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19 minutes ago, Pastorj said:

1 John was written to help Christians who were doubting their salvation. I don't have an issue with helping Christians in times when they are struggling. Here are a couple thoughts

1. Never tell someone they are saved or "Don't you remember when you accepted Christ". If someone is in doubt, I take them through the plan of salvation and I have always had those that were saved tell me that they were saved and just struggling with sin.
2. If someone is in doubt immediately after "Getting saved", then they are still lost. In order to be saved, you must repent and believe in faith. This is where easy believeism really is completely wrong. Quick Prayer or repeat after me prayers are the reason people make professions, but are not saved.
3. Ask people for their testimony frequently. I ask my children for their testimony every now and then. But when they were children, I asked it all the time. It reinforces their Salvation.

I agree very much with point number 2. 

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Easy believism causes complications because there is no real conviction, and leads to a false assurance that they are saved when in reality they are not. Repeat after me prayers are not much different than RC rote prayers -- they are empty and vain. There has to be a true change of heart within the individual. A truly born again person will result in a changed life. Their life is accompanied by obedience, good works, and a true love for God. Christians do not to good works to be saved, they do good works because they ARE saved.

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Giving assurance of salvation via the promises of God typically consists of out of context promissory verses and is part of the same heresy as easy believism IMO, here is my rationale:

God says that no one can pronounce another person saved. I Cor 3 debunks the heresies perpetrated by the charismatics, emerging "churches" and the big numbers IFB "preachers" of the recent past: One plants, one waters but only God gives the increase. The planters and waterers are nothing and not to be revered or even mentioned. If the Scripture was followed we would never have heard the names of these big shot charlatans with their empirical "churches" (none of which is Scriptural).

The heretics claim their own increases, that is what easy believism is all about - Pride by way of false numbers. God says that the planters and waterers are to be considered nothing in this activity, only the Word and the Spirit of God is.

The same applies to the current practice of giving false assurances. I call them false assurances because the contexts of these passages always indicate evidence by demonstration of saving faith. To repeat these out of context passages to persons who have demonstrated little to no evidence of the new birth is heresy IMO. Giving assurances is the second part of the easy believism heresy. They go hand in hand and depend on each other to close the shady "sale" and report the bogus numbers to each other (God certainly isn't listening). The whole concept is Scripturally ludicrous if you really study it.

God says the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God (Rom 8:13-17). That is His job, not ours. Nowhere in Scripture does the Lord tell us specifically to give assurance of salvation to anyone. That assurance can only come from the new birth and the Spirit of God.

According to Scripture IMO, pronouncing someone saved is just as unscriptural as giving someone assurances. I suspect in every case where these assurances seemed to stick, it wasn't these assurances at work at all. It was the Spirit and the new birth that probably did finally occur after the ground was properly ploughed, seeded and watered, hence the removal of doubt in their minds although they repeated a prayer sometime in the past (sometimes years in the past). We think our unscriptural assurances did it for them, when what really did it was conviction in the heart by the Spirit after hearing much more of God's Word. In reality they were regenerated when no one was looking.

I know typically it is believed that when a person says the right words, that is the moment of regeneration but that is most times not the truth. Remember only God knows the exact moment of regeneration (John 3:8). Neither the saved person nor any "preacher" has a clue until after the fact evidenced by a new heart with new desires that will want to continue following the Lord. If that is not demonstrated, then there is no Scriptural doubt that they are still dead in trespasses and sins.

 

 

Edited by wretched
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