“Perseverance / “Once-Saved-Always-Saved”? Part 9”
Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2025 3:19 pm
“Perseverance / “Once-Saved-Always-Saved”?) Part 9” by Romans
We are continuing in our current Series, "Perseverance, ("Once-Saved-Always-Save"?)" which, as I have been saying throughout this Series, is a feature of Christianity that I think needs to be more emphasized than it is. As Christians, we should not view our membership in the Family and Kingdom of God in the same way that we view a lifetime membership in a Health Club where we can still be regarded as members in good standing even if we never darken their door after signing on the dotted line. This is not what being a Christian is all about.
We moved from seeing the urgent need for perseverance being repeatedly urged in God's Word, to asking the question, “If the 'Once-Save-Always-Saved' Doctrine is true, why must we persevere? From there, I began to unfold the many Scriptural proofs that “Once-Saved-Always-Saved,” as it is currently taught, is cannot be found in God's Word. There are clear, consistent, and repeated warnings to “sanctified” members of the Body of Christ (Hebrews 10:29) who “sin willfully” (Hebrews 10:26), and who fall away after they have been “partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Hebrews 6:4). For them awaits, “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27).
I hasten to add, as I concluded our last Installment, that “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). None of us are sinless, but The Father gives those who have become a member of the Body of Christ the Gift of The Holy Spirit to empower us to sin less. We will never be perfect as long as we are in this flesh, but … to avoid being “cut off” (John 15:6, Romans 11:22) and “cast out” (Matthew 5:13), we must daily repent and ask God's forgiveness because we sin daily. This goes hand in hand with, and is as important as our need to persevere, and to fight the good fight and to continue in God's Word.”
Tonight, I plan to continue our review and examination of the Bible's true and undeniable teaching regarding “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” Scripture is full of examples in both Jesus' clear teachings and Parables, and warnings in the epistles of Paul and Peter regarding of Christians backsliding, turning away from Christ and falling away. How and why these repeated Scriptures have been ignored or explained away by world-renowned preachers is something I cannot explain. I am an unknown, and a nobody in comparison to them.
But the popularity of a preacher is not what determines God's Truth. I do not determine what God's Truth is. My job is to read and teach what is written. Your job is to search the Scriptures and verify which teacher is telling you what is written in Scripture. You take anyone's word for what they teach at your own peril.
It's not that famous teachers don't know what Scripture says; rather they teach it with a preconceived bias, and nullify its plain meaning. Last week, I read to you both of the two powerful descriptions of Christians who have backslid and turned away from God. Notice the pronoun used in one of these two sections in Hebrews, “For if WE sin wilfully after that WE have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27). “WE” is the pronoun in used in New Testament epistles for fully-involved members of the Church, not for outsiders or “spectator Christians.”
I want to also quote, again, from the first section in Hebrews that I quoted from last week, only this time, rather than share with you the commentaries that acknowledge what they are obviously teaching, I am going to quote for you John MacArthur's revisionist nullification of these verses.
Hebrews 6:4-6 tells us in no uncertain terms, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”
In the MacArthur Daily Bible on pages 1137 and 1138, here is what we find in his footnotes: “ENLIGHTENED: they had received instruction in Biblical Truth which was accompanied by intellectual perception. Understanding the gospel is not the equivalent of regeneration. It is clear that enlightening is not the equivalent of salvation; TASTED THE HEAVENLY GIFT: tasting in the figurative sense in the New Testament refers to consciously experiencing something. The experience might be momentary or continuing. Christ's tasting of death was obviously momentary and not continuing or permanent. All men experienced the goodness of God but that does not mean they're all saved...”
He continues in his Notes: “The phrase “once enlightened” is often taken to refer to Christians. The interpretive problem arises from accurately identifying the spiritual condition of the ones being addressed. In this case they were unbelievers who had been exposed to God's redemptive truth and, perhaps, had made a profession of faith but had not exercised genuine faith. The subject here is people who come in contact with the gospel, but are spiritually unchanged by it.”
He has more to say in the Notes, but nowhere in the two sections of Notes that John MacArthur provides, does he mention or even attempt to explain away the phrase, “and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” This omission is not an accident. It is, however disappointing to realize that he would put blinders on to keep him from seeing every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
It is an indicting omission that exposes the fact that he cannot defend what he is teaching. He knows that a person being described as “partaking of the Holy Spirit” does not have some vague and intellectual-but-aloof involvement. He is not an outsider, a passerby or a “spectator Christian.” So John MacArthur just skips over the phrase that explodes in his face, and exposes his teaching as false, hoping nobody would notice. Well, I noticed!
And this is where you come in: Jesus admonishes you to “Take heed that no man deceive you For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:20-21). Paul admonishes you to, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The Apostle John admonishes you, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).
You have read what the Bible says, and you have seen the convenient and self-serving editing that John MacArthur performed in his commentary. This reminds me of the “religious instruction” I received as a Public School student from the Catholic Church I attended, in preparation for my Confirmation and First Communion. When they taught me the Ten Commandments, they surgically removed the Second Commandment that forbids the making and worshiping of likenesses and graven images. To cover their tampering, they divided the Tenth Commandment into the Ninth and Tenth Commandments in order to maintain that there are Ten Commandments.
The Tenth Commandment forbids the coveting both of thy neighbor's wife and goods. They made the Ninth Commandment to forbid coveting thy neighbors wife, and the Tenth Commandment to forbid the coveting of thy neighbor's goods. That brings the number of Commandments back up to Ten. To them, it was better to bury the Commandment that was being violated by the likenesses and graven images that were everywhere you looked, not only in all their Churches, but also virtually in every room in the house I grew up in. They, like John MacArthur in his Notes, in order to not be exposed as teaching what is false, simply skipped what they hoped you would not notice. I noticed when I first read the Ten Commandments as they actually appear in the Bible in Exodus 20, in their original and unedited presentation!
In the next two verses after those I just quoted in Hebrews 6, we read the following: Notice the symbolism being used, here. “For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned” (Hebrews 6:7-8). These herbs were planted, watered by man or the rain, and God gave the increase. They were growing and surviving until they bore thorns and briers. Then they were rejected, were nigh to being cursed, and their end is to be burned.
The Sermon Bible says of this: “The danger of apostasy. The Hebrews had become lukewarm, negligent and inert; the Gospel, once clearly seen and dearly loved by them, had become to them dim and vague; the persecution and contempt of their countrymen, a grievous burden under which they groaned, and with which they did not enjoy their fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Darkness, doubt, gloom, indecision, and consequently a walk in which the power of Christ’s love was not manifest, characterised them.
What could be the result but apostasy? Forgetfulness must end in rejection, apathy in antipathy, unfaithfulness in infidelity. The whole Church of God, as an, actual, outward and visible community, even the innermost circle of Apostles, and still more the innermost sanctuary—the heart of the chosen believers—must be constantly kept in the attitude of humble watchfulness, and we must continually remember that faith is in life.” A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. i., p. 308. References: Hebrews 6:5.—H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, p. 297; A. K. H. B., Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 3rd series, p. 261; C. Sheldon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 87; F. W. Brown, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 236; J. Morgan, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 166.
Jesus also spoke of apostasy using agriculture to symbolize his point in His Parable of the Sower. In the Parable, “some {seeds} fell by the way side… And some fell on stony ground… And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit… And other fell on good ground, (Mark 4:4-7).
Matthew Henry writes of the seed that falls among thorns, “Many are hindered from profiting by the word of God, by their abundance of the world. Many a good lesson of humility, charity, self-denial, and heavenly-mindedness, is choked and lost by that prevailing complacency in the world, which they are apt to have, on whom it smiles. Thus many professors, that otherwise might have come to something, prove like Pharaoh's lean kine and thin ears.
Those that are not encumbered with the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, may yet lose the benefit of their profession by the lusts of other things; this is added here in Mark; by the desires which are about other things (so Dr. Hammond), an inordinate appetite toward those things that are pleasing to sense or to the fancy. Those that have but little of the world, may yet be ruined by an indulgence of the body.”
Fruit is the thing that God expects and requires from those that enjoy the gospel: fruit according to the seed; a temper of mind, and a course of life, agreeable to the gospel; Christian graces daily exercised, Christian duties duly performed. This is fruit, and it will abound to our account.”
We are called to not only hear and even agree with the Word of God, we are called to bear fruit to the Glory and Honor of God. Jesus told His detractors among the chief priests and elders: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:43). That nation would be the Gentiles who, formerly, were on the outside looking in.
Matthew Henry writes of this: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you. To the Jews had long pertained the adoption and the glory (Romans 9:4); to them were committed the oracles of God (Romans 3:2), and the sacred trust of revealed religion, and bearing up of God's name in the world (Psalms 76:1-2); but now it shall be so no longer. They were not only unfruitful in the use of their privileges, but, under pretence of them, opposed the gospel of Christ, and so forfeited them, and it was not long ere the forfeiture was taken.
Note, It is a righteous thing with God to remove church privileges from those that not only sin against them, but sin with them, Revelation 2:4-5. The kingdom of God was taken from the Jews, not only by the temporal judgments that befell them, but by the spiritual judgments they lay under, their blindness of mind, hardness of heart, and indignation at the gospel, (Romans 11:8-10; 1 Thessalonians 2:15).
[2.] That the Gentiles shall be taken in. God needs not ask us leave whether he shall have a church in the world; though his vine be plucked up in one place, he will find another to plant it in. He will give it ethnei - to the Gentile world, that will bring forth the fruit of it. They who had been not a people, and had not obtained mercy, became favourites of Heaven. This is the mystery which blessed Paul was so much affected with in (Romans 11:30 and Romans 11:33).”
Let’s look at this cross-reference to Romans 11. Here we have another familiar symbolic reference also utilizing agricultural symbols. This is similar to, but perhaps not quite as well know as partially-quoted “Salt of the Earth” teaching. It is hard for me to understand how references like these can be edited and under-quoted, leaving out vital aspects of the teaching.
Perhaps you are familiar with the picture the Apostle Paul paints when he refers to Gentiles as wild olive branches being grafted into the natural Olive that pictures Israel (Jeremiah 11:16). But the full text of Paul's message, here, includes a dire warning to Gentiles Church members that, in all honesty, I have never heard included when these verses are referred to.
Paul writes, “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in” (Romans 11:17-19).
Then Paul continues: “Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Romans 11:20-22).
Why is the “if thou continue” conditional reality, that is clearly established, here, virtually always omitted when this is taught? Why and how are the words “thou also shalt be cut off” missed by Calvinists? These words appear in Paul’s epistle to members of the Body of Christ, not to “casual passerby” or “spectator Christians.”
Albert Barnes writes of this: “If thou continue in his goodness - The word “his” is not in the original. And the word “goodness” may denote integrity, probity {or, integrity}, uprightness, as well as favor; Romans 3:12, “There is none that doeth good.” This is probably the meaning here; though it may mean “if thou dost continue in a state of favor;” that is, if your faith and good conduct shall be such as to make it proper for God to continue his kindness toward you.
Christians do not merit the favor of God by their faith and good works; but their obedience is an indispensable condition on which that favor is to be continued. It is thus that the grace of God is magnified, at the same time that the highest good is done to man himself.
Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off - Compare John 15:2, {where Jesus declares, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.”} The word “thou” {“in thou also shalt be cut off”} refers here to the Gentile churches. In relation to them the favor of God was dependent on their fidelity. If they became disobedient and unbelieving, then the same principle which led him to withdraw his mercy from the Jewish people would lead also to their rejection and exclusion.”
Here, Albert Barnes provides yet another example of well-know but only partially-quoted Scripture regarding members of the Church being symbolized using agricultural symbolism. But, again, I have only heard the first part of these verses taught, and never their conclusion which Calvinism and the doctrine of “Once-Saved-Always-Saved” could not hope to survive against if they were taught in the completeness.
In John 15, we just saw a cross-reference in which Jesus gives us the very familiar symbolism of God as the Husbandman, Himself as the Vine, and believers as the branches. Here the vital importance is stated once again, for believers to bear fruit. I personally believe that this symbolism is common knowledge even to people who are not members of the Church, but let’s read all of what Jesus has to say, and the conditional reality He establishes when He used these symbols:
Jesus stated, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John 15:4-6).
Here, again, we see that condition reality being clearly, powerfully and undeniably established regarding our need to abide in Christ, and the established repercussions if we do not do so: “IF a man abide not in Me…” That “if” statement is misrepresented to falsely identify those who do not abide as mere “spectator Christians.” But Jesus said, “YE are the branches” that are abiding in the Vine. In order for a branch to even become a branch, it has to have been attached to the vine from the beginning. And then, says Jesus, if it does not abide in the vine AND bear fruit, it is cut off, and gathered to be thrown into the fire and burned.
Tonight, as we move forward, I will share with you a certain very powerful Scripture that is both misunderstood and misapplied to supposedly “prove” the doctrine of “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” But, as we shall see, when we carefully review it and examine it, that the teaching is without Biblical Foundation, and is patently false.
Let's look first at a few misrepresented Scriptures that are cited to support “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” Some of these certainly seem to be open-and-shut cases for the teaching: Jesus said in John 6:39: “And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”
Well... there you have it! That's pretty airtight right there, is it not? Jesus said that the Father's Will is that Jesus should lose nothing. That's almost identical to Charles Spurgeon teaching that believers cannot be “unaccepted,” is it not? Or is it? Peter also has something to say regarding God's Will: We read in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Notice what Peter is saying, here: “God is not willing that any should perish.” Well... are any going to perish? How can any perish if it is not God's Will that they perish? Peter continues, “... but rather that all should come to repentance.” The flip-side of God's Will is also that all should come to repentance? Is that going to happen? If all come to repentance, how can there ever be the weeping and gnashing of teeth that is repeatedly prophesied when “God is not Willing that any should perish”?
Consider this as well: When Israel was about to enter the Promised Land, God said, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:” (Deuteronomy 30:19). What was God's Will for Israel? He states it in so many words. His Will was that they “choose life,” was it not? But did they choose life?
No, they did not choose life. We read, instead, God asking the question, “Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return” (Jeremiah 8:5). So, God’s Will that they “choose life that it might be well with them,” was not accomplished because they did not choose life. Mankind has been given the Free Will to rebel, to not obey, and to not submit to the Will of God. Our actions, therefore, have a direct impact on whether God’s Will is accomplished.
Another startling example that is often glossed over in this context is God’s Will regarding the City of Nineveh. His Will in this case was the destruction of the city. He sent Jonah with this command: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). The Message was not a call to repentance, it was an announcement of impending destruction.
Clearly, that was God’s Will, or He would never have sent a prophet with the message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4), and then not not destroy it. This would only have brought shame and ridicule to both Himself and His prophet when no destruction came after the forty days had transpired.
But God’s Will was not accomplished because of the heartfelt actions and reactions of the people of Nineveh: From the king on down to every resident of the city: they repented and humbled themselves, and fasted, and turned from their violence. And because of what they did, God’s Will that they be destroyed in 40 days was not accomplished. Our actions can and do impact and alter God’s Will.
So, Yes! It is the Father's Will that Jesus lose none of those whom the Father gives Him. But, as Jesus, Himself, said, there was the very real potential regarding His followers whom He called “the salt of the earth,” that “if the salt have lost his savour... it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13).
Yes! It is not the Father's Will that any should perish. And, yes! It is the Father's Will that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), but unless you have embraced Universalism, that teaches the unScriptural fiction that all shall be saved, we have to acknowledge the truth that, in spite of it being God’s Will that Jesus should lose none that are given Him, and that “all should come to repentance,” the Bible establishes a fork in the road that sheds light on how human behavior manifested in obedience and faithfulness OR disobedience and falling away can and does impact and alter the Will of God:
We read, that “... he that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22b), and “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:7-8). “It is not God's Will that any should perish,” but because of the choices they make in rejecting of God's Laws and offer of Salvation, and in defiance of God's Will, some will perish.
Another verse that is misappropriated is one that I quoted from in a previous Installment, but I put off fully explaining until now. It is where Paul writes, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). “There it is!” some may say. “Christians are sealed unto the Day of Redemption,” so we cannot be 'unaccepted!” But let's notice two things: First, if we are sealed unto the Day of Redemption, then our redemption is still not here! Jesus said our “redemption draweth nigh” at the End Time when we look up and see Him returning to the earth (Luke 21:28).
Second, what did Paul mean when he wrote, “ye are sealed.” Does that declare or even imply that we have “eternal security” or that it is impossible for a believer to be “unaccepted”? Alexander MacLaren says regarding this: “We have here A plain warning as to the possibility of thwarting these influences. Nothing here about irresistible grace; nothing here about a power that lays hold upon a man, and makes him good, he lying passive in its hands like clay in the hands of the potter!
