How Do They Know?

Ain't that the truth.

 

I agree Paul (Saul) believed on Jesus. But he did not receive the Holy Spirit until 3 days later. The scriptures clearly show this.

Can you admit that Paul obeyed Jesus before he received the Holy Spirit?

 

In the light of your question:

which is not a question but an assertion, I gave an appropriate answer.

I then gave a testimony and added an appropriate question in light of both testimony and your OP.

You demand to know from a "free-willer" (as you demean us), how we can know that God has already performed an act of grace in our lives. And then go on to state obnoxiously that we don't know, and cannot know--which of course is false.

I give testimony contrary to your false assertion. You call it opinion, false, and non-factual.
I tell you how it is true, based on God's Word, and God's Spirit working in me.
Based on your obnoxious statement that we cannot know any act of grace performed in us, I said this:

"I respectfully ask the same question of you? Does God's Spirit do the same for you?"

Now you charge me of being uncivil, calling into question your salvation, and are quite upset. Is there something wrong OR? Most Christians delight in speaking of their salvation.

 

If you read the NT especially, believers knew when they were saved. It is something you can know. Paul told king Agrippa of how the Lord spoke to him on the road to Damascus. This was his conversion. This is when being confronted by the Lord himself, he realized he was in the wrong persecuting Christians, and that Jesus was indeed the promised Savior the Jews had long hoped for. He repented immediately and trusted himself to Jesus, and determined to do whatever Jesus told him to do.

But he knew what happened, and he told many about it.

When the Ethiopian eunuch trusted Christ, he knew it.

Acts 8:35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
38 And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.
39 And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.

The Ethiopian eunuch did not wonder whether or not he believed in Jesus, he knew it.

Believing on Jesus means to trust your salvation into his hands. It means to place your very soul in his hands and rely upon him only to save you. It means to cast yourself upon him.

I know when I got saved. I heard the word of God and realized I was a sinner in danger of perishing. I also learned that Jesus had died for me and paid my sins and would save me if I called upon him for forgiveness. I got down on my knees and admitted to Jesus I was a sinner and that I knew the wages of sin is death. I told Jesus I believed he was the Son of God and died for me. And I asked Jesus to forgive my sins and come into my heart.

You see, I know I did that. I remember it like it happened yesterday. And I know I meant it. I cast my soul upon Jesus, I trusted my soul to him. And I know by the word of God I am saved.

1 John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

The scriptures say you can know if you are saved. If you have trusted your soul to Jesus and depended upon him only to save you, you can know you are saved by the word of God.

 

And I am to say one more thing. Making faith into some king of magical, mystical thing simply confuses people. That came straight out of the Catholic church and their mysticism. They try to teach people that only they know and understand the deep spiritual secrets and that the common man is dependent upon them. It makes a man a slave. That was their whole intent and desire. You are forever in fear, they held your soul in their hands.

The scriptures do not make salvation difficult, man does. The scriptures say whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Does that sound hard? Does that sound like some magical, mystical thing you cannot understand? No, a small child can easily understand it.

All you have to do is ask. That is what Jesus told the woman at the well.

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

Does that sound difficult? Is that all magical and mystical? No, Jesus said if she knew the gift of God (eternal life) and who it was that was speaking to her (the Son of God), all she had to do was ASK and he would give her living water (Holy Spirit)

Does that sound hard? Do you have to be a theologian to understand that?

How about Romans 10:13?

Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Turning faith into some magical, mystical thing that you have no idea if you have or not will only lead to torment of soul. You will never know if you are saved.

But can you know if you got down on your knees and admitted you were a sinner to Jesus and asked him to save you and give you this living water, the Holy Spirit? Of course you can.

Just believe the scriptures and call on Jesus to forgive all your sins.

 

This whole thread sounds like the old philosophical question of the guy who once dreamed he was a butterfly.

After deeply and agonizingly pondering that dream for a few days, he got to the point that he wasn't real sure whether he was a man that had dreamed he was a butterfly, OR if he is now a butterfly dreaming he is a man; with no way to prove either.

While the OP may have been somewhat legitimate, the discussion has deteriorated to this level!:BangHead:

 

Love it, they need to add that smiley to the choices, problem is it's 2 together I believe.

 

The thread should have been shut down after the OP was stated. One does not answer his own question with such bias that it is closed for all discussion thereafter. That is what you have done right from the OP, the very first post. What is the real purpose of this thread or your agenda?

You misunderstand what Jesus says about the new birth.

It is evident that he misunderstood at first. But he did come to an understanding of the new birth. He became a follower of Christ, one, who along with Joseph of Arimathea procured the body and helped bury it. They did so at great risk to themselves.

Does God give you faith that your car will start when you put the key in the ignition and turn it? That is faith. It is trust and/or confidence in someone who said that if the key is inserted and turned that the car will start. You believed it. You tried it. It worked. It has worked time and time again. Sometimes it may have failed. That is because cars are made by man, and both man and their products are fallible.

But God is not fallible; He is infallible. His promises are perfect and He never fails. I can put my trust in him, and time after time He will never ever fail. It is the same faith. It is my faith, not God's faith. I am not waiting for some esoteric mystical experience for God to zap me with a mysterious bolt of lightening and a voice out of heaven to tell me: "Now you have faith." It doesn't work that way. It never has, and never will.

Now the onus is on you to prove that faith is given by God, and how a Calvinist knows when that faith is given by God and how he knows he is zapped by God with that faith.
Can you do that? What evidence can you bring forth? What evidence can you bring forth that an unsaved person is given faith, seeing that God never gives faith or any spiritual gift to an unsaved person.

Salvation is by faith and faith alone. That faith does not come from God.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God."
The faith is a faith not given by God, but faith that comes from oneself.

 

True. Otherwise would it make sense for Jesus to rebuke men for their lack of faith? If all faith comes from God, then it would only make sense for Jesus to rebuke God for not giving them more faith, right?

The only sense that faith is from God is that "faith cometh by hearing" and that which we hear, "the word of Christ," is from God. We are responsible to have faith and act accordingly.

 

I think you missed the point. He was in no way "reducing salvation to the same level as starting your car." It was an analogy.

Was Jesus reducing salvation to farming when he used the analogy of sowing seeds?

The point, that you seem to miss, is that men choose to practice faith in things all the time. Buddists believe in their false religion and change their entire lives to live accordingly. You have no problem saying they choose to do that freely, but for some reason in your system God has made it IMPOSSIBLE for men to willingly believe the truth of Christianity. Why? And where does the bible teach such non-sense?