How to Study the Bible III – What is the Gospel? Can salvation be lost?

Who likes medleys? We have one person who likes medleys. That's how I feel about it, too. I'm not a fan. As soon as I start to get into one song, it switches to something else and confuses me. But we're going to do just that this morning. So Vern taught on a variety of subjects a while back in a Q&A series. This is a collection of three separate lessons spliced and diced together into what I hope is a coherent whole, but I start to feel jerked around a little bit.

That's what's going on. The topic today was the security of salvation. Before we jump into the security of salvation, we have to understand what salvation is all about. How do we go about being saved? Sounds like a simple question. I'll ask it anyway. How is it that we come to be saved?

Belief. Belief what? Belief that Christ was born of a virgin, that he lived, that he was both God and man, that he was Crucified, died, buried, risen, and seated with the Lord as Father. Okay, so a lot of stuff in there. Some of that is the gospel, some of it isn't the gospel, which is interesting. Even though it's true. All true. Every bit of it true. It's simple.

You believe that Christ died, was buried, was raised again and ascended and is seated at the right hand of God. There you go. We've got three bullets on here. One, Christ was the Son of God and died for our sins. Somewhere in there implicit is that you agree you're a sinner. Two, he was buried. Three, he rose again. That's it. That's the gospel. And we can find that. Do you guys know where you find that? Yes. First Corinthians and Romans. First Corinthians 15 through 5. And it is abundantly clear there.

Because Paul actually says, right before he lists out the gospel, he says, This is the gospel, the one by which we are saved, and then says that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. Okay, so that's the gospel. What we get to do to be saved is believe that. You know what? There was a problem. God took care of it. We're good. What is the gospel not? Maybe we can play it this way. So I've got about ten of these things in the back of my head that I have heard that you need to do in order to be saved. And they are not the gospel, but they are very, very, very common.

So I'll give you one of them. Ask Jesus to come into my heart. How many have heard that one? every one of us. Okay, so that's one. What other ones do you guys know that you can conjure up? Yes, ma'am? Be baptized. Be baptized. Yes, sir? Speak in tongues. Speak in tongues. I've actually never heard that you speak in tongues and that equals you get to be saved. That's fantastic. I've heard that. You've heard that one? You make Jesus the Lord of your life. Jesus the Lord of your life. There's a great one. And I've seen that get added on to this whole gospel. You have to believe these things, and they can work, right? Yep. Yep. Yes? Be a good person. Be a good person, right? Live out some sort of law, of some sort. I took notes, a whole list of these suckers. Let me see if I can find them really quick, because I They're nuts. I choose...

Another one would be that you feel that you've been saved. You feel that you've been saved. Okay, so here we go. How about, say, the sinner's prayer. Oh yeah. That's what you've got to do to be saved. And by the way, I looked up sinner's prayer as part of the research for this. It took me to this webpage that lays out salvation in four simple steps that are complete and total hogwash and then it lists the sinner's prayer at the bottom and there were two buttons one that said I prayed this prayer and then one button that was below that that said I didn't pray this prayer but I have questions and I'm like And do I have questions about their doctrine? So I clicked that one, and I was about to start typing. I'm like, I don't have time for this.

Pray to receive Christ. How's that one? Oh, yeah. Make a commitment to Christ. I said, pray to receive Christ. Vernon, that's on my list. Make a commitment to Christ. I mean, how could this one possibly be wrong? It's pulled right out of scripture. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ. Right? Come forth and confess Christ publicly. Good one there. Put Christ on the throne of your life. Yeah? Turn from your sins to God? Surrender to Christ? Surrender to Christ. OK, so what's wrong with all of these? I do, I do, I do. The I. The I. The I, I, I. All these things that we get to do. Here is the harm of not knowing very precisely what the gospel is.

That Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried, and rose again is that if somebody comes to you and says, what do I need to do to be saved? And you tell them, invite Jesus into your heart. And they sit down, and they're like, Jesus, come into my heart. They walk away. They're feeling great. They're covered. They're going to hell. So it's very, very, very important to be super crisp on what is the saving gospel. So, saving gospel is in fact Christ, Son of God, died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. Yes sir?

