Q&A 17: Once saved always saved? Can a believer lose his salvation?
Vern Peterman · Apr 25, 2010
Questions & Answers, No. 17
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49262152867

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Now what we're going to do here, this is a handout good for the next three weeks today and two more Sundays, or at least that's what I think. What we're going to be doing is starting into what I would call a salvation series, beginning with a summary of what are the evidences regarding believers being saved eternally. being saved for sure, those kinds of things. And then we'll have some other topics like, for example, what about babies that die, whether born or unborn, those kinds of things.

I have a question for you though. I need to get your input. In this handout we're dealing with, for three weeks, about evidences for eternal security from Scripture. It does not address the various passages that people tend to point to when they say, but see, look at this. This says that our salvation is not secure. Are you interested in going into those? Yes? No? Yeah? Okay. All right. So we can go into that. I haven't looked at what that'll take, but we can go into that as well. It seems like there's an interest in it. And we'll continue on the salvation theme until we feel like we've touched on the things that people are interested in.

The question we have here is, once a believer is saved, is that person always saved from then on out, or can he lose that salvation by his own doing, moral failure, termination of belief, or by his own negligence, or by any action by God or others to remove him from that place of being saved? So in one long question that may take you a few readings to soak it all in, in one long question, we're asking, is the believer always saved, or can that salvation be lost? I was talking to Brad Mastin this last week, and he was talking to a couple of fellows that say, oh, a believer is always saved as long as they continue to believe.

Well, wait a minute. So that doesn't really answer the question, except that it does end up making it dependent upon the believer. So the question just at the outset, what is the gospel? And I think that's an important thing because we talk about being a believer. What must a person believe? What is the gospel? And so that's the first thing we want to address there. How is one saved?

What the Bible does, it gives the answer to that question in a number of passages. The Apostle Paul brings the core of the gospel in a passage we looked at not too many months ago, 1 Corinthians 15. First, eleven verses. Three fingers here. A person must believe that Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins. Point one. And that's obviously their personal sins.

1 John 2.2 says he died for the sins of the whole world. Everyone.

Next, he was believed that he was buried, and third, that he rose again. That's the core of the gospel, what must be believed. Now, is that the only thing that is true of the believer, of the one who believes? Just what we look at here? No, a whole lot more is true. As a matter of fact, one of the ways I've rather jokingly put it is believers are born with amnesia.

Believers have no understanding of what their salvation means. when they first are saved. But to be saved, these are the basic things that happen. A whole lot more takes place, and that's what we spend time looking at and studying at in Scripture. But these are the things that must be believed in order to be saved.

Yes? What's interesting is your point is well taken. The Father rose Him and you can find verses that said He will raise Himself up. So very interesting. Both of those statements can be supported. The reality is this doesn't address how He was raised, it's just that He did. But you're right, there are passages that say the Father raised him up, and then there are also passages that say that he himself did it. Interestingly enough, something similar about sending of the Holy Spirit. There are passages that say that the Father sent the Holy Spirit, and there are also passages that say the Son did.

Interesting. So it's not a singular action. Now, one of the things we have right below these three bullets here starts with notice that. Notice that this basic gospel is about faith and what God has done through Christ. Important distinction. It is not about our work or our merit or deserving it. It is about Christ's work and His merit. It's all about God's mercy and grace and not about our attributes or work or merit. before or after the point of salvation. We have nothing to add to God's salvation either. We don't need God's salvation than our own. Yes. My thought came back to me when we were talking about how the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son. Yes. The eternal covenant between the Father and the Son is specific to that resurrection.

This is we have nothing to add to God's salvation either he does the saving when we at first do the believing period There there are various cult groups some of them come to your door two by two And they will say essentially here's the quick summary Their their idea of good news is to tell you that Christ died for your sins so that you can now earn your salvation and Keep yourself saved Because that's the other thing, you've just got to keep doing it or else you'll lose it. So, Christ died for your sins to give you the opportunity to save yourself. That's the bottom line.

Now, we have in the middle of that first page there, what's at stake? If a believer can lose his or her salvation, then several things get called into question. First bullet there. If God does the saving, but a believer must focus on what is necessary to stay saved, then the focus becomes the believer's actions rather than focusing on Christ. You see what happens? If I'm worried about staying saved, all of a sudden, where's my focus?

