Church of Sardis Pt 2

Andy, will you open us up with a word of prayer? I will. Our Father in God, again, we thank you for the ability to come, to open your word, to learn of you, to learn more of you, to help us, to help us

Lord this morning. And Brother Mike, hope it is your word that we would grow in grace and acknowledge that one who, as we so often say, so loved us that he gave himself for us.

Be with us, Lord, as only you can. In Jesus' name. Amen. Turn your

Bibles over to the letter to the church in Sardis, Revelation chapter 3.

I'm just going to read verses 1 through 6 and then we'll pick up kind of where we left off last week.

To the angel of the church in Sardis, he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this,

I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive but you are dead. Wake up.

Strengthen the things that remain, which are about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my

God. So remember what you have received and heard and keep it and repent.

Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know the hour in which

I will come to you. But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments and they will walk with me in white for they are worthy.

He who overcomes will thus be clothed with 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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Alright, last week we started this letter to the church of Sardis and we said that hey, this church by all means and purposes looks from the exterior that it was a thriving church.

It was one that had the reputation of being alive, meaning it was vibrant and we must not make the mistake of what vibrance in life is.

Jesus makes that distinction. Hey, you have a reputation of being alive, being vibrant, but you're dead.

Last week we, what were these?

I don't care what order you put them in. I'm not saying it this time. I know what the last one was. Well, we'll start from the bottom and work our way up.

I, budget, bucks, but you're right, budget, bricks.

Seeing growth in these, does that mean life?

Does it mean the church is dead? No. No, so you have to look at each one of these and see how they correlate with the ministry of the church.

One, is it done for the person and work of Jesus Christ? Hey, look man, if we started growing and we needed to build a bigger building, man, that'd be great.

And if we, because we needed to build a bigger building, we're going to need some bucks.

All right, to do that. And we got to have a place to put people when they come. But if that's, oh, okay.

Yes. Yes, Lord. He's on I -75. He's on his way here.

The Holy Spirit's on I -75. Yeah, so in and of itself, these are not wrong, but these can't be the goal.

If the goal is to have a bigger building, it's wrong. Should we want church growth?

Yes. Yes, and I've said it before. I think I said it last week. I'd rather preach to 30 people than 300.

Hey, and I would rather teach to two than 20. Okay? If the two are really committed to wanting to know

God's word and to want to apply it to their life and to grow in holiness and grow in the grace and knowledge of his son.

And there's nothing wrong with having a bigger budget. There's nothing wrong with, hey, we need to try to see if we can send more.

I said it last week. If we want to send some more to Scott, we try to do that every year, try to raise that if we can. There's times that we can't.

Hey, if we can send more money, but we do take special offerings to send to Scott to continue to keep him doing what he's doing.

Although they don't have, we'll just take Scott for instance. He doesn't have anything to pay for over there in the sense of, dude, he doesn't have a house he's renting.

Dude, he lives in a hut like thing. Okay? But it does take expenses to get him there. It does take, it takes expenses for him and her to continue to satellite stuff for them to do as they translate.

When she translates it, then they send it to this other group of people so that they can oversee the translation.

So there is some cost in that. And if the goal is just to bring bodies into a building, think of just a logical conclusion.

If your goal is just to fill seats, what are you going to do? Put on a show.

That's the answer. Put on a show. Whatever it takes. If it means a show, yeah. If it means snake handling and drinking poison, that's what they're going to do.

Okay? Yeah, so just because you've got bigger buildings, you've got a lot of money and a lot of bodies, doesn't mean life.

Church in Texas. The guy with an incredible amount of hair gel.

Gigantic white tee and his fake church. Okay? Joel Osteen has a fake church.

That is not a church. He is a false teacher. Okay? What is he doing?

He's trying to fill the building. But he's not warning them of the dangers of not following the way

Christ commanded. A false teacher has just enough to set the hook. Everyone of them.