You will not be made holy without the Divine Spirit, but you will not be made holy without your working along with it. There is a possibility of resisting, and there is a possibility of co-operating. Man is left free. God does not lay hold of any one by the hair of his head, and drag him into paths of righteousness whether he will or no.
But whilst there is the necessity for co-operation, which involves the possibility of resistance, we must also remember that that new life which comes into a man, and moulds his will as well as the rest of his nature, is itself the gift of God. We do not get into a contradiction when we thus speak, we only touch the edge of a great ocean in which our plummets can find no bottom. The same unravellable knot as to the co-operation of the divine and the creatural is found in the natural world, as in the experiences of the Christian soul.
You have to work, and your work largely consists in yielding yourselves to the work of God upon you. ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you.’ Brethren! If you and I are Christian people, we have put into our hearts and spirits the talent. It depends on us whether we wrap it in a napkin, and stow it away underground somewhere, or whether we use it, and fructify and increase it.
If you wrap it in a napkin and put it away underground, when you come to take it out, and want to say, ‘Lo! there Thou hast that is Thine,’ you will find that it was not solid gold, which could not rust or diminish, but that it has been like some volatile essence, put away in an unventilated place, and imperfectly secured: the napkin is there, but the talent has vanished. We have to work with God, and we can resist. Ay, and there is a deeper and a sadder word than that applied by the same Apostle in another letter to the same subject. We can ‘quench’ the light and extinguish the fire.
What extinguishes it? Look at the catalogue of sins that lie side by side with this exhortation of my text! They are all small matters - bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil-speaking, malice, stealing, lying, and the like; very ‘homely’ transgressions, if I may so say. Yes, and if you pile enough of them upon the spark that is in your hearts you will smother it out. Sin, the wrenching of myself away from the influences, not attending to the whispers and suggestions, being blind to the teaching of the Spirit through the Word and through Providence: these are the things that ‘grieve the Holy Spirit of God.’
And so, lastly, we have here, A Tender Motive, a dissuasive from sin, a persuasive to yielding and to righteousness. Many a man has been kept from doing wrong things by thinking of a sad pale face sitting at home waiting for him. Many a boy has been kept from youthful transgressions which war against his soul here, on the streets of Manchester, full as they are of temptations, by thinking that it would grieve the poor old mother in her cottage, away down in the country somewhere. We can bring that same motive to bear, with infinitely increased force, in regard to our conduct as Christian people. ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.’
A father feels a pang if he sees that his child makes no account of some precious gift that he has bestowed upon him, and leaves it lying about anywhere. A loving friend, standing on the margin of the stream, and calling to his friends in a boat when they are drifting to the rapids, turns away sad if they do not attend to his voice. That Divine Spirit pleads with us, and proffers its gifts to us, and turns away. I was going to use too strong a word, perhaps, sick at heart, not because of wounded authority, but because of wounded love and baffled desire to help, when we, in spite of It, will take our own way, neglect the call that warns us of our peril, and leave untouched the gifts that would have made us safe.
Dear brethren, surely such a dissuasive from evil, and such a persuasive to good, is mightier than all abstractions about duty and conscience and right, and the like. ‘Do it rightly’ says Paul, ‘and you will please Him that hath called you’; leave the evil thing undone, ‘and my heart shall be glad, even mine.’ You and I can add something to ‘the joy of our Lord.’ You and I can grieve the Christ whose Spirit is given to us.”
The Sermon Bible adds regarding our being “sealed:” “Consider one or two of the consequences of a grieved Spirit. I. Whenever you grieve the Spirit, you cause sorrow—it is God’s own word—to Him to whom you are bound by every generous feeling to give only happiness. Few persons are sufficiently aware of the debt which they owe to the Spirit.
Think you it is no sacrifice for a Being of perfect holiness and immaculate purity to come and dwell in such an abode as a sinner’s heart, amidst the scenes of daily life, there, in the closest of all possible contact, to bear with all He hears and sees and feels, there to be constantly planting seeds which we root up, shedding light which we darken, drawing bands which we break, whispering voices which we drown? Surely, therefore, it should be the first spring of our hearts—a sufficient motive to a holy life, even if there were no other—to give, not grief, but joy, to Him who, with such pains and at such cost, invites our love and claims our gratitude.
II. Every time we grieve the Spirit we weaken the seals of our own security. As soon as a man has peace, the Holy Spirit gives him, in the strength of that peace, holiness. The peace is the consequence of the pardon, and the holiness is the consequence of the peace, and both are seals, the peace seals the pardon and the sanctification seals the peace. Break any one of these seals, and your safety is in the same proportion diminished, and every grieving of the Spirit is a defacing of an impression and a loosening of one of the seals.
III. There are four deep, downward steps in the path to death. To grieve the Spirit is the first; to resist the Spirit is the second; to quench the Spirit is the third; to blaspheme the Spirit is the fourth. No one of these is ever reached but by going through that which is previous to it; but he who grieves the Spirit by a thought or an omission may soon resist the Spirit by some more overt act of direct opposition, and he who thus resists the Spirit wilfully may soon wish to put the Spirit out altogether from his heart. Let the consummation of the tremendous series teach the true character of the first imagination which lies upon its slope, and give emphasis to the solemn word, "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God." J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 45.
The Bible is clear, consistent, powerful and undeniable that it is possible for a Christian, a member of the Body of Christ, to fall away and suffer shipwreck. This is why we must persevere, bear fruit, run the race, fight the good fight, finish the course and overcome to the end. If falling away were not possible, none of these admonitions would be taught. I plan one more Installment on this Topic for next time. I invite all of you who are hearing or reading these words to join us next week at this same place and time.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “Perseverance, Part 9, 'Once-Save-Always-Saved'?”
