Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Response to Fairwinds Baptist Church and the Doctrine of Eternal Security, Part 1

[Welcome new readers.  Before you go, please don't forget to check out the links to thirteen other Fairwinds responses listed on the right side of this page.  May the Holy Spirit be with you all!]

Although the doctrine of "eternal security" is believed by most Baptists, I do not recall a Baptist congregation that fixates on the doctrine as much as is done at Fairwinds Baptist Church in Bear, DE. Nearly every sermon I've heard preached at this church (and I've heard almost every message given there for the last seven or so months) ends with the "selling point" that you can "know tonight that you are on your way to heaven."

Putting aside the obvious ambiguity in this expression (what does it mean to be "on your way"? Can one "run off the road"?), the general teaching regarding eternal security suggests that once a person "trusts Jesus as Savior," there is nothing--NOTHING--that person could ever do (or not do) that could ever make that person end up anywhere other than heaven once they die. Once one has accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, that person's eternity is "secure."

This summer, I will offer a series of blog postings discussing the Protestant doctrine of eternal security. My discussion will offer the Biblical, theological, historical, and logical evidence against the doctrine. For now, I'd like to offer my readers the first (almost completed) version of a two-sided tract that compiles much of the relevant Biblical support for the fact that a person can lose (by rejecting or even neglecting) their salvation:

Salvation in the Bible

Please help me in printing and distributing this tract as widely as possible so that all Christians may come to know the truth of God's saving Word.

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