1) Perseverance of the Saints

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April 8, 2000

1) Perseverance of the Saints

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 1
Selected Scriptures
As you know, it was last Sunday night that we came to the final message in the epistle of Jude, that marvelous statement with which Jude closes his letter, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time now and forever. Amen." And Jude closed out his epistle with that great statement that we are kept from falling, we are kept by God and therefore God deserves all the glory.
And that introduced us to a doctrine that is known as the perseverance of the saints, the perseverance of the saints. True believers will persevere in faith to the end. Often that doctrine is called the doctrine of eternal security, sometimes it's sort of cryptically said, "Once saved, always saved." And, of course, all of those things are true. I want you to understand that this is a historic doctrine. I pointed out last time that it's the most important component of salvation because if salvation were not permanent, then the doctrine of election would be called into question, the doctrine of justification would be called into question, the doctrine of sanctification would be called into question and the doctrine of glorification would be called into question, the calling of God would be called into question and therefore the work of the Father, the Son and the Spirit would all be called into question as well. And so what makes the whole of the doctrines of salvation come together and stay together is the eternality of salvation, the perseverance of the saints. And this has been the historic doctrine of the true church, the year was 1644, the place was Westminster Abbey, that famous London church. The room inside the abbey was called the Jerusalem Room. The gathering there in the year 1644 was a gathering of the best theological minds and the greatest biblical scholars in England. The Puritans were the dominating force there, the well-known Puritans, lovers of Scripture, lovers of God, lovers of Christ, lovers of truth. And these Puritans gathered together, about a hundred of them, with Lords and Commoners together. And they embarked upon a five-year endeavor, five years of intense study of Scripture, five years of intense dialogue, five years of intense scholastic effort, five years of discussion. Five years to produce a statement of doctrine. Five years later in the year 1649 they completed their task and what they produced is known as The Westminster Confession of Faith...The Westminster Confession of Faith. Well-known Puritans like Thomas Goodwin, James Usher, Jay Lightfoot, Samuel Rutherford, Jeremiah Burrows, and the chairman of this group, a man named Twisse...T-w-i-s-s-e...labored for these five years to produce what has become the most important Christian creed called The Westminster Confession of Faith.
In that creed, among other things, is a statement about the security of salvation, about the fact that salvation is eternal. This, they were convinced, was what the Bible taught. They didn't call it the security of salvation, they actually called it perseverance, and they named it correctly. In The Westminster Confession of Faith there is a brief and unambiguous declaration. The Confession says this, and I quote, "They whom God hath accepted in His beloved Son effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit can neither totally nor finally fall away from a state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved," end quote. That is the biblically accurate and well-summarized statement of the perseverance of the saints in The Westminster Confession. And frankly, that statement needs no amending, it needs no altering. As it stands it is biblically accurate. Anyone who has been accepted in God's beloved Son, effectually called unto salvation and sanctified by the Spirit can neither totally or finally fall away from the state of grace but shall certainly persevere therein in that state of grace to the end and be eternally saved.
This is supported, of course, by many, many scriptures. It wasn't as if they had to look a long time to find passages of scripture, this is only one of the things they were engaged in clarifying over those five years. But passages, for example, like John 5:24, "Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment but has passed out of death into life." John 3:16 and 18, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. He who believes in Him is not judged, or condemned."
Other passages perhaps familiar to us as well, John chapter 6 verse 37, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me and this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me, I lose none, but raise it up on the last day. This is the will of My Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life and I Myself will raise him up on the last day." There is that monumental text in which we see that no one falls through the cracks in the process of salvation. Whom the Father chooses, He draws, whom He draws He draws to Christ, whomever is drawn to Christ comes, and when he comes, Christ receives him, keeps him and raises him on the last day. The same thing is stated another way by Jesus in the tenth chapter of John, verses 27 to 29, "My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand, I and the Father are one." Indicating the security of the believer, He knows who we are, He holds us in His hand. The Father holds us in His hand and no one can take us out.
Many other scriptures are worthy of our attention. I think of John 4:14, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Once the well is opened up, it never runs dry. It is a wellspring of eternal life. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 we read that those who are in Christ, verse 8, 1 Corinthians 1, are confirmed to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are confirmed to the end and found blameless in the end. Well what if we sin? Well we do sin but our sins having been covered by Christ leave us blameless. And verse 9, so important, "God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord." God is faithful who called you to confirm you all the way to the end and bring you blameless into His eternal presence. And again, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 23 and 24, "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." There's that same affirmation that God who sanctified us will preserve us complete in tact, blameless again at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The next verse, verse 24 says, "Faithful is He who calls you and He also will bring it to pass." He was faithful to call you into salvation, He will be faithful to preserve you until that salvation is complete. And I remind you again of 1 John 2 and verse 19, "They went out from us but they were not really of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. They went out in order that it might be shown they are not all of us."
The true believers stay and abide and remain not because they have the power on their own to do it, they don't, as I pointed out last week, but because the same God who called them, the same God who justified them, the same God who is sanctifying them has promised to glorify them. The Westminster Confession accurately affirms that saving faith cannot fail...it cannot fail. And at this point I think it's crucial for us to understand what the perseverance of the saints does not mean. This will help us to understand what it does mean.
First of all, it does not mean that Christians don't ever fail. It does not mean that Christians don't fail seriously and severely in their Christian lives. We do. What it does mean is what the Confession says it means, they do not completely nor finally fail. Fail, yes. Fail severely, yes. Fail repeatedly, yes. Fail completely, no. Fail finally, no.
The Westminster Confession went on to say this, and I quote again, "Nevertheless, believers may through the temptations of Satan and of the world, through the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, through the neglect of their means of preservation fall into grievous sins and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve His Holy Spirit come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comfort, have their hearts hardened and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others and bring temporal judgments upon themselves," end quote. And the writers of the West Minster Confession understood that this is not to say we are perfect, to say we persevere is not to say we are perfect. There is corruption remaining in us. There is the neglect of the means of grace. There is stumbling into grievous sin and continuing for a time therein. There is the incurring of God's displeasure and grieving of the Spirit and bringing upon ourselves the deprivation of some measures of grace and comfort. There is the reality of hard-hearted sin and wounded conscience that doesn't function as it should. There is the reality of hurting and scandalizing others in the church and outside and bringing upon oneself temporal judgments and disciplines. In other words, perseverance doesn't mean perfection. That is not what we're saying. In fact, there is no perfection to be had here at all. And so this, in a sense, describes all of us to one degree or another. So when we say that believers persevere, we're not talking about perfection, we're not talking about reaching a state of sinlessness. We're talking about persevering in faith, not unaccompanied by failure.
Secondly, it is important to understand that not only does perseverance not mean perfection, but it also does not mean that anyone and everyone who quote/unquote accepts Christ can therefore live any way they like without any fear of hell. It is not enough to have a superficial faith in Christ. It is not enough to have a superficial commitment to Christ, a superficial interest in Christ. It is not enough to have some good feelings about Jesus and make some momentary commitment to Him. That is not what The Westminster Confession was saying. And that is why, this is important, the correct way to describe this doctrine is the perseverance of the saints rather than eternal security. It is not just that we are eternally secure, it is that we are eternally secure because our faith perseveres. In John 8:31 and 32 Jesus said, "You're My true disciple if you continue in My Word." True disciples continue in faith and they don't live like non-believers. Backed by their fruits you can know them because as Ephesians 2 says, "By grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God not of works lest any man should boast, but even though your salvation is not of works, the result of your salvation is good works. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."
A person who quote/unquote has accepted Jesus, made a decision for Jesus, prayed a prayer and goes on to live in a sinful pattern of life with no fear of hell because they think they're eternally secure is deluded. That's why we have to be careful when we talk about the doctrine of eternal security as if the one prayer makes you forever secure. And by the way, this is what is taught by many people. All those people who deny the doctrine of the Lordship of Christ, all those non-Lordship people, affirm that one prayer prayed one time makes you eternally secure without perseverance. That is a misrepresentation of what Scripture teaches and that's why I wrote the book The Gospel According to Jesus and the follow up, The Gospel According to the Apostles. That is not true. So to speak of the security of the believer is not in itself wrong, we are secure. But the other expression is more careful and it's more accurate. It is not true that someone is secure no matter how much they live in sin, no matter how much they turn against Christ and even flatly deny Him, as many have said. Security is simply a reality because of perseverance. A believer may sin, as I said, may sin seriously, may sin repeatedly, but he will not abandon himself to sin. He will not come again under the utter domination of sin. He will not lose faith in Christ and he will not deny his Lord and the gospel. No true believer will shun holiness and embrace sin all together. First John 3:10, very simple, "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious, anyone that doesn't practice righteousness is not of God," that's simple. Anyone who doesn't practice righteousness is not of God. And the prior verse says, "No one who is born of God practices sin." It's not the unbroken pattern of your life. So it isn't enough to say if you prayed a prayer one time, make a decision one time, no matter how you live, no matter what your pattern of life, no matter if you deny Christ later on, you're still eternally secure. No. The doctrine of the believer's security is tied to the believer's persevering faith.
The doctrine of perseverance then is this, at salvation you are given a supernatural faith from God to believe the gospel, to believe the testimony of the Holy Spirit concerning Christ and therefore to believe in Christ and having come to Christ you have come to know the true and living God. This faith is a supernatural gift from God. It is a gift of grace and it is a gift of mercy. Again, Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For by grace are you saved through faith and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." The grace is from God and so is the faith. And what kind of faith does He give you, a temporary faith? If saving faith is a gift from God, then what kind of gift would God give you? He would not give you a temporary gift of faith and if your salvation depends upon a human faith, I will promise you that it will die, and that's what I said last week. If we could lose our salvation, we would lose it. That is why Jesus said, "He that endures to the end, the same will be saved." You can tell who the saved are, you can tell who those are that are going to enter into the full salvation in the next life, they are those who stay endured to the end because it is an enduring faith. That's the kind of faith God gives. Very different than human faith, very different.
I can give you a simple illustration of how human faith works. We...we live by human faith. I mean, we live by human faith every day of our lives. You go to a restaurant, you order something and you eat it. That is an act of faith. It is. You don't know what it is, you don't know who's been playing in it, you don't know where it came from, you don't know what condition it's in, you don't know who cooked it, you have no idea. They put something in a glass and you drink it. They tell you what it is but you don't know what it is, that's an act of faith. Even more than that, you turn on your faucet at home, fill up the glass and drink it and have no idea what's playing in your pipes. It's an act of faith. You get into an automobile, you turn an ignition switch and you set off a series of somewhere between four and eight explosions and you have no fear that you're going to blow up even though you have an internal combustion engine right at your knees. You go roaring onto the freeway at 65 miles per hour, full blast, never expecting to see a semi coming down your lane in the opposite direction. It's an act of faith. You go to the doctor and you say, "Doctor, put me to sleep and cut me open and take out anything you want." You don't know the doctor or anybody else in the room and you have no clue what they're doing in there. I would say that's a pretty significant act of faith. We live by faith all the time...all the time.
