Yes, God was coming. I never suggested the prayer brought Him.
And I never meant to suggest that you did suggest that. I didn't even think of it, if that makes you feel better.
That passage in Hebrews might seem to mention salvation, but the passages that directly talk about salvation don't even mention sin, except that Christ died for them. I know there are several passages that seem to indicate otherwise, but if you look at them with a different point of view (which you might be hesitant to do, as though mere contemplation will make you lose focus and -BAM- you realize you've been sinning so much you couldn't hope to remember them all to repent of them all), but that different point of view aligns across all those passages.
For instance: Since the people who go to Hell sin, why should you want to (Ephesians 5:3-7)? Remember, concerning verse 5, that our sin-corrupted bodies will be changed to be like Christ's glorified body when we see Him as He is, and we will see Him first at His appearing, before we enter Heaven, so even that fearful verse doesn't necessarily mean that we will lose our salvation because of doing the things that the unsaved do. No verse that's directly about salvation says it's in jeopardy due to our sin. If you find one, let me know.
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Here's a general recount of the flow of the passage surrounding the one you quoted in Hebrews 10. See how a different point of view changes it. Even on the level of word-for-word detail, you're interpretation keeps missing 2 things: 1) The focus on the conscience looking forward to and fear and supposing that they will be punished like the unbelievers, and 2) that this passage is focused on a single sin, namely the rejection of salvation doctrine, that Christ's death is useful to save. It's saying that sin makes us afraid that we've lost our salvation (vv. 27, 29 "suppose", 35, 39), and the cure for that is to remember that salvation is ultimately trustworthy (v. 22), because Christ has done so much to ensure it (vv. 20-21). It doesn't say that God will start to remember future willing sins (v. 17)!
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Because of the New Covenant (v. 16), God won't remember our sins anymore (v. 17). Because of the remission (God "not remembering") of our sins, there's no more sacrifice for them (v. 18).
So, let's be bold to love Christ freely, because nothing is holding us back anymore - we have full assurance of our salvation due to our faith in what Christ has done for us, and our conscience is not longer evil (vv. 19-22). Our profession of faith is Christ, and He is faithful to complete His own promise to us who trust Him (v. 23).
Now we can come together and help each other love and do good works, exhorting each other and waiting for the day of our hope (vv. 24-25).
Since there's no more sacrifice for sins, if we willfully commit them, we become afraid of judgment like the enemies of God will suffer (v. 27). After all, since Moses' law didn't mercifully pardon anyone worthy of death, it's only natural that we should suppose ourselves worthy to receive even worse punishment than that
*if we deny the efficacy of Christ's blood to keep us after sanctifying us as though it were not holy, then we do an act of despite to the Spirit of Grace* (vv. 28-29). We know that God is vengeful (v. 30), so we fear when we sin (v. 31), but we should remember the troubles that He has brought us through, individually and together (vv. 32-33), and you were confident then of your Heavenly reward. So we need patience to continue *believing* and not to draw back into *unbelief*, or God won't have any pleasure in our soul (vv. 34-38); but we aren't like that, because we *believe* Christ and His saving work, and that's why our soul is saved to please God (v. 39).
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Verse 26 is a simple factual statement about the end of the sacrificial system. It doesn't say we've lost our salvation. Verse 27 and beyond says that we become afraid that we're worthy of the same punishment as the unsaved.
1 John 2 also has some verses that people might fear, but it says the same thing, that the sinning Christian fears the loss of their salvation (v. 5b). The darkness in vv. 9-11 isn't a euphemism for not being saved; it has to do with the mind's perceptions, darkness, not seeing, and we know by experience that that's how it works - we stumble around with our spiritual senses cut off when we live in unrepentant sin.
1 John makes it clear, along with Romans 7, that we do sin, but sin is not of God. It's of our sin-corrupted bodies, but we still serve Christ with our minds even as our bodies serve sin. There's hope one day for a sinless body when we see Christ as His is - that's what the Bible talks about in particular when it mentions the Christian's hope.
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Furthermore, relying on not willfully sinning as a requisite component of salvation goes beyond the biblical mandate, where God does directly describe what we must believe and what we must do to be saved. Keeping from willful sin is a duty, a good work; it's the very definition of works religion, even is Jesus' great saving work is also a part of it. In this way, it's very similar to the Roman Catholic's Transubstantiation, where Christ's actual saving work is deemed insufficient, and their play-act of His death fills up what they suppose is lacking of sufficient grace for our sins.
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God is One, and His Truth is one truth. Salvation doctrine is the mightiest of them for us now; it's His greatest act of love, and we know that love is the greatest thing, followed by faith and hope.
