Enduring Faith: The Key to Eternal Salvation

Understanding the key to eternal salvation and true faith in Jesus Christ.

Examining the concept of being saved and inheriting eternal life.

Exploring the difference between a profession of faith and genuine trust in Jesus.

Discovering the importance of abiding in God's word and living a life of faithfulness.

Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music This urgent message brought to you today is probably one of the most important and vital questions of all times that we should ask ourselves in this day and year of 2022. The question is, am I truly saved? If I died tonight, will I inherit eternal life and spend eternity with my Savior Jesus Christ? Jesus tells us in John's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 6, I am the way and the truth and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me. Is it possible to know if a person is truly saved or has eternal life in Christ? Well, there are many who don't think you can know for sure, and yet there are others who teach that once a person pronounces a scripture and invites Jesus into their hearts, they are assured of eternal salvation. A scripture that is overused in this way is found in Romans 10.9, that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. For instance, by using the expression to say, ask Jesus into your life or heart or by using a scripture believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Acts chapter 16 verses 31 through 32. But this is not enough. Jesus Christ is not cheap. He paid a high price to have those whom he calls his child or the redeemed of the Lord. It must be noted first of all that God Almighty is not the author of confusion, but he is a loving God of peace and cares very much for all of his creation. John 3, verse 16 tells us, For God so loved the world and dearly prized the world, he even gave up his only begotten Son, so that whomever believes in, trusts in, clings to, and relies on him shall not perish, shall not come to destruction or be lost, but have eternal everlasting life. Nowhere in God's word does it say just invite the Lord Jesus into your heart or life and you will be saved. There is more to true salvation than this doctrine of error. We never want to rest on that belief or on a scripture that we fit into our head and call it good for our cushion of safety as an avenue for entering into the gates of heaven when we never go beyond one scripture. When the scripture declares, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, it is a simple, plain, and fruitful direction in what any individual who is seeking forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ must do. The command was to believe. It did not tell them to rely on the means of grace or to pray or continue to look for salvation or any other way. The command was to believe at once. To believe means to have faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior. It means to trust in, to rely on him in what his word says. 1 John 5, verse 13. The beloved apostle John declares, I write this to you who believe, who adhere to, trust in, rely on, the name of the Son of God in peculiar services and blessings conferred by him on man, so that you may know with settled and absolute knowledge that you already have life, yes, eternal life. So yes, dear listener, it is possible to know that you have eternal life because God's word tells us so. It is true that many professing Christians doubt that they have been saved because they don't see signs of genuine faith in their lives. For some, the truth of the living God is not alive and vibrant in their hearts and lives. Let's look at the Bible dictionary of the word believe or have faith. Believe, according to the Bible dictionary, is to place one's trust in God's truth. one who takes God as his word and trusts in him for salvation. You see, even mere agreement to God's truth is not saving faith according to the Bible. And this is saying that just because someone utters these words, it is not enough. Jesus said in John chapter 8 verse 31, Jesus said to the Jews who believed him, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. So Jesus tells us that we must continue in his word, which are his commandments and his doctrines. And he says, if you love me, you will obey me. And Romans chapter 8 verse 1 says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Those who are growing and living in Christ are those who love him with all of their hearts, their souls, their minds, and everything within them. They hate it if they should sin because they know first of all that they have offended the one whom their heart loves. And this is where the true test of genuine Christian character and fruit of one's life shows who is real in their genuine faith and love for Jesus Christ and who is playing the hypocrite or just deceiving themselves right into perdition. The Jews who believed were admonished by Jesus to prove their faith by their faithfulness. Faith, belief, and trust in Jesus makes one a true child of God. This child of God will be abiding or living in the word and growing in understanding, which is really knowing the truth, and will make one a true bona fide disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus is speaking about spiritual matters when he was speaking to the believing Jews at that time. He was not speaking about the physical realm. A lost sinner is in bondage to the things of the world. And he tells us that knowing the truth and living it makes us free because the truth is found in Jesus Christ. Even in the account of Simon the sorcerer, the word tells us that Simon believed. let's look at that account in Acts chapter 8 beginning in verse 9 and see a zoom in so to speak into Simon's heart but there was a man named Simon who had formerly practiced magic arts in the city to the utter amazement of the Sumerian nation claiming that he himself was an extraordinary and distinguished