Anyone who has christian friends on Facebook has likely seen the claims—probably many times. Things like, “We had two folks get saved last night, y’all,” or “There was a mighty moving of the Spirit at our revival meeting, and four people came forward and got saved!”
The biggest problem with such assertions is that folks who make them have no idea what it actually means to “get saved.” They think it is a decision that a person makes—that all one needs to do is to get really emotional at a “church” meeting, go forward during what they call an “invitation” or “altar call,” pray really, really hard (maybe even cry a little), ask forgiveness for past sins (for some unscriptural reason), and then claim to “accept” Messiah into their hearts (something found in no scripture whatsoever).
These are all nothing but christianese niceties that have absolutely nothing to do with actually being born again. They come from a false belief system that invented its own path to salvation, having rejected the true path to salvation that is shown to us throughout scripture. In fact, christianity, the counterfeit of the true faith, has so perverted the true path to salvation that most christians cannot even see it when it is shown to them.
Salvation is NOT a decision that man can make, for man does not have the power or authority to save. Because christianity threw away the Father’s traditions, due to the inventors of christianity (who were pagans) hating the physical Jews so bitterly, they removed from their understanding all the ways those traditions present the true path to salvation for us—the Passover journey, the way of the tabernacle, the counting of the omer—all these things point to ONE important truth: the salvation of Messiah’s bride by the giving of the new covenant.
No, christianity, by discarding these important physical details the Father gave for our spiritual understanding, was left with a false salvation devoid of the Father’s will and the Holy Spirit’s leading, nourishing, indwelling, and testimony. It invented a salvation that is decided by man, directed by man, and declared by man. It’s as if christians literally think they have the power to decide themselves saved by wrapping their human decision in false “holy-ghost paper.”
For someone to claim to have personally witnessed someone else being saved, he would have to be able to look within someone else’s heart. He would have to be able to see a testimony from the Holy Spirit given to a person who has believed. But, that is impossible to do, so any claim that a christian makes that someone “got saved” at their “church” is nothing more than a wishful fairytale, for man does not have the ability to see a person receive the covenant (Holy Spirit).
Man is told to believe in Messiah Yahoshua (repent of unbelief, which is to believe), and then to confess Messiah before others (which is to endure in belief—taking a stand for the true Gospel of Yahoshua will typically draw the ridicule, derision, and rejection of religious folks who think their human decision is what saved them, and some passages of scripture confirmed it to them, which scripture cannot do). THAT IS IT! Man has no other duty in salvation than to believe in and confess Messiah before others (endure in belief).
From that point, the one who has repented of his unbelief (believed) is to patiently await the giving of the covenant, just as the physical Jews (foreshadow of Messiah’s bride) had to do once they left Egypt by the preparation of the Passover, and journeyed to the mountain. That is the patience that James speaks of (the trying of one’s belief that ultimately makes him perfect and complete, lacking nothing—which is to be spiritually resurrected by the Holy Spirit).
It is the refusal to “fall away” (Luke 8:13) or “shrink back” (Hebrews 10:39) from one’s belief, in the face of mockery and accusations from others, that will result in the END (goal) of one’s belief, which is the salvation of his soul (1 Peter 1:9). Christianity falsely peddles a salvation that is the beginning of someone’s belief, as if one’s belief IS salvation. No, belief is the first step, just as Passover is the preparation before Unleavened Bread.
By rejecting the Father’s traditions, christianity created a counterfeit of salvation—a false salvation in which mere humans openly declare that they saw others “getting saved,” simply because others made a public decision and declaration. What they are describing is not salvation at all, but just someone’s choice to join “Club Christian.”
These folks who have declared their own salvation, and who reject the doctrine of salvation that it must be received by the will of the Father, are the foolish virgins who lack oil (Holy Spirit) for their lamp. They falsely think they had the power to place that oil in their lamp—but ONLY the Father has that authority, and when He does that, the Holy Spirit will testify DIRECTLY and PERSONALLY to the one who has believed, and endured in that belief, that he has been made a child of Yah (Romans 8:16).
And, how does the Holy Spirit do that? Peter told us exactly how He does that on the very day that He was poured out as the New Covenant to Messiah’s bride in Acts 2:17. And, yet, christians everywhere proclaim that the Holy Spirit no longer works that way—as if the Holy Spirit has changed at some point in human history. It’s as if Peter explained how the Holy Spirit works on the day He was given as the new covenant, but that the Holy Spirit mysteriously stopped doing that in some unknown year. How ludicrous such a thought is!
For more information: Top 5 Christian Salvation Myths