Saving the Family
How often have you heard it? You set up a bible study with someone whose whole family heritage and background is steeped and rooted in many of the foreign-to-scripture, false and misleading doctrines of man-made denominationalism. But after several weeks of serious and in-depth “book, chapter, and verse” exploration of the sacred text, you slowly begin to see the light of truth starting to pierce through their fog of denominationally-induced darkness. Eventually, they come to the point where they understand, that according to God: one must repent and be baptized specifically for the forgiveness of their sins to be saved (Acts 2:38); that water baptism is the precise and divinely pre-determined point at which one’s sins are legitimately washed away as they call upon the name of the Lord – and not a moment before (Acts 22:16); and that one’s “by faith” baptism into Christ is where one accepts God’s gift of grace, becomes a child of God, and is thus saved and added by God to His Son’s church (Eph. 2:8-9; Gal. 3:26-27: 1 Ptr. 3:21; Acts 2:37-47).
Conform to Christ, then transform the family.
But then comes “that” phrase: “But if I do this, then I’m condemning my whole family!” With all due respect, that is one of Satan’s biggest and most blatantly blasphemous lies! It hinders or halts the salvation of countless lost and misled souls, because nothing – NOTHING – could be any further from the truth (Jn. 8:31-47)! And here’s why: All sinners who have not yet obeyed the gospel and had their sins washed away thereby, are all already condemned anyway (Rom. 3:23), period – no matter whether one of their other family members ever decides to fully and finally study, accept, and obey the truth and become saved or not!
In fact, if one does eventually get to the point of studying and understanding the truth, but then refuses to obey it, it is actually THEN that they are most actively assisting and contributing to the condemnation of their entire family, as they are not doing what is so absolutely vital to helping their family to truly escape their currently unsaved condition, but are instead, aiding, assisting, supporting and promoting their loved ones’ delusion of self-induced deception and destruction! The only and ultimate action one can take to secure their own salvation, as well as to give their loved ones the absolutely best possible chance they can to escape eternal destruction, is to learn and obey the gospel themselves, and then go back and teach every loved one they have why they obeyed the gospel, and why they must do so too!