But there's a reason for that. That's an educated faith. That's a trained human faith. We've been around long enough to know that engines don't blow up and we've been around long enough to know that doctors usually take the right thing out and don't leave their tools inside when they're done. We've been around to know long enough that the food that you get is okay because you've been eating it for years and drinking the water's okay because you've been drinking it for years and so this is an educated and trained kind of human faith. But when it comes to putting your faith in Jesus Christ, you literally have to deny yourself, completely abandon yourself to someone you've never seen and never experienced and can't know or experience until you come to that complete abandonment. That requires a faith that is beyond the normal human faith, it requires a faith that is a gift from God, a supernatural faith. And the only kind of faith that God gives is a faith that endures. You could not muster up your own faith to be saved, nor could you muster up enough of your own faith to stay saved. And were you to depend upon your own faith, it would fail you when God didn't do what you thought He should do, when He didn't take care of your life in the way you thought He should and when you had your many disappointments and tragedies and sorrows, etc., etc., your own human faith would constantly be weaker and weaker and you would begin to call all kinds of things into question because your experience would not be sustaining, at least visibly for you, what you expected from God, particularly if somebody told you, "Come to Jesus and everything will be great." It is the gift of faith, supernatural faith given by God, that endures so that you believe even when everything does not go the way you think it should. This enduring faith is inexplicable humanly...it's inexplicable humanly. It has taken martyrs all the way to the stake, all the way to the guillotine, all the way to the loss of everything. It's not explicable humanly. Security in Christ then is tied to a persevering faith that endures to the end. And any idea of salvation that leaves out security is a distortion of the truth and any idea of security that leaves out perseverance is a distortion of the truth. You cannot have salvation without security. You can't have eternal life that's not eternal and you can't have a secure salvation without a persevering faith.
So obviously it doesn't mean that we are perfect, but it means we persevere. And it's not enough to pray a prayer at one time and then live like a non-believer the rest of your life and figure you've got it and you're secure. That's a terrible distortion. I'll say it again. Any idea of salvation that leaves out security is a distortion of the truth. And any idea of security that leaves out perseverance is a distortion of the truth.
Now, there are so many texts to study in regard to this. But let me take you to one text that I think will be very helpful for us. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 1...1 Peter chapter 1. This is a very, very full, rich text. This is one that kind of expands before your very eyes. But I want you to look at verses 3 through 9...verses 3 through 9 and I want to read them to you. This comes as a kind of doxology, much like the end of Jude and it is a...it is a pronunciation of glorious blessing on God for our eternal salvation. Listen to what Peter writes.
Verse 3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you." Here's the key phrase, "Who are protected."   You can underline that. That's the heart of the passage. Peter is blessing God for divine protection. "Who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Now notice those two things are tied together. We are protected to the receiving of this eternal inheritance and that protection comes to us through faith. Verse 6, "In this you greatly rejoice." Of course, who wouldn't? "You greatly rejoice that you're protected, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials and they come that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls."
Now I just want to get you the heart of the passage. Verse 5, "You are protected and you are protected through faith," verse 5. Verse 8, "You don't see Him now but you believe in Him." There again is the emphasis on faith. Verse 9, "And obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls." And he means there the final salvation, glorification.
You see, this matter of security, of being protected, is tied to an enduring faith. Now before we look at the details of that passage, I want to just kind of give you a bigger picture. I don't think I'll be able to get through this, so we'll finish it up next Sunday night, or maybe we'll finish it up next Sunday night, I don't know. That was written by Peter. Now let me just stop and talk about Peter. We all know about Peter, right? If anybody...if anybody was to write a treatise on the perseverance of the saints, it should be Peter. It really should. He is the right person to give testimony to perseverance because if there was any New Testament person who was constantly prone to failure, who was it? It was Peter. It was the very man who wrote these words because he was the man who most frequently experienced the protection of a persevering faith. I guess in his case it was kind of a bounce-back faith.
Based on the record of the gospels, none of our Lord's disciples, except Judas, of course, failed more miserably than Peter, impetuous, erratic, ambitious, selfish, vacillating, weak, cowardly, hot-headed. On several occasions he invited strong rebukes from the Lord. I think none more severe than Matthew 16:23 where Jesus looked at him in the face and said, "Get thee behind Me...whom?...Satan." Now I...I mean, that's the limit. When the Lord identifies you as the tool of Satan, you have seriously stumbled. And you remember that low point occurred almost immediately after the high point of his life recorded in the same chapter in verse 16 when he said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said, "Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, but My Father who is in heaven."
But Peter is this great example of the high and the low, the extreme high and the extreme low. Peter is proof that a true believer can stumble and stumble seriously and fail and fail seriously and be weak and cowardly and make temporary denials but because he has been given protection by an enduring faith produced in his heart by the sovereign work of God, he never fails completely and he never fails finally. It wasn't long after that denial that he went out and did...what?...wept bitterly, desperately wanting to be restored.   Jesus even told him in Luke 22 this was going to happen. He said to him in Luke 22 verse 31, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat." Do you understand that Satan can't do anything to anybody unless he has permission? Satan is the servant of God, he can do nothing other than what God allows him to do. He wanted to tear into Peter because he knew how important Peter was to the gospel mission. But look at verse 32, this is something to underline, folks, something to never forget. Luke 22:32, listen, "Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, to shake you to find out if you're real." I love this, verse 32, "But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail." Wow! "I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail." And I'll tell you something, if that's how Jesus prayed, that's what will happen, his faith won't fail. Peter, you know, thought the Lord didn't understand how strong he really was. Peter thought he'd be fine and he gives testimony to that in verse 33, he said to Him, "Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and t o death." And He said, "I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you've denied three times that you know Me." Jesus let it happen. Satan could not tempt Peter if the Lord hadn't allowed it. And He allowed it knowing that Peter's faith could not fail because He prayed that his faith fail not. And His prayer is always heard and answered by the Father because Jesus always prays according to the Father's will, just as the Spirit intercedes according to the will of the Father.
You say, "Why in the world did He let it happen?" So that the trial would prove to Peter the enduring character of his faith. The Lord didn't need to know his faith was real, but Peter did. And I'll tell you why later in the text.   You say, "Well yeah, the Lord prayed for Peter that his faith fail not, what about us?" Turn to John 17...turn to John 17, here you find the Lord praying, this is His great High Priestly prayer. And we can pick it up in verse 9, "I ask on their behalf, I'm praying for those who believe, I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom Thou hast given Me for they are Thine and all things that are Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine and I have been glorified in them." Jesus is praying for believers, not just those alive then, but in the future. And verse 11, "I'm no more in the world," He was sensing that He would be leaving, "and yet they themselves are in the world." I'm going to have to go and leave them here and I'm going to come to You, holy Father...He says this...Keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me that they may be one, even as we are one.
Wow, what an amazing prayer. "Father, keep them, not just Peter, not just Peter's faith not fail, but none of them. Keep them all, all the ones You have given Me, all the elect, all the justified, all the sanctified, keep them, keep them in Your name, consistent with who You are, the great powerful almighty omniscient keeping God, so that together We may be one in the glory of that day when all of redeemed humanity is gathered into Your presence."
More specifically, drop down to verse 15. Jesus is going on to pray, says this, "I do not ask that You take them out of the world." We need them in the world to evangelize. "But keep them from the evil one." Here is Jesus interceding as our great High Priest on our behalf, asking the Father to keep us, keep us, protect us that our faith fail not. Verse 17, He adds, "Sanctify them in the truth, Thy Word is truth." Verse 18, "As Thou didst send Me into the world, I've sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those who believe in Me through their word, not just for the believers now but the ones that will believe through the Word that these believers preach. I want them all to be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You that they also may be in us that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me and the glory which Thou hast given Me I've given to them that they may be one, just as we are one. I in them and Thou in Me that they may be perfect in unity that the world may know that Thou didst send Me and did love them as Thou didst love Me."
Jesus says this, "Father, I want You to show them the glory. I want You to bring them into eternal glory. I want You to protect them. I want You to hold on to them. I want You to keep them. I want You to make sure their faith never fails so that we are all together as one in eternal glory as was planned and intended at the foundation of the world when You set this redemptive plan in motion. Keep them from the evil one, sanctify them by Your Word. Bring them to eternal glory that they may share with us in that glory and not just these...verse 20 says...but everybody who will believe in Me through their words." And you and I are included in that verse, verse 20, because we believe through the words that were written by the Apostles.
So, you see, the Lord Jesus Christ is interceding for Peter as an illustration in Luke 22. It's not an oddity, it's not unique, it's the same intercession that He carries out in John 17, and it's not just for the Apostles then, but for all who would believe that the Father would keep them and bring them to eternal glory intact as one in Him and in the Son.
And by the way, this was not just a momentary prayer that Jesus offered up there in John 17 in the garden that night. He prays like that today and every day and all the time. Hebrews 7:25, listen to this great verse, Hebrews 7:25, "He is able to save forever...that's what that phrase should be...He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him. He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him...here's why...since He always lives to make intercession for them." This prayer in John 17 is a prayer that Jesus continues to pray at all times, our great High Priest at the right hand of the Father interceding for us, able to save us forever because He always lives to make intercession for us. We are kept by an enduring faith that is sustained and maintained to the end by the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
And as I mentioned earlier, the Holy Spirit weighs in on this same great keeping ministry. Romans 8, the Holy Spirit helps our weaknesses. We don't know how to pray as we should. The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, that's not speaking in tongues or something like that, it's not what you say, it's what the Holy Spirit says, and it's not in something uttered, it's in something not uttered. It's a solemn silent inner trinitarian communion where the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, there are no words, it's the Spirit interceding on our behalf and He who searches the hearts, that's God, knows the mind of the Spirit because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So Christ prays according to the will of God that our faith not fail, that the Father keep us. The Spirit prays according to the will of God. And as a result, all things...next verse...work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose in whom He foreknew He justified, and whom He justified He glorified.
Christ's intercession guarantees our future glory. The Holy Spirit's intercession guarantees our future glory. And the Father's purpose guarantees our future glory that He foreknew us, He predestined us, He called us, He justified us and He will glorify us because His purpose at the beginning was to conform us to the image of His Son. He didn't save you for a temporary enterprise, He saved you to conform you to the image of His Son in eternal glory, to give you the very holiness of Christ. When you think about heaven, it's not that we will look like Jesus physically, it's that we will be like Jesus in terms of perfect holiness. We have been chosen, called, justified, sanctified, and will be glorified. We are kept until that hour and we are kept by an enduring faith sustained by the intercessory work of Jesus Christ who prays that we will be protected from anything that would assault that faith, whether it be the flesh or the world or Satan himself. And added to the intercession at the right hand of the Father in heaven is the intercession from the heart of the Holy Spirit who is praying in ways we don't even know how to pray in a silent inner trinitarian communion for the will of God and God hearing and answering that prayer causes everything to work out for good...everything. And so we are sustained by our supernatural faith given to us by God. And when Jesus said to Peter, "I pray that your faith fail not," He was saying to him what is true of all of us, the Lord intercedes for us that our faith may endure. And He always prays according to the will of the Father who always answers prayers according to His will.
As I said last week, if your salvation was up to you, you'd never be saved. If keeping your salvation was up to you, you'd never be saved. Your human faith can't save you, your human faith can't keep you. Therefore you need a faith that is not human, a faith that is supernatural that has to come from God. The faith to believe the gospel in the beginning came from God and it is an enduring faith that always believes.
Listen to Jeremiah 32:40, this broadens your understanding of this because it takes us into the Old Testament. Jeremiah 32:40, listen to this great statement, this is the statement about the New Covenant, the Covenant that saves us. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts...listen...so that they will not turn away from Me." What a statement. It is the nature of this everlasting salvation covenant that God will never turn away from us and He will put in us, in our hearts, a fear of Him that is supernatural so that we will not turn away from Him. It is an everlasting covenant of an everlasting salvation based upon an enduring faith. This faith never fails. There are no true Christians who are drop outs.
You say, "Well wait a minute. Isn't Scripture full of warnings to people not to fall away, such as we read in Hebrews 6:4, not to fall away and put Christ to an open shame such as we read in 1 Timothy chapter 1, those people who made shipwreck of the faith, aren't they warned about that? Those who have been delivered over to Satan to learn not to blaspheme, aren't there warnings?" Yes of course, and those are warnings to false believers. Those are warnings to people who are uncommitted. Those are warnings to people who have come close to the gospel and made a superficial acknowledgment of the gospel but not a real one. And so it's very crucial for us to understand that the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints does not mean that people who pray a prayer or quote/unquote accept Jesus or make a decision for Jesus in some emotional experience are necessarily secure and can live any way they want to live. No. If they have really come to Christ, there will be in them an enduring faith that will be characterized by a love for righteousness, a love for Christ and a hatred of sin. It will not be perfection but it will indicate direction in the way of righteousness.
Well, our dear Peter, he understood the keeping power of God. I'll tell you what, if Peter could have lost his salvation, he would have. How close can you get to Satan so that the Lord looks at you and says, "Get thee behind Me, Satan?" You can't get any closer than to be espousing Satan's desires. But did Peter ever rebound from that. Look at John 21. After all those denials and they were on three occasions. If you multiply all of them, he did it six times on three occasions. But when you come to John 21, Jesus finally confronts Peter, just to give you a quick background, Jesus after His resurrection met with the Apostles, Jesus said to the disciples, "Go to Galilee and wait for Me there." Well they went. When He finally comes, chapter 21 verse 1, the disciples are at the Sea of Tiberias and there they were, Simon Peter always named first every time because he's the leader, and Thomas and Nathanael, and James and John the sons of Zebedee and two others. And Simon says to them, "I'm going fishing," and the Greek language here has a certain finality about it, he says, "I'm going to go back to fishing." And what he was going to do was go back to his old career. And, of course, they went out, got into the boat and couldn't catch anything. Why? Because the Lord rerouted all the fish. They knew that lake like the back of their hands, they grew up fishing there, they knew exactly what time of day and what season of the year to find fish in what spot. And Jesus showed up and asked the question that you never want to ask somebody who's fished all night and caught nothing, "You don't have any fish, do you?" They said no. And then He said this ridiculous thing, "Cast the net on the right hand side of the boat and you'll find a catch." That's very insulting. What do you think, we fished one side? Or maybe you think the boat stays in one spot? Or maybe you think the fish know the right from the left? What kind of a statement is that?
But always Jesus spoke with authority so they did what He said. And they got so many fish they couldn't handle them. And then that disciple therefore whom Jesus loved, that's John, said to Peter, "Uh huh, it's the Lord." And Peter, bless his heart, did he have enduring faith? Sure. Was it weak? Yes. Did he fail? Yes. But oh my did he rebound, verse 7, "When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment on for he was stripped down to his inner garment for work, he dove into the sea." The other disciples came in a boat. He was in such a big hurry to be restored. He hated so much the sin that he saw in himself. He hated his own disobedience. And just impetuously to move in and they were a hundred yards away and, of course, the rest of them were saying, "That's Peter, he leaves us to drag this huge amount of fish into shore." They came in and the Lord had prepared breakfast. You know how the Lord prepares breakfast, don't you? Breakfast! And they brought in some of their fish, a hundred and fifty-three fish, verse 11 says. Jesus said, "Come and have breakfast." And nobody said, "Who are You?" They knew. And after breakfast, verse 15, "Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon, do you love Me more than these?'" What a provocative penetrating question. Do you love Me more than these fish, these nets, this way of life? Do you love Me more than these other disciples? You said that if everybody forsook You, you never would. You said you were willing to go to death with Me. You didn't, you denied Me.
And I guess the right question is, "Simon, son of John, or Jonas, do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Yes, Lord, You know that I love You." And He said, "Then teach My lambs, then do what I tell you, I called you to preach and to teach, not to fish." And remember, Peter had denied Him three times so the Lord was going to restore him three times. He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?" And he said, "Yes, Lord, You know that I love You, You know that." And He said, "Then shepherd My sheep, do what I told you to do." And He said to him a third time, "Simon, son of John, do You love Me?" Peter was grieved this time, this hurt. He was grieved because he said to Him the third time "do you love Me?" And he said to Him this, "Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You." Why?    Because God Himself had given to Peter an enduring faith, an enduring love for Christ. Weak-yes, vacillating-yes, stumbling-yes, but never completely and never finally and always the first to be eager to be restored. And Jesus said, "That's all I ask, tend My sheep, you're the shepherd I'm looking for. When you were young...verse 18...you used to gird yourself, walk where you wanted, not you're old, you're stretch your hands out...He was speaking of Peter's crucifixion which is how he finally died...someone else is going to tie you up, bring you where you don't want to go and this He said signifying by what death he would glorify God." Peter, you're going to be a martyr. And Peter was faithful to the end and when it came time to be crucified, he wouldn't let them crucify him the normal way because he wasn't worthy, he said, to be crucified like His Lord, so they flipped him over and crucified him upside down, a more excruciating way to die. He endured to the end.
There isn't anybody better, really, to write about the perseverance of the saints, about an enduring faith, about an enduring love, about remaining faithful to the end, there's nobody better to write that than Peter, the man who repented with tears, the man who was so pained by his own failure that he dove into the water to swim as fast as he could to Jesus, the one who was so confident of his own genuine love and faith that he asked the Lord to read his heart knowing that what He saw there He would know is the real thing. And so it's appropriate that Peter tell us about persevering faith.
Go back now to 1 Peter, one final comment. When Peter then in verse 5 says, "We are protected through faith," when he says in verse 8, "We believe in Him," when he says in verse 9, "The outcome of our faith is the final salvation," Peter is speaking from personal experience. He knew what it was in spite of his weakness to have an undying enduring faith. And that is the faith that belongs to every person who is truly saved. And as I said, in the end Peter was faithful to proclaim Jesus Christ in the face of death.
Now, in verses 3 through 9 there are six elements of our protection...six elements and I'm going to tell you what they are next time. We are protected by a faith that has six elements, six dynamic spiritual realities operating in it and Peter unfolds them for us for next time.
Lord, thank You for this confident truth that our salvation is forever, that eternal life is obviously eternal, that those whom the Father chose He will conform to the image of His Son, that all whom He effectually calls will reach glory, that all who are predestined to be made into the image of Christ will indeed be made into His image, that all who are covered by His righteousness will one day stand before You in heaven blameless, that all who are being sanctified will be glorified. Lord, we thank You for this enduring faith and though at times it struggles and stumbles and tumbles, and though we sin and sin seriously and sin severely and sin repeatedly, we see ourselves in Peter running back weeping, longing to be obedient, longing to be useful, longing to be restored, longing to be forgive, longing to be washed. We remember Peter stumbling at the Last Supper, blurting things out that indicated his ignorance. But when confronted, saying, "Lord, cleanse me from top to bottom," and therein is the essence of that enduring faith. It loves You in spite of how it acts, it loves You in spite of its weakness and failure, and it longs for restoration and it longs for cleansing. This is that true saving faith. This is that gift You have given us for which we thank You. We thank You and are comforted in the confidence that we will persevere to the end because this gift of faith is an enduring faith and it endures because You ever live to intercede, because the Spirit prays for us and both the Son and the Spirit always pray according to the will of the Father and the will of the Father is that all He gives to the Son, the Son will raise to eternal glory and none will be lost. We thank You, O God, that all the Trinity is gathered to sustain us to that eternal glory, in this we rejoice in the Savior's name. Amen.
The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 2
Selected Scriptures
We are in a bit of a brief study on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. And we sort of picked up on this doctrine because the study in the marvelous epistle of Jude and this little epistle, as you will remember, we've been studying on Sunday nights, ends with this great benediction, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy." That is a statement of the security of our salvation. Our Lord is able to keep us and to present us. This was so important for us as we were going through it that I wanted to enrich our study of just that passage and so last week, and again this week and perhaps one other session next week, we will look at this very, very important doctrine.
Now if you've been with us the last couple of weeks, we've sort of laid a lot of ground work for this and I won't go back over that. I would commend the whole series to you as truth that is among the most encouraging, the most assuring, the most comforting, the most hope producing of all biblical truth, the guarantee of Scripture and therefore the promise of God is that salvation is forever. And this is not a stand alone doctrine. This is not one that you can believe or not believe without any major effect on other doctrines. In fact, quite the opposite is true. To get this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints or the eternality of salvation wrong is to produce chaos in regard to the doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of election, the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of sanctification and the doctrine of glorification. It is, if you will, to unravel all the strands in the cord of salvation. That's why I said at the outset that the most important element in all the range of salvation doctrines is this issue of the perseverance of the saints. It is in the end what makes salvation salvation because it is forever. And I know, as you do, it has been debated as if it's sort of a, I guess, difficult doctrine to come to a conclusion about, as if the Scripture took both sides and was unclear, or if it was just sort of a matter of personal preference. The fact of the matter is it is an absolute critical component in the entire understanding of salvation. And there are so many passages of Scripture that relate to this that we could draw this study out perhaps longer than we need to. Suffice it to say, in a few weeks I can anchor you down, I think, so strongly that as you study the Bible in the future you're going to see those passages that relate to this and you're going to be able to answer those passages that perhaps once troubled you with regard to this issue.
I was thinking as I began to prepare for tonight of Matthew chapter 18, just one of many texts which weighs in on this issue. In Matthew 18 and verse 12 Jesus says, "What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep and one of them is gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? And if it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. Thus it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish," and little ones in this chapter means believers. Back to verse 6, "These little ones are those who believe in Me." "It is not your Father's will that one of these little ones who believes in Him, that one believer would perish."
