The Perseverance of the Saints

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Father, as we study this and realize that we can be nothing without you and your spirit, help us understand that in a deeper way today as we talk about this doctrine and just guide us to speak it in such a way that it internalizes for all kinds of people that maybe never really have grasped onto it. So we thank you for that. And it’s in your son’s name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. OK, this is the final part of the tulip. We started off total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. And I started with total depravity a while back. And I mentioned that the whole tulip thing was really not put together until 1905 by a man, Reverend Cleland Boyd, and Dabney, R.L. Dabney in 1878 had put together the five points with different titles on them.

And it really became a big deal when Lorraine Bettner used it as a teaching device starting in 1932 at Westminster. So that’s the thing of the tulip, because we tend to think that that’s an old thing, but it isn’t all that old. The thoughts were there, and the doctrines were clearly taught back in those days, but they didn’t have the titles that we’ve put on them today. So this is kind of an overview of the doctrine, and I’ve got quite a few verses I’ll talk about. But the big thing is the subtitle that is eternal life or eternity really kind of sums it up. And it’s just stunning to me. The first time I heard that was when Walter Martin back in the, well, I guess he started in the 60s, the Bible Answer Man, the original one.

And people would call in and, you know, well, how do you know you have eternal life? Or how long is it? And he would always say, well, forever. What do you think? And hang up on them. So the thing is that if God gives you eternal life, he’s given you a brain to reason that out, what does that mean? Is it eternal or isn’t it? So another thing that it hinges on is if God chose you, who, the big thing that I always talk to people when I disciple them, my first question when I meet people is did God choose you or did you choose God? That gives me a starting point to figure out where they’re coming from because a lot of people will tell you, Oh, I chose God when I was nine years old in the Baptist church and you know, I’ve followed him and I’m all for it brother.

Amen. Well, they don’t understand their total depravity at that point. So you got to start off with that part before you can get to this part. So the idea is we’ve covered these things, but without the spirit opening your heart to the truths of God, you wouldn’t hear any of this and without that spirit you wouldn’t be able to continue in it. Galatians 2 20. It’s not I who lives. It is Christ who lives in me. And once you’re walking in the spirit and you get used to that daily, as we have to repent, you know, in our service and the whole thing, and you probably got to repent three or four times a day, if you’re anything like me.

So the whole deal is that, you know, you’re out of whack. To get back in a whack you confess your sin and get back walking rightly. But who is guiding you in that? God is. He’s superintending what you should recognize and how to deal with it and how to move ahead in it. So the perseverance of the saints is a natural flow from that. Are we going to persevere? Well I hope we don’t persevere on my strength. And we can collectively help each other, but I don’t care if we got the holiest men around all together, we wouldn’t make it without God’s help. So if God has chosen you, He will enable you to endure. Okay? Perseverance of the saints, also known as eternal security, and Baptists like to say, once saved, always saved.

You hear that a lot. If you’re truly born of God or regenerated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, nothing in heaven or earth shall be able to separate them from the love of God.” Romans 8, 39. And it results in a reversal of the converted condition. So once you turn from this way and God puts you on this direction, He’s going to get you there.

John 3-2 says he’s going to conform you to the image of his son. That’s crazy. By the time we get to heaven, we’re going to be thinking that way. This position is held by Reformed Christians. It’s a Calvinist doctrine which argues that all men are dead in their trespasses and sins, like we said, and that the only way they can get out of that is the Holy Spirit comes down to them. Calvinists maintain that God selected certain individuals before the world began? Where did they get that? Ephesians 1, right? Before the world began, right? And draws them to faith in his son Jesus Christ. They believe that when Jesus said, no man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. So unless the Father’s drawing you, you ain’t coming.

Jesus was saying that men had to be drawn to him by God before they would believe Calvinists have taught this foundation again in Ephesians 1 and 4. It’s just if he chose you is he going to let you lose? No way. Okay. They attempt to prove in the text of the books of Philippians where the Apostle Paul writes, which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1 and 6. Okay. There’s an old saying in the Reformed tradition, and Sproul uses this a lot, and I think it’s really a good one. And this is real plain language for those of you that don’t want to memorize all these verses or whatever, can’t think about all this stuff.

