Can a Christian living in sin be assured of salvation?

today on way of the master. What’s your moral compass? I just believe in other people and if you throw my way, I squish them. Are you going to heaven when you die? You’re doing things that are bad such as, I don’t want to be specific. I know a lot of religious people act like they know exactly what’s happening when you go and no one really knows. Do you know that nobody knows, uh, what would you say is like a measuring stick to know whether you’re backsliding and if you just completely turn away my invitation for you is to not delay repentance. No. Do you guys believe in a God? A creator? So I mean if we have a God and creator and that means we have someone that’s created us and he’s created us with a purpose, right? Like if a guy makes a watch that’s the creator of that watch that watch isn’t working like a watch, then it’s not working to the best of its creators intended purpose. And so what God says is that we are here to glorify him and enjoy enjoy him forever. Do you guys feel like you’ve done that in your life? Yeah. In many different ways. Obviously we haven’t reached the angle and done the biggest accomplishments yet, but I feel like there’s definitely very, very, a lot of different ways that I’ve glorified God. So let me just ask you real quick, do you guys feel like that you’ve, you’ve lived. Do you feel like you’re a good person? You feel like you’ve lived according to 10 commitments? I mean I’m not perfect. I don’t think nobody’s perfect, but I mean, I always have good intentions. I want you guys to imagine this. Imagine someone that, that you just you care deeply about someone that you love dearly get that person in your mind and imagine I hate to do this to you, but just roll with me a minute. Imagine someone uh murders that person, they take them off this planet and they’re in court and they’ve confessed, yep, I did it and there’s evidence and there’s like, no doubt in your mind, and everybody’s mind. And the judge says, that person, like, I’m about to throw you in prison for the rest of your life. Do you have anything to say? And that person got up and said something similar to what you just said, which is like, well, you know, like, I don’t always intend bad, I do do good things to if the judge let that person go, would that be a just judge or an unjust judge and being a judge? Judge? I agree. All right, nick, I’ve got a scenario for you, let’s say you had a friend, a good friend of yours, and he comes up to you and he says, uh nick uh man, I’m in a bit of trouble. I swindled someone, I, you know, told him a bunch of lies, lured him somewhere, uh ripped them off and then I killed him? Nobody knows it was in a remote place? It’s been like a year? What, what, what do I do? What would you say to that friend? Nick? That’s a good question. I like, that gets you thinking. It does get you thinking, well, I’m not gonna rat him out, but he’s got to do the right thing. What would that right thing be to turn himself in? He needs to make it right? Why you took someone’s life? What do you think it is in us as people that compels us to want to do what is right or to at least know the difference between right and wrong? Well, you would hope that he was instilled in you as a child. I don’t know if there’s a consequence for what you’ve done other than, you know, in the realm of humanity, but you may pass on to another life and you may come back, you may not come back, you may go to hell, you may go to heaven wherever the real true story is, I have no idea. But here, it’s gonna affect somebody else somewhere down the road. If you’ve done it, once you’ll do it again, would you guys consider yourselves to be very perceptive people? You catch what’s going on? Yeah. So I want you to follow this red handkerchief, right? And I want you to tell me where it goes. Now. If you’ve seen this, you’re disqualified. Let your buddies, you know. So, I’m just gonna keep pushing? Yeah. You know, what’s at still in the hand? Did you catch that? Did you see how it was done? Almost? Maybe catch it on the second time you see it? Alright, watch carefully. We’ll do it for your buddy. We’ll make fun of him when he doesn’t get it. You see it going in right? All I’m gonna do is continue to push it picked up so simple. Right? Once you see it, you see it. That’s great. Alright, so it took you guys a while. Who was the first one to catch it? Was that was that you What’s your name, Anthony Anthony? All right. It’s always the angle. Once you see how it’s done, you can’t be tricked again. Right. Are gonna be tricked with this tomorrow? No, no. How about the next day? Maybe three years from now? I might get you but you’re No you got it right. So once you see the angles, listen, everything in life is all about angles, right? Once you are able to get more information, you’re able to make a more wiser decision. Where are you going? I’m about to go to a paddle our right now. What’s that mean? It’s my uncle’s death right now. How old was he? Around like 50? How many people die every day? 150,000. So, did losing your uncle make you think about your own mortality? Your own death? Yeah. So what’s gonna happen to you when you die? Nothing. How do you know that? I don’t know that but I know that it’s just like a tv screen black nothing. Who turns it off? I do. Do you believe in God’s existence? Are you an atheist? You just don’t believe in God? I just yeah I just don’t believe in it. Why do you believe that? I don’t believe it either. I just it’s a non issue. Just kind of don’t think about it. Do you ever think about the beauty of life? Flowers and birds and trees and love and laughter and the blue sky and the sunrise and the sunset and all the fruits and music, all these things that surround us. Don’t