Let me preface what I’m about to say by stating that I believe salvation does indeed come in a moment of time, when a person repents and believes in Christ. At that very moment, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of them, and as a result they are made holy and have become a new creation. It isn’t based on works, but it comes by faith on the basis of God’s grace. However, we have often taken this core teaching of the Gospel to an end that really is an end. And that end is destruction; not salvation. We often teach that if you come down the altar, say a prayer of repentance, and profess Christ, you are saved. Not necessarily true. We all know that to become a Christian, one needs to do two things: repent and believe in Jesus. Yet are those things “once-and-done”? Clearly not. By definition, to repent means that you change directions. To say that you turn around toward God at one instant in time, and then turn back to the world for the rest of your life–how is that repentance? That is fake repentance. Or to say that at one moment in time, you decided to trust Jesus to save you, but you don’t trust Him with your day-to-day life–how is that really trusting Jesus? To put it another way, 1 John 3:23 says, “This is His commandment, that we 1) believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and 2) love one another, just as He commanded us.” Does that mean that we can simply, at one moment in time, love some given individual, and then go on living selfishly, and thus say we have fulfilled this obligation? Surely not! If that is the case, how can we say that we can “believe in Jesus” in such a way? The problem with once-and-done salvation isn’t that it leaves out works–it actually promotes works! It turns salvation into merely a momentary human decision (works!) instead of salvation being a genuine, inward change that is brought about by God. Salvation happens when a person’s heart is gripped by the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they must let go of the life...

I have often been frustrated at modern-day sermons not bringing conviction. Part of my focus as a pastor has been to NOT be one of those guys who tries to please people when preaching, but instead tells the truth of Scripture, even though they are hard truths to hear. Yet, I think there is a danger in trying to preach with conviction. Why try to be convicting? After all, truth itself is convicting. Preachers don’t need to try to be convicting if we simply preach what Scripture says. Truth naturally brings conviction. I think I try to be convicting, because I want people to respond to Jesus. Some people fear the negative results of conviction (i.e. people getting offended), so they try to water down the truth in hopes of having more people respond favorably to Jesus. I know this is not correct. This distorts God’s message in hopes of getting people to respond–the ends do not justify the means. Yet, trying to be convicting is just as bad. It shows a lack of faith in God to do the work himself. The truth is, when God’s truth is simply proclaimed as it is, unaltered, it must bring conviction on everyone who hears it. The truth naturally does this. Of course, that doesn’t mean that everyone will respond favorably to the truth. We all have a choice to surrender to God’s conviction, or to resist it. Granted, that makes it tempting for a preacher to try to make things more convicting, attempting to make it harder for the hearer to resist and convincing them to give in to God. I don’t think that attempting to make a message more convicting has greater results than simply preaching the truth as is. Instead, it just has the potential of getting both the speaker and the listener frustrated. We cannot step in and do the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course, it is deeply frustrating when you know the Holy Spirit is convicting people, and yet they seem to be resisting at every point. I need to learn that at this point, my hands are tied. I must continue to pray for such people. Little else helps. Often, when I’m crafting...