Once Saved, Always Saved?
We are dealing this morning with one of the most pivotal truths in the Bible. This is one doctrine, upon which the message of the Bible stands or falls. Often I hear people say that they cannot understand why there are so many denominations. Actually, there are only two groups, those who believe in salvation by grace, and those who believe in salvation by works. This is the dividing line, and all other divisions are immaterial in the light of this one. It is possible to disagree on minor matters and retain a basis of unity.
In our beloved country we differ within states on various Issues, but on the important thing, democracy, we are all in precise agreement. So we can live in Mississippi, Florida, Texas, California, or New York, but we are all Americans and are firm in our belief in the democratic way of life.
In like manner, we can be members of different denominations, and still believe that Christ alone can save and keep the saved.
However; many of our friends who believe that a man can be lost after he is saved never carry this scenario to its ultimate conclusion. In other words, they become lost on the margin of the problem and never dig in to discover the destiny to which this problem takes them.
For example, if a man can be lost after he is saved, what is important is not the sins he commits, or the awfulness of those sins. The important thing is, can he be saved again. Is there such a thing as being saved twice? Is it possible to be born again and again; can you repeat a birth? There is the whole difficulty.
Today I would like to show you that if a person could be lost after he is saved, he could never be saved again unless Christ would come and die a second time. I propose to show in this sermon, that a person can be saved only as many times as Christ died on the cross. In doing so I hope to give you peace in you salvation.
Where We All Agree
One of the best ways to begin dealing with a matter of this nature is to begin where all of us agree.
1) We all agree that men are lost apart from Christ; there is no salvation apart from Him.
2) We also all believe that men can be saved. Our own experience will prove that as well as the experience of others.
3) We believe that all men need to be saved. There is not a single one of us so perfect in his own right that he can meet God’s standard apart from Christ.
4) We also agree that a saved man can remain saved, by the grace of God, or that he can be lost. We must accept either of those positions, we can not accept both, nor can we reject both, we must accept one or the other.
Here is where the division comes.
The following passage that we are taking for our text was written to Jews. They were always in danger of reverting to a legalistic concept of salvation. So the writer takes a hypothetical case and shows that if a person who has been saved could be lost then it would be impossible for that one to be “renewed again unto repentance.” Jesus would have to die again and again. Now notice what the writer says, and I believe that he is speaking about people who have been saved.
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case--things that accompany salvation.
After much study, I don’t see how anyone could misunderstand that passage, and yet it is amusing to discover that many of our friends who do not believe in once saved always saved lean on this passage for their support. This is the most severe section against the position, for the writer states that if they could be so lost they could never be saved again. Never!
The Bible does not teach two salvation’s; the new birth is a once and for all affair. It cannot be repeated. The word of God teaches that the only way that a person can be saved twice is for Jesus to die twice; there will never be another Calvary nor is there any record in the Bible of a person who was saved twice.
Without fail, when dealing with this subject someone comes up with the suggestion, “Oh, if I believed in once saved always saved, I would get saved, and then I would get out and live as I pleased.”
It doesn’t work that way, for when you become a child of God your will is submitted to the Lordship of Christ. Anyone who is trying to take advantage of the grace of God has never been saved. For when the Lord Jesus saves a person, he installs in that individual a desire for holiness and an intense appreciation for the sacrifice of the cross that drives the person to an energetic attempt to please the Lord.
Well you say, what happens to the sins of the believer after he is saved; how does God deal with them.
1) The Catholic they believe a man can be lost after he is saved They say that penance will atone for some, and purgatory will take care of the rest of them. Because they believe in being lost AFTER being saved they have to invent purgatory. Jesus never mentioned such a place; it has no scriptural foundation whatsoever.
2) The man who believes in being lost after you are saved states that you must become the victim of a multiple salvation and confess your sins almost hour by hour because if you die with some sins on you, you will go to Hell. Consequently, people who believe that every moment they are in danger of Hell often are led into modernism; they are forced to believe that there is no Hell, and when they believe that, then they have to affirm that Christ was a liar, for 13 times in the Bible, He states that there is such a place. If Christ is a liar He is mere man and cannot be virgin born, and the resurrection is mere hero worship.
3) Others who believe that baptism is essential to salvation face a tremendous contradiction. They believe that a man has to be baptized to be saved; if he sins one time after he is saved he is lost again and to be saved again he must be baptized again. For if it is essential to be baptized the first time it ought to be essential every time. Since it takes one sin to make a person lost. (If he could be lost) for the word of God states in James 2:10: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all,” then one ought to be baptized every time after he sins, and thus Christianity would become one big splash!
I. Christ has paid for all of our sins on the cross. Romans 10:9-13
A. The sins of 2003 have been forgiven just as much as the sins of 1973. They are under the blood.
B. Notice that Christ said, “IT IS FINISHED.
II. Do you lose you salvation upon sinning?
A. If a Christian sins after he is saved, then God will chastise him, God will spank him, but He will not send him to Hell. Whenever a person becomes converted, God locks the door of Hell and throws the key away.
