Pentecostals please!

[exrockstar]

I think the parable of the prodigal son explains the issue of OSAS clearly.

The son was "saved" got the "gifts" of salvation from his father, left, wasted them, wandered around in sin and rejection and then came to himself and returned. The father was waiting on the porch for him, looking for him, he knew he was coming back.

God does not live in time, He just IS, that is why I believe in OSAS, simply that God knows what your decision is before you do and either you are saved or not in His eyes. Like Jesus said Judas was a son of perdition before the foundation of the world. To the other disciples I'm sure he looked saved but God already saw him as lost.

Hope that makes sense.

i agree, whats wrong with once saved always saved?

if God saves a person it is a gift from Him to a person. I've always found it weird how people believe that they can lose it.

if a person can control the status of their salvation then that just concludes that the person has a say-so.

A person has no-say-so. If they did then God wouldnt be in control. Which means it would be a weak God.

Oh well, religion will do its thing. ... 3xR0c|<stAr

If you are saying that a person has no say so, then do you also believe we have no free will?

sure a person has free will.

every action i decide to do is because I have decided to do it.

are you trying to tie in free-will and pre-destination.

has nothing to do with get drop get drop get drop salvation.

salvation isnt a football. ... 3xR0c|<stAr

[exrockstar]

It is difficult as a human being to comprehend eternity and the action of God who dwells outside time and can see the beginning from the end. We know from Scripture that God has known His elect from before the foundation of the world. Does that negate free will? By no means. It just says that God knows the end from the beginning. The nearest I have come to understanding the predestination/freewill paradox (apparent paradox, that is) is how John Bunyan put it in Pilgrim's Progress - and I will have to paraphrase at this point because I do not have a copy to hand.

best way to describe free will versus predestination is to act like we're not pre-destined.

Hear the gospel and accept it.

drive your car forward and dont look at the rearview.

and if someone came and said "im pre-destined so why does it matter..."

only thing i can say is that God will let you live your life and if you died with that attitude then

at the white throne they can argue "God why did it matter it was all pre-destined..."

God will probably say "I am aware of the things you would do before you were born

but I had to let YOU live YOUR life through so YOU can witness for YOURSELF why YOU are here."

so live like you have purpose. ... 3xR0c|<stAr

[Phil.2:12]

Hi,

I've just been searching through the OSAS doctrine as well as those that dont believe it.

I've read some teaching that stated that once you are saved and you lose your salvation through some immoral action you can lose your salvation permanently.

My question is this true and what is bad enough to lose you salvation permanently?

Also does repentence for these immoral acts be sufficient for forgiveness?

The answer to your question is "Yes". You can loose your salvation permanently as Hebrews 10:29 certainly shows. However, the process you must go through is a process that you deliberately choose and it means you actually turn your back on God and literally throw away the gift He gave you through the shed blood of Jesus. All the time you are trying to throw away your gift of salvation, the Holy Spirit is trying to convince you not to do this. The more you go away from God willingly, the harder the Holy Spirit woos you back. What makes the difference is when your actions begin to sear your conscience (1 Timothy 4:1-2) so that you begin to respond less and less to the voice of the Holy Spirit. There then comes a time when you count the Blood of Jesus an unholy thing and, in so doing, you "hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace" (Hebrews 10:29, last sentence). In the Greek the English word "despite" actually means "insulted", so here in Hebrews 10:29 you have the situation where you can actually blaspheme, or highly insult, the Holy Spirit. And Jesus defines this as the Unpardonable Sin. You should actually read Hebrews 10:26-29 to get the full impact of what happens when you trample on the Blood of Jesus and consider it an unholy thing.

Even though you can certainly loose your salvation, it is a process that you choose and God is trying to stop you in your madness at every turn, so the process is not only fairly long, but you have to persist in your attempt to loose your salvation. According to the weight of Scripture, it is impossible to loose your salvation for some flippant action you take, such as wearing makeup when your church forbids it, or going into a bar for lunch, etc. Man made up those rules for loosing your salvation, not God. You really have to work hard to throw away the gift of salvation Jesus gave you and you have to face the Holy Spirit at every turn.

