Two thousand years ago God gave a priceless gift to mankind. It was His only begotten Son.
Mankind was hopelessly lost because of sin and needed a Savior to deliver him from the inescapable judgment that awaited. Only a sinless man could offer Himself as a sacrifice for all of mankind's sin. Jesus Christ, the heavenly man (I Cor. 15:48) gave His blood on the cross so that all who truly believe in Him for forgiveness are likewise transformed immediately into new heaven-bound beings by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (II Cor. 5:17).
There are many who believe that a spirit-filed born-again believer who has become a new creature in Christ can revert back to their old, dead, non-spirit-filled state at any time they so choose. We do not agree.
It is our unwavering conviction that God will never put His Holy Spirit into a man that He knows by His omniscience will later despise the Lord Who bought him. That man could never become even for an instant, a new creature of heaven.
The Scriptures tell us that believers are elected or chosen. Interestingly it is this very issue of election that causes some believers to question their eternal security in Christ's finished work.
II Peter 1:10 reads, "Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble."
"Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words" explains that the Greek words for "elect or election" signifies being picked out or chosen and is used in the Scriptures of Jesus Christ, angels and Jewish or Gentile believers.
When a believer is told to make their "election sure," they are not being told to prove their worthiness to God for salvation, but are being told to do so for their own life-changing experience. Every true believer should have the assurance and the blessed peace that comes from knowing that their calling and election is secure in the eternal salvation obtained for them by the blood of Jesus Christ. The fruit of their hearts, minds and hands should show evidence of their reborn spirits and the indwelling of the Spirit of God. This Scripture warns of the possibility of a believer stumbling, not that one can lose their salvation.
We will be looking at three types of individuals in this message: First, there are the kind of persons who portray themselves as believers, but are in fact blatant types of anti-Christ. Among these are the false teachers and prophets who distort or even deny the Scriptures. Although they stand in opposition to the word of God, many can be found lurking in the pews and study halls of the churches where they seek to stumble and ensnare those with wavering faith (Matt. 7:13-16, I Tim. 1:19 & Jude 12-13).
The Apostle Paul recorded the following prophecy concerning these apostates for us who would be living at the close of the age in I Timothy 4:1-2, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy having their own conscience seared with a hot iron." Paul went on to warn in I Tim. 6:3-5 that those who do "not consent" to "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ" are "proud, knowing nothing...men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth." From such we are instructed to withdraw ourselves.
During the last decade we shared updated messages concerning an apostate group which devotes its entire existence to subverting the accounts of Jesus' life recorded for us in the Scriptures.
Back in Nov. 20 of 1999 the Colorado Springs Gazette had an article which headlined, "Jesus Seminar scholars pause..." The article revealed how efforts to undermine the testimony of Jesus Christ and the Word of God by corrupt men thrives during these last days just as Paul forewarned.
Quoting from this article were read, "In 1985, an iconoclastic group of Bible scholars formed the Jesus seminar to recover the historical Jesus of Nazareth they said was hidden beneath the layers of mythology attached to him in the 2,000 years since his crucifixion...Over the years, the scholars - or "fellows," as they called themselves - concluded Jesus was not born of a virgin and did not say most of what is attributed to him in the New Testament.
They also determined Jesus did not proclaim himself the Son of God nor the Jewish Messiah, and - challenging the cornerstone of traditional Christian belief - there was no evidence to conclude the Resurrection happened in the physical sense...For seminar fellows, the question now is how to perpetuate interest in their findings, which have already spawned dozens of study groups meeting in living rooms, church basements and online in the United States, Canada, western Europe, Australia and New Zealand...A clear sign of the continued strong interest in the seminar was on view...at a Santa Rosa hotel, where more than 600 scholars and supporters gathered to hear the group's best-known members expound on "The One & Future Jesus." The crowd was the largest in seminar history. Another 200 people were turned away from the sold out session...An informal survey taken at the meeting found virtually all those on hand called themselves Christians and remain attached to the church. About three-fourths said they were retired, active or former clergy. Methodists constituted the largest single denominational group, about 15 percent, with Catholics coming in second at 10 percent. Lutherans, Quakers Presbyterians, Unitarian Universalists and United Church of Christ members also were well represented."
