LBCF Chap 17 Of the Perseverance of the Saints

Okay, we're up to chapter 17 of the Confession. We're still in part two.

Remember, this is all describing the covenant, the description of what to expect in God's covenant.

And so we come now to Perseverance of the Saints. And what you're going to see is this does, in fact, follow very logically from the previous chapters that we've looked at.

This chapter also has three parts and three paragraphs. Seems relatively short, but there's a lot packed in here, so that's why we're only going to do one chapter tonight.

This doctrine is distinctively Reformed, okay?

It's only the Reformed churches, not just Reformed Baptists, but Reformed, you know, the

Presbyterians and some of the Netherlands, the Dutch Reformed, would also have this as a chapter.

What I mean by distinctively Reformed is that most other churches, even evangelical churches, have a similar doctrine, but they describe it differently.

It differs substantially from other evangelical doctrines. Most Baptists hold to a doctrine they call

Eternal Security. How many people have heard that before? Eternal Security? Yeah? That's what your typical

Southern Baptist, General Baptist would say, that they have a doctrine of Eternal Security.

It's interesting that most Baptists in this country are not

Calvinist, but yet they hold on to what we would consider to be the fifth point, or the

Perseverance of the Saints, but they don't call it Perseverance of the Saints, they call it Eternal Security. Other than that, they're completely off on the other four points, and what they mean by that is once saved, always saved, and unfortunately,

I mean, now again, when you first look at that, we would agree with that statement, but how they use it and the ramifications of it are vastly different.

That's why we have a distinctly different, and we'll go through that, and I hope you'll see that as we go through it.

On the other hand, most Pentecostals and other Charismatics believe you can lose your salvation even after one is born again, so that's why, you know,

I said that this is very distinctively a Reformed doctrine, because it's only the

Reformed churches that we're going to hear somebody talk about the Perseverance of the Saints. R .C.

Sproul likes to call this the Preservation of the Saints, and you'll see why as we go through.

I think there's a good reason why it's called the Perseverance of the Saints, but in a real sense, it is the

Preservation of God, you know, that carries us through. So, with that in mind, let's look at the outline.

Part 1, paragraph 1a, okay, this is the first half of the paragraph, if you're following along, all right, and notice what it says, the fact of perseverance, and paragraph 1a, it's stated, in other words, the first part is just the statement of what do we mean by the doctrine of the

Perseverance, and the first part is the subjects of the Perseverance, who are those who will persevere, all right, and they start right off, those whom

God has accepted in the Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, and given the precious faith of His elect, that's, those are the persons who will persevere, and I like the way they put it, notice they put down those whom

God has accepted in the Beloved. I have a little pet peeve, okay, which

I'll let you in on, no, I'm not gonna let you in on it now, I'm gonna keep you in suspense, no, okay, all right,

I, a little pet peeve I have is I, when somebody says, yes, you need to accept

Jesus as your Savior, I do not like that terminology, and look at this, it's not that we accept

Jesus, it's that God accepts us, all right, and it's a big difference,

I understand what they mean, I don't go ballistic if somebody says it or anything else, but I just prefer the understanding that it's

God who saves us, we don't accept Him, He accepts us, and He accepts us, how?

In the Beloved, in Christ. It's only because of the work of Christ. Again, I hope as we're going through this confession, and chapter by chapter,

I hope you can see, again, the logic of having been built, because, no, what have we gone through already?

Faith, repentance, good works, you know, we've handled all of those, so now when we get to this, the perseverance, this language should be very familiar to you, and you, and you, by now you understand this is not something, this is not a work that you need to do, all right, not to say that there's no work that you don't have to do, but it's different, all right, this is another one of those chapters where you walk a tightrope, all right,

God is the one who sees to it that you persevere to the end, and you'll see that as we go through it, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing for you to do, all right, there are things, and you neglect of them as dire consequences, which you'll see when we get to paragraph three, okay, so the subject of the perseverance are all those who accepted and called, sanctified, and again, remember sanctified, we're not talking about the fact that only those who are completely sanctified, because you won't be completely sanctified in that one sense until you get to heaven, when you're glorified, but what is the primary meaning of sanctified?

Now, there's several different nuances to it, but what's the first and foremost meaning for when we talk about who is sanctified by his spirit?