So the old axiom in Reformed theology about the perseverance of the saints is this. If you have it, that is, if you have genuine faith and are in a state of saving grace, you will never lose it. If you lose it, you never had it. Think about it, all right? If you’re just here pretending, you ain’t got it. But once you shift from pretending to where that’s your second nature, you got it. God is changing you on the inside. And once you do that, you’re in the club. It’s great. It’s fantastic, okay? And the thing is, are we gonna screw up? Yeah. Are you gonna do stupid stuff? Yes. What’s the issue? repentance Repent turn away from that do this don’t do that do this My favorite thing in counseling is you know you meet a guy and he’s I just you can’t believe how sad I am and all I just keep doing this you know well don’t do that and do this Ephesians 4 is the classic counseling chapter You those of you that are doing this stop doing that and replace that behavior with this So replace the bad behavior with good behavior and move ahead.

Is that hard? Yeah, it can be. And there are some sins for some of us that are harder, and you have to keep redoing, keep redoing. But over passage of time, you’ll get better at it. You’ll make it out of the ditch. It’s good. There are a lot of Calvinists who maintain that a person who is saved can never be lost. This is free grace in non-traditional Calvinist doctrine or free will Baptist theology, but also other Protestant churches of the evangelical tradition. It’s also come about of the free grace movement, which John MacArthur’s book of the 90s, which is Lordship Salvation Book. The whole issue there is, is Jesus Lord?

Well, hello. Is there a question of that? And the whole thing is, well, He isn’t Lord until I make Him Lord in my heart and all this kind of stuff. So it’s this conversion experience that brings you to the Lord. So your experience brings you to that. And then you come up empty when the experience isn’t being fed properly. But there are those that say, if you go in that camp, and you made a decision, you came forward at the Billy Graham crusade or whatever, you’re saved. It doesn’t matter what you do the rest of your life.

R.B. Themes said that even if you become an atheist, you’re still going to go to heaven. Well now, what kind of person gets converted by the Holy Spirit, understanding what Christ has done for us, and then goes, I don’t believe that stuff, and becomes an atheist. How can he, You know, it’s just nuts to think that way. It’s just stupid. But it’s a big deal out there. And you hear people argue it all the time. And why they argue it? A lot of it is because they’ve got family members that aren’t saved. If you have disobedient children that maybe walk the aisle in the Baptist Church, you want to have that protection.

Oh, little Jimmy got saved at seven. And even though he lived like I did till 37, and maybe got killed in a car wreck before he got saved, Oh, he’s going to be in heaven because he walked the aisle at seven. Not if he lived like hell for 30 years. He probably was not saved at all. Now if he had struggles, fell off the horse, got back on, keep falling off, get back on, but he’s moving upwards and to the right, he probably was saved because he’s showing that growth. All of us are all in different ditches. That’s the thing that Sean’s pointing out and we talk about all the time here. Just because you look good on the outside or you’re doing the Lord’s work, that doesn’t show what’s going on inside of you.

And that perseverance has to happen through God working in you. And for those of you that are experienced, God working in you, you will persevere because He is supernaturally changing you to understand this stuff. So that’s where the thing gets rock solid. in that club. Okay. Westminster Confession teaches this in chapter 17, an Assurance of Grace and Salvation in chapter 18. Big long descriptions of the same thing we’re talking about here. We know that many people make a profession of faith and then turn away and repudiate or recant those professions. The Apostle John notes that those who left the company of the disciples and he says of them, those who went out from us were never really with us. 1 John 2.19.

1 John is like one of the crystal clear books. If you’re doubting your salvation or whatever, or you’re not sure that you understand the Gospels or all this stuff is confusing to you, read 1 John as black and white. If you’re doing this, don’t do that. If you’re sinning, confess this, you know, and it’s just boom, boom, boom, boom, like that and it’s real easy to understand. It was the first book that the guy that discipled me told me to read. It took me three months to get around to it after he told me for three months but I finally read it. It’s also the first book usually that you translate in seminary because it has some of the easiest Greek in it. So it’s interesting book. So of course there were disciples in terms of an outward appearance before they departed. Now Now this brings to mind, we’ve been around now, this is our sixth year I think, and we’ve had people that we’ve baptized that we’ve had to discipline out of the church.

