Once a Sheep Always a Sheep, or Salvation Deficit Disorder?

[Caver]

If you have been saved, yes I think you will be rapture. Its a matter of degree, not if we sin. Every single one of us, IMHO. Some openly, some quietly in the secret recesses of their mind; some in open rebellion while others trying desperately to get it right. We all do. I wish it were not so.

[Anddra]

The entire church will be raptured, the dead first then the living. The only 'Christians' left behind will be those who were false Christians. If she is a real Christian, then she will be raptured. It does not depend on our works.

[ChristianGal]

Well, there are far better people to answer this on this board than me, but here's my two cents worth.

When we're saved, we're saved forever (I believe in OSAS). Being disobedient (which is what I would call your sisters' choices) hurts us because we are out of fellowship with the Lord and so we lose out on many of the joys that this fellowship affords us. But it does not change the status of our salvation. If they truly accepted Jesus as their Savior, they are saved and nothing they do will change that. And ALL those who are saved will be taken in the rapture.

Obedience is something I personally strive for, but as Gratefulberean pointed out, none of us is capable of perfection. We all sin.

I hope this has helped. :hug

[Biblenuggetlady]

Seems to be a few threads lately on OSAS. This forum's doctrinal statement states, we are OSAS and do not allow the promotion of any teachings, links, etc that claim otherwise. I'd suggest maybe checking out our apologitics forum on this, it's been discussed and might help you with the information you are looking for. :hug

Also, this might help...Jack Kelley just touched on this in the past week, I have to wonder where the forum or article is that people must be seeing that is bringing this up, I have never seen this posed so many times at once on our forum. :thinking

http://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-teacher/can-we-sell-our-soul-to-the-devil/

Can We Sell Our Soul To The Devil?
Q. I pray that God blesses you and your family greatly for all the insight you share with all of us on a daily basis!

I have a few questions regarding 1 John 5:16-18 that I hope you will answer.

1.) What is the sin that leads to death?
2.)Does verse 18 say that I don’t have a snowballs chance of OSAS seeing how I continue to sin?
3.)Do we own our souls or are they God’s property? (Can a person sell their soul to the devil?)

A. John was writing against the false doctrine of Gnosticism which held in part that Jesus was not God in the flesh but only a gifted teacher, and salvation was attained through the acquisition of spiritual knowledge. The sin that leads to death is denying the deity of the Lord and the sufficiency of His death as payment for our sins. In the context of the letter this meant following the doctrine of gnosticism (which by the way still permeates many of the false religions of today.)

John couldn’t have been speaking in the general sense in verse 18 because he would have been contradicting his statement earlier in the letter that if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves. (1 John 1:8) Besides, we know that every believer continues to sin. Even Paul admitted that he couldn’t stop sinning. (Romans 7:19-20) John was referring to the fact that when we come to the Lord we gain a discernment that prevents us from clinging to false doctrine regarding our salvation.

According to 1 Cor.6:19-20, we are not our own. We were purchased with the blood of Jesus. This is what led Paul to use legal language of the day in saying the the Holy Spirit is a deposit (literally earnest money) guaranteeing our inheritance. (Ephes. 1:13-14) In 2 Cor. 1:21-22 He said that God put His seal of ownership on us as well. As it is in real estate today, an earnest money deposit in Paul’s day both obligated the buyer to follow through on his purchase and prevented anyone else from buying the property in the mean time.

By sealing the Holy Spirit within you, God obligated Himself to follow through on His promise to give you eternal life with Him, and at the same time “took you off the market”. No one else can buy you and you can not sell your soul to the devil.

[Adoration]

Sopo wrote and Historyb commented:
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Quote:
Okay, I've battled this back and forth and read all the posts here so I have a theory now. I would like to post my thoughts and ask your opinions on it. The way I've understood it, there are two types of OSAS Christians. There are ones like are on this board that are truly living a Godly life, watching for Jesus' return, love the Lord with all their hearts, help their fellow brothers/sisters, etc. Maybe slip every now and then as we all do but they feel covered by God's grace but then again, they are living a Godly life and in their hearts want to do right.

