Can Christians Lose Salvation? | Make Heaven Crowded Ep. 29

In this episode of Make Heaven Crowded, we tackle one of the most debated questions in Christianity: Can a Christian lose their salvation?

Is salvation something that can be forfeited, or is it secure once and for all? What do different passages of Scripture seem to say—and how do we reconcile them? This conversation dives into the tension between assurance and warning, grace and perseverance.

We explore questions like:

• What does the Bible teach about eternal security?
• Can someone walk away from their faith—and what does that mean?
• How do we understand warning passages about falling away?
• What role do perseverance and obedience play in salvation?
• How can believers have confidence in their relationship with God?

This episode isn’t about fear—it’s about clarity and confidence. Because understanding salvation rightly shapes how we live, how we follow Jesus, and how we endure.

If salvation is secure, it should lead to peace.
If perseverance matters, it should lead to intentional living.

🎙️ Make Heaven Crowded – Episode 29
📖 Topics: Salvation, Eternal Security, Perseverance, Assurance
🌐 Learn more at teamfbc.info

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, well, welcome to the Make Kevin Crowded Podcast. Thanks for joining us again this week. We are in the middle of our sermon series called Made New, where we've been diving into what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus and this new life that we live in him. So, Roger, you kicked it off this uh or week two this week as we talked about uh what it looks like to you know be made completely new. And so do you want to talk more about what that looked like and what you didn't get a fit into the sermon on Sunday?

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Yeah, so I will say um yesterday was a fun example of why real life transformation is so contagious. When people hear, it's one thing to say this is how the gospel can change your life, because that's that's an attainable thing. I can attain this, but when you hear other people's stories, it's not just attainable, it's actually this is what occurs when you are transformed within of the power of Jesus. And so um, you know, telling two different stories. The first one, the story of Scotty, six months ago, he is almost dead. His family gets the call. Hey, he's on the operating table, drug overdose. Told me he's used meth and pills since he was 14 years old. That's all he knows. Um, six months ago, he's given a second chance at life. And um this week he's I text him this morning. We he's got two job interviews, he's he he's got his car license, like all the stuff that he he's really missed out on, and all of that is possible because of Jesus. He's getting baptized in six days, and then of course telling the story of Colby and Ashley, um, which on the surface, if you knew them, they went to church, they read their Bible, they prayed, they did all of the things that you're supposed to do, all the things we teach in premarriage counseling, but it it became the actions of what they were doing, not actually who they were within of being children of God. They had lost sight of that, and then of course, um really going back to that, rededicating their life, and now their marriage has never been stronger. So, all that being said, the feedback that I've gotten has really been, hey, I can relate to that first story, or I can relate to that second story, and I think through that we're gonna see more stories that come from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, so in the May New, you know, we kicked it off two weeks ago, and that's where, you know, I talked about crap, what did I talk about?

SPEAKER_03 2:05

You can't say crap.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Remind it, go back. I totally drew a blank what I talked about. Yeah. What's the Christian disciple? I remove that part. No, leave it in.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

No, you should you should you should put the the like the on TV where they have like the blur so then people don't actually know what he said. Did he say worse than crap? Yeah. But in your defense, there was one sermon you gave. I think it was about your grandma or something about your grandma. I don't know. But you I think we counted like you said crap like 12 times. So I think I think we're fine. No, actually.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Do you remove that? Because that's embarrassing. I couldn't remember what I preached on. But yeah, I thought that yeah. Did you cut that, Jaden, like right?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

How are we all gonna act normal when you he reclips us?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Well, because it's just focused on me.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

So it's not focused on you guys.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Because it's discipleship. Yeah, that's all right. So in this made news sermon series, two weeks ago, we talked about what it looks like to be a Christian disciple, which flowed really well into this week, where you talked about actually finding our identity in Christ. And I thought those two stories, especially the Callahan's man, like we've been able to walk alongside them and to see the turnaround in their life. And it hasn't been something that was overnight, right? They've been putting the work in for months and how their identity is truly found in Christ. But not just those two. Once those two found their identity in Christ, their marriage has now had that firm, firm foundation of Christ, and it's impacting their entire family. And that was really cool about yesterday. If you weren't in second service, you need to go back and watch it. Is their son ended up getting baptized yesterday as well, right after them. The mom, mama knows she figured it out beforehand, but Colby was completely surprised. And I hope we got a camera angle of him seeing the son walk into the water, and he had no idea it was happening. How'd she figure it out? Uh she could tell she could tell something was different about him that morning and kept asking, What's going on? What's going on? What are you hiding from me? Mother's intuition. And but yeah, I was completely surprised to Colby.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

What why that story is so cool is because it was there was an individual there are two different individual steps, right? She rededicates her life, and then shortly after he rededicates his life, but they're done separately. They're not done. So when we talk about marital struggles, so often we we fall into this trap of, okay, you guys need to do this, you guys need to do this. And it's all about, which is great. Like you do have to work together in a marriage to fix problems. But sometimes the first step is, okay, between you and me, Lord, beyond my marriage right now, what are you doing with me in order to be the best spouse that I can possibly be? And I loved Ashley's quote. I realized that before I looked at him as my husband, I had to look at him as a true brother in Christ. And that is radical theology of looking at your spouse, not just as what can you do for me, but truly who you are in the in the eyes of God. And that's what changed it.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, and it's so good. And I mean, you you hear that, and they knew what they needed to do. They knew all the right things to say, even as we started counseling, and they knew what needed to take place. But until they truly encountered the presence of Jesus and were completely transformed, that's when things start taking place, and that's when it started happening.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Absolutely. Yeah. So when we talk about identity, and we talked a little bit about it last week because discipleship and identity really go hand in hand. When you find your identity in Jesus, discipleship should naturally flow through that. Um, and so these these two really go hand in hand. But Jordan, you are the um the uh expert on fresh start, so you have taught identity in Christ more than than anybody in this room combined. And so knowing how you go through the lessons, and you know, of course, classic Christianity, the big illustration that Bob George uses is the caterpillar to butterfly, which I used in my in my sermon. But as someone who knows this curriculum very well, is there anything that the lesson goes through that maybe my sermon didn't cover?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Uh no, I appreciated that you did use the caterpillar to butterfly uh analogy because it is it works really well because they're two completely different creatures, but of the same, they were the same. Uh, and that is truly uh a great representation of what happens to us, I guess you could say on the inside. Uh maybe not actually physically, we don't actually change, you don't morph into something else, but that word metamorphosis is actually used, I believe, in Romans by Paul. The Greek word, whatever he uses, is the term metamorphi or whatever it is, means you metamorph into something else as a new creation in Christ. So I love that. Um the uh in the class, I like to use you guys. Were you here for Matt Bauher? I I mean I know him, but I don't have any classes. I mean you served to security and things like that. Well, there folks don't know who Matt Bauher was. He's recently gone to be with the Lord, but he was ahead of our security for a long time. And I always joke that, and a lot of people in the class know who he is, even that he's uh been deceased for quite some time, but they they knew who Matt Bauher was. And I like to use him as the example of if you were to look up Maureen in the dictionary, it would probably have his picture because that's who he was, and that's how he lived, that was his look, his identity. Um, but yeah, he was also a believer in Christ, he truly had his identity in Christ. But if you didn't know that just on the service, you'd be like, that dude's military. Yeah, and he just lived it, breathed it, looked it, and you start to get that sense of how people there's something they we pick something to kind of base ourselves on, or something to that effect. That whether it can be, I even talk about it can be based on a nickname that happened when you were younger to a good experience, a bad experience, or just your career. Something but I I even talk about, I think there are people that change themselves to be more like somebody like I use, like a movie star or something like that, because they want to be accepted and they feel that whatever this identity they're creating of themselves, it's all about acceptance. And so it's just fascinating to when you really start to take uh a look at this and you look through it from that lens of where is your true identity found, you start to see how think we all are.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

