Do You Have Doubts About Salvation?

Luke 10:20, “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”

When I attended the shameful Harvest Baptist Church on Guam in 2013-2014, one of their deacons approached me after a Sunday evening service. He kindly asked me a question, while his wife respectfully waited abut 10 feet behind him. The deacon said something like:

“Brother Stewart, I have doubted my salvation for a long time. Could you help me understand God's plan of salvation better.”

Over the next 10 minutes, I expounded the Scripture to him to the best of my humble ability. When I had finished, he said: “Why don't they teach stuff like that from the pulpit?” Without hesitation I replied that it was because his pastors do not understand what it feels like to doubt that you are saved, but I fully understand that pain and grief of soul.

I was saved as a young teenager. I don't remember how old I was. I do know that I was in junior high at the time, in either 7th or 8th grade. It was early summertime at the Northland Baptist Temple on Chicago's northside. I used to tell everybody that I was 13 years old when I got saved, but after much thinking about the matter, I started telling people that I was 12. I truly do not remember. I wish I had thought to write down the date when I got saved. My guess is that it was in 1979 at age 12, but I could have just as easily been age 13. Only God knows! The important thing is not WHEN I was saved, but that I AM saved. Thankfully, I DO have a recollection of a PLACE and an EXPERIENCE of calling upon the name of the Lord.

Anyway, I was a shy teenager, and still today at age 59 I am very self-conscious and shy around people. So, I didn't walk an aisle or tell anyone that I trusted Jesus as my Savior. But on the day I was saved a battle started in my soul over whether I was saved or nor. I feared, simply because no one had ever plainly explained to me what I needed to do to be saved. I wish that my pastor had shared from the pulpit that day exactly what I needed to do (and not do) to get to Heaven, but he didn't. He simply invited people to walk the aisle to find out how to be saved. That is why for many years now I have discouraged preachers from requiring lost sinners to walk down a church aisle to learn how to get to Heaven. In so doing, they are adding an unnecessary step to God's simple plan of salvation, which God does not require.

The day I got saved, I did ask Jesus to save me. I knew that He died in my place on Calvary's cross. When I called out to Him silently in my soul, I believed that I was calling upon a risen and living Savior. I didn't realize at the time that you don't even have to ask, call or pray to be saved, you just simply need to BELIEVE THE GOSPEL (1st Corinthians 15:1-6).

Dear reader, if you ever have the opportunity to speak about God to a group of people at church, please DO NOT ask anyone to meet with the pastor at the back of the church after the service, or to walk down an aisle, because someone may go to Hell because of you! Always share the Gospel with people right there in their pew. To show just how easy, free and simple it is to be saved, I wrote this blog titled: “The Gospel In 45 Seconds.” I could have even shortened it to 30 seconds if I left out some extra comments that I wanted to make.

My ministry friend Michael P. Bowen explains God's simple plan of salvation on page XII in the Introduction of his helpful book titled: “I NEVER KNEW YOU”...

Here is the gospel: God says that we are sinners and that no amount of good works or behavioral changes on our part could ever make us holy enough to enter heaven. God sent His Son to pay for all of our sins. Jesus paid for our crimes by dying on the cross for us all. His dead body was buried in a grave. On the third day, Jesus arose from the dead.

The instant you believe this, He knows it and He saves you. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life”(John 6:47). The free gift is based solely upon your trust in what Jesus did for you and has nothing at all to do with what you do for Him. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

That's it dear reader, BELIEVE IT OH SINNER, and you are saved! Nothing more is required nor allowed to enter into God's heavenly Kingdom. Sadly, well-meaning religious men complicated God's simple plan of salvation by adding sacraments, stipulations, obligations and service. You get saved by getting out of the way, to simply RES in what Christ has already done through Calvary's cross to pay for your sins (Hebrews 4:10-11). Simply believe that Jesus did it all for you!

Just like my deacon friend at the horrible Harvest Baptist Church on Guam, where the Devil's lies of Lordship Salvation and Misunderstood Repentance are taught still today, millions of people are confused about God's simple plan of salvation. When those wicked neo-evangelical preachers foolishly say to “repent of your sins” to be saved, that confused people.

They are sinfully mixing service with salvation (which is what Lordship Salvation is), combining works with grace to pervert the Gospel (Galatians 1:6-7). Christ died for humanity on the cross, taking the whole burden of your sins upon Himself, so that you wouldn't have to. Nowhere in the inspired King James Bible does it teach that to be saved a person must shoulder the weight of their own sins by being willing to forsake them. To be willing to give up one's sinful bad habits is a very difficult, challenging and complicated FALSE plan of salvation. Sadly, this is the Satanic garbage taught at Pensacola Christian College today.

Dear reader, you don't need to have even the slightest doubt about whether or not you are going to Heaven. If your trust (faith, reliance) is in Jesus Christ alone because of WHO He is (the Christ, the only begotten Son of God); and WHAT He did for you on Calvary's cross (Jesus died, was buried and physically resurrected from the dead three days later), then you are forever born again (saved, redeemed, a child of God). Nothing less or more is required.

Remember, it's not what you are DOING that gets you into Heaven, it's where you are LOOKING. Look to Jesus, the slain and risen LAMB OF GOD (John 1:29; Isaiah 45:22).