The Unknown Bible - Pastor Bevans Welder

Must a person be willing to give up his sins in order to be saved? Tough question.

We received the following email from one of our listeners. Hello I have a question concerning Repentance. What if a person truly realizes he is a hell bound sinner and he comes to Jesus as his only means of salvation, BUT he has no real intention of giving up his sins. In other words, he is more concerned with having a ticket out of hell than in living a godly life. Will God reject that person? I've read in your Question Archive that repentance is simply turning from your self righteousness and unbelief and trusting Jesus as your Savior. That would mean that if you've trusted Jesus you have already repented, regardless of your attitude towards sin, correct? [Pastor’s note – not really – see complete answer below] But you also made a statement in your archive that, “Now, if your convert got the idea that his life of sin was all right with God as long as he just prayed 'the magic prayer,' then you got a convert but God didn't. He is still lost!” That seems to indicate that a person must be willing to give up his sins in order for Jesus to accept him. [Pastor’s note – not really – see complete answer below] Hope you can clear this up for me. Thanks in advance.

We hear a lot of discussion on the topic of repentance these days. Some men preach that the mere mention of the word in witnessing is heresy and that it leads to a works salvation. Other men teach that leaving repentance out of witnessing is heresy. Of those who believe repentance is necessary for salvation, some say that repentance must be a willingness to turn from sin. Others say that it must not only be a willingness but also an absolute turning from his sins. Still others preach that unless repentance is accompanied by deep, godly sorrow, there is no salvation no matter what a soul might pray. And on and on the arguments go.

Rather than discuss all the doctrinal positions that men may hold regarding repentance, we will respond to the key question in your email, which is, “Will God reject that person?” [i.e., the person you described who is only concerned with a ticket out of hell]. The answer to that question isn’t that simple.

By and large, since Jesus died for our sins [1 Cor 15:3-4], became sin for us [2 Cor 5:21], saves his people from their sins [Matt 1:21], taketh away the sin of the world [Jn 1:29], and came into the world to save sinners [1 Tim 1:15], a good “presentation” of the gospel is going to deal with sin, not just the ultimate consequences of sin. The truth is that God’s righteousness is perfect, and so, our self righteousness and sin will not allow us to pass the judgment of God. Yet, at the same time, it needs to be clearly explained that getting saved and “getting cleaned up” are two different things.

After hearing the gospel preached like that, any man should recognize that he is on his way to hell because he is a self righteous sinner. If he is only interested in a ticket out of hell, then he has no concern for righteousness and no concern for his sin. Clearly, he is responding to only one of three things of which the Holy Spirit reproves him: “sin … righteousness, and … judgment,” [Jn 16:8-11]. Frankly, in most cases, a man like that is not ready to get saved; he is merely coming under conviction about the eternal consequences of his sins. If he were to pray “the prayer” he probably wouldn’t be saved.

However, in your email, you described a fellow who “truly realizes that he is a hell bound sinner.” That adds a little different twist. Here your fellow knows he is a sinner and he knows that he is on his way to hell. The only thing missing in this example is “righteousness.” And truly righteousness is a three phase accomplishment in our lives.

First, we have God’s righteousness imputed to our souls the moment we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior [Rom 4:5-6, 2 Cor 5:21, Rom 10:3-4]. Second, after we are saved, we have righteousness in our lives as we yield to God and not to sin [Rom 6:12-22]. This is where the continual battle between the Spirit and the flesh is waged. A saved man who lives after the flesh will never have this righteousness until he yields his members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Third, we have the ultimate righteousness of a sinless life after we get our glorified bodies [Phil 3:21, Eph 5:27, Rom 8:23]

Thus, it is very possible for a fellow to get saved and still live like the devil, at some point [1 Cor 5:1-5, 1 Cor 5:11, 2 Tim 4:10, 2 Tim 2:26, 1 Tim 3:6-7 (these are preachers), Acts 5:3-4]. This could easily be the case of the fellow that you described in your email. He could have God’s righteousness imputed to his soul and still not be living in the righteousness of a life yielded to God.

Conversely, it is also possible for a fellow to look like a saint in regard to sin and still be as lost “as a golf ball in high weeds,” as a friend of mine used to say, [Rom 9:30-33, Matt 23:28]. He can be willing to give up his sins and actually get rid of some of them and still not be saved. So, simply being willing to give up his sins won’t save him, either. We know a fellow who gave up alcohol at an AA meeting and to this day claims to be saved because his higher power, whom he claims to be Jesus, gave him the strength to get rid of that sin. To the best of our knowledge, he is not saved.