I think one of the things that often happens is people may believe these other gospels and eventually come to a place of believing this Down the road, and I think that happens a lot, that they become Christians by some other means, so to speak. But then they ended up believing this later by absorption, but it wasn't because it was presented as a gospel. Yeah, so that's interesting. They get welcomed into the Christianese sort of culture where they happen to encounter the Word of God, which is a living document, and then they come to know him through that.

So possibility would be much better to give them the truth from the Beginning for sure And so the beauty about the gospel is Believing is not something that I do Repetitions to get really good at it's not it's not a skill It is simply you believe it or you don't believe it everything else in this equation is completely on God and And so when you remove the I from all of these fake sort of Gospels, then what you're left with is, my salvation is entirely on God. And I'm pretty confident that God can take care of that. So that makes me happy, that makes me not worry about my salvation whatsoever.

As soon as you start to shift that onto your own shoulders, Now there's a lot of fear. There's doubt. There's concern. I don't know if I'm very good at this. Which is ironic because oh so many atheists feel like they're very good at keeping the law. That they're deep down very good people.

Once I believe the gospel, once I understand that it's entirely on God's shoulders, it's not on my shoulders whatsoever, I'm in a position where I can rest and I can come to understand who the Lord Jesus Christ is and I can begin to build a relationship and not trying hard in and of myself, but coming to know Him, His life starts being lived out through me, and then this whole process of growth happens. When I start from a gospel, a gospel which is not another gospel, When I start from that other one that involves me, I have to be on my toes all the time. And so my focus is where? All our focus is on Nancy.

That's a big mistake. I had a fellow that I knew probably about a decade ago. And he was coming over to be a youth pastor, and so teaching ministry. And he was talking to me about how our salvation is not secure. I'm like, oh, that's not remotely scriptural.

Let me show you in the Word of God that we've got nothing to worry about. And after a conversation, he ended it with, I choose to believe that I can lose my salvation. So never mind what scripture says. I choose personally to believe that I can lose my salvation because it keeps me on my toes. So God doesn't want us on our toes. He wants us to rest, to grow in the grace of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why the security of salvation is so important. because we're not on our toes. We're just coming to know the Lord.

And it essentially means zero spiritual growth. That's right. I mean, if you are 100% focused on keeping the law, what room is there for spiritual growth? It's very sad. So you end up with somebody who's externally looking kind of Christian, who is saved. We'll be with them. you know, through eternity. That'll be cool and they'll know there. But what a waste of time here. What a sad waste of time.

Okay, so the way that we'll break this out, we'll first look at a couple types of passages that talk about the security of salvation and what we get out of that. And then we're going to go look at a few verses that are taken a little bit out of context that people will then use to show, ah, no, you can lose your salvation. And we'll talk through what some of the fallacies are there. OK. So let us start with not the slightest chance that we're on page 2.

In the Greek, there is a way to very emphatically negate something you're going to say. So instead of saying, this is not true, you end up saying, basically, there's absolutely no possible way. It ain't happening that this is true. You just get this very emphatic, almost redundant way of saying, nope. And the way that you do that in Greek is combination of two words ooh and meh small words, so That's that's good thing. You don't have to say this long ain't no way that's happening. You said ooh meh.

You've got it covered And it shows up over and over again, and it shows up over and over again with respect to the security of our salvation Which is super cool so Second piece that is not in this document, that I'll throw on top of this, is Greek has the notion of moods within a verb. And a mood talks about the relationship of the action that's going on to reality. And so you go all the way from on one side, indicative, where what you're talking about is something that's really going on. to subjunctive and optative, where you're talking about could possibly or should, there's a dependence on something else happening to attach it to reality.

So with that as a backdrop, we can look at John 10, 20, I think we'll... Skip ahead a little bit and hit 27 is about where I'm gonna go So 27 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. I 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."

We've returned this time with a different focus. A few things that I'll note as I walk through here. I guess the one other piece of backdrop is the present tense in Greek, unless there's something that makes it obvious that you should not translate it this way, should be translated as continuous action right now. So in English, we can see a difference between I walk, I am walking So I walk it's sort of a summary statement.

I am walking you're right in the middle of the motion and it's happening continuously right now so Back into these verses we've got My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them that I give and is present tense. And so this is saying, I am constantly giving eternal life to them. Constantly, continuously giving eternal life to them.

