Getting to Heaven: Initial Salvation Easy, Final Salvation Not So Easy

Scripture contains seemingly contradictory claims about receiving eternal life. Some of its verses, those we’re usually more familiar with, say eternal life is possessed right now to those born again. Such as John 5:24: 

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

I John 5:13 agrees:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

As these Scriptures suggest, all you need is simple belief in Jesus as God, and believe what He said, and you have eternal life immediately. What is belief? As one author says, “when a person extends a trusting, submitted faith in Jesus Christ”—in what He did to save us from hell. We will call this Initial Salvation.  A theology called Calvinism teaches that that's all there is to salvation.  God does the rest through you and for you.

But there are other less-well-known Scriptures that say, actual receipt of eternal life is delayed until our life’s end—and that what we have now is just the hope of eternal life. Such as Titus 3:6-7:

…whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Or Jude 21:

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life

The probable solution to this apparent contradiction is that salvation has two parts, the initial salvation, and the final salvation.  The latter is when we show the world, by abiding in Christ to help our behavior, that we truly are saved. But it's possible to reject Jesus' directions, as I proved in other blogs on this site, and as I prove here.  So we are suggesting that eternal life can be interrupted, even canceled, by continuing in worldly or ungodly behavior.

Initial salvation is what's most often evangelized; but final salvation is the one we don’t hear about too much: The Scripture points out, as you will see below, that entering heaven is only for those who die in a righteous state.  This state is not automatic.  A righteous state belongs to those who  have been intentionally abiding in Christ, and are reliably obedient to His commands since initial salvation. If we don't do that, it is possible to lose initial salvation--but it is also possible to then regain it by sincere repentance and renewing a desire to stay close to God in obedient thought and action.  Belief, as properly defined, means complete submission--and doing that means there will be fruits in our lives, a requirement to avoid hell (John 15:5-6). This is the aspect of salvation that’s hard for many people to swallow, because it suggests that to be truly saved from hell, it's not so easy as an immediate go-to-heaven card; we have to go from merely belief, or mental assent—onward to radical changes in behavior and thought being necessary. The much-ignored trek to final salvation is called “conditional security.” Final salvation is conditioned on our behavior, on works, after we're initially saved.

Since you’ll have a harder time accepting the required works of righteousness, or the conditional security of Final Salvation, I have lots more verses as proof for you to ponder.

• Romans 2:6-7 God will give to each person according to what he has done. 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life

• Galatians 6:8b-9 the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

• Titus 1:2a a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised

• I Timothy 6:19: storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life

"Laying hold" suggests striving, works. This is more evident in the next verse.  See also "fight the good fight of faith" just below.

• I Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 

• Romans 13:11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

• Mark 10:30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life

These verses thus say continuing to maintain our eternal life is future, and a process of godly thought and behavior. But since life is a mixture of sin and good works, we feel uncertain about whether our sin will keep us out of heaven.  And don’t we hate uncertainty; we'd rather have an easy formula, a one-off kind of deal, like just believing in the initial salvation, and then we're done.  So obviously Calvinism, which only believes in initial salvation to gain heaven, is popular.

But it doesn't come that way, as Scripture above makes clear.

With this idea of true salvation being conditioned on our behaviors, we have a different answer to the question, is it possible for anyone who has accepted Christ (has “initial salvation”) to LOSE IT between initial and final salvation? Calvin, whom many Protestants in the U.S. follow (whether they know his background or not) believe the answer is NO, based on the 5th point of Calvin's famous TULIP, the letter "P": Perseverance of the Saints. As the Westminster Confession (now remember, this is not the Bible) declares (Chapter 17, para.1): “They whom God hath accepted in his Beloved…can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.” They further insist that such does not depend upon our own free will but “upon the immutability of the decree of election.” Thus, once God elects us and we accept Christ, we're "locked in" to eternal life.  We have Unconditional security. God will not let us fall away from salvation, they say. This belief system has been popularly called, “once saved, always saved” (OSAS). Most popular evangelists adhere to this Calvinistic belief system.  But it is unscriptural, which we will continue to show.

We believe Scripture (like those above) confirms an opposite belief system, called Arminianism. Some of their important beliefs are:

• Arminians believe Christ's atonement (paying the price for our sins at crucifixion) was made on behalf of All people--vs Calvin, on the other hand, who insisted His atonement was Limited (the letter "L" in TULIP) to those whom God arbitrarily picked (elected) as saved.  To those God did not pick:  You're on the way to hell. Calvin actually suggested God made this choice irrespective of anything we were foresighted to do. But this idea suggests God was capricious and arbitrary.  Could God pick your eternal spot as hell before you were born?  No way. God is love, not callous.  Calvin's theory of limited atonement seems blasphemy of His character.
• Arminians believe God allows his grace to be resisted (i.e., free will) by those who of their own sinful choice, reject Christ--vs. Calvin, who insists on the letter "I"--Irresistible grace.  For those whom God has arbitrarily elected, the Holy Spirit, he  said, will draw us irrevocably to Christ.
And now, to the most important point,
• Arminians believe that Believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace through persistent, unrepented sin.


