I did not think so. I think your main point was to relay your personal experience and thoughts on problems with altar calls and such. My main point is that altar calls, instantaneous conversions, are scriptural.
I am curious as to what I said that would make you think I missed your point?
Is that in “The Just Move My lips Handbook?”
Matthew 11 20 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein were done the most of his miracles, for that they had not done penance.
2 Corinthians 12 21 Lest again, when I come, God humble me among you: and I mourn many of them that sinned before, and have not done penance for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness, that they have committed.
Luke 10 13 Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida. For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgement, than for you. 15 And thou, Capharnaum, which art exalted unto heaven, thou shalt be thrust down to hell.
Sadly, some individuals misconstrue fundamental option in such a way there are no particular mortal sins. Instead, the one “mortal sin” which would take a soul to hell is for a person to willingly, knowingly reject God and His love entirely. Such a stance would reduce fundamental option to some psychological game, whereby a person says, “I love God. I do not reject God. My individual choices or particular actions do not affect my total being. Therefore, although I committed adultery, or murdered someone, or fornicated, or robbed the bank, (or committed any other mortal sin), God still loves me, I love God, and I think I am going to heaven.” Think again.
ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/MORTSIN.HTM
Antinomianism
The heretical doctrine that Christians are exempt from the obligations of moral law. The term first came into use at the Protestant Reformation, when it was employed by Martin Luther to designate the teachings of Johannes Agricola and his secretaries, who, pushing a mistaken and perverted interpretation of the Reformer’s doctrine of justification by faith alone to a far-reaching but logical conclusion, asserted that, as good works do not promote salvation, so neither do evil works hinder it; and, as all Christians are necessarily sanctified by their very vocation and profession, so as justified Christians, they are incapable of losing their spiritual holiness, justification, and final salvation by any act of disobedience to, or even by any direct violation of the law of God
In any case, it is generally understood that Antinomianism was professed by more than one of the Gnostic schools. Several passages of the New Testament writings are quoted in support of the contention that even as early as Apostolic times it was found necessary to single out and combat this heresy in its theoretical or dogmatic as well as in its grosser and practical form. The indignant words of St. Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Ephesians (Romans 3:8, 31; 6:1; Ephesians 5:6), as well as those of St. Peter, the Second Epistle (2 Peter 2:18, 19), seem to lend direct evidence in favour of this view. Forced into a somewhat doubtful prominence by the “slanderers” against whom the Apostle found it necessary to warn the faithful, persisting spasmodically in several of the Gnostic bodies, and possibly also colouring some of the tenets of the Abigenses, Antinomianism reappeared definitely, as a variant of the Protestant doctrine of faith, early in the history of the German Reformation
newadvent.org/cathen/01564b.htm
The Sacrament of Penance
newadvent.org/cathen/11618c.htm
Penance is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ in which forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is granted through the priest’s absolution to those who with true sorrow confess their sins and promise to satisfy for the same. It is called a “sacrament” not simply a function or ceremony, because it is an outward sign instituted by Christ to impart grace to the soul. As an outward sign it comprises the actions of the penitent in presenting himself to the priest and accusing himself of his sins, and the actions of the priest in pronouncing absolution and imposing satisfaction. This whole procedure is usually called, from one of its parts, “confession”, and it is said to take place in the “tribunal of penance”, because it is a judicial process in which the penitent is at once the accuser, the person accused, and the witness, while the priest pronounces judgment and sentence. The grace conferred is deliverance from the guilt of sin and, in the case of mortal sin, from its eternal punishment; hence also reconciliation with God, justification. Finally, the confession is made not in the secrecy of the penitent’s heart nor to a layman as friend and advocate, nor to a representative of human authority, but to a duly ordained priest with requisite jurisdiction and with the “power of the keys”, i.e., the power to forgive sins which Christ granted to His Church.