And they will never perish. And the will, subjunctive. So how do you put all of that together? It's not saying they will not perish. It is saying there is absolutely no possible way they even could perish. It's a very, very, very strong statement in the Greek that doesn't come through with the strength in the English translation. So, let us skip ahead to the expanded and explained and see how that all plays out. So, we're at the top of page 3.

Jesus is therefore saying that eternal life is something He gives constantly to a sheep that there is not even the slightest possibility that one can lose eternal life so as to perish in hell, even of their own doing. And that even of their own doing, there's a key, there's a signal in the Greek underneath that.

The will-never-perish part is in middle voice, which means the subject is actively involved in it. So if you cannot perish, you of your own accord cannot perish, that means that there's absolutely nothing you can possibly do to get back out of the Father's hand and out of Christ. 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. And verse 29 even takes that a step further with Christ saying His sheep were given to Him by His Father, they can't be taken out of the Father's hand.

That's pretty secure, right? Tough to see how you get more secure and more clear. Okay, so more Greek excitement. So perfect tense in Greek, we've covered this a million times, I will say it again. The perfect tense is a past completed action, so something that's happened already, with ongoing consequences of that action, ongoing results, that continue indefinitely unless the context shows otherwise. So you assume when you see perfect tense that it's done deal, results are ongoing, and they're just going to keep on going. The perfect tense is used relatively infrequently in the New Testament, and authors were pretty specific. I want to use this tense now. colloquialisms around it where you would just sort of throw that tense out. You can pick that up from Wallace's quote, so the perfect tense is used less frequently than the present, aorist, future, or imperfect.

When it is used, there is usually a deliberate choice on the part of the writer. So with that as a backdrop, Let's look at just a few passages that use the perfect tense that relate to our salvation so Truly truly I say to you He who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment But has passed out of death into life has passed out that's already happened and that passing out has ongoing results. Which means what with respect to us and death? We've moved on. We're now alive. We're still life. Day after tomorrow we're still going to be life, not death.

First Corinthians passage, Paul called us an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, to the Church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord, and ours. Have been sanctified? Perfect tense. That was the result of a past action, and that's not going away. There's no becoming unsanctified. You don't get that.

Ephesians 2, 4-10, But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Past action, ongoing results, meaning you're still saved. And day after tomorrow, still saved. and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved.

Past action, ongoing results, true of you right now, through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. So it wasn't because you asked Jesus into your heart. It was not because of yourself. It was because of faith, just believing the simple gospel.

Ten more examples. I thought I typed one in here, but clearly I did not. So we will move on. OK. So do we feel comfortable with our salvation being secure? Oh, yeah. So a past completed action can't be uncompleted. Yeah, that's the case. There's no way I can lose my salvation. That's right.

Romans 6, 1 through 11 is another great passage where we see exactly how we've been identified with his death and burial and resurrection. We've been resurrected to new life. And we find out in another part of scripture that basically we've got two ways of getting out of something. So one is to be born into something new.

So this is from John 3. And number two is death. So you can be separated in either of those two ways. Through a new birth or through death. So, we have this new birth into Christ, which is amazing. And so, then it becomes a matter of, is there a way for us to become separated? It would be through a new birth or through a death. Well, fortunately, Romans 6, 1-11 also lays out that Christ is not going to die again. So we can't get separated that way and there is no extra birth. So we're stuck in Christ. Nothing we can do about it.

The people I've talked to who believe they can lose their salvation usually believe that they are responsible. They're responsible for keeping their salvation. They're responsible for if they lose their salvation. The Bible seems to say to me that I can't even take myself out of Christ because I'm not the issue here. Jesus Christ is the issue. God is the one who gave the people, us, to Jesus Christ.

I didn't do it. And Paul says in Galatians, I think, that if we are to keep the law, then that nullifies the cross of Christ. He says, you know what, Jesus, I didn't need you in this whatsoever. I've got it covered. It turns out I actually am perfect. I know I've sinned at least once in my life, so cross my name off that list. I'm dependent upon Jesus.

