KCU/04/SMERD

Topic 14: How can we be sure we’re saved?

Question: Based on what you know from the Bible & other sources (including the Theology Matters reading), what are the ways we can be sure that we’re saved? (Be sure to do more research into the issue. If the group cannot come to a consensus, feel free to have different group members each express their own opinions.)

Scott Durbin's contribution: Thirteen Lessons in Christian Doctrine Denver Sizemore Faith

Essential in order to receive all of God’s blessings

Secures salvation for man

Acts 15:9 “He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith”

Acts 10:43 “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”

Faith pleases God

Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him”

Faith brings peace to the heart of the Christian

John 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me”

Matthew 6:25-34 “…seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well…” Lifts our minds and vision to see as God sees and to think God’s thoughts after Him

Ely V. Zollars states, “by the eye of faith, we can lay hold of that which we have never seen, and can never see with the eye of the sense, and thus dwell amidst the beauties that never fade.”

Christianity, Cults and Religions

Rose Publishing—chart

How to be saved

“Salvation is by God’s grace, not by an individual’s good works. Salvation must be received by faith. People must believe in their heart that Jesus died for their sins and physically rose again, which is the assurance of forgiveness and resurrection of the body. This is God’s loving plan to forgive sinful people.

First Draft Stuff

It has always been said that there is only one truly important goal in all of life, but what is it? One way to get a great variety of people's goals would be to travel to New York City. Within this incredibly busy metropolis one can see an unlimited supply of goals that each person has. In the hustle and bustle of the market in Union Square, a goal of buying and selling good, clean food is seen. Isn't there a goal of making some money on the side as well? Of course there is. But what about the business men and women that work on Wall Street? They're there for making money too aren't they? Yes, they obviously are, but this is their only goal. The vendors in Union Square, yes, are trying to make money, but they are also providing a service for the people of the city. They are doing more than making money, they are helping the city and the people within it get healthy food. The goal of trying to make money is not bad in and of itself, but, when it is the only goal in a person's thoughts, it will become an obsession. Many people within these great United States would say that this is a good goal to have, but this is not true. Money will only last so long before its no longer of any use to you. This inevitable stage of life is called death. This brings up another question; what happens at death? Well money, possessions, friends, or even your family can't be taken along, so what happens? Do the body and soul go somewhere else? And if they do, then how do we know we're saved? This is a very important question that each person in the world must answer for him or herself. This is the most important goal in life, not the search for money and possessions.

Mike Erwin To fully understand how we are saved we must look at first how we become saved. There are many beliefs in how we are saved but the way we believe is more commonly known as the conservative christian belief. The reason we believe this method is the right way is straight from spiritual doctrine, not how men say but how the Bible says to be saved. The Bible clearly says baptism by emersion(Matthew 3:13). That also before we are baptized we must repent, I repeat we must repent. Peter tells his listeners "Repent and be baptized"(Acts 2:38). God knows your heart and to say He doesn't is to question Him. Now just what do we have to believe in to be saved, nothing more than that Jesus is the Christ, which means that He died on that cross and three days later rose from the dead(John 3:36). Belief in Jesus is the first part of being saved. After you believe in Jesus Christ you must and yet again I repeat must be baptized into Christ(Colossians 2:12).

Realizing what you need to be saved is the first step on the stairway to heaven. The next step is truely believing what you are saying. You can say you believe and that you want to be sved but in truth you may just be doing what you feel other people want you to do or what your parents want you to do. Baptism is a holy ritual between man and God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. God wants you to want to be saved. He does not want you to just get baptized to say your saved he wants you to want to be saved. Being baptized in Christ is how we saved, to repeat, being baptized trough Jesus is how we are saved. God sent John the Baptist to show the way for people to be ready for Jesus. God knew what was going to happen, that is why he got the people of the Bible ready for Jesus arrival. Then as Jesus came he did many miracles and gathered many followers, but the most important thingh did was die. Jesus commited no sin and therefore was the perfect sacrifice for which we are saved. In the old testiment God had the Hebrews give a sacrifice of lambs and rams to Him to forgive their sins. When Jesus came to Earth he became the perfect sacrifice. So if we blieve and are baptized we will be saved but only if we believe.

The next step on the stairway to heaven is the exceptance of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus made his ascended into heaven he left the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the Spirit will not leave us as he did. The Spirit will live in us and as long as we keep true to the Spirit and the will of God we will be saved. Now if we should fall short because we are human and we all will we have the chance to be forgiven. If we ask God to forgive our sins he will, but only if it is done with a pure heart. Selfishness and hypocrisy is a sin, and if you ask God through the Spirit to forgive your sins and you are not sincere God will not forgive you. God told us to ask without a doubt in our hearts and nothing the we ask will be refused. God said if we ask He would move mountains.

Many people then raise the question of children being saved. In the Bible I have yet to find a single verse of the sins of children or when children start to sin. Also that if a young child dies where does that child go, to heaven or hell? For this question the Catholics believe you can pray that child into heaven, onve again the Catholics have no basis on scripture for this belief. I sat down this weekend with my minister from my home church and asked him this question. He told me his personal beliefs and also gave me a few book titlse on this subject. What he said makes sense to me but it might not to other people, he told me to look at his grandaughter and ask me if I truely thought that if she died our merciful God who sent his own son to die(John 3:16) would send her to hell. I can't say that God would do that, But then when does a child become old enough, he simply told me that when man had sinned he realized he was naked, that little girl was running around in her diaper without shame. So that is my belief and I will defend that belief. Now you take a slightly older child and you will find that they are embarressed of their nakedness, just as Adam and Eve were, and a child when naked will hide from people, just as Adam and Eve hid from God in the garden.

People of different faiths will tell you different things on how to be saved, but there is one and only one way(Acts 4:12). Jesus has also said this himself that there is one and only one way(John 3:5), meaning that if you believe in Jesus and in what he teaches there is only one way to be saved and that is through Jesus himself.In the Greek translation of the Bible the word used for baptism also means emersion, makes me wonder where the Catholics got the sprinkling of children. If you actually read the Bible child Baptism makes absolutely no sense at all and the fact that many people practice not only sprinkling but also the baptism of babies is a very scary thought to me. Children can not repent, and if they did repent what sins did an infant commit. Now I do have a Catholic friend named Zac Zabitski,I called him he said I could use his name, and we have many debates on doctrine of scripture and doctrine of Catholics. Due to a belief that all chrildren is born with the sin of their parents is why child baptism preformed. Now when asked to pull that up in scripture he took me to the story of the blind man from John 9, If you don't know this story a man who was born blind was given his sight by Jesus, the phariseeses and teachers had told this man that he must have been born blind due to the sins of his parents, where as Jesus said it was not because of his parents sins but so that the Lord may show his power through the healing of this man, now that was the only scripture he could show me and it really didn't help his case at all it actually proved mine more than his. So as for child baptism is clearly not Bible doctorine. Sprinkling isnot Bible doctorine, it is not even mentioned in the Bible. So really the only true baptism is through emersion becuse it is the only one suported by Bible scripture.

