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Podcast 46 - Can Salvation Be Lost
11 Plays6 hours ago
Join us as we discuss another popular question about or Christian faith
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Transcript
Can salvation be lost?
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back. It's Grove Hill Podcast. Today we're back with another tough subject, one that i feel like... No matter how long I've been at this, I've been all the time hearing people ask this question over and over again. i think it symbolizes some of the schisms that form in Christian faith. Some people have one way of thinking, others another way of thinking. And to be honest, to be real objective, you can see why people would read certain scriptures and feel one way or another. And so today we're just going resolve this problem. We're just going to answer the question and we're going to solve it for all centuries to come.
The seriousness of personal salvation
00:00:44
Speaker
Now the question is this, can someone genuinely be saved and then lose their salvation? It's a hard question. It's a difficult question. I think part of it goes back to Matthew chapter 7, the end of the the Sermon on the Mount where we're Jesus offers those very ominous words of warning where he says, not everybody who says to me, Lord, Lord, will make it into heaven. and to be honest, as a believer, if you don't at least catch your breath a little bit hearing that, then it may be that you just don't take your salvation very seriously. sure That's something we all want to consider. So let's talk about that a little bit. Many Christians struggle with this. Many strong Christians struggle with this. i would argue many weak and immature Christians don't consider this enough. yeah It's an important subject. Can we somehow lose the salvation that has been given to us by
Salvation: A divine gift
00:01:37
Speaker
God? So first of all, let's acknowledge this. Where does salvation come from?
00:01:43
Speaker
Salvation comes from the redemptive work of Christ on the cross through his resurrection. so So God intended that we would have this distributed. It talks about imputed or given to righteousness. And that only comes through Christ. that's not I think scripture is very absolute on that, although sometimes people will try to argue. But it's it's not our work that's doing any of the heavy lifting. So salvation begins with God. That's right. yep yeahp He initiates the process, right? um
00:02:14
Speaker
I've always heard people say this. I don't disagree with them. The Bible says that we were dead before we knew Christ. Dead things can't do anything for themselves. That's right. So God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, has to somehow awaken or quicken our spirits. All right, so if God starts the process of salvation, who holds on to the salvation for
God's control and eternal security
00:02:34
Speaker
us? Well, I would say we're definitely not in charge of it, because if you gave it to me, I'd drop it. I would sell it or trade it. So still the responsibility of God. Yes. Right? And I think that, sorry, to back that up with Scripture, is there's plenty of verses that said that there's a seal in heaven. Our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. um There's certain things that He takes possession of in that.
00:02:55
Speaker
When we make the decision here, something's going on somewhere else where He's kind of solidifying it. And we've got all these incredible promises in Scripture from... romans where it says that you're like you're the palm of my hand and nothing can take you from me. yeah The book of John where Jesus is describing his relationship with his sheep as a shepherd and he says they know me, they follow me, nobody can take them from
Hebrews 6: Interpretation issues
00:03:18
Speaker
me. Man, that's great. That's reassuring. You get all excited and then you flip over to a passage like Hebrews chapter 6.
00:03:24
Speaker
We were talking about this coming online. You you got it pulled up still. Why don't you read Hebrews 6, 4-6 for us? Let me flip over here. I flipped somewhere else, but i I definitely can pull it up quick. All right. Hebrews 6, 4-6 says, For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt.
00:04:04
Speaker
right, so it sounds like to me he's talking about people who have, in his words, fallen away. What in the world does that mean? If it doesn't mean that they're losing their salvation, what could that possibly mean that they have fallen away?
Experiencing God vs. possessing faith
00:04:16
Speaker
John, you spouted off of something right before we started. I think that was probably a good... I look at this and I i come from, ah just to let some of you listeners know, I came from a background growing up where there was, ah some of you might have heard this terminology, an Armenian type of doctrine where there is ah a recognition of, hey, there can be an apostasy or and a falling away. But in some of that, what I believe that Hebrews 6, and as I've seen more in scripture, the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of God, I see these actions, you you can see it in the Galatians, where
00:04:53
Speaker
God, and and through that, the prompting of the triune God through the Holy Spirit prompts a person. And there is this, hey, he pursues all of mankind. But as he pursues that, you know, there's an enlightenment there. But if there's not a possessing of that, there's one thing to be prompted. It's another thing to possess. And I think that's one of the things that I see here is that there there's not a true possessing ah that we see and there's theologians way smarter than I am that have been arguing this for years and centuries and thousands of years.
