Are You Secure?
By PAUL SADLER
The postwar years from 1945 through 1960 were not only years of rebuilding in America, they also served as an era that provided a sense of security. Those who pursued the "American Dream" found that their employers supplied steady employment along with a comfortable retirement plan. Security seemed to be woven into the very fabric of our society.
But as a new day dawned in the 60's storm clouds began to gather, threatening the very existence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Everything seemed to come unglued overnight. With the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was at an all time high. Most of us sat on the edge of our seats as a nuclear assault appeared to be eminent. The assassination of leaders stunned us, leaving everyone astonished as to how cruel our fellow-man can really be. As if that wasn't bad enough, our teenagers suddenly went berserk, rebelling against anything that even had the semblance of authority.
As the years wore on, unexpected mergers and acquisitions of numerous companies started taking place on a nation-wide scale, causing many Americans to be faced with uncertain futures. More recently a number of corporations have pulled up stakes, relocating overseas taking with them thousands of jobs. As a result many have found themselves out on the street, unemployed, laden with a feeling of betrayal. Gradually the great industrial nation of the world has found itself in a state of fading glory, destined now to become a service nation.
The "American Dream" has to many become the "American Nightmare" as jobs, marriages and our sense of security have been uprooted. Insecurity is a plague upon the land which will not soon pass. It has caused many a person, including believers, to pause and consider. "Is there anyone whom we can trust?" "Is anything certain in this world of uncertainty?"
HOPE FOR THOSE IN DESPAIR
"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Titus 1:2).
The fact that the believer is in the world, yet not of the world, does not diminish the reality that the world around us affects us. Sometimes being weary from life itself can even cause one's confidence in the Lord to be shaken. This is especially true of new believers who are still finding their way in the Scriptures. To heighten their sense of uncertainty, just about the time they are getting a handle on things spiritually, someone informs them that they are not eternally secure and could lose their salvation! Were it not for the grace of God, such times could result in a lethal injection of fear.
The Apostle Paul, when he writes to Titus calms these fears as he turns our doubts into hope--the hope of eternal life. He declares that there is someone we can implicitly trust in a world of instability, and that someone is the Lord God, Almighty.
God has promised the free gift of eternal life to all those who believe on His Son. If God has spoken it, then you can be absolutely certain that He will bring it to pass just as He has promised---He "cannot lie!" The Word of the Lord through the prophet Balaam lends further confirmation to the Apostle's teaching:
"God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the Son of Man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? Or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19).
When God says that He parted the Red Sea and one and one-half million Israelites crossed on dry ground, I unequivocally take Him at His Word, based on two truths: One, "nothing is impossible with God" and secondly, He "cannot lie!" All believers can look forward with confident expectation for God to honor His Word and grant sincere believers the gift of eternal life. Be it known, however, He will also stand true to His Word by confining all of those who reject the gospel to the Lake of Fire.
SALVATION
When we consider the subject of salvation it is crucial to remember that "Salvation is of the Lord." It was God who devised the plan of salvation and implemented it at the Cross, where Christ died for our sins. God's justice, having been satisfied, paved the way for His acceptance of the finished work of Christ on our behalf. Now in love He turns to us, revealing that we must respond by faith to what He has accomplished.
There is not a believer reading these lines who would hold that we can save ourselves from our sins. Every true believer will acknowledge this conclusion to be unconditionally true, because it is based on the living Word of God. This being the case, we must also acknowledge that the Lord must, according to His Word, keep us saved or eternally secure. If we agree that no one has the power to save himself, then it naturally follows that no one has the power to keep himself either. Our complete salvation (past, present and future) depends wholly on Him.
HOLDING FORTH THE WORD OF LIFE
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
Is it possible to help those who believe they can lose their salvation? By all means, but first we must be equipped with the proper Scripture passages, in order, to effectively minister to those who hold this view. Here are two suggestions: Select a passage, such as Romans 6:23, and politely ask your friend to read it carefully. Then inquire, "When you initially believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, did you receive the gift of eternal life as promised in this verse?" Brace yourself, because he is going to respond, "Definitely!" Gently reply, again I say gently, "In what sense was it eternal if you can ever lose it?" You see, if you can lose it, then it was never eternal to begin with. The Holy Spirit used the word "eternal" because that is exactly the thought He wanted to convey. If you believe God is eternal, then the life we inherit at the moment of regeneration must also be eternal, because Christ is our life (Colossians 3:4).
The next inquiry that naturally follows is, "If you can lose your salvation (eternal life), which sin is it that will place you again in danger of the Hell fire judgment to come?" Understanding the Word rightly divided means that we must confine ourselves to Paul's revelation, seeing he is the Apostle to the Gentiles and received the commands of Christ for the Church today (Romans 11:13;I Corinthians 14:37).