Well man, what are we doing? What kind of dodo birds are we? How can we make such a mistake? Well, what are we? We are sinners saved by grace and we have other sinners come and profess their sin, give a great testimony and say they want to be part of us, what do we do? Oh no, we can’t let you in for 30 years because I have to watch you in every aspect. No, we take them in and love them and bring them in and help them through that thing. But after a period of time, if they don’t want to be in that kind of crucible, the crucible we’re all in where we’re holding each other accountable, living with each other, going through life together.

They don’t want any part of that. They were never really of us. And they walk away. And that’s sad, but that happens. And we have to make it clear that those people weren’t of us, so there’s no confusion as we go along. So all of that to say, it reinforces this doctrine of the people that really are saved will stay saved. And I think that I’m going to read a lot of verses and talk about this for 30 minutes or whatever here. But the bottom line is, if you know God is inside of you, don’t get spun out when you fall down. Lots of people make big mistakes and do really stupid things that are saved, and they repent and come back and come back stronger from it.

There’s all kinds of stories I could tell you about people that are in leadership in churches and stuff that really did stupid things in their life, you know, and they repented and changed their way. Now there are certain positions where a guy say I were to cheat on my wife. At that point I am no longer a one-woman man. I would be disqualified from the office of elder, but I certainly, if I repented, would not be disqualified from being a member of the body and would not be disqualified from going to heaven.

Think of some of the greatest saints in the Bible. David would be one of them. Not a good routine if you read through his life. He screwed up a bunch, but he was called a man after God’s own heart. So the point is though, that doesn’t mean now go out and try everything David did. No, no, no, no, no. It was bad, okay? All you got to do is read the Psalms and see what kind of condition he was when he got caught in those sins and when he knew what he was trying to do. And most of the time if you’re feeling miserable about something, repent and get over it because you’re probably just wallowing in your own sin. So all that encouragement just to say you know. So Jesus even warns at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that at the last day many will come to him saying Lord Lord didn’t we do this in your name didn’t we do that in your name and he will send them away saying depart from me you workers of iniquity I never knew you. That’s Matthew 7 23. He will not say I knew you for a season and then you

went sour and betrayed me. No, you were never part of my church. You weren’t part of the whole invisible body of believers. You were only doing these things looking good. And there’s a lot of people that can look good for a long time and then all of a sudden, whoa. The whole purpose of God’s election is to bring his people safely to heaven. Therefore, what he starts, he promises to finish. He not initiates the Christian life, but the Holy Spirit is with us as the sanctifier, the convictor, and the helper to ensure our preservation.” Another quote from Sproul, true Christians can have radical and serious falls, but never total and final falls from grace. That’s a good one. Okay. Now I’m not telling you all that so that you can go out and do something stupid. I am telling you that that though if you’re in a position now where you’ve done something stupid repent and straighten out don’t dally out there all right the history of this thing eternal security or perseverance of the saints Church Father Augustine

taught that those whom God chose to save are given in addition to the gift of faith a gift of perseverance. Donum perseverant I probably mispronounced that one which enables them to continue to believe and precludes the possibility of falling away. Interesting that he got that being a Catholic you know of the time but he understood the sovereignty of God and he knew that if God chose you he would give you the gift of faith to do that. What first does this bring to mind? Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, right? That that gift of faith brings you to serious conviction.