This Discussion was conducted “live” on April 23rd, 2025.
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We are continuing in our current Series, "Perseverance, ("Once-Saved-Always-Save"?)" which, as I have been saying throughout this Series, is a feature of Christianity that I think needs to be more emphasized than it is. As Christians, we should not view our membership in the Family and Kingdom of God in the same way that we view a lifetime membership in a Health Club where we can still be regarded as members in good standing even if we never darken their door after signing on the dotted line. This is not what being a Christian is all about.
We moved from seeing the urgent need for perseverance being repeatedly urged in God's Word, to asking the question, “If the 'Once-Save-Always-Saved' Doctrine is true, why must we persevere? From there, I began to unfold the many Scriptural proofs that “Once-Saved-Always-Saved,” as it is currently taught, is cannot be found in God's Word. There are clear, consistent, and repeated warnings to “sanctified” members of the Body of Christ (Hebrews 10:29) who “sin willfully” (Hebrews 10:26), and who fall away after they have been “partakers of the Holy Spirit” (Hebrews 6:4). For them awaits, “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27).
I hasten to add, as I concluded our last Installment, that “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). None of us are sinless, but The Father gives those who have become a member of the Body of Christ the Gift of The Holy Spirit to empower us to sin less. We will never be perfect as long as we are in this flesh, but … to avoid being “cut off” (John 15:6, Romans 11:22) and “cast out” (Matthew 5:13), we must daily repent and ask God's forgiveness because we sin daily. This goes hand in hand with, and is as important as our need to persevere, and to fight the good fight and to continue in God's Word.”
Tonight, I plan to continue our review and examination of the Bible's true and undeniable teaching regarding “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” Scripture is full of examples in both Jesus' clear teachings and Parables, and warnings in the epistles of Paul and Peter regarding of Christians backsliding, turning away from Christ and falling away. How and why these repeated Scriptures have been ignored or explained away by world-renowned preachers is something I cannot explain. I am an unknown, and a nobody in comparison to them.
But the popularity of a preacher is not what determines God's Truth. I do not determine what God's Truth is. My job is to read and teach what is written. Your job is to search the Scriptures and verify which teacher is telling you what is written in Scripture. You take anyone's word for what they teach at your own peril.
It's not that famous teachers don't know what Scripture says; rather they teach it with a preconceived bias, and nullify its plain meaning. Last week, I read to you both of the two powerful descriptions of Christians who have backslid and turned away from God. Notice the pronoun used in one of these two sections in Hebrews, “For if WE sin wilfully after that WE have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:26-27). “WE” is the pronoun in used in New Testament epistles for fully-involved members of the Church, not for outsiders or “spectator Christians.”
I want to also quote, again, from the first section in Hebrews that I quoted from last week, only this time, rather than share with you the commentaries that acknowledge what they are obviously teaching, I am going to quote for you John MacArthur's revisionist nullification of these verses.
Hebrews 6:4-6 tells us in no uncertain terms, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”
In the MacArthur Daily Bible on pages 1137 and 1138, here is what we find in his footnotes: “ENLIGHTENED: they had received instruction in Biblical Truth which was accompanied by intellectual perception. Understanding the gospel is not the equivalent of regeneration. It is clear that enlightening is not the equivalent of salvation; TASTED THE HEAVENLY GIFT: tasting in the figurative sense in the New Testament refers to consciously experiencing something. The experience might be momentary or continuing. Christ's tasting of death was obviously momentary and not continuing or permanent. All men experienced the goodness of God but that does not mean they're all saved...”
He continues in his Notes: “The phrase “once enlightened” is often taken to refer to Christians. The interpretive problem arises from accurately identifying the spiritual condition of the ones being addressed. In this case they were unbelievers who had been exposed to God's redemptive truth and, perhaps, had made a profession of faith but had not exercised genuine faith. The subject here is people who come in contact with the gospel, but are spiritually unchanged by it.”
He has more to say in the Notes, but nowhere in the two sections of Notes that John MacArthur provides, does he mention or even attempt to explain away the phrase, “and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” This omission is not an accident. It is, however disappointing to realize that he would put blinders on to keep him from seeing every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
It is an indicting omission that exposes the fact that he cannot defend what he is teaching. He knows that a person being described as “partaking of the Holy Spirit” does not have some vague and intellectual-but-aloof involvement. He is not an outsider, a passerby or a “spectator Christian.” So John MacArthur just skips over the phrase that explodes in his face, and exposes his teaching as false, hoping nobody would notice. Well, I noticed!
And this is where you come in: Jesus admonishes you to “Take heed that no man deceive you For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:20-21). Paul admonishes you to, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The Apostle John admonishes you, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).
You have read what the Bible says, and you have seen the convenient and self-serving editing that John MacArthur performed in his commentary. This reminds me of the “religious instruction” I received as a Public School student from the Catholic Church I attended, in preparation for my Confirmation and First Communion. When they taught me the Ten Commandments, they surgically removed the Second Commandment that forbids the making and worshiping of likenesses and graven images. To cover their tampering, they divided the Tenth Commandment into the Ninth and Tenth Commandments in order to maintain that there are Ten Commandments.
The Tenth Commandment forbids the coveting both of thy neighbor's wife and goods. They made the Ninth Commandment to forbid coveting thy neighbors wife, and the Tenth Commandment to forbid the coveting of thy neighbor's goods. That brings the number of Commandments back up to Ten. To them, it was better to bury the Commandment that was being violated by the likenesses and graven images that were everywhere you looked, not only in all their Churches, but also virtually in every room in the house I grew up in. They, like John MacArthur in his Notes, in order to not be exposed as teaching what is false, simply skipped what they hoped you would not notice. I noticed when I first read the Ten Commandments as they actually appear in the Bible in Exodus 20, in their original and unedited presentation!
