God sustains our faith, not by keeping it away from trials, not by making sure it's never tested, God sustains our true faith by putting it through hard times. He sustains our faith by means of trials. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. How is it you can face illness or the loss of a job with strength and purpose? How can the hardest times of life be opportunities to grow spiritually? Today you'll see why, if you're a Christian, you can face difficulty with the confidence that God has not forgotten you, that He's using everything in your life to accomplish a good result. In short, John MacArthur is going to show you that if you're a believer, God won't let you go. That's the title of John's current study here on Grace To You. And now here's John with the lesson.
JOHN MCCARTHY We are continuing a study 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, of 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 on 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 radioactivity 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 a really incredible place to go. I've been there 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. It was eternal and could not be lost. And this was, I think, 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 a 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 to close 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 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 they 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, here is the kindness and severity of God, to those who fail, 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, and 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 is 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 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 believers 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. And 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. Do 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 men, 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, 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. 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?...of 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 manifests temporary weakness and even a temporary denial when confronted at the trial of Jesus. So let's go back to our text of 1 Peter chapter 1. 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 have 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 is 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 into our heavenly home, to receive our inheritance. So you are protected by the power of God through a living hope. Secondly, we are protected by God's own power. 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. 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 trials.
This may seem to be sort of counterintuitive 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 this, 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, 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 the necessity that God determines we have for them and we rejoice in those tests. Instead of these people looking at the possibility of being arrested, put in prison, tortured or 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 the 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.
It does the opposite. God sustains our true faith by putting it through hard times. He sustains our faith by means of trials. You have 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 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 a 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. It's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, helping you find encouragement in the doctrine of eternal security.
The title of his current study here, On Grace to You, God Won't Let You Go. John, when you talk about the persevering faith of the believer, there's a concern that people often have. Probably every Christian will have brief times of doubt about their salvation. But how do you know whether those doubts are harmless or whether they indicate that you may really not be saved? Well, they can indicate that you're not really saved. That's why the New Testament says to examine yourself.
So if you're going to examine yourself, there has to be the assumption that you're going to get a correct response. And I think the difference is you can have momentary doubts, because those are temptations. That's why you have the helmet of the hope of salvation, because Satan will hit you with doubts that are deflected by your truthful understanding of salvation. So just to add to that, how do I know I'm saved? Because I understand the salvation biblically, and because I've seen God change my life.
I've seen him at work in my life. But still, I can be subject to momentary temptation, and I think that's protected by an accurate understanding of salvation, both in the doctrinal sense and in the personal experience sense. You know, one of the most helpful things you ever said to me was, the question you ask yourself is, do I really love Christ? That's a good gauge of how pure your faith is.
Yeah, it starts there. Do I love Christ? Do I love his Word? Do I love his people? Do I love his church? The second question I always ask is, do I desire to obey? Do I have a desire to do what is right and good? And the third question is, am I humble?
Do I willingly submit to God? So those are the touchstones. They all kind of go hand in hand, too, because Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
Exactly. I want to remind you about a free copy of a booklet, Unshakable Assurance, and it's for anybody who requests it. When God redeems a sinner and grants that person righteousness, he also grants accompanying peace and assurance. And this booklet, Unshakable Assurance, will take you through eight reasons why Christians struggle with assurance and show you what the biblical solution to that struggle really is.
Great tool. Keep on hand for yourself or anybody else who struggles about their salvation. Again, we'll send a free copy of Unshakable Assurance, limited time offer. Request your booklet today.
That's right, friend. If you struggle with doubt about the permanence of your salvation, this booklet can help. To get your copy of Unshakable Assurance, all you have to do is ask for it, and we will send it to you free of charge.
So get in touch with us today. You can email your request to letters at gty.org, or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE. You can also request your booklet from the website, gty.org.
The title again, Unshakable Assurance. It's a great resource to give to someone who is questioning his or her salvation. The clear biblical comfort may be exactly the encouragement your friend needs. To get a copy at no cost to you, call 800-55-GRACE or stop by our website, gty.org. And while you're at the website, don't forget about our free Study Bible app. It's preloaded with the English Standard, New American Standard, and King James versions of the Bible. And for a reasonable price, you can add the footnotes from the MacArthur Study Bible. That's 25,000 footnotes, plus charts and introductions to every book, and it can help you dive deeper into Scripture than ever before. Just go to gty.org and download the Study Bible app. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be back tomorrow as John shows you a key reason why you can't lose your salvation. John is continuing his study called God Won't Let You Go, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
