I did the blog on "fire insurance" and how the Bible gives no evidence of fire insurance salvation.
The Bible does however tell us that salvation is two-sided. Belief and Repentance go hand in hand. Not one without the other.
And the Bible does teach the belief of "once saved always saved".
John 6:37,39 Jesus says, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out...And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all He has given me."
John 10:27-28 Jesus again says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch the out of My hand."
All that the Father gives to Jesus come to Him. He turns away none and loses none. He raises all of whom the Father gave to Him.
Jesus gives His sheep eternal life, they never perish, and not even the enemy as hard as he may try can remove Jesus' children from His hand.
All pretty straightforward statements.
So, since the teaching of once saved always saved is true then why is there no such thing as fire insurance salvation?
Why can't a person just pray and ask Jesus to come into their heart and go on about their merry way, living their life as they desire?
Because of all the other verses throughout the New Testament. Lots and lots of them. They don't talk about losing your salvation but they do talk about
how our lives will be different and
our want-to will be different and
how we will persevere and not turn our backs on God and
how we will continue in our walk with God from the beginning to the end and
so much more.
The Parable of the Sower and the Seed
The first set of Scriptures that come to my mind is the parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23. I won't tell you what I had been taught about this parable (don't want any confusion) but I will tell you what I now know about this parable. If you have been taught differently then please study for yourself and see.
The sower sowed seed and it ended up in 4 places.
Some landed beside the road and immediately it was eaten by the birds. This is the Word that is heard by people but the enemy snatches it away from them. They are not saved.
Some seed landed in rocky places where there wasn't enough soil, enough for it to sprout but not grow. This is the Word that is heard by people and they receive it gladly and even seem to live in it for a bit, but it's only temporary. When hard times come, when trials and tribulation comes then they fall away because they had no firm root to hold it. According to the Scriptures above, they too are not saved.
Some seed landed among the thorns and as it tried to grow the thorns and weeds choked it out. This is the Word that is heard by people but the worries of this world and the wealth of this world aka the things of this world call harder to him than the things of God so the Word is choked and that person bears no fruit. According to the Scriptures above, these people too are not saved.
And some seed landed in the good soil and it grew and it was nourished and it produced and reproduced a harvest many times over. This is the Word that is heard by people, that is understood by them and it bears fruit in their lives many times over. This is the one who is truly saved. This is the one who will inherit eternal life. This is the one that will never be snatched out of the Father's hand. This is the one who the Father will in no way cast out.
The following verses and so many more that I couldn't begin to cover in a blog are verses that I've wondered about during my adult years. If you read these verses and then try to put what I had always been taught on top of them it just didn't add up.
A friend and I had met together for a while years ago, wondering about these very verses and these very issues and as we read we did come to these conclusions but it wasn't 'popular' at the time and so we backed off, still scratching our heads.
NOW I have answers that we were looking for years ago. It's NEVER too late for God to open your eyes and reveal Him and His Word to you.
Paul never said in the New Testament "Now that you have trusted Christ you will go to heaven no matter what"!
Paul was concerned about the new faith of his converts in Thessalonica; he didn't want his work with them to have been in vain. I Thessalonians 3:5 "For this reason when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, least by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain."
He lived with fear that the tempter could take back all the ground he had gained with them through his initial preaching. He urged his converts to not waver from their confession of faith, if so their initial response of faith would do them no good.
To the Philippians he said something very similar. Philippians 2:6 "You should hold fast to the word of life, so that i may rejoice in the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." Again, he is telling them to hold on tight to the Word.
Jude warned his young church in Jude 20-21 "But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life".
The writer of Hebrews gave strong warnings. Hebrews 12:15 "See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no 'root of bitterness' springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled." Hebrews 2:1 "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away." Hebrews 3:12-14 "Beware, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but encourage one another daily, while it is called 'Today', lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers in Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end."
Even Jesus warned: John 15:6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned."
And again in Matthew 10:22 "He who endures to the end will be saved."
Pretty heavy stuff here!
I do not believe these verses teach us that we can lose our salvation. We already determined that at the beginning of this blog where God's children will not be cast out of His hand.
But I do believe that these verses and so many others tell us something very important about saving faith:
Saving faith always endures to the end.
The warnings need to be taken at face value. It is all part of God's Word that we are to look at as a whole. These verses say if we fall away we will not be saved in the end.
Yet since those who are truly saved cannot lose it, we have to come to the conclusion that to fail to heed the warnings shows we never possessed true saving faith to start with.
That seems to be the only way those verses could be true, right?
I'll be back. This gives you food for thought and prayer and to study up on.
Until He comes...
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