you think how wonderful it is right now to say it happened by accident is crazy. Every house, every building is proof of a builder. Every painting is proof of a painter and creation is proof of the creator. So let’s pretend for a moment that God does exist. Me ask you this question, Are you going to heaven when you die? You’re doing things that are bad such as I don’t want to be specific know when your last look at pornography. I don’t know about that. When did you last look at pornography? Oh look up last night. How many lies have you told plenty ever stolen something? Absolutely never use God’s name in vain. Can’t say I have and have not. OMG Yeah. Would you use your mother’s name as a cuss word that would dishonor her would be a horrible thing to do. It’s not typically common for you to be at church and brother bob or sister sally or little tight Tommy or little cutie carrie comes up to you and drops an F bomb on you. I know what happens at your church periodically, right? But I’m talking mainly to the two of you. But seriously though guys on the streets, we encounter something totally different than we’re accustomed to within the christian bubble and people start cussing up a storm. Yeah. How do you handle that? Like do you, do you cuss back? It’s the real world and we’re called to love them and that’s how they talk. It’s their standard, you know, it’s very sad, but that’s what it’s like. Yeah, we shouldn’t be surprised when the world acts like the world, uh we should expect it and it is, it makes me uncomfortable. Um but I also have learned to, to show grace and patience in those moments as as comfortable as it makes me feel because I recognize that I’m in the world to be a light to the world. Yeah, if if you do not hear a lot of cuss words inside your life, I dare to say you don’t have a lot of unsaved friends inside your life. You have put yourself inside of a bubble and I think that’s kind of a way something that we would do, we hire christian electricians, christian plumbers. But in reality let’s go out into the world and be light in the darkness. And if you do that, well then don’t be surprised when the world acts like the world. You know, we watch a lot of these christian movies about jesus in the time of christ and we’ll see sometimes the scenes depicting jesus going amid the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the sinners. But those are cleaned up. And I think sometimes in our minds we detach that time from this time, that no, they didn’t cuss really back then. And you know, everyone spoke in old english accents and but jesus did it. He went into the midst of sinners in order to reach them. We have a bigger picture at play. And when the heart changes, when the inside of the cup changes, the outside becomes queen instead of saying a filth word, beginning with this, you’ve taken the holy name of your creator and used as a substitute which is called blasphemy. So serious. It’s punishable by death. G. O. I appreciate your patience with me and your honesty. And before you said, you looked at pornography last night, jesus said, if you look at a woman and lust for her, you commit adultery with her in your heart. So I’m gonna I’m gonna have a quick summation, you’ve told me and this is for you, not me judge yourself, you’ve told me that you’re a lying thieving blasphemous adulterer at heart and you have to face God on judgment day, whether you believe in him or not, if he judges you by the 10 commandments, we’ve looked at four, you’re gonna be innocent or guilty guilty heaven or hell, probably hell. How does that concern? You know, man? It concerns me. We have all admitted that we like stand guilty before God, that we haven’t lived out or tell us our intended purpose at all times. And do you know what jesus said that he did for us to uh to get us out of jail to get out of the punishment that we deserve. Yeah. You know that story? Yeah, Yeah. Do you are you familiar with that story? Yeah. He was on the cross. Why is that important though? Like why is why is that important in the grand scheme of things? Anybody know why sins are sins? Like if we don’t do that, then we we wouldn’t make it into heaven? Yeah. Amen. Well, that’s exactly right because imagine that you are all guilty before a just judge for for breaking the 10 commandments. For not living out your tell us your intended purpose. God created you with a purpose. And if you have not limit your like that, watch that instead of telling time, you wanted to be a hammer, You know what happens to a watch? If it tries to be a hammer break right? Like you can’t use a watch as a hammer, you know what I mean? And you got two options, You’ve got two options when you have a broken watch. What are those two things you can do with a broken watch? That’s right. You’re exactly right when jesus dies on the cross, for us to forgive us ever since, essentially what he’s saying is, you deserve punishment. You deserve to go to jail. You deserve to be thrown away because you are not living out your purpose. Your tell us though what I created you to do, but instead of throwing you away, I’m gonna redeem you, I’m gonna reconcile, I’m gonna fix you. I’m gonna bring you back to the way I was you were created to be and by doing that, I’m gonna take on the fullness of the wrath punishment you deserve. I’m gonna take so that you can be restored, made new to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That’s exactly right, man. That is what we call the Gospel and then God calls us when we hear the gospel to repent. What do you think happens after we die guys, I don’t know, I’m not like a religious type of person, you know, but I definitely think there’s some type of afterlife. A lot of religious people act like they know exactly what happened when you got