Good afternoon, everybody. Blessed day indeed. We're going to be looking at the preservation of the saints as I get some of my material out here. I think this is one of the most important doctrines in the scriptures. Of course, some people know the preservation of From the P in tulip, and most of us are familiar with the tulip for Calvinism, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and preservation, or perseverance of the saints. I like to say preservation, also known as the security of the believer, eternal security. And there's another one that people often say, once saved, always saved. That tends to bring negative connotations, which I hope to address in my introduction. My introduction might be a little lengthy. In point one, you'll see in your bulletin, we're going to be dealing with holy writ, which is an old way to say the Bible. I just love that the Puritans used it. It really derived around the first millennium A.D. But the Bible clearly warrants the assertion, or I would say declaration, my case for the preservation of the saints. Two, we'll see that God is faithful. Three, we'll see that the peace God gives us is evident of eternal life. And then I'll have some applications. And by God's grace, we'll get through this. And with that said, I hope you're enjoying this day. I know that our pastors are out and others have other things going on today. I thank you, brother, for coming to visit with your daughter and all those who have showed up. And to hear his word, you know, it's a fearful thing to stand in the pulpit, as Joe likes to say, the sacred desk. It's a very humbling thing. By his grace for Joe, I preached at San Quentin last week. And, you know, the trembling, the stomach really gets going before you come up to standing up pulpit or any pulpit. When we preach on the streets, same thing. Because, you know, I'm representing God. I'm an ambassador for Christ. And it's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God, you know. And we must strive to live accordingly and proclaim his word faithfully. Then we're successful if we can proclaim his word successfully and humbly, compassionately, but boldly without compromise. I guess you could almost even call this a polemic against those who would claim you could lose your salvation. Because what people don't understand is that really denies the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work. And this is an essential, if there ever was one, justification. Our receiving the imputation of Christ's righteousness Because we have none of our own to obtain eternal life. And that's a serious matter. And there is a lot of misinformation and strawmans that are erected regarding this doctrine. Because they'll say, oh, this is cheap grace. You could just have a license to sin, right? Well, let me knock down some of these strawmans. Because God says he chastens his children. I've been spanked many times myself in 22 years as a Christian, and though we can hide our sins from others oftentimes, God knows it. So for the people who claim that we could be once saved, always saved, and live in greasy grace, as some have called it, then we're kidding ourselves because God is all-knowing. He knows everything we do. So I just wanted to kind of knock down some of those straw men, because there's some people that eminently try to defend this doctrine that you can lose your salvation, but they don't understand the logical conclusion or extension of that theology, that you're denying the sufficiency of Christ, perfect work on the cross, his perfect life that he lives. Romans 5.10 tells us that we're saved also by his perfect life, not just his death on the cross. So we receive his righteousness, for we have none. You know, I like what Puritan William Secker said on the matter. He says, though Christians cannot keep altogether from falling, yet they are kept from falling altogether. That's a very succinct quote and statement that really brings forth these things. So let us remember that this kind of doctrine does not give us a license to sin. And this is a very, very, very important matter. You know, we see many people claim to have made a profession of faith. You know, I meet a lot of people in the prison and on the streets and everywhere, and they say, oh, yeah, when I was 16, I accepted Jesus, but then I went away from God for 20 years, became a Coke dealer, and, you know, all this other kinds of stuff. And I mean, I'm telling you a little story. I'm not just making that up. But see these are people who obviously did not become saved because you know the Bible talks about backsliding but I often tell people you got to slide forward first before you can backslide meaning you must be born again, you must be saved because there's a lot of people who profess Christian because they grew up in a Christian home, they went to a Christian school and they know all the doctrines and they know what to say. That's really prominent in the Bible belt, there's yes sir, yes ma'am, they know the morality of what they're called to, but yet many of them have not been born again, and it ends up manifesting in their life. You know, even someone who's born again can mess up really bad. But when you see it continuously, continuously, then there's probably evidence that the person never became saved, because the Holy Spirit, which indwells you, is going to convict you and make you so uncomfortable at a point where you're going to have to flee back to God. And then you're not going to have the peace that I'm going to speak about in the third point. You know, it says in Philippians that even though, you know, we're saved by grace through faith, that word in Philippians 2, 12 and 13, I'm just going to not quote the whole thing, but it says that we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, there's our responsibility once we're saved. And then there's God's sovereignty says, because I'm going to work out my good pleasure and will in you. We can't fully comprehend this as finite beings, you know, to an infinite God, but we can apprehend what the scriptures teach us and tell us. And this is very important. You know, I'm going to quote 1 John 2.19. This is a very pivotal verse in this concern. It says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. You see, there's a lot of people who profess this, and they're never in church. And then they'll come every blue moon. Sometimes they'll come for a bit longer. Sometimes they go away, and they're totally away from the church. And the Bible doesn't talk about maverick Christianity. It talks about submitting to an eldership, not that they lord it over to you, but in a balanced way. And we're blessed to have elders who are strong in the word, and they understand the word. And like us, they're imperfect. But they have a higher calling, and they have to look after our souls. And we're to be obedient to that, not in a sense that they lord it over us. One of the most sobering passages in the Bible is Matthew 7, 21 through 23. Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonderful works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. That's pretty sobering. Sobering words from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And of course, all scripture is God. You cannot separate the triune God. Let me make that clear, that there is one true God who eternally exists in three persons simultaneously, distinctly. Because there's a lot of heretical doctrine out there that fudges on that, and then the rest of their theology goes downhill. And what the people who would say you could lose your salvation, which all pseudo-Christian cults do, they don't understand that if you can lose your salvation, this is a works gospel which God condemns in his word, because we're saved by grace through faith, right? So we must understand that that should be condemned. And there's many, many people who come to our door, who we see on the highways and the byways, who want to share another gospel, another Jesus that the scriptures warn us about over and over. And it's pretty profound that people can be so zealous. In fact, I think it's really another affirmation of the doctrine of election that there's a lot of these people that strive to know God, but they can't because they're not seeking the true God. They're happy with their religion and their organization or what have you. without the Spirit of God and without serving the true God. There's some of these cultists and people who do this for 20, 30, 40, 50 years of their life working every day thinking that that's going to keep them saved and they never have no peace. They never have assurance. They don't understand the preservation of the saints, the security of the believer. And this is a doctrine that we must understand and grasp and defend and proclaim because this is part of the good news, is it not? that it's not because of us, but it's because of him. He did all the work, so we trust in what he did, not in what we can do. This is awesome. Here's something interesting. You know, when we look at this, in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes upon him should not perish. Whosoever believes on him is not really a great translation, because the Greek says pascha, pastuan, meaning all the believing, not whosoever, all the believing. This doesn't negate somebody to say, oh, I'm not God's elect, so I'm not gonna look, but no, we're to call upon the name of the Lord, and the Bible says we'll be saved. We're to proclaim it, the results are in God's hands, we trust him, and we don't have to question it, and boy, there's a debate amongst that, and we'll be until time draws near. And that same Greek word is in, you know, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you are saved through faith. It's translated faith in that verse. And then in James chapter 219, and you'll understand where I'm getting at, because the cultists always say, and James too, it says faith without works is dead. You got to be doing something. And they say, yeah, James also says in 219, you believe there is one God, you do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. And that's the same Greek word too, but, you know, context determines the meaning of the word. But what's interesting, there's this acronym called CAT, like K-A-T. We have knowledge, assent, and trust. And knowledge is, you know, we understand the facts, we know the information. Assent is we express approval or agreement of this object or thing. And trust, we firmly believe in reality. the reliability, the truth, the ability, et cetera. And what's interesting, for a true Christian, we have an authentic saving faith, and that saving faith is that we have accurate knowledge, and this is critically important, we have accurate knowledge of the true God, the triune God, we also have true assent of what we're acknowledging and approving of and agreeing, and then we truly trust in him. Because when you look at the Greek group of stone in these contexts of salvation, it's one who trusts and believes and will continually trust. Grammatically, you guys could dig some of that up if you're interested. So then we look at the people who come to our doors, like Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, very nice people. And I love it when they come to my door. They don't come that often, though, but I love to talk to them and share the truth with them, because I care about their souls like anybody else. But you see, they have a knowledge of an object, which they call God, or their organization, really. And they have sent to this. They approve, you see, and they even trust in it. But it's not the right one. It's not the true God. It's not the truth. And in relations to demons believing in the true God, so thus the other one, before I get ahead of myself, is not a saving belief or knowledge. It's not a saving trust. And then the demons believe they have, they know who God is. They're in the heavenly realms. the fallen angels, yet it's not a saving belief because they've been cursed and cast out. But they know that God and they know him absolutely better than we do, but yet they're not saved. So, you know, Greek terms and words, you're reading the newspaper, whatever, words have a lot of different meanings, but the context really prevails in that. And a lot of people will use the word of God to be selective and we call that Some people call it cherry picking, what have you. They can quote a verse. If you don't know your Bible very well, so it becomes a pretext. They'll take something out of context, which becomes their pretext for their own predilection and what they wanted to say. And if you don't know your Bible well, you could be caught up in that and you could follow a false Jesus who is not the real Jesus of biblical revelation. You know, I wanted to include all this and maybe a little bit more of my introduction so you understand the importance of this doctrine. And I'm telling you, when we go out in the streets and preach and we evangelize, and you know, all of us evangelize