In the next two verses after those I just quoted in Hebrews 6, we read the following: Notice the symbolism being used, here. “For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned” (Hebrews 6:7-8). These herbs were planted, watered by man or the rain, and God gave the increase. They were growing and surviving until they bore thorns and briers. Then they were rejected, were nigh to being cursed, and their end is to be burned.
The Sermon Bible says of this: “The danger of apostasy. The Hebrews had become lukewarm, negligent and inert; the Gospel, once clearly seen and dearly loved by them, had become to them dim and vague; the persecution and contempt of their countrymen, a grievous burden under which they groaned, and with which they did not enjoy their fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Darkness, doubt, gloom, indecision, and consequently a walk in which the power of Christ’s love was not manifest, characterised them.
What could be the result but apostasy? Forgetfulness must end in rejection, apathy in antipathy, unfaithfulness in infidelity. The whole Church of God, as an, actual, outward and visible community, even the innermost circle of Apostles, and still more the innermost sanctuary—the heart of the chosen believers—must be constantly kept in the attitude of humble watchfulness, and we must continually remember that faith is in life.” A. Saphir, Lectures on Hebrews, vol. i., p. 308. References: Hebrews 6:5.—H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, p. 297; A. K. H. B., Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, 3rd series, p. 261; C. Sheldon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 87; F. W. Brown, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 236; J. Morgan, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 166.
Jesus also spoke of apostasy using agriculture to symbolize his point in His Parable of the Sower. In the Parable, “some {seeds} fell by the way side… And some fell on stony ground… And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit… And other fell on good ground, (Mark 4:4-7).
Matthew Henry writes of the seed that falls among thorns, “Many are hindered from profiting by the word of God, by their abundance of the world. Many a good lesson of humility, charity, self-denial, and heavenly-mindedness, is choked and lost by that prevailing complacency in the world, which they are apt to have, on whom it smiles. Thus many professors, that otherwise might have come to something, prove like Pharaoh's lean kine and thin ears.
Those that are not encumbered with the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, may yet lose the benefit of their profession by the lusts of other things; this is added here in Mark; by the desires which are about other things (so Dr. Hammond), an inordinate appetite toward those things that are pleasing to sense or to the fancy. Those that have but little of the world, may yet be ruined by an indulgence of the body.”
Fruit is the thing that God expects and requires from those that enjoy the gospel: fruit according to the seed; a temper of mind, and a course of life, agreeable to the gospel; Christian graces daily exercised, Christian duties duly performed. This is fruit, and it will abound to our account.”
We are called to not only hear and even agree with the Word of God, we are called to bear fruit to the Glory and Honor of God. Jesus told His detractors among the chief priests and elders: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:43). That nation would be the Gentiles who, formerly, were on the outside looking in.
Matthew Henry writes of this: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you. To the Jews had long pertained the adoption and the glory (Romans 9:4); to them were committed the oracles of God (Romans 3:2), and the sacred trust of revealed religion, and bearing up of God's name in the world (Psalms 76:1-2); but now it shall be so no longer. They were not only unfruitful in the use of their privileges, but, under pretence of them, opposed the gospel of Christ, and so forfeited them, and it was not long ere the forfeiture was taken.
Note, It is a righteous thing with God to remove church privileges from those that not only sin against them, but sin with them, Revelation 2:4-5. The kingdom of God was taken from the Jews, not only by the temporal judgments that befell them, but by the spiritual judgments they lay under, their blindness of mind, hardness of heart, and indignation at the gospel, (Romans 11:8-10; 1 Thessalonians 2:15).
[2.] That the Gentiles shall be taken in. God needs not ask us leave whether he shall have a church in the world; though his vine be plucked up in one place, he will find another to plant it in. He will give it ethnei - to the Gentile world, that will bring forth the fruit of it. They who had been not a people, and had not obtained mercy, became favourites of Heaven. This is the mystery which blessed Paul was so much affected with in (Romans 11:30 and Romans 11:33).”
Let’s look at this cross-reference to Romans 11. Here we have another familiar symbolic reference also utilizing agricultural symbols. This is similar to, but perhaps not quite as well know as partially-quoted “Salt of the Earth” teaching. It is hard for me to understand how references like these can be edited and under-quoted, leaving out vital aspects of the teaching.
Perhaps you are familiar with the picture the Apostle Paul paints when he refers to Gentiles as wild olive branches being grafted into the natural Olive that pictures Israel (Jeremiah 11:16). But the full text of Paul's message, here, includes a dire warning to Gentiles Church members that, in all honesty, I have never heard included when these verses are referred to.
Paul writes, “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in” (Romans 11:17-19).
Then Paul continues: “Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Romans 11:20-22).
Why is the “if thou continue” conditional reality, that is clearly established, here, virtually always omitted when this is taught? Why and how are the words “thou also shalt be cut off” missed by Calvinists? These words appear in Paul’s epistle to members of the Body of Christ, not to “casual passerby” or “spectator Christians.”
Albert Barnes writes of this: “If thou continue in his goodness - The word “his” is not in the original. And the word “goodness” may denote integrity, probity {or, integrity}, uprightness, as well as favor; Romans 3:12, “There is none that doeth good.” This is probably the meaning here; though it may mean “if thou dost continue in a state of favor;” that is, if your faith and good conduct shall be such as to make it proper for God to continue his kindness toward you.
Christians do not merit the favor of God by their faith and good works; but their obedience is an indispensable condition on which that favor is to be continued. It is thus that the grace of God is magnified, at the same time that the highest good is done to man himself.
Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off - Compare John 15:2, {where Jesus declares, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.”} The word “thou” {“in thou also shalt be cut off”} refers here to the Gentile churches. In relation to them the favor of God was dependent on their fidelity. If they became disobedient and unbelieving, then the same principle which led him to withdraw his mercy from the Jewish people would lead also to their rejection and exclusion.”
Here, Albert Barnes provides yet another example of well-know but only partially-quoted Scripture regarding members of the Church being symbolized using agricultural symbolism. But, again, I have only heard the first part of these verses taught, and never their conclusion which Calvinism and the doctrine of “Once-Saved-Always-Saved” could not hope to survive against if they were taught in the completeness.
In John 15, we just saw a cross-reference in which Jesus gives us the very familiar symbolism of God as the Husbandman, Himself as the Vine, and believers as the branches. Here the vital importance is stated once again, for believers to bear fruit. I personally believe that this symbolism is common knowledge even to people who are not members of the Church, but let’s read all of what Jesus has to say, and the conditional reality He establishes when He used these symbols:
Jesus stated, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John 15:4-6).
Here, again, we see that condition reality being clearly, powerfully and undeniably established regarding our need to abide in Christ, and the established repercussions if we do not do so: “IF a man abide not in Me…” That “if” statement is misrepresented to falsely identify those who do not abide as mere “spectator Christians.” But Jesus said, “YE are the branches” that are abiding in the Vine. In order for a branch to even become a branch, it has to have been attached to the vine from the beginning. And then, says Jesus, if it does not abide in the vine AND bear fruit, it is cut off, and gathered to be thrown into the fire and burned.
Tonight, as we move forward, I will share with you a certain very powerful Scripture that is both misunderstood and misapplied to supposedly “prove” the doctrine of “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” But, as we shall see, when we carefully review it and examine it, that the teaching is without Biblical Foundation, and is patently false.
Let's look first at a few misrepresented Scriptures that are cited to support “Once-Saved-Always-Saved.” Some of these certainly seem to be open-and-shut cases for the teaching: Jesus said in John 6:39: “And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”
Well... there you have it! That's pretty airtight right there, is it not? Jesus said that the Father's Will is that Jesus should lose nothing. That's almost identical to Charles Spurgeon teaching that believers cannot be “unaccepted,” is it not? Or is it? Peter also has something to say regarding God's Will: We read in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Notice what Peter is saying, here: “God is not willing that any should perish.” Well... are any going to perish? How can any perish if it is not God's Will that they perish? Peter continues, “... but rather that all should come to repentance.” The flip-side of God's Will is also that all should come to repentance? Is that going to happen? If all come to repentance, how can there ever be the weeping and gnashing of teeth that is repeatedly prophesied when “God is not Willing that any should perish”?
Consider this as well: When Israel was about to enter the Promised Land, God said, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:” (Deuteronomy 30:19). What was God's Will for Israel? He states it in so many words. His Will was that they “choose life,” was it not? But did they choose life?
No, they did not choose life. We read, instead, God asking the question, “Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return” (Jeremiah 8:5). So, God’s Will that they “choose life that it might be well with them,” was not accomplished because they did not choose life. Mankind has been given the Free Will to rebel, to not obey, and to not submit to the Will of God. Our actions, therefore, have a direct impact on whether God’s Will is accomplished.
Another startling example that is often glossed over in this context is God’s Will regarding the City of Nineveh. His Will in this case was the destruction of the city. He sent Jonah with this command: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). The Message was not a call to repentance, it was an announcement of impending destruction.
Clearly, that was God’s Will, or He would never have sent a prophet with the message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4), and then not not destroy it. This would only have brought shame and ridicule to both Himself and His prophet when no destruction came after the forty days had transpired.
But God’s Will was not accomplished because of the heartfelt actions and reactions of the people of Nineveh: From the king on down to every resident of the city: they repented and humbled themselves, and fasted, and turned from their violence. And because of what they did, God’s Will that they be destroyed in 40 days was not accomplished. Our actions can and do impact and alter God’s Will.
So, Yes! It is the Father's Will that Jesus lose none of those whom the Father gives Him. But, as Jesus, Himself, said, there was the very real potential regarding His followers whom He called “the salt of the earth,” that “if the salt have lost his savour... it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13).
Yes! It is not the Father's Will that any should perish. And, yes! It is the Father's Will that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), but unless you have embraced Universalism, that teaches the unScriptural fiction that all shall be saved, we have to acknowledge the truth that, in spite of it being God’s Will that Jesus should lose none that are given Him, and that “all should come to repentance,” the Bible establishes a fork in the road that sheds light on how human behavior manifested in obedience and faithfulness OR disobedience and falling away can and does impact and alter the Will of God:
We read, that “... he that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22b), and “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:7-8). “It is not God's Will that any should perish,” but because of the choices they make in rejecting of God's Laws and offer of Salvation, and in defiance of God's Will, some will perish.
Another verse that is misappropriated is one that I quoted from in a previous Installment, but I put off fully explaining until now. It is where Paul writes, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). “There it is!” some may say. “Christians are sealed unto the Day of Redemption,” so we cannot be 'unaccepted!” But let's notice two things: First, if we are sealed unto the Day of Redemption, then our redemption is still not here! Jesus said our “redemption draweth nigh” at the End Time when we look up and see Him returning to the earth (Luke 21:28).
Second, what did Paul mean when he wrote, “ye are sealed.” Does that declare or even imply that we have “eternal security” or that it is impossible for a believer to be “unaccepted”? Alexander MacLaren says regarding this: “We have here A plain warning as to the possibility of thwarting these influences. Nothing here about irresistible grace; nothing here about a power that lays hold upon a man, and makes him good, he lying passive in its hands like clay in the hands of the potter!
