Salvation by Nagging

About this episode

The episode discusses the misconception of salvation through nagging versus the biblical understanding of faith and obedience.

My barber told me of his first trip back to Italy after becoming an American citizen: when a state official tried to order him around as though he were still a local boy, he told the man off and declared that neither he, nor Mussolini, nor the king himself could command him at which point the official realized he was dealing with a free American, not a subject. Today, it is harder to enjoy that kind of freedom, not because men are silent, but because we have substituted talk for righteousness. Books, sermons, committees, speeches, and endless warnings fill libraries, yet accomplish little; modern man believes in salvation by nagging the notion that if we lecture, pressure, or argue enough, people will be saved or society reformed. Scripture teaches the opposite: salvation is God’s sovereign work, and true faith shows itself not in torrents of words but in obedience and fruitfulness, for “[f]aith without works is dead” and “every good tree bringeth forth good fruit.” The crisis of our age is not a lack of voices, but a lack of faith-formed lives. The question, then, is personal: do your actions reveal trust in nagging, or trust in God who alone changes men and thereby changes the…

Topics covered

• freedom
• salvation
• faith
• obedience
• righteousness
• Christianity

Keywords

• salvation
• faith
• obedience
• righteousness
• Christianity
• freedom
• works

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Salvation by Nagging

More episodes of CR101 Radio - Podcast Network

• The Open Door · June 13, 2026 · 3 min
• Easy Chair No. 148, June 4, 1987 — The French Revolution: The Revolution That Never Ended · June 13, 2026 · 1h 1m
• Rationalism and Heresy · June 13, 2026 · 9 min
• Trusting God · June 12, 2026 · 3 min
• The Smiling Face of Evil · June 12, 2026 · 5 min
• How the Christian Will Reconquer Through Economics: The Problem and the Very Great Hope (Economics, Money, and Hope) (Remastered) · June 11, 2026 · 36 min