Most churches today teach false doctrines for several reasons:
ignorance, unbelief, for popularity, for financial benefit, etc.
Only a few churches are teaching correct doctrine these days.
There is more to correct doctrine than “Jesus is Lord and Savior”.
Many Spirit-filled Christians are warning, “The church is fast asleep!”
Grace-only, cheap-grace, hyper-grace, easy-believism …
are all called antinomianism! This is the notion that a one-time
justification saves … apart from sanctification. But, this is an
incomplete understanding of God’s wonderful free gift of grace!
The problem with easy-believism is that it allows
those who are living in hypocrisy, disobedience, and sin
(i.e. those who are NOT walking in obedience)
to live comfortably with a false assurance of salvation!
This leads to the tragedy described in Matthew 7:21-23 (for example).
“… some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches,
saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives.
… they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Jude 4-5, NLT)
NOTE: We are talking here about believers who have received the Holy Spirit.
There are at least 10 NT verses for each of the following truths
Believers prove they have true saving faith:
1 -- by their obedience
2 -- by practicing righteousness
3 -- by living holy lives
4 -- by having a healthy fear of God
5 -- by repenting of their occasional sins
6 –- by overcoming sin, the world, Satan, persecution
7 –- by enduring in the faith to the end of their lives
Re: #4 … If people are believing and trusting in grace-only, cheap-grace,
hyper-grace, easy-believism, etc., HOW can they be fearing God?
So, all of these verses PROVE the road to eternal life is indeed narrow,
and believers are responsible for playing their part in their salvation!
Or, shall we view these verses as merely bluffs, exaggerations, lies even?
Initially, through His grace, God gives to new believers:
Jesus’ righteousness, redemption, reconciliation, etc. and salvation.
However, this grace/salvation is NOT guaranteed to last forever!
Because ONLY their old-past-former sins have been forgiven (2 Peter 1:9).
And because NT verses warn about the possibility of losing salvation.
Some believers became “estranged from Christ”
… they had “fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
Some believers are “of those who draw back to perdition” (Hebrews 10:39).
And there are many more warning verses.
I quote Baptist preachers below: (my emp)
Sam Morris, a Baptist preacher in Stamford, Texas: “We take the position that a Christian's sins do not damn his soul. The way a Christian lives, what he says, his character, his conduct, or his attitude toward other people have nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul... All the prayers a man may pray, all the Bibles he may read, all the churches he may belong to, all the services he may attend, all the sermons he may practice, all the debts he may pay, all the or-dinances he may observe, all the laws he may keep, all the benevolent acts he may per-form will not make his soul one whit safer;
and all the sins he may commit from idolatry to murder will not make his soul in any more danger... The way a man lives has nothing whatever to do with the salvation of his soul... The way I live has nothing whatsoever to do with the salvation of my soul" [Do a Christian’s Sins Damn His Soul?].
Bill Foster, Baptist preacher in Louisville, KY commented: "If I killed my wife and mother and debauched a thousand women, I couldn't go to hell -- in fact, I couldn't go to hell if I wanted to. If on the judgment day, I should find that my loved ones are lost and should lose all desire to be saved, and should beg God to send me to hell with them, He couldn't do it" (The Weekly Worker, March 12, 1959)
Hoyt Chastain was a Missionary Baptist preacher who defended, in public debate, the idea that a child of God cannot fall from grace. In one debate Chastain affirmed that he could abandon his wife and children, move in with a sixteen-year-old girl, and the Lord would take the situation and “work it out for his good.”
If OSAS were true, then what the above Baptist preachers stated would also be true. And if one can live in sin, debachery, lust, lewdness, sexual perversion, lie, steal, murder, etc and still be saved, then that cheapens the death of Christ and His shed blood to no end.