Many people may find this text offensive. But my desire for many years has been to understand why so many of the people that regularly attend church do not get more involved in the church's ministries. While not everyone will agree with my general conclusion, it is that most of those people are not really saved. I do not want to be a judge or even sound judgmental. But the simple fact is that the Bible teaches throughout a life of Christian SERVICE and MINISTRY for the Lord by ALL followers of Christ. Therefore, as will be discussed in the following pages, one of my conclusions is that the template types of prayer for salvation that many people are usually told to repeat do not work. Because of that, I have tried to explain what does work and how saved people actually got saved. In my opinion, true biblical salvation does not result from repeating the simple words of a simple prayer. It only occurs when sincere people SEEK the Lord with all of their heart, when they COMMIT to Him, when they TRUST in Him, and when they enter into a personal RELATIONSHIP with Him. Anything less is not real salvation. This is a very short text that should not take anyone long to read. In writing it, my goal has NOT been to bring into question anyone's profession of Faith in Christ. But it has been to encourage ALL people to examine themselves to be sure that they are in the Faith. My overall objective as always has been to present to the best of my abilities the truth of the Scriptures and to also tell others how to NOT die lost. In my opinion, hades is already full enough.

The second edition of this book has been written to clean up some of the poorly worded text in the first edition and to show important Bible verses rather than just refer to them. In examining this second chapter of the epistle of James, authorship, time of writing, and its place in the canon are discussed. After that, the rest of the book focuses on not being a respecter of persons, everyone's guilt by the law, faith without works, and justification by works. Many people struggle with the contrast between faith and works. So this book shows the relationship between the two and how they work together in a Christian's life. We have been brought together by a common Savior for the common cause of exalting and glorifying our heavenly Father. Jesus loves everyone. He gave Himself for everyone. Why do people show preferential treatment to some and not to others? Why are many people prejudiced against certain segments or classes of humanity? Is being prejudiced always wrong? These are questions that require some consideration. We praise the apparently successful because they are apparently successful. However, God does not choose the poor to be the recipients of His faith just because they are poor. He also does not keep the rich from having the same because they are rich. Living on both sides of the grave equally well means to consider this life's decisions in light of how they will affect you for eternity. If being rich causes a person to ignore their need for the Lord, then that person would be much better off poor. Those that have received Christ's love are those that will share it. Those that have received His mercy are the ones that will extend it. Those that have a saving faith in Jesus are the ones that will perform the works of the Christian faith. Christians do not do the things that they do so that they can be Christians. They do them because they are Christians. When James asked if faith alone can save implying that good works should also be evident, he was really saying that believing "into" Jesus and having that unique relationship with Him causes us to do good works. We recognize His deity. We acknowledge His virgin birth, His sinless life, His death on the cross for our sins, His resurrection from the grave, and His ascension back to heaven. We do not just believe in the existence of some kind of faraway god. We believe in the one and only true God of the universe, the One that created everything and oversees all. We believe in the God of the Bible. We believe in the inerrancy of His Word because it is His Word. Therefore, may Christ be the One that gets all the honor and glory for what He has done and continues to do in the hearts and lives of those that trust Him.

This book will begin by examining the two occasions when Satan and the "sons of God" presented themselves in heaven before the Lord. A brief explanation will also be offered at that time concerning the use of the term "sons of God" and what it has meant in other places in the Bible, especially in Genesis 6:2 and Genesis 6:4. From there, the discussion will show how people can know that Job really lived and when he probably lived. The point will even be made that some theologians believe that Moses might have been the author of the book of Job. Next, the visit to Job by his three friends will be considered. Their comments about him and their suggested reasons for his problems will be presented. During those discussions, one will be able to see a definite shift in Job's attitude to where he began to break out of his discouraged, depressed state. Contrary to what many people might think, it will become clear that his friends may have actually contributed to his overall improvement even if their remarks to him had not been very favorable. In hindsight, they may have been the perfect way out for Job as is described by I Corinthians 10:13. One of the keys of this book is to show that it is all right and not sin to question when things go wrong in your life for no apparent reason. To that end, four questions that Job had asked and also which showed how he viewed his situation as hopeless will be discussed. Following that, three important questions that many people might have about Job's overall testing will be discussed. The first is why the Lord allowed his friends to criticize him. The second is how Job could have ever been satisfied again knowing that his first ten children had been pawns in Satan's hands. The third questions looks at why Job repented at the end of his time of testing even though the Bible does not say that he did anything wrong. The last part of this book will show that God was in complete control of Job's circumstances. It will also talk about the lessons that a person can learn from Job's testing. The conclusion is that studying the book of Job provides many lessons for the person that is following the Lord.

