The name is changed. Everything else is true.
Fred had heard, understood, and gratefully believed the Gospel of grace not long before. Fred is also a Calvinist, though he doesn't yet realize it. He's not yet familiar with the finer details of Calvinism - only a general outline in the form of assumptions behind how the Bible is interpreted and taught by the people he knows and trusts. Fred doesn't yet know that what he hears in his church - while not officially Reformed but proudly "nondenominational" - is strongly influenced by a mix of several interpretive views, Covenant and Reformed theology being the primary one.
In the area of sanctification, Fred's church is rather fuzzy-headed. But like any babe in Christ, Fred doesn't know that. He simply believes what he's been told from the pulpit, in small groups and during book studies is what the Bible teaches. So, like any babe, he clings to it. Fred isn't yet mature enough in Christ to think to examine any of the spoonfeedings. Even if it had, he wouldn't know, at this point in his life, where or how to begin.
Yet like the Puritans of old, Fred by nature has always tended to be introspective, overly self-examining and, especially recently, a bit gloomy. What there was no longer any trace of, is joy in the Lord. That is gone.
Something big has been on his mind. The reason, he later learned, is common: not very long after believing the Gospel, Fred noticed the temptation of old sins he'd spent years indulging - sins he now loathed - began to plague him afresh. This just didn't make sense. True, many things were different now. But Fred had been told - guaranteed on the basis of the Word of God - that his old nature had been eradicated when he was saved so that the new, sinless, God-given nature was now all that remained inside of him. Fred's conclusion, naturally, was that he'd no longer feel the familiar pull of those old sins and would walk in complete and wonderful victory. On the occasions he would feel temptations, they (Fred was assured) would be no match for the new nature since the flesh could no longer be energized by the now-dead old nature!
Yet temptations started to come even more often, in raging waves. And sin Fred did. Sure, there were blessed moments of victory over temptation but noticeably fewer and fewer. More often, Fred struggled and fell into the same old behavior patterns he'd lived in for years.
"How can this be?" Fred asked himself, "If my old sin nature is gone, HOW can I still sin? This should not be happening! This should be impossible!"
No one was able to give him an answer that satisfied, that actually worked. All they could do is nod their heads sympathetically. Fred's worries and introspection grew darker, compounded now by a new element that lays upon his mind and soul like a layer of frost: Fred had begun to seriously doubt his salvation.
(continued)
