Salvation as the Beginning of Restoration

Salvation as the Beginning of Restoration is the book’s threshold doctrine: restoration does not begin with the recovery of money, health, relationships, or circumstances, but with accepting Jesus Christ as personal Savior. Salvation changes the believer’s governing allegiance and spiritual position, making possible the recognition of Satan as the source of trouble, the exercise of authority over him, and the expectation that what has been destroyed or stolen can be restored.

Salvation as the Necessary Beginning

Before a person can receive restoration or any other benefit from the Kingdom of God, the text says that the person must accept Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. Salvation is therefore not presented as one benefit among many, but as the condition that makes the others available. The instruction is immediate and urgent: anyone who is not saved is told to become saved, because restoration begins when the person’s former service ends and a new service begins.

This ordering gives salvation a decisive causal role. The text does not describe restoration as something that can be claimed independently of spiritual conversion. Instead, it places conversion first: the individual stops serving Satan, identified as the god of this world, and begins serving the God of the Word. That transfer of service marks the opening of the restoration process and supplies the interpretive foundation for everything that follows.

From the World’s Course to New Life

The account frames the unsaved condition as a former way of life conducted according to the course of this world and according to the prince of the power of the air, described as the spirit working in the children of disobedience. Salvation interrupts that course. It is a movement away from an order associated with disobedience and Satan’s influence and toward the mercy and action of God.

The quoted teaching then places this change within God’s mercy. God is described as rich in mercy and as having quickened believers together with Christ, with salvation attributed to grace. The believer’s new life is thus presented not as a self-generated achievement or a reward earned through personal strength, but as an act of divine mercy and grace. The beginning of restoration rests on that prior act of spiritual renewal.

A Changed Spiritual Position

The text extends salvation beyond forgiveness or inward relief by describing a new position: believers are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. A born-again believer is therefore said to occupy, with Jesus Christ, a vantage point above the confusion that previously shaped the person’s understanding of trouble.

From this position, the believer is instructed to see ongoing problems more clearly. The practical consequence is a change in attribution. Instead of blaming men or circumstances for insufficiency and failure, the believer is to identify the spiritual source behind the conflict. The book links this instruction to the claim that the struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.

Salvation consequently produces a form of recognition. The restored person is not merely promised a changed condition; the person is taught to interpret conditions differently. The movement from worldly course to heavenly position supplies the basis for accusing Satan, taking authority over him, and refusing to treat human beings or circumstances as the ultimate enemy.

Salvation, Authority, and Restoration

The doctrine of salvation is joined to an active program of resistance. The book’s central instruction is that a person must recognize the real enemy, accuse Satan for his part, and speak the accusation aloud. The suggested confession begins, "Satan, you are at the bottom of my trouble!" In context, this declaration is not an isolated devotional phrase. It is the verbal expression of the new understanding that salvation is meant to produce.

The text says that the sooner believers learn to accuse Satan and take authority over him, the sooner the doors of total victory will open. It further connects that authority with restitution: the devil is said to have to restore the things he has destroyed or stolen from believers and their loved ones. Salvation thus functions as the beginning of restoration in both spiritual and practical senses. It establishes the identity of the believer as one who can confront the adversary and claim the return of what has been lost.

The book supports this expectation through the language of theft and repayment. It asks whether God’s Word says that when the real thief is found, he must pay back what he took, then cites the rule, "if the thief be found, let him pay," followed by the more expansive statement that the thief shall restore sevenfold and give all the substance of his house. The ancient legal image is applied to the book’s spiritual conflict: once Satan is identified as the real thief, the believer is encouraged to expect restoration rather than merely endure loss.

Confession and Continuing Practice

The transition begun by salvation is sustained through deliberate speech and prayer. The book directs the reader to begin saying the proposed confession aloud, rejecting blame directed toward God, circumstances, or surrounding people and asserting that biblical knowledge will overturn the devil’s work. The declaration then announces that the day of continued theft is over and invokes the promise of sevenfold restoration, described in the confession as seven hundred percent.

The confession culminates in a claim of authority over the devil in the powerful Name of Jesus Christ. In this structure, salvation leads to allegiance, allegiance leads to a new spiritual position, that position leads to recognition of the real troublemaker, and recognition leads to spoken authority and expected restoration. The sequence is designed to move the reader from crisis to identification, from identification to accusation, and from accusation to action.

The book also places personal restoration within communal prayer. At its close, it invites the reader to fill in a form and mail it to the author for agreement in prayer, grounding that invitation in the statement that the earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available. Salvation therefore opens not only an individual relationship with God but also a participatory practice of confession and prayer through which restoration is sought and reinforced.