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Quiet Wyatt

"If the Devil tells you you're not saved...

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12813 **1/9/16 11:20 am**

...then praise God that means you definitely are saved!"

We have heard and perhaps even used such enthusiastic rhetoric many times before.

Some questions I have about this:

What if it is actually your own guilty conscience that is telling you you're not saved?

What if it is the conviction of the Holy Spirit telling you you're not saved (either never were or have backslidden) but need to truly repent and be converted?

The way the rhetoric is typically used, it would tell people who ought to be convicted and converted to actually deny the conviction of the Holy Spirit and claim they are definitely saved regardless of what ANYONE tells them. Paul told the Corinthians to "Examine yourselves, and see whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves..." But the way the salvation rhetoric is typically used, one should NEVER doubt whether one is saved or not, and to do so is to 'listen to the Devil instead of God.'

How is the Holy Spirit going to convict anyone if all they are told is, "If the Devil tells you you are not saved, that is bonafide proof that you ARE saved!"

Cojak

Re: "If the Devil tells you you're not saved...

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24284 **1/9/16 11:31 am**

Old Time Country Preacher

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **1/9/16 12:38 pm**

What if it's ya wife what tells ya ya ain't saved?

diakoneo

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3382 **1/9/16 12:42 pm**

Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24284 **1/9/16 3:58 pm**

Aaron Scott

John...consider

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6039 **1/9/16 4:17 pm**

If it's YOUR CONSCIENCE telling you that, then maybe you aren't saved.

But if, as T.L. said, it's THE DEVIL, he's lying.

I think T.L., has a point.

Further, although I'm not OSAS by a long shot, sometimes you cannot trust yourself--your emotions, you reasoning, etc., and you must simply cling by faith.

Quiet Wyatt

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12813 **1/9/16 4:21 pm**

I was not trying to criticize TL. I've heard that phrase or a variation of it many, many times in the past. I believe the phrase, while perhaps well intended, really is unhelpful. It's just like the "God told me" phrase. It gets used a whole lot to simply justify oneself and one's actions.

Case in point: A backslider hears that, and tells himself, "I knew it! I shouldn't let the Devil condemn me! I'm saved!"

Not sure who "John" is.

bonnie knox

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **1/9/16 4:47 pm**

Eddie Robbins

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16509 **1/9/16 6:54 pm**

First of all, nobody you or I know has ever come in contact with Satan so it's just hyped up preacher talk. Second, if he did, when did he become the judge? He cannot look at the heart and know if someone is a believer. Only God can do that.

Aaron Scott

Oh, sorry, QW...

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6039 **1/9/16 7:03 pm**

QW, I was listening to that song, "Room With A View," by 11th Hour--and the girl sang about "John wrote about heaven...."

But you knew I meant you. Besides, I'm nearly a senior citizen.

Aaron Scott

Eddie!

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6039 **1/9/16 7:09 pm**

Quiet Wyatt

Quiet Wyatt · [Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12813 **1/9/16 7:21 pm**

Again, my main problem with this particular preacherism is it effectively short-circuits ANY conviction (of either sin or of backsliddenness) whether from the Holy Spirit or one's conscience.

Link

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **1/9/16 7:37 pm**

That's a good word.

It's also a good example of why it is important for preachers to not just make up junk to tell people, or repeat junk they heard other preachers say that has no basis in the word of God. We all need to study to show ourselves approved, and also we need to meditate on the word of God. If preachers thought these things through, they might not say things like that.

Imagine this scenario. A preacher preaches a message on end times, communcation in marriage, and throws on an altar call at the end of the service without explaining Who God is, that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, or that He rose from the dead, or He leaves out some major part of the Gospel that a newbie would need to understand the Gospel and believe.

Then he offers people to repeat a prayer if they want to go to heaven. An unchurched visitor doesn't really understand the Gospel, but he doesn't want to go to hell. In the Saturday morning cartoons, it seemed like a bad place with a bit of fire and little critters with pitchforks. So he repeats the prayer, which doesn't explain the parts of the Gospel the preacher left out either. (This seems to be the typical scenario in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches that do the 'sinners' prayer'.)