Yeah, well, I better do this. I better not do that. And all of a sudden, it's on me instead of on the Lord. And that's contrary to multiple appeals to Scripture. looking away from all that will distract unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Here's the next bullet. The second one says, if God does the saving, but staying saved depends on the believer in any way, then staying saved no longer depends on God's character and merit, but on the believer. All of a sudden, it's no longer about God's character and merit. It becomes about my character and merit. So not only is my focus distracted from the Lord, but the character issue depends upon me instead of God, right? The next one, the third bullet, if God does the saving but the believer can lose his salvation, then the believer is not free to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ because the preoccupation of the believer is on staying saved.

The urging to believers is to grow. Do you find urgings in Scripture? You better stay saved. Work really hard. You better peg the believe meter. Right? You better keep that pegged. And by the way, don't go to sleep. Because you might slip in the middle of the night and that would be tragic. Right? No, so you start to see the problem. All of a sudden this whole salvation thing depends on me. I'm focusing on myself. It depends on my character instead of God's character. I've got to keep up the belief thing and whatever that feels like.

Now, so as we look at this, Scripture contains a number of lines of spiritual fact and reasoning that converge on the certainty of the believer's salvation. We have three bullets there at the bottom of page one, and it starts with explicit statements that a believer cannot lose his or her salvation, and we will look at those. The next one, repeated and powerful implication of the grammar of the Old Testament, and especially the New, that's where we'll be putting our focus. And thirdly, the repeated statement of the believer's eternal position in Christ and with Christ, as well as Christ and the believer and of the believer's identity, without any hint of any of that being reversed or even threatened to be reversed upon any action or failure to act. You'd better be careful or you might get unidentified with Christ. Do you see that in the Scripture? You know, there's all these passages about the believer being in Christ. Ever see any of them that say, whoops, you're out. Right? What happened to him? Oh, he fell out of Christ. Right?

Yes, there are favorite passages they love to point to. And we'll point to them too. Okay? It'll take us a while to get there though. Alright. We're on the top of page 2. The first point there is not the slightest chance. There is, in the language of New Testament Greek, a pair of Greek words, oo-may. Looks like ow-me, right? But oo-may, literally, not-not. In English, that would be a double negative and you would say that's not good English. It's really great Greek, okay? So it has the idea of not the slightest chance, not at all, by no means. It's not even remotely possible. That idea. Can't happen.

Though double negatives are not proper in the English language, in New Testament Greek, the double negative serves to emphasize the negation, is therefore called an emphatic negation, a double negative strengthening the denial. Let's examine some of the critical uses of the emphatic negative, umē. and a few passages that relate to salvation. And here's one, I think a principal one, John 10, 22 through 30. This is from the New American Standard, as are all the others, unless we say otherwise.

At the time of the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. By the way, the Feast of Dedication, that's the only mention of Hanukkah in the Bible. That's the Feast of Dedication. It just isn't spelled out as Hanukkah, right? That's it. You just read it.

It was winter and Jesus was walking the temple in the portico of Solomon. The portico of Solomon is the portion of the edge of the temple courtyard area that is closest to the eastern area where they would go in and out. So you have the portico of Solomon in there.

In verse 24, the Jews then gathered around him and were saying to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, they're saying, if you are the Christ, if you are the Messiah, tell us plainly. And by the way, why would they want him to tell them plainly? So it can be twisted around, yeah, at a minimum. What do they ultimately want to do with this guy, Jesus? They want to kill him and so they want to get him for blasphemy because they say, of course he can't be Christ. Right? So that's what they're trying to do. Verse 25 says, then Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my Father's name.

And by the way, what's so revolutionary about the statement, my Father? Yeah, it was for the Jews to claim that personal relationship with the Father. My father was just outrageous. You could say our father and that's fine. Right? Isn't that the way the Lord's so-called Lord's Prayer starts? Our Father who art in heaven, right? That's fine. But my father claiming that special relationship, that was outrageous. But that's what he said anyway. The works I do in my father's name, these testify of me.

But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will 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 the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." So how are they going to like that?

They're not. So this is the feast of dedication known as Hanukkah. Here's Jesus walking at the portico at the east end. It's cold because it's in the winter. And east end of the temple courtyard. In part of Jesus' response to the challenge of some Jews gathering about him to declare plainly if he was the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus tells the Jews all about his relationship with the sheep.