00:05:29
Speaker
But that's kind of where I see this and i think that's the biggest part of it is where the prompting comes from because you mentioned you know we are dead in our sins and at what point do we have the ability or what point is God's
Scriptural affirmations of eternal life
00:05:44
Speaker
part? And then the second part is that prompting versus the possessing of the Holy Spirit that makes a person a believer.
00:05:52
Speaker
I like that terminology, prompting versus possessing. I think... I think it's real easy. I think in there, depending on what translation you read in Hebrews 6, the passage you just read, it talks about tasting the goodness of God or something like that. I think of going to a real fancy place to eat a dinner, yeah and you sit down and they bring you a sample of something and you taste it. yeah That's not consuming the meal. right That's just getting a taste of it. And I feel like that's what happens. Many times we are prompted by the Holy Spirit to consider God, to consider His love, to consider His salvation, and maybe even have a ah
00:06:27
Speaker
like a quickening of our hearts because we would get excited about that thought. right But do we ever really cross that line to, okay, I'm going to start submitting and surrendering to you. I think we often look at our character and how we handle things compared to what how God handled things. If you look throughout Scripture, God makes promises, and He doesn't rewind those promises or pull them back or say, hey, I'm going to give this to ya like you. know It's like when He makes promises, they're very direct, and He he fulfills them. And then on the other side of that, um He speaks in terms of eternity.
00:07:02
Speaker
And so when he's saying things about like our salvation, um for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Nope, that's not the one.
00:07:11
Speaker
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have
Authenticity of faith
00:07:16
Speaker
eternal life. The promises that he gives us are these eternal promises. And so once someone, i believe, is in that realm to where he's granting them that promise, um there's not a time where I've seen God back out on a promise. yeah So is he if he's presenting and promising eternal life, ah then he's following through with that.
00:07:38
Speaker
I like the end of Romans chapter eight. I mentioned it just a minute ago, but this is one the passages I always have loved. where Paul asks this question, he says, what then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. How will He not also with us granting with Him grant us everything? And he goes on to say, who can separate us from the love of Christ?
00:08:02
Speaker
Can affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, because of you we are being put to death all day long. We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. And all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. um I don't know about you, but I've never heard anybody who was a conqueror. Somebody came back later and nope, we're taking that away. yeah We're going to call it a defeat. yeah yeah um It's just that the promises, like you said all the way through scripture, about how effective salvation is on our behalf are eternal
The unbreakable bond with God
00:08:35
Speaker
promises. I think the warnings that we see here are probably people who are paralleling the warning of Jesus in Matthew 7 where they're saying, hey, be careful yeah that your faith is genuine. i mean Right now we're doing this series in the book of James, and that's most of James' argument in that book to say, hey... Here's how you know your faith is genuine and he gives us a whole lot of check marks. Oh, yeah, yeah so I think um It should just be an encouragement even those hard passages encouragement for Christians because if I go ah Hey department feet depart depart from me I never knew you my brain doesn't go like oh man Let's dwell on this subject of whether I could lose it or not my brain goes
00:09:17
Speaker
how can I draw closer to Him? yeah How can I draw more near to Him, right? yeah um And so I think we look at the wrong things oftentimes. um Like you said, heed it as a warning to be like, man, where am I at with my relationship with the Lord? yeah i mean, there's a lot of reasons why people...
00:09:34
Speaker
legitimately believe they have a relationship with Jesus. I mean, one of them church attendance. yeah I mean, let's let's be honest. God came up with a really cool thing when he came up with the church. And so if you've been lonely, you've been frustrated, you've been discouraged, depressed, whatever, and you walk into a group of people who love Jesus, that'll get you excited about something. But that's not salvation. right no um There are people who have gone through experiences. We've had people here at our church who have gone through baptisms.
00:10:00
Speaker
baptism is a cool emotional experience for a lot of people it is not salvation and then you know you and I both work in a student ministry all the years we have you've kid had kids go away on a retreat a weekend a camp a missions experience right and the joy that comes out of those events just kind of man you're you're at a high and you come back home and suddenly it's gone right and it's these emotional experiences I think Satan plays on those yeah Tries to convince us, hey, you you did it. You're good. You're covered. You got all weepy and said all the right things. And I think that's why Hebrews, Jesus, James, even Peter, they all come back and go, hey, be be sure you've done this. Be sure you've taken care of this in the right way.
Backsliding vs. believer status
00:10:43
Speaker
yeah no I think God is intentional with how he refers to things in scriptures, and he often refers to us as sons and daughters, um adopting us into the family. All those words that hold a very tight, strong hold. And so if my son, my son Noah, um turned 18 and rejected me, rejected the idea of my household, rejected my authority, pushed me away, proclaimed that I wasn't his father,
00:11:12
Speaker
would I still be his father? Yes, right? And so when when God brings us into that area where he's saying, this is my son, um he's saying in in John 10, nobody can snatch him out of my hand. Not even you.