It is the last bulleted point that’s the main bone of contention to present-day Calvinists. Arminianism believes it’s possible to lose eternal life between initial salvation and final salvation. Calvinists believe that when you're initially saved, you're locked in.  So which theology is correct—Calvinism or Arminianism?  As Scriptural verses above show, the answer is Arminianism--we need to depend on His grace to help us fight sin and worldliness and obey His commands and show fruit to be assured of heaven.  Final salvation takes a striving, a laying ahold, of submitting to God's will.

IF God wants you to believe eternal life is sure and certain for believers, if Initial Salvation is all there is, and heaven is guaranteed (such as believed by Calvinists)--then Scripture would be 100% full of secure statements for the believer and have no listing of conditional behavior. But that means we have to wave away and ignore all the Scriptures above (and more below) about dire eternal results for evil behavior. Are we to believe that all of Scriptural conditional statements are just an "encouragement?"  We would maybe only lose a few rewards if we a "carnal Christian" for our lives?  If that were true, we would also have to accept glaring contradictions in Scripture that we began this discussion with, right? No, wrong. The simple solution is, salvation has two aspects: Initial and Final. And you could lose it in between. Arminianism requires a holy life to achieve heaven. This is totally backed up by Scripture, as we saw many times above. As Hebrews 12:14 says:

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord

Here's some more final proof verses: Seemingly "in contrast" to one another, which HAVE to suggest two stages in eternal life to avoid a contradiction in Scripture:

Luke 7:50:

Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Versus Matthew 10:22, spoken to already-saved disciples:

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved

I John 4:4 sounds like we’re already overcomers forever, no stopping us, it’s all done by Jesus:

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 

But then there’s Rev. 2:10b-11, which seems to show that WE have to strive at overcoming to overcome, to achieve heaven:

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’

Why does God do this, saying, "you're saved," then saying, "you have to overcome to be saved?" Perhaps, as Romans 6:11 seems to interpret, there is value in psychologically "reckoning" ourselves as overcomers--this helps us become overcomers. I believe that there is another important reason for doing that:  God also doesn't want us to fall into complacency.

Same contrast about sonship: Here’s a verse that says we are sons now: Galatians 3:26

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus

But here’s some verses that say “wait, there’s some conditions here, some things you do before you can finally be a son:” Rev. 21:7,8

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death

And here’s just a few more verses which also condition eternal life: Hebrews 3:14

For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end

Hebrews 5:9

And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him

The word “obey” is in continuous sense. You’ve got to keep on obeying.

Here are some sobering verses on the importance of sin depriving you of eternal life, and on how important it is to cut off all such behavior to keep it.
These first verses have hyperbole to make a point that we should be willing to sacrifice anything to avoid sin and to obtain Christ.  Mark 9:43-44, 47:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched— 44 ‘where Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’ 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out….

Luke 13:23-24

Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?”
And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

How can we feel eternally secure, when Scripture says we could:
Wander off, I Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows…

Turn back: John 6:66

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

Fall away Luke 8:13

But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away

And how could a God who doesn’t want anyone to perish, as II Peter 3:9 shows....

The Lord is not slack… not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

How could such a God, whose will is perfect in its attainment, how could He allow people’s faith to be shipwrecked? I Tim 1:19

having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck

The answer is, only by placing conditions on our security.

Now you can’t be shipwrecked unless you were first on the ship! (The ship is a metaphor for salvation). He simply gave us the free will to turn aside from the faith--and thus lose the salvation we obtained.

Consider how Christians are likened to a salt that can lose its saltiness, Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out, 

Christians are compared to virgins (in Matthew 25:1-13) whose lamps run out of oil (note: they possessed the Holy Spirit--the oil in the lamp, then ran out of it)—and what do they hear Jesus say? As verse 12 sadly points out, “I do not know you.”  This does not mean, "I never knew you."  The groom would have known the bridesmaids.  He's saying, "I knew you, but your life has changed so much, it's like I don't know you now."

Calvinist teachers want us to be relaxed, less anxiety-prone. They tell us, “you’re assured, just love God; good works will flow out of thankfulness.” If good works are so automatic, why are so many verses comparing the Christian life to being:

• A soldier in a battle (II Timothy 2:3,4): You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier 

• A wrestler, Ephesians 6:12a For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age

• Willing to shed blood, as it were, to defeat sin: Hebrews 12:4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin

• Willing to even leave our families (see my blog on "Defeating the Taliban"), Matthew 19:29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. 

• A slave to God: Romans 6:22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life

When the rich young ruler popped the big question about obtaining eternal life to Jesus (Luke 18), what did He do? Did Jesus want to make it easy to understand, to win him? Did He tell him it’s just faith in Him, nothing else? NO! As Luke 18:18-23 records, He gave him a rough time defining the word “good,” then He gave him a rough time on how he should be saved, testing him by running through some of the 10 commandments first (!), then gives him an almost impossible restriction to cease his focus on materialism.

Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”21 And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” 22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 23 But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. 

Does Jesus, at the point of seeing that he is a good man, seeing his sorrow, beg him to reconsider, urge him, tell him how much he could lose? Does He water-down his tough final restriction? NO! He is done speaking to him. His words in vv. 24,25:

And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

These ideas might shock you about God (Yes, Jesus is God). But don’t, whatever you do, reject them outright, dismissing them that “I’m taking verses out of context,” etc etc. Considering the volume of verses above, that cannot be the case.  There are things about God here that we should explore, take a fresh unbiased look at ALL of His Word. Attaining and keeping eternal life might not be as we were taught!

