Confess, Repent, and Believe.

Many here at CC seem to be preaching a strange false doctrine which suggest that some are born saved and never have to make a decision to come to Jesus and invite Him into their heart. Salvation and redemption is available to all, but one must first humble themselves, confess they are sinners, repent of their self-centered nature, and believe upon Jesus to the saving of their souls. It is only then that they attain membership in the Church which is predestined and elected to eternal life with Jesus.

Confess your inability to pay your own way, but then realize that you must come to Jesus and invite Him into your heart and follow Him for the rest of your days.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” - Revelation 3:20

All I can say to that is -----Satan has them in his grip and has twisted their minds into deep deception ---and they are not alone ---many are being deceived ------

I read your opening post and you're not quite right. What you've stated will not save your soul. When ALL pertinent scriptures regarding salvation, you end up with a short list.
1. Belief and faith
2. Confession of your belief
3. Repentance
4. Baptism, immersion in water, fire the forgiveness of your sins.

Upon doing the above, you'll be saved, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, be added to the body of Christ by the Lord, and become a Christian and child of God.

loved the read and agree

“It is only then that they attain membership in the Church which is predestined and elected to eternal life with Jesus.”

A short section from The apostle peter something he felt important in his last letter to them before his answer to Nero

“grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. ( always progressing never quite perfect )

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (3rd reference )

But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:2-12‬ ‭KJV‬‬

I have an honest question brother.

Using your definition of repentance, how is that achieved without being born again and filled with the Holy Spirit to empower a person to change, or repent of their nature?

Why don't you check out the repentance of Nineveh, the repentance of Zacchaeus, the repentance of the thief on the cross, and the repentance of 3,000 souls on the day of Pentecost. Not one of them received the Holy Spirit BEFORE they repented. Indeed it would be bizarre if that actually happened.

Here we go again. Another person with a false gospel. Baptism by immersion in water FOLLOWS the conversion of sinners. It is not a condition for salvation.

I wonder why Paul would tell the Corinthians, that their children are holy?

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
I Corinthians 7:14 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/1co.7.14.NKJV

Im not sure that God is as much of an egalitarian as the modern world is. It seems to me that secular philosophy has crept into the church.

The terminoilogy of 'asking Jesus into your heart' does not show up in the Bible at all. Personally, I avoid it, partly because I hear 'ask Jesus into your heart' instead of the Gospel. That was more of a late 70's or early 80's thing, but it's still around now. Nowadays, I heard "It's not a religion. It's a relationship. Repeat this prayer..." and they don't present the Gospel.

The verse you quote is written to the angel of the church of Laodicea. This is an invitation to the church or those who are a part of it, not a verse that was originally directed toward unbelievers. And it does not say you, 'Ask Jesus into your heart' to be saved.

I've also heard people speak of 'receiving Christ.' The strange thing is that in some evangelical's minds, 'receive Christ' means to repeat a prayer that says the individual receives Christ or asks Him into their heart. It isn't necessarily wrong to do that, but it doesn't make sense to have someone repeat a prayer without telling them the Gospel first.

For example, I have seen a preacher:
NOT tell the audience who Jesus is
NOT tell the audience that Christ died for their sins and that He was buried
NOT tell the audience that He rose again

then ask 'who here has never prayed that prayer to receive Christ.' Someone in the audience raises his hand with a blank look on his face, like he didn't know what the preacher was talking about.

Then the preacher has the guy ___ face the congregation_ and repeat a pray to 'receive Christ' which leaves out a lot of the good gospel stuff that wasn't preached to him in the first place.

I followed up with the man. He thought he was responding to a rhetorical question. It was as I suspected. I felt like crawling under the connected chairs I was so embarrassed for the guy and the congregation for falling into this trap of thinking that ritual saved without hearing the Gospel and faith.
There is a good summary of the kergyma toward the end of Luke, which I like since they are Christ's own words.

Luke 24
46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

This is the message we should preach. We should encourage people to believe and confess their faith, then they are to be baptized and follow the Lord Jesus' teachings as He explained in the last chapter of Matthew.

