To hear most any christian preacher or teacher tell it, salvation is the easiest thing to receive. All you have to do is “accept Christ,” or “ask forgiveness for your sins,” or “give your life to Christ.”
What did Messiah Yahoshua say about it?
“Strive to enter in through the narrow door; for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and will not be able.” Luke 13:24
To strive means to struggle, fight, endure, wrestle with an adversary, or compete to win a prize. What part of those things is found in a salvation that “all you have to do is come forward and give your life to Christ”?
Messiah said that MANY would attempt to get into the kingdom, but would not be able to. But, christianity teaches that all you have to do make a decision, and you’re in.
I’ve been in meetings where a very famous preacher with a very famous “church” and a very famous school told those who had come forward at the end of his sermon, in front of everyone, “Now you are saved—don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not.”
First, how did he look on their hearts? How could he discern, without even talking personally with them, that anything had occurred within them? He couldn’t. No man can.
But, more importantly, he was peddling the false teaching that salvation is something that man decides. No, being a christian is something man decides, and that is nothing more than a religious club (and a false one, at that).
Nobody is called to be a christian, especially when one understands that christianity is a counterfeit of the true faith, and nobody in the New Testament EVER called himself a “christian.” They knew that term to be one of mocking, ridicule, and shame. It means “little messiah,” or “little christ.”
And, when christianity and the Holy Spirit are at odds, the latter is always the right road. What does He tell us? Well, again, in this passage, we’re told that there is a striving one must do to enter the kingdom. That striving is endurance in belief—regardless of whatever consequences there may be for doing so.
Most of the time, those consequences involve some sort of relational loss, often after rejection, false rebuke, condemnation by friends and family, and accusations of being misled by “false teachings” (which is ironic, as the accusers are the ones clinging to a false belief system).
Messiah Yahoshua said that some people will believe with all joy for awhile, but they will fall away because they have no root (they never receive the source of life, who is the Holy Spirit). In Hebrews 10:39, we’re told of folks who believed, and didn’t shrink back from their belief, but endured in it all the way to the saving of their souls.
Why, oh why, would any of that be necessary if salvation is simply a matter of making a decision, stating it in front of some people, getting dunked in water, and then living according to a list of dos and don’ts that christianity has determined to be necessary to prove that one is saved (at least not doing the “don’ts” in public)?
It’s because the salvation-by-decision that christianity teaches is false. Folks might actually take the first step on the path to salvation, but then christianity tells them that they’re saved by that step, and then there really is no reason to endure in belief all the way to point of receiving the covenant.
Why would I, through belief, daily seek the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me to the point of receiving the covenant (as we’re shown by the Passover journey), if my human decision immediately placed the Holy Spirit into me, as christianity falsely teaches? Of course, most christians equate various things about themselves and their feelings as being “the holy spirit.”
It’s all a lie. It’s essentially the same lie that Satan told Eve in the garden—“just believe what I’m telling you, and you shall not surely die.”
Believe in Messiah Yahoshua. That’s the first step on the path to salvation. It is the prerequisite that makes one ABLE to be saved.
Confess Messiah Yahoshua before others. This is the necessary endurance in belief to get from Egypt (the world) through the wilderness (period of leading by the Holy Spirit) to the mountain, where the covenant is given.
We even see some of them who made it to the mountain not believing what they had been told, and taking matters into their own hands, crafting a golden calf and claiming they were going to use it in their worship of the Father. Those who did not repent of that lack of belief (false worship) were killed. Those who repented of their unbelief received the covenant.
Christianity’s false salvation puts Mt. Sinai in Egypt—it puts the Ark of the Covenant in the Outer Courtyard. It then places the baptismal laver somewhere BEYOND the Holy of Holies, when it is actually located in the Outer Courtyard (water baptism was a physical foreshadow under the law; true baptism is receiving the Holy Spirit).
It ignores all of the valuable traditions and teachings we are given through the entirety of scripture by which the Father demonstrates to us, physically, how the spiritual gift of salvation is received.
The belief system that was invented after the New Testament writers had all died, and was codified in the 4th century as “christianity” with its “jesus” and its “salvation-by-decision” is the “falling away” that Paul foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. It is not the true Gospel of Yahoshua.
It is a counterfeit—a deception crafted by the chief enemy of all humanity. And, we’re told that sometimes, he masquerades as an angel of light. Go figure.
For more information: What Is Saving Belief?