CAN WE FALL?
Text: Acts 8:1-24
INTRODUCTION:
1. Many groups today believe in the doctrine that once you are saved, you are always saved.
2. In other words, they do not believe that a person can become lost once they have acquired salvation.
3. We answered the question, “Can you be separated from the love of God?” in Sunday morning bible class a few weeks ago.
4. The basic answer is no, but you can be separated from his saving mercy.
5. We will look at some Old Testament examples and see how the idea of losing a chosen status carries over into the New Testament.
TRANSITION: Let us begin in the Old Testament
I. Genesis chapters 37-48
A. Joseph has a dream about his brothers bowing down to him.
1. This makes them mad
2. 37:18-20, they were mad enough to kill him
3. Reuben convinced them to throw him into a pit instead.
B. A camel caravan passed by.
1. The caravan contained some Midianite traders.
2. The brothers sold Joseph into slavery to them.
C. Joseph is now a slave.
1. The brothers were separated from him.
2. Joseph was no longer active in the family unit.
3. Was he still part of the family? Technically yes
4. He was not able to work with them.
5. He could not interact with them.
D. The family begins to suffer.
1. 7 years of abundance came
2. It was followed by 7 years of famine
E. Jacob’s family is greatly touched by the famine.
1. 42:1-2 Jacob says, “Why are you looking at each other, go get some grain from Egypt so we do not starve to death.”
2. The boys are then further tried by Joseph.
3. He accuses them of being spies.
4. Reuben puts some of it together in 42:22. He said, “Did I not tell you, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Now this reckoning has come to us.”
F. To make a long story short, Joseph was reunited to his family. He was lost to them, and then he was found.
II. Other Old Testament examples
A. We see the first “big apostasy” on record in Exodus 32:1.
1. Moses took a long time in receiving in receiving the 10 commandments.
2. The people grew impatient.
3. Aaron said, “Let’s make us a god out of our jewelry.”
4. The people worshipped a golden calf made of earrings.
5. They were punished by 40 years wandering and wondering in the wilderness.
B. Deuteronomy 13:12-13
1. If the inhabitants of the Lord’s cities leave to serve other gods.
2. Strike them dead with the edge of the sword.
3. Make the entire city a burnt offering to the Lord.
C. Nehemiah 9:26
1. “But they became disobedient to you and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their backs, and killed your prophets who admonished them so that they might return to you, and they committed great blasphemies.”
2. This lament shows how time and time again Israel leaves God and returns.
3. Ezra has read the law that had been lost, to them and they were weeping and mourning at their condition. (See chapter 8 for more on this story.)
4. They had lost God. They realized that they had lost him. They desperately wanted him back.
III. Post Egypt and pre-Roman occupation, the Jews had three major occupations as a result of their disobedience.
A. The Babylon from 605-539 B. C.
B. The Persians from 539-331
C. The Greeks from 331-167
1. Greeks were exceptionally hard on the Jews.
2. They tried to do away with Semitic differences between the Jews and Greeks. (Of course, they wanted to do away with Jewish culture, not Greek.)
3. Antiochus IV Epiphanies was a Seleucid Greek
a. He is the reason for Hanukkah
b. He offered a sow on the altar.
c. For the Maccabeans, this was the last straw. They lead a revolt against the Greeks.
d. 2 years later, December 14, 165 B. C., they reclaimed the temple in Jerusalem and dedicated a new altar.
e. They had only enough oil for 1 day and their lamp burned 8 days.
D. After the Greeks, the Romans ruled them until 138 A. D.
E. The first apostasy ever by the way was in Genesis 3.
1. Man was in God’s grace and care.
2. He fell from it.
3. He has been trying to return to it since.
4. See apostasy means a falling away from God, any falling away from God, not just everyone, anyone.
TRANSITION: OK, that’s the Old Testament, how about the New Testament?
