Transcript

ANNOUNCER: How can an anxious person or one who struggles with anxiety deal with the tendency to doubt and worry about the reality of eternal salvation? That’s what we will talk about today here on Grace in Focus. Thank you, friend, for joining us. Grace in Focus is the radio and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We come to you weekdays right here and you can find out more about us by going to our website, faithalone.org. We would also love you to access our videos on our YouTube channel, YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society. We produce these short videos with material similar to this podcast, a couple of times a week. So find us there, subscribe, like us, and we hope our videos encourage you. It’s YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society and our website once again, faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: Our question is from Eric, and the question is asking for some advice. So he says that he suffers from an anxiety disorder and OCD, and that’s before he was a Christian, and then once he became a Christian, that anxiety kind of became targeted towards doctrine and towards his beliefs regarding everlasting life. 

BOB: Which is quite common, by the way. We get lots of emails from people that have either generalized anxiety disorder or OCD or both. 

SAM: Right. And so it led him down a path to lordship salvation, and he said he was non-functional as a Calvinist in lordship salvation, just because he was so worried he was going to lose his everlasting life. 

BOB: And that’s pretty common too. 

SAM: Right. To me, that seems logical based on what they teach, but he says he’s very sensitive to teachings which contain a mixed message. So I think those are the two main things that he is currently experiencing—this anxiety because of are mixed messages and people attacking Free Grace. What he’s not confident in is, you know, he believes, once saved, always saved. But when he hears people, especially people that teach lordship salvation, they say things like cheap grace. He gets worried that what if they are right and what if I’ve been led down the wrong path. 

BOB: So it triggers for him doubts. 

SAM: Right. 

BOB: Okay. Yeah. And they would call it cheap grace or easy believism, either one. And so, yeah, Eric, I can give you some advice. My suggestion would be, and I know this seems kind of trite, but stand on the promises of God. We have that song “standing on the promises of Christ, my Savior”, and He promises that, “He who believes in me has everlasting life”, John 6:47. I know that’s super simple, but just take Him at His promise and you have assurance. 

When people say, well, that’s easy believism, say, yes, it is. Well, I don’t know if it’s so easy. Eric’s having difficulty with it, right? Because he believes it and then he goes through doubts because so many people don’t believe it, you start to think, well, if this person with a doctorate, this really smart person says that’s cheap grace, that’s easy believism, well, it doesn’t make it as easy to believe it anymore. Now you have to go back and say, well, did I get that wrong? Did I somehow misunderstand John 3:16 or John 6:47? 

So I would call it definitely believism, but whether it’s easy or hard is not the point. It’s just the person who believes in Jesus. And as far as the cheap grace, that always drives me nuts because how can the blood of Christ be cheap? And how can a free gift be cheap? 

SAM: Well, that’s what people say is that it’s so cheap, it’s free. I don’t think of, or it’s another Free Grace people say that if it’s free for us, it wasn’t cheap or free for Christ. It’s a gift. 

BOB: Let me give you an example. Sharon just brought home some shorts. I think she was at Walmart and she got me some shorts on sale for like $12. And they’re good looking shorts and I think the price tag on them says $23 or something. And you know, $23 at Walmart is far cheaper than if you were getting some brand name that was, you know, at Neiman Marcus or something. So it’s already a good price of $23 and she got it for like $12. That’s what you call cheap. But if she brought me home some shorts that they were giving out at Walmart, that would be free. 

Well, it’s not cheap grace. It’s free. It’s free, free, free. I love that song, free, free, free. And that’s what the gift of everlasting life is. That’s what Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9. And that’s what the Lord Jesus said in John 4:10, “If you knew the gift of God.” 

So, Eric, I would say number one, stand on the promises. But I think when you’re dealing with someone who has some medical reasons for anxiety, for obsessing in their thinking, then sometimes you need more than just, okay, let’s stand on the promises. You may need some medication. 

SAM: That’s generally true. The next prescription I would give though after standing on the promises of God is surrounding yourself with like-minded believers. And I think- 

BOB: Good point. 

SAM: This is going to make a lot of Free Grace listeners, roll their eyes and hang their heads, but being part of a Free Grace church or Bible study or some kind of fellowship is equally important. Because that’s where you’re going to learn the promises of God and be able to stand on them. And I know that that’s kind of the Catch-22 for Free Gracers right now is, yes, I would love to be in a Free Grace church. Where is one, please tell me where one is. So I know that it’s easy to say that. But I do think that’s the most helpful. And especially the people I’ve known in my life that suffer from anxiety or OCD or things like this, having a person to help ground you is a lot more effective than telling someone, read your Bible or pray about it. Because those are things you should be doing, but it’s very, very hard to do that in isolation. 

BOB: Yes, that’s so good. I agree strongly, you know, Hebrews 10:23-25 says that. “Let’s not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but let’s encourage one another all the more as we see the day drawing near.”