Don't say the word sin. Well, I mean, that right there is a dead giveaway. Yeah. So, in and of itself, these are not wrong.

But these should not be the goal. The goal should be to make disciples.

Make disciples. And in making disciples, these things can grow. So, I didn't want you all to think last week that I thought all these were wrong.

Okay? They're not. But that's not the test. That's not the test. So, let's pick up where we left off.

I think we left off at verse 3. Never really got into it. He says here, after he says...

Good morning. He says, your deeds were incomplete. We talked about that last week.

Basically, your deeds are hollow. There's nothing in them that is doing what

God had required. Basically, it had fallen short. And the word is not harmony. That's the word for sin. But the word not completed has to do with falling short of a goal that was set.

And in verse 3, it says, so remember what you have received and heard. Hey, when's the last time we heard remember?

It was back at the Church of Ephesus. Hey, what were the three re's of the

Church of Ephesus? It was remember, repent, and return. And this, in many ways, is going to say the same thing.

As he says here, so remember what you have received and heard. What had the church at Sardis received and heard?

You could even say, what did they hear then receive? I'm fine with however you want to phrase it.

But what had they received and heard? The gospel.

Sure. That's the only way the church is going to grow. And immediately, that church began to grow. And we don't know who planted this church.

We know it was from Paul's efforts that he sent Epaphras.

Did he send someone else? Because Ephesus was his home base when he was in Asia Minor. And it says that all of Asia Minor had heard the gospel because of Paul being in Ephesus some three years.

So what else? What did they hear and receive? Yes, they did hear the gospel. They heard that, hey, there's only one name given under heaven by which men must be saved.

And that's Jesus Christ the Lord, the one who was crucified, he was buried, and he is resurrected.

But what else did they have to receive from Paul's teaching to be a thriving church?

Their ecclesiology had to be correct. Hey, Paul gave certain instructions on how that church should be set up, didn't he?

He gave instructions on how the church should be governed, what the teaching should go within that church.

That's what Jesus is saying to this church, hey, you remember when you received the gospel, you remember how it was then, you remember how you loved me then, you remember how you were thriving then, and you remember what you heard and all of the things that were set up for you by the instructions of the apostle.

Do those things again. Do those things again. Same thing in the church of Ephesus.

What did he tell them to do? You've left your first love. He said, hey, you remember how it was when you first got saved, when you first came to faith?

Now that you have departed from that first love, what are you going to do? Remember what you did.

Remember the works that you used to do. Now go back. This is the same thing. Go back and do those very same things that you've done before.

And he says, keep it. What does it mean to keep? If I hand you something, hold on to it.

Yeah, but not just... I'm not keeping this pen.

I'm holding it. Keeping it means to guard it. To put something around it.

Dude, it's valuable. In the Old Testament, the idea of hide the

Word in your heart, I think even some translations say keep the Word of God in your heart that you may not sin against in Him. Right? Yeah. So what does it mean when it says hide or keep or put it in your heart?

It means to guard it. Keep it there. Keep it because it's valuable. It's the standard by which you're to be governed by.

And then he says that same word we've heard several times, repent. What does it mean to repent?

Does it mean to change your mind? Simply? Huh? Yeah. Yeah, it means to...

I'm going this direction. I'm going to turn and go back the opposite way. Yeah, is it a changing of the mind?

Yes, but it's not simply... It's not just the simple changing of the mind. Okay, this is what

I believed about Jesus then. No, I believe this. That's not it. It's not simple cognition. It is an act of the will.

Yes, this is the direction that I'm going. He's telling... We'll just use Sardis. He's saying, look, you're dead.

So if you're going this way, continually being dead, I'm giving you the instructions by which you can repent.

It means you're going to have to go back the other direction, which is back towards me. Look, you can't be running towards God and running from God at the same time.

If the church is dying, what are they doing? They're running from the word that was given to them.