And then in 2, 10 he tells you that those, that will give you the power to do the good works that he prepared beforehand, before when? Before you ever got saved. All the things you were going to do that please him have already been put in the cooker. It’s really incredible when you think about it that we’re part of this flow of history, his story. The traditional Calvinist doctrine is one of the five points of Calvinism that were defined at the Synod of Dort during the quinticular controversy. The quint is the five points and the Synod of Dort they argued about them. Again, they didn’t call them the same names that the tulip does, but they’re the same subjects that they were arguing about. This is 1608 to 1618 in Holland. So 10 years theologians of Europe talked about this with the Arminian remonstrants who objected to the general predestinarian scheme of Calvinism. Wesleyanism agrees with Arminianism that true Christians can fall away. Okay? And Arminian says, I chose God therefore I can unchoose God. Wesleyan says that they choose God but

they disagree over whether or not fallen Christians can return again to salvations. Wesleyans believe they can, Arminians deny they can. Now that’s really interesting because we put them in big categories like Arminians are just people that believe God didn’t choose them. Well your standard Pentecostal Church will teach that you can lose your salvation, but come on down to the kneeling bench repent and you can get it back. And you see that a lot in Pentecostal denominations where a guy just doesn’t feel right and everything and then he repents and he comes back and he feels better and oh my goodness down back in the Lord’s thing. Basically a lot of times I think what’s happening is they weren’t walking in the Spirit, they confess their sin, they get back walking in the Spirit and they think they got their salvation back. If they were truly saved. They were always saved. They’re just going through this up and down thing because their whole theology is based on how they feel about it. That’s

another dangerous thing to do because some of us, I mean if you ate something wrong and you don’t feel well, you know, that doesn’t mean you’re losing your salvation. It just means you don’t feel well and you’re maybe not able to process things correctly. That’s why it’s nice to have discipleship and people that can help you process some things that maybe aren’t going well.

All right. So the traditional Calvinist doctrine, perseverance is articulated in the Canons of Dork chapter 5, like I said, the Westminster Confession, and may also bound found in other Reformed Confessions. It is however seen by many as a necessary consequence of Calvinism and of trusting in the promises of God. Well, duh, yeah. If God chooses you and promises to bring you to him, well of course he’s going to deliver on that. Traditional Calvinism voiced its opposition to the carnal Christianity and the non-traditional Calvinist doctrine and recent controversy over lordship salvation. And that was the whole thing back in the 90s. It actually had gone on in seminary journals for about 20 years before that. And that was the thing that you have a carnal Christian and a real Christian. Now a carnal Christian is out doing all these bad things, but he’s still a Christian doing those things. Well, he’s a Christian in sin if he’s really saved doing those things, but if he continues to do those over a period of time and has no repentance, he’s not a Christian.

The Bible doesn’t recognize carnal Christian and that kind of thing. It recognized sinning Christians and not sinning Christians. You don’t get That’d be, oh, I’m just being bad, and I can do that for a while, and just be this carnal Christian and everything school, because I walked the aisle at nine. So the Reformed tradition has consistently seen the doctrine of perseverance as a natural consequence to predestination. And according to Calvinists, since God has drawn the elect to faith by Christ, by regenerating their hearts and convincing them of their sins, and thus saving their souls, by his own work and power, it naturally follows that they will be kept by the same power to the end.

Since God has made satisfactions for the sins of the elect, they no longer can be condemned for them. And through the help of the Holy Spirit, they must necessarily persevere as Christians and in end be saved. It’s just that simple for those things. The Westminster Confaith goes on in chapter 17. They whom God hath accepted in his beloved, effectually called and sanctified by the Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away.” Neither totally nor finally can they fall? Yes. “…from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere thereon to the end and be eternally saved.” That’s chapter 17, section 1.

This definition does not deny the possibility of fallings in one’s Christian experience because the Confession also says, nevertheless believers may through the temptations of Satan and of the world the prevalence of corruption remaining in them, remember total depravity, and the neglect of the means of their preservation fall into grievous sins, the neglect of their means of preservation, confessing your sin, walking in the spirit, your means, fall into grievous sins and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God’s displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit and become deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened and their consciousness wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves. Temporal judgments upon themselves, but they don’t lose their salvation. I think that’s what it means where some of you have died in communion, if you take the bread and the wine, you know, in a wrong way where Paul says and some of you have died. I think 1 John talks about this

in chapter 5 where there’s sins that people die, God just takes them out. Does that mean they lose their salvation? No, they’re not going to repent and he takes them out of the situation. Now those are hard things to determine when you bring up specific cases. Well, my Uncle Bob did this and did this, what do you think? Well, I’m not God, I don’t know. understand that people can get screwed up but not lose their salvation. All right? So all this means there’s a lot of wisdom needs to be called into hand. But the big message is walk in the spirit and you’re not going to have any problem with this. You’re just going to know, oh wow, I’m way better than I was last year and I’m getting better today than I was two years ago.

