[bearbear]

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

Sam,

I don't mean to be flippant (truly, I am in the midst of reading everything you're referencing), but here's how I read this:

Those enslaved by the LC background need to be liberated in order to be properly gripped by the fear of hell.

I just had a longer questioning post deleted in another thread , so I'll ask, in short, here:

Is there any humanly recognizable indicator of salvation or is that for God to sort out? In other words, can you asses whether you're saved? Can you assess whether I'm saved? Or is it ongoing? Does the presence of continued sin (as Jesus describes in Matthew 5) have any bearing on that question? If not, why not?

What is the relationship between sanctification and salvation?

Still open questions.

Thanks,

Peter

Hi Peter those are really good questions.

First of all I don't think my experience is necessarily generalizable enough to everyone who was ex-LC since there are plenty of born again Christians counted among these folks. My grandma still adheres to free grace and she is still the most loving Christian I know. I think as Ohio stated, my experience may be more applicable to lukewarm Christians or second generation church kids rather than fiery LC types who were saved during the early LC days.

Also everyone is built differently, and I've been born with greater faculties for fear and accountability than most others, however I believe this is common among men. There are plenty of folks I think who come to love God with all their heart without having to pass through a stage of fear like mine, IMO not be sexist, but it's mostly women from what I have observed.

I've also done a lot of research on NDEs and this has greatly magnified my fear that Jesus wasn't kidding around when he said the road to eternal life was narrow and few find it. When someone asked him if few were saved, rather than giving him assurance, He said to make every effort to make it through the narrow way because a lot of folks strive to enter but few make it through.

So in a lot of these near death experience accounts anywhere from between 1 to 25 out of 1000 people made it to heaven versus hell (1 on the lowest end, 25 on the highest). I give credence to these experiences after reading this article:

http://www.newsweek.com/proof-heaven...fterlife-65327

In other words between .1% to 2.5% of folks make it to heaven versus hell.

So the question on how do you know if you're born again is probably one of the most important questions you can ask yourself. I believe Jesus answered this clearly in his teachings, the other NT writers also addressed including Peter, Paul, James and John.

Jesus said a bad tree cannot produce good fruit and vice versa. Numerous places throughout the gospels (such as Luke 3 and John 15) say that all the bad trees are cut down and cast into the fire. This tree is our heart which can only be made new via a born again experience (see Ezekiel 36, Psalms 51). So what Jesus was really saying was the way you tell someone is saved is if you look at their actions which are produced from the heart.

I believe scriptures clearly shows that our actions, or our works are considered "good fruit" if they're born of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 says the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control. If these qualities of yours are growing everyday it's probably because you have a new spirit and new heart God gave you which you are feeding by spending time in God's presence and doing his will by practicing his word.

Actions that are bad fruit are works of the flesh. This is also in Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So if you are enslaved to any of these kinds of things, you may be in eternal danger and this is when we need to cry out to the Lord to save us. This is the true context of the verse "he who calls on the Lord will be saved". It's realizing that we can't save ourselves because of our flesh and we need the Lord to deliver us which he will tangibly through his Spirit and not just on a legal level. So basically when you do this, it's part of your full hearted repentance, and not just blindly calling on the Lord's name.

So Galatians chapter 5 is a wonderful chapter on this question. There are many others as well. Peter tells us that if we practice righteousness and are increasing in "good fruit" qualities with each passing day, we will "confirm" our calling and election and never fail.

2 Peter 1:5-11
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


But the most important thing is we must be born again to begin with. Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3 that unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

My take on what it takes to be born again is to first make your heart the good earth in the parable of the sower. This is done through repentance by turning from all wickedness and turning to the Lord in full surrender. At this point the word of God will grow in you into it's full measure because you will have been given a new heart and new spirit which will cause you to irresistibly (speaking as Calvinist here) love and obey Jesus which are the conditions for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (see John 14) not just mere belief in Jesus. You won't be perfect because as James said we all stumble in various ways, but the Holy Spirit will convict you to repentance every time because you will have no peace in your soul when you sin.

1 John 3:6 is relevant:
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

The strongest verse for turning from wickedness is probably in 2 Timothy 2.

2 Timothy 2:19
But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from wickedness.”

There's a firm foundation that cannot budge and a seal that cannot change. Everyone that belongs to the Lord has to depart from wickedness. If you are practicing wickedness, you probably don't belong to the Lord and that's important because Jesus promises that he won't lose any that Father has given him. Only those that belong to Jesus can make it with him in eternity.

So you can now understand my theory why Witness Lee was probably never born again. He was confronted so many times on many different levels to repent when his iniquity was exposed, yet he never repented but instead he hardened his heart like pharoah did and shamelessly made things worse by publishing a book of unwarranted character assassinations of righteous brothers and false reports known as "Fermentation of the Present Rebellion". It's possible however that God accepted his repentance at the end of his life, so I am not trying to speculate where he ended up, just that he was a false teacher who has damaged the reputation of Jesus among those folks who left the LRC due to his behavior.

If you put yourselves in his shoes and imagine yourself doing things like using church funds to pay off family debts, be on record for constructing a money laundering operation for defrauding saints of their life savings, overlook your son forcing himself on married women who gave their lives to your ministry, etc. and yet have the gall to insist you are the MOTA, how long could you live with that shame and not repent?