Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, February 27th. Have you ever worried about what will happen after you die? If so, stay with us as we examine the clear scriptural foundation for believing that a Christian's eternal future is secure. There are many things that separate the Christian faith from all other religions, but primarily the one that stands out above all the rest is this, that all other religions are based on performance and the Christian faith is based on grace. I want you to turn to Romans chapter 8 and I want us to look at two verses in this passage, the last two verses of Romans 8, because here Paul is offering us an awesome sense of assurance about our relationship to God when he makes this statement. Having told us in these verses in the 8th chapter how God is in charge of everything, how he's predestined us to be conformed to his likeness, how everything is under his divine control, how he is guiding every aspect of our life. And he says, beginning in this 38th verse, for I am convinced, I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, 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. Now, there are many commands in Scripture. It's very clear what you and I ought to be able to do as a believer, how we should live, and yet all of us know that because we still live in this flesh, we're not always going to do exactly what He tells us to do. So if our relationship to Him is built on our performance, all of us would have to say, Father, just take me on now because I'll never be able to do every single thing that I ought to do as long as I live in this flesh because we will not always rely upon the Holy Spirit. than upon what is our assurance based. And so what I'd like to do this evening, first of all, is to give you a definition of eternal security. So I want you to write this down in the back of your Bible somewhere there so that you'll not forget it. Eternal security, what is it? Eternal security. Once a person is saved by the grace of God, they are eternally secured in His grace and cannot be severed from their relationship with God. Now, the grace of God is his goodness and kindness toward us without regard to our worth, or you can say our value and efforts, and in spite of what we deserve. So that's what the grace of God is all about. It has nothing to do with performance and conduct, but it has to do with his love toward us. And eternal security, likewise, has nothing to do with my merit or my worth in spite of what we deserve also. But once we are secured by his grace, we are eternally secured by that grace and nothing can separate us from him. Now, as we've said last time, we gave four reasons why we believe in eternal security. I want to give you the fifth one tonight. And the fifth one is this. And that is it's real simple. Number five, the clear promises of God. The clear promises of God is one of the reasons we believe in eternal security. Look, if you will, in John chapter 10. Look, if you will, beginning in verse 26 of John chapter 10. He says, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them. Now listen. 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 the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. Now notice what he says. And I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish. He didn't say, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish except. They shall never perish if. They shall never perish but. None of these statements have any question about them. He says, I give unto them eternal life. God does not give the quality and quantity of eternal life, which is his life with any strings attached. It is a gift of God. Listen, if it is not of gift, it is of works. If it is works, it demands what? Performance, right. That is, if it's not of grace, then it has to be performance. But he says, I give. He didn't say you work for it. I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish. No one shall be able to snatch them out of my hand. Satan can take us out of God hand Somebody says well I could walk away but I going to show you in a few minutes that won work either So therefore we are eternally secured by His promises Now turn back if you will to Philippians chapter 1 And so in this sixth verse of the first chapter of Philippians, he says, well, let's look beginning in verse 3. He's thanking God for Him, and he says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now, how they had helped him. For I'm confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Now somebody says, well, what he's saying is he believes they're going to keep on supporting him till then. Well, that's probably true. But what he's saying here is he's talking about the work that God has begun on the inside of them. He has begun His work. Listen, He saves us, and according to Romans 8, 29, He not only saves us, but according to Romans 8, 29, He's going to do what? He says that He predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Now, look, if He has begun, the moment you and I received Him as our Savior, He began that work in us. He predestined every single believer to be conformed to His Son. So, if He began that good work in us, let me ask a question. Is the Lord Jesus going to say, well, I started that in him, but I quit? Is he going to say, well, I started that in him, but he blew it real bad, so I quit? Is Jesus ever going to give up on anybody? He says, listen, he that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. That means he's not going to give up. He's not going to throw us out. He's not going to lose. Listen, God isn't going to get discouraged with