Acknowledgement to Brother Dan Corner, preacher, writer, and watchman on the wall.

Christian Colleges are Compromised

You may recall that last week I reviewed a Ken Ham book, Already Gone. It showed some surprising poll results and discussions.  Now I am reviewing another book by the same author, published two years later, called Already Compromised, with some more eye-opening poll results.  In this book, Mr. Ham’s intent was to survey 200 different Christian colleges, interviewing the president, the vice president, the head of the science department, and the head of the religion department—800 people.  But many ducked out or were impossible to reach, so his results were for 312 people. Over 2/3 of the people were from schools associated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, colleges that require all of their professors to sign a personal statement of faith.  The other 89 respondents were from schools that were religiously affiliated through an association with a religious denomination.  The responses were pretty much the same for both groups. 

What Mr. Ham found, was, these professors and administrators did not have enough vision for their religious purpose, to uphold God’s Word, so that they were unclear or compromising in their answers.  They seemed to have “one foot in the door” of the secular world’s wrong and sinful answers to these questions.  Let me give you an example of what I mean:  To the question “Do you believe in the inspiration of Scripture?”  98% said “Yes.”  Wonderful.  Until you think, “What watered-down meaning could “inspiration” have?  “I was painting under the inspiration of Michelangelo.”  So that’s a poor word choice.  So they also asked, “Do you believe in the inerrancy” or “in the infallibility of Scripture.”  Ah-ha—now only 74 to 81% agree.” 

Of course, the professor/administrator might argue, “I believe in the inerrancy of the original manuscripts,” which, of course, we don’t have.  They assume the process of making copy upon copy through the centuries would necessarily lead to errors and end the inerrancy.  Well, they haven’t read the results from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where some of the documents were made around 100 AD—so these are almost the original manuscripts.  When compared to the formerly oldest.manuscripts that we then had, they found that any differences when comparing Biblical texts, even centuries apart, were minor and did not affect even one doctrinal point.  None challenges any archeological find or historical data. Men did a great job of copying—perhaps God inspired them to the necessary rigor. 

So, based on the 74% who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, we know already that ¼ of these experts were ready to waffle on the Bible’s doctrines.  We found the same kind of silliness in answers shows up in the following question “Do you believe the Genesis account of creation as written?” 90% said “yes.”  Wonderful.  But then a couple questions were asked about the details of Genesis.  Now before I get to them, I should say, if you question the Book of Origins, you open the door to questioning anything you don’t like about the Bible, and you also open the door to secular and sinful belief systems.  Satan has done a great job convincing most of mankind about evolution (which takes more faith than Creation).  But if mankind believes we just evolved from primates, then we can dismiss God from our importance.  But if we are Created In the Image of God, as Scripture says, then we are accountable to Him for our actions—and what the Bible says about hell and abiding in Jesus to escape hell—are true.  So you see how important to believe in Genesis.  Besides, Jesus confirms the truth of all the stories in Genesis; so if you disbelieve them, you are in effect calling Jesus a liar—a dangerous space to be in.    

This first detail question comes from the 6 days of creation, in Genesis 1:5ff:  Scripture records each of these creations and ended with “so the evening and the morning were the first day” and “so the evening and the morning were the second day,” and so on.  Why does God point out “evening” and “morning?”  Simple.  So we would get the distinct impression that Creation was done in 6 24-hour days.  In Hermeneutics, we are told to take the Bible literally, whenever possible.  Well, here’s an easy one:  When it says “evening” and “morning,” does that mean one 24-hour day?  Of course.  We don’t have any trouble with “day” anywhere else in the Bible.  It’s easy to say, the Day of the Lord doesn’t mean one 24-hour day, and how 99% of uses of the word “day” are simply speaking of 24-hour periods.  So why do we have so much trouble with “day” in Genesis 1?  It seems that God said, “21^st century people are so dense, I’ll have to accentuate the point of what “day” means by saying “evening” and “morning.””  Well, these professors and administrators didn’t get the message.  While they were eager to please the question “Do you believe the Genesis account of creation as written?” 90% said “yes.”  Wonderful.  BUT to the question “Do you believe God created the earth in six 24-hour days?”  less than 60% said “yes.”   These are Christian colleges!  40% don’t believe in a literal translation of the Bible.

Well, they might argue by quoting the Gap theory.  They might say, well, in Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth was in the distant past, which creation included angels; but the angels fell, and must’ve created a mess, because in Genesis 1:2 it says “The earth was without form, and void…and the Hebrew words “without form and void” suggests that the earth was ruined and disorderly.  Well, that couldn’t have been the way God created it, which He created in perfection.  So God created the earth itself (no men yet) in the distant past, not in 24 hours; then a mess, then He started over by creating light on the first day of re-creation, etc.  That gives them room to believe in an old earth AND six 24-hour days.

Well, I might give them a pass, if that’s all they believed on the Gap theory. But every single lecture I’ve heard on the Gap theory, they “fill in” the Gap by saying the Gap was millions of years, and that’s when dinosaurs ruled, and they died, and left their bones, and that’s why their bones seem millions of years old.  (And they might throw in the evolution cycle in the Gap, too.)  The problem with these “Gap fill-ins” is, they assume death happened before Adam sinned—but death couldn’t have been in the picture until after Adam sinned—as Scripture points out.  So it seems to me that these interviewees are swayed against Scripture by secular dating, the “radiocarbon” method, and so on. But that method has a record of inaccuracy.  And, besides, couldn’t God have created the earth with age built in?  Or, couldn’t a world-wide Flood involve the kind of pressure to create coal and oil deposits?   