Okay, so let's look at some of the passages that people grab onto who really want to stay on their toes and so they'd really like to be part of this whole process themselves. Before we jump into it, the bullets on page 5 talk about some of the fallacies with these, and they all come down to, in How to Study Your Bible, they all come down into very basic Bible study sort of problems. People not trying to understand the larger context. People taking one passage in isolation from all the others and looking at the ones that caused them troubles and say, you know what, I'm just going to ignore those because I want to believe these, rather than trying to understand and reconcile. people not understanding parables, that a parable is not intended to be a perfect representation in all facets from which we can extrapolate truths that are not actually being addressed at the moment. Just a lot of allegorizing is another great one where you can Once you get into allegory land, you can just make up whatever you want. It is fertile soil for cults. Just puts you in the driver's seat of determining what it is that God wants you to know. Let's see what I missed. Okay, bullet point number one.

There are a number of passages that people will grab onto that are talking about eternal rewards that are not talking about, are you saved, are you not? They're talking about the rewards or punishment associated with works. So, while our works will be dealt with, we who believe the saving gospel we're safe.

Passages that fail to rightly divide on two different axes. One, not understanding the difference between the position and condition, i.e. what is eternal versus what is temporal and conditional here on this earth. So they'll take statements about what is temporal, conditional here on this earth and try to relate it to our eternal salvation. not understanding the appropriate stewardship. So they will latch on to kingdom gospel and say kingdom gospel equals gospel gospel and draw conclusions around that. I think the rest of those are covered. Common theme, bad Bible study. In summary, bad Bible study.

OK, so let's look at a few examples of these. If these whet your appetite and you want to go look at more, I took highlights out of the two classes that Vern taught on this. You can find them on the Holly Hills website under the Q&A section in the archived series. I think these are number 20 and number 21, if you want to go chase them down.

Okay, Matthew 25, 32 through 46, that is oh so much reading, but we're going to do it. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep to his right and the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in. Naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Then the righteous fool will answer him, Lord, when did we do any of this stuff? The king will answer and say to them, truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.

So it sounds like people get into the sheep camp by works, right? Doing good stuff? Sheep camp, doing good stuff. Okay, let's find out about the goats. So goats are, then he will say to those on his left, depart from ye accursed ones and into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me Nothing to eat. I was thirsty. You gave me nothing to drink I was a stranger and you did not invite me in naked and you did not clothe me and so on and they say when did we do all this stuff and He says Truly, I say unto you to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these you did not do it to me these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life and So, getting the sheep camp by doing good stuff, getting the goats camp by doing bad stuff, sheep go to heaven and goats go to hell. So how in the world does that not say you can lose your salvation by doing bad stuff? So people grab on to that. God, I've got one. Now I can stay on my toes.

So, first principle of Bible study, let's expand and look at the greater context of what's being taught by Christ at that time and how this fits into all of that. So first up, Christ just got done talking to his disciples. about what the tribulation period was going to look like.

And he's taught them that at the second coming that he's going to judge the nation of Israel and then the Gentiles. So he's talking about a judgment that's happening pre-tribulation. And then it's talking about this sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell sort of thing. So the judgments that are in Matthew relate to a couple things. Thing number one, entrance into the kingdom where Christ is going to reign as king. So are you going to get in or are you going to not? And then number two, the eternal destiny of those who survive the tribulation period, whether Jews or Gentiles.

The question, though, is when we dig under the covers, we find out that those who were treating the sons of Israel, those who were treating the Jews well, were by nature believers. Their life was being lived out. cultural context for this. This is being written by somebody of distinctly Jewish background. And it was oh so obvious to people of a Jewish background that naturally, where the heart sits, that's how actions are going to be lived out. And so they understand actions are external measurement, but it's the core that is causing that.

OK, so why would, if, Jesus is talking about you're going to get into the kingdom or you're not going to make it into the kingdom. Why would he express that in terms of works lived out during that tribulation period? We pretty well know only believers are doing the good works.

Why wouldn't he talk about that instead of very legal sounding things and the answer comes from Genesis 12 1 through 3 so God was super clear and said go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing And I will bless those who bless you. And I will curse those who curse you. So God expresses to the Jews, those who are good to you, I'm going to take care of them. Those who are not good to you, they're not going to fare as well.

So when he circles back around, we've gone through the tribulation period. We're figuring out who's going to make it into the kingdom. It's pretty clear throughout Revelations, the only ones acting good in any fashion are believers. He doesn't make the distinction at the end of the tribulation based upon believer, non-believer, makes it on the basis of what was promised all the way back in Genesis. Were you good to them? Cool, I'm going to be good to you.

