Resolved – Heaven & Hell
Hello my faithful (and if I still have your attention by this point, it's definitely because you're faithful!) readers. My apologies for being so absent for so long. I figured if I were going to leave a blog up for a long time it should be about the gospel, but then I also had the end of school… and frankly it doesn't take long to get out of the habit of blogging. None of that is really an excuse, but hey, I'm a junior now, and I don't have any schoolwork for a good 3 months. So here I am, back again and excited about what I have for you this weekend. I am at Resolved. Resolved is probably the best Christian conference I know of. The worship is heavenly, and the preaching is legit. What else do you need for a good conference? The folks at Resolved do it far better than any other I've ever been to. Granted, no other conference has been as big, but even if you've been to a crusade or something, I guarantee you this is better. We had some trouble coming down 5 (the grapevine was closed), so we ended up arriving about 3 hours later than we had originally planned. Luckily, though, we walked in while Rick Holland was still preaching and managed to catch him making his 3 main points. He had just done a short intro before that (30 minutes or so), and we missed all of that unfortunately, except for my friend Roni, who kindly filled us in when we got back to the hotel later that evening. Rick's text was Hebrews 9:27-28, and his focus was on death. He had 3 intense points that I very much needed a reminder of: 1) Death is unavoidable, 2) Judgment is certain, and 3) Salvation is possible. Basically what I took away was this: get it in your head that you only have one shot. You will die, and you will be judged, and you need to consider the very real possibility that you may not fare well on that day. Most people (if they believe in hell) believe that God would never send them there. Hell is always a place for the other guy. The reality is that hell is a place for everyone who has disobeyed God and has not been covered by the blood of Christ. That is, each person who has broken God's law is accountable to being punished according to that law, except for those who have received the divine pardon made possible by Christ's death. It is this except clause that is the hope of every Christian. This refreshing perspective helped me consider the necessity of loving evangelism: an evangelism that is purposeful, passionate, and yet gentle enough to woo people away from the (apparently) attractive fires of hell.
1 comment:
Thank for you for your response.
Don't you think it is important to have a specific event that you can point to and say: "THEN, is when God saved me!"?
We Lutherans do NOT believe that baptism is mandatory for salvation. All the saints in the OT, the thief on the cross, and many martyrs have died without baptism. We believe they are saved and in heaven. It is not the lack of baptism that damns someone to hell...it is the lack of faith/belief that damns one to hell, as Christ states in Mark 16:16.
Many evangelicals think that Lutherans believe that salvation must come through Baptism. This is flat-out wrong! Baptism is one of several "when"s of salvation. It is always the Word of God that saves. (Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God). A sinner can be saved sitting in church listening to a sermon; listening to a Gospel program on the radio; or reading a Gospel tract. Baptism is NOT mandatory for salvation.
However, Baptism is God's mark upon us that he truly has saved us. We belong to him. Unless someone intentionally fakes believing, fakes repenting, and fakes a genuine desire to receive Christ's "mark" in baptism, the person being Baptized DOES receive Christ's mark stating: YOU, child, now belong to me.
In the evangelical conversion, you have two viewpoints, Arminian and Calvinist. The Arminian believes that he is saved when HE makes a decision to have faith and believe/repent. The problem is that when HIS faith is ebbing low, he begins to question the sincerity of his "decision": "Did I really do 'it' right?" His salvation was partly dependent upon HIM!
The Calvinist, on the other hands, believes that he is either born the Elect or he isn't. There doesn't need to be any specific time of conversion, as long as at some point in his life, the Calvinist declares to the world his faith and belief---he IS one of the Elect. However, ask many Calvinists when they were saved and they will give you a blank stare and then answer, "Well...my salvation was a 'process"!"
Are there any examples in the Bible of ANYONE being saved by a process??
Receive the mark of Christ, brothers and sisters. In Holy Baptism, God's marks you as "MINE!"
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