There were a couple of letters, last week, from Mike P and Steve C, dealing with Lordship salvation, and also easy believism.

I had personally gotten swept up into the controversy a number of years back.

A friend of mine asked me to witness to a lost acquaintance of his, and I talked about all I could.

When his friend left, he asked me if she had gotten saved, and I said that I didn't know.

He asked me, if I knew how to draw the net, I said no, and felt very, very horrible about that.

They teamed me up with a man who claimed that he was discipled by Carl Hatch.

We were out together, and I was showing, and quoting, scriptures regarding the gospel, to a young man, and went on for quite a while.

Finally, the man they teamed me up with, gently interrupted, and asked me if he could say something, and I said, sure.

He turned to the young man, and asked him if he wanted Jesus to save him, to which he answered yes.

So he told the young man to repeat after him in a prayer, to get saved.

The young man did, and left.

The man I was with, continued to go up to people, talk with them, and pray with them.

At one point, if I remember correctly, at a gas station, he went up and asked man if he wanted to go to heaven.

The man agreed, and he had him follow him in the sinner's prayer.

I was shocked, and later asked him if that was all there was to leading someone to Jesus.

Well, eventually, I began to emulate this man who was "training" me.

I supposedly "led a lot of people to the Lord", that way.

Another brother heard about this, and went with me on Thursday evening door-to-door evangelism, to see for himself.

I soon afterwards was sent to work in another country, by company.

But this brother was very upset at what he had seen me doing, and preached a message on repentance, while I was away.

Apparently that message divided the camp into what seemed to have possibly been, lordship salvation or easy believism.

When I returned, I was shaken by what I had caused, and listened to a recording of his message.

I realized, from that moment on, that I had been presenting a gospel without repentance.

Now, some on the lordship salvation side, considered repentance a turning away from all one's sins, before they could get saved.

To some on the other side, repentance was merely the same as faith, the same as believing.

However, I started to study it for myself.

It seemed, then, that repentance is a change of mind, accompanied with godly sorrow, leading to a change of direction.

The change of mind involves realizing that they are a sinner, under condemnation, and in need of a Savior, to save them from damnation.

The change of direction involves turning from trusting in themselves, their works, or their religion, and turning to Jesus to save them.

But then, if the person believes on Jesus, they are saved, leading then, to a change of behavior by the Holy Spirit.

So, it did not seem to me that people needed to turn from all their sins, first, in order to be saved.

Rather, it was from that very impossibility, that they realized, by the gospel, that they needed a Savior, and their sins forgiven.

Then, after they are saved, they are then able to turn from all those sins, by the Spirit, from which they were unable to do in the flesh.

In most cases that I know of, the Spirit is still showing them sins in their hearts, that they still need to turn from, even years after they are saved.

What Christian, especially when they are first saved, doesn't want to please Jesus, and to turn from sin?

Then regarding the Lordship aspect, there were different things that different people seemed bring out.

Some brand new baby Christians, did not immediately have much depth of doctrinal knowledge.

At most, they knew that Jesus saved them, and they were no longer going to hell, but to heaven.

They generally did not understand much about the dual nature of Jesus as both God and man, until they were taught, after they were saved.

It was after a number of years of their being saved, and after their hearing or reading a number of things, that I heard people then begin to discuss this.

That is when I heard some people tell me that they believed on Jesus as Savior, but not necessarily as Lord.

Not one of those people had that thought that on the day they asked Jesus to save them, it came later, and in most cases from an outside source.

Then, I heard others say that if a person didn't believe on Jesus as Lord, then they never got saved.

Again, this thought probably came to them, later, years after they were saved, which they probably got from an outside source.

I've never met, or heard about, someone consciously denying the Lordship of Jesus, the very moment that they were crying out to him to save them.

(Similarly, Arminianism or Calvinsim, is not something that someone is thinking about the day they are saved, they are taught that, later.)

Now, if someone, professing to be saved, and has been reading their Bible, and hearing preaching,

claims that they refuse to accept the Lordship of Jesus, that sounds more like rebellion, than a doctrinal issue.

Why would they even imagine to do that? Unless someone has taught them that they can do that.

At best, they are rebelling against the very Jesus who saved them.

But at worst:

I Corinthians 12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

If they "can't" even say that Jesus is the Lord, then that is a real problem.

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