What does that mean? Set apart. First and foremost, that's what it means, you're sanctified, you're set apart, all right, by God, all right, unto salvation, all right, so and you can see why that is in there, and given the precious faith of his elect, again, how do we get faith?

Is faith something that we have to conjure up, you know, we have to just try to dig deep down as deep as we can into our inner soul and pull out some faith?

No, faith is a gift from God, okay, all right, so that's paragraph 1a, stating what, well first, who the subjects of perseverance are, all right, still in paragraph 1a, the significance of the perseverance, in other words, what exactly is this perseverance?

They can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace. This is why you have some people say, well, once saved, always saved, yes, but as you'll see as we go through it, it's a little bit more than that, so they can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, all right, that's perseverance, so if you are one of the elect, if you've been sanctified, you've been set apart, you've been born again, you will never completely or totally fall from grace, all right, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, that's why you'll read in the

Scriptures talking about those who persevere to the end, especially in the book of the Revelation, who is that, that's the elect, if you're one of God's children, you will persevere to the end, all right, and be eternally saved, that's the significance, that's in a nutshell what the doctrine is all about, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you've repented of your sin, you've been set apart by him, you've exercised your gift of faith, you've repented of your sin, you will never fall away completely or totally or finally, okay, that's the essence of the doctrine.

Now we go to paragraph 1b, this is the second part of the first paragraph, and Sam Waldron has just titled this expanded, in other words, we got the nugget of what it means to persevere, now we're going to expand on that definition a little bit, all right, and the first thing we're going to look at is the cause of the perseverance, what is it that makes it certain that you will persevere, seeing the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, notice, why will you persevere?

Because you're just so, so good, no, you will persevere because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, if God has called you out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son, he will see to it that he will make sure that you will persevere to the end, because his gifts and his calling will not change, okay, make sense, all right, so once he begets and nourishes in them, all right, now notice, so how does

God accomplish this, all right, we see that because they're without repentance, it's the gifts and calling of God that are going to cause you to persevere, how does he accomplish it?

He begets and nourishes in them, that's talking about in you, all right, and look at what the confession says, faith, if you're a true believer, you can never lose your faith, it's not to say that your faith may not waver, all right, and we'll get to that a little bit later, all right, repentance, all right, if you're a true believer, you commit sin, you will repent, remember we saw when we looked at repentance, all right, unto life, that what, that repentance is an ongoing thing, you're going to be constantly repenting for the remainder of your time here on earth, all right, love, all right, this is one of the true tests of the believer, you got to love in your heart, all right, because God has shed his love abroad in your heart through Jesus Christ, okay, joy,

I have a lot of fun once in a while with joy, especially in the counseling room, somebody will come in and say,

Pastor, you know what, I've just allowed people to steal my joy, that's impossible, you're a believer in Jesus Christ, nobody can steal your joy, there are people who can make you miserable, don't look around this room, you can be grieving, you can be sorrowful, there can be people that really give you a hard time, but they can't take biblical joy from you, because the joy, it comes from the whole, the relationship we have to God through the power of the

Holy Spirit, nobody can take that from you, because no matter what they do to you, one of the worst things, remember the

Apostle Paul when he was in the jail in Philippi, all right, they put him in the deepest, dankest, darkest dungeon, all right, how's that for four

D's in a row, all right, and then they put him in stocks, you know what the

Roman stocks were like, they actually spread your legs as far as they could till it hurt, and then they would put it, and then they'd chain your legs to the beam, so there he is sitting there like that in the middle, and what was he doing, you remember, singing hymns and rejoicing, because joy is not dependent upon your circumstances, it's depending upon your relationship with God, okay, in fact, one of my favorite is

Polycarp, I guess a lot of you know that already, he's one of my favorite heroes, and when they took him out, you know, they were going to burn him at the stake, and they took him out, and he was witnessing to the procouncil the whole time, you know, and then he tells me, you don't have to nail my hands to the board, he says,

I'm not going anywhere, and he sat there and allowed them to burn him at the stake, read the martyrdom of Polycarp, it's a short document, only about four or five pages, it's marvelous, marvelous document, hope, you ever start to lose hope, stop listening to the news, that's the first thing, but no, hope, we have hope, what's the name of our church, there's a reason that this church is named hope, all right, because that's what the world needs, and the world doesn't have it, all right, but we have hope, and then he did, then they sum it up, all the graces of the