Then the preacher tells him that the Devil will talk to his mind and tell him he is not a Christian and that he shouldn't believe him.

So when he walks out of there and comes under conviction after he has heard a bit about Jesus but hasn't repented and believed the Gospel. But he remembers the words of the preacher who told him that the Devil would try to convince him that he is not a Christian.
_________________
Link

Aaron Scott

God will confirm it.

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6039 **1/9/16 7:46 pm**

I remember, at about the lowest point of my life, after praying for months, I suppose, with no relief, I was driving along the highway in Tampa when it came to me that maybe the reason I wasn't getting an answer was because, despite me having always believed I got saved in October 1968 at the Marathon Church of God, I must have not really gotten saved.

IMMEDIATELY, the Spirit of God flooded the whole atmosphere it seemed! And He said as clear to me as I had every understood Him: "That's the night I wrote it down!"

That's not meant to be a theological statement about just when our names go into the Book of Life. It was meant to be a word from heaven that let me know that God knew I had gotten saved that night!

I never doubted again.

So, if someone is feeling they aren't saved, God can confirm it. But if He wouldn't condemn a woman CAUGHT in adultery, He's not going to have a condemning voice there either. The devil condemns, but "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

Quiet Wyatt

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12813 **1/9/16 8:06 pm**

Aaron,

In your view, do the following possibilities exist?

1. A truly born again believer backslides (going back into a life marked by willful habitual sin) and is in need of conviction, repentance, and even conversion again?

2. A false conversion occurs, in which the 'convert' THINKS he is truly regenerate, but is actually deceived concerning this.

3. A genuinely born again Christian is in need of the convicting, chastening work of the Spirit in his life, so that he might become a partaker of His holiness.

bradfreeman

Acts-dicted Posts: 9027 **1/10/16 8:10 am**

TL, or whoever, is right.

Faulty theology constantly keeps us looking in the mirror to determine if we are saved. We look to the cross for salvation, not ourselves.

Salvation comes by faith in Christ.

If our faith is in our sinless lifestyle, then we move in and out of righteousness and salvation with every failure.

If our faith is in our sinless lifestyle, then every time we feel the need to change our activity, we will view that as an indication that we have lost our salvation.

The ONLY way a person can fall from grace and be severed from Christ is by abandoning faith in Christ in favor of relying on religious rule-keeping (faith in our sinless lifestyles) to get us to Heaven.

Our preaching shouldn't have people constantly looking in the mirror.
It should have them looking to the cross.
_________________
I'm not saved because I'm good. I'm saved because He's good!

My website: www.bradfreeman.com
My blog: http://bradcfreeman.tumblr.com/

Old Time Country Preacher

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **1/10/16 9:04 am**

Eddie Robbins

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 16509 **1/10/16 3:39 pm**

I'll tell you says we're not saved. It's self-righteous, judgmental people who have made up rules. If you do this, you ain't saved. If you're do that, you ain't saved. It's not the devil, it's people that say it and a lot of people believe it.

Herman Knapp

Friendly Face Posts: 117 **1/10/16 4:00 pm**

My question is: What would a BORN-AGAIN person absolutely HAVE to do to become UNSAVED/UN-BORN-AGAIN? I would assume that one would, not only have to commit A sin, but outright deny the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and deny His Lordship over their lives. Now, could that simply be through their ACTIONS or would it have to be through a VERBAL CONFESSION as is mentioned in ROM.10:9-10?

Quiet Wyatt

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12813 **1/10/16 4:30 pm**

He that is begotten of God does not go on sinning. (See 1 John 3:1-9 for instance).

Hebrews 10:26ff says that if we go on deliberately sinning, no sacrifice for sin remains for us, but only the fearful expectation of the fire that will consume the adversaries of God.

Without holiness no one shall see God.