This book has been written to clear up some confusion about John 3:16. In the pages that follow, the actual originator of those words will be identified. The verse is in red in Bibles that identify the words of Jesus with red letters. But did He really say those words in His conversation with Nicodemus? In reaching the most logical conclusion, careful consideration will be given to the verb "gave" in that verse and to the Apostle John's use of the aorist active indicative case for that verb. Verses from other parts of his writings and the New Testament will also be considered to arrive at the most reasonable understanding of the aorist active indicative verb case. The key words in John 3:16 will be examined based on their meanings in the original Greek language. When trying to understand the Bible, returning to the original language almost always provides the best results. In more recent years, people have sometimes reduced the meaning of "believeth" to where it is only a shadow of what the originator had probably intended it to mean. They have also often tried to say that a person must believe this or that to be saved. But is that really what the originator of those words was saying? Some people have developed nice little template-type prayers that are intended to lead someone to Christ. But is that really what God in heaven is waiting to hear? This book is about educating Christians about one particular verse in the Bible and about true Bible salvation. To that end, the eternality of Bible truth will be presented. Explanation about how Old Testament saints were saved will also be given. The end conclusion is that God never changes. Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." Therefore, He has never changed in the way that He saves people. He has never changed in what He requires of people to be saved. For someone to believe that a person born after the death of Christ is saved any differently than those born before His death on the cross is to deny Hebrews 13:8. This book will show why Abraham got saved and why his father, Terah, did not. This book will also show how General Revelation is the real key to anyone getting saved. The hope is that the Lord will be honored and glorified by those things that have been written.

This short book has been written to share a couple of very important spiritual truths. The first, called the eternality of Bible truth, maintains that every word of the Bible has always been true even before it was written. The second truth is that a person does not have to know the literal name of Jesus or anything about Him to be saved. That simple statement is not meant to sound heretical. Those words are also not meant to deny the Lordship of Christ or His sacrificial death on the cross at Calvary. The real message that is being conveyed by those words is that a person does not have to understand or even know those things about Him to be saved. This book is not overly complicated. But the hope is that each reader will carefully and prayerfully consider the truths that are being conveyed. In many ways, people living in these current times have many benefits that they tend to take for granted. Because people today have easy access to the Bible, the natural assumption is that people in all generations have always had easy access to the Bible. But that simply is not true. So rather than trying to push any kind of anti-Christ teachings on anyone, the real desire is to cause people today to really think about and try to understand what it was like to live for the Lord hundreds or even thousands of years ago before all of the benefits of today were available. This short book is an excerpt from another book that I wrote entitled A Bible-based Argument Against Calvinism. The desires with that book as well as with this book are to help people better understand true biblical salvation.

This short book has been written to share a couple of very important spiritual truths. The first, called the eternality of Bible truth, maintains that every word of the Bible has always been true even before it was spoken or written. The second truth is that the Old Testament saints probably did not hear God's audible, out loud voice. That simple statement is not meant to sound heretical. Those words are also not meant to deny anything that Christians have traditionally believed about God. The real message is that what we have many times just accepted as truth in the Bible may in fact not be the truth at all. Just because most people would immediately think that God spoke out loud to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the other Old Testament saints, it does not mean that He did. This book is not overly complicated. But the hope is that each reader will carefully and prayerfully consider the truths that are being conveyed. In many ways, people living in these current times have many benefits that they tend to take for granted. Because people today have easy access to the Bible, the natural assumption is that people in all generations have always had easy access to the Bible. But that simply is not true. So rather than trying to push any kind of anti-Christ or anti-God teachings on anyone, the real desire is to cause people today to really think about and try to understand what it was like to live for the Lord hundreds or even thousands of years ago before all of the benefits of today were available. The desire in this work most definitely is to challenge what most Christians have just assumed to be true for many years. This short book is an excerpt from another book that I wrote entitled A Bible-based Argument Against Calvinism. The desires with that book as well as with this book are to help people better understand Bible truth.