You guys can probably even relate to this, and this is why I use the the Nikado illustration in the beginning of playing this game where I'm not gonna tell you what I do for a living, you have to guess. Yeah, and people always get it wrong. Yeah. Because when we're forced to judge someone by who they are and not what they do, we do a terrible job because we are so programmed to judge someone.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

When you first meet somebody, one of the very you find out their name and then it is what do you do? Yes, and then it's literally the second question.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

And through that filter, everything you you now have all of these presuppositions, which is why, and I'm sure you guys are probably the same way. When I'm having a conversation with a stranger or with someone I'm just meeting, I am very slow to share what I do. Not that you're ashamed of it. Not that I'm ashamed. I love that I'm a pastor, but I know the moment I say, Hey, I'm I'm Roger, I'm the pastor, now all of a sudden I've lost a lot of leverage that I have because they've already they've now created a lot of assumptions based off of what I do.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Or they just start talking differently. They use different words, they don't say the words they normally don't use. I'm just I catch that with people. I'm like, don't worry about it, you can just be yourself. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Well, that's why I'm actually gonna steal that, but I thought of on an airplane when you're when you're flying and you sit next to somebody, it is always, hey, so-and-so, you start talking. Sometimes you get next to a chatty Kathy, which nobody likes, but they really open it up and start asking you what you do for a living. And once you say pastor, you know, in our profession, it changes the dynamic of that conversation from that point forward. And I'm with you. I and I've always wondered, like, how can I respond where it doesn't change? So I've told people, oh, I'm just a teacher, and which is not lying, I am just teacher of the word, and it eventually gets there where I tell them. Uh, but there's been time like most of the time I just tell them I'm a pastor, but that changes the conversation for the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Yeah. No, it is 100% true, and and that's true for any any profession that you work or lack thereof, we we automatically come to these conclusions. And the point being is human identity is defined by human activity. I mean, that that is 100% and the idea of this caterpillar to butterfly, um, there's no activity that gets the caterpillar in the cocoon, right? It is only done through the transformation of Jesus Christ, of what that does. That is what gets us to that next metamorphous stage of going into that butterfly.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

So then the premise is if your identity is found in Christ, that is how God the Father sees you, as though you live the like Christ lived uh when you accept Christ in your life. He sees you as his son, but it also basically wipes away the old you. Uh you become you're seen as somebody completely different in the eyes of God. And a lot of times people have such a transformation in their life that's like, whoa, they are different. You know, I can tell there's something's happened for the good. But the the whole guilt of the past, the shame of the past, the things you've done in your past, you're no longer defined by those things through God's eyes. Yeah. And that's what ultimately matters.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Yeah, and that's why I use the uh, and I think it's Bob George. It may not be, because I but the the well, the Bob George illustration I used yesterday of the buffet, the the the owner of the restaurant, the five-star restaurant that says, Hey, you can have anything you want. Like it is yours. And the homeless guy says, No, this is what I'm used to. I'd rather just eat out of this dump. And I love that of as Christians, where we we love the buffet, like, oh man, look at all of this that we that we receive from God, his grace, his mercy. But man, that that that trash can outside still feels really good. I.e.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

sin. And that was I thought it was an excellent analogy of, yeah, why do we keep going back to the dumpster? Yeah. Why do we do that? Why do we allow ourselves to do that? Why can't we resist the dumpster? And it was a great analogy because sin is it's I mean, it's worse than a dumpster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:24

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Yeah, and that's the first illustration of the the the burning building. You know, well, now that I've been rescued, I'm gonna go back in. If I wanted to, could I run back in there just for a little bit? And it's like, well, I guess you could. But why would why would you want to? And that is where um that that is like the the question. And this actually will kind of go into what we're gonna talk about for our hot button topic of once saved, always saved, where someone says, Okay, but what about the person that accepts Jesus and there is no change? Like you see externally they are the exact same person. And biblically, through first John, through Paul's writings, through I mean Matthew, there's all kinds of different passages where we can show if you don't see some level of fruit on the outside, then that that's proof that there hasn't been transformation on the inside.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

So yeah, yeah. And I and that's where to me, I'd want to help define the terms of fruit. Uh what are these actions that somebody's supposed to be going through? And that's what you're gonna ultimately get to in these sermons. Well, and that's where we talked about these lessons in Fresh Start, they lead to up to kind of a main point. Yeah, um, and uh what is the fruit.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

But that's where and that's where we talked about that last week, where I use the example Mahatma Gandhi did a lot of good things, he bore no fruit because it was we talk about the fruit of the spirit.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, yeah. So, but then even then, if you're doing good things and you're a nice person, you you like to help other people out, God even sees that as you're doing it for selfish reasons. Unless you are connected to my son, if you are not a believer in Christ, you're only doing it for selfish reasons. There's something deep down rooted inside of you that you're doing it for you, not out of love of Christ.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

It's kind of fascinating that God can obviously He can tell the difference. He knows the heart, he knows the foundation of why you're what's your motivation behind something. But there is a difference. Yeah, you can still be a good person and do nice things, but without the love of Christ in you, it doesn't matter. It's not the same.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

At the risk of not geeking out too much. Um, Ayn Rand, who was a philosopher, she wrote the anthem, Atlas Shrug, she was an atheist, but she founded this ethical belief called altruism. And that was kind of her opposition to Christianity, moral morality, where do we can still be a good person? Where do we get morality? And so Ayn Rand um presented this idea of altruism that basically says everything we do, we do for selfish reasons. And so even Ayn Rand would argue there's a burning building and there's a child in that building. You run in to get that child and you run out. You did this heroic thing, and people say, How selfless are you? Ayn Rand would argue through altruism, well, no, actually, there's still a little selfish gene inside you that says you want to be the hero. So every action, every moral action actually goes back to our own selfishness. The only reason we are moral creatures is because we are at our very foundation, we are selfish creatures. Now, I don't believe that, but I think if God does not exist and if morality is not objective, I actually think that's one of the better explanations for why humans that have no God, there's no heaven, there's no hell, we're just a bunch of moist robots on this earth, that actually would be a pretty good explanation for why we we do certain things that we do. All that being said, Jesus is basically saying something along those lines that when you're doing things for selfish ambition, even though you may not realize they're selfish, when when God is not at the center, you do not have Christ, then yes, there is a tendency of selfishness in that.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Just in all that, you lost me. We didn't even have a bet for you to say moist without winning a bet, and you said moist. So I hate that word too.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Listen, that's a Frank Turk quote. He he he says, without God, we're just a bunch of moist robots, and and I've always used that, so that's that's Frank Turk.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Usually that's a word you have to say, I'll bet you you can't use it. I know, I shouldn't have done it. But that's a good plug for Frank Turek who'll be here in September. So But anyways, it's kind of weird to think that um until I had Christ in my heart, I was doing this for other motives or ambitions, but then you enter in Christ into the heart and it changes things. That's it changes everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So you know, and we talk about identity, and we normally talk about it in the realm of new identity, but in all honesty, it's redeemed identity or restored identity. Because if we go back to Genesis chapter one, how are we created? We were created in the image of God. That's the identity in which we were created in. And so he created us in his likeness, and so when sin entered into the world, it distorted that.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, so then you get Seth, who was the first it literally specifically says, and he was made in Adam's image. Right. And then that's where everybody else came from, through that line, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

