Holiness And Unconditional Eternal Security Series

Holiness and Eternal Security

Please stand with me as we go over our current memory Scripture:

Matthew 5:3-5

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

And our memory Scripture “refresher” verse is:

2 Timothy 4:3-4

“The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

Today we will be reading from Luke 15:11-32

Over the past weeks we have taken a look at Christian Holiness.

The first week we looked what Christian holiness is.

Holiness is when a person places his faith and trust in Jesus for salvation and he becomes a “new creation” in Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This person who is a new creation becomes more and more transformed into the image of Christ and no longer lives in slavery to sin. (Romans 6:22 - Now that you have been set free from …)

From that study we found from God’s Holy Word that His desire for those who are true believers is that they live in holiness.

And, from THAT study we found that while a Christian will never achieve absolute sinless perfection in this life they CAN find a perfect love for God and His will which will lead to a life that is continually growing in holiness and Christ-likeness.

This week we will be taking a look at the repercussions of leaving a life of holiness and returning to a life of sin.

In doing so we will be looking at a parable that Jesus taught in Luke chapter 15. This parable is commonly called The Prodigal Son.

Let’s see what the Word of God has to say in … Luke 15:11-32

(Prayer for help)

The parable of The Prodigal Son or The Lost Son is in a series of 6 parables.

One of the reasons we need to look at this is because we as preachers have a tendency to set up straw men and knock them down to make ourselves look big in the eyes of those around them.

Once again we come to two competing doctrines. The doctrine of Christian Holiness includes the possibility that a truly born again person can turn their back on Christ and reject the salvation they once had.

On the other hand those who believe in the doctrine of unconditional eternal security believe that a person who is truly saved will never be rejected by Christ no matter how much they sin.

They believe that this person does not even have the capability to reject Christ even if they longed to do so with all of their heart.

So, those who believe in Christian Holiness will set up a straw man of a person who becomes saved and then blasphemes the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and is still welcomed into heaven.

And those who believe in unconditional eternal security may set up a straw man of the Lord in heaven with a pencil in one hand and an eraser in the other hand writing the name of a person into the book of Life when they repent and then erasing their name when they commit the smallest sin, over and over and over …

So, let’s look at Scripture.

In the parable of the prodigal son, the son is in relationship with his Father just as a born again person is in relationship with the Heavenly Father. But, the son’s eyes stray and he starts to look outside the boundaries of his father’s ranch. He sees the sin going on out there and it looks so much more appetizing than the dull, everyday life with the family.

He wants to go out there and get some of that fun but he can’t until his Father dies and he gets his inheritance. He becomes so overwhelmed by this temptation that he humiliates his Father with a great insult by demanding his inheritance BEFORE his Father dies.

In essence the son is saying, “Listen, I can’t wait until you die so give me my inheritance now.”

The son rejects the Father, takes his inheritance and goes off to do some wild living. Once all of his money is gone all his “fiends” disappear and he ends up feeding pigs and is so hungry that he longs to eat the pig food.

Then he remembers his Father and goes back home hoping to be a servant for his father. Instead of the Father making the rebellious son into a servant He runs to meet him and gives him a grand welcome back into the family because, “this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”