What's that? Running from truth. Yeah, running from truth. Or at least watering it down.

At least watering it down. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know the hour in which

I will come to you. Oh, here's that famous saying, like a thief. You know, what is this talking about?

Well, the context tells us, hey, look, he says, if you don't repent and you don't receive and go back to the things that you heard from before,

I'm going to come to you as a thief. What does that mean to come like a thief? Unexpectedly.

Unexpectedly. Hey, Jesus in, I think it's in the Olivet, yeah, it's in the Olivet Discourse, probably towards the end of chapter 24.

He makes that transition where he's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, chapter 24, verses 1 through 36.

Then he makes a shift. And he begins to talk about, hey, the end of time, his second coming.

That's where the shift takes place around verse 36. And he even says, around verse 42, 43, he says, it will come on you like a thief in the night.

If the owner of the house would have known in the hour in which the thief was coming, he would have been prepared.

I don't think there's anybody in this room, if you knew somebody was going to break into your house at 2 a .m., that you wouldn't be sitting up cocked and ready.

Yeah, a fool would not be ready. Not knowing, okay, not knowing it happening is one thing, but knowing if the thief is coming, you would be a fool to not be prepared.

That's what Jesus is saying in Matthew 24. Look, you're going to be foolish to not be prepared.

I am coming, and you better be prepared when I get there. He's saying here, I'm going to come in an hour in which you do not know, and it will be a time in which you're not expecting it.

Now, is this talking about this passage that's been used for the rapture of the church?

This passage that's been used to say, oh, he's specifically in application saying he's going to come in an hour in which they don't know and rapture them out.

This is also going to take place again in chapter 4. That's not what this is talking about.

It's specifically talking about him coming in judgment to this group of people if they do not repent. Okay? He says the same thing in the previous churches that he says,

I will come to you. What about the one where he says, I'll come and make war with you. Okay? Why? Because they would not repent.

Same thing here. I'm going to come on you if you do not repent, and if you do not wake up, I will come in an hour in which you do not know.

Then he says in verse 4, but you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments.

From a biblical perspective, what does it mean to have your garments soiled? It's pretty much given to filthiness.

Given over to whatever... Lifestyle is... Yeah, whatever that leads to make you unclean.

And, excuse me, in Zechariah, I think it's chapter 4?

I think it's chapter 4. There's a passage there where Satan, one of the only times

Satan's name is used in the Old Testament along with Job, his title, he's going to accuse

Joshua the high priest. And it says that he was accusing him because he had filthy garments.

And actually what it was, he was unclean, and the word that's used there is human excrement.

The dude had poo poo all over him. Let's just be honest. That's what the picture is. He was soiled with human excrement.

And God says, hold on a second. You can shut your mouth. Shut your mouth.

Take off his clothes. Take off those ones that have been soiled in excrement. You put on him a white robe.

And you put on him... I want you to top him off with a white turban because he's mine. Okay? In this case, he's saying, here, this is

Jesus speaking, there are a few here. Not everybody in that church was dead. Okay? There's a few there that have not been...

had their garments soiled or stained by the world that they had been surrounded by.

And I can't remember if it was in 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy, he tells... Paul tells

Timothy to don't be stained by the sins and the things of this world.

Same thing. These men and women that he's talking about that have not had their garments soiled have been...

have kept themselves from the things of the world and being separate. And it says, and they will walk with me in white for they are worthy.

Well, walking with someone in white has to do with what? Being cleaned by the power of the blood of Christ through his spirit for they are worthy.

How can anybody be worthy? Through Christ. Yeah, that's not something we do. Not by pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps saying, hey,

I can do this. Anybody that thinks that they're one of the few, one of the proud, stiff -upper -lip

Christians is setting themselves up for failure because you can't do this on your own. This is a community effort.

That's why the lone ranger, the lone ranger or lone wolf

Christianity stuff doesn't work. God made us to be in community with one another. That's why he says we all have gifts and talents and that we're fitly joined together so that we can work together.

