Doctrinal Salvation, Really?

[PeteWaldo]

From an Ellis Skolfield email.

Doctrinal Salvation, Really?
 
Many years before the Spanish conquistadors invaded Peru, the people of the Inca fortress of Machu Picchu, worshiped the sun god. False deity? Of course, but that’s all they knew. One day, while praying, the Inca King’s devotions were interrupted by a little cloud that began to cover the sun.

The King thought to himself, “Sun, you can’t really be God if a little cloud can cover you, and besides, you aren’t even here at night.” Like a bolt out of the blue, the King suddenly realized he had been worshiping a false deity, so the King made a royal decree that he was not going to worship the sun anymore. Instead, he was going to worship the God who made the sun. That led to a great revival among the Inca nobles, many of whom abandoned sun worship and began to worship the God who made the sun. Perfect doctrine? Of course not, “but where there is no law, there is no transgression.”

In the almost impenetrable forests of southern Venezuela lived a really dangerous tribe of Indians known as the Matalones. Their forests had natural resources that could be developed, but those who ventured in to find them discovered it to be a one-way trip. Oh, they got into Matalone country all right, but they never came out alive. However, the Indians did accept one 16-year-old American boy they called, Bruchko. One day Bruchko heard some Matalones out in the forest shouting. One was up a giant tree calling out over the forest and another was shouting down into a hole he had just dug.

When Bruchko asked what that was all about, an Indian said, “We are looking for God. We used to know about Him, but lost Him many generations ago.”

Bruchko pointed to an anthill and asked,” If God wanted to talk to those ants, what would He have to do?”
Indian, “He would have to become an ant.”
Bruchko: “God wanted to talk to us, so many generations ago, He asked His Son to become a man. Then  He sent His Son to us to tell us about Himself and to save us.”
Indian: “Why can’t we find Him? What happened to Him?”
Bruchko: “We killed Him.”

And those Matalone Indians who never cry, started to weep. They were looking for the God they had lost, even shouting down holes to find Him, “and whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

As I read the various threads on various forums, what I see are debates about doctrine, as if correct doctrine is what saves us. Well guess what? God doesn’t care about yours or anyone else’s doctrine, He cares about heart condition. God is looking for humble and contrite hearts, regardless of the Messianic Jew, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Pentecostal or Roman Catholic doctrinal “I” you may not have dotted, or doctrinal “T” you might not have crossed.

Most churches today teach a false gospel, a doctrinal salvation, but it’s a lie the devil. Jesus didn’t say, “Come unto my doctrine all ye who are weak and heavy ladened and my doctrine will give you rest.” He said, “Come unto me,” because salvation is in the person of Jesus Christ, not in man’s doctrines about Him.

Doesn't the church teach truth anymore? There’s no place for doctrinal arrogance in the true Christian walk, because it is a walk of continual repentance. That’s true for me, and it should be true for every Christian. Some teach that coming to the Cross and confessing one’s sins is a one-time event, after which we grow on to maturity. Not so, we always need to be under the Cross because the Holy Spirit continually makes us aware of how far away our sinful flesh is from the holiness of God.