to somebody. You know, not obviously in the same thing of street preaching or what have you, but we're all called to share the word of God. We're all witnesses of Christ. But there's many people, if you talk to them who say they know God, they don't have a clue who the real God is. And it's so, so prominent out there. But see, we're supposed to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, that we could share the truth. And I think it was D.L. Moody said, and this is kind of a sidebar, that Christians are not going to, I mean, most of the unsaved world will never pick up a Bible, but they'll read you over and over. So they're going to, you know, because we're living epistles, right? So they're going to see us, and they're going to read us and see our actions. Because, you know, the devil's the slanderer. He wants to accuse the brethren. He wants to slander us. He wants us to be put to shame. And we've all been there. With that said, in a little bit of contrast here, we look at this. In Matthew, dealing with everlasting life, in Matthew 25, 46, another sobering quote from the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, and these will go away into everlasting punishment, meaning the unsaved, the wicked, excuse me, but the righteous into eternal life. So look, there's no neutrality. Your soul's created to live forever. You're either gonna live for eternity in heaven with our Lord, no more pain, suffering, crying, weeping, distress, so on and so forth, or you're gonna spend eternity with Jesus called the lake of fire, hell. And God has to use really anthropomorphisms to convey to us the best that our finite minds can understand how terrible hell is. That's why we warn people. And people always think you're doing, oh man, that's hate. You're talking about hell, that's hate. You know, everything's hate speech now, whatever. These days, you can't even say anything that's truth or else you're going to be in trouble. But we've got to not compromise. But anyway, we've got to tell the truth. But we do it in love, speak the truth in love as the scripture says. And we must be efficient about this. But, you know, I can't even fathom how, Terrible it will be I'm just thankful God saved me a wretch saved by grace and all of us here have trusted him and those who will hear my voice today and in the future It's definitely a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God, but we have a loving and wonderful Savior So let us not forget that and he demonstrated that love as I've been talking about by his perfect life and his death on the cross that we might Be reconciled back to God Amen. Here's something to think about, too, in contrast, is that that verse, real quick, before I forget, in 2546, all the dictionaries will translate that word for punishment. It's kolasin in the Greek. It'll say punishment or eternal torment. But if you look in a lexicon, it says cut off or prune. And there's a debate about this, but see, the Jehovah Witnesses and others who are annihilationists who deny eternality of hell, they will use that against you unless you understand how to convey this to them. Because the panoply of scripture clearly tells us. The way to let them know whether they agree with it or not is that there is a parallelism in this verse, eternal punishment. and eternal life. And the Greek word, you know, my Greek didn't come out in this printer. Aionios, if I recall, is for everlasting, and it means everlasting, from beginning to end, either way you look at it. I bring this passage up because it's in contrast, in some sense, to get an understanding how People can twist you around on things and get away with it if you don't know the Word of God. And listen to this, in Psalm 12, 7 it says, the Lord says, you shall keep them, O Lord, you shall preserve them from this generation forward. In a cursory reading of this chapter, a lot of people, well, not a lot of people, but many folks who are KJV only will say, oh, this is a preservation of the KJV Bible. But it's pretty complex, and I can't describe it to you off the top of my head, but the grammar is really saying it's the people that God is preserving there. And look, the King James Bible is a wonderful translation. Many of us here use it. Most of my quotes are from it because I used it a lot early on in my salvation. A lot of them, I memorize it by that. So just remember when we mention something like that, I'm just doing that in cursory passing here, is that It's a beautiful translation, and it's not an anti-KJV statement. It's just saying that there's some that hold a position that's really crazy, and there's various roots in that. But there are some who believe that it's the best translation. I would highly disagree with that, but it's a great translation. Anyway, with that said, it says in Psalms 121.7, the Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul. God's gonna preserve our soul. You know, like I look out in my backyard, I have this orange tree and big old things. They drop, and they sit there for a while, and next thing you know, they're looking pretty rotten. They rot away. We go into a grocery store. Everything in that grocery store has an expiration date. It's not going to be preserved for very long, some things longer than others. Our bodies are going to decay. You know, I've seen people die. I've watched my sisters die of cancer. Very, very heavy to see somebody decay like that that you love. Probably shouldn't have brought that up. Anyway, kind of a graphic imagery, but, you know, it's a depiction. My body's going to rot someday unless the Lord comes for us before we die. But our soul is preserved forever. And what God says in the day of erection when all the graves will be open and they hear that trumpet, all the bodies will be reunited to their souls. And even those ones that are cremated, or blown to smithereens and more, or what have you. I don't know how God's gonna do it, but he will recreate those bodies and reunite them to the soul. You know, Paul said to be absent from the body in Philippians 1 is to be present with the Lord. I think that's in Corinthians 5, because he said in Philippians 1 that, you know, he was struggling with the matter. You know, I wanna leave this to be present with the Lord, but it's more needful for me to be here with you right now. And that was a guy, Apostle Paul who wrote most of the New Testament, he was under house arrest in Rome writing to the church of Philippi. And you know what he said, one of the most powerful verses