Re: Saved?

I'd like to cover a couple of things about our salvation today if there's time, but if not, I'll just finish up tomorrow. First is the parable of the Sower that Jesus tells, because it explains exactly what kind of people are who here the Gospel. Rather then posting the parable itself, I'm only going to post His explanation of what it means and then we'll discuss that. This is one that really helped me understand that there are actually two kinds of "believers" or "saved" people.

Matthew 13:18–23, “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Jesus explains that when the Gospel is preached that people will respond in one of 4 ways to it. The first two ways He describes are ways that don't lead to salvation; the last two are ways in which a person is saved, but their way of dealing with their salvation is different which produces two different kinds of saved people in the Church.

The first group hears the Gospel but doesn't understand it. (the seed that fell on the path) They're blinded by Satan but the reason they are blinded by him is because of the persons stubborn desire not to turn to God. If their sinful stubbornness not to turn to God hadn't been there, then God would have removed the blinders from their eyes. We know this because of what Jesus explained in the previous passages. He was referring to:

Matthew 13:15, For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Isaiah 6:9–10, He said, “Go and tell this people: “ ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

So Satan is allowed to blind them due to that and they remain unsaved.

The second group (stony or rocky ground) really only partially understands the message but they appreciate it and want to be saved. The reason I say they partially understand is because the problem is that they're trying to follow the teaching in their own strength. The reason they're doing it in their own strength is because they have no root, or no "foundation" for their salvation. Remember when we discussed what the foundation of our faith is and how we get it and are to build it up through study and prayer? For those who don't recall or haven't read that study, our foundation is Jesus Himself. We did a very good study about the foundation and all it means starting with post 2 in the study: Stress,worry,fear etc & the Christian You can follow all the "rules" (if you want to call them that) in the bible, but if you don't have that firm foundation in Christ, meaning having Him dwelling in you and understanding at least the basics of your faith, then your faith cannot be real and you cannot be saved. The way this shows up in lives is that when troubles come (and they surely will) their faith doesn't stand up to the test and is washed away by the storm. Let me quote a very little bit of that study here just to make sure everyone understands what I'm talking about:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy Luke 6:46-49“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice.He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” Here we see that the secret is the foundation has to be right, the foundation must be built on Jesus and must dug deep. I don’t think it’s a surprise to any of us that Jesus is the foundation and that it must be Him or it won’t work, but what does it mean to “dig deep”? To answer that, let’s look at the opposite first, which would be shallow. Something done shallowly is something that has been done in such a way that it lacks depth of intellect, knowledge or intelligence. So to dig deeply we need to supply knowledge and intelligence. ....Digging a deep foundation on Jesus requires time and commitment from us. It’s not something done quickly or with little thought. That really does make sense though since the ultimate outcome is quite important. In fact, it’s so important that Jesus tells us to count the cost of it before we begin.

In other words, the people in the rocky ground group, believed the message but didn't ever place their faith in Jesus. They had head knowledge, but no heart knowledge and so are unsaved. You can find the people from this group in church too and it can be hard to tell them from those who are saved, at least until they start going through trials. Once that happens, they're the ones who apparently "fall away". As you can see though, they really didn't fall away, because they were never saved to begin with.

Now is when it got really interesting to me! This third group is the group in the thorns. They respond to the Gospel and believe. They ask to be saved and are in fact saved. BUT they don't respond to the Holy Spirit wanting to change them, so they either bear very little or no fruit at all. It's like they turn their brains off after the salvation part is taught them. They want that free ticket to heaven but they're not interested in becoming more like Christ or anything that goes along with that. They may crack open their bibles occasionally or even dutifully read it 15 minutes a day. They may attend church every Sunday, but that's about as far as they ever go, unless they get roped into helping out in some ministry or other because they feel too embarrassed to say no. They can seem to "walk the walk" and they certainly learn to "talk to the talk", but there is no real growing personal relationship with the Lord. Mainly they live quite worldly lives, not much different at all from those that aren't saved.

I see it like this: Let's say I'm sitting in a waiting room and I start talking to the person beside me, "Joe". We spend the hour waiting talking to each other and I get to feel like I know him and he feels the same way about me. Because we've met each other and had some little conversation there is now a personal relationship between us.

Now I have some choices to make about Joe. I can pursue that relationship with him and by taking time to give him a call or write to him or meet him for coffee or whatever our relationship will grow.

Or I can choose to simply leave the relationship the way it is and not take it any further. Joe might call me or come by a number of times, but I'm always busy and don't have time to spend with him, so our relationship suffers.

That first meeting would be similar to each of us when we meet Jesus personally and are saved. These people in the above "thorn" group have that kind of personal relationship with Jesus. They've met Him and talked to him a short while but that's it. They're much too busy to consider taking time out of their day consistently and diligently in order to develop that relationship further. They are saved though because God is true to His Word, so they will live with us in Heaven. What they don't seem to realize is that there will be a pretty big gulf between them and those of us who are in the last group. We may all be in Heaven, but there will be a big difference between us.

Then there's the last group, the good ground. That would be us. These are the people who believe the Gospel, repent and are saved, just like the previous group. The difference is that they allow the Holy Spirit to work in them and change them day to day to become more like Jesus. Obviously the folks in this group can still differ from one another as to the amount of dedication they have for obedience and allowing God to change them. This group is the group of disciples, the followers of Christ; they don't just believe, they're changed and changing and looking forward to seeing the Lord in Heaven and desire very much to please Him. They cannot get enough of His Word and are constantly in prayer.

Don't get me wrong, the people in this last group have their moments of "burn out" or whatever, because after all we're still human; but for the most part they live for the Lord. They're pretty easy to tell apart from those who aren't saved.

As I said, this really helped me understand there there really can be "believers" that have no fruit or very little. Of course there are many other passages that teach this as well, but I'm feeling rather worn right now so I'll have to take this up more tomorrow...