00:11:27
Speaker
You personally can't snatch yourself out of his hand, right? He's saying nobody. And so when I think when God claims something, i guess you're taking you' hearing my stance on the opinion, I don't think you can lose your salvation. um When God declares something that I am his son,
00:11:42
Speaker
um
God's patience with biblical figures
00:11:43
Speaker
man, that's more weighty than me just saying, oh, I'm a Christian, right? He holds that, not me. Yeah. um So what about, as we like to call it in the church, backsliding?
00:11:57
Speaker
We hear it all the time. We hear good, solid followers of Christ that have backsliding. What is that? What is the explanation for that feeling?
00:12:09
Speaker
I think when we see, and I think we were talking about it today, it's this and this lack of repentance where there is just a maybe a I would call it ah an apparent sin that is in someone's life where the the relationship is being ah very, very strained.
00:12:29
Speaker
um The beautiful thing is in the relationship, you've got a holy and a perfect God who says, I'm the one that holds this thing together. Do you want to come under the umbrella of my covering or do you want to continue to push out and put yourself in the reign of life? And so backsliding or... um struggling in life, whatever you want to call it. I think there is the recognition that you're still in Christ. Or there may be a recognition of were you ever in Christ?
00:13:02
Speaker
But yeah, backsliding, you're in Christ, but you are going out of the dwelling relationship of daily abiding in Him. I think it's James 1. I think we're just talking about the obedience and following and putting it into practice. And it says, because of this, there's going to be blessings added to you. And so it's like you're almost stepping out from the umbrella of God's blessing and covering, right? And you're kind of allowing yourself to be submissive to the world rather than who your father is, right?
00:13:34
Speaker
You know, any guys in the Bible that backslid? All of them, except Jesus. That really, that really is true. Yeah. That's that's a cop out answer, but it is true. Yeah. I mean, if for, here's the beautiful thing. Uh, a friend of ours mentioned this the other day, about picking up the rope or picking up the ball whenever you drop it. Because last time I checked one of the greatest architects of the church that God used, that Christ used Peter,
00:14:04
Speaker
I mean, for Pete's sake, he denied, you know, and for him to be such a pillar, that gives me hope. I'm like, golly, thank goodness that there are other broken people that are, you know, continuing to even deny Jesus. And God says, going to use him. Listen, I'm glad you brought him up. let Let's just say this. If you're out there struggling, like all three of us, I think would admit at some point you do, you you have that question and you're going, i just, I just don't know if if Jesus is going to be okay with me because of what I did.
00:14:33
Speaker
Jesus looked at Peter and called him Satan. All right? I don't think Jesus has ever done that to you. That's a hard one to come back from, guys. yeah It's a hard one to come back from. Don't care what they called you in fifth grade or whatever.
00:14:45
Speaker
He called him Satan, and yet Peter it was the rock that Jesus built the church on. yeah And that's just an incredible incredible reality. Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
00:14:56
Speaker
David, backslid, Abraham. Moses, Noah. Moses, Noah. There's not a one of them. You can't find one character in all the scripture outside of Jesus himself who lived this life
The Prodigal Son and God's love
00:15:08
Speaker
perfectly. And so we all have a tendency to wander. We all have a tendency to sometimes lose steam. Sometimes to have a low point emotionally that we equate with disobedience, and it's not. sure It's just that our walk with Jesus is not meant to be a totally emotional thing. where sometimes we can grow cold um we can feel like we're being disciplined by God um years ago when I think probably one of the times when I was struggling the most with whether or not my salvation was genuine a friend of mine pointed out to me he said you you know the story of the prodigal father
00:15:44
Speaker
It's not really the prodigal son because the word prodigal means extravagant. The father extravagantly loved the son. He said that son went and did everything absolutely possible to separate himself from his father, including basically saying, I wish you were dead. Give me your inheritance. He said, but when he came back home that day uh,
00:16:07
Speaker
and
00:16:10
Speaker
The father ran off that porch to him. Yep. He said, my son. He said he never stopped being his son. He was always his son.
00:16:20
Speaker
And that's love. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
Sorry, I got dusted my eyes. Someone's cutting onions somewhere. Man. oh I think, um again, we have to go back to God's character, not ours.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah. um John, if you if you stab me in the back, I may or may not reconcile with you. you know like I may drop you as a friend, whatever. My my earthly yeah desires, right? um And so if someone if someone wrongs me, I'm like, yeah, I'm taking your salvation. yeah Give that back, you know? um God's character is not that. His thoughts are higher than ours. His ways are higher than ours. And there's grace. We saw it on the cross. Jesus didn't have to die. He gave it. um All these things that are separate than human nature. And so oftentimes we base a lot of this stuff off our perception Yeah. When if we look at his character throughout scripture, he is steady. Yeah. He's steady. He's true.
