Website owner:  James Miller

  BAPTIST DELUSION                     3/98


   The "plan of salvation" is the heart and core of Baptist 
   teaching.  All of their doctrine revolves around it.  It is the 
   main thrust of every sermon.  Every sermon is a sales pitch.  
   They keep emphasizing the simplicity of it:  salvation is a 
   gift from God --- all you have to do is just accept it.  It is 
   that easy.  And then at the end of every service they call on 
   people to "give their hearts to the Lord" ("accept Christ as 
   Savior", etc.).  And the truth is they do have hold of an 
   important truth and have things partly right: repenting of your 
   sin and turning to God, giving your heart to him, is indeed the 
   critical first step one must make in becoming a Christian.  
   That is a critical and important truth.  The problem is it is 
   only the first step and it isn't what makes you a Christian.  
   Walking in God's way is what makes you Christian.  And they 
   don't talk about that part.  For them that step of "accepting 
   Christ" is everything.  Walking in God's way is a completely 
   separate issue and totally disconnected from the subject of 
   salvation.  And this is why their teaching is such a big fraud 
   and deception.  People are told that when they "accept Christ" 
   they automatically become a "new creature in Christ Jesus" by 
   some miraculous process ---- and it is not them that effects 
   that change, it is God that does it.  And in believing that 
   comes the self-deception.  What actually happens is that they 
   regard themselves as transformed creatures, born-again, but in 
   reality the majority of them don't change at all --- they just 
   continue the same old person.  Some may change some but it is 
   probably short-lived because the preachers completely neglect 
   talking about the practice of Christianity, the importance of 
   following the way of Goodness and Virtue.  They are told they 
   are different from the world, they believe they are different 
   from the world, but they are no different from the world.  They 
   are just laboring under a grand delusion. 

   Promising to do a thing is not the same as doing it and 
   committing yourself to God is not the same as following him.  
   Their great error: the idea "once saved, always saved".  It 
   leads to great self-deception.