Oh, yes, the Flood.  Secular theorists make fun of Noah’s Flood.  But did you know that there are oral stories about a flood in every society in the world?  And don’t anthropologists say that if there is a story everywhere, then the story has a basis in fact?  Well, the Christian professors and administrators haven’t heard that.  They’re spending too much time listening to the secular views here, too.  To the question, “Do you believe in the flood of Noah’s day?”  91% say “yes.”  Wonderful. BUT when asked “Do you believe the flood was worldwide, local, or nonliteral (i.e., a fable), only 58% said it was worldwide!  Again, 42% don’t believe their Bible.  Wait a minute; doesn’t Genesis 7:19-21 say:

 And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ ….and the mountains were covered. ²¹ And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.

This time, these 42% have no excuse for ducking out of the Bible; folks, either they believe the Bible, or they don’t.  Clearly, some 42% don’t. Like I said, if they bend the knee to the satanic secularist in Genesis, they’ll listen to them first anywhere else it’s important.  If the Flood was just local, then God’s purpose…destroying every living person on earth (except Noah’s)…would be frustrated.  As Genesis 6:7 says:

So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

The problem here is much bigger than you might first imagine.  First, by not believing Genesis 7:19 about the Flood being worldwide, they are forced not to believe Genesis 6:7 either.  Making God out to be a liar twice—again, a dangerous place to be.  But even bigger is, this is a slander on God’s character.  They refuse to believe that God would kill every person on earth (except 8).  But the Bible explains God’s reason, which they evidently also don’t believe, in Genesis 6:5-6:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

God will judge unrepentant sin harshly.  We don’t appreciate how much He hates sin, how holy He is.  We don’t appreciate how much we sin, how little we even think about it, or how much it offends God.  Or how much of a price Jesus paid, or how bad hell is, or how much we’re saved from.  We can’t thank God enough until we spend some time thinking on these things.  But distorting God’s Word, eliminating some of it, and then teaching only part of God’s character, is a terrible sin too. 

We should be very careful to believe and obey what His Word clearly says, and that responsibility goes especially for teachers of His Word. 

Ken Ham believes the term “newspeak,” from Orwell’s classic 1984, is being replicated in today’s colleges.  Words mean different things to different people.  When they asked the professors/administrators “What does your institution teach about the Bible?” only 35% gave a straight answer, “It is true” (but do they mean Literally true? Hmm.)  25% said “it is inspired by God,” which could be good, depending on what they mean by “inspired.”  But 23% said “it is a book of guidelines,” which seems to suggest that one could take it or leave it without reprisal (thus making Man the judge of God). And 9% said “we teach it then dissect it,” which (considering what “dissect” really means) strongly suggests some negative comparisons would be taught on its commands—again, making Man the judge of what doctrines are good, what doctrines are bad. If you are charitable to their meaning of the word “inspired,” you get 35%+25% giving the correct answer—thus 40% are on the wrong side, again. 

Another surprising poll result was found by comparing the heads of the religion departments and the heads of the science departments.  Take a gander at the results below:

Question:  “Do you believe the Flood was worldwide, local, or nonliteral?”  Only 57% of the religion department heads believed it was worldwide.  And 12% believed it was “nonliteral,” or a fable. Like Jack and the Beanstalk.  These folks ought to pray about their eternal futures. But the poll questions below is where the real surprises come in:

Question:  “Do you believe in God creating the earth in six 24-hour days?”  Only 57% of the religion departments said “Yes,” BUT 71% of the science department heads said “yes.” 

Question:  “Would you consider yourself a young-earth, or old-earth Christian?”  The religion department said “old-earth” 78% of the time, but the science department were less enthusiastic about this theory, which can throw in the Gap theory, the progressive evolution, the theistic evolution, etc. They said “old-earth only 35% of the time! 

What I think we’re getting about this data is, the science department keeps track of the incredible detail in the DNA, and how generations of species all stay within their families, and how the universe is finite, and how the earth is in a perfect environment in 34 different ways, just to support Man; and they have more often seen that Darwin’s theories are all hokum and bombast.  The religion department probably gets a lot of criticism for supporting the Bible, and have wavered in their support.  Maybe they don’t know the latest discoveries of science, which favor Creation.  . 

I need to mention that Mr. Ham does not mince words on professors that garble on Scripture, quoting 12 men, and their big-name colleges, in the Appendix.  He also has high praise for one college, in West Virginia, no less, that gets it.  And he names all the colleges that participated in the survey in a website as well.

Now let’s give Ham’s summary quote: 

   If you send your students to a Christian college or institution, three out of four times in school they will likely be in front of a teacher who has a degraded view and interpretation of Scripture…Like it or not, we are at war—a war of worldviews… What most families are not aware of, however, is the depths to which these secular influences have infiltrated Christian institutions.”  

The future looks even bleaker.  With his question, “Do you believe the Flood was worldwide, local, or non-literal?” the Presidents of the institutions said “worldwide” 87% of the time; but the Vice President (the future president, in many cases) agreed only 43% of the time!  My question is, where are they getting these vice presidents from?  Let’s assume the VP is younger.  Does this mean younger people are all more skeptical, or that they’re hiring VPs now from secular schools, or that seminaries have gone corrupt over the years? None of these possibilities are good signs. 