Christians


Quote:
Then would you agree there are those that 'use' the doctrine so that they 'feel' saved but have not totally turned their lives over to God? They say the prayer to 'cover' themselves but go on living their lives in a sinful manner. They don't feel like it's wrong to do these things, greed, drinking to drunkeness, lust, etc because they are 'covered'.

Not Christians. "
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I agree with this.
There's something that weighs heavily on my heart right now and that is I know people in adultery and the gay lifestyle who think it's perfectly OKAY to continue what they are doing because they believe in OSAS. This is sin, and clearly not what Jesus taught or what Paul elaborated on. People who are saved need to pray for deliverance from a sinful lifestyle and receive prayer to break addictions or any form of bondage in their lives.

It is often a process that takes time, but they need to be 'working' on it, and praying to be free. They can't be living with their gay partner and saying "I'm saved! I'm going in the rapture! I'm going to heaven!" There needs to be effort to remove themselves from the sin.

I'm not condeming my brothers and sisters who struggle with this kind of sin, because I sin as well...I'm grouchy when I'm feeling ill, I tend to worry and doubt God (which is the sin of fear and unbelief), and I tend to be critical of others( which is uncharitable and a form of hatred). But, do I admit the sin and pray to be free from it? Yes. Do I seek change, and remove myself from situations where grouchy,complaining and critical people hang out so that I won't be drawn into that same sin? Yes i do.
Am I perfect? Not at all, and never will be until I see heaven, BUT I don't excuse the sin in my life...I seek through Jesus' strength to overcome it.

When people are in sin, with no effort to change, and they call themselves Christians, it is a misleading and damaging witness to the faith.

[Chris]

http://www.rr-bb.com/showpost.php?p=825950&postcount=7 :hat

[Mopsie]

Wow awesome video. Answered a lot of questions.

It was an awesome video. I wasn't raised Baptist so I am not used to that kind of preaching but it was incredible. Very good message and timely too!

[ReadyForDeparture]

Since calculating the actual number of truly saved Christians in the world is anyone's guess - here's mine! :heh

I would suggest that only two percent of the current world's population (approx. 6.6 billion) is saved, therefore the figure would be around 132 million.

The number of people in the world who think they are saved (i.e. who have never truly repented or believed the true gospel) and who nonetheless call themselves "evangelical christians", would be much higher. Sadly, I conjecture that many in this group will be angry and resentful that they weren't counted "good enough" to be included in the Rapture and will become hardened against the gospel. Others will be shocked out of their complacency, will quickly turn to Jesus for true forgiveness of sin, and become Tribulation Saints.

If children under the age of accountability throughout the world are also included in the Rapture, they would greatly outnumber the saved Christians who are taken, IMO.

Sydney.... You do not say where you get the 2% base for your calculation but I certainly agree with your bottom line in the sense that it will truly be a small number percentage wise......

1 in 3 persons on the globe claim a Christian affiliation of some kind. But we all know how useless such "affiliations" are. "labels", or "where we go" or "who we know" or "what works we do" are all meaningless to our Lord in the salvation sense. With only 2.2 Billion claiming such a Christian affiliation out of 6.6 billion, it is easy to see that number dwindle down to a number as small as your guestimate of 132,000,000.

A couple of other posters have questioned these figures in relation to Noah or Lot, but we cannot compare the dispensations throughout history to one another in this manner. To try to calculate a percentage of persons who survived the flood (8 people) or the cities in the valley where Sodom and Gomorrah were located will not get you a meaningful answer. We are now in the dispensation of GRACE, praise God for that. The very nature of this dispensation points to a larger percentage of persons responding to God's message and believing in Him and in Christ as Savior. This same dispensation lends itself to the "age of accountaility" that others have mentioned as far as young children being taken by the Lord. Did not Jesus Himself say,
Matthew 19:14 (Amplified Bible)
But He said, Leave the children alone! Allow the little ones to come to Me, and do not forbid or restrain or hinder them, for of such [as these] is the kingdom of heaven composed.

