Soul Surgery: Biblical Guidance to Help Discern a Person's Spiritual Condition

Soul Surgery

Biblical Guidance to Help Discern a Person’s Spiritual Condition

By Douglas Hammett

Copyright 2011 Douglas Hammett

Smashwords Edition

All scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: How Can it Be?

Chapter Two: Do I have to struggle to get saved?

Chapter Three: Can I really trust God?

Chapter Four: God’s revelation to man

Chapter Five: Why would God even want to save me?

Chapter Six: Am I really that bad?

Chapter Seven: The work of conviction

Chapter Eight: Lordship, submission and salvation

Chapter Nine: Can a man be saved and know it?

Chapter Ten: Cause of cure of deception

Chapter Eleven: Examining your experience

Chapter Twelve: Recognizing repentance

About the Author

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Introduction

I have entitled this book, Soul Surgery. Let me explain what I mean by that title. If I needed an operation, I would prefer that the surgeon be a specialist in his field. In other words, I want a doctor who has a degree and who knows what he is doing. On the other hand, just because someone has a medical degree doesn’t mean he knows what he is doing. He needs to have not only the necessary intellectual education, but it helps if he has some good common sense to go along with that, and also some experience in his field of surgery.

I would not want a doctor who has just graduated from medical school to do surgery on me. Can’t you just see him with a textbook propped up, having to read every step so he doesn’t cut the wrong thing? I am not afraid to pay for the best kind of doctor. I want one who knows what he is doing.

We need to remember, however, that a doctor is only caring for this physical, temporal body. How long is it going to last? The Bible says in James 4:14, For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. Relatively speaking, our physical body will not last long. However, when we come to spiritual issues, we are talking about things that are eternal – things that will last forever.

Did you know that if you are saved, you are a spiritual doctor? As a spiritual doctor, you have been given the job of dealing with the souls of other men and women. When you talk to them about eternity, about Heaven and Hell, and about how to be saved, you are doing Soul Surgery.

Just as I want the best qualified surgeon to operate on me physically, so I also want the best qualified person to deal with my spiritual soul. I don’t want someone operating on my soul who does not know what he is doing.

It bothers me when I see an unqualified Christian attempt to do soul surgery on some poor, lost sinner. Some of these soul surgeons even have long letters after their name, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they know what they are doing. Some of them have many notches on their belt to show they have had many souls saved, but their fruit doesn’t remain.

How can we, as true born-again Christians, help others who are seeking to know our Savior? How can we be more qualified as soul surgeons? In this book, I hope to discuss in detail some areas you will encounter when dealing with lost sinners.

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Chapter One

How Can it Be?

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (Second Corinthians 13:5)

Through my years of pastoring, I have seen many people saved. Some of them have been church members, some deacons, some Sunday school teachers, and other leaders in the church. How can that be? Is it real? Is it genuine? Of course, we can’t answer for every individual or for every situation. Those things have to be taken on an individual basis.

But I think it is an important question to ask: Is it possible for someone who is a church member to be lost? If you have read your Bible, you know that it is very possible. Being a church member does not guarantee that you are going to Heaven. So whether someone goes to a liberal church, or whether they attend a Bible-believing Baptist church, they can still be lost.

Let me ask it this way: Do you know anyone that honestly believes they are going to Hell when they die? I can remember only one or two I’ve met in my entire lifetime. Most people believe they are going to Heaven. In fact, the Bible says that every person is born with the thought that they can get to Heaven by being good enough. It doesn’t matter how a person is raised or what religion they are. All people, from every race and religion, think they are going to Heaven.

The Bible is very clear that the number of souls going to Heaven is a much smaller group than the souls going to Hell. It warns us of a delusion that comes from Satan himself. There are many in the world deluded into thinking they are on their way to Heaven, when in fact they are heading straight for Hell. Unfortunately, this delusion is not only in the world. There are also many people who sit in pews of Bible-preaching churches that are deluded. They think they are right with God—they think they are saved—but they are not.

It is easy to get proud and think that we are the only right ones. We have the right preaching, the right beliefs, the right doctrines, etc. Therefore we are the ones who are surely going to Heaven. It is other people in other churches who are lost and going to Hell. We must guard against that attitude. We need to be open and honest enough to realize that it is very possible to have lost church members in our church too.

How tragic would it be to hear the Gospel presented clearly week after week and yet die lost and spend an eternity in Hell? That thought haunts me; it bothers me tremendously. I fear that there will be people who listen to me preach week after week and yet they will die lost. They have never been saved. They have just enough of an inoculation with religion and with the Bible to think they are okay.

Perhaps they grow up in church, or they come to our church long enough to learn the right words to use. They put these words into their testimony to make it sound right. All the time they honestly believe they are all right, yet they have been deluded, some for many years. They need to realize their condition and come to Christ for salvation. But there are many who will continue in that state of delusion for the rest of their lives and die without the Savior.

The Bible teaches that it is possible for a person to be a church member and yet be lost. There in a glaring error today in the average church in America – the error of never questioning the salvation of those who are in the congregation, simply because they are church members or because they attend regularly. I am not saying that we need to think that every person is lost. We do not need to always be questioning, pointing fingers, and accusing. This can cause a person who is truly saved to be worried, confused and bothered, and cause them to have no peace or assurance of salvation.