Now our Lord affirmed that promise in another important text, John chapter 10 and I'll show you just two texts in the gospel of John by way of foundation here. In John chapter 10 and verse 27 Jesus says, "My sheep hear My voice and I know them." And the word "know" has to mean more than I know who they are because that would be true of anybody and everybody. To know them means to have an intimate and personal relationship with them. "I know them and they follow Me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish." Jesus said it is not the will of My Father that anyone of these little ones should perish and here He says they shall never perish. "And no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, I and the Father are one." We are held in the secure hands of the Father and the Son.
In the seventeenth chapter of John, in that marvelous High Priestly prayer to which we referred in earlier studies, verse 11 Jesus says, "I am no more in the world," He knows that He's going to the cross and His ministry here is over and yet they themselves are in the world, referring to those who belong to Him, "And I come to Thee, holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me that they may be one even as we are." Father, I'm going to go through the cross, I'm going to be bearing sin, keep them and bring them into that eternal oneness that You have prepared for them. "While I was with them I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me and I guarded them and not one of them perished, only the son of perdition, Judas, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." And, of course, he was a devil from the beginning and never a true believer. It's not the Father's will that they perish. Jesus follows that up by saying, "And none of them will ever perish." And He says, "I have guarded them to make sure that they won't perish and now, Father, I commit them to You, You guard them so that not one of them will perish." In verse 15 He says, "I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one," the one who would steal their souls, seal their faith, steal their salvation if it were possible.
By such statements and many, many more, we are to be confident that those who are genuinely the children of God through faith in Christ are secure in that relationship forever and will never perish. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will never perish. Salvation is the gift of eternal life and those who receive it will never lose it, or forfeit it. And that is so essential to understanding salvation that it really does boggle the mind that it would ever be open to question. And yet there are many, many Christians, many of you who have been denied the sweetness of that confidence, who have been denied the joy of that confidence, who have been denied the peace of that confidence, the hope of that confidence, the assurance of that confidence, the rest, the tranquility that confidence brings. So many have been told that they will be lost unless they hold on to their confession, unless they hold on to their faith, unless they hold on and keep on believing on their own. I told you in our first message two weeks ago that if I could lose my salvation , I would lose it. If I was in charge of it and I had to hold on, I wouldn't because I couldn't. I couldn't produce my salvation by an act of my own faith and I couldn't sustain it that way either.
It's a terrible thing to say to people, you have to hold on. Well how tightly do you have to hold on? Well you have to live righteously. Well how righteously do you have to live? And so people are caught in this idea of doubt and fear and unnecessary anxiety wondering how far they can go in sin and still not lose it, or how much they can doubt and still not have a non-saving faith. This is a rejection of the very clear nature of salvation, the very clear promise of God. So it is a sin in the sense that it under-appreciates what God has done. It diminishes gratitude because it diminishes understanding and in diminishing gratitude it diminishes worship. And it is interesting to me that in the historic Pentecostal Charismatic churches there is a denial of the eternality of salvation, there is a denial of the perseverance of the saints, there is a denial of the doctrine of security which has to diminish their understanding of salvation which then has to diminish their understanding of justification, sanctification, election, therefore diminishes God, it diminishes their gratitude to God, the joy that they should have and yet it's so interesting to me that their level of emotion transcends the level of emotion of people who understand that doctrine...which almost makes you feel like they're trying to convince themselves that everything is okay against their real instinct because we are to receive with full joy and full gratitude all that God has given us. And because we are to respond with full praise and full worship all the promises of God and give Him glory for them all, we must be clear on this the most gracious pledge in the doctrine of salvation.
Now I understand that the doctrine of justification is the great sort of noble head of all the doctrines of salvation, and I understand the wonder of the doctrine of reconciliation and redemption and ransom and adoption and conversion and regeneration, I understand all those terms and all of that, but in the end what makes all of those have such infinite value and produce such lasting joy is that they are all forever. As soon as you pull that out, you've diminished everything. And as I said last week, any idea of salvation that leaves out security is a distortion of the truth and any idea of security that leaves out perseverance is a distortion of the truth. So if you've ever been saved, you can never be lost. But if you have been saved, you're not going to live a life that presumes on that...that so often people assume and go out and sin any way you want because you can't lose your salvation, because if you've truly been converted, you love the Law of God, you long to obey Christ and that's how you're going to live. And consequently your faith is a persevering faith. We are secure in our salvation from the gift of God of a faith that perseveres. He doesn't just give us the faith to save us as a supernatural gift, and then remove it. So now we're stuck trying to generate our own faith to hold on to salvation on our own. He gives us a faith as a permanent gift that perseveres. That's why instead of talking about eternal security which states a truth but doesn't tell us how, we would rather talk about the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, meaning that we have a faith that never turns to doubt...so severe as to become unbelief. We have our moments of doubt. We have our struggles. But never does our faith turn to final doubt, complete doubt and denial. We are secured by the same supernatural faith that was given to us to cause us to believe savingly and we are sustained by the gift of that same supernatural faith. Salvation can't fail because the faith can't fail..the faith that's come to us from God.
Now tonight in order to see this, I want you to turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. We just sort of introduced that last time and I want to work our way through it tonight. First Peter chapter 1 and verses 3 through 9 and my hope is that we can work our way all through these three verses. Now this marvelous epistle begins with the doctrine of election in verse 1, we are chosen. It then moves to the sanctifying work of the Spirit, obedience to Christ, being sprinkled with His blood. And so it is clearly an epistle directed at the elect, those who have been sanctified by the Spirit through justification unto glorification. And he comes in to verse 3 and starts to unfold the blessing of this salvation which began in eternity past with election and was realized in time through the sanctifying work of the Spirit in our lives that produce submission to the Lordship of Christ. And I want you to notice where he starts. It's as if Peter says, "I acknowledge that you're the elect, I acknowledge that you are those whom God has chosen and whom the Spirit has set apart from sin to God. I acknowledge that you are those who obey Jesus Christ. I acknowledge that you have received grace and peace in fullest measure. And immediately he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." And he could have said, "For the doctrine of election, for the truth of justification, for the truth of sanctification, for the truth of glorification, for our redemption, for our regeneration," any of those glorious terms. But notice what he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," this is a doxology, this is a benediction in response to our salvation, "who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you...and here comes the key statement...who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice."
What do you rejoice in? "You rejoice in the fact that you have a living hope, that you have an inheritance that can't perish and can't be defiled and can't fade away that is now reserved in heaven for you and that you are protected by the power of God through faith. It's in this that you rejoice and even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials. They're the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ and though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls."
Peter says, "Look, the thing that produces the joy, the think in which you greatly rejoice, the thing that causes you to praise and glorify and honor God, the thing that fills you with joy inexpressible and full of glory is that the end result of your faith is the full and final salvation reserved for you at the coming of Jesus Christ, at the revelation of Jesus Christ." This is the whole point. This is the passage as much as any in the Scripture that tells me how at the heart of all matters of salvation is this issue of perseverance. The key phrase for you to underline would be in verse 5, "Who are protected by the power of God."
Now verse 1 tells us that Peter was writing to aliens. That is to say Christians living in the world and they are aliens, as we are in this world. Christians, believers who are the elect, who have been sanctified by the Spirit, that includes their salivation and ongoing sanctification, those who are obeying Christ having been sprinkled with His blood, that is in a sense having made a covenant obedience with Him. And he writes to these scattered believers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, those are all Gentile parts of the world. And he's writing to believers who are not just scattered by they're feeling some serious persecution in chapter 2, in chapter 3, in chapter 4, and even to some degree in chapter 5 references are made to their suffering. So Peter is writing to scattered believers in Asia Minor which is modern Turkey, they are facing severe persecution, in some cases they're facing death, martyrdom. And these believers have a natural fear for their own lives and a fear for their own faithfulness.
Now remember that they don't have a Bible, they don't have the Scripture. They don't necessarily know the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, so they have to be instructed. Put yourself in their place. You've come to Christ, you're in a Gentile world, you only know the gospel that you've heard and whatever else you've been instructed in and you're at best a neophyte, you're new and you feel the heat of the world around you and the pressure of the world around you and you also now feel the escalating hostility toward the faith and you see others being persecuted and perhaps some being martyred. And you wonder if your faith couldn't stand that test. That's not too far fetched, is it? I suppose you've asked yourself that question, I've asked myself that question through my life, what would I do if I were standing there before the stake or if I were standing there before the guillotine to put my head in to have it chopped off, what would I do? What would I do if I was to be tortured in some horrific way? With all that I know I believe at this particular point that the Spirit of God would accomplish His work in me and I would stand the test and pass the test. But if I didn't have what the Word of God has to say about that and I was just kind of hanging on to my own ability to take that severe test, I might begin to wonder whether I'd ever pass the test.
And so here you have these new believers and very normal for them not to trust their own faith, not to trust their own strength. And they are aliens in the world. They are citizens of heaven. Peter calls them a royal priesthood, living stones in God's temple, a people of God's own possessions. They belong to Him. And one thing for sure, they do not need to fear. They do not need to be intimidated. They do not need to be troubled by persecution. They never need to be afraid that their faith will fail when it comes to the test. In fact, in verse 7 he says, "When various trials come...verse 6...they become the proof of your faith which is more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire, and may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." In other words, what he says to them is when you come to the test and you come to the fire, your real faith will prove itself. It's just the opposite of what you think. You have been given a kind of faith that shines in the fire. In verse 5, you are protected by the power of God through faith. In verse 8, no matter what is going on, you believe in Him. In verse 9, the outcome of your faith is the salvation of your soul. That's what we're talking about. It's the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Or another way to say it is persevering faith, faith that perseveres. They were protected by the power of God through the faith that He gave them. You don't have to say to people, "Well, if you can keep on believing, you can keep on being saved." I couldn't be saved by my own faith, I can't be kept by my own faith. That's why I said, if I could fall, I would fall. But I can't fall because I have a faith that's a gift of God.
The issue is very similar in Jude and I'm sure that the teaching from Jude is vivid in your mind. "Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, a brother of James to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father and kept...and kept for Jesus Christ."
Now these people to whom Jude wrote had a lot to fear because they were in a world of false teaching and they were being told to go and reach those who were in false religious systems. And it was dangerous work, as it says in verse 23, you're snatching people out of the fire and you have to do this with fear, hating the garment polluted by the flesh. You get near to false doctrine, you can get polluted by it. Maybe they were wondering, can we go into that world of false doctrine and come out unpolluted? And that's why he says at the end of Jude, "Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling," you are the chosen and you are the kept and you will not fall. If Peter believed and if it were true that believers could lose their salvation, he would have to say something very different than this. If believes there were worried about whether they would survive persecution, worried whether they would survive martyrdom, worried whether their faith would hold on and it really was up to them, Peter would have written this letter very differently. Hang on, folks, hold on, don't abandon the faith, be faithful, be true. Instead he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it's all in His hands, the one who chose you, who foreknew you, who sanctified you, who gave you grace and peace in fullest measure, it's all in His hands and according to His great mercy He has regenerated you to a hope that ever lives, to an inheritance that can never fade away. You are protected by the power of God through faith," etc., etc., etc.