After fifteen years of studying the epistles Paul, I know of no passage of Scripture that sets forth a sin or sins whereby one could lose his salvation. Where God is silent the believer is also bound to be silent. But some will say, "It's the more serious sins named in the Bible, ones like murder or adultery that can finally condemn us." But, according to Proverbs 6:16-20 the sins of pride and lying are a greater abomination in the sight of God.
Another dilemma you will find yourself in if you hold to the doctrine of "eternal insecurity" is trying to determine when you've sinned that "undefinable" sin too many times. If for example it was lying, is it lie or the tenth lie you may tell? A bewildered saint said to me one time, "I am not really sure, but know it in my heart when it happens." I needed only to remind him of the words of Jeremiah. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).
OUR RELATIONSHIP
"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the: of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6)
"In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1: 14).
A father and a son had worked together for several, years when one day the son became disgruntled angrily approached his father. "Dad, I've had it. I don't like how you operate this business and I feel you have treated me unfairly. I plan to move hundreds of miles away, change my name, tear up my birth certificate and I never want to see you again!"
While the fellowship between the father and the son had been disrupted, because of the lad's sinful behavior, the son could never change the fact that he was still the son of his father. He could not alter the blood relationship he had with his father. Such relationships are irreversible for all of the days of one's life.
If you count this to be an indisputable fact (and it is), then you must also acknowledge the Scriptures when they instruct us that we have the same type of relationship, spiritually, with our Heavenly Father. The Word of God declares that we are the sons of God, which clearly indicates we have a relationship with God which we are bound to by the blood of Christ for all time and eternity. Since this relationship can never be broken, it can only mean that every believer in Christ is eternally secure!
But will some object that this teaching provides a license to sin? Quite the contrary! Which is better, a father who rules with a rod of iron demanding the letter of the law, or a father who out of love and respect is willingly obeyed? The latter of course, which also is in accord with the dispensation of grace. Because God has achieved so much on our behalf, it is out of love and respect for Him that we would not want to do anything that would bring disgrace to His Holy Name.
ETERNAL SECURITY
"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the Word of Truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
"Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory" (Ephesians 1:13, 14).
>From this passage we learn that the Holy Spirit plays a vital role in the eternal security of every believer. The moment we have taken Christ as our personal Savior the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the Body of Christ, sealing us there for all eternity. We are not sealed with a mere circular impression as on a legal document, but rather the Scriptures disclose that the Holy Spirit Himself is the seal that secures us in the Body of Christ. As we have said before: when a woman seals jars of jelly with wax, the jellies are sealed by the woman, but with wax. The wax is the seal. Thus, according to Ehesians1:13, believers are sealed ", .. with that Holy Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit Himself keeping them safe forever.
During Biblical times when a ruler would fix a seal to a certain thing, whether it were a lion's den or a tomb, it was done to secure his decree, thus making it irrevocable. When the presidents persuaded King Darius to make a declaration against petitioning any God, the King was forced to place Daniel in the lion's den, sealing it with his own signet. The record informs us that the sealing with the King's signet was done, " ... that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel" (Dan, 6:16,17). If this is true in the affairs of men, how much more so in the affairs of God. Every believer has been sealed with the Holy Spirit, and this proclamation of God can never be reversed---we are safe and secure in the everlasting arms.
The Apostle Paul goes on in the Ephesian letter to show us that the earnest of the Spirit is the pledge or the down payment until the transaction is completed. To place earnest money down in Paul's day, as well as in our day, meant three things:
1) It was a down payment which made the deal binding.
2) It represented an obligation to purchase.
3) It was a foretaste of what was to come.
When purchasing property it is a common practice to place a certain amount of earnest money down. This makes the deal binding and obligates the buyer to purchase the piece of land according to the terms of the contract. So it is with God. He has given us the earnest of the Spirit (the indwelling Spirit) as a down payment, which means He now has the obligation to honor His Word to complete the transaction. Thus, when the trump sounds God will claim His purchased possession ushering us home to be forever with Him (I Thessalonians 4:17).
THE BENEFITS OF BEING SECURE
The world can fall apart around us, but "if God be for us who can be against us?" In a world of uncertainty and chaos, the believer can rest assured that he belongs to the Lord, who is able to keep him until the day of redemption.
One of the many benefits of understanding the doctrine of Eternal Security is that it removes the fear of ever losing our salvation. Instead of finding ourselves in an emotional frenzy, wondering if we have gone too far in sinful behavior, we can rest in the truth that, by His grace, we are still safe and secure. This will motivate us to serve the Lord because He loves us. We then can devote all of our time and energy to carrying out the commands of Christ to the praise of his glory!
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"---Romans 8:35,37-39.
Transformed By
Grace -
Kevin Sadler
Transformed By Grace
#1 - Unity in Christ
Transformed By Grace #2 - One Body in
Christ
Transformed By Grace #3 - The Apostle of
Grace
Transformed By Grace #4 - The Gifts of
Christ
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Connie Spivey
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