If we were all... If we were all eyes, then how could we use our hands? He says, look, if we were all hands, how could we not see?

If we were all ears, all we would do is hear. But he has given us all gifts and talents because we need to be a community of believers that work together to ultimately, what's the goal?

To get us all home safely. That's the goal. And where's home? Heaven.

That's the goal. Get home safely. He knew who they were.

Sure. Out of all those people in that church prop, he knew exactly to the point who everyone was. Certainly.

And was encouraging them to continue on. Matter of fact, not only is he encouraging... These ones who had not had their garments stained by this, those would be the ones that he would be encouraging to strengthen those that are about to die.

Those which were falling away. Let me clarify. This is not talking about losing salvation. But those who were becoming lackadaisical, like we said last week, they were going this way.

He's saying, look, no, no, no, no, no. Those that are there need to strengthen those that remain that are about to die.

Look, anybody caught in sin needs to have those who are spiritual come alongside of them and do what? Restore them.

This was a church that needed to be restored. This was a church that needed life and it was only going to come through faithful men and women who would continually preach the word to them.

He says in verse 5, He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments.

And let me stop right there before we open up the controversial part. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments.

He has already said these. There were some that were there that hadn't had their garments soiled.

So what does it mean to be clothed with another garment? What does it mean to be clothed with another white garment?

Well, we're going to see this come up no less than four more times in the book of Revelation.

And chapter 4, chapter 7, and I think it's chapter 9.

We're going to see that those who are clothed in white that have had robes put on them that are clean and white are only those that have been justified by Christ.

Matter of fact, when we get to the 144 ,000, those all have robes.

They were given robes. Why? Because they had been set apart and sanctified as a picture of the church. So those who have white robes are those who have been set apart, sanctified by God, justified by the power of His blood, and have been imparted with them the power of the

Spirit. And now here's the controversial part. I will not erase his name from the book of life.

What does that sound like? I'm just going to be honest. What does it sound like? You can lose your salvation. Okay. All right.

Anybody else have any comments about that? All right,

I guess not. Is it possible for someone to lose their salvation? From our perspective, we believe in the eternal security of the believer.

Okay? We believe that once a person's saved, let me clarify something. We do not believe the once saved always saved doctrine.

Okay? But we do believe that once a person is saved, they're saved to the uttermost.

They're saved until the end. Will they go up and down in their sanctification, in their walk?

You better believe it because there's nobody here that has a SpaceX -style trajectory to heaven.

No, it's up and down. It's up and down. It's up and down. But that person will remain faithful until the end.

They will not fall away. This, on the surface, does sound like, hey, a person can have their name blotted out.

It does sound like that. There are some Armenians believe that you can have your name blotted out.

I had a conversation. I preached at a church and a guy, he is an Armenian, he believes that this has been just a few years ago, two years ago, and they believe that you could lose your salvation.

And he brought up this passage. He said, well, it says right there, you know, you can have your name blotted out.

I said, well, it doesn't say you can have your name. It says he will not. I said, hey, if you want to say that you can, doesn't it seem a little inconsistent to say that God knew all things?

And he would say, yes, he did. So God knew everybody that would be saved. Yep, he did.

Well, then why did he even put the name in the book if he's going to blot it out? I said, that doesn't make any sense.

He says, well, and we believe that a person, all their names are written in a book.

And as they reject, God wipes them out. I was like, well, that's not what the

Bible teaches. I said their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world.

So this passage can also be taught in a way that, like I said a second ago, this is not saying it can be.

He's just saying he's not going to. And that is probably the most easiest way for the

Calvinistic perspective to say, hey, this is not saying it can be. He's just saying he's not going to. That's not satisfactory for me.

I'm probably going to bring something up that maybe some of you have never heard. But this is my conclusion on this text, okay, on this specific section.

