My dear readers,

Answering Remaining Questions asked during Calvary Pandan Bible Camp 2026 (6)

Question One:

At camp, we learned to fiercely guard our faith against endless threats: sin, false teachers and spiritual dangers. Without falling into “easy believism” nor a bed-of-roses service and walk, how do we reconcile this exhausting spiritual vigilance with the promise that the Lord is our Good Shepherd (Ps 23, John 10) and that Christ's yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt 11:28-30)?

Answer One:

The hard life is the best life for all sinners after the fall of man. That was why God cursed the ground with thorns and thistles so that sinful man would have to work hard with sweat and tears till they return to the dust. In this manner, the good God lessened the free time of sinful man so that he would sin less by spending most of his waking hours eking out a living, which is good for him and his loved ones. He will drink and gamble less, and have the “providing for the family” motivation to keep him law-abiding and accountable to his family. The constant fighting for food and clothing and an insatiable desire to have more are the most exhaustive endeavours for every sinner. He will have to struggle and carry this enormous soul-crushing burden from the day he is born till the day he dies. His motivation for his daily struggles is more mammon, having been deceived into thinking that riches will solve all life’s problems. He is ignorant of the fact that the greatest problem in life that needs solving is how to not die in his sin and be cast into hell. This truth has been kept from him so that he is obsessed and consumed by solving his physical needs and ignoring his spiritual needs until he dies in his sin. Then all is over for that poor sinner. He will have the devil for his eternal companion in the Lake of Fire, in great torment and pain where wave upon wave of fire and brimstone wash over his pain-filled body for eternity. 

Once the sinner becomes a believer, he becomes a child of God, adopted into God's family. He will no longer struggle without the help of the Almighty God who is like a Father helping a son. His life remains a life of suffering but for the sake of Christ and always with the heavenly Father’s loving care and protection. Once he is truly born again in Christ, he does not fear falling into “Easy Believism” or any of the end-time errors of the last days. His salvation is safe and secure in the almighty hands of God the Father and God the Son. However, he needs to be very concerned for his loved ones and friends who are very vulnerable to the end-time deceptions of the last days.

The pursuit of materialism no longer burdens his Christian life to satisfy his carnal desires. He has a heavenly Father who teaches him to live by faith and focus on his spiritual life and well-being, one day at a time. His life of faith is easy and light as he trusts his heavenly Father to provide for all his material needs according to the measure of his faith, so that he will not be overwhelmed by an over-abundance of materialism and forget God and sin against Him. This life of faith is the wooden cross that Jesus, his Lord and Saviour, designed for him to carry. It will never be so heavy that it will crush him. Neither will it be so light that he stops praying and leaning on Him to fight the good fight of faith. When the load of every believer is the size of a one-day load, all God’s children can carry it with joy, especially with Jesus helping them as He promised. Matthew 6:33-34: “³³But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. ³⁴Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

When believers do not live by faith and trust in God’s promises, their lives as Christians who seek to remain holy will be very heavy and burdensome. They will then live by sight and not by faith; they will allow the voices of the world and belief in the counsels of sinful, finite men (more than God’s Word) to weigh them down. Their Christian witness will become a chore rather than a joy. Their spiritual focus will be replaced by a materialistic one. Carnality will occupy their minds and hearts, causing them to focus more on what the world thinks of them than on becoming more like the Lord Jesus Christ in all they do. They will lose their spiritual and Christian bearing, like a ship without a rudder floating in the wide ocean, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine that is blowing across Christendom.

Believers need to anchor their lives by anchoring their hearts and minds in God’s Word, which is the solid rock. They must not believe the voices of sinful men and allow them to speak louder than God's Word, which is their heavenly Father’s Word! If that happens, then their lives as Christians will be impossibly heavy and extremely burdensome, like a person walking on eggshells. For example, when the believer is motivated by love for Christ and faith in God’s Word as he goes to work daily, he immediately elevates himself above monetary incentives and carnal promotions. He obeys God’s Word and fears God, not allowing man to dictate his behaviour. He remains holy for Christ. He is honest, diligent and faithful in the discharge of all he does. He prays and leans on God's strength without ceasing. Such a life is never hard, but always light and easy, as he has his Saviour helping him to carry his daily load every moment of every day of his life.

John 10:10: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Question Two:

Second-generation Christians were paralleled with Saul/Paul. Does that mean that they should also have a “light from heaven - road to Damascus” kind of experience and turning point in their lives? What if someone professed belief when he was very young and has little recollection of it?

Answer Two:

Second-generation believers are compared with the Apostle Paul in terms of their prior biblical knowledge before salvation. The comparison is never about the way of salvation. The way of salvation is unique to every believer, according to God's sovereign will. First-generation believers who had never been to church became believers with little or no knowledge of God's Word. Every doctrine of the Bible has to be learned from scratch. Second-generation believers like Paul already knew so much of God’s Word before salvation. After salvation, God’s Word will be spiritually understood. Before salvation, God's Word was understood only in terms of its data, such as facts, figures and names. It was the same for Paul, whose understanding was only of the Old Testament.

All believers are saved by Jesus Christ. For Paul it was through a vision. For most of us it can be simply by hearing God’s Gospel as recorded in the Bible! It is imperative that every part of the Gospel shared with the sinner is according to the Holy Scriptures, being the words of Christ. Therefore, when the sinner is offered the Gospel, Jesus Christ is the one offering salvation to him. If he rejects, he is rejecting Christ, the Son of God. He is basically saying to Jesus Christ that he does not need Him to die for him to enter heaven. He may say he can enter heaven by his own works, or he is not afraid to die in sin and be cast into hell! Both responses are very serious sins. Rejecting the Gospel is a far more serious transgression than other sins committed against fellow man.

Salvation is of the Lord and not of man. It is not a matter of recollection, but whether the sinner is saved at this very moment in time. God knows and will not forget when Christ saved the sinner. If the sinner is truly saved, his present life of holiness and the evidence of salvation will be clearly seen in his life by others and experienced within his soul.