The words of verses 28 and 29 are of great interest to us regarding the possibility that one could lose his or her salvation. While the passage is said explicitly to the Jews in response to their question, it is in the larger context of salvation by faith, the theme of the Gospel of John. Why was John written? What did John say? These are written, why? That you might believe, right? Was that? Yeah, that you might believe. And that's exactly what John's focus is here.

The same root word translated perish in John 10.28, Apollumi, is used in Matthew 10.28b, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. So they shall never perish doesn't mean they'll never die physically, But he's talking about being eternally condemned, right?

And it's used similarly in John 3.16 and 17.12.

In the John 3.16 context, perish, same word, is used in contrast to eternal life. So the intent is clear. This word for perish, apollumi, means to be in a reserve for hell.

It's used in the middle voice in John 10.28.

We need to talk about what the middle voice is. What's middle voice? Is that when you talk to yourself? No. Middle voice is when you talk about an action that comes back upon yourself. If I took the bat and I hit the baseball, that's not middle voice because I'm hitting something else. If I took the bat and went whack and hit myself in the head, that's middle voice. Because I took an action that came back upon me.

This word in it does not come out in our usual English translations. This word has, because of the middle voice, the idea, and they shall never perish of their own doing so as to result in their loss of salvation. Got that? They shall never perish of their own doing so as to result in their loss of salvation. That's big. That's really big. And by the way, who's making this statement here? Christ is making this statement. So this is no low-level opinion here. You're getting Christ himself making this statement.

Additionally, the use of ume regarding the ability of one of the sheep to perish of the sheep's own doing is emphatically negated. There is not the slightest chance of someone losing their salvation of their own doing. That's what he told them. That emphatic negation is the strongest way in the Greek language that he could possibly have told them there is no chance that they can lose their salvation of their own doing.

You cannot do something. You cannot not do something. You can't do anything to take yourself out of salvation. And he doesn't even say it's unlikely, it's not real probable. He says it's not the slightest chance. Can't happen. Can't do it. But he's not done, is he? Let's turn to page three there.

In John 10.28, and I have this expanded and explained, those of you who have been around for a little while at Holly Hills know that that means it's explaining it, but it's a lot of words. So brace yourself.

Jesus is therefore saying that eternal life is something that he gives constantly to his sheep. and that there is not even the slightest possibility that they can lose that eternal life so as to perish in hell, even of their own doing, and no other outside entity can remove those sheep, those whom he constantly gives life from his hand. The saving work of Christ is therefore continually giving us eternal life that cannot be lost of our own doing, nor by that of another. Verse 29 even takes that one step further with Christ saying that His sheep were given to Him by the Father and they cannot be taken out of the Father's hand either. How secure do you feel? Pretty secure, huh? Yeah, yeah. And this is just a couple of verses. But the statements are absolute. Jesus basically looked at the options.

What are the chances that you can lose your salvation by your own doing, by anything that you do, fail to do, intend to do, didn't intend to do, what are the chances that that's going to happen so that you're going to go to hell? Not even the slightest chance. And by the way, suppose somebody outside of you says, hey, I'm going to take that guy out of salvation. How much success are they going to have? Not happening.

And by the way, Jesus says, it's not just me, it's the Father who also has them. Open and shut case. And guess what? That's the answer he gave when they said, are you the Messiah? So guess what? Somebody who doesn't believe this is calling into question Jesus' Messiahship. That's pretty intense, isn't it? Okay. Thoughts, questions? How are we doing so far?

Well, I was just thinking, you know, for believers it's just, what you say is so true, but for those that think it's just kind of a myth, you know, it's just not the truth for sure. They wouldn't be persuaded by it. Yeah. However, They would not be persuaded by this because they aren't persuaded of the need for salvation in the first place, which comes from scripture.

Ultimately, to take this, I think this is by itself an open and shut case, but we're not going to stop there. However, the person who does not accept scripture as any basis of authority at all is not going to find any of this satisfactory, right? But that's why we start with what is the gospel, right? Here's another one the author of Hebrews wrote and here's Hebrews 13 5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money Being content with what you have for he himself has said I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you In the above verse the same word pair, this is the umay right looks like ow me He shows up twice in that verse as if to tell us that there is not even the slightest chance, not even remotely, that He will ever leave us or forsake us.

It is a double emphatic negation. It's a double-double. Okay? It's a double-double. Not, not, not, not. Right? That's what it says. So, I mean, how can it be more emphatic? Well, I suppose you could make a triple or something, but, I mean, that's pretty tight.