And that's why you fast forward to you know John 1, where it explains that Jesus came now in the flesh. Yes, it's kind of crazy to think about. He originally created us in his image, but now what he had to do is empty out part of that godliness so that he could be partially created in the image of Adam. Yeah, so that he can come and restore the second Adam. Right. So why? Because he can so he can come and restore all that. And that's why we get to live in that restored identity whenever we give our life to Christ. And that's what it talks about in 1 Corinthians 1. It says, But by his doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification in redemption. It's talking about our identity has now been redeemed back to Christ. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, and it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

And in a culture, I know we always go back to the culture, but the culture is our that's our turf. That's where we go and share the gospel. There is an identity crisis that has never existed before in our culture of people. And starting as young as children, when I was a youth pastor, I had far too many conversations with 13 and 14-year-olds that could not tell me what their identity was. And of course, we're going back to in a world where gender is now this subjective thing that you can choose your gender, you can choose your name, you can choose all of these things. And I think everyone is so confused that something as simple as identity people cannot define. And we're yearning for identity. Man, we want identity. We we want to have this. And so the good news as Christians is that we have a culture and a generation of kids that want identity. The bad news is that sometimes the loudest voices in the room who are telling them what their identity is, it's not coming from scripture, it's coming from the enemy. So, as believers, how do we attack that in this culture that is telling everyone, hey, your identity, you choose that. That has nothing to do with God, that has nothing to do with Jesus. How do we prevail in the environment that we're living in?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, so if you want to know where your identity is, I've heard it put this way, then you have to understand where your mind is, where your mindset's at. And how do you know where your mindset is at? Where does your mind go when you are set? And so when you're not thinking about anything, you're not on your phone, it's complete silence, your phone is dead, you're in the you know, whatever, but there is nothing going on, no TV on, nothing. What do you think of? What do you think of? And that is interesting. That is where your mind is set. If you think, if you're thinking of, oh man, I gotta check social media, I gotta check Instagram, Facebook, what are people saying? What are they liking? I need to, you know, doom scroll, I need something, or if your mind immediately goes to things going on at work or money issues, money problems, or whatever, that is probably what you're finding your identity in, and because that is where your mind is set.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Yeah, yeah, I would say that that's very true.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, and well, but it also, as you were talking about, Roger, it speaks to the importance of identity. If the world is trying to steer you away from what God wants your identity to be, which is found in Him, yeah, that tells you the significance and the importance of it. I mean, I even going back to the whole, you know, the second question in uh meeting somebody is first is the finding out their name, and second is well, what do you do for a living? I even think back to when I was a kid, it was all about what do you want to be when you grow up. Yeah, and so much of that then you get wrapped up in that's who I am. Well, then again, that's a distraction from okay, if you start out with, I know my identity is found in Christ, it's gonna change everything with your motivation in life. You're gonna start with, well, God, well, then what's your will for me? And what do you want me to go do? Yeah. Instead of this is what I'm gonna go to, these are my ambitions. You stop and you go, No, I'm putting those aside. Lord, what are your ambitions for me? Yeah. That's a game changer in where your life could head and what you chose to do versus, well, God had another idea and you gave you your free will to choose something else.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Makes you wonder how weird you come off when someone says, Hey, what you know, what do you do for a living? Oh, I follow Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

I mean, like because that would actually probably be the best as Christians, like, okay, my vocation, I I I will eventually retire. I will eventually leave my job. But the one thing I'm here to do is to follow Jesus. And so um, no, I think it's again, I I think in a culture that loves talking about this. That's the good thing as Christians, like, this is an easy topic to discuss in our culture because gender identity in the last five years has been one of the most hot buttons. I mean, people love talking about this stuff. But in America. In America. Well, I would say in any industrialized nation, you go into um the Nordic countries.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Third world countries, it's not a third world country.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

No, and that's like in Matt Walsh's What is a Woman, where they go to the they go to this African tribe and the And they look at him like that. Like, what do you mean, what is a woman? And like it really is a great scene of like when you get out of the the stupidity of what we would consider to be the most successful nations are actually stuck in the world.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, we're so bored with ourselves we have to make things exactly.

SPEAKER_03 20:29

Like, what can we have what can we make controversial today? And so but the fact is that this is this is where we're at. God has put us in 2026 in the middle of the United States of America. So that this is the hand we've been dealt. What do we do with it? How how do we share the identity in Christ with a world that is yearning for identity, even though for many of them that's not identity in Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, and I thought that's where your message did a really good job landing. And the power of baptism is when we go under that water, our identity is changing. We were once slaves to sin, and our identity was found in our sinful nature. But when we're raised up out of the water, we now have a new life, a new purpose, a new identity. Not doesn't mean we're not going to sin anymore. And that was the whole objective of the passage that you read that Paul was saying is hey, you're still gonna sin, but you're not gonna willingly sin because you have been made new. So you should not be going on and saying, Oh, I'm gonna go on sinning so that grace may abound. He says, by no means. Like, and he uses an exclamation point there for a reason, saying, No, that's not the way it should be anymore, because when you went under that water, your sin was crucified, but that's no longer your identity. I think the hard problem that people have with a new identity in Christ is they still remember their old sins. And Satan likes to play that on replay and make them think that that's still who they are and not who they are in Christ. And I think that that's a big part of stepping into this new identity, restored identity, is understanding that old me is dead and gone.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

But you can also use that as your motivation of looking back going, Oh man, I'm glad I'm not that anymore. Yeah. And you know what? Lord, thank you so much for what you've done for me and the forgiveness that you get the price you paid for me to be able to be made new, man, that gives me more motivation that I want to live for you now. Yeah. And do what you want me to do, to go love other people to fruit and truly change your whole perspective on life and how you're going to live it.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

But I think that takes going from letting it enslave you to you owning it. And so whenever we're living in the midst of the sin, we are enslaved to it. Yeah. But whenever we are able to get through it and overcome it on the other side, not saying we're never going to sin again, but now that we're on the other side, we are now able to own it and God is able to use it as a testimony to glorify God.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Well, and that's why I would the the critics of FBC over the years, this is one criticism I heard as a member and as a pastor. You guys emphasize baptism too much. You guys, yeah, all you guys talk about is baptism. I mean, that is something that I've heard.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