I know this is out of context and is not a rapture scripture but it shows Christ's heart toward little children and how precious they are to Him.

The one unknown numbers we will never know till we all meet in Heaven, is how many persecuted Christians will be raptured. All those wonderful suffering Chinese, and Hindus, and Muslims, and Russians, who cannot openly worship, but worship in home churches for the sake of not being physically persecuted and even murdered by their governments. Joel Rosenberg has mentioned the many Muslims who see Christian TV with the dishes on their roofs. Reporters were amazed at how many of these appeared on the Iraqi's roofs after Saddam was overthrown. Many have come to a saving faith in Christ around the world through this modern technology, and yet they have no churches to even attend in many cases, or risk a speedy death. So they worship in underground churches as the early church did in the Roman empire......

Anyway, many thousands are finding Christ every day. 6,000,000 a year in muslim nations according to Islamic statistics, and 20,000 a day in China. So the number of rapture participants is growing every day around the world. I pray that as America and the western nations begin to face more difficulties with a collapsing economy and global fears, as tensions and open conflicts continue to break out... that the west will also see an increase in salvations to rival the eastern nations and bring more into that great day when we are all called home....

Ready for Departure....

[Paradigm]

From what I know, most christians fall into the following categories:

The predestination crowd: The ones who believe that God has already chosen the people that he is going to save and that you're pretty much predestined to either be saved or to not be saved.

The "endure 'till the end" crowd: Those who believe that Salvation is a battle to constantly stay afloat of sin in God's grace (sort of like swimming in the ocean and everytime you sin you are literally going underwater. Praying for forgiveness is like you pulling your head up for air again).

Where exactly would OSAS fall into here? Is it somewhere in the middle?

What I personally believe, someone correct me if I'm wrong:

Since God created the universe, he also created what we know as the "space/time continuum". Basically he created a timeline where past/present/and future, from his point of view, have already been established. But because we live in this space/time continuum, we see time as linear, and the future as something that hasn't happened to us yet.

So in this sense God already knows who will be saved and who won't. However, within that structure, he has given every individual choice to accept and follow him or not. So even though God knows if someone will be saved or not, it's by their own choice that it occured, and not because God "predestined" the path.

As for what constitutes "Saved"? I believe you need to do the following:

- Believe in Jesus Christ as God and as the Son of Man. Believe that he is our Saviour.
- By default believe in all his words and take them dear to heart.
- To genuinely find sin, and sinful behaviour disgusting. As an example, you should hate lying, and not secretly "love" it but abstain from it because it's a "sin"
- To genuinely want to become like Jesus in purity and sanctity. To strive to be like him in every way possible. In a way to make Jesus your Hero.

I don't think that someone who sins because their flesh betrays them loses his salvation, otherwise a ton of people would be in big, big trouble lol (of course as long as the true desire to serve the Lord is within our hearts :) )

[HeIsEnough]

Since God created the universe, he also created what we know as the "space/time continuum". Basically he created a timeline where past/present/and future, from his point of view, have already been established. But because we live in this space/time continuum, we see time as linear, and the future as something that hasn't happened to us yet.

So in this sense God already knows who will be saved and who won't. However, within that structure, he has given every individual choice to accept and follow him or not. So even though God knows if someone will be saved or not, it's by their own choice that it occured, and not because God "predestined" the path.

I believe that is 'essentially' correct, according to the scriptures.



As for what constitutes "Saved"? I believe you need to do the following:

- Believe in Jesus Christ as God and as the Son of Man. Believe that he is our Saviour.
- By default believe in all his words and take them dear to heart.
- To genuinely find sin, and sinful behaviour disgusting. As an example, you should hate lying, and not secretly "love" it but abstain from it because it's a "sin"
- To genuinely want to become like Jesus in purity and sanctity. To strive to be like him in every way possible. In a way to make Jesus your Hero.


While not negating your comments, I believe two things need to happen.

One, you must be born again.
Two, only God can do this.

He tells us how to be in the situation to receive Him and what it looks like once someone is born from above, and your thoughts addresses some of that, I believe.