Here's Revelation 3.5, and this is one we're going to spend a little time on because it's one that's sometimes pointed out as this is a threat that you might get your name erased from the Book of Life.

So here's Revelation 3.5. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the Book of Life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

So in Revelation 3.5, the ume word pair is found in I will not erase his name. In order to understand the significance of this verse relative to the question of loss of salvation, there are three points to address.

What's the meaning of he who overcomes? It's not he who overeats, right? Not he who overcomes. What is the meaning of the emphatic negation? I will not erase his name. And thirdly, what is the meaning of the book of life? So those three questions we have to answer in order to have some certainty in understanding what this has to say about salvation.

So now, the meaning of he who overcomes, and we give the references there in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. is illuminated by these verses also written by the Apostle John. Here's John 16, 33. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world. Same word, about the root word there for overcome.

The next one, 1 John 5, 4 and 5, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe? Are you an overcomer? Yeah. That's his bottom line definition there. Christ has overcome. If we believe in him, we are an overcomer. So that's how it goes together. And both of those verses are written by John. Same author. So that also gives a certainty that we're not kind of jumping conclusions here.

Let's take a look then at the top of page four. Another aspect of the references to overcomers in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 is that each one of the promises to the overcomers is given as fulfilled in chapters 19 through 22 of Revelation. The last four chapters of the book of Revelation contain the fulfillment for each of the promises to overcomers.

And we won't take the time to go through the list there in detail. But for example, to him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. So in the very last chapter of the Bible, what do you find in the new heavens and new earth? The tree of life. And so it goes on there down the list. Each of the seven churches in the messages to those seven churches is given one or more details of promise and we see them all fulfilled in those last four chapters.

So below the chart there we have these words, He who overcomes then is not taken as a special category or status among Christians as a subgroup but as a statement of all those who are saved because of their faith in Christ. Why do I make this distinction? There are Christians who believe that there will be two categories of Christians in the future. Those who walk in fellowship with the Lord and walk in light, and Christians who are cast into outer darkness. Yes, there are those who believe that and teach that. I don't believe that that's consistent with the verses we just looked at.

Okay, the words there, the last paragraph on page 4, the words, I will not erase his name in Revelation 3.5 have two aspects that should be considered together, being the word pair ume and the figure of speech used in the emphatic negation. The figure of speech used in these words is explained and illustrated below. Alright, so now on page 5. This is a figure of speech called litotes, using one extreme of negation to emphasize the positive statement.

Here are some examples in our own common English. I would say Nancy is not a bad cook. What do I mean by that? Nancy is a good cook, right? All right. Ferrari is not a cheap car. What am I telling you? You're going to pay through the nose, right? Okay. Ferrari is an expensive car. The third one, Peter is not a slow cyclist, which would mean that Peter is a fast cyclist, right? Now, examples of litotes, what's interesting is Dr. Luke uses this figure of speech a few times in Acts. Let's look at them.

Acts 12.18, no small disturbance among the soldiers.

What does he mean? A big disturbance, right? Acts 2139, a citizen of no insignificant city. A citizen of a significant city, right? And finally Acts 2720, no small storm. Here's Dr. Luke out with Paul and the others that are on the ship and he could have said a big storm came up. Instead he used this figure of speech that he was prone to do from time to time. No small storm. Okay. So in each case here, in each of the above instances of Latotus, Dr. Luke used the Greek word uk, conveying a simple negation.

What is different in Revelation 3.5 is that the negation is emphatic. Not simple negation as in each of the above examples and acts.

So in Revelation 3.5, speaking of the overcomers, I will not erase his name from the book of life then conveys that his name will most definitely be in the book of life.

Right? And there's not the slightest chance that it won't be. Does that sound like a threat? No. Matter of fact, he's completely casting aside the idea that it's a threat, that your name is not going to be in the Book of Life at all. He's not even allowing that threat as a possibility. Saying there's not a chance that your name won't be there, right?

Yes. Yes. Right. That's more a problem of our current usage. Just like with the Nancy's not a bad cook. Right. Because I would say Wendy is not a bad cook. Yes. But I don't mean that Wendy is just bad. Yeah. A part of it is that. Yes. Yeah. Sometimes it's different, but I think it's pretty clear in the I think one of the things too, the translators of a lot of our translations are under the gun, I'm using that as a figure of speech, to keep their translations brief. And so they'll say, I will not erase his name. Do you get from that that you've got the most emphatic way possible in Greek to say, I'm not even remotely going to erase his name?