The intertestamental time, I've got to give you some run -up to how I come to my conclusion. In the intertestamental time, the synagogues began to be used.

You know, the synagogues weren't in the first temple. It came the time that the second temple was built by Zerubbabel.

And then they began to have Jewish communities that were a part of the diaspora still. So they began to have synagogues. Synagogues is the place where they would come and they would hear the word

Torah read, where they would have teaching to the children. They would have basically

Jewish community life in the Hellenized world. And once you get into Israel, there would be places where there were synagogues because we remember seeing

Jesus say he was going to a synagogue. Remember, he healed the withered hand man guy, and they were going to kick him out.

That happened in the synagogue. So the synagogue was a place to where you would go and hear the word read,

Torah. Well, then, as you get into the time of Herod where he makes the second temple bigger and larger, you begin to have what was called the benedictions.

There are 18 benedictions that were read in synagogue as people were dismissed.

You would have your reading, your praying, you'd have your fellowship, and they would have these benedictions that were dismissed.

Those 18 benedictions were read at the end of each service time of prayer at the end of the day.

And the time in which the book of Revelation was written, which I'll have the early date, the second temple obviously was still up, not yet destroyed.

But the conflict in the synagogue between the Jews and the

Christians had already begun. Remember, by and large, when the church was birthed, who was being converted the most?

Was it Gentiles or Jews? Jews. Jews. If you were a Jewish person, you were not privy to have a scroll in your house.

Where would they be talking about this morning? Where would you go hear Torah read if you wanted to hear the Word of God? Even if you were a

Christian, you were still going to have to go to the synagogue to hear Torah read. You wanted to hear the

Word read. That was still part of their culture, was still, hey, we have to still hear the

Word read. We still need to be involved in our heritage as a

Jewish person, but know that Christ has come and fulfilled that. Well, as that distinction and difference between Christianity and Judaism took place, there was a benediction that arose called the

Baruch HaNamayim. It is the blessing of the apostate.

Okay? Blessing of the cursing. And what it says is, and I can pull it up if you want me to read the whole thing, but in short, you can look it up if you'd like.

It's number 12 of the 18 benedictions. It says, we pray that the apostates would be cursed, that the

Nazarene and his sects would have their names blotted out of the

Lamb's Book of Life. That's what it says. So imagine you're standing in the synagogue, and whoever the cantor or whoever it is stands up, that's what he said.

Who is the Nazarene they're talking about? Christ. Who were they asking to have their names blotted out of the

Book of Life? Christians. All of his believers. That was the prayer in the synagogue before the fall of the second temple, which would have been read.

Now, I say this is Jesus making a poke at those

Jewish people. And remember, how big was that synagogue in Sardis? Remember last week? Said it could seat almost 1 ,000 people.

He's saying here, look, I know what they're saying to you. I know what they're asking.

They're asking for God, for Yahweh, to blot your name out of the Book of Life.

I'm telling you, I ain't ever going to do that. Why? Because you have garments that are white and you are worthy.

Now, if you disagree with me, no problem. That's my conclusion. Any questions, comments, outbursts of anger on that before we move forward?

Do you think that they would have been, so like their church here, they would have met in the synagogue? There would have been some that would have went to hear the

Torah read. Okay. Apart from the church. Apart from this. Okay. I don't know if it does say this last week.

I'm not sure. When they began to excavate that church or that synagogue they found, remember, you had memorabilia and obviously being a

Jewish synagogue, all synagogues were Jewish, they found not only the

Jewish memorabilia, but then they found Christian things written on the wall. It was obviously there was

Christians and Jews that were communing together in that synagogue together. Then they did also find pagan things too on some pedestals and on some kneeling benches and I think if I remember correctly, in a lathing pool they had something around, lathing for washing.

They found some pagan writings or inscriptions.

So, yeah, were these people having to go to the synagogue to hear Torah read? Yes. Were they still meeting in their homes?