Another shocker was in the question “Do you believe in the inerrancy of Scriptures?”  78% of the VPs agreed, but only 21% of the presidents! This does not correlate to their answers regarding the Flood.  It really suggests the VPs are vastly confused, claiming to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, but flatly disagreeing with Scripture’s plain teaching on the Flood.  Since the VP is usually behind the hiring of faculty, a confused VP cannot be counted on to hire those who believe in the Scripture being God’s Word.

Mr. Ham’s book here is a great read.  My suggestion to parents of college-bound kids—Train your child in Scripture yourself, as early as possible!  And live a godly life with prayer and Bible reading frequently.  Many Christian colleges won’t do the job of supporting a truly Christian worldview.  They’re infected with secular professors and administrators. 

Acknowledgement:  Ken Ham and Greg Hall, Already Compromised.  Master Books, 2011.

Are Churches in U.S. a Generation Away from Being Ghost Towns?

Ken Ham, whom many of you know is the president of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum and the Noah Encounter, wrote a blockbuster book, along with polling and statistics-minded Britt Beemer, called Already Gone.  I’m a little late on this scene, since the book and the poll were written 10 years ago—but it’s still relevant.  Let’s discuss the controversial results and conclusions he draws on some troubling aspects of teens and those who teach them. 

He first points to a Barna 2006 survey (another great pollster) of 22,000 young adults who were involved in a church during their teen years—but they are now spiritually disengaged. They are no longer actively participating in the Christian faith in their 20s. Specifically, he found that the 61% of them no longer go to church, don’t study their Bibles, give very little financially, do not volunteer, and do not order Christian media.  Only 20% of those who were spiritually active in high school are maintaining their commitment at the same level.  Further, Barna found that only 6% of those in 20s and 30s can be called “evangelical.”    

Confirming this serious drop-off, the Baptist Convention discovered that more than 2/3 of young Protestant high-schoolers active in church later stopped attending at all for at least a year between the ages of 18-22.

Mr. Ham wanted to study only kids brought up in conservative and evangelical churches for this poll.  Beemer made 20,000 phone calls.  The final study was balanced according to population and gender, and included kids from publics, Christian schools, and home-schooled.  He found that kids were abandoning the church proportionately, no matter the kind of schooling. Christian schooled kids abandoned the church at the same high levels.

Here are some of the blockbuster results he found: 

·         Kids don’t wait till college to “escape” the church:  One survey took all those who are now in their 20s, who have been evangelicals, who attended church regularly but no longer do so.  So these dropout rates will add up to 100%.  Please do not misconstrue what I am doing here; we are not pointing out that all kids drop out.  We are simply trying to assess when all the drop-offs actually drop off.  Here are the pollster data: 5% drop out before they finish elementary, 40% drop out in middle school and 44% of them drop out in high school.  Despite what you might think about corrupt college destroying their minds, you’re wrong:  89% of them are already gone before college.  So there isn’t much belief for college to destroy. So, only 11% disappear by the end of college.  So no, the problem is only minimally helped by upholding young adults’ Christian views in college.  The main problem is somewhere else—and somewhere earlier. 

·         So, from the Baptists and the Barna studies, we lose 61-67% of our kids.  And they leave as soon as they are “bright” enough to figure what is going on.  So this is a serious, serious problem.  We need to pray about what’s really behind this horrible decline.  Looking at these young people as our church’s future, we have to conclude that our evangelical churches are only a generation removed from being “ghost towns” for the young. This creeps into middle age and beyond later. (Looking at population of liberal church declines, they are getting there faster.)

Many parents who spend big bucks to send their child to a Christian college to avoid corruption are simply too late on the scene.  They should have done something radically different for their children in the 4^th or 5^th grade. 

·         A precipitating cause of this sudden apathy among children might be a finding from the same Beemer poll:  He asked questions to determine those who “no longer believe that all of the stories in the Bible are true.”  He found that 40% first had doubts in middle school, 44% first had doubts in high school, and 11% first had doubts during college.  You can see that these are the exact same percentages as those who left church at each age group.  So it seems that we should be focusing on “what makes them turned off to the Bible,” not just asking a vaguer question “why they leave.” For sure, they are not bound by tradition; as soon as they don’t believe, they scoot. And parents don’t seem to stop them.

·         Beemer decided to explore Sunday School, and found an even more shocking—even mind-blowing—result.  He asked the 20-somethings if they often attended Sunday School when younger.  61% said “yes,” and 39% said “no.”  Comparing how the two groups felt about critical issues, he found the following shocking facts:

a.   The 61% students who attended Sunday School were more likely NOT to believe in the truth of Bible stories;

b.   The SS attenders were more likely to “doubt the Bible because it was written by men;”

c.   The SS attenders were more likely to doubt the Bible because it was “not translated correctly;”

d.   The SS attenders were more likely to defend that abortion should continue to be legal (!);

e.   SS attenders believed more than the non-SSrs in many of the evolution ideas; the earth is old, dinosaurs were before men, animals changed from one kind to another;

f.    The SS attenders were more likely to defend premarital sex (48% vs 41% of non-SSers);

g.   The SS attenders were more likely to view the church as hypocritical.

h.   25% of those who attended Sunday School believed that “God used evolution to create human beings;” but only 19% of that crazy belief is shared by non-SSers.

i.     For the question “Do you feel the Church is relevant to your needs today?”  46% of SS attenders said “no,” but only 40% of non-SSers felt the same rejection.   

