LAWSON: The issue is right now this moment,
are you saved or are you not saved? That's the issue.
I think there are some people who cannot pinpoint exactly when they were converted. For one reason,
they were sitting under such shallow preaching they weren't receiving enough of the truth
to actually have a strong sense of evaluating their own experience and what was happening.
So, I think someone can be saved and many people are saved who cannot pinpoint that exact
moment. And at the same time, I think there are people who pinpoint an exact moment and
who are still not saved and who are deceived about their past and are hanging on to they
walked forward when they were eight years old with a youth group at the end of camp and
they keep hanging on to that past experience, but there's no present reality in their life.
So, I'm more concerned with that person who has a false assurance of a salvation that
never occurred but they have the evangelist sign the back of their Bible and put the date,
you know, under his signature. The real issue is right now, today, this very moment, "Do you know
Jesus Christ? Are you following Jesus Christ? And even more, "Does Jesus Christ know you?"
THOMAS: December the 28th, 1971, at about 11:30 at night. I can be as accurate as that.
But if you ask my wife, she doesn't remember a day when she did not believe.
I was raised in a very secular home. She was raised to go to church three times on Sunday. And
so, ask yourself, "When was John the Baptist converted? When was Samuel converted? When
was Timothy converted?" And the issue is that regeneration takes place at the level of the
subconscious. What we experience is the result of regeneration, which may be many years later.
One can be regenerate and really not demonstrate a great deal outwardly, particularly if you're
raised in a religious evangelical community. But what's important is as Steve is saying is,
"Are you saved right now? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ right now?"
And I think it's a mistake to over-dramatize one particular experience of conversion. You know,
we tend to make Saul of Tarsus the model of conversion. And that's only one model. I mean,
mine was fairly like Saul of Tarsus, but my wife's was more like John the Baptist.
CHARLES: I would agree with what Steve says about present tense faith.
And the emphasis of the New Testament is, "Do you believe now?" There is present tense faith
that the New Testament emphasizes but also a perpetual faith, a perseverance, where Jesus
says interestingly in John 8 to those who claim to believe, "If you continue in My word, you are
truly My disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Even in the opening
two verses of Romans 8, there is this mystical language he uses about the intimate union of
Christ in a believer. "You are in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus." But by the time he gets to verse 4,
this mystical union becomes quite pedestrian. Literally, I mean, he uses the word "walk,"
in that there is an evidence in the path and the direction and the progress of
your life in the faith that is also tied to the assurance of salvation.