For example, let's say that a High School grad, who accepted Jesus as a child and knows that he is really saved goes to a sectarian college. This college freshman, away from home for the first time, begins to fall into a crowd of party animals and stops going to church. His grades begin to fall and he wakes up in time to prevent flunking out, leaving the party animals to party on but he does not return to church. He is still saved, but in a weakened spiritual condition. He meets Miss Right who is a beautiful young woman who is a Muslim, the religion she was raised in. They get together, one thing leads to another and before you know it, they are seriously talking about marriage since they are head-over-heels in love with each other. Now, the young woman drops the religion bomb on the young man. He must convert to Islam before she will marry him or there will be forever strife in their marriage since her family will have nothing to do with a non-muslim. He agonizes over this problem for weeks because he knows he must deny Jesus and sever his personal connection to Him in order to be accepted as a Muslim. He can still believe in Jesus along with Mohammed, Allah, and the other religious symbols of Islam, but he can not believe in Jesus as his personal Savior for Islam has a better path to follow, so he is told. Finally, his heart wins out and he becomes a practicing Muslim and marries the love of his life. This man has just willfully thrown away the gift of salvation that Jesus gave him when he was a child. In the process, He has trampled on the Blood of Jesus, counting that Blood an unholy thing and thus commits the Unpardonable Sin. He can never be saved again because that would mean Jesus would have to die all over just for him and that is simply not going to happen. Jesus died once for mankind, not over and over again just to take care of those folks who commit the Unpardonable Sin.

[exrockstar]

It also isn't arbitrary.

what do you mean?

its not up to me to say if im saved or not?

thats what faith is all about.

Have faith in the scriptures then act like you are saved.

[nebula]

Rev. 3:5 - He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

So, what do you believe Jesus meant by the above? If He promised not to blot out the names of the overcomers from the Book of life, does that not imply that He does blot out names?

What do you believe that means, then?

[Guest LadyC]

The answer to your question is "Yes". You can loose your salvation permanently as Hebrews 10:29 certainly shows. However, the process you must go through is a process that you deliberately choose and it means you actually turn your back on God and literally throw away the gift He gave you through the shed blood of Jesus. All the time you are trying to throw away your gift of salvation, the Holy Spirit is trying to convince you not to do this. The more you go away from God willingly, the harder the Holy Spirit woos you back. What makes the difference is when your actions begin to sear your conscience (1 Timothy 4:1-2) so that you begin to respond less and less to the voice of the Holy Spirit. There then comes a time when you count the Blood of Jesus an unholy thing and, in so doing, you "hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace" (Hebrews 10:29, last sentence). In the Greek the English word "despite" actually means "insulted", so here in Hebrews 10:29 you have the situation where you can actually blaspheme, or highly insult, the Holy Spirit. And Jesus defines this as the Unpardonable Sin. You should actually read Hebrews 10:26-29 to get the full impact of what happens when you trample on the Blood of Jesus and consider it an unholy thing.

Even though you can certainly loose your salvation, it is a process that you choose and God is trying to stop you in your madness at every turn, so the process is not only fairly long, but you have to persist in your attempt to loose your salvation. According to the weight of Scripture, it is impossible to loose your salvation for some flippant action you take, such as wearing makeup when your church forbids it, or going into a bar for lunch, etc. Man made up those rules for loosing your salvation, not God. You really have to work hard to throw away the gift of salvation Jesus gave you and you have to face the Holy Spirit at every turn.

For example, let's say that a High School grad, who accepted Jesus as a child and knows that he is really saved goes to a sectarian college. This college freshman, away from home for the first time, begins to fall into a crowd of party animals and stops going to church. His grades begin to fall and he wakes up in time to prevent flunking out, leaving the party animals to party on but he does not return to church. He is still saved, but in a weakened spiritual condition. He meets Miss Right who is a beautiful young woman who is a Muslim, the religion she was raised in. They get together, one thing leads to another and before you know it, they are seriously talking about marriage since they are head-over-heels in love with each other. Now, the young woman drops the religion bomb on the young man. He must convert to Islam before she will marry him or there will be forever strife in their marriage since her family will have nothing to do with a non-muslim. He agonizes over this problem for weeks because he knows he must deny Jesus and sever his personal connection to Him in order to be accepted as a Muslim. He can still believe in Jesus along with Mohammed, Allah, and the other religious symbols of Islam, but he can not believe in Jesus as his personal Savior for Islam has a better path to follow, so he is told. Finally, his heart wins out and he becomes a practicing Muslim and marries the love of his life. This man has just willfully thrown away the gift of salvation that Jesus gave him when he was a child. In the process, He has trampled on the Blood of Jesus, counting that Blood an unholy thing and thus commits the Unpardonable Sin. He can never be saved again because that would mean Jesus would have to die all over just for him and that is simply not going to happen. Jesus died once for mankind, not over and over again just to take care of those folks who commit the Unpardonable Sin.

very well said. and exactly right!

