In our day we are placing an unscriptural emphasis on the beginning aspect of salvation to the neglect of the process and the goal. The product of this overemphasis is people who "make a decision for Christ" and then fall away; make another decision for Christ and then fall away; make another decision for Christ and then fall away. There are many such individuals in jail at the present time who go to a Bible study and make another "decision for Christ." They make a decision for Christ because they want to please God, they want to be righteous. But what they are being taught is a philosophy, a system of belief, not the Divine salvation.

It absolutely is necessary that salvation begin in our life with a decisive, clear-cut action. We must turn away from our own attempts to save ourselves. We must put our faith in the blood atonement made by the Lord Jesus. We must repent of our sinful behavior and renounce the things we are doing we know to be sinful.

We must be baptized in water, declaring we have died to the world and now are raised with Christ that we might enter the Kingdom of God. These actions must be performed clearly and decisively.

But this is just the beginning. After this there is a life to be lived in which we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling—not as today with gleeful overconfidence but with fear and trembling that we might be faithful in pleasing God.

We have been given the piano, now we need to learn how to play it. Otherwise the Christian Gospel is to us a religious philosophy, not the power of God to salvation.

Then there is the Day of Salvation that is coming in which Christ will remove the presence of sin from us and clothe us with a robe of righteousness. The robe of righteousness is fashioned as we keep putting to death, through the Spirit of God, the sinful deeds of our body. In the Day of the Lord we shall be clothed with a body from Heaven that has been formed as we have put to death the deeds of our body on the earth. We are going to reap exactly what we have sown.

Salvation has a specific beginning, a specific program, a specific conclusion. Remember, salvation is defined as complete deliverance from the guilt, power, and presence of sin. Each of us has been given a mark toward which to press. There is a conclusion of the work of salvation, not a conclusion of growing in the Lord but a conclusion of the work of delivering us from the guilt, power, and presence of sin, of redemption. Such deliverance is not completed at the beginning of our salvation but at the end.

It is not the beginning that saves us but the end. He who endures to the end is the person who is saved. We can go through the program successfully as long as we keep our eyes on the Lord. But if we grow cold and neglectful we are heading back toward the fire that will consume the adversaries of God. This is what the Book of Hebrews teaches us.

God is granting revivals of repentance in the United States in the present hour. This may prove to be our last opportunity to seek the Lord. Let us make sure we do not, after repenting, grow cold again. (There may not be another opportunity to repent!) Let us rather press forward to the finish line so we may be saved (delivered from the presence of sin) in the Day of the Lord. We will be made a partaker of Christ if we hold fast our confidence steadfastly to the end. (from Eternal Judgment)