They don't they're just saying it because you're all you care about is the numbers, is what they would say.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Well, but even just the emphasis on you you determine success based off of baptisms. What however you want to word it. But yes, that is something that um Hey, you know what? So did the Bible. Well, I would agree. Yeah, we I mean there's a lot of baptisms in the Book of Acts.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Then why did they put in 5,000 were baptized? I mean, why did they throw a number out there unless it's something important in the world?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Again, I think loving, well-meaning people that are just that's not the church culture they're used to. They they a lot of people have been to churches where uh the idea of a baptism Sunday every single month. I mean, we we there's churches that do a baptism Sunday uh every millennia, right? And so this idea though of why because it is very different, I would say. That that I mean, many Southern Baptist churches, and I we can open up if you really want to depress. If you really want to get depressed, we we can pull up the numbers. We don't need to. But the fact of the matter is is that most churches are not baptizing anyone.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I am a data guy. So we have sixteen hundred Southern Baptist churches in the state of Missouri. Last year, nine hundred. How many did you say? Sixteen hundred. I thought it was nineteen hundred. No, sixteen hundred Southern Baptist churches in the state of Missouri, over nine hundred baptized zero in the same.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

So that's more than that's more than half. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

That's zero.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Yes. And so again, not to critique, I know everyone does church differently, but why is there an emphasis on baptism here? It's not just because people are getting wet, it's because, as Paul talks about in Romans 6, there is no better indicator to see that somebody has truly taken over a new leaf, that somebody is truly a new creation than to get into that baptistry and stare at 400 people in a sanctuary and say, hey, everyone, you are actively watching me put my jersey on. I mean, there's no better way. And the cool part is that guess what? You now have 400 people that are gonna get to keep you accountable in that as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's the power. And the part you also brought up in that is one we don't talk about very often, is there's a spiritual side component to that. And another side, the other side just lost another. Yeah. And I mean, we there's even a song that talks about it. I lost another one and I'm free. Yeah, but there that's a huge deal. Um, and because obviously we since we can't see it and understand it fully, we don't talk about it maybe because we don't completely comprehend it. But that is the other hugely significant part of this, is the spiritual side of it. Uh yeah, that's a big honking deal. That is my message to anyone I baptize, but then it's so then it has to beg the question what's the point of church then? What's the point of us, what's the whole point of us doing what we're doing if we're not watching or focused on who are we baptized with? Well they would argue. I'm just curious. No, I know what the big thing is.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

In the Acts, but they would say in the early church, they would say, you know, of all the things that they were doing, they were breaking bread, they were having fellowship, they were worshiping, they were teaching, but in that, the early church, in those four things that that that Luke says that they were doing, baptism was not a part of the of those four things. But then if you read shortly after, that's when the baptism was.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

There's like a verse or two about what church looked like. Everything else was about the stories of look how many people were led to the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

They would argue be baptized. How many times is that just the purpose of church is we could. The numbers that followed. We have the saints, you know, we have us, and that it their their view of in their argument of the early church, which I would disagree, is that in the church, that is when the saints were were were given, you know, that we we were given the information, we were taught, we were teaching, we're having fellowship, and that the baptisms happened beyond the church, that that is what was happening out in the community, out.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

But obviously that was a different culture than what was But part of equipping the saints, isn't it getting them to step in obedience of getting baptized? Isn't that part of equipping the saints? And helping them get to that point of the body.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

But they would see baptism as a form of missions or and or evangelism, not in a sense of just a different like they would say we believe baptism is important, but that your Sunday morning is not necessarily meant to be baptizing. That that's that's kind of why I think so many are not baptizing at all.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I can maybe see that, but and maybe they're not reaching people.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Yeah. I think you said the quiet part out loud.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

I think it's just the the the cultural means of how they did it versus how we do it. Because after they baptized 5,000, it was put in the context of and 5,000 were added to their number. Yeah. I.e. the church. Yes. 5,000 more people were then added to the church. So now you have 5,000 more people showing up on a Sunday morning. Soldiers, yeah. That are showing up. Then it was a 3,000, and then those are only counting the men, so then you add that time, multiply that. How many women and children? Women and children, they're talking 15,000, 25,000 people. Yeah. Um, they highlight that, I think, for a reason. One, I mean, obviously it's how rapidly the church is growing, but the significance and the purpose behind what we're supposed to go do. You go find people, save them, baptize them, and add them to the church and go get more.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

I just I I just have this, and you brought it up at the spiritual part. I I just have this picture in my head of whenever somebody gets baptized, you know, even say the heavens are rejoicing. And you you hear the cloud, you see the cloud of witnesses rejoicing, screaming, shouting, yeah, and just chanting, and you know, Jesus looking on and he's just pumped up. But then you see hell and what's going on there. Yeah. And they're looking on with disdain. They're mad, they're upset, yeah. Because they know that they did not complete their mission that they lost.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, and they lost in the way uh C.S. Lewis will put it in the screw tape letters, uh, that evil spirit that was kind of trying to get the person not to get saved, he's now in trouble.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

You're gonna be in trouble for that, but you know, now you can try and mess them up.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

But I think that it is it is a cool historical because even, you know, like N. T. Wright, he's a New Testament historian, and he says the only explanation of the explosion of the early church is through the risen Jesus. And so the idea that you have this resurrection, and one of the best historical arguments that it was literal is N. T. Wright says if it was not a literal historical event, we would not have seen what was happening in the early church. And the fact that they were having this explosion, and how do we measure that explosion? How do we measure that boom through believers' baptism? That is that is the benchmark that we know, and historians know that okay, maybe this whole resurrection thing did happen because they were being baptized.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

And that's not that we're trying to toot a horn here that look at how many were baptizing. No, for us, it just helps us are we doing what we're supposed we believe we're supposed to be doing as the church. Yeah. And so great commission. You like data, I like data. The best sign of how are you doing is in the numbers. And it's just like with the organization, how good are you doing is based on your bottom line number. Is it a positive or a negative? Is it in the red or the black? We look at it in the sense of, are we saving people? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Like the Lord asked us to do. But I think the misconception people have is they just see the people up there in the amount, they don't get to see the one-on-one, the heart conversations that we're having with people. And since it is something that we are so, you know, we know we have it every month, but in those conversations, it is when we're sharing the gospel with somebody, it doesn't just end with good news, you're going to heaven. We're so proud of you. Yes, that's what we've been trying to do. All right, now that you've made that decision to follow Jesus, hey, one of the first things that Jesus asks you to do is step in obedience through baptism. Have you thought about that? And so immediately what happens is we're moving from this person just gave their life to Christ. Now we're working on discipleship already. And we're already talking about what that looks like in that first place.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

But we were also kind of we're intentional in the it needs to happen right away. Yeah because that's how it also was in the Bible. Yeah. And we've even talked about this. We, you know, we talk about how you're not saved through baptism. However, there is something that happens when you come back up out of that water. There is a change in people, whether it's a mental flip, switches flipped in the brain, or there is truly something of the Holy Spirit, or both. There's something that happens with people after they're baptized. And it and you almost wonder if that's why you know Paul and in the book, they're so adamant you need to do this now. I mean, you just accept it, let's go now. What's what's the what are you waiting on?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Well, I call it it's it's the let's go effect. Now it's now it's not just words, you're actually putting that faith into action.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And so there's probably a mental trigger of some side, but there is a spiritual component of wow, they've changed. They're on a new path. Something happened when they came back up out of that.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