00:17:17
Speaker
All these promises he's made, he's never broke a one. Yeah. And so I can't i can't take that out of that That's him. And so if he's if he's saying that I'm saved for eternity, um man, i trust that and I seek
Does eternal security allow sin?
00:17:29
Speaker
him and I follow him. More reason for me to love him. Yeah.
00:17:31
Speaker
So let's go to the flip side briefly real quick so so we can wrap things up here. But this is an important thing to consider. If we can't lose our salvation, does that mean we can live however we want?
00:17:44
Speaker
Scripture talks about that. Yeah. Tell us what Scripture says. Paul says, shall I keep sinning so grace can increase? a bound And he says, by no means. Right? Why would we take advantage of the Savior who died for us? And so, man, it's even more reason for us to to draw near to him.
00:18:04
Speaker
That's why the Bible, especially books like the book book of James, talks so much about there's evidence of your faith. yeah How do you know your faith is real? well here's Here's some signs. If I told the two of you, and y'all were complete strangers, you walked up to me and I said to you, I'm a pro golfer.
00:18:19
Speaker
I'd have to walk out on a course and be able to prove it some evidence for it. mean, Jeff is pretty close. Yeah, Jeff's much closer than I am. There'd be much more evidence for him. But you would watch my golf game and you would go, this guy's not real. He's not legitimate. The world watches person after person person after person who confesses to be a follower of Christ and goes, I got a question whether that's legitimate. Yeah, right. you know Again, works do not lead to our salvation, but they are the natural byproduct of what happens when we exchange yeah a broken heart for a heart that's after following after Christ. That's right.
00:18:53
Speaker
so So our assurance doesn't rest on our ability to hold on to Christ. It rests on Christ's ability to hold on to us. and He's pretty good He's pretty doggy good
Assurance in faith through prayer
00:19:04
Speaker
at He's very good. yeah That's good, man.
00:19:06
Speaker
Hey, if you've got questions about this, this is an area where we'd love to sit down and chat with you about this and take this a little bit deeper. mandate yeah I love the words of 1 John. John was the disciple that Jesus loved. That was a self-proclaimed title, but still, i mean if I was writing a book, I'd say Ridley was the one that Jesus loved the most. But that's what John wrote, and he wrote this these three letters near the end of the Bible. And 1 John, he says, These things are written so that you may know that you have this relationship with God, that you are loved so deeply. And that's our prayer for you today. So I'm going to wrap up with a time of prayer, and then we will will bring this thing to a close. Let me pray for you guys.
00:19:46
Speaker
Father, um for my brother and sister that are out there listening to this today, I know many of them may be in the same place that I have found myself so many times in life, just feeling so low, so discouraged, so disconnected, so cold that I even question whether or not you still have hold of me.
00:20:04
Speaker
But i man, i just those words mean so much to me that you wrote these words of this Bible, these promises, all the way from beginning to end so that we would have confidence in the relationship we have with you.
00:20:17
Speaker
So my prayer is that brothers and sisters that are listening out there would hear these words and that they would have zero doubt about who they are and what you have made of them, the transformation that's taking place.
00:20:29
Speaker
Remind us that this is a journey. we We won't be perfect until we reach heaven with you. But in that process, we can be reminded over and over again of your grace, your mercy, your ability to love us.
00:20:44
Speaker
and your ability to to deliver us to your Father complete. So I pray that today has been an encouragement for everyone who's listening. I pray that maybe somebody out there today who's listening who says, man, this isn't a problem for me, that six months from now they would get in that season, they would they would have these words recalled for them that say, there's absolutely no reason to doubt that when your faith is genuine, it's also eternal.
00:21:09
Speaker
And so I pray that you would just... Put your arms around those who need to hear it today and who need to be reminded of how deep, deep, deep your love is for them. Thanks for these guys who share these conversations with us. I hope they're inspiring the hearts of people who are listening today. And week after week as we gather, Lord, I hope that others will come and find the encouragement they're needing to walk this journey.
00:21:29
Speaker
It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for listening. Hope you'll come back and join us next week. More deep subjects that we want to discuss with you. And maybe we'll hopefully shed a little bit of light on it for you. Like, share, make sure if other people are listening in. And come join us 8, 9, 30, 11, Sunday morning at Grove Hill Church. We'd love to have you.
00:21:51
Speaker
Bye. you