no one really knows, you know what I’m saying? Until it happens? Do you do you know that? Nobody knows? Uh I don’t know, But I guess like, I don’t know, I feel like nobody really knows until it happens to you, You know how you for sure how you 100% certain that you’re right? Got you. Ok. And do you believe the same thing? I think we die and come back as another person um or I don’t really necessarily reincarnation. Yeah, I believe in that. Okay, alright. I was gonna say non tatted up guy, but you got some tats that are showing up a little bit? I feel like he does. I feel like, you know, you you get reincarnated into something, but it just depends on how you lived your life before. If you do good, you know, then then you’re probably gonna have another good life. Alright, so here, here would be my question with that, where I’m left scratching my head concerning reincarnation. If you do, if you do good in a past life, you come back with something better, but who gets to decide what good is because you and I might come along and say, hey listen, flying planes into Twin Towers, that’s messed up. Some other guy that’s listening to our convo comes over here and says, hey, that’s actually a good thing, right? So you and I are, we’re one accord. But this guy is saying in fact millions and millions of other people are saying, no, you guys are off base, Right? So what do we do to determine who’s good, good question. Do you believe in the existence of God? I believe there’s something out there? I’m not sure what it is. Do you ever look around at at at the wonders of the world, the order of the universe? Do you ever look at all that and think, wow man, that yeah, there has to be a designer that’s behind all this. Yeah. Until I think of the fact that why do people rape Children and why do people kill people and white people, you know, attack other races when they it isn’t on their narrative. So if there is a God, why is he not stopping this nonsense? Why is he allowing it? Well, I hear you and and that’s that’s the dilemma. We’re all in a world where they’re suffering, there’s pain, there’s Brokenness. And I think that the fact that we can discern between right and wrong means that there has to be an objective right? My response to the person who says, why does all this stuff happen? And often times we’ll even encounter christians and they’ll say, I don’t know, we have separate. I don’t understand why, but here’s the reason why when God created man in the garden of Eden, he gave man a choice Adam and Eve disobeyed God they ate and from that time we are living in a broken and in a fallen creation and because of that, there is sin. Now, this is a place where we might stop and say, well, why did God let that happen? Why did God give the choice, Why did God? You know, and there’s different answers? Some people will say, well, free will. Some people say, I don’t know that any of those honestly satisfy, but just something for you to think about. Nick. If God were small enough to fully understand, he wouldn’t be big enough to be God, you know, we don’t even understand how our brains work. Like scientists can’t even figure that out. And I always say, if I can’t fully figure out my brain, how can I fully figure out that God who created it? So, Nick, what’s your moral compass? Um, I’m a christian. I believe that the bible is God’s word. I believe that God has written his law on our hearts and has given us a conscience, uh, you know, uh, a compass that helps us understand what’s right and wrong. What’s your moral compass? I think I just believe in other people the way I want them to believe in me and if you know, they’re in my way, I squish them. Ah this interview is over as you guys saw, I cut out of there really quick when he talked about squishing people Oscar, Have you ever squished anyone while preaching? No, maybe squished a bug. It is ironic though that he got done talking about how he uh, how he believes in people. And then he turns around and says he’d squish somebody quickly that turned so break that down for me guys, what’s wrong with that? I believe in people doesn’t mean I believe in the goodness of people. I think that’s what it means. And Ray, I’ve heard you respond to people when they say that about what they should do with their wallet. If you believe in the goodness of man put your wallet there and come back in half an hour and see if it’s still there, it’s not gonna be there and lock your doors. For a reason. It’s such a silly argument really, because all you have to do is look throughout history and see how persistent people are bringing sin and death into the world. And honestly, I think it’s it’s a failed attempt of avoiding one sin. Because when you dig in and ask someone when they say I believe in people and you say have you ever been hurt by somebody? Have you ever been betrayed by someone? What makes you think that that’s not gonna happen again? People are fallen and broken and are in need of redemption? I think a part of it too comes down to when when you don’t worship God, you look at what man comes up with and you’re enamored by that. Like I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on ai and humanoid robots and it’s absolutely fascinating and mind blowing. So you take God out of the equation and you see the things that man is making and it can cause you to get the sense like look at humanity were so good and look at what we can do and, and it’s so crazy. You know, we go over to the moon 183,000 miles away and we think what a great accomplishment God spans a universe with his hand. You know, it’s like an ant going going from uh, you know, 11 point of a sidewalk to another and it’s like, whoa, it’s it’s so amazing And we failed to recognize the greatness of God and man’s wickedness, sinfulness