I’ve been revisiting a thought since yesterday — well, actually it’s been floating around upstairs for a while. Yesterday I began to ponder sharing it with you all.

ABC

Admit
Believe
Confess

A good acronym. And I am NOT maligning its use. However, I have some concerns, long-standing concerns.

Do people understand what it means to be a sinner?

I’m not wondering do they know they sin. Of course, they know that. We all know that. I’ve not yet met a soul that would say to me they are sinless; that they never say a hurtful word or do a malicious deed. We all know we are not perfect. Don’t we? Seriously, who does not know that?

Romans 1: (New Century Version)
20 There are things about Him that people cannot see—His eternal power and all the things that make him God. But since the beginning of the world those things have been easy to understand by what God has made. So people have no excuse for the bad things they do.
via Romans 1:20 – Passage Lookup – New Century Version – BibleGateway.com.

But, when we bring a person to the ADMIT part of the ABCs of Salvation, do they really understand what it means?

Do they know they are not sinners because they sin, but that they sin because they are sinners?

We don’t need a Savior because of what we do, we need a Savior because of who we are! SINNERS.

And truthfully I think only one question will tell them and us if they know they are a sinner. And here it is:

Do you deserve to die and go to hell for all eternity?

I know from personal experience it’s really hard to admit that. Took me 23 years to get to that place. I spent many years knowing I sinned (said and did wrong things), and knowing that I was not good enough for heaven but surely I was not bad enough for hell.

See what I mean?

Yes, let’s continue to use the ABCs to salvation.  But perhaps we should explain the A part more clearly.

Forgive me if I’m wrong I just don’t think a soul is ready for salvation until he or she KNOWS and is willing to admit that who he (or she) IS (without God’s Gift of Salvation) means he (or she) deserves Hell. Forever.

Have we so adulterated the Gospel to make it ‘user-friendly’ that we are not only not rescuing them from hell but we are actually hindering them from getting to Heaven?

Matthew 23: (New American Standard Bible)
33 “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?
via Matthew 23:33 – Passage Lookup – New American Standard Bible – BibleGateway.com.

2 Peter 2: (New American Standard Bible)
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;
5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;
7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men
8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),
9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
via 2 Peter 2:4-9 – Passage Lookup – New American Standard Bible – BibleGateway.com.

Romans 5: (21st Century King James Version)
9 Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
11 And not only that, but we shall also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
via Romans 5:9-11 – Passage Lookup – 21st Century King James Version – BibleGateway.com.

Before I stir up a hornet’s nest, let me add when that candidate is a child, particularly a young child, who has come to us asking how to come to be a Christian, we should greatly rejoice but please tread lightly. Ask LOTS of questions BEFORE the Big Question about hell and listen very carefully to their answers. Perhaps our first response to a young one should be: “That is a great question and I am so glad you ask; so tell me why are you asking?” Dare we forget the little boy who asked where did I come from and the only answer he really needed or wanted was Ohio. 

For U in HIS name,
Kathie