To be saved, one must also resist. So resistance is unavoidable.

It is, according to inspiration:
Failure only requires and "unguarded act" while success requires "hard fighting" among other things. One can slip and fall, but none has ever slipped and rose up.

One cannot drift through heaven's gates. One must strive, Jesus told us.

The "Hound of Heaven" poem addresses this. To choose to serve sin you have to choose to resist the love of God drawing one to repentance throughout one's life. That's not so easy.

Resistance is futile.

To be lost, one must resist God. To be saved one must, *after already knowing Christ and having Him as one's personal Savior, and being indwelt by the Holy Spirit*, resist temptation. Gal. 5 addresses this, telling us that the Spirit fights against the flesh, so that we not do the things that we would.

Which is stronger, the Spirit or the flesh?

It's nice that your fine, but it would be also nice if you would extend the courtesy to others that they might be fine as well. I would appreciate it if rather than putting words in my mouth that you would address the questions that I've repeatedly asked. Specifically, do you agree with the items on the list? Secondly, did you agree with the A. T. Jones quote?

Also, to be clear, I think it requires a great deal of effort to be lost. I do not think it's an easy thing to do to resist the Holy Spirit for the entirety of one's lifetime. This is what one needs to do to remain corrupt.

Once again, I'm requesting that you not put words in my mouth. I've tried to be as clear as I can. I'm explicitly posted a list as to what I'm saying, and asked if you agree with the list, with no reply. Instead I read things like this:



What did I write to lead you to write such a thing? (especially after I asked you not to put words in my mouth)

Well, one must join a "collective" eventually. The goal is to choose the collective that has a good future.


Actually, I believe that *after already knowing Christ and having Him as one's personal Savior, and being indwelt by the Holy Spirit*, one is ALREADY saved. In that condition, falling into temptation is impossible.

I should have quoted better. This was my response to your list:


I haven't read it yet.


I asked you a question that needed only one word to answer, and you gave a paragraph. So I had to interpret your response, rather than quote your answer. I guess I misunderstood you. So you don't think holiness requires MORE effort than corruption. That leaves two options.

I guess you think holiness requires LESS effort than corruption, considering that you "think it requires a great deal of effort to be lost."

You know, if you would just type out the word you want - MORE, LESS, SAME - I wouldn't have to guess. As it is, I keep having to guess.

The question is, Which is more difficult: to resist God's drawing or to resist Satan's alluring? What I pointed out earlier in this thread is that God respects our power of choice, but Satan doesn't; God plays fair, but Satan plays dirty. This fact, in my opinion, makes more people choose to resist God than choose to resist Satan.

John addressed this. He said, "If anyone sin, he has an advocate with the father." He was speaking to those who are converted.

Another way of seeing that your claim above is false is to consider Jesus Christ. He was always in the condition you described, but it wasn't impossible for Him to fall into temptation, right?

This is silly. These are themes that can be answered by one word. I'm trying to provide you with information that you're wanting to have.



Did you stop beating your wife yet? Please respond with a one word answer, yes or no.

Some questions involve more than one word answers. I provided the A. T. Jones quote to help explain what I believe. You said you haven't read it. Well, if you wish to understand what I believe, please read the quote. That's much preferable to writing things like, "And now we also agree that the path to holiness requires MORE effort to stay on than the path to corruption." If you sincerely thought I was saying this, you'd be able to quote something I said which gave you this impression.



I think what I wrote, and what I quoted. These explained what I think in detail. I think this is a better approach than asking loaded questions, and then going off half-baked based on the response. Let a person explain what he means, and respond to that.



Don't guess! Read!

My basic point has to do with whether being saved is a more difficult thing to do than being lost. To be saved, one must do the things which have been pointed, which involve winning the battle over our fallen flesh, a battle which Christ also had to fight. Indeed, this is not a fight of ease, but when one undertakes this fight knowing Christ, one does so with the help of the Spirit, with the understanding of the love of God, and with a relationship with Jesus Christ.

This is one path, the narrow one (or "upward" as EGW calls it), the one which we should not conclude is the difficult one.

The other path is broad, but involves resisting the Holy Spirit for the entirety of one's life. This is not an easy thing to do.

The effort involved is not one of physical exertion, but of either responding to or not to one's conscience and the voice of the Holy Spirit.