Does God save instantaneously or by degrees?

Instantaneously. The second birth is as definite and real as when you were born into the world. You are born of God the moment you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart (1 John 5:1; Luke 23:39-43). That moment the Spirit witnesses to your soul that you are born again, and your name is written in Heaven in the Lamb’s book of Life. Salvation is an instantaneous and complete deliverance from the dominion and power of sin (Luke 19: 8, 9).

What must I do to be saved?

Humbly confess your sins to God, repent of your sins (Acts 2: 38), pray as the publican did – “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13), pray for forgiveness and do not stop until you hear from God. Faith will bring salvation into your soul (Acts 16:31).

What are the evidences of salvation?

The Spirit bears witness with your spirit that the work is done, that the Blood of Jesus has been applied (Romans 8:14-16). But greatest of all, your life is changed; you become a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). The evil things you once did, you do not do. The people you hated, you do not hate. The Bible, which has been more or less a closed Book, becomes alive and precious to you (Hebrews 4:12).

Can one be saved and sanctified at the same time?

No. The teaching that one can be justified and sanctified by one work of grace is contrary to the Word of God. The disciples had been with Jesus three years and were, of course, regenerated. Then Jesus prayed to the Father for His disciples: “Sanctify them through thy truth:  thy word is truth” (John 17:17). If the disciples had already been sanctified when they were justified, Jesus would never have prayed then for God to sanctify them.  Jesus’ prayers were always answered.

Do you compel the giving of tithes in your congregation?

No. No records are kept and no one knows who pays tithes, or the amount given, except God and the giver. Solicitations for funds are never made, nor are collections taken in our services. We have always believed that God’s plan for financing His cause was tithing. Abraham paid tithes (Genesis 14:20); Jacob paid tithes (Genesis 28:22); the Law required the paying of tithes by the Israelites (Leviticus 27:30); and Jesus sanctioned the paying of tithes (Mathew 23:23). Two small boxes are placed on the rear wall of our church auditorium into which people put their tithes and offerings at their conveniences.

Must the baptism of the Holy Ghost always be accompanied by speaking in tongues?

Yes.  In all the outpourings of the Spirit recorded in the New Testament – at Pentecost (Acts 2:4), at Cornelius’ house (Acts 10:44-46), and at Ephesus (Acts 19:6) —the same evidence was manifested: the speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit inspired the writer to record these three instances of groups receiving the Holy Ghost, at various times, to establish the fact that the Spirit always speaks in tongues at the time one receives the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The essential gift, however, is not the speaking in tongues, but is the power of the Holy Ghost filling and overflowing the sanctified life, of which the speaking in tongues is the God-given evidence (Acts 1:8).

Does a Christian dance?

No. The very spirit of the dance is wrong. Its rhythmic stimulation stirs the wrong emotions. Modesty, that great protector of chastity, seems to disappear at the dance halls. Physicians have found that dancing has harmful moral effects. God’s Word says: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, … to keep himself unspotted from the world’ (James 1:27).

The whole tendency of the modern dances, which nearly all originated in the brothels of the underworld, is to release moral inhibitions; and teen-age youths who frequent the dance halls are in danger of becoming victims of the immoral influence of the dance.  Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Mathew 5:8). In the Bible, worldly pleasures are called “revellings”, or “the works of the flesh.” The Word says: “They which do such thing shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21). The mother of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said: “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind – that thing is wrong.”

 (If you desire more information on these subjects, based on God’s Holy Word, write to the Apostolic Faith).