in the Bible under this topic for sure, and one of my favorites is Philippians 1.6, being confident of this very thing, that he who begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Now here's a guy chained to the guards You know, I think a different one every four to six hours, if I recall in my research of that. And, you know, and he's rejoicing, writing to the people on the outside to, you know, be united and be unified. And he said a lot of, there's so much theology in those 103 verses in Philippians, the epistle of Philippians. It's incredible. But that's basically my introduction. And I knew it was going to take a little bit of time, so God willing, if I don't get through all my material, I'll hit the sweet spots, and I will maybe talk Joan and them in part two. All right. Let me say this real quick. Thomas Watson, one of the great Puritans of the 17th century, said this, when God calls a man, he does not repent of it. This kind of reminds me of that last verse, I believe it is Romans 11. It says, his gifts and calling are irrevocable, modern translations translated, or the King James says, without repentance. And so here, Thomas Watson says, when God calls a man, he does not repent of it. I brought that verse up so you can kind of understand what he's saying. If you didn't, God does not, as many friends do, love one day and hate another, or as princes who make their subjects favorites and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint. His condition emits of no alteration. God's call is founded upon his decree, and his decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's sins, but not their names. Amen. Oh, man, that's a blessing. Within this message and what I would almost say a polemic against the false doctrine of one can lose their salvation, which is a demise to our Lord and Savior's perfect work and life, we're going to address this by scripture and also by some scholarly commentation from some that we know. So if you would, please turn to 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1.3. I'm going to go through some of these texts, some sections, depending on how time is going here. I will. Maybe do a few machine gun verses that we can go over and you can write them down and maybe listen to it later if you want to get more of those verses because this is a great subject. And the Bible definitely asserts this and warrants this doctrine of the preservation of the saints. Okay, 1 Peter 1. Three through nine, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inherent, incorruptible, and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this, you greatly rejoice, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, much being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love, though you, excuse me, though now you do not see him, yet believing, You rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. So there's quite a few places in these scriptures right here, which I'm not going to break up because I got a lot of stuff to cover, but tells us that we have the salvation of our souls. And to back that up with some scholarly thought on the matter, you know, as many of us know, Dr. Delcor, dear brother of mine and mentor, if you will, and I like to call him a mighty man of the scripture. The man knows the Greek New Testament blows me away. Anyway, in one of his newsletters, and some of us have had those, I had a newsletter on the preservation of the saints that came out, phew, about 12 years ago, I think now. In this bimonthly newsletter, dealing with the subject, this one thing I like about Delcor, as technically as he gets, he always describes the grammar, what he's saying with these technical grammar words, so even the average folk like myself can understand it. And please listen to this carefully. This is an awesome, awesome definition of what's going on under the security of the believer. Quoting Dr. Delcor, Jesus gives one kind of life, eternal life. Jesus said in John 647 that he who believes has eternal life. By way of definition, eternal life is life that is eternal. Logically, if eternal life can be severed at any point in time, it is life that cannot be called eternal. Pretty simple. And a lot of people just don't get it. He goes on to say, in John 5.24, I know this is one of Eric's favorite verses, He says, Jesus promised that the one believing has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. This passage strongly and exegetically affirms the preservation of the genuine Christian. Like I'm saying in the beginning, my introduction, there are genuine Christians who have this accurate knowledge. and accurate assent and trust in the true, which I often have to say the real Jesus, because there's so many counterfeits these days, and even most of the regular so-called Protestant churches. It's horrendous. He goes on to say, John's favorite word, pastuon, translated believes, to indicate genuine Christian faith, as in John 3.16, John 5.24, 6.47, 1 John 5.1, the participle pastuon, literally believing, is in the present tense and it is active. Thus, a truly regenerated Christian will keep on believing. His belief in Christ will not be temporary, but rather active and ongoing. Jesus said that the one believing In the one hearing, has eternal life. Grammatically, the two present tense participles, believing and hearing, denote an action that is simultaneous to the time of the leading verb, has. The verb has is present active indicative tense, which describes active ongoing possession, thus. After all that technical stuff, he says thus, active possession of eternal life is not a future prospect or possibility for the one believing. It is a present and continuous absolute certainty. The same grammatical relationship, I believe in here, is found in John 647. He goes on to say, because the one believing actively possesses eternal life, they will never come into God's wrath and judgment, converted Romans 5, 9. Let us look at that. Romans 5, 9 reads, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Delcor continues on. He says, after affirming the permanency of eternal life and the certainty of being delivered from judgment, Jesus then affirms his redemptive guarantee that the one believing has passed out of death into life. The Greek verb has passed is perfect tense. The perfect tense indicates a completed action that normally occurred in the past, which has continuous results into the present. Hence, the reason as to why The one believing does not come into judgment is that