You don't get that out of there because the translator, like I say, is under the gun to keep it short and keep it simple. And so you don't get this emphatic statement. There is not even the slightest chance that I'm going to erase his name. That's what doesn't come across. And so you not only have the fact that the translation doesn't carry across that, but you also have our typical English usage as well. And so what I'm trying to get across is the way that John wrote what Jesus said was powerful. And one of the reasons for going over this and spending the time with these two little two-letter words, ume, because it means not even remotely possible. There is not the slightest chance that I'm going to erase his name. It is not even the slightest threat in this. It's the exact opposite of a threat.

Now the next question that comes across is, what is this book of life? When we went through our study of Revelation, we went into a larger study that went into the Old Testament passages. This is exclusive to the New Testament passages here. And basically in every New Testament passage it means eternal life. And so what you have here is reference to being blotted out or included. The book of life, bottom line, the book of life in biblical times was something that people understood.

That's a list of the living citizens in good standing of a particular city. Citizenship was quite commonly not in a country, as we tend to think of it, but rather in a city. Let's take, for instance, what city was the Apostle Paul a citizen of? Yes, he was a Roman citizen. Now that's interesting. He was a citizen of that city of Rome. It was a special status that he had and it didn't come from being born there. It didn't come from even spending a lot of time there. It was a special status that one had as a Roman citizen. And so that was the way it was typically thought of. in ancient times. So each city would have its list of living citizens and good standing. And so the Book of Life was looked upon as this is the list of the living citizens of heaven.

So that's when he says, I will not erase your name from the Book of Life because it's not even the slightest chance that I'm going to scratch your name out, blot your name out from this list of citizens of heaven. Not a chance. No way. So we go through this when he talks about the Book of Life. The Book of Life is a listing of the citizens of heaven, but it's an eternal list. It's a forever list. Let's see here. Let's turn to page six at the very top there. Now, I have a line there that is partway down.

So to summarize, when Revelation 3.5, expand, explain, says that, Here's what it says, he who overcomes is the one who believes in me, Christ, in the essential gospel, will thus be positionally clothed in white garments picturing the absolute purity that he has in Christ, having been declared righteous by God himself.

And it is not even remotely possible that I will erase his name from the book of life, which is the list of those who are saved eternally and have heavenly citizenship, and I, Jesus Christ, their advocate, will confess his name before my Father and before his angels as being totally righteous and saved without fail and forever. Are you worried about having your name struck out, erased from the Book of Life? No. There's not even the slightest chance, Jesus says, that I'm going to do that. And, I'm going to confess your name before the Father, and before all the angels. But if you're worried about having your name scratched out, don't worry about that.

There's not the slightest chance. Okay, how are we doing so far? Okay, pretty much? More or less? As far as you can tell? Okay. We're running out of time. Okay, we're not going to be able to get done with this, so I'll introduce the idea and then we'll talk about giants. In the middle of page 6 it says, God has done it in the perfect tense.

The language of New Testament Greek packed a great deal of meaning into the verbs. Words of action or being. What was interesting is when I was going through the Greek translation courses, sometimes I would translate one verb with like a dozen words because so much is packed into that one verb in the Greek language. Words of action or being. What do I mean by action or being? Why do I use both of those? What's that? I am. All right. And let's let's put it this way.

It doesn't sound very active, but Jack is sitting. OK, that's a verb, right? Sitting is a verb. He could be more active and we'd use other words, but right now he's sitting and he's breathing and a few other verbs like that. OK, but you could also say I am Jack and The word am there is a verb of being, right? So there's verbs of action and verbs of being. Both of those are verbs. The Greeks would pack all kinds of meaning into their verbs, including who you're talking about. You know, you, singular, you, plural, him, they, I, all those, you know, different things are put into the verb. So, that's what we mean here. To carry across the same meaning in English often requires a number of words.

The perfect tense in New Testament Greek generally conveys a completed action with a resulting state of being. One way that we put this is a completed past action with ongoing results into the future, implying permanence. And so that's why we say, barring a negation or qualification in the context, the perfect tense indicative mood verb indicates that the effect of the verb is permanent and abiding in its present result. Daniel Wallace, who's a Greek scholar from Dallas Seminary, makes the following statement about the perfect tense that is central to the consideration of the permanence of salvation. The perfect tense is used less frequently than the present tense, aorist, future, or imperfect. When it is used, it is usually a deliberate choice on the part of the writer.