And I'm so grateful that we have going back to data, but we can show our adult baptisms in the last 12 months, and and we can literally lay them out on this table and say, okay, that person serves the next steps test. That person drives a golf cart, that person is teaching. Like we can literally go through and say, okay, we're not losing these people. And that's kind of the the in a in a big church, that's the fear. Someone gets baptized and then you lose them. We're retaining the they're they're getting dunked, and then their story is truly beginning once they get out of the water.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

From 2024 to 2025, because that's the last full-year fiscal year data we had. We also launched growth track in that time. We had over 70 people. And a revamp fresh start. Over 70 adults get baptized, over 100 and something, if you count kids and students. Yeah. So, but over 70 of those were adults. Out of those 70-something adults, 68 went through growth track. Yeah, so we only there was only like no, our first year we had 100%.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

One single person. Every adult that got baptized graduated.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Oh, I'm poly- No, no, no, no, I'm sorry. You were right. There was 68, but then of all those that went through our growth track, 100% of those went to first day. So like 68 out of 75 went to growth track. Yeah, it was a very small number that didn't.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yeah, and then 68 out of 68 that went through growth track then stepped into serving.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

And yeah, and even still after that, you'd you know, how do you hold that 100% rating of going through growth track to then getting plugged in in some way or another? We may not be at 100%, whether but we're at like 96%. I mean, that's an A plus rating from the spiritual better business. That is that is incredible how well it's worked.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

So like this is like in the I think you're you're hitting on it. There's something that baptism unlocks within you. There it is. Makes you want to do. Because I think you're now having the confidence to stand in the spiritual realm and you draw that line in the sand. But that's goes into our quote unquote hot button topic. I don't think it's hot button, but we'll call it that. Whenever you find your identity in Christ, that does bring this sense of confidence as a follower of Christ. Why? Because now we are in Christ. That confidence should include our faith and assurance of salvation. Yeah. So let's let's launch into class. Why is that even a controversial topic?

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah, so no, it's good. And I think, you know, we we talk about baptism because this is oftentimes I don't want to use the word critique, but it could be a critique of saying, well, what about does it lessen the power of baptism that there are people that get rebaptized? We see this all the time. In fact, um the the two baptisms on Sunday, those were those were re-baptisms. And so the idea was, okay, well, what about people that get baptized claim to be saved? Um, not Sunday's example, but just other people that get baptized and then you see them and they go off. They clearly they show evidence that there was that they weren't saved or that they're not saved in the moment. Is that proof that they had salvation and then lost salvation? Going back to the argument of can you lose your salvation, or is it true that you are once saved, always saved? This is a hot button. You say it's not really a hot button topic. I would actually say it is a huge hot button topic. And there's denominations are based on the Literally. We have branches of Baptist churches based off of one theological point. And this is the one where people sometimes struggle because I think they are just genuinely misunderstood on what we mean by some very basic terms that I think we can try to define today. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah. Yeah. So are you all going to preach on assurance and salvation from the Fresh Start material?

SPEAKER_03 34:32

I to be determined. I think the the original blueprint was that we weren't going to cover assurance and salvation, but I'm not saying it's impossible that on a Sunday we don't there's not a sub point we can make of okay, we're also gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

And I'll really use I know that Fresh Start is a 10-week course of 10 lessons, and you guys have this in a six-week, I think.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Is this the Mason Jar illustration? Uh yeah. Man, we uh I we can talk about this often. It's really good, too. I almost think I mean we let's look, let's go back to the drawing board because that would be a really fun week to preach on, I feel like. But we could we could talk about it later. Point being is that yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

And Joe is really good at doing that too. He's done it so many times. It is one of those illustrations if you didn't watch it.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Okay. So you guys talk about it. Leave it all on. No, if we do it real. I don't know if you guys want to talk about it if we're gonna be preaching on it. Because then what when we just talk about it on the weekly preach on it.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

I was kind of just curious, based on how in depth you want to get into it, that would kind of steal any.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Well, and this the thing is is I preached on it last year. But it was it was a ha it was half of a week.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

So I don't know. You know, it might help you and you would know where do the free wills get the idea of losing your salvation.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Hebrews. Um, it's I actually talked to a free will Baptist minister about this, and I asked the exact same question you just did. Um their proof text is in Hebrews. Um Hebrews six and Hebrews ten. But Hebrews six, four through six, it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away to be brought back to repentance. To their loss, they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. So those who have shared in the Holy Spirit, they have heavenly gift, they have the goodness of the Word of God and power of the coming age, and have fallen away. So they would say that is proof that people can fall away that have all of those things, which would sound like salvation. Holy Spirit, word, enlightenment, heavenly gift, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Yeah. So you wonder then that what is the context of falling away, but to be brought back to repentance. So it's not like you've fallen away and you're gone forever. Uh you have a chance to come back. And Paul even talks about you need to kick certain people out of your church if they're not if they're doing bad.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

Well, MacArthur hope that they come back. And so MacArthur, because I I've read the commentary on that after I had that conversation, MacArthur would say in Hebrews 6 that Paul is or not Paul, the author of Hebrews is referring to enlightenment. And MacArthur says that's the key word, enlightenment being that those who have been well versed in scripture, those that know the truths of God, in the same way that the people that were murdering Jesus, many of them knew the truths of God, but they were willfully rejecting it. And so MacArthur would say the author of Hebrews is not describing those in salvation, but those that have read the truths, understand the truths, and yet still do not accept. They they still have not gone in on being a follower of Christ. That those are the people that Hebrews 6 is referring to.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

So this is the ones that we were going to go through. And I think the reason we didn't do assurance of salvation is because it's the one with the undertones that we like, we fit that into more sermons. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Well, and I would say I forgot I did it last year, and if I preached on assurance of salvation, my message last year was a textbook assurance of salvation, and it's probably two series.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

So your next one is exchanged life. That jar illustration.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

It can still work for that.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

It can still work in that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

As you're talking about, so I can I can I can put assurance of salvation in an exchange life. You can kind of couple those together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

But obviously, the mason jar is all about the Holy Spirit. You've been cleansed, so you you uh sanitize mason jars before you put anything in them. And so we've been sanitized uh by accepting Christ in our life, and that that then makes room for the Holy Spirit. And then as Ephesians chapter one, starting verse, you're sealed by the Holy Spirit. And then that means you're marked by God as a token when you take off the exchange life.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

I mean, yeah, because right now we have a new self. What is Christian discipleship? Identity in Christ, exchange life. Living a Christ-like life through the Beatitudes, living a Christ-like life through walking according to the Spirit, living a Christ-like life is the only thing that counts.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Okay. But then so although you're cleansed on the inside and you're sealed on the inside, that Mason jar can set on the side.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

But the inside is secure. The other thing, last on Hebrews 6, um, in that passage, he says, You have tasted the heavenly gifts. MacArthur writes that he doesn't say you have received them, he says you have tasted them. And so that like that to me to and I I would agree with him, that to me is like, okay, you've tried it, you've you've you've you've maybe and then you've decided, yeah, that's not for me.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I've always taken that as like the in the parable of the sower, the ones that are. They're the four soils. Yeah. The soils two and three. Yeah. So they're associates of the kingdom, but they were never part of the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yeah, so we just started Hebrews in my Wednesday night. And it's kind of cool because it literally falls in the his the chronologicalness of it. It follows right after Second Timothy and First Peter, all around the same time as the Nero and the Great Fire of Rome, and the Christians being blamed for it, and they're all all the Christians are facing some serious persecution. And one of the main themes or warnings in Hebrews is don't drift, don't start to drift away. And it's slow, and you gotta really be careful and you gotta constantly keep your eyes on Christ so you don't drift.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

So then he's talking about falling away, so you've drifted and fallen away, but then he talks about having that opportunity for repentance. You can always come back. Yeah, but I think the concern is if you've drifted and fallen away and Christ returns and you're away, you're away.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Yeah, but I would also say that God knows your heart and knows that if you accept him, that you will always, and this is this goes back to the prodigal son, and this is what I believe that if you are truly in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit has taken residency in your heart, you will always give back.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

If he's talking about drifting away, is he talking about an external actions or an internal heart? And if it's the internal heart, what would it look like for your internal heart to drift away?