he has passed out of perfectly and completely spiritual death. He goes on to say, therefore, the full force of what Jesus was literally saying can be translated. He who presently and continuously hears my word and believes me, who I am, I promise that he will presently and continuously possess without end eternal life, that is salvation, and he will never come into condemnation. He has passed out of death into life. He in times past has been affectionately called to be declared righteous and then to be glorified. Amen. So not only is In most English translation, things are very clear, but sometimes the Greek, if you know and understand the grammatical construct, it shows perfectly what's going on without any second guessing from the cultist and the gainsayers. So we could have true and full assurance that God's word is true. I don't got time to go into all this. That, as Christians, you know, we believe God's words true. And God willing, Wednesday night at our Bible study, I'll continue a little bit of my presuppositional apologetics and evangelism in retrospect to evidentialism or classical because the noetic effect of the mind, I don't think, allows a person to be able to be reasoned into the kingdom other than by it. Sovereign grace of God so we argue from the scripture not to the scripture a little sidebar there anyway, okay under the The first point I think it is here note second God is faithful God is faithful Hebrews 10 22 through 23 you could write these down you can look at them follow me. I just pray that you really Let the word, because it's the word of God that we need to get in us and get it into us deeply and over and over. And I'll share some more of that in the application section at the end. Hebrews 10, 22 and 23 says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled with an evil conscience and our bodies worth with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering For he who promised is faithful. You see, God is faithful. Praise God for that. We're going to hit a few more verses. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 8 and 9. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 8 and 9. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, Who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ? God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of a son. Jesus Christ is Lord. More affirmation, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24. We're going to get you some exercise, flip it in your pages, those who are trying to follow along. But this is good. We need to know where those chapters are. 1 Thessalonians 5.23 and 24 says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful who also will do it. God is faithful, we trust his word, and he's faithful. 2 Thessalonians 3, back there. I should have put that in chronological order, but this way you have to work for it a little harder, perhaps. 2 Thessalonians 3, 2 and 3 says, but the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. I think that's only one verse. When I copy and paste in my Bible software, it might have threw the other verse out of there. Anyway, the faithful part is obviously the most important there. Okay, we're going to get into a little bit more technical stuff and hear what our Lord Jesus says about it. And he says a lot about these things. A little side note, if you ever can get Stephen Lawson, one of the best teachers of our time, he's got a series through R.C. Sproul's ministry on things called the doctrines of grace in the Gospel of John. And he says, our Lord has a lot to say about that. Yeah, that guy's a great teacher. Okay, John chapter 3. John chapter 6, 37 through 40, Jesus boldly proclaims, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day. This is awesome. Here's another verse. Go a little further in John to John chapter 10. John chapter 10, verses 25 through 30. John 10, 25 through 30. It's a little easier to get there from John 6. Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. As I said to you, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give them eternal life and the life shall never, and they shall never perish, excuse me, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. Well right here I can kind of hit a grand slam as Dr. Delcourt from the same newsletter from way back on the preservation of the saints says this in relation to these texts. Quoting Dr. Delcourt, in John 635 Jesus says, he who comes to me will not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst. As in the following verses, Jesus cogently states his covenant of redemption, that is, his promise of salvation for those who the Father gave him. The one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out, and that he has given me, all that he has given me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. Jesus' promise of salvation is specifically addressed to his sheep, the elect, They follow him, they hear him, others are unable to do so. John 8.43, 10.26, Jesus says of his beloved sheep, I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. I called them recently so I could break this down where he doesn't clarify as much with this technical Greek grammar. He says this, here Jesus uses a construction which is the strongest way in the Greek language to negate a future possibility. It's a double negative. In other words, literally what Jesus was saying, never, never, not even a possibility, can you lose your salvation. That's good news, believers. That's good news. There's no way. You know, even in that text in John 10, when he says, no one can snatch him out of my hand or the Father's hands, that's a deity claim right there for those who want to deny the equality of the Son with the Father. It's fully God. They just can't handle the hypostatic union that Jesus is fully God and he's fully man. We can't fully comprehend that stuff. But we apprehend it because the teachers, I mean, the scriptures teach it. Okay, we're moving right along. God is good. Now to the section of the peace God gives. The peace God gives us is evident of eternal life. This is awesome. Romans 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So right here, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the epistle of Romans, therefore having been justified. See, a lot of people don't understand in these cultic groups that once you're justified, you're legally, before God, free. Someone has taken your place, Jesus Christ. We have received his righteousness. Therefore, that's why we have eternal