If this had depended on them, you couldn't say all that. But Peter doesn't give them doses of sympathy, "Oh, I understand, hold on, hold on." He doesn't indicate that their fears are legitimate, but he points rather to their absolute safety. They might lose all their earthly possessions and their lives, but never their salvation. Their heavenly inheritance is fixed and guaranteed by God. And their faith will endure through anything and everything because that faith is not natural faith, it's a gift from God, it's supernatural. And their love for Christ wills stand against all assaults and never ever fail.
Look at the word "protected" for a minute in verse 5. It's a strong word, phrouremenus(??)...phrouremenus, a military term, it indicates being guarded by soldiers, present tense, constantly under guard by a powerful protective force. Those who belong to God are perpetually guarded from all enemies until the war is over and the victory is complete. Protected, back to verse 5, by the power of God through faith for a salvation to be revealed. We often say, "Well, I was saved 20 years ago...I was saved two years ago...I was saved three months ago," that's true, it would be just as true to say, "I am nearer to my salvation than I've ever been." It is true, I was saved from the penalty of sin in the past when I believed and the righteousness of Christ was imputed to me and my sin imputed to Him. I have been saved. It is also true to say, "I am being saved, I was saved from the penalty of sin, I am being saved currently from the power of sin which no longer has dominion over me, but there is an element of my salvation that hasn't taken place and so I am nearer to my salvation than I've ever been. I will be saved from the very presence of sin."
The salvation that the Lord determined before the foundation of the world to give me is not complete until that last element is fulfilled. He doesn't start saving people and then stop. Paul says, "I'm confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will...what?...complete it." We have been and are being protected for a salvation yet to be revealed.. I don't know how much stronger you could say it than that. Protected by what? By the power of God. By what means? Through faith for that salvation that is our final glory,
Let me just kind of take apart this passage for you and I won't give you a lot of detail, but I want you to understand it because it's so wonderful. I'm going to show you six ways we're protected, six ways. And I've already basically summarized them to you but I'm going to pull it apart a little bit. Six ways that we are protected.
Number one, we are protected through a living hope. Six ways we know we're protected through...one is a living hope, verse 3. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."
Now we have been born again. We have been regenerated. We have been given new life, it is the life of God, it is eternal life which is not a duration of live but a kind of life. It is the life of God in us. We have been regenerated into this new life. And in this new life we experience as a part of that life a living hope. Everything in our new life is supernaturally and spiritually alive. Our joy is a living joy, our peace is a living peace and our hope is a living hope. What does that mean? It's the opposite of one that dies. It can't die. We do not have a hope that dies but a hope that lives. In verse 13 of this same chapter, "Gird your minds for action, keep sober in your spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Stop worrying about whether you're going to survive the suffering. Stop worrying about whether you can stand before the tribunal of men and maintain your faith and your testimony for Jesus Christ in that hour. Stop fearing that and start fixing your hope on the grace that it will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Live in hope. This is a hope that cannot die because this is a life that cannot die.
In 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 16...2 verse 16, "Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace comfort and strengthen your hearts." When you live in this world you're not supposed to live with fear, anxiety, panic, worry that the devil's going to take your salvation, or somehow you're going to lose it. God doesn't want you to live that way. He loves you and He's given you eternal comfort and good hope by grace. So comfort and strengthen your hearts with that.
In Romans chapter 5, the opening few verses of that chapter celebrate this hope. "We have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand," we now stand in grace and grace covers all our sins, and he says, "we rejoice in hope." In verse 5 he says, "Hope does not disappoint." The Lord didn't give you a hope that can die. He gave you a living hope.
Colossians 1 verse 3, Paul says, "We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." We give thanks to God for you because you have an eternal hope, a hope that always lives and never dies.
Titus chapter 1, it's so wonderful, verse 1. "Paul, a bondservant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of those chosen of God in the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness...listen to this...in the hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised." And the next phrase, "Before time began." Before you ever lived, before there ever was a creation, God promised eternal life and He cannot lie. In Titus chapter 2 and verse 13, "We are looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ."
Folks, we are protected by that living hope. In contrast to human hopes that fade and die, this hope cannot fade, cannot die, cannot disappoint. Hebrews 6:19 says, "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both steadfast and sure." Our hope can't die because our faith can't fail.
Now notice again, back to what Peter says, verse 3, we have a living hope secured through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. All our eternal life is secured by His conquering death. But notice verse 4, "To obtain," and this is our hope, "an inheritance imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you." I just love the fact that the writer will not just make one statement but wants to make four for those doubters out there. It would be enough to say, "You have a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance," okay? If I'm going to receive an inheritance, that's enough for me. But he adds, "Which is imperishable," in case you wonder. And if you're still wondering, "Undefiled." And if you're still wondering, "It won't fade away." And if you're still wondering, "It's reserved there for you." I mean, you run out of but, but, but, but, buts. We're guaranteed an inheritance imperishable, apthartos, not liable to corruption, not liable to pass away. And the word can mean not able to be plundered by an enemy. No one can snatch them out of my hand, it's that John 10 passage. Or it's that Romans 8 passage, "Who could bring a charge against God's elect that would stick." God's already justified us. Our inheritance can't be plundered, it can't be stolen by any enemy, by Satan, demons, it is eternal, it is indestructible, it is protected by God. And then he adds the word "undefiled," amiantos, unstained, not subject to defect, not capable of failure. And then he adds amarantos, will not fade away, can't diminish. Every way he can say it, he says it.
We've all been exposed to Greece lately with the Olympic Games over there and fascinating look at human life, to be sure. On one of the islands of Greece, some years ago workmen were making excavations in an ancient subterranean tomb area. They came upon a really magnificent marble sarcophagus which is where they put dead bodies in ancient times. An inscription in Greek, according to a historian, informed the workman that here was interred the body of Carysco(?), the golden-haired only daughter of Sophirus(?), King of Milo. When the lid was removed and a gleam of the lights shone within, a sight was disclosed the thrilled the spectators with wonder and awe, there lay in this sealed sarcophagus now unsealed, the embalmed princess dressed in gorgeous robes and adorned with antique-shaped jewels. It was reported that she had long, luxuriant hair, tied together by a golden circlet forming a flowing frame for her face and sides. After a sleep of nearly 3,000 years, she looked as fresh and fair as if she had been buried only a few days earlier. But the writer says, "While the enraptured spectators gazed with bated breadth at the exquisite sight, fresh air entered the sarcophagus. All at once the lovely vision collapsed and crumbled into ashes. Nothing remained in the cold marbled tomb but a handful of ashes mingled with jewels."
This is how it is with earthly beauty and earthly joy. It all crumbles away. But not our heavenly inheritance. Everything in this life is subject to corruption. Everything in this life is subject to decay, it is subject to fading. But our salvation is incorruptible, undefiled, unfading. Why? Because it's not a part of this world, it is not human. And he says that, go back, "It is reserved in heaven for you." And because it's there it's not corruptible, it's beyond corruption, it's outside the capability of corruption. It's reserved in heaven for you and in heaven there is no corruption, right? And that verb, "it is reserved," perfect passive participle from tereo, to keep or to guard. Perfect passive means it has been and continues to be protected there in the safest place in the universe, heaven. And you remember the words of Jesus that we quoted this morning, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and thieves break through and steal, but lay up your treasure in heaven where moth and rust does not corrupt and thieves to not break through and steal." The safest place in the universe is heaven, right? That's where your eternal inheritance is reserved.
And it is protected there to be revealed at the last time. Look at verse 5. "For a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." A salvation that's ready, hetoimos, means at hand, present, prepared. Second Corinthians 10:16 is translated, "That which has been accomplished," it's already done. When Jesus said in John 14, "I go to prepare a place for you," what was He saying? "And I hope you'll show up or I'll have to rent it out to somebody else?" If He's going to prepare a place for you, He says I'll come again and I'll get you and there won't be anybody else in your place but you because I'm preparing it for you. We are protected until the salvation yet to be revealed in the last time when we come face-to-face with the Lord, either through death or His coming, to receive the inheritance that now at this moment already is at hand in its place, already prepared waiting our arrival.   And there aren't going to be a lot of vacant rooms in the Father's house because the folks for whom they were prepared didn't show up. Protected is a military term and the verb tense speaks of continuous action, always being protected, always being protected. And protected through faith...underline that, that's the key, that's why we talk about the perseverance of the saints because if you're truly saved, you have a faith that lasts. Take you back to 1 John 2:19, "They went out from us because they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us. They went out from us that it might be made manifest they were not all of us."
The point is this...you say, "Well what about the person who believes for a while and goes away?" That was human faith, that wasn't the gift of faith from God. They never were genuinely saved. If they were genuinely saved, if they genuinely came to Christ, if they genuinely repented and believed, if they genuinely were given that gift of saving faith, if they truly and honestly opened their heart to that gift from the Lord, that gift would be there to the end. Our continued faith in Jesus Christ is the instrument by which God protects us.

So, as you look at this idea of protection, we are protected by means of a living hope, or we experience that protection, the reality of that protection through our living hope. And secondly, as we pointed out in verse 5, we are protected by God's own power. We are protected by a hope that cannot die and we are protected by a power that cannot fail...a power that cannot fail. God's power is limitless. God's power is sovereign. God's power is supreme. God's power can never ever fail. You could go through scripture after scripture, I won't take the time to do that, you're always so patient with me and last Sunday night I went long so I'm going to be short tonight to try and make up for it occasionally. But the Bible is pretty clear about the power of God. But if you're wondering about the power of God, you might just remember that He created the universe. That sort of would be enough to cover the discussion. And if you're still wondering, He created the universe out of nothing. If you're still wondering how much power He has, He created the universe by speaking it into existence. And if you're still wondering, He created the universe by speaking it into existence in full maturity. And if you're still wondering, He spoke it into existence in full maturity in six days and He could have done it in six milliseconds, but He established a pattern of life for us with the idea of a week. This is our great and powerful God. Not only did He create the universe but He upholds the universe, He sustains the universe, He keeps it together. When Einstein comes to the end of his life and says, "After all my studies and all my discoveries," he said in effect, not exact words, "I die disillusioned and incomplete because I never could find what is the power that holds it all together." It's fine to understand the atom, it's fine to understand what the components of the atom do, it's fine to get down to the most minutest elements of existence of matter and energy, but in the end he couldn't discover what it was. And because of that there was great disillusionment. What it is is simply the power of God...the power of God. And it is that same power that keeps us. And the means He uses to keep us is by giving us a faith that does not die. And if there was a time when you believed and now you don't, if there was a time when you had interest in Christ and now you don't, if you are indifferent to the Lord at all, if you don't have a hunger and thirst for Him, if you don't have a desire for His Word, if you don't love Him and long to serve Him, if you don't want to know Him, if you don't have a sustained trust and confidence in Him, if you don't live your life in the hope of eternal glory, then whatever you may or may not have done in the past, you're not a Christian. You're not a Christian because Christians live by faith, an enduring sustained faith. It's not apart from our wills, it's in perfect harmony with our wills. We remain steadfast but not passive. We are active in persevering. We are pursuing Christ with all our might. We are pursuing obedience. We are longing for it, desiring it. We hate sin, we love righteousness. We are active in this process of persevering, that's why we can call it persevering. It is a kind of faith that captures our minds and captures our souls and makes them enamored with Christ and in love with His Word and in love with His Law and desiring to serve Him. All our being, everything in us reaches out to honor Christ and we live in a kind of state of grief because we do what we don't want to do and don't do what we ought to do and we find ourselves in Romans 7, sick of our own remaining sin.
