Second Friend Day - Elmer Towns

Chapter 1
ACCEPTING THE SAVIOUR
During the Second World War, Joel Ortendahl knelt in the bottom of a foxhole. When
the Germans advanced, he was scared. Remembering enough of the Bible that his grandmother
had read to him, he received Christ as his Saviour and testifies that he was saved at that moment.
However, it took him several years before he began to walk with God, and he ultimately became
a preacher.
James Mastin sat in New Testament Baptist Church, Miami, with a number of other
junior boys. A Sunday School teacher asked him if he wanted to go forward. Being
embarrassed, he went forward, not because he wanted to get saved but because he was taught to
respond to adults. Even though the motivation was wrong, young James sincerely received the
Lord and he too became a minister.
Amanda Horsley described herself as being "on the bottom rung of the ladder of society."
She drank incessantly in the trailer where she lived back in the woods of Virginia. She
contemplated suicide and went so far as to take the pistol and go to a small gravel pit where she
planned to kill herself. She decided instead to give God a chance. For two or three weeks she
listened to every radio preacher she could find and did everything they all commanded. She
repeated the "sinner's prayer" but knew in her heart she was not saved. Finally she went to
Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Virginia, and during the invitation she started forward.
She later testified, "God saved me as I turned from the pew to walk down the aisle. " Even
though she repeated again the "sinner's prayer" at the altar, she knew God saved her the moment
she responded and began to walk forward. The act of faith did it.
Ruth Jean Forbes received the Lord when she came home from Sunday School where the
teacher had talked about "having a dirty heart." She wanted Jesus to clean her heart and, as a fiveyearold,
she knelt by her mother's knee and received Christ as her Saviour. She must have
known what she was doing because she grew up to live for Christ.
Each of these stories is different, yet God does not save people differently. Some were
saved after someone talked with them; others were saved when they were alone. Some listened
to a sermon; others had not heard a sermon in years. Some were embarrassed; others were afraid.
What are the ingredients of salvation? Amanda Horsley prayed the right words, but it didn't
work for her. Why?
Salvation is as simple as a relationship with Jesus Christ. You put faith in Him. The
Bible says, "Look and live." When you look to Him to answer your sin problems, you will live
for eternity. Yet some theologians have made salvation complicated.
Not every church member will go to heaven, yet most of them have declared their faith.
"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not ... in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: Depart from me ye that work
iniquity" (Matt. 7:22-23). Obviously, some people who think they're going to heaven will not
make it. They know the religious answers, but that's not enough.