Someone could use language like 'ask Jesus into your heart' or 'personal Savior' and be saved, but I try to avoid the extrabiblical verbage I so often see among those who leave out the actual preaching of the Gospel and substitute repeating prayers with a little religious verbage for an actual confession of real faith in the Gospel faithfully preached.

My view
First ---the person has to be drawn by God to have their Heart and Ears open to actually HEAR the truth of the Gospel so they have some Spiritual understanding of what the Word ===Who is Jesus Himself is saying and to have the Right Faith inbirthed in them to be saved ----

The main stream churches do not in my opinion focus on the foundation of the Salvation process -----which is Saving Faith -----they talk about Faith by never really tell their people that without the Right Faith inbirthed in them --they cannot be Saved ----

Saving Faith is the Foundation to even get God to hear you ------Intellectual Faith or Demonic Faith will not nor can it save you -----this is NOT Taught in main stream Religion --------

The Right Faith comes to us through hearing the WORD ---WHO is Jesus -------you must be Drawn by God to have your heart and ears open to the Word ------you cannot draw yourself to the right Faith nor can you open your own heart and ears to hear and understand the Word ------

Saving Faith ---helps us to Spiritually understand what the Word is saying ---you can't be saved with your own worldly knowledge and understanding ----that goes against what Jesus who is the Word is saying -----

Saving Faith ----acknowledges the Truth of the Gospel ---you cannot say you believe one part of the Gospel and reject other parts as the whole Word is Jesus --so if we do not believe the Whole Word then you have not Saving Faith inbirthed in you ---as you are accepting only some of the Word who is Jesus and rejecting Him at the same time -----Saving Faith will not reject the truth of the Gospel -----it will receive it as truth ------

Saving Faith ---will bring us to OBEY the Word ------Abraham ---obeyed God's command to leave his homeland ----and to sacrifice his only son ----Noah obeyed God's command to build the Ark when there was no rain in sight -----etc -----obedience proves the validity of our Faith -----

Faith without works ids Dead Faith -----Abraham and Noah and others --put their saving Faith into action -----they Obeyed and preformed acted on what was ask of them to do without wavering ---

So being drawn by God and accepting His plea to open our hearts and ears to hear to the Spiritual understanding of His Word is the first step to receiving His free gift of Salvation -----only then can Saving Faith begin to be take hold to lead us to Salvation ------

So ==God's Drawing +Spiritual Understanding + Acknowledgement + Obedience and Acceptance ---Equals--- Salvation in my view ----

Saving Faith Receives ---what God's Saving Grace makes Available to us -------Saving Faith is our Spiritual Password to Receiving what Saving Grace has made available to us -----Salvation to all the world as well as everything else that Jesus accomplished on the Cross for us -------

What were they repenting of?
Again, it depends on what is meant by "repentance". The word repent means "to change your mind".
So in all the examples you just listed, they changed their minds, and admitted to themselves, and publicly, that what they were doing was sinful and wrong. And we can, and MUST do this in coming to the Lord. This is NOT the same as changing our sin nature. It is an agreement with God that we are sinners, in need of a Savior.

In the case of the Ninevites this repentance led to a TEMPORORY change of heart. For which the Lord responded with mercy and grace. But, The Lord eventually judged them by having the Babylonians defeat them. So their "repentance" was temporary.

We see this pattern play out over and over again for Israel, especially in the Book of Judges. They'd sin, do what was right in their own eyes, God would send some enemy or plague, they would REPENT, and in short order go right back to sinning. Rinse and repeat.

The thief on the cross could only "repent" that he was in fact a sinner, deserved of death. That's it! He had NO time display that he wouldn't remain a thief.

So we see in one sense we are repenting by agreeing with God that we are sinners. But ALSO repenting of DEAD WORKS, or a moral life, in an effort to attain or maintain Salvation.
Hebrews 6:1

New King James Version
6 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

What repentance cannot mean before regeneration, is that we are able to change our sin nature.

