Salvation Is A Journey

Salvation is a journey, much like sanctification. Why do I say this? Have you never considered why Scripture speaks of our salvation using past, present, and future tenses? Yet our preachers falsely teach only in the past tense, with such false assumptions and concepts such as "Once saved, always saved." If you truly repented of your sin and trusted in Jesus 20 years ago, then you will be repenting of your sin and trusting in Jesus today, and you must be repenting of your sin and trusting in Jesus 20 years from now.

Have you never considered why Jesus says, "the one who endures to the end, he will be saved"? Have you never considered why Paul says, "run in such a way [so] that you may win"? Look! If you quit in the middle of a race and walk off the track, you did not endure until the end and you will not receive the prize! Period. If your preacher says otherwise, he is lying to you. You did not "lose" your salvation because you did not obtain it. You forfeited it! It is ludicrous that many self-professing Christians believe that Jesus told us to enter the race, that we do not actually have to run it, or that we can leave it at any time, and that we will still obtain the prize. Seriously?!?!?

Many of you need to start reading your Bibles and paying attention to the words, rather than swallowing the camel of false teaching your "leaders" spoon feed you from the pulpit. Try reading the writings of the early Christians from the first three centuries. They absolutely believed you could forfeit your salvation. Scripture and the early Christians are opposed to the heretical false teachings you have received from your so-called "leaders."

You cannot lose what you never had, but you can forfeit what you have yet to obtain.

The entire New Covenant Scriptures were finished by the end of the first century. The Christians of the next two centuries used all of these Scriptures and were taught by those who had been taught by the apostles themselves. Control your ego, pride, and arrogance, ditch your personal ambitions and hidden agendas, and stop your attempts to play games using proof text methodology, eisegesis, and Scripture twisting by pitting verses against each other. You are not God. Stop trying to make your confusions over Scripture to be one or the other. You are 1,900 years removed from the teachings of Jesus and His apostles, the languages of the time, the culture, and their customs. Do not pretend like you are smarter than and know more than the Christians of the first three centuries. That is the height of egotistical hubris!

You can disagree with what I have said here, and try to pit your favourite proof-texted verses against the plethora of other verses that contradict your interpretation and what you have been told to believe. That is fine. That is your choice. But as for me, I am going to believe what Scripture says and what the early Christians taught and believed. Y'all have the habit of cherry picking which statements from Jesus and His apostles you want to believe and emphasize, and which ones you do not. Those statements that contradict you, you simply ignore, deny, or reject because they do not fit with the theology you have been brainwashed, conditioned, indoctrinated, and programmed with. You need to be an overcomer here. Read Jesus' letters to the churches and be honest with yourself as to where you are. Then seek to correct it with the help of the Holy Spirit. May Yahweh be with you.

Cain and Abel

You have probably heard it said that the reason Abel's offering was accepted was because he offered a spotless lamb (Christ), and the reason Cain's offering was rejected was because he offered the fruit from a cursed land. That is the most common interpretation provided, but is it correct?

No!

No, it is not correct.

This interpretation is imposed upon the biblical text. The people who do so are apparently illiterate, or too lazy to do their own work and merely rely on the erroneous work of others. If there was no mention of resting on the seventh day, or a requirement to do so, until Moses, then the same weight of argument applies here. You will find no mention of God requiring an offering of a spotless lamb until Moses. While it was a requirement under Moses and until Christ Jesus, you cannot read such requirements backwards. You cannot say that is what Abel did because Yahweh required it where there is zero mention of such a requirement. That is an argument from silence. The first mention of a lamb for an offering was in Genesis 22. Yahweh God would not require the offering of a spotless lamb until hundreds of years later.

So what does the text tell us?

"So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him." Genesis 4:2-8

"By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks." Hebrews 11:4

The reason Cain's offering was not accepted is a matter of the heart. Hebrews offers us some insight into this. The idea that his offering was rejected because it was fruit that came from a cursed land is nonsensical and ridiculous. Several of the offerings under the Law require fruit that comes from a cursed land. We are not told specifically why Cain's offering was not accepted. Some people claim he did not offer the first fruits (the best) of his crops. Perhaps. Hebrews does not say that Abel's offering was "better" because he offered a spotless lamb. Again, that is being imposed upon the text. Had Cain made his offering by faith, Yahweh would have accepted it. How do we know? Because He told Cain as much: "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."

God may have slain a lamb in order to cloth Adam and Eve as a precursor to the requirement of the Law that would be fulfilled in Christ, but we have to be careful about reading into the text that which is not actually present. Too much of our theologies impose nonsensical beliefs upon the texts that simply are not there. If it is something you thought about and could be a possibility, then teach it as such, but . . . do not teach it dogmatically! If it is not explicitly spelled out in Scripture, then what you are offering is nothing more than conjecture. Ditch the use of proof text methodology, eisegesis, and Scripture twisting, and teach the Word of God in context based on the details that are actually present.

It is one thing to draw parallels and speculate, but it is quite another to teach those speculations dogmatically as if they are biblical truth. The Scriptures are inspired and God-breathed; not your opinions, speculations, conjectures, or fanciful imaginations. Read the text in context, taking into account chronology of events (What order are the book in history?), and then teach it accordingly.