Spirit unto immortality, all right, that's the cause of the perseverance, what is it that's going to cause you to persevere, look at all the things that you have when you have

Jesus, great preacher, not

Reformed, but he was a great preacher, E .V. Hill, he was a preacher from South Central LA in the

Watts area, and he did, I think it was a 12 -part series at the

Moody Bible Institute, what do you have when you have Jesus, marvelous series, like I say, not a

Reformed preacher, but boy, I'll tell you, he nailed that one, what do you have when you have Jesus, it started off, he was gonna make it one sermon, and he had to come back 11 times to finish, still in paragraph 1b, expanded, all right, and now we're gonna look at the obstacles of perseverance, all right, in other words, what they're saying in the confession now is, what are those things that are going to hinder you from having assurance that you're persevering, nothing can hinder your perseverance, but it can hinder your perspective of your perseverance,

I can't tell you how many times people have committed their past, I just don't know if I'm saved, because we can go through crisis of the spirit, crisis of the soul, and that can cause doubts, so this part of the confession tells us what are these obstacles, why do people doubt their perseverance, oh, and by the way, just in case you're not familiar, the next chapter of the confession is perfect, because again, it's on the assurance of faith, so there's a little bit of overlap between the two chapters, so what is it that causes people to have doubts, though many storms and floods arise and beat against them, the storms of life, floods in life, right, a lot of things going on, we've just come, we're coming through a pretty tough period even in our nation, where you know, you people are being quarantined, you've been told to social distance, and you know, all the kinds of other stuff, things are closed, you can't go to the movies, you can't go to the roller skating rink, you can't bowl, you can't, you know, you can't do a lot of stuff, all right, we were told we couldn't worship, all right, well, that wasn't tongue -in -cheek, we were told we couldn't worship, all right, so storms, they beat against them, all right, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock, no matter what transpires in your life, nothing is able to separate you from the love of Christ, read the end of Romans 8, where it talks about being more than conquerors, okay, and that's what the

Confession is saying here, yet they shall never be able to be able to take them off that foundation and rock, of course, which is

Jesus Christ, which by faith they are fastened upon,

I love the wording that they chose, you're fastened, you know, you ever see the sailors go out on deck in stormy seas, they put harnesses on and then they have these belts that lash them to the rail or some other type, so that if the wave comes, they can't be washed overboard, all right, but if you don't have that harness, if you don't have faith, you're going to be washed, you're going to be washed away, and notwithstanding, though, through unbelief and the temptations of Satan, make no mistake,

Satan is alive and well, he probably prowls around like a roaring lion, now he is a defeated foe, but that doesn't mean that he's not still out there and active, and Paul wrote that whole section in Ephesians chapter 6 on the armor of God to make sure that we understand that though we may be facing difficulties in other human beings, all right, ultimately our warfare is spiritual.

We're fighting the rulers in dark places, the principalities and powers of the air, and that's why we're told to take up the spiritual armor.

We are not those who fight like other people fight, all right, not for the kingdom of God, all right, not getting into fighting, you know, fighting wars for the

United States, it's a whole different thing, we're talking about spiritual warfare, okay, and so notwithstanding, though, unbelief and the temptations of Satan, the sensible light of the light and love of God may for a time be clouded and obscured from them, and again,

I love the way the framers of our confession put this in, just so that you understand, once you're saved, you're not just going to soar and things are going to get better and better every day, your life is going to have its ups and downs.

In fact, the best description I ever heard of what your sanctification should look like, it's like a man walking upstairs with a yo -yo, all right, the yo -yo recognizes you're going to have ups and downs, but as he continues to go up the stairs, what happens, the lows become higher and the highs become even higher, and pretty soon your lows are higher than your highs used to be, all right, you're going to go through tough times in this life, remember, we've covered that in our exposition of the

Gospel of John, what did Jesus say, in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer,

I've overcome the world, all right, so this is all the obstacles to perseverance, and now we come down to the assurance of perseverance, and this is what is very closely related to what we're going to cover next week in chapter 18, but look at what it says, this is the assurance, yet he is still the same, and they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation, what is it that gives us the assurance that we will persevere to the end, the power of God, don't ever lose sight of that, if you start thinking for a minute that this is something that you have to do, you have to manufacture, you're going to fall into depression, for at least, where they shall enjoy their purchase possession, what is your purchase possession, well who purchased it?