therefore I’m moving ahead here and God has got me on the right track and all of that will just reinforce and bring you stronger in your conviction about these things. On a practical level Calvinists do not claim to know who is elect and who is not and the only guide they have is the verbal testimony or good works or fruit of each individual. Any who fall away that is who do not persevere in the Christian faith until death is assumed not to have been truly converted to begin with. Though Calvinists do not claim to know with certainty who did and who did not persevere. Which is true. We’re not God, we don’t know.

But we can have a good testimony and know about people we’ve known, you know, and you just… God gives you a peace and you know. Can you, you know, be absolutely sure? No, because I don’t know your heart, you don’t know my heart, but God knows And the thing that is interesting to me, the more the body works together and the more discipleship goes on and more life to life, you just know when people are in fighting on the right team. You’re on the right side and together we’ll all get there. Thus, all who are truly born again are kept by God, the Father, for Jesus Christ, and can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace.

That’s it. Bottom line. Okay. So now let’s look at some verses. This is a long list. I’m not going to read every one of these verses, but I’ll call them out and just think about them as we go through them. It’s over and over. It’s kind of like that time when you thought you chose God and then all of a sudden you started reading your Bible and realize God was in charge. And then all of a sudden the whole thing flips over and you look at it and you go, oh my goodness God’s doing everything. How can this be? How did I miss that? You know it’s kind of like that trip over as we look these verses up. Okay, 1st Peter 1.23, being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Gee, there’s that forever again. I guess that only means till next Thursday, but Friday maybe you’ll come back and get it right.

Okay? John 5 24, truly, truly I say to you whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life. John 6 35 37 Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. John 10 27 29 my sheep hear my voice I know them they follow me I give them eternal life they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Romans 5-9, Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Romans 8-1, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8-29, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8, 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or the sword? The answer is no. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 11 29, Hebrews 3 14, 1 John 2 19, we’ll read that one again, 1 John 2 19, they went out from us but they were not of us. For if they had been of us they would have continued with us but they went out that it might become plain that they were not of us.

That’s the verse for the situation that I described for our six-year church situation. That’s the way it works. But the ones that are with us and the ones that are amongst us and have slogged through the trials and tribulations that all of us go through all the time, the more we do that together, the stronger it gets and the better we get at being able to shepherd those people. 1 Corinthians 15, 10, by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, Though it was not I, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Paul saying basically, Galatians 2.20 again, not I who lives, but it’s Christ who lives in me. Second Corinthians 5.19, that is in Christ, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Ephesians 2, 4 through 6. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 4, 30. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

A warning, don’t grieve him. But if you do, repent and move on. Okay. Philippians 1.6, we mentioned this one before, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 1.12, 2 Timothy 2.13, Hebrews 13.20 through 21. Now, may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. That’s a charge that we use here, the end of the services a lot.

First John 3.9, no one bored of God makes a practice of sinning for God’s seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. But I sin all the time. But what do you do? You repent, and you stop, and go good for a while, then you sin again. The practice of sinning is the continuous. This is part of the simple Greek there. It’s the present tense where you are continually doing that. But you break that by confessing it, move ahead, move upward and to the right, maybe just a little notch. Then you make it to the next one. Then you make another notch. you get up there. First John 5, 4 through 5, For everyone who has been bored of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith, who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

And who gives you the faith to believe that? The Spirit gives it to you. God gives it to you. Ephesians 1, 13 through 14, In him you also, when heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation and believe in him, we’re sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. John 17, two, then comma 12, this is the priestly prayer where Jesus prays for us that they will not be lost, okay? Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him, That’s given Christ. Then in verse 12, while I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.