life, because it's not based upon our good works or whatever we do, but what Christ has accomplished in his perfect work and atoning work on the cross, his perfect life, as I described earlier. So here we have again, we have been justified. And see what a lot of the cults get wrong here is that they get sanctification and justification mixed up because once you're justified, you're legally free before God. You've been freed up before the judgment of God because Jesus Christ did it in our stead. He received the punishment that we justly deserve. Then there's glorification because see in sanctification you got the justification here you get saved and then there's this ongoing life of sanctification being set apart and you know we go up and down on that road. You know we have good and bad days but we're called to live a holy life and I'll get to some of those things in the application. I have a tendency to want to get ahead of myself, but I'm putting on the brakes a little here. And another glorious passage along these lines is Romans chapter 8, verse 1. As our brother mentioned earlier in the reading of this text, Walter, this is one of the greatest chapters of the Bible. All the chapters are pretty great. But in verse 1 of Romans 8, it says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So there's no condemnation for us who are in there because, you know, the Bible says that those who do not believe in the only begotten son, and as I described earlier and delineated that those who have a true saving knowledge and assent and faith and trust in, we've been freed. But those who do not, do not have this freedom and they have not, They stand under God's condemnation. That was my point. In John 3, we hear a lot of John 3, 16 and 17. Like verse 17 says, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but through his Son the world might be saved. But they forget verse 18. I'll do a little bit of a paraphrase. It says, those who do not believe in the only begotten of the Father, the Son, Lord Jesus, They're condemned already, because they haven't believed. Because I always tell people, look, I'm not out here to condemn you, because they always say when we're out evangelizing, you're condemning us. All you do is, I can't condemn you. You're condemned already. I'm here to give you redemption by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, that you might hear the truth, and the truth might set you free. Amen? Oh, there's so much stuff, especially in our day to day, with this moral relativism, pragmatism, Postmodernism. Boy, this world's in a mess. The millenniums, as they call them. If you've ever seen anybody interview people on these college campuses, this United States and world's in big trouble without Christ. But praise God that we have a savior that can deliver even them and even a wretch like me. So there's hope for anybody. Amen. Okay. Let's see if I can machine-gun off a few more verses here. Oops, let's see. Yep. Here's one that's very important when we deal with God giving us peace. You know, the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 6 and 7, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer, with supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus. So God guaranteed us in his word that we can have peace. And I'm going to deal a little bit more with that and these applications here shortly, how we maintain that peace and how we know we have that peace. Here's something to consider. I texted Delcor dealing with justification again. And I asked him something, because sometimes it can be a little tricky in verses like Ephesians 2.8, dealing with the Catholics and stuff, because they have some tricky comebacks. But here's a succinct statement that's really good. Being justified, declared righteous, was a passive act being done to the person at the moment he had faith. Faith was the instrument that God used to justify the person, whereas the work of Christ was the cause. We now have peace with God, shalom, not a ceasefire, but a permanent peace, that is, reconciliation with God. So we've been justified. We're reconciled back to God from our fallen state of the Adam race. The word is very clear that once you're justified and have eternal life, you cannot lose that eternal life. As I remember John MacArthur said, if you could lose your salvation, you would. Because you would lose it. But it's not up to you. It's up to God. And again, like I said in the beginning, that doesn't give us a license to sin. Because though you can hide something behind God, your thoughts, whatever, he'll spank you if you're his child. Because he says that he will chasten his children. As the writer of Hebrews mentions in Hebrews 12, quoting from Proverbs 3. So it's a serious matter. So let us remember. that we are preserved, and the reason why we have peace is from the preservation, like Psalms 37, 28 says, for the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off. It says in Hebrews 13, 5, let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. You see, I'm going to quote several more scriptures here, see if I can get through these quickly. These scriptures that I'm going to quote here would make no sense at all if we could lose our salvation. So consider 1 John 5.13, these things are written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may believe that you have eternal life. And I quote this often to the cultists, I said, can you read 1 John 5.13? And before they can get through it, they're already scrambled. Oh, you have to do works. They just can't fathom this without the God of all creation opening our hearts and minds to understand this. Second Timothy 1.12, for this reason, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know who am I believed and persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day. See, God is able. We're not. You know, when Jesus talked to the rich young ruler, he said, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He says, why do you call me good? Of course, another claim to deity, because only God's good, and Jesus, you can't say he wasn't good. Later on in the passages, look, it's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, because, you know, they could easily trust in the riches rather than the God and the disciples later on in that passage of Matthew 19. subsequent synoptic Gospels, he says, the disciples are all, who could be saved then? Jesus said, with man it's impossible, but with God all things are possible. Amen? Okay, in 2 Timothy 4.18, it says, And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. See, these scriptures would be meaningless if we didn't have eternal life. Philippians 1.6, like I already quoted, and we could quote this all day long, being confident of this very thing, he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 12, 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That could be also translated the originator and perfecter of our faith. Because he begins it and he finishes it, as Paul said in Philippians 1. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. See, that's love, what Christ did for us. Oops, that one's not supposed to be there. Okay, a couple more verses, then I'll get to the application. 2 Corinthians 1, 2. You know, I'm just driving this point home because I'm making a case here, a polemic against the heresy of you can lose your salvation. Some might say, oh, heresy, that's a strong word. Well, you know, I don't know if it's a damnable heresy, but it's incorrect. It caused schism in the body, and that's what heresy means. All right, 2 Corinthians 122, who also has sealed us and given us the spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. Again, if we didn't have eternal life, it's meaningless. Ephesians 1, verses 13 through 14, this is very, very powerful. in whom you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory." That says it all. There's so much in that, but for the sake of time, I'm not going to go into it, but we're sealed. On the day it's our guarantee of our inheritance, praise to his glory. All right, let's look at a few applications here. It's a miracle I got that far. In light of embracing the preservations of the saints, aka the security of the believer, eternal security, Are you trusting God's word, what it says? Are you doing, like I said in the beginning, the authentic believer has this authentic saving knowledge and assent and trust. That's why you keep on believing and keep on trusting because you believe God's word to be true. And it's very important. You know, it wasn't long ago that Brother Walter was preaching on the intimacy of the triune God. I know there was another word in there. It got a little complex. I forgot what it was. Anyway, you know, it's important that we have that fellowship. I know when I get busy and everything, and this is relevant to what I'm speaking on, We can get complacent and we can lose that peace and we can get more frustrated and anger and impatient and so on and so forth. It's because we are not, in God's word, meditating, being washed by the renewing of our mind through his word. And we're hanging on this stuff kind of by our own and we got to give all of our burdens over the Lord and we got to let him drive the ship, if you will. You know, like in Ephesians 5.18, you know, we're to be filled with the spirit, grammatically, As Dr. James Kennedy once said, so I'll never forget this, he says, we are leaky vessels. We need to be filled constantly throughout each and every day, morning, noon, and night, because we need to be filled with the Spirit over and over and over. And see, that intimacy with God gives you the confidence. You know, when you're walking with the Lord, you have peace, and when you have encounters with others, It's like you're more ready to share the word. Of course, oftentimes you could be totally unready, and God, the Holy Spirit, gives you the words to say anyway. But it's always better to be walking close with the Lord. As Brother Carney always says, walk in the Spirit, brother. By the way, it's good to see you back here, brother. Miss that smile and those introductions here. Praise God. We serve an awesome God, the only true God. So we need to feed upon his word regularly. Supplemental books, good supplemental books is great. Pilgrim's Progress, Spurgeon, he said he read that every year. Of course, he had a photographic memory, had this awesome library, and he could look at all this stuff that the guys, his servant, I forgot one of the guys, would put all this stuff out for him before he would go out and preach. And he had a photographic mind. He'd have all this stuff right there, and when he went out there, he would just, it would come in his mind, and he could preach it and see. When you got things coming in the ear gate and eye gate of this world, like this one brother said when I preached at, as they started the service at San Quentin last Saturday night, he said, man, there were some people out in the yard today, they were saying some of these things. He says, man, we got to watch the portals of our ears and our eyes and what we're taking in because they were saying all kinds of bad things and that just came to mind. So we need to be constantly in his word and things concerning his word. Good Christian videos are good, through the eye gate. The eye is the light of the body, as Jesus said. What are you putting in? Because the more we feed on one thing, that's what we're gonna be. You are what you eat, and that's the same thing spiritually speaking. And I mentioned these guys at prison. I said, you know what? Isn't it interesting? There's things what's called musing and amusing. And like most of America and the world is amusing themselves to death. Because when you're amusing yourself, and God gives us good things to enjoy, so don't get me wrong here, I'm not being legalistic. But when we step away from taking in a lot of the good things, It's much difficult to muse because you have to engage your mind and study. And it's work, amusing. You get to sit there with the armchair quarterback with remote control or whatever. And I said this and, you know, I'm guilty of it too. That's why I'm preaching myself, rebuking myself as I exhort you all. And I told the guys at prison because, you know, they have TVs. They got quite a few channels these days in all these prisons, right? Good and bad, because they get a lot of the church channels. And if you can't discern, there's all kinds of junk there. People call it Christianity. It's a joke. But that's why I tell them, they better know the authentic word so they can understand all this baloney that's coming through the TV that's false. But I told them, I go, you ever notice that it's easy to sit there when you're done with the day? You can watch two or three hours of TV, not even fall asleep. But you pick up the Bible, and you fall asleep in about five minutes. Oftentimes that's true because amusing, it takes a lot more work than amusing yourselves. Lord have mercy on me. And what's interesting, many