I was also perusing SermonAudio and found this gem:

"This is the spirit of apostasy in these last days, the people gather the teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.

Jas 5:19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
Jas 5:20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

Any of who? brethren.

Can a brother err from the truth? If he does can he be converted?

Peter who walked with Jesus, saw Him transformed on the mount of transfiguration, received from the Father that Jesus was the Christ,the Son of God, denied him and had to later be converted.

What is the brother who errs called? A sinner. When one such as this is converted what is saved? His soul. From what? death.

On the other hand what of all those precious promises of the Lord keeping us and no one plucking us from His hand? If there are so many verses for both the securist and the assurist the truth must be that both have merit. That truth must be in the context given and realized in the whole of scripture."

Wow! What say you eternal securists? Can you answer a fool to his folly?

Alright then, lets take this apart. Look at James 5:19, 20. But, let us lay down some rules of interpretation first.

1. We MUST be attentive to each word and explain what each word means according to the context of the surrounding words/verses.

2. We Must interpret the "obscure" or "confusing" or "questionable" text/words in light of what we already know according to the rest of the bible.

3. We MUST also not wrest the scripture to our own destruction, which many do.

Here's what I do know about the James 5 passage and authors assumption of Peter:

1. Eternal security is a proven doctrine based on solid/biblical interpretation of scripture.

2. Peter was already saved when he experienced Jesus' transformation on the mount of transfiguration.

3. Interpreting that James 5 means one can lose his/her salvation brings us to some pretty contradictory conclusions and some wild speculation:

For instance, if this does mean you could lose your salvation by sinning, which sin(s)? This verse isn't helping us because it says in James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in ONE [POINT], he is guilty of all. Therefore, according to the "pastor" that wrote the above underlined, if he doesn't love me as himself, he sins and is now lost and on his way to hell (Mt 22:39 And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.) unless he gets re-saved. But you can't get resaved because Hebrews explains that you can't lose your salvation. It's impossible-you would crucify the Lord afresh. He was crucified ONCE for our sins:

Heb 6:4 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,
Heb 6:5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
Heb 6:6 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.

Those who twist Hebrews into a book that proves you can lose your salvation are delusional. It's the best book to prove that you CANNOT lose your salvation, if read correctly.

So let's look at some of the words of James 5:19, 20.

In verse 19 does the word "convert" mean conversion in the sense of being born again, again? No. It can and does here mean a form of repentance. For example, Peter was already saved before the mount of transfiguration. So then what did Jesus mean about Peter needing conversion? Simlpy this, Peter had been converted to Christ three years earlier and had been washed from his sin, as Christ noted when He washed his feet at the Supper (Joh 13:8-10). Peter was still proud and self-sufficient, and he had to be converted from this. God used Satan's attack upon Peter to humble him, to bring him to the end of himself, to bring him to repentance and conversion in this area of his life.

Next, lets look at the word "soul". How many meanings does the word soul have? The word "soul" has various meanings in Scripture. Sometimes it refers to the whole man (Ge 2:7; Le 17:12). Often, though, it refers to a conscious, immaterial part of man which exists beyond death apart from the body. Bible words must be defined by the context in which they are found, since almost all Bible words have various usages and definitions in different contexts. This is true with words in normal language in or out of the Bible.(D. Cloud) In the context of James 5 the word soul means person or whole man.

Can a saved person that is in sin end up ultimately dying? For sure. So a man (or soul) that sins and one of you gets him to quit by whatever means (convert) saves a sinner (by the way we are all sinners) from physical death. My wife and I knew a young man while in Germany; a good, good, young man. He loved the Lord and he was saved. A few years later in his life, while back in America, he decided to run out into sin. My wife and I tried to persuade and plead with him to come back to the Lord and a church and repent of his lifestyle. He said he would but was having issues with hypocritical situations in the church. It was a couple of years later that he was shot in the chest and died. The husband of the wife came home and shot my friend. Would to God he had listened to us and stopped his sinning.

So, using James 5 to persuade a person to stop sinning based upon possible death is biblical. On the other hand a person attempting to twist James 5 into meaning that you can lose your salvation is contradictory, incorrect and blasphemous based upon other hundreds of bible verses proving the very opposite.

David Cloud's article on Eternal Security is fantastic, please, please give it a read at: