The Salvation Process: Simplified

For by grace are you saved THROUGH FAITH; – Eph 2:8

You must have heard of the evangelism method mantra: “There’s only one way to the Father, but there’re many ways to Christ”. Well, as it turns out, the ways to Christ are not exactly infinite.

Romans chapter 10 contains one of the clearest, most unambiguous explanations on the process and path to salvation. In verse 9, Paul calls what we preach, “the word of FAITH” (not the words of induced Fear). Why?

“Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord (not confess a list of your past sins) and believe in your heart (not acknowledge with your head) that God raised him from the dead, you WILL be saved.

Note the simplicity. Note the straightforwardness. And in case it isn’t clear enough, the Apostle further explains: 

For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation. (vs 9,10 NET, amplifications and emphasis mine).

When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul gave a direct reply “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.”

 

Let’s keep the message simple and straightforward. The Gospel is about FAITH in CHRIST Jesus.

So FAITH comes from hearing the Good News. And people hear the Good News when someone tells them about CHRIST. – Rom 10:17 (ERV).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Fear Will Not Create the New Man

...For whatever is not of faith is sin. – Rom 14:23

Evangelism is not mass marketing, neither is it the Junior Girls Scouts. We’re not looking to get brownie points for the amount of cookies we convince people to buy.

Many ‘evangelists’ go to any length to get as much altar call decisions as possible. But not every person who answers an altar call is saved.

It’s quite easy to get people to “run to the altar now”. All it takes is to put a little fear in them: Bring a former Witch to testify, Show them the “Burning Hell” movie, preach to them your unique version of Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the hands of an angry God;” or even tell them you saw a vision that Jesus almost came last Monday or that you saw God frustrated that the Blood of His Son is being wasted by this sinful generation (the vision doesn’t have to be true, the ends justifies the means, right?).

But none of these methods will bring about salvation. The most you’ll get is populating the Church with “false brethren” and “mixed multitudes”.

There’s a biblical route to salvation; and that route is FAITH. Any salvation experience that is not predicated on faith is flawed. People who assay to scare sinners into making altar call decisions by gory scary Hell ‘revelations’ or fake WhatsApp posts have a faulty understanding of the Gospel. Salvation is more than changing behaviour. It’s a transfer of the individual from one kingdom to another and a recreating of the New Man in Christ (Col 1:13; 3:10)

When a person makes an altar call decision in the physical, something else has to take place correspondingly in the spiritual or else that salvation is not valid. And that spiritual part only happens when the person comes by faith, not fear.

The scriptures say in four different places that the “the just shall live by faith” (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). In each instance – whether in the Hebrew or in the Greek – the word “live” means to “come alive”. A spiritually dead sinner can only “come alive” by faith.

That is why our Gospel message must lead the sinner towards Faith in Christ and not towards self-preserving fear that cause no real change in the spirit.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

What’s Your “Morning Cry?”

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. – 2Co 5:11

There’s a marked distinction between the Old Testament and the New. And most definitely between Old Testament preaching and New Testament witnessing. 2Cor 3:6 says God has made us “able ministers of the New Testament.” Yet many still engage in what I call “Jonah Evangelism”. 

In Jonah 3 the LORD told Jonah to go and “preach” to the great city of Nineveh. Nevertheless, when Jonah entered the city, all he cried out was “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” We know from the book’s back-story that Jonah took this approach because he didn’t really want them to repent; he just proclaimed those words around the city in order to impose culpability on them when God’s judgment came.

Unfortunately, this “Jonah: style evangelism is still being practiced today. A good example of it is the classic “Morning Cry” we engage in. In my experience, nine out of every ten Morning Crier isn’t preaching the Gospel. All that they’re doing is just proclaiming judgement. With megaphone in hand and a well-worn cliché in their mouths, what they call evangelism is effectively a Jonah-style ‘culpability’ act.

Compare this style with the very first act of evangelism in the New Testament. In Acts chapter 2, just after the Holy Ghost came on the Disciples, Peter rose up and spoke to all the people who were gathered to see the strange sight.

It was not Jonah’s eight-word mantra that he spoke, but an exhaustive homily on the meaning of what the people had just seen. Peter’s sermon was 25 verses long; and that was not even all that he said because Act 2:40  says And with MANY OTHER WORDS he testified and STRONGLY URGED them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!” (HCSB-r)

It’s very commendable for a Christian to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to cry out the Gospel message. But shouting exclusively “GIVE YOUR LIFE TO JESUS; JESUS IS COMING SOON” is patently an Old Testament pattern of preaching and isn’t honestly giving sinners a fair chance.

If we really, really want those sinners saved, then we need to adjust our “Morning Cries”. We need to make sure whatever we’re saying is free of ‘church’ lingo and clear enough for the sinner to see his or her way out.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

The Reason

“We speak for Christ and sincerely ask you to make peace with God. – 2Cor 5:20 (CEV)

Why do we evangelise? Why do we make every available effort to reach out to the lost? Unfortunately, the Pulpit – in our typical penchant of creating false paradigms just to ‘motivate’ our members to do God’s work – have built up wrong motivations and reasons for going out.

One of these is the devious application of Eze 33:7,8 to claim that if members do not evangelise, the blood of the sinners would be placed on their heads!

Another is to take the pecuniary approach: we tell them that only if they take God’s business seriously, will God take care of theirs! These manipulative ways of making God’s people work will only lead to works that have no eternal value as they are predicated on wrong motives.

The last, probably most innocuous, reason we give for evangelism is that “It’s God’s heartbeat”. While this is true (“the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”, 2Pe 3:9); it makes one wonder if it‘s ONLY the Lord that wants those lost souls to be saved.

It’s as though we’re saying, “If not that God wants those people saved, I would have just sat down at home and watch TV all day”.

No, Beloved, that shouldn’t be our mindset or motivation. We, too,  want to see them saved. They are our brothers and our sisters. Yes, they may be belligerent, provocative and even insulting; but it’s only because the god of this world has blinded their minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them (2Co 4:4).

Evangelism should no longer be seen as “the LORD’s work”? No, it is OUR work. “For we are labourers together with God” (1Co 3:9). Our hearts go out for them just as God’s; we love them just as God does. If He is not willing that any should perish, WE TOO are not willing that any should perish. Like our Elder Brother, Jesus, our meat is to do the will of Him that sent us, and to finish His work. (Joh 4:34).

Are you hungry?

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN