I believe you are correct. According to my info, your pastor's preaching has significantly shifted to agree more with the Absolute Predestinarian Primitive Baptists.
Lavola,
All that really matters is the truth as taught in the word of God. Therefore, I do not agree with conditional time salvation. I believe this doctrine has snuck into Primitive Baptist teaching only in the last 100 or so years.
The following was written by elder Boaz in 1897:
WHAT PRIMITIVE BAPTISTS HAVE BELIEVED
It is insisted by some that there is a salvation which is entirely of God, and that there is also a salvation which they call “Time Salvation,” (and they refer to it as the “Two Salvations”
which depends entirely upon the works of God’s children, and they claim that this “Conditional Time Salvation” is Primitive Baptist doctrine. Let us look into this point and see if we can determine what has been Primitive Baptist belief along this line. Remember that this conditional time salvation idea is based on the assumption that in regeneration God’s children receive power to do all God’s commands, unaided by the Spirit, and that obedience is left entirely to their own choice; they can obey or disobey at their option. And their life time enjoyment depends alone upon their own decision in this. If they decide to obey, and will do it, they escape the sorrows that are common to the saints that otherwise they would suffer, thus representing the ability and the dependence to be in the believer, while some of the early writers (to my mind incorrectly) used the words “depend upon our obedience,” they have universally agreed that our obedience, after regeneration, depended upon the working of God’s Spirit in us; that in fact obedience was a work of God in us, wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, and that the ability was not at all in us. But recently it has been denied that obedience is worked in the children of God by the Spirit, and conditionalism, long opposed by Primitive Baptists replying against the Regular Baptists, is now being accepted among our churches. In the London Confession of Faith, published in 1689, which Primitive Baptists honor and claim that it sets forth their faith, we read “On Good Works” that good works are only such as God hath commanded in His Holy Word. These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a lively faith. The believers ability to do good works is not at all of himself, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ.
Now this needs little comment, unless we are inclined to believe that the Spirit of Christ is unable to overcome their inability. They say that good works are the “fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith.” Then faith must produce them, it is clear, and as faith is the gift of God and cannot exist without works as James teaches, for living faith always produces action; therefore their works did not depend upon them, but upon faith. This is Baptist doctrine, from 208 years ago to the present (1897). All these English brethren still teach on the subject of good works, and rest on this idea that the ability is not in the believer to do good works, but in faith, which produces them. This view of the subject harmonizes beautifully with their belief of God’s decree, of His foreknowledge, and of His providence, as you can see by reading their confession, while this conditional time salvation idea, as is now being taught. can never be harmonized with it.
A letter written by Elder John Gano, and adopted and published in the Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association in 1784, says, “On Effectual Calling”, “This is an act of Sovereign Grace … and is such an irresistible impression made by the Holy Spirit upon the human soul as to effect a blessed change … the author is God … this is an Holy calling and is effectual to produce the exercise of holiness in the heart, even as the saints are created in Christ Jesus UNTO good works” The Philadelphia Association at this time believed that the grace of God produced the exercise of holiness in the hearts of the saints. In the Circular Letter of the same Association, published for 1789, we read that “Mere legal repentance originates in self love …but repentance which is unto life and salvation has God for its Author, and does NOT arise from the power of free will …but from the grace of God as the efficient, and the operation of the Divine Spirit as the impulsive cause … this repentance is WROUGHT in the hearts of God’s people to their edification, etc.” Here you will see it is asserted that repentance, which is unto life and salvation (and in time, and referred to as a part of time salvation by the Conditionalists) has GOD for ITS AUTHOR, (hence it is not left with us to do or not to do according to our option) and that the grace of God is the efficient cause and the Divine Spirit is the impulsive cause, and that it is wrought in the hearts of God’s people. Now I ask, can God’s grace be efficient and inefficient at the same time? Will the Holy Spirit be the impulsive cause and we not be moved by the cause? How absurd! These Baptists believed that any repentance that was of any benefit to God’s people, whether in respect to time or not, had GOD FOR ITS AUTHOR.
In the Circular Letter published in 1795, by Elder Samuel Jones, we read: “The Gospel contains no conditional offers of salvation.” Elder Jones then would not have believed those now preaching among us that say that God has offered His children salvation in time, on conditions to be performed by them, for he says the Gospel contains no conditional offers of salvation. And this Association agreed with him, and this was the FIRST Baptist association in America! We will quote further from Brother Jones: “To make salvation conditional would rob God of His Sovereignty.” Oh, says one, he is speaking of “eternal salvation.” Answer: Yes, that is true. What other kind could he have possibly talked about, seeing there is none? He knew of but one salvation. But suppose, just suppose, there were two, and you make one conditional, would it not also rob God of His Sovereignty as much as to make them both conditional? Surely it would; it always has. For where has there ever been a conditional salvationist that believed in God’s sovereignty? “What!” exclaimed Elder Jones, ‘lake our happiness (a time experience) depend on man? If we will do part God will do the rest! Alas; what can man do in the business of his salvation, first to last, to merit it, or promote it? Is he altogether dependent on God? Yea, verily, that at every step in the beginning and progress of the gracious work he may cry, Grace, grace.” Could anything be more plain? And could anything be more foreign from the ideas now being advanced by those that are teaching Conditional Time Salvation? He believed that salvation, from “first to last,” was of the Lord, and true Primitive Baptists have ever believed it, and believe it yet.
We could quote more from Brother Jones to our advantage, but space forbids. [The whole article is found in the Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707 - 1807, for the year 1795] We have produced enough evidence, however, to show that the prevailing belief of this association up to this time was in the grace alone system. But about this time anti-christ gained such influence in this and other associations that they to some extent began to leave off such teachings, and then went from bad to worse, until the true Baptists expelled the unsound conditionalist element from them. But we hear the same sentiments taught, such as the following from Elder Jesse Cox in his “Exposition of Revelations,” pg.205, 1866, “We contend that all those in whom the fear of God dwells will thereby be led to please Him, and to abound with the good works of the Gospel, which God had before ORDAINED that we should walk in them, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, sobriety, and the other good works enforced in the Holy Scriptures.” This shows conclusively that Brother Cox believed that God’s children would be led by the fear of God to please Him, hence their dependence upon this influence, and the certainty of the effect of the influence. On page 211, he says: “The Old School Baptists believe that good works are the sure fruit and effect that follow after justification.” Did you notice he said SURE FRUIT and EFFECTS? If they are sure to follow, then it is not left to you and me to do or not to do, as we may determine. Grace determines this for us, “working in us to will and to do.” And if time salvation depended on good works in us, yet it would not depend on us! On page 221, he says, “Upon that Great Agent (the Holy Spirit) we are all dependent for true and vital religion; not only to produce regeneration, but to perpetuate and live in the enjoyment of it.” Does this look like Brother Cox believe that regeneration was God’s work, but the enjoyment of it depended on our works? On page 475, he says, “And as salvation certainly follows predestination and results from it, so good works as certainly follow salvation and are the fruit and effect of it, for it is God that worketh in His children in all ages, both to will and to do, according to the good pleasure of His will. Good works is to practice faithfully what He has recorded in His word.”
Is not this teaching here of Elder Cox, the noted Primitive Baptist preacher and writer, in perfect agreement with what I have herein written? Is it at all in harmony with the preaching that has been recently introduced among us in the last few years by Conditional Time Salvation teachers? Brother Cox believed in and taught good works, but that we work out because God worketh in, not merely in regeneration, but continues to work in His children, and that good works are sure to flow out from the inworkings of God’s Holy Spirit. Hence, time salvation can only depend on our works in so far as our works are evidences of the inward workings of God’s Spirit. The dependence is in the Spirit of God. To take any other view of Elder Cox’s belief would make him contradict himself and destroy his witness.