Christ purchased your inheritance in the kingdom of God, and as you always keep that in mind, that is yours, it is your inheritance, nobody can take your inheritance away from you, okay, they've been engraven on the palm of his hands, what a great metaphor, right, we're studying it, and in fact we're going to continue to study it this week, where Jesus comes in and to Thomas, and what does he say, he shows him his hands, just touch them, all right, those scars that symbolizes what he did for us, okay, and their names have been written in the book of life from all eternity, this is the part when

I first started coming to Reformed Theology, just blew me away, that from all eternity

God knew me by name, and had set his affection upon me, and said you're going to be my child, and then sent

Jesus Christ to secure that, so can you lose that, okay, all right, now we move to part two, this is chapter two,

I'm sorry, paragraph two, the presupposition, this is, now notice this part two is called the grounds of perseverance, okay, all right, this perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, you were not saved of your own free will, and your perseverance is not of your own free will, the identity, is the identity of this perseverance, is the immutability of the decree of election, and that's exactly what the next line says, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, what

God has decreed from all eternity will come to pass, there is no way that that is going to change.

If you start to understand these, and again, this is why earlier in the confession we've gone through these doctrines, once you start to understand it, doesn't this doctrine just kind of fall into place?

The perseverance, of course, you know, this should be one of those things, of course,

I get it, one of those aha moments, or they call them a eureka moment, all right,

I could have had a V8 moment, okay, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, all right, and still flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the

Father, remember, in love, Paul says in Ephesians, in love he predestined us to the adoption of sons, in love, so it's all, we have to always look at it, it's the love of God, and the love of God is not variable, it never changes, and also, again, looking again, the grounds of perseverance, still talking about the identity of these grounds, it's the efficacy of the work of Christ, upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Christ, and union with him.

One of the doctrines that is just so, so frequently neglected and not taught is our union with Christ, that is so, so important, and I love that the

Confession has that here, it's the merit and intercession of Christ, all right, the merit being what he accomplished on the cross, the intercession is what he does daily, remember, this is in his mediatorial kingdom, all right, and union with him, this is one of those important, just bear with me for a minute, remember when

Paul was on the road to Damascus, and the Lord meets him, all right, he's blinded by the light, and you remember what

Jesus said to him? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

He didn't say, why are you persecuting the church? He could have said that, because he was, but he says, why are you persecuting me?

He says that to identify the union of the church with him, we are one with him, and that's such an important doctrine, that means that whatever

Satan, his minions, the world, the system, what anybody does to you, they're doing it to Christ.

Now let me give you one very practical application of this, let's say you have somebody who has just constantly given it to you, because you're a believer, right, could be a co -worker, whatever, whatever it has to be, but they're just relentless, and just making your life miserable, because for the cause of Christ.

I used to get upset over that, until I really understood this doctrine of union with Christ, then my whole attitude changed, and I said, wow,

I really feel sorry for that person, because they're not doing it to me alone, they're doing it to Christ.

Whoa, I better pray for that person, and I actually start feeling sorry for the person who is persecuting me, because they're in big trouble,

I'm fine, in fact, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, that's what

Jesus said, you're blessed if you're persecuted for righteousness sake, so I'm fine, that's the person, so I start praying for them, guess what, it changes your whole attitude.

I'm not saying they're going to stop, maybe they won't, but it changes your attitude, you won't walk around going, oh, woe is me, but as Peter said, don't be surprised by it, but rejoice to the extent that you're suffering for the cause of Christ.

Then, still under the identity of these grounds, next one is the perpetuity of the indwelling

Spirit, the abiding of His Spirit and the seed of God within them. You have the indwelling

Holy Spirit, He's inside you, He dwells within you, and He will never leave you, that's how

Christ is said to be with us, and will never leave us nor forsake us, because of the Spirit.

The gift of the Spirit is not something that comes and goes, you are indwelled, possessed by the

Spirit of God, okay? The dependability of the oath of God, God swore, when

God swears, is there anything that's going to change that oath? No, that was the significance when he passed through the animal halves with Abram, right?

Remember, Abram fell asleep, and God didn't make Abram go through the animal halves, only he went through, all right?

And what he was saying is, is if I violate the terms of my covenant, he says, may I cease to be God, may this happen to me, may

I die, well, that's impossible, but that's the intent there.