SPEAKER_03 41:05

Yeah, and I believe that I'm just curious. And so my so my response would be as someone who's obviously believes in eternal security, when the Holy Spirit resides in your heart, your heart is un. And this is what this is where I I am Calvinistic in a way, is that Calvinists would argue you can't turn away. Once you it is irresistible. Once that irresistible grace hits your heart, yeah, once you have it, you cannot resist it. Yeah. I actually agree with that. Yeah, yeah. And I've always gone back to that.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

What did you do to earn your salvation? You surrendered yourself. Okay. You gave yourself over.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

You did nothing. But your works wise, you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

You did nothing. Yeah, it was a free gift. I'm with you there.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Yeah. So if you did nothing to do to resist it, yeah, what can you do to get rid of it? Soligratia, solafide.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

So then it keeps coming back to then the author of Hebrews. Um uh second or uh Second Timothy or even uh Peter talking about this falling away, don't disown Christ. Even even Paul in one of the letters to the Corinthians about the the guy that was having the inappropriate relationship with his stepmom, he's like, kick him out of the church and make him turn him over to Satan in hopes that he will realize what he's done and repent and come back, yeah, but get him out of the church so that he doesn't influence other people. Yeah. What is that talking about?

SPEAKER_03 42:22

Yeah. Again, going back to Hebrews, because Hebrews is the proof text. In my experience, when Christians argue that you can lose your salvation, they begin and end with Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10. Um, and so you have that, but then you also have You want to read that? You were giving, yeah, you were giving some Pauline examples. We can look at it. Let me read it. Well, I was gonna read Hebrews. Let me read Hebrews 6. Yeah. 4 through 6. Okay. Author of Hebrews, not Paul. He writes, for of course I accidentally clicked on it. He writes, for it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the new age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. And so the free will Baptist, the uh the person who does not believe in eternal security would argue, then they have fallen away. That's the exact wording that the author of Hebrews used. So therefore, if someone has tasted the goodness of God, that they've had all of these uh, you know, examples that the author uses, wouldn't that be proof falling away that they've lost the salvation that they once had?

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Yeah, so my argument for those types of people, um, the argument that people that believe you can lose your salvation would say that true believers can fall away. My response as somebody that believes in once saved, always saved, if saved, is that these people were exposed to the truth of the gospel, but they never truly converted. So if we were going to use the parable of the sower that Jesus talks about, he gives four different types of soils, right? And so the four different types, he has the ones that fall. Upon number one, rocky ground, the path that the birds snatch up immediately. You have the or I'm sorry, the path. Then you have number two, the rocky ground, which sprouts fast but scorched by the sun. And number three, the thorns, which is choked out by the weeds. And then number four, the good soil, which produces a crop. What he's explaining in Hebrews are those who have been enlightened, I would say, are part of either number two or three, which means they are part of the rocky ground or the thorns, which shows that they were enlightened, they heard, things sprouted up, there was even a little bit, but then when things came about, they were scorched and they were washed away. So they never truly received salvation.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

So if we we see a guy on the side of the road, he's not a Christian, he he says he's not a believer. We share the gospel with him, we give him Romans Road, we read John 3.16, we tell him about eternal life, and he rejects it. In a way, has he been enlightened? Yes, he has. In a way, has he tasted a bit of what the goodness of God, the heavenly, all of those things that the author uses? I would say yes. He has been presented them, and maybe he even considered, you know, whatever, but in the end he did not accept. And so I would say all of those would actually describe someone who hears the gospel, who sees the fruit of what can happen through Christianity, that that all of those things, but still says, yeah, that's not really for me. I think that Hebrews 6 would actually describe pretty well that person, and we're not talking salvation because he's been enlightened. There are a lot of enlightened people that will go to hell. There's no doubt about that, right? Um, it's how you define enlightenment. And John MacArthur would argue that our world is enlightened to Christianity. The United States is filled with people that are enlightened, and oftentimes they're the ones that reject it the most. So that's how I would put it.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

And it I goes even back to where Jesus talked about they called upon and said, Lord, Lord, but never knew me. Yeah, they had the head. They had the head knowledge, maybe have gone through the motions, but it never was in their heart. They never truly received the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yeah, I think heart is the big, obviously the main source of all of it. But I I like to, I love the context, understanding context of any given book of the Bible. Going to the context of Hebrews, uh, they one, they one don't know who the author is, but two, they they're not positive who it is written to. However, in the name Hebrews, uh it's speak, they think it is speaking to a group of Jewish people that could be either at the level of priest, a Jewish priest kind of, or there was a group of Jews that were very traditional and to the from the they wanted to stick to the old Israelite way. Orthodox, yeah. Kept the Hebrew language, they did not convert over to Greek, uh, they kept the old traditions. That you know, they're the ones that were really shunning the Samaritans, they called them the half-breeds because they drifted away from the original Jewish faith or the Israelite faith. So, in a in that, the way he kicks off Hebrews, whoever the author is, he is speaking about hey, if you believed how angels delivered the law, and go look that up, and there's belief that the angels delivered the law on Mount Sinai, uh, because even Stephen says it and Paul says it uh in Acts and in Galatians. Um if you believe that angels deliver the law, and I'm going to prove to you who the Son of God is, is even greater than angels, why don't you then listen to this message of salvation? So then you've accepted if you've accepted this the message of salvation, and then he starts getting into warnings about drifting from the message of salvation, and he's specifically talking to these, I mean, I guess you could say just very staunch or very hardcore Jews. The idea was that when persecution came, because this is written right during the time of uh the Roman fire, Great Roman fire of Rome, where Nero is blaming the Christians, Christians are being crucified, Paul gets his head chopped off for it, Peter gets crucified upside down for it because they're blamed for this fire. The belief is that this letters to these Jews that are drifting away because they want to go back to the old ways of the Jewish or Israelite ways, because Christianity is just a little too much because of what's the heat that's coming down on them. And so the it's a warning to these people don't drift, don't turn away, don't walk away from this, because this is all everything, this was God's plan of salvation all along. So if you believe in the Old Testament, you got to believe in this because Jesus is who God has talked about all the way through, and it's now the final revelation of God through Christ. With that context, what does Hebrews 6 then talk about?