IV. Acts 8:4-24
A. Philip is preaching Christ in Samaria.
1. He is casting out spirits.
2. He is healing the lame.
3. There is much rejoicing.
4. There is much evangelizing.
B. Here comes Simon the trickster.
1. Verse 13, Simon himself believed.
2. After baptism, he continued with Philip.
a. I had someone ask me why he was baptized.
b. He said, “I don’t know why they put that in there.”
c. I said, “I do.”
3. Either case, Simon believed and was baptized.
a. Even those who do not espouse to baptism have to see this.
b. Simon believed.
c. Simon was listed with the saved. At baptism
4. He saw the miracles the apostles performed and passed on to others.
5. Remember his former profession.
a. He thinks dollar signs.
b. “Just think what I could do with that power.”
6. His offer is met with, “Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart be forgiven you. For I see you are in the gall of bitterness and in bondage of iniquity.”
7. Simon was saved according to all who read this verse.
a. He believed.
b. He was baptized.
c. He was listed with the saved.
8. Sin entered his heart and he was lost.
V. James 5:19-20, let’s walk through this.
A. My brethren
1. This is adelphoi in Greek
2. It is in the vocative case, those being addressed. Those to whom
he is talking.
3. Anyone among you is ôéò åí õìéí, ôéò is substantive, and it substitutes for a subject.
4. Therefore this phrase refers back to the vocative as its antecedent.
5. Brethren, those reading, are mostly Jewish Christians. Those of the church.
B. The ones among you are the ones who stray from the truth.
1. If he is involved in sin, he must be turned back.
2. If he turns back he turns a sinner from the error of his way.
3. Look at this; he saves a soul from death.
4. This is written to the Christians.
5. They are told that they need to be turning those of their number
from their sinful ways
C. It naturally follows from this that a Christian may so sin as to be lost.
D. It also follows that he still has hope if he repents.
VI. What about Romans chapters 6-7?
A. What about them?
1. Some say that this language here says that you cannot lose freedom from sin.
2. They say that Paul is saying that someone freed from the bondage of sin cannot return to that bondage.
3. Romans 6:4 tells us when we are baptized we are to walk in the “newness of life”.
4. “Newness of life” is the new man that we put on at baptism.
5. It is a life free from the bondage and oppression of sin.
6. We now have the ability to talk to our Father.
7. We have the hope of salvation.
8. We are free to remain in Christ.
B. Can a freed slave sell himself back into slavery?
1. The answer is yes, it happened frequently.
a. A slave would be set free.
b. He would have no way to provide for his family.
c. He would sell himself back into slavery.
2. Jacob did it.
a. He served Laban for 7 years.
b. He received Leah instead of Rachel.
c. He served another 7 years for Rachel.
d. He sold himself back into bondage for the right price.
3. Christians can also break that bondage to sin and re-establish it.
C. When we follow our sin
1. We become weeds in the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30)
2. We fall away. (Matthew 24:10)
3. We allow other things to take the place of Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
4. We turn away as those in Asia. (II Timothy 1:15)
5. Even with repeated warnings.
a. II Timothy 4:1-5, some have “tickling ears”
b. Hebrews 3:12, “Take care, do not have evil in you and fall away.”
c. II Peter 3:17, “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness…”
D. Paul tells us to stand firm
1. I Corinthians 15:1-2, “Hold fast”
2. I Corinthians 16:13, “Stand fast”; “Be strong”
3. I Timothy 6:20-21, “Guard that which is committed to you.”
4. Revelation 3:8-10, Jesus says, “Keep my words”
5. Hebrews 13:1-9. “Do not be carried about.”
E. We have a body of doctrine, a creed that supercedes all creeds. Baptism, being saved, does not excuse us from it, it ties us to it.
F. God will not break that tie.
G. Man can. We can separate ourselves from the salvation that God offers.
CONCLUSION:
1. God has always wanted his people to stay with him.
2. In the Old Testament the nation of Israel was punished for falling away.
3. New Testament examples show that the pattern remains in the new covenant
4. Christians can be lost.
5. Christians can also return.