B. Sometimes people come up with a hypothetical case and say, “Suppose a person becomes a Christian and then he goes out here in a fit of temper and shoots a man. While the gun is still smoking in his hand he has a heart attack and dies, will he go to heaven?”
C. Let me ask you a question, “If I have been serving God for 20 years, and I have been faithful and devoted all of this time, living as nearly perfect as it is possible for a human to live, and then the flesh gets the best of me and I tell a lie, and no sooner is the lie is out of my mouth then I drop dead, will I go to Hell?”
D. The whole problem hinges on one question, how many times can a person be saved?
1. If a person could be lost after he is saved can he be saved again? The answer is no.
2. Therefore, if a person is once saved, he must remain that way. Notice, I am speaking about somebody who is truly saved.
E. Let us for a moment look at some of the inconsistencies of this doctrine, If a person could be lost after he is saved the Bible teaches that it would be “impossible to renew such a one unto repentance.” The lost person could not be saved again. This would mean that the only safe period in the Christian’s life would be between the time that he gets saved and the next time that he sins. (For remember that if a person could be lost after he is saved, one sin would do it).
F. Listen, if the devil can get one of God’s children, he can get all of them, and if he doesn’t get all of them it is because he doesn’t want all of them; those that he doesn’t want, go to heaven on the grace of the devil instead of the grace of God. Now think that over for a moment.
G. Ill. “The Gospel And The Gun”
H. Our Names are written in Heaven
1. The Bible also teaches that the moment we are saved, God inscribes our names in heaven.
2. Luke 10:20
I. No one dies perfect
1. I John 1:8
2. Actually, the closer a person gets to Christ, the more aware he is of his deficiencies.
3. God and George Washington
III. What about our sin?
A. God WILL punish HIS Children. Hebrews 12:5-6
1. Who are His Children?
a. Is everyone a child of God? NO!
b. John 1:12-13 - Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
c. The devil has children also…
d. John 8:44 - You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
e. Have you ever noticed that the devil’s children seem to be having a good time, and you wonder how they can be so wicked and seemingly happy about it? The devil is giving his own a big time because soon they will be in eternal torment.
f. Galatians 5:4 where Paul said: “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”
B. What happens to God’s children when we sin?
1. Ill: When two children are in the front room and they do something mischievous, the mother sends one home and spanks the other; which one does she spank? Her own, of course; she does not bother the other child.
2. In like fashion, God does not deal with the devil’s children. They are going to Hell, and they will face their punishment eternally. But God discipline’s His own. That is the meaning of the words in Hebrews 12:5-6: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
3. If you belong to Christ, you cannot get by with sin. If you can sin and get by, without a scolding from God, it may be a good proof that you are not saved.
4. God spanked Noah and Samson and David and Peter. Take the story of Jonah…
C. Christians should confess their sins. 1 John 1:6-9
1. If our sins have been forgiven at the cross, and all of our transgressions past, present and to come have been taken away, then what is the purpose of confessing our sins.
2. Friends, the Bible teaches that Christians should confess their sins, but let me ask the question, what is the purpose of confessing?
a. Are we confessing our sins to restore relationship or to restore fellowship?
b. Sin hurts the Christian. It robs him of his Christian joy and often his assurance; it cuts his prayer connections with God; it renders him ineffective in his Christian witness; and he is making himself liable for a whipping from the hand of God.
c. But notice, a child of God does not confess his sins for the purpose of restoring relationship; he confesses them for the purpose of restoring fellowship. When a Christian sins, he breaks the fellowship between God and himself. When he confesses his sins, he restores that fellowship.
d. Illustrate. Suppose that you have a fuss with your brother. What has happened? The fellowship has been broken, not the relationship…
e. The whole purpose of confession is so that we may have fellowship with Christ.
I am as sure that I am going to be in heaven when I die, as I am sure that Christ is going to be there, because “my hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness.” I am not depending upon my goodness. I am depending upon the perfection of Christ
The only people who fall from grace are unsaved people who are trying to save themselves by keeping the law. Every person is a recipient of their goodness or the grace of God. But when I depend upon my goodness, then I am condemned.
The grace of God can never become operative in my life until I fall on my knees and say, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” Then grace goes to work; and what a work it does, but God must do it all or He will do none of it at all.
It’s a responsible thing to be a Christian. To be sure, no Christian will ever go to hell, but a Christian can experience hell here on earth if he doesn’t behave himself. There are those listening to me today who are living in sin and you are aware of it. God has spoken to you before and he speaks to you now. Break with that sin; do it before God has to lay his hand on you. He will forgive and empower if you will confess and forsake.
Salvation is eternal and never ending. You are born again once and you cannot repeat a birth. The promise of God cannot lie and “He will keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
