What about these professions of salvation?

I would say that we don't have enough information to decide.

You can trust God to love them and want them to be saved.

 

I would say that no matter what their eternal destiny, it was no accident. Each got the true, deepest desire of his/her heart.
God knows each one individually.
I would pray that they are in Heaven, having truly responded to God before they died.

Karen

 

Here's an excerpt from a message preached by Dr. Dolphus Price, Franklin Road Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on March 15, 1972.

HELL...A Place For The Lost
(Luke 16:19-31)

The other day up in Pekin Illinois, a little fourteen year old girl came up to me and said, "Preacher, I want you to pray for mommy and daddy."

I said, "I will. What are their names?"

She told me and I wrote them down on a card. I said, "Where do they live?"

She said, "Preacher, they are not living. Mommy and daddy were killed three weeks ago in a car wreck. And, Brother Price, they weren't saved. Will you pray for my mommy and daddy?"

What was I going to tell her? I don't know what you would have done, but I said, "Sweetheart, it's too late. No amount of prayer will help mommy and daddy now. You will just have to ask God to help you get over it, and He will. But I hope you will never get over the thought that people are lost, Honey."

Too late! I could have prayed until I stained the walls with my breath, but that wouldn't have helped. I could have prayed until I had a heart attack, but that wouldn't have helped. We could have burned every candle and said every rosary, but that wouldn't have helped. Too late! Too late!

 

Not all that cry Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of God, and there is but one way to heaven, through the shed blood of Jesus the Christ. I believe that preacher in Tennessee was quite correct.

The awful truth of one's destiny ought to burn upon our hearts that not a soul who passes our way should be ignorant of the truth of the gospel.

We may be mistaken on some doctrines, or even some bents of doctrine, but let there be no mistake the fact that Jesus IS the way, the truth, and the life and no man comes unto the Father but by Me.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Amen, Jim!

Salvation is by grace and faith ALONE. When we say salvation is through the grace of Jesus Christ, we mean the unmerited, free grace of Christ whereby a man is eternally and completely and once-for-all saved from sin when he puts his faith in Christ.

Hebrews 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Now we are free--there's no condemnation,
Jesus provides a perfect salvation;
"Come unto Me," O hear His sweet call,
Come and He saves us once for all.

Once for all, O sinner receive it,
Once for all, O brother believe it;
Cling to the Cross, the burden will fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once for all.

 

For by grace you have been saved through faith..... Ephesians 2:8a, RSV

In Christ,
Neal

 

Respectfully, I am very sorry he said that. To a 14-year-old girl in the extreme stages of grief over such a staggering loss, I would have said that I would pray. *****And that I would pray that they did come to know Jesus before they died.***** I certainly would not give her false hopes or tell her untruth. But I would pray confidently knowing that God, Who created space and time, heard those prayers in eternity. In what sense would they be too "late"? It does not mean that the answer would be yes, of course. But some things are unknowable by us, instead of just a bleak, "It's too late", although well-intentioned.

I'll say it again, that 14-year-old girl needed a big hug and an assurance of prayer. And the statement that God cared about her and her parents. And regret for her parents dying.
Sometimes, in our efforts to explain God, we have to listen for the real questions people are asking. What she very possibly was asking under all of it was, "Does God care?" It would be a natural question for a young child who knows that God is all-powerful and yet He let this happen. I pray now that there was some real pastoral follow-up with her.

Karen

 

How is that a description of a "strong profession of faith"?

What am I missing? You say she stopped going to church once she left home and did not raise her children to be Christians.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Karen, I think what the Pastor meant was that it is too late to change any person's eternal state after they pass from this life. We can hope they were saved, but it would do no good to pray for their salvation after they have died. If the Pastor told the girl there was still hope for her parents after she has plainly said they were not saved would've cause confusion in the girl's mind. Who knows, maybe the girl has grown up to be a missionary and a soul-winner on fire for the Lord, knowing the horrors of letting a person slip into eternity without knowing the Savior. The state they are in after death is either eternal happiness and bliss in Heaven or eternal torment and pain in Hell, there's nothing that can change that.

Revelation 22:11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.