So Peter says you are worried about whether your faith will endure these terrible severe tests? Don't worry...don't worry. As Jesus said, and we studied this just last week, "When they take you before the synagogue and before the authorities and the kings, don't be anxious, the Holy Spirit will show you what you should say." And you'll say what you should say and you'll stand and give your testimony to Jesus Christ in the worst possible situation because that's the gift of faith that you've been given by God, sustained by the Holy Spirit.
So we are protected, protected by a living hope, protected by divine power, a faith that is a gift from God. But it is an active faith, not a passive one. It is an aggressive faith, not a weak one. It is a pursuing faith, not a fleeing one. And we are eager for the salvation that is ready for us to be revealed in the last time. There are four more of these means or experiences by which we know divine protection, we'll cover those four next Sunday. Let's pray.
Lord, there's so much here and it's so incredibly rich, so encouraging to us that we feel that if anything, we want to slow down and savor every thought. We aren't worthy to be saved. We aren't worthy to be kept. We are worthy of nothing. And we ask, O God, that You would make us grateful, forgive us for ever doubting Your eternal gift. Forgive us for whatever kind of diminished worship arose out of a failure to understand that. Forgive us for not honoring You as You should be honored for such an immense enduring gift of mercy and grace to us. And we worship You, we love You, we honor You and we adore You for our salvation. And we know that as we live our lives in this world, we are constantly desiring to honor You and yet constantly aware that it is grace that keeps us because we are so unworthy. We thank You for this great grace. We look forward to the salvation to be revealed at the last time. We thank You for enduring faith and may we persevere with all our strength and devotion and commitment. As Paul put it, pressing toward the mark of Christ's likeness, for this demonstrates our love for the One who gave His life for us and we pray in His name. Amen.
The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 3
1 Peter 1:6-9
We are continuing a study for these few weeks on the subject of the perseverance of the saints. That is a, I think, a good biblical title to describe a doctrine that is often called the doctrine of eternal security, or the security of the believer. The bottom line in this doctrine is that when the Lord saves someone, that salvation is forever, never to be reversed. The Bible is clear on that basic truth and the basic truth is that salvation by its very nature is irrevocable.
In spite of the clarity of Scripture, however, on this, there are those who have fallen under the influence of teaching that denies it. There are many in the Christian church who are living in some kind of fear with the possibility that they could lose their salvation. They are warned that they can by sin or failure to believe forfeit that salvation which God has given to them. That is to say a believer can become again an unbeliever, a new creation in Christ can become again the old. Those who are now the children of God can become again the children of the devil. Those who are citizens of heaven can become occupants of hell. In fact, all that is given to us in Christ can be lost and forfeit. And inevitably those who teach that doctrine endeavor to support it in Scripture. And they bring up a list of doctrinal passages to be used as a support for the idea that you can lose your salvation. I've dealt with this through the years many, many times and many fronts and not the least of which is trying to help the Russians, the Russian believers understand this doctrine because for so many years they have been taught that it is possible to forfeit your salvation.
On one occasion, to illustrate the point, I was in Minsk in Belarus. Belarus is a very interesting republic, once a part of the Soviet Union. It is the one most dramatically affected by Chernobyl because the radio activity that came out of Chernobyl is in the ground and therefore in the water and in the food supply and the whole nation is dying. It's really an incredible place to go. I've been there on a number of occasions. On one occasion we went to an old Communist military camp for a pastors conference, which is quite an interesting change, where Communist soldiers were trained, pastors were being trained. I was there for a week with them, sleeping in the barracks with them in that place and teaching them the Word of God, long, long intense all-day sessions day after day after day. And along the way I said something about the fact that salvation was forever, was eternal and could not be lost. And this, I think, was in the context of working our way through the book of Romans, most particularly chapter 8. And I didn't make that as a major point, I just made some comment about it and went on to whatever else the issue was. And that was at the end of the day and I went off after a little bit of refreshment to the section of the barracks where I was staying and slept and got up in the morning and went back into the hall where there was a little bit of breakfast and then we had our meetings. And when I got back I was greeted by the person who was directing the meeting who said to me that what I said there at the close of the evening about salvation being forever and irrevocable caused no small stir so that 27 of the leaders stayed up all night. And they stayed up all night and compiled a list of verses that caused them to have difficulty accepting that teaching. And they said, "Here are the verses. Now today we want you to answer all these verses."
Fair enough, right? I mean, if it's true it ought to stand the test of Scripture. And so with the best I could I tried to work my way through those verses and to show them how to understand those verses. And in all fairness to you, particularly those of you who have been perhaps taught that you could lose your salvation, you know some of those verses as well and it's important to make some kind of reference to them. And so I want to do that. Essentially these are the verses that are very often, or the major ones that are very often used for people to support the idea that you could lose your salvation.
John 8:31 is one. John 8:31 says, "If you abide in My Word then are you truly disciples of Mine." And they will say, "Well you see, if you don't stay in the Word, you would cease to be a disciple." And then there's John 15:6, "If anyone does not abide or remain in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up and to gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned." You're going to go to hell if you don't stay faithful. You're going to go to hell if you don't abide.
And then there's Matthew 24:13, "The one who endures to the end, he shall be saved." So it really does depend upon your endurance. The same thing is mentioned also in Matthew 10:22. And then there is Acts 13:43 where Paul and Barnabas were speaking to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, quote, "Urging them to continue in the grace of God." And so it seems as though you have to will and commit yourself to continue in the grace of God to be saved in the end.
Other verses, Romans chapter 2...Romans chapter 2, "God...verse 6...will render to every man according to his deeds, to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality He gives eternal life." In other words, if you don't persevere in doing good, persevere in seeking glory, honor and immortality, you won't receive eternal life. And over in the eleventh chapter of Romans, and there are other verses, these are just notable ones, verse 22 of Romans 11, and here is the kindness and severity of God, "To those who fell severity, but to you, God's kindness if you continue in His kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off."
And so, there are these warnings about abiding, remaining, enduring, continuing. Colossians chapter 1 gives a perhaps familiar one. It says, in verse 21, "Though you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach," talking about salvation, you used to be evil and now He's made you holy. Verse 23, "If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you've heard." So again it's this word "continue." The words are pretty much the same in all the verses, abide, remain, continue. They all sort of trace back to a common Greek origin.
Hebrews chapter 3 adds some other input into this, and these are verses also that I was sort of forced to discuss with our dear brothers in Russia to help them understand them. In Hebrews 3:6, "Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence to the end." And verse 14, "We have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end." It's about holding on. It's about enduring. It's about continuing. It's about remaining. It's about abiding.
All of these passages are passages that have to be understood. Are they warnings to hang on to your salvation? Are they warnings that if you...if you let go or if you drift or if you deviate, or if you fail to endure, you're going to lose your salvation? Well if they are, then the Bible contradicts itself. Clearly Scripture teaches salvation is forever. It also teaches that salvation is of God and you can't save yourself either initially or in an ongoing sense. You couldn't be saved initially by your own...the strength of your own faith and you can't hang on by the strength of your own faith. We've been saying that.
The idea here is these are not warnings to believer to hang on with all their might lest they lose their salvation. They are rather statements that those who endure, those who continue, those who persevere, those who hold fast give evidence of being the ones who are saved. So that you can take all of these verses and sort of answer them all in the same way. Jesus is saying, if you're one who abides in My Word, then you're a real disciple. If you're one who does not abide, you're not a true disciple. If you're one who endures, you're going to receive your final salvation. If you're one who continues in the grace of God and continues in the hope of the gospel and continues steadfastly and holds on, then you give evidence of having had the mighty saving work of God because you possess the only faith that saves and that's an enduring faith.
These passages then define the nature of saving faith. They are not warnings in the sense that believers would need to be warned to hang on. They are warnings to superficial believers, to sham believers, to professing believers who aren't the real thing. And they are saying if your faith is real, it will endure to the end, kept by God, protected by God.
But how does He protect us? Through faith. He gives us a faith that saves and a faith that endures to the end. We were saved by faith and we endure by faith. It is not natural. It is supernatural. It is a gift of God, Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says. Just as you were not saved apart from faith, a gift from God, you cannot keep being saved until your glorification by any human faith, but rather by that same supernatural faith that God gives you. You were commanded to believe and you did savingly. You were commanded to obey for salvation the gospel, and you did. You are now commanded to believe and obey for sanctification and you do. And you are commanded to persevere in obedience and faith to the very end and you will.
What the writers are saying is this is how you identify the real believer. You're the real thing if you persevere. And the text on which that whole interpretation really rests is 1 John 2:19, "They went out from us but they were not really of us for if they had been of us they would have remained with us but they went out in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us." When somebody abandons the faith it's proof positive that it wasn't saving faith. It wasn't the supernatural faith that God gives because it didn't remain, because it didn't abide, because it didn't continue, because it didn't hold fast, because it didn't endure.
In 2 Timothy 2 and verse 12 we read this, "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us." There are only two possibilities of people who profess Christ, the real and the false, If we endure, we're the real and we'll reign. If we deny, He will deny us. You remember what Jesus said? "If you confess Me before men, I'll confess you before the angels of God or before My Father in heaven. If you deny Me before me, I'll deny you." If ever anyone denies Christ, rejects Christ, all they manifest is that they never had the real faith because the real faith is an enduring faith, it is the gift of supernatural faith that endures to the end.
Verse 13 then, 2 Timothy 2, "If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." And He has identified Himself with you. He has given you to share in His life. Those who endure are the true believers. Those who do not endure are false professing believers and the true believers will have temporary struggles with their faith.
And it's true. There are times when our faith is weak. And do we forget the words of Jesus who said to His own devoted followers, "O you of...what?...little faith?" But never outright denial in some final and complete sense. So it really is fitting that we turn to Peter because Peter had the real saving faith, but he also manifest temporary weakness and even a temporary denial when confronted at the trial of Jesus. So let's go back to our text of Peter chapter 1.
Peter is the one to whom we turn for the strong testimony of persevering in spite of faith that is weak and being protected by God with a faith that cannot fail. Peter's faith had its weak moments. There were those temporary denials. I might just fill in a little blank for you. Peter had that terrible temporary lapse, you will remember, before Pentecost, before the Holy Spirit came to dwell in him. And after the Holy Spirit is come upon you, you shall have power, Jesus said. After the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, you never hear anything about a denial on the part of Peter again. He stands up before the whole population of Jerusalem and preaches Christ. But Peter understood persevering faith. He understood lapses, but he also understood persevering faith. His lapse was never final and it was never complete. He surely understood then the Lord's faithful love. He understood restoration. You remember how the Lord brought him and restored him. He understood grace. He understood the strength of the faith that the Lord had given him. If you're the real thing, your faith will not fail completely or finally. You will to the very end trust in Christ because you are kept.