[Guest]

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."

Jude 1:24-25

[wordsower]

QUOTE(nebula @ May 18 2007, 09:09 AM)

Rev. 3:5 - He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

So, what do you believe Jesus meant by the above? If He promised not to blot out the names of the overcomers from the Book of life, does that not imply that He does blot out names?

What do you believe that means, then?

My belief is that these are those left behind in the rapture. Jesus said to pray that you be made worthy to escape the trouble coming on the earth, these weren't worthy and endure the AC and trouble, but if they hold to their confession and overcome the beast they will make it.

Hope that doesn't open a can of worms.

OSAS is one of those subjects where it is nearly impossible to change minds. You either believe it or you don't. Because I know that is the case, as a result of one debate after another, I am not sure how far I want to go in actually trying to persuade people it is wrong, but I do want to make a point with regard to the Prodigal son. In reality, this parable goes against OSAS teachings. Yes, it does show a believer walking away from the Father and later returning, but when the believer left, he lost his salvation and was no longer a son of the Father. This story actually illustrates that it is possible to return again after losing salvation if we sincerely repent. Let's hit a few highlights from the story and I will show you how I arrived at this conclusion.

Butero,

I think of God as hovering over time, seeing the entirety. He's not seeing us as saved then not saved, then saved. He is seeing us as pass or fail. No curve grading, either you will make a decision and be His or you wont. If you are one that the seed falls on but never grows, you were never rooted and therefore never saved, despite how much you acted like it.

Like I mentioned Judas was a part of the 12, "following" Jesus but Jesus said he was a son of perdition from the foundation of the world...........he was never saved.

[wordsower]

What do you say to the rest of my post that you were responding to? First of all, the prodigal son, who was saved, then lost, then saved again? Then the scripture from Hebrews? How about the fact that God has blotted names out of his book? I know you believe what you believe, but what is your explaination for those scriptures?

Butero,

First, I'm understanding that the Book of Life is a record of every person born, according to Ps. 69:28: "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous."

Looks like a record book of birth certificates.

and, I only believe what I believe because of my own study into the subject. I was always taught as a child that we don't even know if we are saved or not until we make it.

Regarding the Prodigal Son. I personally believe that the younger son represents the Gentile and the older son, Israel, but that is really getting off topic. Still, in the allknowing Father's eyes, He sees that the son comes to repentance down the road and considers him a son from eternity past.

Again, to me if you sin wilfully after getting saved, those new sins defile you, make you unclean, and if you die before repenting, will send you to hell.

That presents a lot of problems with scripture.

Jesus taught that believers "will never perish" (John 10:28), "shall not come into judgment" (John 5:24), and "have [already] passed from death into life" (John 5:24).

Paul told the believers at Rome that "neither death nor life...nor things present nor things to come...shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord;" (Rom 8:38-39).

To the believers at Ephesus he wrote, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Eph 2:8-9). And to the believers at Thessalonica he said that "whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him" (1 Thess 5:10).

Consider Lot, he sure lived a sinful life and the bible calls him righteous. God spared his life even though he was hardly living a clean life. David? Adulterer, murderer.......when he finally repented he prayed that God would restore the joy of his salvation, not his salvation, because a believer will be miserable living apart from God.

If we are dependent on dying without a single sin on our record, we are doomed! Who would be saved?

No, Christ died for the sin of the world. The whole world wont accept his sacrifice, but through Him we are seen as the righteousness of God, because it isn't determined by a timeline we are one or the other.

OK, say you are watching a movie you've seen before with someone who hasn't seen it.

There are two characters running a race, one will win and the other will lose, you already know the outcome.

Do you call the ultimate winner "the winner" of the two?

Of course you do, because, even though they haven't won yet in the person's eyes who is watching it for the first time, you already know the end, so no matter what happens in the next two hours, that person is going to win, there is no changing it.

Can a "church" person curse God and the Holy Spirit and go to hell? Of course, but God never saw them as saved.

[Guest LadyC]

If you are one that the seed falls on but never grows, you were never rooted and therefore never saved, despite how much you acted like it.

that's not biblical. it disregards the numerous scriptures that that talk specifically about those who were IN the vine, those who KNEW the truth, and then walkd away.

yes, there are those who are never rooted and never saved. but the bible makes it plain that there are also those who are rooted, are saved, and turn away from God. it's called apostacy.