PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS: How are we kept saved?? (Calvinism Series: Part 6) | ask Theocast

Can someone sin for so long that they end up losing their salvation or that they ultimately walk away from God?

It's a great question. We're going to answer that in our part six on Calvinism and the perseverance of the saints.

Stay tuned. I'm John Moffitt.

I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church and host of Theocast. This is Ask Theocast where we answer your questions from a

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This is part six in our final video on Introduction to Calvinism or Tulip or the Doctrines of Grace, whatever you want to title it.

We're going to be covering the P in Tulip, which is the perseverance of the saints. As our good friend

R .C. Sproul has made the observation, and I tend to agree with him, but perseverance of the saints can be confusing because it sounds like you're saying that we, the

Christian, the saint, persevere to the end. And that's not necessarily what they were arguing for when they came up with the anacronym and they were responding to the

Remonstrants or responding to the Arminians. It was really the idea of God preserving them.

So, if we're going to change the P, we'd probably say the preservation of the saints. And the reason why we come to these conclusions is that we look at the doctrine of adoption and the indwelling of the spirit and the promises that God has made as it relates to his children, and we learn that it is not the saint that keeps themselves in good standing with the father, but it's the father's promises that he will preserve or keep those to whom he has adopted or those to whom he had chosen to the end.

So, let me read you just a couple of verses from Paul and even one from John as he quotes

Jesus as it relates to how we, as children, are preserved by the father.

So, Ephesians 4, 1 -13 says this, and 14, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

Holy Spirit. So, he's talking about there's a protection, and where does that protection come from?

Not from us, but the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

So, Paul makes it, he uses this illustration that we are protected or sealed by a source outside of us, which is the

Holy Spirit, and it says who is the guarantee of our inheritance. So, the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance, not us and not our works.

Famous verse from Philippians, from Paul, Philippians 1 -6, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ, not upon our own strength, right?

He's pointing to whose strength in that part, it's Christ's. So, the way in which we've begun is the way we're going to end, which is the sovereign power, or some would say the monergistic, one working, mono one working.

So, it's not us working, but Christ working to preserve us. Listen to Jesus's prayer in John 17 and 11.

He says this, I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me, and I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction,

Judas, that the scriptures might be fulfilled. So, these are just a few examples of where we can see that the

Holy Spirit is the one that preserves us and keeps us. John 6 is another great example of this, that Jesus says,

I lose none that the Father gives me. So, the way in which that we go from regeneration, we're brought to life, to death and glorification with God is not a work of man, and it's not even

God starts it and we preserve it. He brings us to life, we keep ourselves alive. None of that is the way in which it's described to us.

It really is Jesus is the one who brings us to life through the power of the Spirit, and through the Spirit, he preserves us to the very end, and then we are, after death, glorified and brought into the presence of the

King, and then one day we will be with him in the new heavens and the new earth. Here's the question, though,

I started with at the beginning of the video. Is it possible, though, for Christians who have been chosen by God, who have been indwelt by the

Spirit, then to go on and do sin? Not just sin, but as some would say, radical sin, horrible sin, and for long periods of time?

And the answer to that, according to the Bible, is yes. Just two examples that we can use of many.

From the Old Testament, probably everybody remembers the story of David, and David, it wasn't a one -night issue where he understood what he did that night and then repented of it the next day.

It was such a long period of sin that Nathan the prophet had to come to him and give him an illustration so that he could see his sin and need to repent, and so the man took another, so David took another man's wife.

Then, let's be frank, he connived such a way to have him killed, but ultimately, that's murder, and David lived in that sin for a very long time until he was called to repentance, in which he did, and we read his repentance in his psalm.

But there's also a man in the New Testament, Peter, and Peter didn't just flub up.

He didn't just kind of stub his toe. He was given three separate opportunities which Jesus prophesied would happen, and it wasn't that he kind of stole something or was dishonest.

He absolutely denied that he knew Jesus three times. He says, I don't even know the man, and then to prove it, he used a curse against himself to prove the fact he didn't know

Jesus. So, even in the sin of fear, this is really what

Peter was afraid of. It was the sin of fear, and he was more afraid of losing his life than he was for standing up for Jesus, and yet, he is still considered to be a disciple.

So, could it be that even for a period of time, someone could reject Jesus and yet still a believer?

Well, that seems to be the story. As radical as it may sound, that seems to be the story we have here in the

New Testament. Listen to what Jesus even says to Simon Peter in Luke chapter 22 verse 31.

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned again, knowing that he had turned away from Jesus, strengthen your brothers.