Let's look at verse 5, 1 Peter 1:5, "Protected by the power of God through faith." That is such an important statement. Protected by the power of God through faith. How does God keep us? Through our faith, through our persevering, enduring, continuing faith. Now remember, Peter is writing to Christians who are being persecuted, even martyred. And in the fact of that they were wondering whether their faith would hold up and they were very anxious about it. Would their faith fail if they were taken prisoner? Would their faith fail if they were facing beatings? Would their faith fail if they were facing death?
They didn't trust in their own strength because they knew their own struggles as believers. They knew they all lived like we do in Romans 7, not doing what they want to do and doing what they don't want to do and battling the remaining flesh. And they wondered whether or not they would ever be able to survive in extreme trial of persecution. Not trusting in their own faith they feared t heir faith might fail.
Peter writes this letter and notes that they're going to have some very, very trying times. Over in chapter 2 verse 20 he talks about being harshly treated and enduring it, enduring it with patience. In chapter 3 he talks about the harm that could befall them. In chapter 4 he talks about them suffering as a Christian, verse 16, and not feeling ashamed, but glorifying God. I mean, it's pretty clear that they're going to have some very difficult times. Chapter 5 verse 10, "After you have suffered for a little while, the God of grace..." and so forth and so on. And so the letter recognizes that they're under very serious intimidation and threat. And they're concerned as to whether their faith will survive. And Peter says in verse 5, "You're protected, you're protected by the power of God through faith." And what I've been saying is, it's not your faith it's the faith that comes from God that's given to you as a gift. It's a supernatural faith.
Now we're looking at the elements or the components of this protection. And let me go back just to what we said last time. First of all, we're protected by a living hope...protected by a living hope, verses 3 and 4, 1 Peter 1. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away...I love this word...reserved in heaven for you." You had a living hope. What is that? A hope that cannot die, that's the point. It's a hope that cannot die. It can never die. Hebrews 6:19 says, "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast." And what is our hope? Our hope is heaven, our hope is to see Christ, to receive our eternal reward, to enter in to our heavenly home, to receive our inheritance.
This is the future for us, the future in the next life. This is an inheritance that Peter says is imperishable. I mean, how many ways can he say it? It can't perish, it's undefiled, it can't be corrupted, it's unfading, it can't be diminished and it's reserved and it's frankly reserved for you in heaven. And by the way, heaven is he safest place to put anything, that's why in Hebrews 6 it says that our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, has Himself entered into heaven. He's entered into heaven.   This hope, as I just read, we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us. Jesus went into heaven and anchored there our eternal hope. This hope is anchored, secure in the safest place which is heaven. Are you reminded of Matthew 6:19 to 21? Lay up treasure in heaven where moth and rust does not corrupt and thieves cannot break through and steal. It's the safest place. In Revelation 21:27, "Nothing unclean ever enters there, no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it." No thieves can get there to steal your inheritance. Chapter 22 verse 14, "Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life and they enter by the gates into the city. Outside of heaven are the dogs, the sorcerers, the immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying." The safest place you can put anything because only the redeemed and the righteous are there. And what is in heaven is sealed.
Go back for a minute to Ephesians 1. Ephesians chapter 1 is this great statement made in verses 3 through 14. Verses 3 through 14, most Bible scholars say, is one sentence, which means Paul got pretty hyper here. He never put a period anywhere here. It just keeps flowing. But it starts out, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ...every spiritual blessing...every spiritual blessing." What does it involve? He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Now get this, will you please? "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him." Before the world ever began, before time ever began He chose us to be there when it was all over with Him in glory. And so He's going to get us there. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace. He predestined us to be adopted as sons. This was His intention. This was His will. And it's to the praise of the glory of His grace. So He determined in eternity past that He would bring us to glory. He predestined that. And therefore He freely bestowed this grace on us in the beloved, in Him we have redemption through His blood, forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. And down in to verse 11, "We have obtained an inheritance, it's an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose." This is about an inheritance that was predetermined before time began.
Our eternal destiny was locked up, sealed and delivered, as it were, before the world was ever created. It was all according...verse 11...according to His purpose and He works all things after the counsel of His will. The purpose of it was that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be the praise of His glory. In Him you also after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed...look at this...you were after you believed...what's the next word?...sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. Now you can call the Holy Spirit a lot of things but when you call the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit comes as a seal to guarantee something in the future, something unrealized as to yet. You were sealed in Him at the moment that you believed and the Holy Spirit of promise was given to you as a pledge. That's the Greek word arrabon, down payment, down payment. It also is a word for engagement ring, of our inheritance. You were given the Holy Spirit as a seal at the moment you believed as God viewed the future and the redemption of His own possession to the praise of His glory. And that phrase, "the praise of His glory," is repeated over and over there.
So you understand then that the moment that you believed you were sealed and your inheritance is unchangeable. That's the way God planned it in eternity past and that's His purpose, that's His will and that 's exactly what He will do. From the moment you believed, you were sealed and the Spirit was given to you as that seal.
Look over to chapter 4, same book, Ephesians 4 verse 30, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of final redemption. You have been given a living hope, beloved, a living hope, the hope that cannot die, an inheritance that cannot ever change and you have been given a down payment, a guarantee in the indwelling Holy Spirit of promise who seals you for that day. So you are protected by the power of God through a living hope.
Secondly, we're protected by God's own power. And I just want to expand on that which is...I've already commented on it. We just simply said last time that phrase in verse 5, "protected by the power of God," is intended to remind us that we are protected by the greatest power there is. "Protected by the power of God for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." We are protected by the power of God until that salvation which is now ready, the word means prepared, at hand, present, already accomplished, until it's finally delivered in the last time when we see Christ in His glory. It's like Philippians 1:6, "He that begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." The day of Jesus Christ is the same as the day of redemption, the day we see Christ and enter into eternal glory. It's the day that John had in mind in 1 John 3:2, "Beloved now we are children of God. It has not appeared as yet what we shall be, we know that when He appears we shall be like Him because we'll see Him just as He is." And also in 2 Timothy, I think, we can't miss this one, chapter 4 verse 7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. In the future there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all those who have loved His appearing."   We are sealed until a salvation to be revealed at the last time is ours. We are kept to that by divine power, the very power of God Himself.
And that draws us in our minds into one other very important passage. Turn back to Romans 8.
And here in this section probably the greatest passage on the perseverance of the saints, we see just how great the power of God is. Romans 8, look at verse 38 and 39. "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." There isn't any power that can conquer the power of God and His love for His own. So, that's review. We persevere through a living hope and through divine power.
Thirdly, and this is very important for us, we are protected by hope, we are protected by power, we are protected by trials...we are protected by trails. This may seem to be sort of counter-intuitive, against the grain of what seems reasonable at first, but I want to show you how important this is. If you don't get anything but his, you will get the heart and soul of this wonderful truth here. Look at verse 6, "In this you greatly rejoice."
Sure, of course we rejoice that we're protected by God's power, we're protected through a living hope. We do rejoice in that. "We rejoice even though now for a little while if necessary, if God determines that it's necessary, you have been distressed by various trials."
Now stop there for a moment. You greatly rejoice even though now for a little while if necessary you have been distressed by various trials. And the trials are different for everybody because the spiritual necessities are different for everybody. We all are at different points along the sort of the path of spiritual development and the Lord needs to do different things in our lives, so we get tests according to necessity that God determines for them and we rejoice in those tests. Instead of these people looking at the possibility of being arrested, put in prison, tortured and martyred and fearing their faith would fail, he says you ought to greatly rejoice in these distressing trials. Verse 7, here's the reason, "That the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
Now just take the first part of that verse. This is the proving of your faith. We are protected by trials. God sustains our faith. Here's a way to understand it. God sustains our faith not by keeping it away from trials, not by making sure it's never tested. God doesn't protect us, hold on to us, keep us enduring continually, holding fast by making life easy. He does the opposite. God sustains our true faith by putting it through hard times. He sustains our faith by means of trials. You had a trial and you come through the trial trusting the Lord. And you say this faith is the real thing. The phrase, "you greatly rejoice," might catch you by surprise. You know, we get it backwards and, of course, we're not helped at all by these ridiculous prosperity preachers that are all over the place giving people false hope and telling them lies, preaching prosperity instead of preaching suffering, trials. And so the phrase, "you greatly rejoice in trials," may catch you a little bit by surprise. But remember, these people are facing life-threatening persecutions, fear is a human response. And Peter says, "Yet you greatly rejoice." Why? You rejoice because these tests prove the character of your faith. Human faith would disappear. We know that if you go back to the parable of the soils. Some of the seed, you remember, went into ground where there was rock underneath, remember that? Rocky ground, and it sprung up for a little while and when persecution came, what happened? It withered and died. It's always a test of the reality of spiritual life, always a test. Trials strengthen faith and they reveal true faith. Look at James chapter 1, James chapter 1 verse 2 says essentially the same thing, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." You know, I guess there's something wonderful about getting to the age I'm at. People ask me, "Do you question your salvation?" Sometimes young people ask me that, somebody even asked me that this morning, "I'm struggling with whether I'm really a Christian or not. Do you struggle with that?" And my answer honestly is no. When I was very young, you know, the devil would hammer me with doubts. But the truth of the matter is I don't question the true character of my saving faith because its withstood so many trials. Every time you go through a trial you see the nature of your faith. The trials don't help God find out what kind of faith you have, He gave it to you. It's not that He needs information about your faith. But they become a joy to you when you encounter various trials, verse 3, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance and endurance has a perfecting result.
I mean, what is more wonderful...what is a greater gift than to have the assurance of salvation? Anything better than that? If you ever live with doubts and fears and all of that, it's wonderful to know that you've got the real thing, it's wonderful to see its capability to survive disaster. In fact, I have found in my life that the more severer the trial, the stronger my faith is, the more my confidence in God rises.
Second Timothy is another text that's helpful on this. Second Timothy 1:8, Paul says, "Join me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God." Verse 9, "God who saved us, called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." There is that doctrine of election, predestination which is foundational to our security. But he says in verse 10, "Now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer , but I am not ashamed." He's saying I survived amazingly. In fact, I rise to the occasion. The greater the suffering, it seems as though the brighter the shining testimony. And now Paul can say from personal testimony, the middle of verse 12, "I know whom I have believed."
How do you know Him? Because He's manifested Himself...He's manifested Himself in all my suffering, in all my trials and I know whom I have believed. I know that I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. What is that day? Redemption day, the day of Christ, the day you see Him face-to-face. I know whom I have believed, I know that I have believed, I know He is able, that is dunatos, He is powerful to guard what I have entrusted to Him. By the way, that's paratheke, that's deposit, what I've deposited with Him...my life, my soul, my eternity. I know He's able to guard it. I know He can guard it through my faith because no matter what the trial, my faith never fails. He has given me a faith that survives it all. Real faith emerges from trials stronger than ever.