Does that make sense, why it would be written up that way? So, I'm just kind of restating it so it makes sense in my head. So, the parable that Christ is speaking of in Matthew 25, the Jews are understanding that because they know Genesis. And they are saying, oh, these things match, and it's a consistent message. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, that's exactly right. Greg? Yes, sir? Isn't there something that says that during the thousand year period of time that certain people are with Christ in the certain area where Christ is and other people aren't.

They're outside of that. And that they can come in once a year or something like that, but only certain representatives can go in. I cut that out of Revelation someplace. Maybe that's out of context. Yeah, I'm not. I don't know about that. I would have to look. OK. I'll have to see if I can find it. OK. All right. Shall we try another one? That was fun. Yes, that was good. OK, that was good.

The fallacy in view is taking a parable and trying to make it a one-to-one correlation to truth in all regards. He began to teach again by the sea. He was teaching many things in parables. Listen to this. Behold, the sower went out to sow. And as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

And he was saying, He who has ears to hear Let him hear. I try to put myself there. And without the cultural backdrop and all of the references, I'd hear this and I would just be wondering, what in the world is this guy talking about? What am I supposed to do with that? And fortunately, sometimes scripture comes along and interprets scripture for you. And this is a great case of when exactly that happens.

And so as soon as he was alone, his followers, along with the twelve, began asking him about the parables. And he was saying to them, to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that while seeing they may see and not perceive, and while hearing they may hear and not understand, otherwise they might return and be forgiven. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? And I can guarantee you in their position, I'd be like, nope. The sower sows the word. These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown.

And when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. In a similar way, there are ones on whom seed was sown on rocky places who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no firm root in themselves but are only temporary. When affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns. These are the ones who have heard the word. But the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. And those are the ones on whom the seed was sown in the good soil. And they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty, sixty, a hundredfold.

So this is something that happens over and over in scripture, which is wonderful, where you come across a deeply confusing passage, and then it goes ahead and interprets itself. Another one that I can think about is in Daniel, when he's predicting Alexander the Great Coming down and conquering there's this dream about Rams with horns and It's very murky and then the next chapter it explains. Okay, here's exactly what's going to happen Somebody's going to come in he's going to come down conquer than the kingdom's going to get split into four pieces Thanks for that because I didn't see it in the first part So scripture is really good about that and So the thing to keep in mind with parables is to understand what the parable is being used to convey and what the parable is not being used to convey.

And the issue is that words are hard. Putting words together in a way that people actually understand them is very hard. And so sometimes we use analogies, we tell stories, we come up with ways of trying to explain one of the concepts that we're talking about, and then people hear the analogy, they hear the parable that's about this one piece, and they're like, oh, but then logically it follows that all this other stuff that's completely untrue and the original speaker never intended whatsoever. Have you guys experienced that in your day-to-day life? I definitely have. Yes, ma'am?

What is that term, 17, and they have no firm root in themselves? What does that mean? The ones whom seed was sown on rocky places, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no firm root in and of themselves. So they've heard the word. They don't have a solid foundation underneath them. They may have gotten a little bit of milk. It got them very excited, but then as soon as there is a problem that comes up, they're like, I don't have anything that I can grab a hold of at this point. And so it's elsewhere in scripture where it's talking about being tossed about by various waves of doctrine.

That's this. I will give you a great example from my personal life, perhaps revealing just a smidge too much. So I run a relatively large organization, which means I don't have close personal relationships with everybody who works for me. And so their understanding of who I am comes from public speaking opportunities, all hands meetings, those sorts of things. And at one of the all-hands meetings, I was trying to explain how a good manager cares about the people that work for them and will take pains to teach them in a way that will help them become better. And as a parent There's a direct relationship. And so I want to explain this difficult concept to a group of people. And I let them know that management, a lot of what I've learned from management, I actually learned from parenting.

And so when we're putting training programs together, we're trying to put training programs together to help you grow in your career and become more successful over time. And what some small subset of them heard was, I think of them all as little children, and I don't respect them. I didn't say that. They took an analogy and expanded it. And the same sort of thing happens over and over with parables. And this is a great example of it. So it's important to understand what's trying to be explained. in my case, relationship between manager and employee, specifically with regard to training. And here, what are we talking about?

