RESPONSE TO DOES SALVATION MAKE A DIFFERENCE

RESPONSE TO "DOES SALVATION MAKE A DIFFERENCE"

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January 4, 1998 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - I have received a few interesting replies from the article "Does Salvation Make a Difference," and I want to share a couple of them which I believe are very important --

LETTER FROM READER: "Your article 'Does Salvation Make a Difference?' is excellent! Everyone needs to read the article. It is almost a daily thing to meet someone who is not in church, living in sin and claiming to be a Christian because someone gave them a 123 Romans road presentation and proclaimed them saved. Just recently I had one of my unfaithful church members say she thought her husband was saved because he made a profession of faith when they got married (she would not marry a lost person so he made a profession of faith!). He is a 'Dungeons and Dragons' nut, openly says he doubts there is a God, and protests when she comes to church. Brother, I have preached God's truth over and over again as to what a real born again believer is but somehow they miss it. I plan to make copies of the article and hand give them to every member of my church. The article needs to be put in a booklet/tract form and spread all over the land. Thanks again for your valuable service and hard work."

REPLY FROM BROTHER CLOUD: Thanks for the note. It is great to hear from you. I wrote that article in 1981. It was printed in O Timothy two or three times, and it has been available as a booklet through Way of Life Literature for sixteen years. There never has been any interest in it, to speak of. Apart from the copies I have given away, we have only sold perhaps 200 copies in all of the years it has been in print. I have found that there is little interest in biblical repentance among large numbers of independent Baptists. I find this very strange, for there is no salvation without repentance and repentance results in some definite changes in one's life. I wrote the article after witnessing the devastating result of the error I call "easy prayerism." Feel free to reprint and distribute the article any way you like, but I would prefer that you not place it at your web site. Instead, simply make a link to the copy at my site -- http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/doessalvation.htm This way I can make any changes or additions deemed necessary.

LETTER FROM READER: "Your article on salvation making a difference was excellent. I attended First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, for many years and one of the great fears I have is all the people we 'won' to the Lord who think they are going to heaven and who I helped assure that they were going there. I never connected repentance to the salvation message until a preacher down in Texas called me one day and noted he was with a couple other preachers in his study and wanted me to direct him to any messages in which Jack Hyles preached repentance with salvation. I replied 'Certainly,' and promised to get back to them. After reviewing tape after tape and messages in print, including messages focused on salvation, I was astonished to find there was nothing. And that was when God opened my eyes to this issue and began teaching me. Personally, I think it is the bane on Christianity and has infected all denominations, all groups, but particularly, Fundamentalism. I know what the Phoster Club teaches. My wife was in it for years, almost from its inception. I know what the Fisherman's Club teaches. I was in it. I know that the teachings we were getting about soul winning came from Jack Hyles, but it was not unique to him. I also know that he has carried his teachings to tens of thousands of Christians. Personally, I believe it is a greater problem than any of us can really know and I wonder how many of those who stand before Christ one day and cry 'Lord, Lord...!' and hear him say He never knew them will be there because of some 'soul winner' from a tare factory. I once wrote Dr. Hyles a letter on this in detail a few years after I left his church and urged him to consider that it could well be his son or daughter or other loved one who stood there; the next Sunday, he preached a 'salvation' message...without repentance. But it was a good message of rededication. Even some choir members 'got saved.' Anyway, yours is a message every pastor and church member ought to hear. Well done."

REPLY FROM BROTHER CLOUD: Thanks for the note. You are right on target. The gospel without repentance is not the biblical Gospel, and there are multitudes of people who have prayed a prayer and who have been given assurance even though they exhibited no repentance and cared nothing about repentance. They are as lost today as they were the day they prayed, but they are now almost inoculated to the true Gospel because they have "done that." I attended Tennessee Temple, and Dr. Hyles preached my graduation service in 1977. I personally believe Dr. Jack Hyles is a dangerous man and that he has started something akin to a personality cult. No man is beyond being analyzed by the Bible, and particularly is this true of a man who is in a national leadership position and who therefore influences great numbers of people. I have as much responsibility to analyze Jack Hyles as I do to analyze Billy Graham and John Paul II. God tells me to examine such a man carefully and to measure his message and life and ministry by the Word of God. When one does that, though, one is browbeaten by Hyles supporters as if he were some sort of god who is beyond biblical criticism. The first time I heard Dr. Hyles I thought, "This man is preaching himself, not the Bible." I have gotten into a lot of trouble for expressing any type of negative position toward Jack Hyles, but I refuse to be intimidated by this. Certainly he is not the only independent Baptist leader guilty of promoting "easy prayerism," but he is one of the most influential. I have also gotten into a lot of trouble for exposing the heresy of "easy prayerism." Men have slanderously said I preach a lordship salvation or a works salvation. They spitefully claim I have ulterior motives or that I am full of hate. They maliciously and falsely claim that all I do is write books and that is why I don't understand this matter.

These are smoke screens to hide the real issue, which is this: Biblical salvation is a free gift of God's grace to the repentant believing sinner, and even the repentance and faith are God's gift, but Biblical salvation does demand repentance and repentance always makes a difference. Repentance is not a change in life. It is not reformation. It is not merely a change of mind. It is a change of mind toward God which results in a change of life. "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:4).