person and they all paid earnest attention to him from the least to the greatest saying This man has that exhibition of the power of God, which is called great intent. Verse 11. And they were attentive and made much of him, because for a long time he had amazed and bewildered and dazzled them with his skill in magic arts. But when they believed the good news, the gospel about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as Philip preached it, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed and adhered to, trusted and relied on the teachings of Philip. And after being baptized, he devoted himself constantly to him. And seeing signs and miracles of great power which were being performed, he was utterly amazed. And when the apostles, the special messengers at Jerusalem heard that the country of Samaria had accepted and welcomed the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. They came down, prayed for them that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen upon any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Verse 17. Then the apostles laid their hands on them one by one, and they received the Spirit. However, when Simon saw the Holy Spirit was imparted through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he brought money and offered it to them, saying, Grant me also this power and authority in order that anyone whom I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, Destruction overtake your money and you, because you imagined you could obtain the free gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lock in this matter For your heart is all wrong in God sight It is not straightforward or right or true before God Wow This record is an excellent example for those who have a profession of faith, but they have no true root of believing and trust in Jesus Christ their Savior. Simon the sorcerer was absolutely exposed and put to shame by the apostles once he was found out. Once Simon saw Peter and John begin to bestow the gifts of the Holy Spirit's power by the laying on of hands, he lusted after it and offered money in order to have that power. He thought money could buy anything. He was guilty of utter insincerity. He proved his heart was totally unchanged while he worshipped and mingled with others. He proved his heart was totally unchanged while he worshipped and mingled with other believers. He was a hypocrite. He was a blasphemer. He never gave it a thought that he was tampering with the divine influence of the Holy Spirit. God, in reality, was nothing to him, and the sacred things of God were of value to use at his will and for his own shameful glory. he had faith in himself and in his power Simon never made a total commitment to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and we see where placing emphasis on the act of belief as opposed to the centerpiece or object of belief and that focus most certainly belongs to be placed on Jesus Christ a belief or faith that saves is one that rests and remains on the finished work of Jesus Christ. This faith or trust is in God alone for salvation. This faith longs and yearns for a deeper relationship that moves into what is called fellowship with your Lord and Savior. This becomes your new way of life apart from the old way you used to live. It is not an offer for you to try out now. This is truly the greatest decision you will ever make in your life. This decision carries eternal value and eternal rewards promised by God himself. True genuine believers who have a genuine faith in Christ Jesus have entrusted him with their wills as well as their minds. Have you? they act in accordance with one of the commands which encourages us to periodically examine ourselves to see if we are truly walking in the faith in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5 the word tells us examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it test and prove yourselves not Christ Do you not yourselves realize and know thoroughly by ever-increasing experience that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are a counterfeit, disapproved on trial and rejected? Well, fortunately, God has given enough instruction in his commands to know for sure that we have eternal life. And this is true and valid because in 1 John 5.13, the beloved Apostle John declares, I write this to you who believe in, adhere to, trust in, and rely on the name of the Son of God, so that you may know with settled absolute knowledge that you already have life. Yes, eternal life. You see, there is a development and progression in the test of 1 John 1 that gives us example guidelines to the development and plumb line, so to speak, regarding our faith or belief. The best study of sin in our lives and the remedy are found in God's word. So with that, we will look specifically, and mainly in 1 John 1, for our pathway and answers to knowing if we are really truly saved or not. Remembering that no one will perfectly fulfill all of these all of the time because of their growing maturity in Christ, But your answers to these questions will give you insight and reveal a consistent trend that characterizes your life as you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Number one, do you have an active love for Jesus Christ? Jesus tells us in John 14, 15, if you really love me, you will keep, you will obey my commands. Number two, are you developing a relationship and fellowship with Jesus and his redeemed people? First John 1.3, that which we have seen and heard and we declare to you, that you may also have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Number three, do you walk in the light or do you walk in the darkness? First John chapter 1 verses 6 and 7. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, we do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. 