You know, back to Romans 8 again. You just can't stay away from that chapter talking about this. But in Romans 8 Paul says in verse 35, "Who's going to separate us from the love of Christ?" Is there anything that can happen that can cause Christ to stop loving us?    Well we could flip it over, either way in the Greek, is there anything that could happen that could cause us to stop loving Christ? "Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword," you think he just sort of grabbed those words out of the air? No, that's autobiographical, been there. Tribulation, daily plots against my life. Distress, without food, without clothing, cold, in the sea, persecution constant, famine often, nakedness as a prisoner, beaten with whips, rods, in peril of robbers and peril of my own countrymen and peril of the Gentiles, he gives a whole list in 2 Corinthians 11.   Sword, been t here, seen that waved at me, and I'm telling you in all there we are put literally on the brink of death all day long, we were considered sheep to be slaughtered, verse37, "But in all these things we overwhelmingly...what?...conquer." That's where the word Nike comes from, nike, the conqueror. You see, this kind of faith that God gives us rises in the trial, it rises.
Now I've never faced persecution. I face some pretty hostile environments. You have to put your faith on the line in some environments. I find..I find a level of energy and a level of commitment and a level of conviction and a level of boldness in those environments that perhaps is even greater than others. And there is that work of the Holy Spirit so that that trial becomes for me the affirmation that the faith, not mine, but that He's given me is the real thing.
Trials do...back to our text...produce distress for a little while. They come like fire to burn off the dross. And that's the point. Not only do they reveal your faith, but they purify it. And what emerges, 1 Peter 1, is a faith that is more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire. When you get your faith tested, it comes out purer, more precious. And I will tell you, with that in your mind, you...instead of asking for God to protect you from trials, you should ask Him to make sure He puts you through all the trials necessary to give you the confidence that your faith is real.
I love what it says in Acts 5:41, "They went on their way from the presence of the Council," you know, the Council that called the apostles and flogged them, that's what the Sanhedrin did, "and ordered them to speak no more in the name of Jesus." You know what their reaction was? "They went on their way from the presence of the Council rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name." You know why they came out of there so happy, bleeding, bruised, battered, embarrassed, humiliated, full of joy? Why? Because they knew they had a faith that was real. They knew they had the real thing. And all it did was make them bolder, verse 42, I love this, "Every day in the temple from house to house they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ." Of course, the worst they could do to them was haul them in and do it all over again and that would strengthen their faith more. Even Jesus Christ Himself was strengthened through suffering. It says in 1 Peter that He did not revile when He was reviled, while suffering uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who righteously judges. And the writer of Hebrews says He was made perfect through suffering.
So we're protected. We're protected because God has given us a living hope. That is to say it's a hope built into our faith that cannot die. God has given us a faith that is energized by divine power that cannot be assaulted, no force is its equal. And God also protects us through a faith that is tested and tried.
There's something else here that I must mention to you in 1 Peter, number four in my little list, we are protected by eternal purpose. We've been all around this so I don't need to belabor the point. But we are protected by eternal purpose...by a living hope, divine power, trials and eternal purpose. Look at verse 7. We are headed for something, at the end of verse 7, "To be found in praise and glory and honor as the revelation of Jesus Christ." Our faith is designed to survive to the end. This is an amazing promise. We have a faith that hopes, a faith that is unassailable, protected by divine power, a strength of faith that is only made stronger through trial where they've proven tested faith that finds its fulfillment in the purpose and plan of God in a union with the Lord Jesus Christ at His appearing. At which time we receive glory, praise and honor from God. That goes right back to the reason we were saved in the beginning, we were chosen so that we would be brought to eternal glory.
You know what the Bible teaches about this, we will be like Him, we'll have a body like unto His body. We have a heavenly home. He's preparing a place for us. We're just passing through this world. We're not citizens here. This momentary light affliction that we suffer is not to be compared with that glorious weight of glory that awaits us in His presence. We cry out for the redemption of our body because we know what God has prepared for those that love Him. You know all those verses. We are already, as it were, heavenly citizens. Our Father is there, our home is there, our life is there. The pledge of God is to bring us to eternal glory. And by the way, that was his pledge. Not at the time of our hearing the gospel and believing it. That was His pledge to us in eternity past, long before we ever or anybody ever was even created. God predetermined then that we would be brought to eternal glory. That is to say you don't understand salvation at all if you don't understand its three dimensions. There is the point at which you believe. There is the process by which you are kept. And there is the final salvation in which you are glorified. And when God predetermined to save you, He predetermined that all three would take place, not some part of them. That's why in Romans 8:18 Paul says, "I consider the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the glory that's to be revealed to us." Whatever we might suffer here we rejoice because it shows us we have a real faith and strengthens that faith and none of that suffering is to be compared with the glory that God has predetermined for us.
So we are protected by a living hope, divine power, trials, and the promise of eternal glory. Can I just give you one more, number five, we're protected by undying love. We are protected by undying love, verse 8, "Though you have not seen Him you love Him." Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. That's the bottom line. We have a love for Jesus Christ. If anybody doesn't love the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 16:22, let him be accursed. It's a profound statement about the nature of true salvation. It is characterized not only by faith in Christ, believing in Him, but loving Him. You heard somebody in baptism say, "Just because I believed the facts I assumed I was a Christian." You can believe the facts and not be saved, the devil believes the facts, the demons believe the facts, they know them to be true. The issue here is loving the Lord Jesus Christ. "And you love Me if you keep My...what?...My commandments. You love Me if you desire My glory and My honor." Though you have not seen Him, you love Him.
If you were to define Christianity in its purest sense, you would have to use that word love. You could talk about believing in Christ but you really wouldn't get there because so many people say they believe in Jesus Christ. In fact, I read a foolish article today in which a man said there are three billion Christians in the world. Well there are probably three billion people who believe in Jesus, but I'm quite sure there aren't that many who love Him, who love Him sacrificially, who love Him totally, who love Him obediently, who love Him worshipfully, who love Him righteously. And because we love Him, though we do not see Him now, verse 8 says, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.
You can tell a Christian because they love Christ so much it comes out in joy. It comes out in joy. Do you know the only religion in the world that sings is Christianity? Do you know that? A few others chant in a minor key, sort of non-biblical rap. And you know what? True Christianity sings in a major key. We sing. Why do we sing? We sing because we're filled with joy. About whom do we sing? We sing about Christ. I like praise choruses, you know, but I guess 90 percent of the praise choruses are sort of drawn out of the Old Testament. I like to sing about Jesus Christ. I don't mind singing about the Old Testament, but I like to get to the good part and that's Christ. We love Him. What did Jesus say to Peter in John 21 when He wanted to restore him? At the Sea of Galilee He said, "Peter do you...what?...do you love Me?" That's the way He defined His relationship, do you love Me? And Peter says, "I love You." He said, "Well then do what I tell you, feed My sheep." He said to him a second time, "Do you love Me?" Peter said, "Yes, I love you." "Feed My lambs." He said to him a third time, "Peter, do you love Me?" And the reason He asked him three times, of course, was paralleling Peter's three denials. The Lord knew Peter knew that love was demonstrated in obedience, and He said a third time, "Peter, do you love Me?" Peter knew he couldn't call on his obedience, because there wasn't any. So I love what he said, he said, "Lord, You know everything, You know I love You." Boy, I really like that. He said, "You're omniscient, You know what's in here...You know I love You." "Feed My sheep."
And He knows if we love Him. First John 4:19 says, "We love Him because He first loved us." You know a true human relationship requires love and trust...love and trust. So does our relationship with Christ. That's how it's really defined. And there's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't love Christ. In all your life long as a believer you grow in your love for Christ. You grow in your affection for Him. That's why the Apostle Paul says, "That I may know Him." Cause the more you love someone, the more you want to know them. Paul knew that he was loved and...back to Romans 8 again...he knew nothing could separate him from Christ's love for him, but he also knew that nothing could separate him from his love for Christ. I mean, isn't that the idea? You can hit me with whatever you want. You can hit me with tribulation, distress, persecution, nakedness, famine, sword, and nothing will change my love for Christ...nothing. I love Him with a love that He gave me. Romans 5:5, "The love of Christ shed abroad in your heart," it's a gift from God just like faith. You've been given a supernatural faith, you've been given a supernatural love which never change.
And so, it is that undying love that holds on to us. It's a component of our faith. So we are kept through faith, verse 5, and now verse 9, finally. What is the end? Obtaining...listen to this...as the outcome of your...what?...your faith, the salvation of your soul. That's why we say this, folks, that this doctrine should be called the perseverance of the saints, or better yet, the perseverance of faith. You have been given a faith that never perishes. You have been given a faith that is protected by the power of God, a faith that has a hope that never dies, a faith sustained by a divine power that can't be overthrown, a faith that is proven, tested, strengthened through trials, a faith that is designed for the fulfillment of eternal glory which was promised before the world began, a faith that contains within it an undying love for Christ. And the outcome of that faith will be the obtaining of the final salvation of your souls. Simply, folks, there is no escape from this reality, no escape. The result of this saving faith is your final salvation. The present salvation which you now experience is a result of this faith. The initial salvation is a result of this faith. And the final salvation will be yours because this faith will persevere and endure to the very end. That is the nature of this faith. It is nothing less than a permanent gift from God.
To even consider the possibility that you could lose your salvation is a misrepresentation of God's grace, it's a misrepresentation of the nature of faith, the gift of His love, the work of His Spirit. It's a misrepresentation of His power and His purpose. It's a misrepresentation of His eternal decree in the lives of His elect. And it is true, and it's probably a good place to end, if there ever is such a thing, Philippians 1:6, as I said earlier, "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." Does that not end the argument? If He started it, He'll what? You got it.
Lord, thank You for a wonderful time in these truths, so greatly enriching to us. Thank You for this gift so undeserved. Thank You for the joy that comes because we know it's forever. Fill our hearts with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Help us to greatly rejoice in the permanence of this gift of grace. Thank You for an enduring faith, an enduring love, an enduring hope. Thank You that all of this began before time and shall be consummated in eternity yet to come, and all of it will redound to Your glory in Your praise which is our highest joy. We thank You for the testimonies that we heard tonight of those whom You chose who have now come to faith and are on the path to final salvation. And, Lord, we know, as Paul said, our salvation now, our final salvation is nearer than when we believed and soon we know Jesus Christ will split the skies and gather us to Himself and that day, that day of redemption, that day of Christ will be reality and that glorious eternity to which our persevering faith takes us will be beyond anything we can ever imagine. Thank You for this grace and this salvation in the name of Christ. Amen.

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Ravings from Tokyo

April 8, 2000

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 1

Selected Scriptures

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 2

Selected Scriptures

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 3

1 Peter 1:6-9

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usalapinhazzer

I can't find it, either!