You will not be made holy without the Divine Spirit, but you will not be made holy without your working along with it. There is a possibility of resisting, and there is a possibility of co-operating. Man is left free. God does not lay hold of any one by the hair of his head, and drag him into paths of righteousness whether he will or no.
But whilst there is the necessity for co-operation, which involves the possibility of resistance, we must also remember that that new life which comes into a man, and moulds his will as well as the rest of his nature, is itself the gift of God. We do not get into a contradiction when we thus speak, we only touch the edge of a great ocean in which our plummets can find no bottom. The same unravellable knot as to the co-operation of the divine and the creatural is found in the natural world, as in the experiences of the Christian soul.
You have to work, and your work largely consists in yielding yourselves to the work of God upon you. ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you.’ Brethren! If you and I are Christian people, we have put into our hearts and spirits the talent. It depends on us whether we wrap it in a napkin, and stow it away underground somewhere, or whether we use it, and fructify and increase it.
If you wrap it in a napkin and put it away underground, when you come to take it out, and want to say, ‘Lo! there Thou hast that is Thine,’ you will find that it was not solid gold, which could not rust or diminish, but that it has been like some volatile essence, put away in an unventilated place, and imperfectly secured: the napkin is there, but the talent has vanished. We have to work with God, and we can resist. Ay, and there is a deeper and a sadder word than that applied by the same Apostle in another letter to the same subject. We can ‘quench’ the light and extinguish the fire.
What extinguishes it? Look at the catalogue of sins that lie side by side with this exhortation of my text! They are all small matters - bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil-speaking, malice, stealing, lying, and the like; very ‘homely’ transgressions, if I may so say. Yes, and if you pile enough of them upon the spark that is in your hearts you will smother it out. Sin, the wrenching of myself away from the influences, not attending to the whispers and suggestions, being blind to the teaching of the Spirit through the Word and through Providence: these are the things that ‘grieve the Holy Spirit of God.’
And so, lastly, we have here, A Tender Motive, a dissuasive from sin, a persuasive to yielding and to righteousness. Many a man has been kept from doing wrong things by thinking of a sad pale face sitting at home waiting for him. Many a boy has been kept from youthful transgressions which war against his soul here, on the streets of Manchester, full as they are of temptations, by thinking that it would grieve the poor old mother in her cottage, away down in the country somewhere. We can bring that same motive to bear, with infinitely increased force, in regard to our conduct as Christian people. ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.’
A father feels a pang if he sees that his child makes no account of some precious gift that he has bestowed upon him, and leaves it lying about anywhere. A loving friend, standing on the margin of the stream, and calling to his friends in a boat when they are drifting to the rapids, turns away sad if they do not attend to his voice. That Divine Spirit pleads with us, and proffers its gifts to us, and turns away. I was going to use too strong a word, perhaps, sick at heart, not because of wounded authority, but because of wounded love and baffled desire to help, when we, in spite of It, will take our own way, neglect the call that warns us of our peril, and leave untouched the gifts that would have made us safe.
Dear brethren, surely such a dissuasive from evil, and such a persuasive to good, is mightier than all abstractions about duty and conscience and right, and the like. ‘Do it rightly’ says Paul, ‘and you will please Him that hath called you’; leave the evil thing undone, ‘and my heart shall be glad, even mine.’ You and I can add something to ‘the joy of our Lord.’ You and I can grieve the Christ whose Spirit is given to us.”
The Sermon Bible adds regarding our being “sealed:” “Consider one or two of the consequences of a grieved Spirit. I. Whenever you grieve the Spirit, you cause sorrow—it is God’s own word—to Him to whom you are bound by every generous feeling to give only happiness. Few persons are sufficiently aware of the debt which they owe to the Spirit.
Think you it is no sacrifice for a Being of perfect holiness and immaculate purity to come and dwell in such an abode as a sinner’s heart, amidst the scenes of daily life, there, in the closest of all possible contact, to bear with all He hears and sees and feels, there to be constantly planting seeds which we root up, shedding light which we darken, drawing bands which we break, whispering voices which we drown? Surely, therefore, it should be the first spring of our hearts—a sufficient motive to a holy life, even if there were no other—to give, not grief, but joy, to Him who, with such pains and at such cost, invites our love and claims our gratitude.
II. Every time we grieve the Spirit we weaken the seals of our own security. As soon as a man has peace, the Holy Spirit gives him, in the strength of that peace, holiness. The peace is the consequence of the pardon, and the holiness is the consequence of the peace, and both are seals, the peace seals the pardon and the sanctification seals the peace. Break any one of these seals, and your safety is in the same proportion diminished, and every grieving of the Spirit is a defacing of an impression and a loosening of one of the seals.
III. There are four deep, downward steps in the path to death. To grieve the Spirit is the first; to resist the Spirit is the second; to quench the Spirit is the third; to blaspheme the Spirit is the fourth. No one of these is ever reached but by going through that which is previous to it; but he who grieves the Spirit by a thought or an omission may soon resist the Spirit by some more overt act of direct opposition, and he who thus resists the Spirit wilfully may soon wish to put the Spirit out altogether from his heart. Let the consummation of the tremendous series teach the true character of the first imagination which lies upon its slope, and give emphasis to the solemn word, "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God." J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 45.
The Bible is clear, consistent, powerful and undeniable that it is possible for a Christian, a member of the Body of Christ, to fall away and suffer shipwreck. This is why we must persevere, bear fruit, run the race, fight the good fight, finish the course and overcome to the end. If falling away were not possible, none of these admonitions would be taught. I plan one more Installment on this Topic for next time. I invite all of you who are hearing or reading these words to join us next week at this same place and time.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “Perseverance, Part 9, 'Once-Save-Always-Saved'?”
This Discussion was conducted “live” on April 23rd, 2025.
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