4. Do you admit and confess your sins? 1 John 1, verses 8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This next question is the big test or indicator of one's walk with the Lord. This is the test of whether or not you are actually growing in knowing your Savior. This is number five. Are you obedient to God's word? 1 John 2, verses 3-6 Now by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word. Truly the love of God is perfected in him, and by this we know that we are in him. Verse 6 He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Number six. Does your life indicate your love for God rather than the things of the world? 1 John 2, verses 15-17 Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, pride of life, is not of the Father, but it is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it, but he who does the will of God abides forever. Number 7. 1 John 2, verse 29 declares, If you know and you perceive and are sure that he, Jesus Christ, is absolute righteousness conforming to the Father's will in purpose, thought, and action, you may know also and be sure that everyone who does righteously and is therefore in like manner conformed to the divine will is born and begotten of him, God. This question asks, Is your life marked with doing what is right and doing what is good according to God's way? Do you seek to uphold and defend a pure life in Christ? the scripture I give next indicates that every true follower of Christ will put his or her shoulder to the wheel and press in on this one and take action and make it a priority in their life 1 John 3.3 declares and everyone who has this hope resting on him, that is Christ cleanses and purifies himself just as he is pure and chaste and undefiled and guiltless. Number eight, do you see a decreasing pattern of sin in your life? First John chapter 3 verses 4 through 6, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness and you know that he was manifest to take away our sins. In him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor knows him. Knowingly sinning and sinning when you know that you are breaking the commands of God is a very grave and dangerous place to be, dear listener. The scripture that we just read says a believer who is not continuing in sin as a way of life abides or lives in Christ Jesus. Number 9 Do you have and demonstrate love for other believers? 1 John 3 14 tells us We know that we have passed from life to death because we love the brethren He who does not love his brother abides in death Whoever hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has entered into eternal life abiding in Christ. Verse 10, do you walk the walk or do you talk the talk. 1 John 3, verses 18 and 19. Little children, let us not love merely in theory or in speech, but in deed and truth and practice and sincerity. By this we shall know that we have come to perceive and recognize and understand that we are of the truth and can reassure our hearts in his presence. Number 11. Do you maintain a clear conscience or a good conscience? 1 John 3, verse 21. And beloved, if our consciences, our hearts, do not accuse us, if they do not make us feel guilty and condemn us, we have confidence, complete assurance, and boldness before God. Well, I share a personal testimony of my own path in recognizing what a guilty conscience felt like and looks like. As a child and a young adult who grew up in the Catholic Church, I used to go to confession and confess my sins before the priest routinely. After leaving the confessional, I felt clean and righteous and thought, if a truck suddenly ran over me, I would go directly to heaven. but the rest of the story is in my ignorant deceit before God and the priest and myself I knew that I was going to go to a party that weekend and at the party I would probably drink a beer I would smoke a cigarette with the rest of the crowd and this of course was illegal for the underaged and also was disobedience against my parents' instruction for my siblings and me this same scenario went on until I truly realized that one day I was a deceitful sinner who was sinning against my precious Savior Jesus Christ the light of eternity spoken of in Ecclesiastes 3.11 that was placed within my soul was slowly being awakened by the precious Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sins and he pricked and convicted my conscience and I saw myself as a liar and I hated what I saw. And this is when my real journey with my precious Savior began. You see, God's word admonishes us also in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5 to examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and approve yourselves, not Christ. Do you not know and recognize and thoroughly by ever-increasing experience that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless you are a counterfeit, a reprobate, disapproved on trial and rejected? Dear listener, we have a message called Examining Your Heart Takes a Good Conscience. And this message can be found on Shining Light 7 Ministries website. Go to shininglight7ministries.com You will find the storehouse of Christian teachings. Just search for Examining Your Heart Takes a Good Conscience and you will find it among many other foundational teachings. You see, our consciences can deceive us to think that we are just okay and the plan that we have for our lives is good and basically overall we are a good person and that we are on our way to heaven. We have our own measuring chart or check-off lifts that tells us God loves us because we're really not bad people and we do nice things for people and even give a beggar on the street some money to help him out. Oh, how good we feel about ourselves. So God must be really pleased with us too, right? The problem with our own consciences is that if they're not renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, we will be deceived to think that everyone is okay, including self. I'm okay and you're okay too. Number 12 is do you hate reproof or you hate to be corrected? With this one, many people will make excuses to justify their faults once something