If we COULD do that, then we wouldn't need to be indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

HE, made us alive, or "quickened" us WHILE WE WERE DEAD.

Ephesians 2

New King James Version



By Grace Through Faith
2 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

So ONLY God can change our nature, through rebirth.

Quick story illustrating this.

Years ago I gave the Gospel to a woman I worked with, and her response was " What do I need a Savior for? I haven't done anything bad. And I always give to different charities."

She was completely blinded about her sin, and the need to have it forgiven. She, at least at that time, COULD not and DID NOT, repent. She neither admitted she was a sinner in need of a Savior, nor of her dead works that she thought was sufficient to stand before God.

I’ve been here a while, haven’t seen a single person claim to be born saved.

Oh I see… This another display of your hatred for the gospel of grace isn’t it? I’ve seen plenty of that from you over the years.

Understand this folks.
There are many gospels of satan that claim the act of man earns favor or salvation. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Satanism…
In other words, all false gospels for the religions of satan can be refined to works.

There is but one gospel that claims salvation is by grace: the divine influence upon the heart…through faith, which is a gift from God that no man may boast.

Let this sink in and let it be a warning to those who hate the gospel of grace. To hate the gospel of grace is to hate the only gospel that claims salvation is entirely of the Lord.

The sad thing is she was probably living a better moral life than 90% of all professing Christians who spend time bashing Sinners and condemning them rather than following the example set by Yeshua.

When Sinners can see they're living a better version of morality than those who claim to have God, what else do you expect them to say?

Maybe she has been watching YOU and thinks morally she's better than YOU so why does she need YOUR GOD to become more like you.

Look at true blue democrats.

They are for people who want to be same sex, change their gender, etc.

Us Christians are the first to bash these ideas.

But a true blue democrat looks at our stance and their stance and on a moral basis alone without God they're doing the better thing.

It's difficult for those people to think they need what we have when we are worse morally than them.

What proof text do you have to justify your statement?

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;

but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭16:15-16‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭1:4‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭26:28‬ ‭KJV‬‬


“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭6:3-4, 6-7‬ ‭KJV‬‬


Baptism is for Remission of sins , remission of our sins is how we can receive the holy ghost

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, ( water )


and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. ( spirit )

For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭2:38-39‬ ‭KJV‬‬

a there’s one baptism for remission of sins and Jesus gives the spirit as a gift to believers. Baptism for remission of sins has never changed from John to the apostles to the gentiles

Even when Peter concerts gentiles the first commandment to then is to be baptized in water in Jesus name

“While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭10:44-48‬ ‭KJV‬‬

water is for remission of sins believing in Jesus sacrifice for sin that’s why we get baptized in his name , the spirit is given freely by Jesus from heaven to everyone who believes

“This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭2:32-33‬ ‭KJV‬‬

that’s what Jesus told them remember ?

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
‭‭John‬ ‭16:7‬ ‭

a that’s what John meant about Jesus baptizing with the holy ghost it was t a different baptism than johns for remission of sins it’s a reference to Jesus being exalted to the throne and sending his spirit into believers

receiving the holy spirit doesn’t remit sin , baptism for repentance and remission of sins does. We definetely need remission of our sins

have you guys defined the term repentance ?


Could be your thinking it means different things

I believe in the sovereign grace of God to deliver a person eternally. without any help from mankind, but can you tell me what the "through faith" means?

This part is really well said and important to consider

“Again, it depends on what is meant by "repentance". The word repent means "to change your mind". ( let your mind be changed and believe the gospel )

So in all the examples you just listed, they changed their minds, and admitted to themselves, and publicly, that what they were doing was sinful and wrong. And we can, and MUST do this in coming to the Lord. This is NOT the same as changing our sin nature. It is an agreement with God that we are sinners, in need of a Savior.”

thats definately where we have to start losing all imagination of our own righteousness and humbly accepting the word of God letting it correct what we used to think about God , our selves , the world we live in ect basically our existance and reasons why

awe need to stop listening to the world and man and start hearing God