We cannot help but wonder if these so-called "fellows" have pondered the words of Jesus found in John 8:23-25, "...You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world: I am not of this world. ‘Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.' Then they said to Him, "Who are you?" And Jesus said to them, ‘Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.'"
We would assume that this is one of the Scriptures rejected by those of the dead Jesus seminars, but if there are any among its ranks who have the godly desire to find out more abut who Jesus really is then we pray that they read Isaiah 43:10-11 with God's leading. Their admission of unbelief at least leaves them open to the possibility of someday recognizing the truth. In some ways by this group's admission that they do not believe, there is a greater chance of some of them receiving Christ's salvation than the next group we will be looking at, the false brethren.
We recently received the following question, "If God gives us a free will to choose and we choose salvation, do we give up that free will if for some reason we want out of the salvation we choose?"
According to the Word of God found in Hebrews 12:2 it is not possible for a person who has truly received salvation from God to ever undo their salvation, since it is Jesus Himself that is the "author and finisher" of their faith. The salvation given by God is like the one way flow of blood through the heart after it is regenerated. This is the key to what Jesus meant in Matthew 20:16 when He said, "for many are called, but few are chosen."
It is the Lord that does the choosing because of His omniscience. God only chooses those for salvation that He has predestined by His foreknowledge. A person who rejects Christ after having convinced themself that they had been born-again by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ without the Holy Spirit's regeneration were only living a lie. A person who believes the omniscience of God somehow overlooked their future intention to discard and trod under foot the holy, sinless sacrifice of His only begotten Son is tragically deluded (Heb. 10:26-29).
God made sure that there would be a clear understanding of this fact when He had these words recorded by His Spirit in I John 2:19, "They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."
II Peter 2:22 dramatizes this truth by revealing a dog stayed a dog and a pig a pig when the dog returned to its vomit and the pig to the filth. They were called away, but never became a lamb of the Lord. Identifying false believers can be extremely difficult. Luke 13:24-28 reveals that many of the self deluded will try to gain admittance to heaven at the last day by stating that they ate and drank in Christ's presence and heard His teachings. Jesus declares that He will tell them in that day, "I do not know you."
In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus told us that while on earth they will have even prophesied and demonstrated many wonders in His name. Other than Jesus, none of the other disciples recognized Judas as the devil he was (see Jn. 6:70).
It is disturbing to think of the phony believers who are living a lie and have never had so much as even one of their sins forgiven by God. Jeremiah 17:8-10 reveals that, "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings."
Salvation is the gift of the Lord and He gives it to those sheep who know His voice and whom He calls by name (Jn. 10:1-4).
It is interesting that if we turn back to Jesus‘ pronouncement of judgment against the deluded believers of Matthew 7:21-23 and read verse 20 we again find reference that the fruit of a person's life is of great importance. By the Scriptures we know that this is what establishes eternal rewards and losses for believers and is the tangible gauge for self determining evidence of whether oneself to be a true believer or hypocrite (Matt. 7:24-27 & Heb. 13:5).
For the unsaved, their tainted fruits are accounted towards their eternal judgment and are used by God to expose them for what they truly are during this present life (Matt. 7:17-20 & Jer. 17:10).
A genuine believer who is living a fruitless life apart from God in a sinful lifestyle will experience tremendous torment, sorrow and doubt because the reassuring evidence they should have, which offers comforting assurance of their faith and election is non-existent. Their limited amount of time to produce the fruits of faith, which the Lord evaluates for the worthiness of His promised eternal rewards, is being shamefully squandered while the Holy Spirit that seals and indwells them for the day of redemption is grieved (Eph. 4:30).
A true believer's sorrow will be lifted when they repent and shame no longer separates them from their relationship with their Savior who predestined them to be conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29).
It is not too late. More than just a few individuals have come from behind during the last lap of a race to place among the champions because they reached down inside and gave their best at the finish (see Matt. 20:1-16).
The time is very late and the Lord's promise to return for His Church is near at hand (I Thess. 4:15-18). Now is the time to make your election sure by calling upon Jesus Christ to forgive you for your sins. Then by His power bring forth the fruits of "...good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10).