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Yeah, very different very different understanding.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Different understanding, yeah. Yeah. So what who was what do they mean by it then? Using that context of what Hebrews written about in Hebrew.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

Because I think he is speaking, and we talk about the Orthodox Jews that very much were, and even in today's world, we would say these are the Jews that do not turn the lights off on Sunday because they don't want Yahweh. They don't push the celery button.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

I mean, they're not going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

There's literally there's there's um all of these different laws that they're these rabbinic laws that they still follow and and and they believe. That was what what I think the author of Hebrews would see as religious enlightenment in a way that they are they have their own version of enlightenment of you know what is important. And so I I think that that context is important of Hebrews. And the problem is a lot of that is we are there is a little bit of speculation when it comes to the book of Hebrews because we don't speculate. We don't know the author. We don't know exactly the ex you know who it's written to. There's certain things that that this side of heaven, we won't know the fullness of why it was written, but the truth is still there.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

So but it I think it just helps with understanding context of then what is this writer or the author saying about falling away? What does he mean by it? Is it truly meaning you're losing your salvation? But if he's talking to a group of people that got a they heard and they listened, they even know the Old Testament really well and the more than a new God. Have they now connected the dots to Christ in that? And it's like, okay, well, maybe so.

SPEAKER_03 49:47

And as as we read in the new, they profess to be wise, but they're willfully ignorant, which means they are ignorant on purpose. They have the head knowledge, as you said. But they're Pharisee language, but they are not letting that elevator go to the bottom floor. Yeah, more than the world.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

And that's why I almost think that Hebrews 6 could be just a letter to the American church. Because how we are so fortunate, especially in Bible-belt America, that we have almost just been watered down with Jesus. Like there's very few times we share the gospel with people that they have not heard of some version of Jesus before.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Hebrews 6 and Revelation 3 go hand in hand. Is Revelation 3 describing losing your salvation when he speaks of lukewarm and spitting your mouth out? Because that's another passage that someone might use. Is that how does Jesus spit spit you out of his mouth and yet you still be saved? Wouldn't that be proof that you've grown lukewarm on your faith?

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Yes. Because you've lost the your first love. But that's where I think that's where we Christians go to heaven. That's I mean, these great questions. That's getting into the whole, like, you know. So again, it goes back to the where I really like the way J.D. Greer puts it. Once saved always following. Yeah. Uh and or I and I and I get like once saved always says is uh if saved. Yeah, there's a component to that in that. And it does kind of probably tie back to the thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Because that's why I always go back to the parable of the soils, because it's so easy to just understand it that way, that there's only one soil that that truly is salvation, and that is the the good soil. Yeah. And the other ones, and I think Hebrews hits it on, is the shallow heart or the distracted heart, the the rocky ground or the one among the thorns. That it they experienced it, they've seen it, they've maybe even done the works of showing up, going to church, reading their Bible, and experience things like that, but it never took root in their heart. Yeah, they never truly were transformed.

SPEAKER_03 51:33

It takes root and then it grows something. But that's where going back to Revelation 3, because the Greek word John uses, we say spit you out of Jesus' mouth, it's actually vomit. It is literally like disgust, like, ugh, this is. And so then it's like, okay, well, we know these people were in Laodicea, they were in the church. So then does that mean that there are people that were saved, joined the church, and then fell away or became lukewarm? What I would argue, and I would say the American church today, is that there are many people that are in church that think they are doing, going through the hoops of what it means to be saved, but that many people in the church were never saved in the first place. So that's I think that's what he's saying.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Then I think the question, well, then how do we know which one we are in? And I my question would go back to who do you actually have faith in? Are you putting your faith in your works, you doing these things, that's why you are saved, or are you truly putting your faith into Jesus? Or your faith in your own identity. Right. Bringing it all back. Bring it all back.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

But again, human act if if identity in our culture is defined by human activity, it goes back to the church and it goes back to Colby and Ashley Callahan. Well, what do you mean their marriage wasn't working? They were going to church, they were tithing, they were praying, they were doing all the things you're supposed to do. Yeah, but what happens when that exceeds the relationship, when it exceeds what truly it means to be saved?

SPEAKER_01 52:43

So that's good. And that's and you know, kind of going back to the argument of Roger, why would you say or the big argument arguments you would make for once saved, always saved?

SPEAKER_03 52:52

Well, Jesus says, I think it's Matthew 10, where he says, When you're in my father's hands, you cannot be snatched away. And so the this the statement I always make is I believe when the Holy Spirit resides in one's heart, um, he's he he doesn't the Holy Spirit's not into temporary placement. And so um for me, the idea that when you're in your father's hands, jet Jesus is speaking in the context of salvation. He outright says, You will not be snatched away, which means everything that the world throws at you, everything that Satan throws at you, when you receive that grace, you will persevere. You cannot fall away because you you you have now been stamped with the blood of Jesus. And if you believe that that can be relinquished or it can be taken back, then what you are saying is that the blood of Jesus actually is not permanent, but that actually our actions, me, Roger Shear, can actually override the blood of Jesus. And I don't believe that that's possible. I would argue, and this may tick off a free will Baptist or someone who believes that you can lose your salvation, and I love I we're all Christians, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:52

See how crazy they are if they can exceed the Catholics or the Calvinists.

SPEAKER_03 53:55

They won't exceed the Catholics. Or the Mormons. Um, but I will say that if you believe in works-based theology, or no, if you believe that you can lose your salvation, you have to believe in a form of works-based theology, because what you are saying is that your own activity can actually override your salvation, which thus then means it comes back to what I can or cannot do to get to heaven.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

And that's where I would say we always go back to what did you do to earn your salvation?

SPEAKER_03 54:24

Not a thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Nothing. Then what can you do to lose your salvation?

SPEAKER_03 54:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Um absolutely. And so um well, and even to piggyback on what you're talking about, uh, with me we were talking about even the identity, you're sealed, or your assurance, you're sealed by the Holy Spirit uh and you're marked by accepting this gospel of truth as Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter one. Uh, can you be unsealed? Yeah, yeah, unmarked? I I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

I gave this analogy last year connected to the prodigal son because I preached on losing your salvation and why I believe you cannot. Um, our pet pig Carol, who lives um at my mom's house. We adopted her 10 years ago. She is the most spoiled pig of all time. She probably eats food that's more expensive than the food you and I eat. Um, every Halloween she has a beautiful uh outfit that she wears, and all the kids around the block will go back. I mean, she has her own swimming pool in the backyard. She is the most spoiled pig of all time, and she is top shelf in terms of how she lives. But if you put a mud trough outside of my mom's backyard, Carol, my pig, would run so fast. Because why? Because you can dress it up, you can put a two-to, but in the end, a pig is a pig, that the pig is going to run back to what it knows. And I think the same is true for salvation. I think that there are some people that they they they live the the the way that some would see as being, oh wow, they're saved, but in the end, it is where you end up. The prodigal son, yes, he went away, but because he he belonged to the father, he had been stamped, he ended back up in his father's arms. And that's what I believe when it comes to eternal security.

