productive. It causes confusion.