 | Pastor Dave grew up in northern New Jersey in a very diverse cultural area. He attended Central College in Pella, Iowa received a BA in sociology and psychology. He was an offensive guard for their NCAA Div III National Championship team in 1974. In speaking for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he sensed a call to full time ministry. Meeting is future wife Sandy at Central, went to Michigan to finish her college while Dave started Western Seminary in Holland, Michigan. Dave married Sandy in 77 and completed his Masters of Divinity degree in 78. Pastor Dave’s first church was in Fort Lee, New Jersey, home of the George Washington Bridge. Their three children were born there and he also served as a Police and Fire Chaplain for the city. In February 1991, they came to Wichita to start Harvest Community Church. In 2006, he received his Doctor of Ministry degree from Covenant Theological (Presbyterian) Seminary in St Louis. During that year he gained a daughter-in-law with now 2 grandsons of 3 years and 6 months old. Besides Pastoring at HCC for the past 20 years, he has been Director of the SCSD & WPD Police Chaplains for 11.
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Religion
2012-03-22 15:06:42
Salvation...a variety of opinions
Q: I hear some clerics say that all you have to do to be saved is to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and have a personal relationship with him. Others say that, regardless of what you’ve done insofar as accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you die in the state of grievous sin, you will go to hell. Why are there so many different opinions on something so serious: spending an eternity of happiness vs. spending an eternity of punishment?
A: I don’t know if you have ever been to a sports event and seen a play before your eyes take place but the official on the field makes the call opposite the way you saw it. Or maybe you witnessed it but the people you came with saw it differently. Now there are a lot of factors that come into play.
Sometimes it is the team we are rooting for, like a predisposed position that can slant or sway our point of view. That is called in biblical study hermeneutics. Today there are hermeneutics for feminists, homosexuals, liberationists, etc.
Sometimes it is the angle through which you have seen it while someone else sees it with a little closer perspective. I love it when we go to Yankee Stadium and the empire calls a strike against a Yankee and the guy in the top of the stadium yells because he believes he saw the pitch better than the umpire who is three foot from the strike zone. Sometimes people feel they see a theological issue better than theologians of the past or pastors or the Bible while living in a sinful life style.
The difficulty also is that mankind is tainted by sin. We’re not perfect and we can misread and misunderstand God. The scriptures say and rightly so in {2 Peter 1:20} “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.” God’s word is not the problem, it is man’s inability to understand what He says because mankind is clouded. Our humanity gets in the way and begins to interpret according to our intent. Sadly history is filled with this where people used the scriptures unintentionally and intentionally to hurt and suppress others. Consider the Crusades or Slavery in this country in the south where many good Christians felt it biblical. Well-meaning Christians can follow an interpretation made out of ignorance {Acts 19:2}, selfishness {19:13-17}, deception {5:1-11} or outright heresy from the devil’s tool box.{2 Corinthians 11:13-15}
Now the example we have been given today is a good example. Salvation has been used and abused as a means to give the comfort of eternal life but it has also been useful to extort cash from the faithful. Sometimes it has come from the perspective that has changed personal thinking to theological precepts. The theological perspectives on salvation and eternal security went through some changes. Augustine in the 300’s with the early church fathers affirmed the teachings of the scriptures of our Sovereign power of God. But in the 16th century unprecedented change came that swept over the world’s thinking where man began to think more highly of himself with the modern era of science, exploration and literature. A shift began to take place in theology that man began to have more to say in his salvation. This came to a head in the Dutch Parliament when Calvinism (1600’s) in which God is totally sovereign with predestination now was brought into question. Jacob Arminius with the 5 points of the Remonstrant disagreed with the main points of Calvinism. Renewal Pelagianism and Semi-pelagianism 3rd century thoughts of man not tainted or partially tainted by original sin were renewed. Man had free will to choose God in Jesus Christ. Where Calvin and Luther with his work “The Bondage of the Will” said man was not free until he was saved. God needed to effectually call man’s rebellious heart to save him by grace alone. Up until that point man was following his sinful rebellious nature {Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:23} and his father the devil {John 8:44}.
God is the only one who could save man’s soul by grace {Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5}. Salvation is a gift from God by grace. For grace to be grace, it begins and ends with God with no attachments. {Romans 6:23;5:8} That is why we can say the person who at the last minute makes a genuine confession to God by the Holy Spirit is saved as we see the thief on the cross. {Luke 23:43} That a person who is truly saved as God knows all the secrets of our hearts, nothing can separate us from His love and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. (Romans 8:31-39} Sin and even the devil himself could not take God’s elect from the security of our Lord. {John 10:28} May the Lord give you that assurance as you walk through this life striving to please Him in all you do! Living in the grace and assurance of our God who keeps us in that grace{Jude 1:24}.