What is happening here?  Is the corrupting of the minds that I alluded to earlier caused by Sunday School teachers?  Upon further study, the answer is most likely No.  Remember, these are kids in conservative churches.  Other data Beemer shared do NOT show their teachers or pastors teaching corrupt Gospel. So this alarming data still cries for an answer.  The clear fact here is that Sunday School really had no impact, apparently, on what children believed in critical moral areas.  It didn’t help them develop a Christian worldview.  In fact, it had a detrimental impact—it seemed to harm the spiritual growth of the kids. 

Was the problem HOW they were taught? Such as, did the teachers unintentionally teach Bible stories as fables? Or did the other kids in Sunday School, or their parents’ hypocrisy or pressure trigger the kids’ rebellion, so they were worse off than if they had never heard the Bible, and had to think it out on their own? 

The problem could not have been simply the overwhelming secular system, with its 30-hours of teaching a week (vs. 30 minutes of teaching the Bible in Sunday School). If that were the cause, both Sunday School and non-Sunday School would have, at worst, similar results.  The problem is that SS attenders were worse. 

Mr. Ham and Mr. Beemer considered what to do about this grave problem.

1)   He asks:  Should we eradicate Sunday School?  He does say that Deuteronomy 6:6-9 insist that fathers and mothers teach their children the Gospel:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.  

Likewise Ephesians 6:4:

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

He also acknowledges that Sunday School is not a long tradition in the church; it only dates from the 1700s.  Finally, he feels that Sunday School allows parents to shrug off their responsibilities as the primary teachers of the children.

Nevertheless, he can’t bring himself to the radical step to eradicate Sunday School.  He proposes a second idea:

2)   Shall we renovate Sunday School?   He says Yes, by, among other things, teaching more apologetics.  Apologetics is defending every teaching of the Bible as the Word of God.  Now here’s my thought:  Aren’t we supposed to be teaching the Bible to these elementary, or middle schoolers, before they are overwhelmed by their secular schools’ doctrines?  But how can we teach apologetics, a conceptual and difficult process, to those so young?  And, keep in mind, few in the adult teachers have this capability.  Also, renovation has already been tried a thousand other ways, but we still get the distressing results above.  I personally don’t see this idea turning things radically around like we need. 

Then he writes about how some of those who left church might return if they have children of their own.  Here is his quote about those who might return when they have children.  But what I see in this statement is that he might have stumbled upon possibly the root problem for these “turned off” kids instead.

“What they object to, however, is hypocrisy, legalism, and self-righteousness.  The Bible is relevant to them, but the church is not.  This group needs to be convinced that Christians in the church are living by God’s truth, and are living in a way that is relevant to their lives.”

So let’s run with using this quote as maybe why kids are turned off.  Let’s consider each charge individually.  Hypocrisy is defined as living in a different way than what you say. Elementary kids pay attention to what their parents say; so when their parents run down the pastor’s salary, or the Sunday School teacher’s lazy lifestyle, they pick that information up.  Then when that teacher or that pastor preaches about how they should live a holier life, when the child sees how they live (per their parents), the child become familiar with hypocrisy.  The kids then are not interested in “holier” as is represented here. 

Legalism is defined as judging people based on surface criteria.  Let’s say mom is fundamental enough to send her kids to Sunday School.  Mom also happens to mention about how some teenage girl dresses like a slut in church.  Her daughter knows that girl, and knows how the girl took time to help her at her homework once, or how she has a perpetually friendly personality (and how she wishes she had one too).  The daughter becomes familiar with legalism of her mother. 

Self-righteousness shows in too many families.  A lot of kids get the general feeling that since their parents have more money, the parents feel that God must love them and is rewarding them with wealth for being good parents, having sent them to Sunday School and all.  But the kids know how their parents ignore them when they have real needs, and don’t have time for them—work gets in the way. Getting more money, to them, means work and cash are placed higher than the kids.  The parents’ view of God is wrong, they conclude, so Christianity must have deeper flaws when it makes their parents like that.

Brothers and sisters, what do we learn from this?  For one thing, speak carefully about other people when your kids are around.  Avoid picking one a child or adult that you know little about.  Avoid speaking critically about other people, knowing that we each have sins of our own to wrestle with.  Never sacrifice your kids, putting work or money on a higher plane.  And certainly avoid thinking that God’s love for you can be measured by how much money you have. Explain to kids that money is simply a gift from God, and we seek His approval other ways instead. Sadly, as Jesus pointed out, many rich people are living the best life that will be available to them—they will go to hell when they die.  Many poor people will have an eternity in heaven. So riches are not a measure of God’s approval.

Maybe this idea of renovating the parents is not the solution that will work. We’re asking parents to sacrifice and change habits and somehow focus on what their child really needs—is that asking too much?

I wish the Sunday School problem could be solved by making an astounding curriculum.  But the truth is, Satan is temporarily the god of the earth, and targets the young children to win them over to the world and never live for God.  Parents should make it the FIRST desire of their heart to prepare their kids to face up to all of Satan’s tricks, by reading and learning His Word.  Don’t forget, when Jesus was tempted, He answered Satan with Scripture.   

