09-Once Saved Always Saved

The next false doctrine is justification of sin after you have been born again. In some churches around the country, you will hear loud and clear from the pulpit, “now that you´re saved, you always will be.” They will use such scriptures as,

John 10:29,

“My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father´s hand.”

What they are forgetting is that man can pluck himself from “the faith” in Jesus and His word. A person has the choice whether to practice sin or not. God created man in His image, giving man from the beginning, the free will to decide if his love and heart is for God or the world. God gives us his grace, in His Holy Spirit, to stop sinning, not to continue to excuse ourselves in it. Remember what we have just studied in the section, “Why obey God?”

In Revelation 2:4-5, Jesus told the church at Ephesus they had left and abandoned their first love for Him and His word. The ultimate end of doing that is recorded in the message to the church at Sardis.

Revelation 3:5,

“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.”

Jesus is warning His people out of love, to be overcomers by abiding in His resurrection power. If we remain faithful, He will not blot out our names from Heaven. My friends, if your name has been written in the book of life through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, and then you turn on Jesus or His word by practicing willful sin, and never repent, you are on a road that leads to eternal destruction. And only God, not any one of us, knows how long that road is.

You can be ashamed and surrender to the Lord from your backslidden way or keep sinning and die. Just as a newborn baby stumbles and falls, as he grows up, you´re going to make mistakes after you´ve been born again. For our bodies are yet to be redeemed and they war against the Holy Spirit, who now lives in our hearts. But you shouldn´t willfully or deliberately sin against the Lord. Anyone who teaches any doctrine that enhances and justifies such sin, are themselves deceived. And to teach that physical death is the reward for willful sin, and Heaven is still their destination, is to mock the power of Jesus´ blood. For all people are going to die bodily anyway, except for those who will be raptured. The reward for unrepented, willful sin is the Lake of Fire! Again, only the Lord knows when it is too late and you´ve gone past the point of no return. Jesus repeatedly warned His apostles against allowing sin to enter back into their hearts, (Luke 21:34).

Willful sin is really counting the blood of the covenant an unholy, powerless thing. The power to live is in His cross, blood, and resurrection. These truths take away sin, and wash and renew the spirit and the soul.

Teaching “once saved” can give a new Christian the impression that he can continue to live a worldly, carnal life. It enhances the working of the carnal mind and body. The carnal mind and body wants to sin, and wars against the Spirit of God now working in the heart of the believer. A babe in Christ must never be taught that any sin is acceptable or excusable. We all must remember that sin of any color caused the death of our Lord Jesus.

A person is no longer a “babe in Christ” when he knows and has received in his heart, the truth about a particular teaching, and then deliberately refuses to follow the Spirit´s lead. The sin changes from ignorance to willfulness. He is now a backslider, not a babe. The Bible does not teach that there is a permanent class of carnal Christians. Carnal Christians are backsliders who have now found themselves in the chastening hands of the Lord. This period of chastening and its length is known only to the Lord. At some point, however, if we refuse His chastening there will be eternal judgment.

Study the following scriptures carefully. Do they suggest that a person who turns from the power of the blood and Spirit, can still keep life? Did not Lucifer and Adam, in their pre-fall states have eternal life? What did God tell Adam would happen to him if he rebelled by eating of the tree? God said, “thou shalt surely die.” Death is separation from God. What did Satan, who also lost his position, then say to Eve? “Thou shalt not surely die.” This lie is at the root of the doctrine, “once saved, always saved.”

II Peter 2:19-21,

19)”While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 20)For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 21)For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”

Ezekiel 3:20-21,

20)”Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at thine hand. 21)Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.”

Ezekiel 13:22,

“Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life;”

Ephesians 5:5-7,

5)”For this ye know, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man (who is an idolater) hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6)Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. 7)Be not ye, therefore, partakers with them.

Hebrews 10:26-27,

26)”For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27)But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”

Jesus said that His followers are the light of the world. Willful sin dims and destroys that light. The more one sins, the dimmer the light becomes. Say no to the sins of the fleshly lusts that war against your soul.

You are eternally secure in Christ as long as you continue to trust in His shed blood as the only atonement for your sin. To give any person the idea they can continue in a sinful, impure state, without ever losing Heaven, is to deny the power of the blood of the Lamb to keep him pure. That teaching strips the power from the cross and the blood. It opens the floodgates of excuse and rationalization of sin. It destroys the fear of God within a person. It makes one insensitive to the convicting, reproving work of the Holy Spirit. This heretical teaching grieves the Holy Spirit, who commands us to hate sin and to be ashamed at the commission of any sin.

Eternal security is a blessed truth, but the security is in and through faith in the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit! The way eternal security is taught in many circles is a perversion of truth. All too often, people trust in “once saved,” rather than to repent and trust in the blood to forgive and cleanse.

Walk in the Spirit; let the Lord lead your life. Give up the old carnal ways of living. Jesus loves and forgives and gives power to overcome to all that turn to Him. Jesus will forgive and take away your sin, but He will never excuse or cover it up. There is no “Watergate Mentality” in the counsels of God.

To walk in the Spirit is to walk under His blood and cross, to confess our sin as He makes us aware of it, knowing that He will forgive it. If confession is real and from the heart, the desire to continue in that sin is gone. The temptation to sin will attack our minds, but in our hearts the desire to sin will be washed away. Listen and give heed to Paul.

Galatians 5:16-17,

16)”This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17)For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”