and fallen this against that backdrop. The 10 commandments are called the moral law. You and I broke the law, Jesus paid the fine. That’s what happened on that cross. His last words just before he died was were it is finished. That’s a weird thing to say when you’re dying, geo it is finished. But he was saying the debt has been paid. We broke God’s Law the 10 Commandments, All of us. He paid the fine. That means we can leave, we can leave God’s courtroom. Does that make sense? Not really. You know why? It doesn’t make sense. No. See if I can explain it to you as quickly as they can If you’re on the freeway and you’ve driven 80 mph while drunk and you get arrested. you’re thrown in prison and someone pays a fine for you. So you can go free. You want to understand the payment of that fine, if you don’t realize you’ve done anything wrong, if you say, look, I can get drunk if I want to, I can drive as fast as I want, not gonna care if someone pays your fine because you don’t think you’re guilty. But if you realize you’ve done something terribly serious and you could have taken someone’s life and you realize it’s just justice to put you in jail. But someone pays your fine and so you can go free. You will understand the fine being paid because you’re honest about your own transgressions and violating that law. And because you don’t see anything serious about lust and lying and stealing and blasphemy. You don’t understand the good news that christ died on the cross for our sins and paying the fine for us. And if you’ll be honest, and just realize how serious that is. This is the death sentence God’s given you and he wants you to live forever, He takes no pleasure in your death. If you realize how serious it is, then you’ll say, Boy jesus really died for me while I was yet a sinner. Does that make sense? And I really appreciate that. And then jesus rose from the dead. The bible says it was not possible that death could hold him NGO if you’ll simply repent and trust in christ God or grant you everlasting life as a free gift and when you go out to this paddle out and realize what you’re doing, you’re thinking about someone that you knew and loved passing into eternity appropriate to yourself and say what would happen to me if I died tonight and let that sobriety fill your heart so that you take seriously what God says about his word and about his gospel. Andheri offers you everlasting life as a free gift man. You’ve been so gracious to me and listening, I really appreciate it. You’ve got to think about what we talked about. Yeah, I don’t know if you heard me talking to the gentleman earlier, but I I shared with him. God’s standard, the 10 commandments that law has been given to us. Kind of like a mirror. You know when you look into a mirror, it reflects back to you. What’s true about yourself? And when I look into the mirror of God’s Law, I’m in big trouble. You shall not lie if we ever told so much as even one line by God’s standards, we’re liars, right? You shall not steal. If we’ve ever taken anything that belonged to us. We’re thieves. If we’ve used God’s name in vain word blasphemers. If we’ve had unjust anger or hatred and heart were murderers. If we looked with lust were adulterers. So we’re in big trouble with God on the day of judgment and what would you say to God if you were to die and stand in front of him and he were to say to you, nick should I let you know my kingdom, what would you say? Well, if there is a God to stand there and stand in front of me and I guess my beliefs will be totally that way. Then that that day, won’t they? By that day I better start kissing some. Well here’s the thing. Um that’s what I think most of us would love right to die, live the way we want and then stand in front of God and say God, please let me in. He says, okay, come on in. No problem. But it doesn’t work that way. You know, this is this is the time and place where we’re able to make that decision that will determine well how do you know? It does work that way. Okay, good answer. Here’s how I know because I know the person who died and who rose again and who created the universe and has given us his word. That tells us that this is the way that it works. And I just encourage you to think about that. And this is the ultimate question was jesus christ who he said he was because if he was then what he said was true and then we know that it’s appointed on a man wants to die and then comes the judgment and he said, I’m the way the truth and the life no man comes to God, but through me he sees me, I’m ready to go and that’s my hope you’re right. He’s got to come see you and I hope when he does you’ll repent and turn to him nick. Thank you so much. I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you, appreciate it. That was awesome. So here’s the question guys, when are you going to get right with God? Surrender your life to him to be honest. I’m not sure because my definition of God or higher power I would like to call it is different than what you think. You know what I’m saying? Um I don’t think that I’m gonna go to hell just because I’m not a full on christian, you know, so so where do you get your information? Remember how we started this off? I don’t really like get my information from anywhere except like just like what I’ve, what I’ve been through, you know what I’m saying? Um life experiences and stuff and what I think, but here’s the problem with that my friend and I think you agree with this, I’m not off base on this. I think it’s easy to be deceived right? Like how like if you if I was sitting right next to you guys were hanging out, somebody comes up to us says, hey Mark, what do you believe? And I say what I believe, hey I believe that Christianity is true and he comes up and he starts talking about his behi faith or whatever he believes and he shows me a little red handkerchief trick and I didn’t get it. At first I was deceived and I was fully convinced man, maybe maybe it did disappear or maybe this guy’s what’s going on? It’s a miracle. I didn’t have all the info and that’s what’s important. Before I leave this planet, I want to make sure I have all the info. Hey, will you give this some thought, would you at least do that? Yeah, that’s a good conversation. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. You guys know what that word repent means? What does it mean? It means to back away from, that’s how I feel at least. Yeah, I got you. So repentance. It’s kinda means two things. One, it means turning from something and turning towards God. So in this case if a watch is trying to be a hammer, it’s like repentance would be stop being a hammer and start being a watch turning from sin, turning towards God right? But another word for repent is also home coming like a coming home. So when God calls you to repent, when he invites you to repent, he’s inviting you home to live out your purpose to live out your meaning. Uh And that’s something I’d invite you guys to do or to consider today. Is that something you would you guys consider to think about what you say is like uh a measuring stick to know whether you’re backsliding and if you just completely turn away man, that’s a really good question. Uh, I think that the best way to answer that question is when you are surrounded by people that are living out there, tell us specifically, like people in your life that maybe are christians that are regular members of a local church, that would be able to help you pray for, you know, you. But either way, if you’re in a moment of backsliding, the difference between someone who’s backsliding and someone who’s not a believer, is that the backslider repents? That he turns back towards God where the non belief continues to backslide into destruction, going back to that watch thing. So, if if you feel like if you’re concerned that you’re in a season of backsliding, then my invitation for you is to not delay repentance to turn back towards that, Like, don’t don’t put that off until tomorrow, you know what I’m saying? How do you answer that particular question when someone is wondering, am I really saved or not? Or what’s going on with me in the state I’m in? Yeah. In that particular situation, I went right right towards calling him towards repentance in hopes that God was pricking his heart in hopes that something was stirring in him to invite him towards repentance. And then the other thing that I did was invited him to understand his faith through the context of a local church. Those are the people who can affirm your faith, call you out on sin invite you to repentance and proclaim the gospel to you on a daily basis. You know, one of the greatest disservice is that we see inside the church today is introducing that word backsliding because there’s no assurance of salvation. If you’re sleeping with your girlfriend, if you’re looking at porn, if you’re lying regularly, if you’re stealing, if you’re doing these things on a regular basis, you’re not born again. That’s what scripture says. That’s not to say that we can’t struggle with certain things. We will always have a fight in this life. But saying, hey, I’m just backsliding right now or hey, there’s no guarantee that, as you say, you never slid forward in the first place who was a friend of the world, is an enemy of God. And scriptures. Got some picturesque, picturesque speech for those who do so like a dog returning to its vomit like a pig going back to wallowing in the mire. And the reason a pig wallow in the filth isn’t because it wants to be dirty because it wants to cool its flesh. And that’s what happens with an false convert. His flesh is still alive. He’s not crucified with christ, he’s not picking up his cross daily and denying himself. And so he has to go back to the world to cool his flesh, which is burning and you know, it’s not that a christian can’t struggle or stumble or even stay great first season, I mean, you look at even peter in scripture and paul had to rebuke him to his face because he was being hypocritical regarding the gospel. The big problem is that in modern Christianity there has been this sort of legitimized category that lifestyle is never acceptable in scripture. We need to, if we truly love the Lord repent and get right with him, you said 13 0. D. S right? Like what did that look like for you? It was just like I was chasing death you know like I’m not trying to cry but chasing death like that you won’t find anything satisfying that you only find negative. You know my mom was an addict my whole life, my cousin who was like a brother to me like we grew up together, he was an addict, drugs is actually a lot like sin bro because the thing about drugs is like the more and more you have, the less satisfied you are, the more they take from you. They don’t give to you, they take from you like it starts because you’re feeling like high but then it’s just like you need that to survive. I would encourage you to go home and read the book of markets short man, you can read it in a day Mark. Yeah yeah I pray that you go home and read that alright alright thank you so much. Have a good day. We hope this episode of way of the master has inspired you to share the Gospel with others. You can watch our award winning movies and listen to the Living Waters podcast freely at Living Waters dot com, where you’ll also find articles, ebooks, videos, audio content, digital resources and gospel tracts, including our popular starter kit with four of our top gospel tracts to help you share your faith Biblically and effectively make sure to visit Living Waters dot com today.