Yes. What did Paul, hey, did Paul, Paul knew that the Jewish people that were worshipping, that weren't worshipping

Christ the way that he had prescribed, did Paul go to the synagogue and condemn them?

No, he went there and he preached the gospel. Let the word condemn them, but where did he go to hear the word?

He still went to the synagogue. Hey, think about in the graciousness of God and in his mercy, after the veil was torn top to bottom, whether you believe it was 30 or 33, however you want to AD, those sacrifices continued on for another 40 years, okay?

We don't have any indication that the apostles were going through Solomon's portico or going into the court of the

Jews and then telling them every sacrifice you're giving right now is a blasphemous act towards God.

Were they? Yes, they were. But what did they do? They used the temple as a place to evangelize.

Hey, you don't need that lamb anymore. You don't need to do this anymore. The sacrifice has come.

That altar was fulfilled in Christ. The Shekinah glory no longer sits over the

Ark of the Covenant between the two Jerims. It now dwells in the hearts of His people because we have the

Holy Spirit. Now those were the conversations that they had. That's what caused the riots.

You know, Paul, they even grabbed Paul, I think it was in Acts. It had to be around 19 to 22,

I think it is. I can't remember. They grabbed Paul in the temple complex and the

Roman soldiers had to basically extract him because he was there doing a

Jewish act. He was there doing a Jewish act of fulfilling a vow and they thought he had brought a

Greek in there. So we know that that was their goal was to go in, do these things, to be there at feast time still, to proclaim the word.

So in this case, these people probably, what we do know, they did interact with these people in these synagogues and if they were hearing that benediction, which is my conclusion.

To me, that makes better sense of the text than saying, hey, the person can lose their salvation because that does somewhat come out of nowhere.

I will not erase his name out of the book of life. Where would we have ever heard that concept even brought up before in Scripture?

Nowhere. But if you know historically what took place, then you can say, oh, that makes more sense.

They were asking Yahweh to remove their name because they were followers of Jesus and Jesus is saying right here in this text,

I am Yahweh and I ain't gonna do that. Did I answer your question or no?

Okay. And he says, and I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.

And what do we know about that? Jesus said multiple times, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my father.

If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my father. Now, does that mean that if a person, just because a person makes a bold acclamation of Christ that he's a believer?

No, it does not. Me and the guy that I planted a church with, this has been 10 plus years ago, 11 years ago, we were sharing the gospel downtown.

This guy had come from, I think it was either Jordan or Syria and they were

Catholic. I didn't realize there was that many Catholic churches over in Syria. Tons of them. And he said, so you're telling me, and he did, he lifted up his shirt and he took a bullet from some insurgents.

He said, so you're telling me when I told those men that I believe in Jesus and the

Holy Mother Mary and I took that bullet, that that doesn't save me.

I said, I'm telling you this exactly, a bullet that does not save you. It does not. One, you added a woman to that thing that has nothing to do with your salvation.

All she did was birth the Son of God into this world. Now, was that a significant, was

Mary a significant figure in history? You better believe it. Yeah. Yes. The only virgin ever.

Sure. Yeah. That's not what we're saying, but they see her as co -redemptus. And he said, so I'm not going to go to heaven after I took a bullet and my family was killed.

I said, brother, I'm telling you, if all of your faith and trust is not put in Jesus Christ, I don't care what has happened, although terrible, terrible what's happened to his family, you will suffer the wrath of God for all of eternity because it's not anything that you do that's going to, it's the faith, simply hands of faith.

I ain't got nothing. The only thing I can give you, look, look, look, the only thing that we bring to our salvation is sin.

Take it. Here, this is it. You take it. And he says he's going to confess

Him before His angels. That will be on that final day. Before the angels of the

Lord, we will be standing in the presence of Almighty God and He will say, that one's mine.

That is my child. That is, I have adopted that one because of His faith in me.