The book covers a lot of other topics, but this one is the one that touches my heart.  This is not meant to be a summary of the book, but just about certain eye-popping data and thoughts around it.

Acknowledgement:  Already Gone, by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer.    

How Long Do Christians Have to Suffer in Tribulation? (Part 3 of 3)

The order of End Times events we left off Part II was: Deception, wars, famine (these 3 are called “the beginning of sorrows”), then the abomination of desolation (the antrichrist) in the holy place (i.e., in Jerusalem), then the tribulation with death and martyrdom of Jews and Christians. Then the cosmic disturbance, blackening the sky, then the sign (like bright lightning), then His Coming in the clouds, visible to all, with angels blowing the trumpet, believers are rescued, gathered in the sky—and then on the same day, the Day of the Lord’s wrath on the rest begins.

Now other questions arise: “How long do all these End Time events take? How long will the tribulation—the death and martyrdom--be? What event triggers these horrors?” The answers to those three questions are in Daniel 9:24ff:

“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

Very difficult verses, but here are likely the main points:

a. Since the word "seven" (an accurate NIV translation) doesn't explain time, we will change the word “seven” above  into “seven years,” simply because of the accuracy of the date that it predicts. Follow that assumption below and you'll see what I mean:

b.With that "seven"="7 year" assumption, the span of time from the command to “restore and build Jerusalem,” until “the Anointed One” (the Messiah, Jesus), was prophesied to be 7x7 years+62x7 years, or 49+434=483 years. But these are Hebrew years, of 360 days each. To translate it to Roman years, our years, with leap year every four years, a real year is really 365.24 days. 483 times 360/365.24 is 476. So 483 Hebrew years is 476 Roman, or our years, being predicted for the span of time between those events.

c. As it turned out, the 476 years prophesied was dead-on, which is why we substituted "years" for "sevens." The actual command to restore Jerusalem happened under the Persian emperor Artaxerxes, in 444 BC. Jesus, the Anointed One, died (as proven on another blog I have) in 33 AD. Keep in mind, you only count a year from 1 BC until 1 AD (there was no “year zero,” so you lose a year in the count. So the span of time goes like this: Adding 444 BC to 33 AD, minus 1, you get—476! As prophesied! Well, why should we be surprised—that’s the way God does it.

d. As you may have noticed, only 69 (7+62) of the 70 required “sevens,” or 7-year periods (see Dan. 9:24), of Jewish suffering have happened already. Only 483 of the required 490 Hebrew years. So the 70th seven-year period has not happened yet. So we can possibly assume the last 7 years prophesied is still in the future. (The phrase “Anointed One will be put to death”—verse 26--MAYBE suggests a stop to the counting of years at 33 AD, with the final seven reserved for the future--we're assuming that). I’m also suggesting (with proof for this idea, below) that the six events, or “seals,” we’ve talked about in Revelation 6 and confirmed in Matthew 24 (deception, wars, famine, death, martyrdom, rescue) will take 7 years to happen—so you can see why we make it the 70th “seven.” I’m finally suggesting (with more proof below) that the last 3 seals last for half the seven years, or 3-1/2 years. That means, of course, that the tribulation (two of those last 3 seals—death and martyrdom) are in those last 3-1/2 years, before Christ comes again at the tail-end of the 6th seal.

What is my proof for these claims? Let’s start with the “ruler who will come," under whose orders "his people---will destroy….the sanctuary” (v. 26). That can’t be speaking of Jesus. It’s talking of the deceiver, the antichrist, who is trying to take His place as God. Before this, he will “confirm a covenant” (v.27), presumably with the Jews, to protect them as he pretends to be their friend (that's his deception). This will happen at the beginning of the seventieth 7 years, since he did it “for one seven” (v.27), a 7-year covenant covering the span of the 70th "seven." But then “in the “middle of the seven” (v.27), or after 3-1/2 years, he breaks the covenant, doing sacrilege (an “abomination,” as Daniel 9 calls it), thus revealing his true nature as an enemy of Jews. Jesus, in mentioning end times in Daniel, warned Jews to run for their lives when they see this (Matthew 24:15-16). Now you can easily assume that the antichrist will spend the last 3-1/2 years, from the middle to the end of the 7 years, killing Jews and Christians. See Rev. 13:7 for proof of Christians being involved:

It was granted to him (the antichrist) to make war with the SAINTS and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.

There is NO Scripture that limits the word "saints" to Jews. Saints always refer to all God's children.  Since there was no previous rapture, the living saints have to go through the tribulation--as we have proved in other ways.