The way we handle this problem when we witness is that we cover the problem with sin and with righteousness and with judgment clearly and thoroughly before ever offering a sinner the opportunity to trust Jesus. That way he realizes that after he receives Jesus Christ for salvation, Jesus will begin to live his life through him [Phil 2:12-13] and that is going to necessarily involve change. Not that the man is changing in order to be acceptable to Jesus but rather that Jesus is changing him from the inside out. While he will struggle with sin after that, there won’t be any confusion about whether he got saved as a result of being willing to give up sin or whether he is still lost because he wasn’t willing, or any of that stuff. He will be saved because he received Jesus Christ [Jn 1:12], the only man [1 Tim 2:5] who could solve his problem with sin, righteousness and judgment.

One problem with all of this is that soul winners seem to be looking for just the right formula to cover all of the bases without leading a soul to believe that he must do some work first in order to get saved. It’s as if we are the ones who can determine whether a soul is getting saved or not. Truthfully, we are simply the witnesses [Acts 1:8]. We have to remind ourselves that souls are saved by Jesus, by the words of God and by the Holy Spirit, not by us.

When you see people saved in the Bible, there’s not any formula. Was the thief on the cross willing to turn from his sins? Did he repent? Jesus certainly didn’t go through “the plan of salvation” with him. The thief simply confessed the Lord Jesus and believed in the resurrection [Rom 10:9-10; Lk 23:42]. How about the Ethiopian eunuch or the lame man in Acts 3? Based upon the way soul winners argue over what it takes to get saved, could they even agree that these people were saved? We don’t know about their attitude toward sin. How about Cornelius and his kinsmen? Peter was still in the middle of preaching when they got saved. He never even got to lead them in “the prayer!!” You see, there is no set plan. By trying to come up with a “plan,” at what point have we added to “the simplicity that is in Christ,” [2 Cor 11:3] or taken away from the need for repentance [Acts 20:21; 2 Pet 3:9]?

In truth, the trouble is with sin in a saved man. We see more of it in our lives than we think should be there. Or we see more of it in professing Christians’ lives than we think should be there. So, then we don’t know whether to believe they are really saved. We start questioning their salvation and how they got saved. I’ve done that in my own life.

I was saved at 15 after responding to a young man’s testimony about his relationship with Jesus Christ. I was impressed that he had a relationship with him that I did not have and I wanted what he had. The chaplain of the school I was attending led me through the gospel and I prayed to receive Jesus Christ as my Savior. The exact question, “Are you willing to give up your sins?” never entered into the equation. I grew, I loved preaching, and when I tried some new sins early in college, I turned from them, mostly out of fear of the temporal consequences. I became faithful in church and even taught Sunday school.

By the time I reached my mid twenties, though, I quit believing my Bible, my heart was hardened and I was so backslidden there was no way to tell whether I was saved or lost, even though part of that time I was teaching Sunday school in a Methodist church and attending and tithing faithfully. If you had asked me about my attitude toward sin I would have told you, “my ticket to heaven is punched, and I am going to enjoy the ride till I get there.” But one can only “enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,” [Hen 11:25].

When I was 32, I picked up my King Jams Bible and read Ps 119. I wasn’t 11 verses into the Psalm when the Lord showed me my life from his perspective. Like Job, he showed me that I was vile [Job 40:4] and I repented [Job 42:6]. The pages of that Psalm were soaked with tears by the time I had reached the 176^th verse. So profound was the change in my life from that night, that after several years I convinced myself that I had gotten saved when I was 32 and that there was no way that I could have been saved when I was 15. So, I was baptized again.

However, having thought back over those years again and again, I realize that I was saved. Nevertheless, I looked like a lost man because I had quit growing, I became careless about sin, I wasn’t fruitful, I quit believing God’s words, I became proud, and I quit fearing God. The problem was not with how I was saved or how the witness led me to Jesus or how I prayed when I received Jesus or whether I was willing to give up sin when I trusted Christ. The problem was that I had grieved, quenched and vexed the Spirit of God that was in me.

When that happens, sin takes firm hold and visible and verbal evidence of salvation goes right out the window. To go back and retrace the “steps” of salvation at that point is just a waste of time. A fellow in that condition needs reproof, rebuke, correction, instruction in righteousness and the chastening hand of the Lord [2 Tim 3:16, 17, 2 Tim 4:2, Heb 12:5-11]. He needs a “come to Jesus meeting” and a good dose of the fear of the Lord [Acts 5:11]. He doesn’t need to get saved again or saved a different way. He needs to get right with God [Rom 6:19]. And if in getting right with God it becomes evident that he truly isn’t saved, the Lord will make that plain to him [Phil 3:15] because the Lord is not willing that he should perish [2 Pet 3:9].

Over the years, we have seen a fair number of people get saved who thought they were saved before. They weren’t convinced of their need to be saved because we showed them a more precise way of getting saved. They were convinced because the Spirit of God convinced them. So, ultimately, we just have to witness. If a fellow to whom we witness is saved and living like the devil, we need to trust the Holy Spirit to show him that he needs to get right with God. If he is lost, we need to trust the Holy Spirit to bring him under conviction and to show him that he needs Jesus. That way he can get saved.

Hope this helps,

Pastor Welder