And then verse 6 says that, that's a continued statement, he who has an ear, let him hear what the

Spirit says to the churches. Remember, it's not talking about this here.

What's it talking about? Discernment. Yeah. And what's the

Spirit saying to this church? Yeah. And He gives them instructions on how to do that.

He says repent and then He said, what were the instructions He said on what repentance was going to look like? Remember?

What you heard and keep it. Keep it. Keep it. We got about 7 minutes maybe?

Any... I don't want to start Philadelphia. Because we're going to get...

We'll have to back up anyway. So, any questions? Comments?

Outburst of anger. Letters to the... There's the outburst of anger.

Yes sir. I was just going to say, you know, I don't believe that repentance is a one time deal.

It's not. You know, the Bible tells us to repent of our sins continually.

I don't know why I broke that up. It just, you know... Well, repentance is a lifestyle. If you look at the 95 Theses that...

Have you ever read the 95 Theses from Martin Luther? That he put on the Wittenberg Castle? That's what started the

Reformation. These were 95 protestations that we want to debate. Verse 3 had to do with repentance.

That repentance was not a one time event. That repentance was a way of life.

And that's true. But there is... If you don't have that initial going, okay,

I'm turning from unbelief in Christ and I'm going to turn to belief in Him, there has to be that initial entrance into the

Kingdom. I think why I brought that up is the comment you made that we don't believe once saved, always saved. I grew up in a primitive

Baptist church. Most of the beliefs that we have here, I believe was taught from a small child.

But it wasn't until I came here until I understood that, listen, there can be a fault in once saved, always saved.

Because does that mean you can just go live the way you want to for the rest of your life? It doesn't. No, it doesn't.

So there has to be... And we will sin. We will mess up, whatever. There has to be a continual repentance.

Sure. And I said it at the beginning. I don't think anybody in here would say that once a person's saved, they're saved forever.

Okay? I don't think there's anybody here that wouldn't say that. I believe that. But the once saved, always doctrine that is propagated is, okay, you can have believed in Jesus now, but you know what, man?

In life, you're just kind of backslidden. Backslidden. You know, backslidden is an English translation of the word apostate.

Honestly, I really wish they would have never used that word backslidden. There has been books and millions of sermons preached on that about the backslidden condition of...

The word means apostate. What is an apostate? That's a person that's faithless.

That's a person... Even in... It's in Jeremiah and Hosea, it's used. It's only used like three times in the

Old Testament. And it's not talking about, hey, man, the trespass of a person being caught in sin.

That's not the idea of the word that's used in the Old Testament. It's not backsliding. It's going, okay, we know that Yahweh, from the

Old Testament perspective, was this was the way to go. We're not going to do that. We're going to follow the Baals. We're going to follow the

Ashtoreths. We're going to follow all these other things. That's a willful act to go another way.

That's the same thing that's talked about in the book of Hebrews. Because Hebrews is saying, hey, look, you know, there was one sacrifice.

And if you turn, that's what it said, turn from that once -for -all sacrifice and you go another way, there ain't no hope for you.

So the once -saved -always -saved doctrine then leads into, well, he's just backsliding.

He's just backsliding. Look, man, little Johnny, you can't tell me that Johnny prayed a prayer, signed a card, got dunked in the baptistry when he was seven and then lived like hell for 37 years, died in his sin.

Show me that individual in the Bible. Show me. Nowhere.

It's nowhere. Now... You hear that preached in funerals all the time. What I'm saying is...

Well, it's because by and large, the funeral, when you go to those, you're justified by death alone, not by faith alone.

Everybody don't go to heaven when they die. Everybody doesn't. But that's what funerals wind up doing a lot of the time.

Yeah. Yeah, a lot of the time it's, hey, you know, well, he was a good dude. Okay, well, he might have been.

He might have loved his wife. He might have paid his bills on time. He might have done all those things. Those have their place.

I want you to know those are things you should do. But that don't save you. And that don't keep you saved.