We want to maintain a balance of being wise, discerning soul surgeons, but not trying to take the place of the Holy Spirit. In light of this, let me ask the question: does the New Testament give us any indication that people in Bible-preaching, Bible-believing, Bible-practicing churches could be lost? The answer is YES! Let me show you.

Counterfeit Saints in the Scriptures

First of all, there are the counterfeit saints that we can see in Scripture. These were people who claimed to be saved, but they were not. They looked like they were saints but they were counterfeit. They were associated with New Testament churches. They were even involved in Christian work and service. They blended right in with the rest of the Christians, and from the outside you could not tell that they were counterfeit. But remember that God looks on the inside. He knew what they were really like. Eventually, they showed their true colors.

Demas

"All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts; With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. Aristarchus my fellow prisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him); And Jesus, which is called Justus, who are of the circumcision. These only are my fellow workers unto the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea and them in Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." (Colossians 4:7-14)

Notice that Paul names all these people who are his helpers in the ministry. He gives the people at Colosse a brief commentary about each of them, something that they did and why they are so special. You can tell just by reading this passage that all these people were special to Paul, and he was praising them. But when he gets to Demas, he doesn’t mention anything about him. He just gives his name.

Evidently at this point, Demas was among Paul’s helpers. He was part of those working with Paul and involved in the ministry. But Paul didn’t say anything about him like he did the others. It would seem that, even at this point, Paul might have had some reservations about Demas so he didn’t want to say too much about him. But yet, Demas was there, working side by side with him.

We know the rest of the story, however. Demas did later forsake Paul. In Second Timothy 4:10 the Bible says, For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica. Demas wasn’t one of God’s children and he eventually proved just what he was. He was a counterfeit saint.

Judas Iscariot

Another example of a counterfeit saint is Judas Iscariot, a disciple of Jesus Christ. In John 17:12, Jesus prayed, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. Jesus named Judas as the son of perdition and clearly says that he was lost. The term the son of perdition means a son of damnation.

Judas Iscariot was a lost man. Yet I remind you that he was one of the twelve disciples. When they sat at the Passover Supper on the night of His crucifixion, Jesus said, One of you shall betray me. They were all shocked and all of them but Judas began to question if it might be them. They did not look around the table and point their fingers at Judas. No one whispered the name of Judas. They didn’t suspect him as being a counterfeit saint. He had been with them for 3 years. He had preached, he had even done miracles and cast out demons like the rest of the disciples. He just fit in with the other twelve.

Forsaking Members

The Bible speaks in several places about members forsaking a New Testament church.

"They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." (First John 2:19)

"This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes." (First Timothy 1:15)

Paul specifically named two men here who had turned away from him. They were counterfeit saints—men who claimed to be saved, but later had forsaken Paul and forsaken the work of God.

Simon Magus

The account of Simon Magus is found in Acts 8. Some have mistakenly thought that he was saved because Acts 8:13 says, Then Simon himself believed also. Many people think that if someone says they believe, they have to be a child of God. But that is not so. Simon was baptized and served with Philip. He beheld the miracles that the disciples did and decided he wanted this gift that they had—the ability to heal other people and to give power to them through the Holy Spirit. So he offered money to the apostles to buy that gift. Peter rebukes him with these words.

"Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." (Acts 8:20 23)

We know from Scripture that this man was a counterfeit saint. There are several things here to note. First, Jesus said that His sheep will never perish. Yet Peter told Simon that he was going to perish in his present condition.

Second, Peter said that Simon had no part of the Holy Spirit in him, yet Romans 8 says that every child of God has the Holy Spirit in them.

Third, Peter warns him that his heart is not right. He claimed to have believed, but there was something drastically wrong in his life.

Fourth, Peter then warns him to repent because he is in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. No one is in the bond of iniquity unless they are bound to their sin and their father is the Devil (John 8:32)

Therefore we conclude that Simon Magus, a man who claimed to be a child of God—who claimed to believe—was a counterfeit saint. His life eventually showed what he was.

False Believers

Jesus mentioned some false believers in John 2:23 24. The Bible says this group of people believed in His name and yet Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men. These were men who believed, but were not committed to Christ. They did not have a saving faith.

Notice that these people were numbered among the disciples. They were numbered among other Christians and everyone thought they were real. But they were counterfeit saints. They looked like the real thing, but Jesus knew what they really were, so He did not commit Himself to them.

Another group of false believers is found in John 6:60 61, which says, Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying, who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? Notice that the people Jesus is speaking to are called disciples.

In verse 64 Jesus said to these disciples, But there are some of you that believe not. Jesus knew what was truly in their hearts. Even though they pretended to be disciples of Jesus, He knew they were counterfeits. We find the reaction of these disciples to the words of Christ in verse 66. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

These were men who had been with Jesus for a while. They had heard Him preach and seen His miracles. They even called themselves disciples, but Jesus knew their hearts. When the demands of Christ became too much, these men turned away and walked no more with Him. They had followed Jesus for a little while, but when things got tough they left and went their own way. They were willing to follow Christ until it started to look too costly, then they turned away.

False Apostles

"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works." (Second Corinthians 11:13-15)

God warns us about false apostles. He says that we are not to be shocked or surprised when we see those who claim to belong to Christ, but they really don’t. We should not stand back and wonder about it. He warned us beforehand that they would be around us, even in our church. We may think it is impossible, but God warned us to watch for them.

False Teachers

"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you; who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." (Second Peter 2:1)

God also warns us about false teachers, people who look right on the outside and seem to be advanced in their Christian life. In fact, they look so good and will be so