So we've pretty much run out of time here. So we'll return to this and review this next Sunday and continue on. The handout that you have here is for today, next Sunday, and the following Sunday. So we're going to take some time to go through it because everybody seemed to want to address it when we're done with this. So a few weeks from now, we'll also address those passages that people tend to point to that say, see, this means you're going to lose your salvation. Right? So we'll do that too. Last week, one of the things we talked about was various hoaxes.

And since I talked to you last week, I got this email two or three times, so I had to talk to you about it. giant archaeological find in Greece. I've got some photos to show you. It says, these astounding photos are from a recent archaeological discovery in Greece. This totally unexpected find furnishes proof of the existence of the Nephilim in the Bible.

Sound impressed yet? Okay. Nephilim is the word used to describe the giants spoken of at biblical times by Enoch, as well as the giant David fought against Goliath. It is generally believed that most of these giants came about when the fallen angels had union with earthly women. Note the incredible size of the skull. So here is one giant skeleton.

Let me see. Here's another one. See, there's a huge skeleton and all these different people working on this thing, right? Here is a closer view. Look at how big that skull is compared to the guy who's right in front of it. Huge. Here is a fellow standing on the ground and right in front of him is a massive skeleton.

Here is a fellow who looks like he's underneath the building and here's this skull that's practically the same size as he is crouched down. Here is another one where you see the skeleton there and the skull on the right hand side in the middle is larger than the fellow who's digging.

Those pictures are all fake, every one of them. This one right here won, I think, second or third place in a contest to how good could you make a fake in the year 2002. But this has been making the Internet, you know, rounds, you know, via the emails like crazy. Yeah, it is all phony. It's phony to the core, even even to the point of like, say, this one here, one like second or third place in the Photoshop contest. Photoshop just does wonderful things. It's phony. Every single picture that you saw.

What was the purpose of whoever had done it? Well, I think that's an interesting thing. Of course, a lot of people, you know, would, they'll get this and without looking at it, they might look at it and say, you know, gee, that's, you know, exciting evidence and they'll pass it along to dozens of other people.

We don't know in every case. This particular one, we know what the purpose was to win a contest. But it's possible, there are those who would like to see Christians shown to be gullible. And so sometimes that is the purpose. Other folks, maybe with good intent, will put things together, not knowing exactly where it's from. So the purpose may be variable. The outcome of passing this along, probably not real good. Now, so it's just an example of it's possible to make fakes. The reality is that the Bible doesn't need fakes in order to be proven thoroughly to be reliable and valuable revelation to us. We don't need fakes. We don't need stuff that's concocted.

That's one, if you see it, you can send back to them and say, that was a very interesting Photoshop job there, but that's all it is. Now, let me show you, in this case, there was an actual excavation, and these two fellows that you see in the white shirts, And the stuff that's around there, that was actually there, but they plopped the skeleton enlarged in this area where they were working, and they were actually just construction workers. And this one here, there was actually no skeleton or anything there at all, and they just dropped it in the middle. And then you can use Photoshop to shade the skeleton to be the same color as the surrounding soil. And so it looks like it fits.

This one was very interesting because you notice that rectangle that's up there? There's a shadow. And if you follow the shadow around to the different places, they didn't do a good job. I wouldn't give them an award for this one. Because some of the places there's a shadow, like over on the front lower part there's a nice shadow over the top of the skull. But then if you look over on the left-hand side, there isn't a shadow. They didn't finish the job.

So it's one of those cases where close inspection, nah, that's not real. That's not real. And this one here, there's a skull in that picture. The rest of the bones are from a dinosaur excavation. So it doesn't quite work, okay. So anyway, just, you know, word of caution there. There's some exciting stuff that comes across the internet. Some of it shouldn't be as exciting as it might seem. Okay.

Questions? Comments? Exasperations? Inspirations? Okay. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that your word is indeed true, and we thank you for the certainty that we have that You have indeed saved us eternally and that we can rest in the salvation that you have accomplished.

All we did was believe in what you did. It's not about what we did or even our continuing to believe. But once having been saved, we simply cannot lose it. And it is because it depends upon you and your accomplishment and your merit and your character. We thank you for that. We thank you for the assurance that we have. And we pray that during the course of today and the days ahead of us that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.