That don't keep... That's why he who finishes to the end will be saved. And I'm not saying we're working to obtain that.

We're saying that's looking at that person's totality of their life. Was there a lifestyle of repentance?

There better be. Is there going to be times in people's lives where there's falls? Yes. I don't really care for the word fall, but that's the easier way to see it.

Been caught in a trespass or a stumbling, you know, scandal on. Caught in a trap, okay? But the consistent pattern of that person's life should be not sinning.

Should be repenting. Because we're all going to sin. Ain't nobody in here... I don't think once they sit here and say they don't struggle with any sin.

If you sit here, you struggle with lying. Because everybody in here does. What you struggle with may not be what

I struggle with. You know, we were just... Todd, me and Sue were talking to somebody the other day and it was that, you know, she struggled that she was worried about her husband sometime maybe going home with another woman.

I was like, well, my wife doesn't have to worry about that. My wife doesn't have to worry about me bringing home another car or motorcycle. Okay? So everybody's got their issue.

Yeah, she's not worried about that. She's worried about, oh, another car. You know, that kind of thing. But everybody has things that they struggle with.

But is the... You got a question? No, I was just going to say something about the people that talk about the ability to lose your salvation.

Like, you didn't have the ability to get it. And when Christ says that, you know, I will lose none.

I mean, by saying that, oh, by thinking that a person can lose their salvation, I don't think they're unknow...

I don't think they're knowingly denying that, you know, but by thinking that that, oh, a person can lose their salvation, it's kind of like denying what

Jesus said. I will... I'm not disagreeing with you, but if you understand a true

Arminian... Anybody know what I say, Arminian, what I'm talking about? Arminian perspective. Okay? If you hold to a perspective that a person has libertarian free will, which means they have no internal or external influence on any of their decisions, which is not true.

Everybody has an influence. I mean, you get up in the morning, why did you put on white socks?

Well, because they look better than red socks. Something influenced you to, I don't want to look goofy. Okay? So, but from the

Arminian perspective, if you can freely receive it, you can freely give it back.

I'm not agreeing with it, but at least for some of those Arminians, I can say, or at least they're being consistent. I don't get into an argument anymore about eternal security.

I believe that a person's saved, they're going to persevere to the end. Okay? I believe that. I'm not getting into an argument with them anymore.

Because even that, people I preach at that church a couple years ago, I got in a conversation with him afterwards about, because I preached on Noah, and how if Noah didn't, if Noah didn't finish building the ark to the end, he would have drowned just like the rest of them.

But his faith had him persevere to the end. And I said, well,

I have a question. If y 'all believe, this is not y 'all, but them. I said, y 'all believe that a person can lose their salvation.

Y 'all ought to be the holiest people in the world. And you ain't.

And you're not. So that's usually what I say. I'm not going to get in an argument about it. We can disagree. I'm not going to mean you, but whoever this person is that says, hey,

I believe you can. Okay, then you ought to be the holiest person in the world. Because you've got to hold on to it.

And you're not. We ought to be thankful that Christ holds on to us. Because if it was up to me,

I thought he ought to let go of the rope. I said, forget it. Because life does get tough.

And your faith gets challenged. And you get depressed. And you get sad.

And then you get glad. And then you get complacent. So we've got all those problems that we have to deal with.

Anything else? We've got 35 seconds. All right, I'll pray for us and then we'll go.

Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. What a privilege it is for us to have the written word of God in our hands.

Thank you, Lord, that we can open it up. We can examine it. We can see how it was written.

It's an original context and the people in which it was written. And Father, we can see how it applies to us today and will apply to generations to come if you tarry.

Father, we thank you for your Son. We thank you for what He has provided for us in His passive and active obedience.

We thank you for the Holy Spirit, Father, which gives us ears to hear. So Father, I pray that as we have looked at your word today, that Father, we would take the principles that are within it and it would be applied to our life.