I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the Son of Destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. And remember, Judas was predicted to be that one. And it’s clear, as time goes on, you see Judas was appointed for that, which even furthers the Calvinistic kind of doctrine of stuff. 1 Corinthians 1, 6 through 8, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 through 24, 2 Thessalonians 3, 3, Hebrews 9, 12, 1 Peter 1, 3 through 5, 1 John 5, 11 through 13. This is a good one. You hear this a lot in little Bible cards. You can pass out to your friends. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life and the life is in his son.

Whoever has the son has the life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have the life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know, that you may know that you have eternal life. Oh, there’s that eternal life thing. That you may know that you have eternal life until next Monday. So it’s eternity you get eternal life for. So there’s just piles of verses that say this stuff. Then the problem becomes, well, what about Saul and the Bible? And what about people that seem to have fallen away? And what do we do with that? And were they saved? Were they not saved? What about Hebrews 6?

What about Hebrews 10? Those things are really bothering me. I don’t know what I can do. All those kind of things. Those are good questions. And it’s not a Bible study on Hebrews 6 or Hebrews 10 or Saul. But if you read those verses and you start thinking about it in a general way, and this is the way I prefer to have people look at them, that the people that are doing that are not really Christians, okay? They’re being described, they’re part of the body that are doing that, and like Hebrews 6 says, if they fall away it is impossible for them to repent. So the people that say Hebrews 6 teaches that you can lose your salvation, ignore that part, it is impossible for them to repent in the further part of Hebrews 6.

So they’re describing people that are in disobedience. The same thing in Hebrews 10. There’s no sacrifice for sins, remains for the person, but only a fearful expectation of judgment. This is a person that neglects what Christ has done for them, and they re-crucify Christ over and over. How a Catholic can read Hebrews 10 and hold communion where they re-crucify Christ every time they have communion or every time they have mass is just mind-boggling that they can read that book and go ahead with that kind of procedure. The debate over these passages center around the identity the person in questions. While the opponents of perseverance identify the person as Christian believers, Calvinists suggest several other options. They weren’t Christians. They never were.

They were just part of the community. They got the blessing of the Spirit. You can come and be part of our church and get blessings all over the place. We can help you financially. We can, you can be part of our life. You can come over and help you with your yard work. We can give give you all kinds of biblical truth, help you with your kids, and then you just desert the body. Well, how does that work? You weren’t part of us. So you can have those rewards and be blessed by the Spirit of God through His people, but it just, you know, it’s not real. But if you’re really part of it, you’ll know that and you become part of that and you will be giving all of that out.

Some people want to say that it talks about loss of eternal rewards and for the millennium and all kinds of stuff like that. I tend to think that that’s really getting out there, that starting to talk about that kind of thing. Other people think that all these passages are hyperbolic, that it’s just stating crazy stuff that really is impossible. I don’t buy into that either. I think that what’s being stated in these passages, you clearly see a lot in congregations. So the passages refer to Jewish Christians who were reverting to Judaism. Yeah, in some cases that would be true in those congregations. And it’s interesting to note that Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who I really like, he wrote a book called Israelology that I think ought to be part of theology, a big major section of it.

position he takes that because most of these letters especially in Hebrews were written to Hebrew Christians that the big passages are warning those Hebrew Christians not to revert back to those Judaism tendencies that they needed to leave behind. That one is it’s a little more complex but it’s an interesting study if you fall into that rabbit hole. Okay. Let’s see here. I guess we could end this section on in Revelation 3 2 through 5. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember then that when you received and heard it keep it and repent. If you will not wake up I will come like a thief and you will not know what hour I will come against you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, the people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the Book of Life. I will confess

his name before my father and before his angels.” If you are slipping away, don’t do that. Wake up and remain. Wake up, repent, and get back on track. That’s That’s what he’s saying to these people. If you’re on track, the one who conquers will be clothed, thus in white garments, and I will never blot out his name out of the Book of Life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels, okay? Just get back on the track, get back on the horse. Things are good.

See, we’ve still got a little time. Now I wanna go to the groups that view this doctrine and what they have to say, the different groups. Now our group is you will persevere to the end. God has got you. He’s got you in his hands. You can’t jump out. All of those kind of things. You’ll see that’s a Lutheran interpretation there. But the free grace thing is probably the craziest thing that’s come along. And it’s fairly new. It really came about in the second half of the 19th century. Free grace or non-traditional Calvinist doctrine is been espoused by Charles Stanley, Norman Geisler, St. Hodges, Bill Bright, and others, okay.