ANNOUNCER: The Grace Evangelical Society Seminary, GES Seminary is getting ready for the 2025 fall semester. All classes are online. And we are now ready to receive your application. GESSeminary.org is where you apply. And if you want to begin study this fall, we must receive your application by July 29. That’s GESSeminary.org. Classroom size is limited, so let us hear from you soon. Apply now, GESSeminary.org. 

BOB: Let’s say I’m talking to somebody, they’re a member not of the Democratic Party, not of the Republican Party, but they’re the Green Party. Well, there’s not a whole lot of people, statistically speaking, in the Green Party. But there are lots of them. It’s just percentage-wise, 2% of the U.S. population or something. So they’re not going to win presidential elections, but they do have a lot of people. And so if you’re part of the Green Party, wouldn’t you want to be able to gather together with other people in the Green Party? Or the same thing is true if you’re a Republican, you want to have other Republicans you can gather together with. If you’re a Libertarian, you want to gather together with other Libertarians, whatever party you’re in, politically speaking, you would like to have people you gather, but it’s all a matter of fellowship. 

SAM: And I think that’s one of the good things about the Internet is that’s allowed different opinions to kind of be spread around in different groups to form. And that has negative sides to it too, but for GES, I think it’s been a huge boon to be able to fellowship with people all across the country. But like when you talk about politics, if there’re only two kinds of news stations, then those are your two options. But when you have something like the Internet, you have thousands of different voices and opinions that are available to you, and you get to pick and choose. But that comes with a lot of discernment, and as Christians it comes with discernment too. Because he doesn’t mention it in his email, but I’m guessing the preachers that he’s hearing that are, you know, shaking his faith. I’m guessing those are Internet sermons. 

BOB: That’s a good point. Like we have a—we’re on radio, and we’re also—our radio can be heard on YouTube or Stitcher or going to our website, faithalone.org. We’re also on YouTube with three videos a week that people can see, YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society, and we have a magazine, all these other things. People can tune into what we’re saying, but there’s other Free Grace people out there, and they’re also on the radio. They’re also on YouTube. They also have their own blogs, like we have a daily blog at faithalone.org. 

And so there are lots of ways people can get the input, but you’re right. There’s also lots of lordship people that have all of the same, and they have bigger followings. So in some ways, they’re more difficult to deal with, because Dr. Schmottskoff has 10 million people on his YouTube, channel, right? And he has all this money that rolls into his various ministries, and yada-yada, but, coming back to a point I made earlier, Eric, if you do indeed have OCD, or if you have some anxiety disorders, please make sure you take your medications, because when people don’t take their medications, it’s difficult if not impossible for them to think straight. 

Imagine if you were a diabetic and you didn’t take insulin, let’s say type one diabetic. Well, what’s going to happen? It’s not long before you’re not going to be thinking straight, because you’re going to be dizzy, you’re going to be lightheaded, and if you don’t get it straight now, you could go into a coma, right? I have low blood sugar. Now, I don’t have to take medication for low blood sugar, but if I don’t eat every three to four hours, I start getting lightheaded and dizzy, and I don’t think clearly. 

SAM: I think it goes beyond medication, I think for all believers, whether you have disorders or not, taking care of your physical self, your mental health, are extremely important, because if you don’t get sleep, you don’t eat right, you don’t drink enough water, you’re going to spiral, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re predisposed to some kind of illness or not, so that’s a no-brainer. 

BOB: It’s holistic. It’s not just the mind, it’s not just the spirit, it’s the body too. It all comes into play, but coming back to what you said earlier, I really like your comment on fellowship. And so, how about Eric stand on the promises of God, but also, if you can stand on the promises of God collectively with other believers, that’s really helpful. 

And by the way, Ken Yates has a number of Zoom classes that Eric could participate in, and you can find out by emailing us at GES at faithalone.org, and Sam can point you to some of Ken’s Zoom classes. 

I have a Zoom Sunday school class on Sunday morning at 9:30, which, depending on what country you’re in, it might be evening for you, or I have people in California that go at 7:30 in the morning for them, so they don’t miss their church or anything. So there are different things you can tune into that we have available, and others have all that too, right? And so Zoom is a nice way, plus we have a seminary. You can take seminary classes, which we’ve used Zoom, but now we’re going to try something new, aren’t we? What’s it called? 

SAM: Yeah, we’re going to experiment with some Google stuff, but stay tuned on that.

BOB: All right, maybe Google Classroom. We’ll keep you posted. Well, thanks so much, Eric. Great question. And remember, keep grace in focus. 

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We thank you, friend, for joining us all this week. We hope you have a great weekend. Fellowship with others in a Bible-teaching church. Join us again next week. And until then, let’s keep grace in focus.