Written by Derek James: When looking at different religious beliefs it can be rather odd what you will find out. For instance, the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that you are to be baptized as Jehovah’s Witness, which is contrary to the bible in that we are to be baptized into Christ as a Christian only. Then as a Jehovah’s Witness you must earn your everlasting life on earth: mostly through door-to-door work. Salvation in heaven is limited to 144,000 “anointed ones”. Sad for us but this number has already been reached. But there is still hope for those of us who have not been “anointed”; the rest of us righteous ones (also known as the Great Crowd) get to live on earth for 1,000 years, and we must obey god perfectly or else we will be annihilated. Not one time is there mentioned in the bible that there will be any tribulation period of a thousand years. That is nothing more than a man made belief. The bible never mentions that there will be an anointed 144 thousand that will go to heaven and leave the rest of us here. Jesus spoke in John 14:1-4 these words, “ Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in god, trust also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Notice there he said ‘in my father’s house are many rooms’. He did not say that there were only 144 thousand rooms, but that there were many. This plan cannot be correct. Judaism is a religion with a rather different plan of salvation than what the bible has made clear in its’ New Testament pages. As you may already know, in the Old Testament the Jews were the chosen people of God. It was not until after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ that the bible plan of salvation was opened to anyone beside the Jews. The Jews of today do not recognize Jesus as the Son of God; nor do they believe him to be the king as spoken about to them throughout the Old Testament prophecies. Today’s Jews are still looking for a king to come and reign over them and the rest of this earth. Some Jews believe that through prayer, repentance, and the obeying of the Law you may receive your salvation. Others believe that salvation in a sense is nothing more than the improvement of society. According to Judaism once you die there will be a physical resurrection. The obedient will live forever with God, here on earth; while the unrighteous will suffer. What the Jews do not understand is that Jesus came from heaven to earth to pay the ultimate sacrifice for our sins so that we may live with him eternally in heaven. Jesus is the king that came to earth some 2,000 years ago but they chose to ignore him and what he did for us here on earth. This plan cannot be correct. (notes from Mike) You might want to include some Old Testiment scriptures showing how Jesus fulfuilled the prophicies. Something you must watch for as well is the usage of the name Christian. Just because something says Christian on it, does not mean that it holds to Christian theology. Christian Science is definitely one good example of a religion with Christ in their name without Christ in their belief. Christian Science states that God is the impersonal Principal of life, truth, love, intelligence, and spirit; God is all that truly exists, all other matter is nothing more than an illusion. Jesus was not the Christ, but he was a man the displayed the “Christ” idea. Christ defined is perfection, it is not any particular person. Jesus could have never of been God, and God could have never become flesh. Jesus did not (nor could he) suffer for sins. And he was not physically resurrected. And Jesus will not be coming back. Christian Science says that humanity is already eternally saved. Sin, evil, sickness, and death are not real. And because death is not real, Heaven and Hell are no more than states of the mind. Heaven can only be reached by attaining harmony (oneness with God). Does anything really need to be said about what is wrong with this bull crap of an idea about salvation? There is one major thing that this religion (if that is what you want to call this) is seriously missing: the Bible. There really is nothing to be said as to what is wrong with this except to say that all of it is wrong, no truth here at all. This plan (obviously) cannot be correct

Written by Ryan Romans: Christians live upon their belief. All Christians should obey the bible. A lot of Christians live up a word called rejoice, which means true happiness. Some of them follow "Jesus Christ" and refer to themselves as living in faithfulness. All Some who don't usually repent on what they did long. Some so called "Christians" will do things wrong and then repent on all then knowing that god will keep forgiving them, those are not real Christians. Christians know and believe in god. Christians know all of god’s commandments as the world to come. Christians should not worship idols. Christians do NOT lie. They should love one another and not hate anyone. Every morning and through out the day Christians should praise god and all the things that god had done for them. They should share what they got with people that need. God will give you all you need from day to day if you live for Him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. When there is a person in poverty or need among them and they do not have the resources at hand to help, they will fast for two or three days in order to provide the food needed. Christians do not try to impress other people. His basic ideals concerning god, man, sin, salvation, and related theological concepts, along with his ideas concerning right and wrong, will be determining factors in his daily decisions. As living as a Christian you should always be taught and learn that you should always forgive somebody no matter what they do. Forgiveness is a big factor in Christian living. (notes by Mike Erwin) Include more on your personal life and struggles that people face. Also what people can do to overcome temptation and continue to live the life. Maybe,just a little, more on why we should live the same life as christ.

Conclusion: by Scott Durbin So how can we be sure we're saved? Different religious groups, between Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews, each have their very own belief. But what about us as Christians? As a Christian we believe that the Bible is the Living Word of God and every single word within its bindings is 100% factual. From this belief of the factuality of the Bible, we should look towards the Bible for knowing what being saved is and how to get it. In Acts chapter 16 verse 30 and 31, jailer holding Paul and Silas asks them, "what must I do to be saved?" Their response is very straight forward: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." Then in verse 33 it shows his response, that "immediately he and all his family were baptized." From this we can learn that to truly be saved we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as God's son and be baptized to receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Without these vital parts one cannot be saved. Therefore, if one believes in Jesus Christ and is baptized in his name, you shall be saved.