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The Gold, Silver, Precious Stones team appreciates your contributions in support of this work. Please send your correspondence to:
Gold, Silver, Precious Stones
P.O. Box 240
Harvest, AL 35749
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Questions and Answers
AUTHOR(S): | Hassell, Sylvester
Pittman, R. H. |
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Infant Salvation
Q. Have you, during your ministerial life, ever found any one, claiming the name of Primitive (or "Hardshell") Baptist, that advocated the doctrine of "infant damnation?"
A. I never have. Only those evilminded persons who misunderstand and hate us have ever made such an accusation. One evident cause of such misrepresentation is our belief of the scriptural doctrine of particular election and a special atonement, without which all mankind would be justly condemned and lost. The Scriptures do not plainly state that all who die before natural birth or in infancy are saved; but such passages as II Sam. 12:23; Matt. 18:2,3; Luke 18:15-17; Rom. 5:12-21; and Rev. 7:9, have perfectly satisfied nearly all Primitive Baptists that all who die before natural birth or in infancy are elect and redeemed of the Lord, and are everlastingly and graciously saved by Him, without any merit or works on their part, just as all of His other people are saved; and that water baptism or sprinkling or pouring has nothing whatever to do with the everlasting salvation of any human being, whether infant or adult.
Q. What is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Matt. 12:31,32; Mark 3:29,30; Luke 12:10) ?
A. Speaking against, or slandering, or reviling the Holy Ghost, calling Him an unclean or evil spirit, as explained in these passages.
Q. Is the exact spot now known where Solomon located the temple?
A. Yes; it was on Mount Moriah, where now stands the Mohammedan Mosque of Omar, built about 700 A. D.
Q. After all Israel, or the great body of the Jews, are converted to Christ by the almighty power of their Divine Deliverer (Rom. 11:26,27), will any Gentiles be savingly converted?
A. Yes, a great many more than ever before, by the same Almighty Power, so that the unlikely, yet clearly foretold, conversion of the great body of Christ's bitterest and most inveterate enemies, the Jews, to living faith in Him, by His Almighty Spirit's power, will be Divinely blessed to the wonderful spiritual awakening and enrichment of the Gentiles (Rom. 11:12,15). The Jews are already in all nations, and know all languages, and are used to all climates; and, as the prophets and apostles were Jews, they, as the priestly nation, will preach the pure gospel of Christ to every creature in all the world (Exod. 19:6; Isa. 2:1-5; 43:12; 60:1-22; Micah 4:1-5; Zech. 8:22; Matt. 28:16-20; Mark 16:15,16; Luke 24:44-48; Acts 1:8; Rev. 1:5,6).
Q. What is the meaning of John 12:32 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me?"
A. The word "men" is in italics and was therefore supplied by the translators; it is not in the original. And so the word "man" in Heb. 2:9 - "that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man" - should be in italics, for it is not in the original; and those for whom Christ tasted death were, as the Apostle says in the next verse, the "many sons whom Christ, as the Captain of their salvation, made perfect through sufferings, brings unto glory" (Heb. 2:10). The "all" whom Christ draws unto Himself are His own loved and chosen people, who were given unto Him by His Father in eternal covenant relationship, and whose sins He bore in His own body on the cross, for whom He died and rose from the dead, and ascended to His mediatorial throne and evermore intercedes whom He has redeemed to God by His blood out of every nation and kindred and people and tongue, and whom He will raise in His own image at the last day, and take home with Him to be forever with the Lord (John 6; 10; 17; Eph. 1; 2; Heb. 1; 2; 6; 10; 12; I Pet. 1; 2; Rev. 5; 7; 21)
Q. Is there any scriptural authority for public prayer meetings?
A. Yes; in Acts 1:13,14; 4:23-32; 12:12; 16:13; Isa. 56:7; Matt. 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46.
Q. Are the Jews to possess the land of Canaan again?
A. It seems so from such prophecies as Gen. 17:8; 48:4; Isa. 2:1-4; Jer. 3:18; 30:3-24; Ezek. 36:24; 37:15-28; Micah 4:1-5; and from the waning power of Turkey, which now holds Palestine; and from the re-gathering of the Jews in Palestine, in the last 25 years, more than ever before since the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70.
Q. How are children saved? A preacher labored at great length last Sunday to prove that since the death of Christ all infants are born without sin.
A. Infants are saved by the death of Christ. Whatever change is necessary for them to enter the kingdom of heaven, God gives them. Repentance and faith (belief) are not necessary for they have not committed actual transgression but a new nature is necessary because they are born into the world with depraved, sinful natures. That preacher is wrong in his statement that since the death of Christ infants are born sinless and pure. P
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