is pointed out. Some people act like a wounded animal and bare their teeth and claws at the inference that something needed correction in their lives, which would have brought healing to the open wounds that they occurred at some point in their lives. Many pastors and teachers today do not sufficiently lay on the souls and consciences of their hearers, their moral obligations they have to the truth. They do not probe their hearts and bring up those parts of their lives and wrong actions to the bar of conscience. As we have waded through some of these questions through which give a true believer insight to the workings of the Holy Spirit in their life, I ask you, how did you do? Is your life at this present moment bearing the fruit of salvation? Jesus said that it is by our fruit that we will be known. As his disciples, genuine faith is active love for the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for you, dear listener. He died and paid the price and the cost for you and I to enter eternal life. Genuine faith in Christ makes one a new creature in him. Old things are passed away. Behold, your old life is dead. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice in John 10, verse 27. Are you one of his sheep who sincerely obeys his commands? You see, fruitless branches are professing believers who do not display fruit of the spirit found in Galatians 5.22. And John 15 chapter 6 says they're cut off and thrown into the fire. Does sin in your life grieve you? We are in a war with Satan the devil who is just as real as Jesus Christ. Jesus is greater and we know who wins the battle at the end of the book. People who are undecided straddle the fence in where they stand in their faith and their obedience and love for Jesus Christ and are condemned at this point in their lives. They only thought they were saved. They neither are hot nor cold, which represents a state of divine rejection. These are the ones who will be spewed out of the Lord's mouth according to Revelation 3.16, which declares, So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. May God forbid that anyone not be found in the book of life and be banished to hell forever and eternity. Listen now to a sobering prophetic dream given to me a few years ago, which is just as sobering today as it was then. this dream shows that it is truly a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Dear listener, you may be a professing believer in Jesus Christ or you may be one who has never accepted Christ's precious offer of eternal life through his death, burial and resurrection. But it is my hope and prayer that you will listen attentively to what you have been given in terms of this life-saving morning called an alarming prophetic dream. This dream was given to me after months of consistent prayer and intercession in seeking the Lord and asking for revelation in what He wants us to teach and proclaim in these last days before He returns to this earth. I plead with you to listen carefully and remember Jesus Christ is coming soon, very soon. Please take your salvation serious and do not neglect it because of worldly concerns and the business of life. This is the alarming prophetic dream the Lord gave in answer to my prayers. May his spirit greatly impact your life as he did mine with this revelation. Not too long ago, the Lord gave me a profound, frightening, and very real dream. In the dream, I saw a woman with her children. The children were young people in their teens. They were not little children. They reported to the mother about something that was happening down the street, and evidently it was pretty serious because she immediately set out with something in her arms like a bag filled with something pertinent to address the critical situation at hand. She was a proper and matronly looking woman, and I saw her walking briskly along a sidewalk next to a wall, a well-built wall, a brick wall that you might see around a huge estate or mansion. And as she was walking I was like a seer in the dream As she was approaching the area of her destination she began to walk up an incline and it seemed as she came to the top of the hill I suddenly saw a sight that was truly a sight to behold. I saw a huge, gigantic ship that you might see in the early years. It might have been a Spanish ship. It had large mass. There were so many mass, so many mass that it would blow your mind, especially if you were a sailor. As I was following this woman, I suddenly began to rise above her, and I felt like I was being taken up in the spirit. I slowly went higher in the air, and I rose higher and higher and could clearly see the full view of the ship now, and I can tell you that the ship was so large and so big and so massive that it took my breath away even in the dream and I'm thinking, what is this all about? Only in a dream could something possibly be as large as this ship except possibly the ark that Noah had built. I don't know. And as I was taken up in the spirit above the ship, I could hear the sound of little children playing on the ship and somehow in the dream I knew that this was a children's plaything it belonged to the little children and in the next scene I was taken up above the ship and rose higher and higher into the atmosphere above what seemed like the earth's orbit and I saw a massive cloud that was almost indescribable in its vastness and size and this cloud was almost like something that you would see in a graphic of one of the layers of the earth. This cloud was like that. It was like a cutout of seeing something specific and suddenly I was taken alongside this layer of angry, massive formation. It was unbelievable. It was very frightening to see. and the cloud was living and vibrant and was ever changing in its formation and the power that was contained within it was unbelievable. I saw things coming out of this angry formation like being spewed out and I saw so many things being spewed out like you might see in