The oath of God is that sure, it cannot, nothing can ever thwart the oath that God takes.

Then the infallibility of the covenant of grace. Covenant of grace, remember, this is the new covenant.

The new covenant is perfect, right? It replaces the old covenant, all right?

So we see that the nature of the new covenant, it's because the new covenant of grace is infallible.

There's nobody who is included in the covenant of grace who is not going to be saved, and there's nobody in the covenant of grace who will not persevere to the end.

Then the last half of paragraph two is the result, all right? From all which arises also the certainty and infallibility thereof.

In other words, this is the reason, all these things that we've looked at, these are the reasons why, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you should have the assurance of faith, because it is not dependent upon your works, but upon the infallibility of God, the oath of his, his oath, the work of Christ, the merits of Christ, and all those things that we just looked at up here.

So now we come down to part three, and of course this, the difficulty with perseverance.

Paragraph 3a gives us the various causes of backsliding. We need to understand there is truly such a thing as backsliding, just not backsliding into damnation.

It is possible for a true believer to have a fall, not from grace, but a fall into sin and temptation, all right?

Can never fall ultimately into, into damnation, all right?

Now this is the whole last paragraph, so we're going to just look at it. And though they may through the temptation of Satan, all right?

And again, Satan's out there, and we know that he, that he is still trying, he's like a wounded animal, and he is still trying to thwart

God's plan, because he's deceived, and he's trying to deceive everybody else. End of the world.

This world is seductive. This world puts all kinds of things out to seduce Christians, and to try to take them away from being effective for the kingdom of God.

And the prevalency of the corruption remaining in them. Each one of us, though we are saved, though we are sanctified, though we are pursuing progressive sanctification, still has corruption within us.

Anybody want to doubt that? Okay, anybody who doubts that will do a little study on self -deception, okay?

And the neglect of the means of preservation. What are the means of preservation?

It's the means of grace. Go ahead, sure.

Sure, the Puritans had a saying, make diligent use of the means of grace. Being part of a body, all right?

Being under the ministry of the Word, prayer, administration of the sacraments, fellowship,

Christian fellowship is a means of grace. It's one of the reasons we have our fellowship meals, a time when the believers can get together and encourage and love one another.

And all kinds of other things, personal Bible reading, personal prayer, all of those things.

But the main ones, of course, are all done within the context of the local church. They fall into grievous sins, all right?

Is it possible for a Christian to sin grossly? Yeah, it happens.

All right, so, and we need to understand that. And for a time, continue therein. There are people who fall into sin, and it goes on for a period of time, okay?

And then paragraph 3b, the second half of it, talks about the tragic fruits of backsliding.

So here you have somebody, a believer, falls into sin, may be in it for a period of time, whereby they incur

God's displeasure and grieve his holy spirit. That's not a good place to be.

And they come to have their graces and comforts impaired. If you ever talk to somebody who is a believer and they're out of fellowship, they're, you know, whatever it is,

I've never talked to one that says, oh yeah, things are great, they couldn't be better. I've never talked to somebody like that.

They try to convince themselves that things are fine, but their graces and comforts are impaired, and have their hearts hardened.

All right, that's a natural outcome of falling, of backsliding. And their conscience is wounded.

This is where you find somebody who says, well, I'm doing this. It's okay, you know, God understands me.

That's one of the biggest lies. God understands, you know, that I need this. Hurt and scandalize others.

One of the reasons we have church discipline is to avoid the church being scandalized by behavior of one of its members.

That's why we go through an excommunication process. One, of course, for the restoration of the believer, but two, to protect the reputation of the church.

Why protect the reputation of the church? It's Christ's body, okay?

And bring temporal judgments upon themselves. Remember, if the person's a true believer, they will repent.

They will come back, but they may be subject to temporal problems, and there's all kinds of ways in which that can manifest itself, all right?

And then we come down to the last part of the paragraph three, the positive resolution of backsliding, and here's the good news.

I love it when it ends with good news. Yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.

And just make sure that you read that right. Yet shall they renew. That's not saying that maybe they will.

It's saying they will. They shall renew their repentance. How do you know that?

Because if they're truly saved, they have to. Because the Holy Spirit will not allow them to go beyond where they would fall ultimately.

So they will be renewed they will renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Jesus Christ to the end.