So, obviously, Jesus knew. He foretold that Simon Peter would do a horrendous act, which is reject

Jesus and fall into sin. Even later on in his apostolic journeys as a disciple, he got rebuked again by Paul for, again, giving into fear and starting to change the nature of the gospel and circumcision.

So, can Christians sin? And horrendously, yes. I mean, you see some sexual sins with David.

You see denying of Christ with Peter. This is why Paul's warning in 1

Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12, it should not be taken lightly. He says, therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls.

We have multiple warnings from James and from Peter as it relates to the power of Satan to trip up Christians and to entangle them.

We know Christians can be entangled because Paul says in Galatians, those who are trapped in sin go to such a one with a spirit of meekness and gentleness, unless you too find yourself falling into sin.

And what does he say? Restore them. So, in the New Testament, you can at times find yourself or Christians find themselves very much so trapped in sin.

Another example of this is just to give you one of one that I would say is discipline and repentance as relates to Christians.

So, you have the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 1, and he's saying that, listen, there's a man in your church who's in unrepentant sexual sin, and you need to kick him out because he is unwilling to repent and he needs to feel the consequences of a sin.

So, they kick him out on the first letter. And then in the second letter, they won't let him back in.

And so, he has to write back and say, now look, the whole purpose of you, of showing church discipline and kicking them out is so that you can actually restore him.

So, this is exactly what ends up happening is he tells them in the letter, you need to let him back in and restore him back into the fellowship.

So, yes, Christians do at times struggle greatly, but God has given us a mechanism called church discipline to be used to restore them, not back to sin, obviously, but back to obedience to Christ.

So, it's a wonderful gift that God has given us. And we even hear from Hebrews that the Lord disciplines those whom he loves.

It's not a chastisement as far as out of his anger, but that of out of his love. But what about those who don't repent?

And maybe it's those who not only don't repent of their sin, they don't see that their sin is offensive to God, or they even just reject

God altogether, and they are unwilling to repent and they die in their sins. Well, John speaks of this in his epistle.

In 1 John 2, 19, he says, they went out from us because they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they were not of us.

So, if someone who proclaims to be a believer, who even often maybe even possibly demonstrate it, but in the end walks away from their faith ultimately and really never does repent,

John says that they were never really a believer. They can't be a believer because the Bible says, God loses none.

So, either God's a liar, they misquoted somehow, misquoted or mistranslated the passage in multiple sections of scripture, or it's obvious that John is saying they never really were empowered by the spirit.

They never really were brought to life. They didn't have a heart of stone turned into a heart of flesh. And this kind of leads us to our last section, which is

Hebrews 7, 25. It says this, consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

It is not only God who can save the greatest sinners, but he can also preserve them.

And at times we who are saint and sinner at the same time, those who struggle to want to obey

God, yet our flesh gets the better of us. And at times we give indentation over and over and over again to the moment that we find ourselves, as Galatians 6, 1 says, trapped in sin, that we need to be restored out of it, that Jesus, who is the great intercessor, who can and will intercede for us, he will save us and he will preserve us until the very end.

It can be scary and it can be confusing at times, but if your salvation is up to you to preserve it,

I will tell you with 100 % confidence you will fail and you will not make it to paradise. If one half of 1 % of your final destination is in your hands, you are 100 % guaranteed to be damned forever.

You want God to be the one preserving you. Even in the midst of your sin, even in the midst of your disobedience, you want him to be preserving you.

This does not give you a license to go sin. Sin is damaging. If you haven't read enough of the New Testament, it is extremely damaging.

And I'll leave you with this. Our confession that we use, the Lenten Baptist Confession 5 .5, it describes the believer that at times

God allows us to go not only into sin for a little bit, but into dark and deep, damaging sin.

At the end of the quote, it says this, that we might learn to have a greater dependence upon him.

Often, according to James, we are allowed to find ourselves falling into various trials and even temptations so that in the end, we don't trust our flesh and we trust in the power of the gospel and into Christ.

Hopefully, this series was encouraging to you. And in the end, you realize that it is God not only who chooses to love us in our sin, who proves his love by sending his son, by bringing us to life, by preserving us to the end.

It's all his sovereign work. It's one doing the work. It is monergistic from beginning to the end.

And we can praise God. That is the fact because our sinful hearts get in the way. Obviously, we have to repent.

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot maintain our salvation. And ultimately, we cannot sanctify ourselves in such a way that we can make it home.

Praise be to God that he does it for us. Again, hopefully, this was helpful for us. Leave us any comments or questions below.