the eruption of a volcano only the things coming out of this mass was not lava but the power it contained was as powerful as a volcano or it could even be likened to the powerful energy of the sun that we might see in videos that show up close action of the mighty indescribable power contained within the sun and the videos show the sun spewing out energy and masses of what look like molten lava but we know that it is the intense heat that bursts beyond the circumference of the body of the sun And this intense, indescribable heat and power comes from the core of the sun's interior. Dear believer, what I saw being spewed out of this angry, massive cloud formation were bodies. Yes, I said I saw bodies being spewed out. And as these bodies were spewed out of this cloud formation, I saw that the force of their being spewed out was in such an explosive manner that it caused their limbs to go flying off into all directions opposite of their bodies and these belongings of the people were being spit out as well with just as much intense force as their bodies were being spewed out I gasp in agony and horror after being taken parallel along this cloud for a long distance to see and be shown a sight that I'm sure might have dwarfed what Daniel saw as he grew faint and weak at the horror of what he was shown in the last day of what was to come. Well, if this was not enough, then I found myself as though I were below the surface of the earth. And I was looking up at what appeared to be an opening of a large and vast chasm. And the sight was equally as terrifying. I saw bodies falling into the chasm, and the noise and the sound of this horrible sight was blood-chilling. I felt like I might have been seeing how it could have possibly looked when the ground was opened up when Korah and his family fell into the grave of hell that they had won for themselves by lying and rebelling against God and his authoritative standards. In the dream, I shook myself to wake up because of what I was seeing was so horrible and terrifying and awful. And as I shook myself to wake up, I did wake up in the natural. And I said, oh God, forgive me if this dream is from you and you had more to show me. But if this dream was not from you, then, oh Lord, I have just had a horrible nightmare. And as I was sharing the dream with my husband Lee and telling him what I shared with you just now, I said, Lee, it is like the scripture says in Revelation 3.15. I know the record of your works and what you are doing, and you are neither hot nor cold. Would that you were cold or hot. so because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spill you out of my mouth for you say I am rich I have prospered and grown wealthy and I am in need of nothing and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked and as I spoke to Lee the Spirit of the Lord spoke so clearly to me and witnessed his presence to both of us the Holy Spirit said even if you were to tell them the truth of what I have shown you, the majority will still not believe you. And what the Lord had shown in his righteous judgment and justice and being spewed out of his presence were multiple and millions of Christians who did not take him nor his way serious while they had the opportunity on this earth. The large ship represents the church in her generations of time and even today. The leaders and captains who are called apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers represent church leaders but are acting like little children and making up their own rules based on their natural instinct and not upon God-given discernment that comes and arises out of growing into the fullness of maturity in the place of union and fellowship with God and His Word. We talk about life in the Spirit or walking in the Spirit. But for the most part, this is all talk and the fruit does not back up the conversation. But the mature ones know clearly what God says in his words. And they hold it in high esteem and will not compromise or water it down to make people feel good or to give them warm fuzzies about themselves. And this is why they are called the faithful ones and will receive an overcomer's crown and a robe of righteousness. They are considered and represent the hundredfold in the casting of the good seed that took root in Jesus' parable of the sower. Or they are called the fathers in John chapter 2, where he speaks to the three distinct groups of people, that is to the fathers, the boys or the lads, and finally to the little children. The upright matronly woman in this dream represents the segment of righteous leadership in the church today. She, the woman, does not represent female gender only, but represents both male and female leadership who will step out to address and correct the error in the church even when it's not a popular thing to do. Her teenage children represent those members of the church who are the 60-fold in spiritual understanding and growth in their maturity. They are the young adults, as John called them, boys and lads. They comprehend the difference between right and wrong in the natural, but also have been given discernment to know spiritual warfare that the enemy so cleverly schemes and devises. You see, this dream is a serious warning to the church. Please take it as that. God is getting ready to spew many out of his mouth because they have been living like Korah and his family. His judgment is on the way. Make no mistake about it. It is our prayer that this word from the heart of God will have touched your life in some way that will have inspired you to desire a deeper and more intimate relationship with your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is calling the church to arise and come forth in this day and hour to know Him for who He is, what He has done, and what He has provided by His death, burial, and resurrection. Visit us today at www.ShiningLight7Ministries.com Thank you.

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