you and myself. Why doesn't Jesus get discouraged with our conduct? Because before he ever saved us, he knew what we were going to do. So he's not going to get discouraged when he says that he who has begun a good work in us will perfect it until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, until Jesus calls us home, he is going to be in the process of doing what? Conforming us to his likeness. And he's not going to give up and quit on us. He's not going to act toward us like we act toward each other. And so, therefore, he says, I am confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform to the of Jesus Christ. All right? If that's true, then am I eternally secure? Am I not? I absolutely am. Because for him to keep his word, he must absolutely keep me in himself and eternally secure it. The next one, number six. The sixth reason we believe in eternal security is because of our union with Christ. And what we mean by that is that he's in us and we're in him. Let's go to John chapter 1 for a moment. Because of our relationship to him. Listen to what he says in this first passage. He says, But as many as received him, to them he gave the right, the authority, the privilege to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. God doesn't make mistakes. Nothing happens apart from his knowledge and wisdom and understanding. So if he accepts me, he accepts me on the basis, listen, of his grace with all of his foreknowledge out there knowing exactly what is going to happen. Now listen to this. Put that together with this. He says in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now think about this. He didn't say if, when, but. He says I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now, if you and I have a relationship with him, which is ours the moment we are saved, and he says, I'm abiding in you and you're in me, that is, we have become one with him. What we have is the life of Christ within us. That's what eternal life is. Eternal life isn't something that he sends down later on after you and I get saved or when we get saved. Eternal life is Christ living on the inside of us. I'm abiding in you, he says, and you're abiding in me. Does that mean that you and I always look like it and act like it? No. Does it mean that we are always bearing the fruit we ought to bear? No, it doesn't mean that because we're still in these fleshly bodies. But we have a relationship to him. And that relationship cannot be broken. You see, you can take a passage here and a passage there and say, aha, that means you can be lost. But look at all the other passages we've just read. And so, therefore, when you put Scripture against Scripture against Scripture against Scripture, you have to ask, then what must these verses mean in the light of these very, very clear promises of God? And so, based on our relationship to him, There is no way that you and I could be in him and him and us and we be lost. So I want you to look at Colossians chapter 1 for a moment. Colossians chapter 1. Listen to what he says. Now, these are all past tense words. That is for all of us who say this is what's already happened. He says in verse 13 in Colossians 1, For He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins period He doesn't say, and if, and except, and but, and when. He has already delivered us out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of light, into the kingdom of his dear son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. Now listen, if we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, He says, is continually cleansing us from all sin, then how in the world can we be lost if the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, is continually cleansing us from sin? It has nothing to do with performance. It is the grace of God. And what causes that to rub against the grain of some people is this, because it absolutely eliminates any human effort on our part to remain under the love of God, to remain in the love of God, to remain in the grace of God, and to remain in the favor of God. It's all of God and none of man. Does that mean that we are not to be obedient to God? No. It just simply says that this is God's love. This is the expression of God's love. Now, one last reason I'll give you, and that is because the work of the Holy Spirit in our life is eternal. And let me give you a couple of verses here. Both of them in Ephesians. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13 and 14, and Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30. So let's go back to Ephesians chapter 1 for a moment. Look at what he says in this first chapter. But let's start reading in verse 13. He says, In him you also, after listening, listen, this is how you get saved. In him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were what? Sealed. Where? In him. How? With the Holy Spirit of what? Of promise. Who is given to us as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, speaking of us, to the praise of his glory. Now he says, look, this is what the Holy Spirit has done. and he says, who's going to get the glory? It is to the praise of the glory of God. Now, listen to what he says. He says that when you and I were saved, the Spirit of God came to indwell us. And the Spirit of God came to indwell us for how long? For all eternity. Jesus said, I'm abiding in you, and you're abiding in me through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The very act of giving to us the Holy Spirit is God's way of saying to us, this is my promise to you. This is my pledge to you that you are eternally secured as my sons and my daughters because the very presence of the Holy Spirit in you marks you as one of mine. How are you going to go to hell? How are you going to be lost? When Jesus says, I'm not going to ever leave you nor forsake you. You seal under the day of redemption. Look in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. Fourth chapter. Look, if you will, in verse 30. It's amazing how we read a verse and we take part of it and we forget the other part. Look at this. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of what? Redemption. He says we were sealed for that day when we were eternally brought before him through death and in his presence. How long are we sealed? Forever and ever and ever. Now, I want to give you two more passages right quick. Because somebody says, well, I believe that. But what about our sin? Well, I want to give you two passages. I want you to jot these down. The first one has to do with what does God do when we do sin? God says that when you and I disobey him, Hebrews chapter 12, if you look there for a moment, Hebrews chapter 12, that we will be chastised. He says in verse 5, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. for those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom the father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. So here's what that says, that you and I, because we are the children of God, we can expect God, because of his love for us, When he sees us getting out of line, he is going to send into our, listen, if we do not repent immediately, if we don't deal with it now, then he will send whatever chastisement is necessary to get us back in line. Why? It is an act of a loving father. So we are eternally secured in him does not give us license for sin because He says look two things will happen when you and I disobey God even though we eternally secure. It does not mean we're going to lose our salvation. He will just do what? He will discipline us. The Word is not punish. Punish is what He does to sinners. What He does to His children is He disciplines us. The second thing that will happen is in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 the second thing that will happen is we'll lose our reward so it is not a matter of losing salvation but losing reward so in the third chapter 1 Corinthians look at that Paul says talking about his ministry and what God was doing in his life look in verse 10 now according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder I laid a foundation. That is, he went around starting all these churches. And another is building upon it. So those whom he had trained comes along and disciples the people and grows up the church and it begins to grow. But let each man be careful how he builds upon it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now we're talking about our Christian life. That is, he says, all of us have this foundation. Christ is the foundation of our life. Now, you and I are going to build on that life. Now, if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, and straw, each man's work will become evident. For the day will show it, the day of judgment, because it is to be revealed, the light comes upon it, with fire. And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved yet so as through fire. That verse of Scripture ought to settle it for people who have a problem with eternal security. Now, here's the reason. He says, now, once you and I are saved, what happens? We start building on this life. Things that we do that are right, things that we do that a motive is right, a motive is wrong, whatever it may be. We start building on this Christian life. He says, he predestined you and me to be conformed to his likeness. So we start growing in that Christian life. If we waste time, if we sin against God, we are going to be disciplined unless there's immediate repentance of that sin. Now, he says, two things you watch for. The discipline of God if we sin, or there's some things, for example, wasting time or sinning in different ways. He said, we can lose our reward. Now, if there was any way that you and I were going to be lost, he would never have said this. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss of reward, but he himself shall be saved yet so as through fire. Suffer loss, yes. Chastise, yes. Suffer eternal loss of our salvation, never, never, never. Let me ask you a question. How are we saved? By what? By grace, which has nothing to do with our conduct, has nothing to do with our worth. But he says, in spite of what we have done, in spite of what we are worth, he says it is the unconditional love of God poured out upon us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. What has sealed us as a child of God is the Holy Spirit, but he says it is the result of the blood of Jesus. Now, sealed as his sons and daughters, motivated to want to do what God wants us to do, failing at times in our life, absolutely. When we stand before him, what is it? He says, there'll be areas of our life which we suffer loss, but we also are going to receive reward. And he says, we may suffer loss, but we'll not suffer the loss of our salvation, only our reward. So when you think about his whole plan of eternal security, his plan is an expression of unconditional love. What does the world need to hear? That God loves them. Does that mean you get away with sin? No, chastisement, loss of reward, but not loss of salvation, not loss of redemption, not loss of his great favor taught us. Thank you for listening to part two of Reasons for Believing in Eternal Security. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