So in each of the three kinds of soil that Jesus uses, Is he saying that they can actually lose their salvation? And it's only this last set that lands in great soil that actually gets to grow? And the answer is, of course, no. So various kinds of soil and circumstances. Question for you guys.

If we separate position from condition, Salvation is secure. Is it possible to fall away here on this earth and just go live a really carnal life? Oh yeah. I've got one no, I've got some emphatic head nods yes. I tend to be more with the head nod yesers in that your eternal salvation is 100% secure. There's nothing you can do about that because It doesn't depend on you whatsoever, right?

But your day-to-day walk here... Sure, I know a number of carnal Christians that have just sort of run off the reservation and want to be part of this culture. And so it is possible to fall away and still be saved. You misunderstood. That's why I kept your name out of it so it wouldn't be recorded.

The point of the parable is all about once the seed has been planted, how does your living out, how does your day to day actually look? And some folks, once it's planted, they don't actually respond super well. If it's firmly planted, though, they are 100% saved. One question I have, and I've had that with this pest for a long time. Is this referring to leavers? Is this a conditional thing?

So I'm trying to find the right spot here. It is talking about believers. So I don't see how, for example, those who land in the gravel, they receive the word with joy. That tells me they believed. There was excitement about that. But they have no underlying foundation, and they get just sort of taken away by the world. Having believed the gospel, They're believers. They're saved. But they may be living a completely carnal life. Does that answer your question? Yes, yeah it does. I've gone to this a lot. I think this is a scripture in which I think a lot of people, or most people, could apply it to themselves in all those conditions.

Because things come up, they choke things out. You might get some poor teaching that will send you off in a bad direction for some time, but you still have that position. That's what we talked before, why that's important. You don't know it, but you have that. Your position is solid. And this kind of explains to me what can happen in our condition. But I was never really sure, because this has been put to me in my early teaching that, hey, this is something that can happen to you. Yeah, better keep working. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So this helps a lot. And this passage actually lines up really well with what people do with a similar passage over in verse John, where he's talking about how to restore yourself to fellowship. And so what people will do with this particular passage is they'll infer, OK, well, you've got a plant that withered and died. And plants that wither and die, they don't come back to life. So that's that. Well, that's taking that parable, that's taking that metaphor too far. That's saying, oh, Craig thinks the training is like this. Therefore, he believes we're all little children and doesn't respect us.

I never said that. Never said that. Here, I think Christ, if they came to him and said, Oh, so then once they wither and die, then that's that and they're just forever lost. His response would be, His response would be something that I didn't quite understand that he'd have to then explain to me. But what it would convey would be, I never said that. There was nothing in that parable about that.

That's all you, buddy. And so that's why it's really important to be able to understand what they're talking about, what they're not. Did you have? Yeah, I was going to ask. Did Judas, when he was a disciple, believe that Jesus was the Messiah? I doubt it. Was he only focused on his own purpose, which was to get rid of the Romans? I believe he was pretty focused on himself and what he could get out of the situation.

We know he was pilfering money as the treasurer, so there were certain advantages. We've had the second bell, people are starting to loiter. There are still two or three more examples just in this document that you can go and look at. A fun game to play might be As you read through each one of these, ask yourself which of the former bullet points this is.

Is this a case where they don't understand position versus condition? Is this a place where they don't understand stewardship? Are they misinterpreting a parable? It would be good to try to line those up. What is interesting is the Arminian viewpoint, that is, that I can lose my salvation, exalts man's will. And what is often the case is that the Arminian will choose to believe things about the passage based on their will regarding the passage rather than drawing the actual meaning out of the passage. So it's a double exaltation of the human will. Yes.

That is no good. I guess maybe I'll close really quick with a story that Vern told me back in the day that there were Jehovah's Witnesses that came to his door and answered and they were starting to try to convert Vern and he said, oh, you guys believe that you can lose your salvation, right? They're like, yes. It's like, oh, I feel so bad for you.

That must be horrible and they were just like It's like it is because as soon as you're focused there then you're not resting if you're not growing so it's It's really tragic. Anyway, we should close Father, thanks so much for that great love with which you've loved us. Thank you for sending your son to Diana Cross for our sins. And they've made the whole thing completely independent of us, which is great because we're not good at stuff. So it's in Jesus name I pray. Amen.