Proof of the second 3-1/2 year time period is how it is also prophesied in several Biblical passages. It’s variously called “time and times and half a time,” or 3-1/2 times, “42 months” and “1260 days,” all meaning 3-1/2 years (these references are in Rev. 11:2,3; 12:6, and 13:5, and Daniel 7:25). That’s the length of the Death and Martyrdom —and the length of the tribulation, as the rescue/rapture doesn't come until the last day. This perfectly proves our prior idea that the antichrist splits the last 7 years in half (see Dan. 9:27b).  As you can surmise, the first 3-1/2 years of the 7 year period was the deception period, the wars, and the famine. Then is the antichrist's unveiling in the middle. Since the antichrist boasts that he is God (Rev. 13:6), he gets his commands from Satan, and we can fairly presume he was the biggest reason for those first three seals, or disasters, too. As we pointed out before, Revelation 12:2 shows how Satan will be enjoying himself causing such grief and death. So for the first 3-1/2 years he makes a peace pact with the Jews, pretending to be their friend. But then he makes war, consolidating power. War's destruction helps bring on famine. Then in the middle of the 7 years, he does sacrilege, the abomination, and reveals himself as their (and saints') enemy, then in the last 3-1/2 years--the tribulation--he goes all-out to kill all Jews and Christians. Don't forget, this order of events is proven in Matthew 24 AND Revelation 6 (see Part II). After all that, at the end, the rapture saves remaining genuine Christians from physical death and the wrath of God is reserved for those who have ignored God and ignored His laws.

Jesus, in Matthew 24:15-21, clearly says the antichrist’s revealing himself (which is in the middle of the 7 years) begins the tribulation.

“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains… 21 For THEN there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

Thus, to repeat this for emphasis, the real tribulation is not 7 years, but only the latter 3-1/2 years. This latter period is also called “travail” in Rev. 12:2. Also, this is not God’s wrath, and also remember, Christians go through the tribulation, see Parts I and II in my blogs of the two weeks for more proof of that.

Some interesting additional facts: In the tribulation will come the most audacious move of the antichrist’s reign. He will evidently have the world’s worship and control of the world’s money system—because he will implant, on the hands/foreheads of everyone who submits to him, a “mark.” Thus, buying or selling food, etc. is impossible unless you submit to his lordship and receive the mark (Rev. 13:16-17). Let us never submit to that, because as an angel will warn everyone (Rev. 14:9-11), anyone who thus submits to the antichrist WILL WRITE HIS OR HER TICKET TO HELL:

Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” 

You may ask, cynically, "If I want to follow God and reject the mark, will God "reward" me by allowing me to starve?" or "Will God send me to hell for eternity just because I wanted food, and took the mark?" I'm betting God will show many of His faithful ones a separate way to get food. Maybe even by miracles. Waiting out starvation, exercising this kind of resolve and faith will be challenging for Christians, but saving your soul will be definitely worth it. Yes, in saving your soul, your body may be martyred. Yes, there will be many who will be weak and fall away. (II Thess. 2:1-4). Do not join them! You must endure to the end to be saved! (Matthew 10:22).

Another interesting additional fact: Two "witnesses" (maybe Elijah and Moses) will appear for the last 3-1/2 years, prophesying God's truth and performing miracles (Rev. 11:3,5-12), such as fire from their mouths destroying their enemies, stopping rain from falling, and rising from the dead.

***So here is our final course of events: At the very beginning of the 7-year End Times, Antichrist makes a covenant to protect Israel, deceiving the world--and the Jews. This begins Daniel’s 70th 7-year period. First 3-1/2 years are the “beginning of sorrows:” Deceit by the antichrist, Wars, and Famine. Then the antichrist desecrates the holy place in Jerusalem, reveals himself as an enemy of Jews and saints, and we begin the last 3-1/2 years, the tribulation, the “travail”: Death and Martyrdom of Jews and Christians. The antichrist institutes a mark--you must worship him to buy or sell. Two witnesses speak up for God and perform miracles. Then at the end of the 7 years, we have the cosmic disturbance, and the Coming, which is: the sign (bright lightning), then His appearance in the skies with angels blowing the trumpet, believers rescued, they are gathered to be with Him. On the same day, then the Day of the Lord’s wrath begins on the unsaved.

Let’s say this one more time: As you can see, from our three-week analysis: (1) the tribulation is not the same as God’s wrath; and (2) Christians are not raptured until the end—we have to endure the tribulation. Many of them will die first. (3) Saved people (rescued) and unsaved people (wrath) are dealt with on the same Day of the Lord—there is no one “left behind.” Other theories some theologians give are popular simply because they say just what you want to hear, as II Timothy 4:3-4 says:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

The most popular alternate theory is the pretribulationist, or “pretrib” theory—that Christians are raptured before the tribulation. Escaping such devastation sounds so nice. But don’t fall for this; as this 3-part study proves, the order of events is otherwise. Read the Scriptures yourself. (Consider this too: The pre-trib theory feeds an “AWOL” mentality; see my comments in part I). Even their best pre-trib mind, John F. Walvoord, from Dallas Theological Seminary, admits their theory is shaky and has no real Scriptural proof. In his book, The Rapture Question, page 16 and 148, he says: “Neither posttribulationism nor pretribulationism is an explicit teaching of the Scriptures…it is therefore not too much to say that the rapture question is determined more by ecclesiology (what different church denominations believe) than eschatology.” (Wait a minute…this is supposed to be a study of eschatology--a study in the future! Mr. Walvoord, you’re admitting you can’t find Scriptural support in future studies?) Richard Mayhue, also a proponent of the pretrib view, told the Grace Theological Seminary “perhaps the position of pretribulationism is correct although its proof at times has been logically invalid or at least unconvincing.”

And all the pre-tribbers say, “Thanks for the support.”

Let’s believe the Bible, not theological suppositions which have as their highlight, that you can escape suffering. After all, Jesus and Paul said we would suffer for Him (Romans 8:17, among many others).