of you are familiar with Eric Holmberg, one of the pioneers in Christian documentaries. He did a lot of videos, but he's real famous for Hell's Bells, The Dangers of Rock and Roll. And then he did, that was in 89. And then about 2001, he did one called Hell's Bells II, The Toll Continues, about a six and a half hour documentary. And there's some crazy things that go on behind the music, right? Because music's very powerful. And he did this other smaller one where there's another host, this guy, his name was Tyrone Carter. He was part of a Christian hip-hop group, and some people will say, what's that? But this guy was a good brother. He did this hosting of this video. It was kind of like a condensed version of the six-hour version. It's about an hour. It's called Sounds of War, Rock Rap in the Spiritual World. And at the end of those two videos, he has the same testimony as about eight young people who came to faith out of Satanism, as a jock, thought he was all together, from this and that, and this one girl. It was caught in a cult of very abusive, and they didn't describe all these things. But one thing they said, I'll never forget this. She went on to say what I'm saying now. Read a lot of good supplemental Christian books. Feed on the word. Do all this thing, because she says this. And this goes into the musing and the amusing. She said, readers are leaders, and TV watchers are bottom feeders. I'll never forget that. You know, that was powerful. And sometimes I find myself a bottom feeder, which I don't like to be. I got this huge library, and I love to sit down there, and sometimes I don't know what book to read. And us here and in this world, we have no excuse on not reading the Word and studying. Right here at Christ Bible Church, ChristBibleChurch.org for the listeners, we got over 100 books and booklets systematic theology, Dr. Downing's stuff, Paul Nelson's stuff, Dr. Delcourt's stuff, Chapel Library stuff. We have so much material just here that we have no excuse to read and watch a bunch of other garbage when we could be renewing our minds for good stuff. Here's something that Charles Spurgeon said that's pretty profound. I think it might be on your bulletin. Here I got a bigger part of it. I could never either believe or preach a gospel which saves me today and rejects me tomorrow, a gospel which puts me in Christ's family one hour and makes me a child of the devil the next, a gospel which first justified and then condemns me, a gospel which pardons me and afterwards casts me down to hell. Such a gospel is abhorrent to reason itself. Much more is the contrary to the mind of the God whom we delight to serve, C.H. Spurgeon. Very, very profound. You know, there's much truth in these statements, obviously in the Word of God, in these supplemental books. I know there was one other quote I wanted to quote, so bear with me if I can find it here in a second. But I hope this has encouraged you. I hope this has helped you understand the importance of the security of the believer and that those who teach, teach that you can lose your salvation and really teach it in another gospel, another Jesus, a Jesus who can't save you, a Jesus whose perfect life and perfect sacrificial atoning death on the cross was not good enough. And we owe it all to Jesus because, you know, he paid it all and all to him. I, oh, let me see if I can find that quote real quick. Bear with me a second. I think I might have to, I might have forgot to put it on my notes, but you guys can read it on here. One of them was R.C. Sproul said, true Christians can have radical and serious falls, but never total and final falls from grace. This other one by Thomas Watson, he says, God's decree is the very pillar and basis on which the saints Perseverance depends. That decree ties the knot of adoption so fast that neither sin, death, nor hell can break it asunder. That's awesome. That's from the Puritan Thomas Watson. Well, my brothers and sisters, I pray that you got something out of this. I pray that this will just be a blessing and something to really contemplate. I know as being a Christian for 22 years, Sometimes I'm upset with myself that the hours I've wasted doing other things, not that God doesn't give us, you know, good things to enjoy, that I've wasted a lot of hours that I wish would have been in God's Word, that I would have been better prepared for situations, I would have been more edified, I would have been filled with the Spirit and not acting out in, you know, anger and impatience and other things of that nature. Because, you know, we're ambassadors of Christ, and we've got to be good examples, because we are living epistles. People are going to read us way more than they do their Bible. And remember, we have the most important message for mankind, that Jesus Christ died for sinners, and whom I'm one of the chiefs, for sure. With that said, I think I actually got through everything. I'm not sure how long that'd take. It seems like time flies so fast when you're up here. When you step up in here, it's like trembling really heavily. Then you settle in a little bit, but it's still a little bit rocky because you're representing God. You're speaking to his people. With that said, let us end in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father and our God, I just thank you and praise you for the Lord Jesus Christ who did live a perfect life that none of us could accomplish on our best day. And he went to the cross voluntarily, as we read in Philippians 2, even to the death of the cross, and that you've granted him the name which is above every name. And we'll all stand before him someday, and by your grace, we will not be condemned for our sins because you laid our sins upon him. In our stead, what a wonderful Savior. And boy, did you demonstrate your love when within that second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ came down from heaven and lived amongst filthy sinners such as me, putting up with it, reviling not when he was reviled, tempted in all ways that we were without sin. As you said, he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. We thank you for the imputation of Christ's righteousness who many deny. hence another gospel, but we thank you for the real Jesus and you've given us adequate knowledge, saving knowledge and assent and trust. May this word be a blessing to all those who might hear it in the future and all who have heard it this day and let the name of Jesus Christ ever be praised. In his name I pray, amen.