Chuck Swindoll did it. All the books that were written against the lordship, salvation books, that talk about this. And some of the things they say are just crazy, but I think it’s necessary if you’re reading your Bible and you read the verses that talk about these things and then you read what they say, you go, what are you talking about, okay? So, the, let’s see here. Charles Stanley, pastor of Atlanta’s mega church, first Baptist and a television evangelist has written the doctrine of eternal security of the believer persuaded him years ago to leave his familial Pentecostalism and become a Southern Baptist. That’s a good thing that he left the touchy-feely thing and moved over to a more biblical base in the Southern Baptist.

He sums up his deep conviction that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone. We wouldn’t deny that. Of course it is. Who gives us the faith? And it’s in Christ. God doesn’t. Even if a believer, for all practical purposes, becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy. Believers who lose or abandon their faith will retain their salvation.” What? How? That’s just crazy. How? By faith they have their salvation and he says, and to abandon their faith will retain their salvation.

And that faith is given to you by the very God that revealed what salvation is all about to you begin with. He says look at the verse John 3 18 and answer this question according to Jesus what much the person do to keep from being judged for sin must he stop doing something must he promise to stop doing something must he have never done something the answer is so simple that many stumble all over it without ever seeing it all Jesus requires is at the individual believe in him? What does believe in him be? I mean they’re just destroying the words and what they mean in context to sing things like that. I mean if you believe in who Jesus Christ is, he’s the Savior of the world who died for your sins. I mean there’s necessary theology that has to go with that. You don’t just believe he was a good dude that had some wise sayings and they had this book with his stuff in there. He’s way more than that. He’s the God that created the universe, you know. So it’s just silliness they talk about that, all right. In a

chapter entitled, For Those Who Stop Believing, you said, The Bible clearly teaches that God’s love for His people is of such a magnitude that those who walk away from the faith have not the slightest chance of slipping from His hand. A little later, Stanley also writes, you and I are not saved because we have an enduring faith. We are saved because at the moment in time we express faith in our enduring Lord in a moment at time. No, we live that faith out. If you’re not living your faith out, you don’t really have faith. And if you haven’t been changed by God, you know you’re a pretender. So stop and get on your knees and ask him to change you. Okay. It goes on and on here. I have a page and a half of all this stuff. I’ll quit reading that one. That’s the free-grace thing. Then we have the Arminian view. So the central tenet of the Arminian view is that believers are preserved from all external forces that might attempt to separate them from God and further that God will not change his

mind about their salvation, but that these same believers can themselves willingly repudiate their faith, either by a statement to that effect or by continuing sinful activity combined with an unwillingness to repent. Thus their salvation is conditional on remaining faithful. Amen. But I would say that that person never was saved. I mean if the guy continues in this life habit that just I just described there’s no way he can be a Christian. Okay. But if he is in that thing and then he repents and turns from his way it proves that he really was. But if he’s faking it and then becomes convicted of it and then really gets saved he’ll be a different person. So they’re possibly talking about people that we would recognize. The only problem here is the change his mind about their salvation. God will not change his mind but that these same believers can themselves willing repudiate their faith.

That’s why I always ask, did you choose God or did He choose you? And when you realize in the bottom of your soul that the God of the universe is the one that used His Spirit to open your heart to recognize who He is, that just puts you in your knees and in the state of awe that you will not be able to get out of for the rest of your life. That’s crazy. The person that created all of this died for us and then opens up these spiritual things to us supernaturally through his spirit is unbelievable. So it goes on to describe basically what I said there and turns away the carnal view of the carnal Christian. The Lutheran view, like both Calvinist camps, confessional Lutherans view the work of salvation as monergistic.

That is, God does it all. natural light, the natural, that is corrupted divine renewed powers of man cannot do anything to help towards salvation. And Lutherans go further along the same lines that free grace advocates to say that the recipient of saving grace need not cooperate. Hence Lutherans believe the true Christian is a genuine recipient of saving grace can lose his or her salvation. But the cause is not though God were unwilling to grant grace for the perseverance to those in whom he has been in the good work, but that those persons willfully turn away. Again, puts it on their thing. I had the guy that was in charge of the Missouri Synod for Southern California tell me the verse where, you know, I have them in my hands, God’s got you in your hands. And he said, that’s right. You are in his hands and it’s no problem.

The problem is when you jump out. Okay. Who put you in? All right. The Roman Catholic view. The 22nd canon of the decree concerning justification of the Council of Trent succession 13 January 1547, yes and it’s still their law, has this to say regarding perseverance. If anyone says that the one justified either can without the help, the special help of God persevere and the justice received or that with with that help he cannot let him be an anathema. In this canon, the council reaffirmed that perseverance absolutely requires divine help, a divine help that cannot fail. Amen. Bottom line, we agree with that point of what they’re saying.

Respecting these parameters, Catholics can have a variety of views as regards to the final perseverance. On the question of predestination, Catholic scholars may broadly characterize as either Molinas or Thomasus. The view of the latter are similar to those of Calvinists in that they understand the final perseverance to be a gift applied by God to the regenerated that will assuredly lead them to ultimate salvation. Not too bad, close, huh? They differ from Calvinists in one respect, whether God permits men to fall away after regeneration. The Thomases affirm that God cannot permit men to come to regeneration without giving them a special gift of divine perseverance so that they do fall away.

Calvinists by contrast, tonight, that an individual can fall away if they are truly regenerate. All right, that’s the whole deal, and now I wanna read two quotes, and these are really good. And this is how we’ll close this session. First one is by John Gill, and this is The Cause of God and Truth, Part Three, Section Six. How preposterous and irrational must it be in a man who thinks himself to be a child of God and believes he shall persevere to the end, from this consideration to indulge himself in all manner of sin, as if resolving that he would persevere no longer? In other words, antinomianism. I’m safe, so I go out and sin.

And how preposterous and irrational must be for a man who thinks himself to be a child of God to be able to do that. Which hence shows me, if you’re truly saved and you get stuck in the ditch and you’ve fallen off and you’re that way, God will convict you, make you so miserable you cannot stay there. You will repent and come back and be part of the group. He won’t allow you to stay there. The next one is R. L. Dabney, who wrote the Five Points of Calvinism back in 18, I think it was 67 or 87, whenever it was, 1878. We do not teach that any man is entitled to believe that he is justified and therefore shall not come again in condemnation on the proposition, once in grace, always in grace.

Although he be now living in intentional, willful sin. falsehood of Satan we abhor. Okay? I’m saved. I’m just going to sin all I can. Paul says in Romans, may Genetim never be. Do not do that. We say, in fact, that this deluded man can live in willful sin is the strongest possible proof that he was never justified and never had any grace to fall from. And once for all, no intelligent believer can possibly abuse this doctrine into a pretext for carnal security. I mean, talk about taking care of the carnal Christian. That’s harsh words there. It promises to true believers of perseverance and holiness, who accept an idiot could infer from that promise the privilege to be unholy.

Father, we thank you for this incredible truth that if you chose us, you will sanctify us, you will conform us to the image of your son. You will do that work, and even though sometimes we go kicking and screaming, you inside of us tell us that we can’t do that. And you allow us to repent. And you allow the body to come alongside of us. You allow your spirit to come alongside of us and to strengthen us and to allow us to walk even more faithful than we did before. So we thank you for this Christian walk. We thank you that you are a patient God, long suffering with us, and help us to bring that light to all the people that we have in our circle of influence. And we thank you for all these things in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

Father, we thank you for this incredible truth that if you chose us, you will sanctify us, you will conform us to the image of your son. You will do that work, and even though sometimes we go kicking and screaming, you inside of us tell us that we can’t do that. And you allow us to repent. And you allow the body to come alongside of us. You allow your spirit to come alongside of us and to strengthen us and to allow us to walk even more faithful than we did before. So we thank you for this Christian walk. We thank you that you are a patient God, long suffering with us, and help us to bring that light to all the people that we have in our circle of influence.