SPEAKER_01 55:56

Yeah, and I'll go back to Romans 6, where Paul is even addressing this question of, okay, well, if I'm saved by grace, can I just go on sinning in my old life? By no means. And he says, by no means. And he's saying, because if you truly are saved, you're not going to willingly go on sinning. You're not going to keep doing these things on purpose. And so if you are doing those things willingly, knowing that you are sinning and you will not stop, you have to wonder, did it really take a look at the first time?

SPEAKER_03 56:24

I'll even take it a step further. Not only is he saying you will not, he's saying you couldn't even if if you truly tried, because your old self is dead. So unless your goal is to resurrect a corpse, that you in your new creation, if you're wondering, well, I could just go out and do all these things because you are sealed with the Holy Spirit, yes, you're still going to sin. Yes, there's still going to be temptation. But this idea that you are going to become back to what you once were, well, that person's dead. You can't be a corpse anymore. You your old self is in the ground and you are now something brand new.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

Yeah. Yeah. So if you are going back to the mud or if you are willfully engaging in sin and you believe you're a believer, there maybe needs to be a time of introspection. And Lord, why am I doing this? Yeah. Uh and Lord, I don't understand why I keep doing there's something not right. I want to be yours, I want to be sealed, but I've got a problem and I need your help to figure it out. I can't seem to get past this.

SPEAKER_03 57:15

And my argument would be for those listening that are thinking, oh no, maybe I'm maybe I am the pig. No, here's here's my thing to you. If you wrestle with that, that to me would actually be good evidence that you are saved because the Holy Spirit is convicting you to say, okay, well, maybe, you know, but the idea that I think people that are unsaved oftentimes aren't going to wrestle with someone who truly is saved.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

Yeah. Yeah. There's the there's no conscience of doing whatever it is they're doing. They don't understand that it's not a good thing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

So this is what like the response goes to is people can call themselves Christian and not truly be saved.

SPEAKER_03 57:50

Sure, Matthew Talk Lord, Lord. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

People that say Lord, Lord, and people that even cast out spirits in his name and not saved. That's a wild one.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Well, and I always go back to we talk about him a lot on this channel, but Judas, man, if you would have seen Judas his entire life, you would have thought that guy has more salvation than anybody on this earth. I mean, he he is right next to Jesus for for decades. Um, or at least not decades, but for a long time. Three years, yeah. Two years. Yeah, or at least.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Whenever they picked him up.

SPEAKER_03 58:20

Yes. But the fact of the matter is, is that Judas was never saved. In my opinion. Now, some some would disagree. Free will Baptists, again, would maybe make the argument, well, Judas is actually proof that you can lose your salvation because how could he follow Jesus that entire time and yet not be saved? But I think, and I think you preached on this a year or two ago, the difference between Judas and Peter, right? And I think that that is the difference. Peter temporarily fell away. Thomas temporarily doubted. Like we see the disciples wrestle, but where do they end up? Where did Judas end up, and where did Peter end up?

SPEAKER_01 58:54

Yeah, I'd say Peter never stopped having faith in Jesus. He just made a mistake. Judas reveals he only had faith in himself. And that's what the terms that distinguishes the two is how they responded. Right? If uh Judas took matters into his own hands, where you can't tell me if Judas would have stuck around, Jesus would not have saved him as well.

SPEAKER_03 59:13

That's the difference between temporary denial and permanent rejection.

SPEAKER_01 59:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Also, I'd say uh Judas had a different understanding of Jesus' overall mission. He thought Jesus was going to be the conquering Messiah, the David, returning to kick out Rome. Peter understood, no, you're my Lord and Savior.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

Yeah, and that and that we could do a whole episode on Judas of then why would Jesus give Judas the access if Judas truly was not saved? Like why would Judas be a disciple? And Jesus talks about we all want to be disciples. Judas was the literal disciple, and yet Jesus predicting what was going to happen, and yet still gave Judas the access that he did.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

But I think this brings up a good point. And I'm I'm not maybe it answers that, but I think it resembles a lot of people that fall away. Is they've tasted and seen and they've experienced, but once Jesus doesn't do what they wanted him to do, that's when they just doesn't fit. That's when they abandon their faith. Yeah. But they never truly had faith in the actual Jesus. They had faith in a Jesus they had a faith in a Jesus that they the artificial Jesus, yeah.

unknown 1:00:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

There you go. You might be uh tapping into the root of it. We can talk about this all day. But it all comes down to the heart there. Yeah. It is all down to your heart and Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:31

And I think of like, I mean, I think of Ravi Zacharias, who's was one of my biggest mentors and influences. The reason I'm interested in apologetics, like Ravi is one of three people. One of the best. He has probably led more people to Jesus than 99.9% of humanity one individual could dream of is the influence he had, and yet the end of his life, marred with sin, no repentance, as far as we know, was he truly saved? Like that's the argument of if we talk about where you end up, well, what about people that seem to be genuine, Christ-like people that were following Jesus, and yet they end their life away from him? What does that say about salvation? What does it say about losing your salvation?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

That's tough with that. It comes down to the heart. Uh, but I would say at the beginning it was genuine for him. And that's one of the pitfalls, I think, of our lack of better terms, career or business is that you can get caught up in it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

We are the most vulnerable.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Yeah. And he may have gotten caught up in some uh fame and acclaim and money and notoriety, and that starts to change your purpose and so then the question is when he was genuine, because I believe it as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:40

I mean, I saw him early on in his ministry when he wasn't making a lot of money, he was just doing it because I think it was his ministry. Well, the question is, did he either A, was never saved and was just doing it for his own accord, or B, was he saved and then at the end of his life he lost it because of his actions? Or three, which is the one that I pray is true, even at the end of his life in his sin, he was still sealed, but being sealed with the Holy Spirit does not make us immune to falling into sin.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Do you want the answer?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

What's your answer? I'm that's I'm hoping it's option three.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

I think that's only between him and God. Yeah, that's the thing. But I think we can't sideline.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:20

But I also think that could be a cop-out in that we I think it's it's appropriate to speculate, not to speculate on every single person's individual salvation at the end of their life, but to answer this question, we have to look at real examples of okay, but what about that instance?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

But I would say that what we would have to say one or option one or three is the option.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

Well, I think it's option three because we're not, and going back to Catholic theology, we are not defined by our final sin. And we talk about this even when we talk about mental health and suicide. If someone commits suicide, do they go to heaven? But it's option three.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

If he genuinely had salvation from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

But that's what I'm saying. So or someone who is saved, their last action, let's say they get drunk, they do something stupid, they hit a tree, they die. Do they go to hell because their last since I had friends in school that grew up with that fear?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

That they thought if they said a cuss word or lied or did whatever, and then they died before they could repent, that they weren't going to happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:12

Exactly. So that's where eternal security and assurance of salvation means even if your final action is in sin, the Holy Spirit was still present even at your worst moment. And that's what I choose to believe. So option three it is.

unknown 1:03:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

But even for Ravi, Ravi. Ravi's acrylic. Ravi. Um, it almost even kind of highlights Hebrews where at some point there was a drift. He got off by a degree, and as you think of a ship that's off one degree and eventually it becomes miles and miles away from its where it was intending to go, there was a drift somewhere in there, and he needed to check himself.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

Well, the issue. The issue became not to go off on this tangent, but in his ministry from the beginning to the end, what you see is over the years and decades, the less accountability, the the larger he became, the less accountability that there was. And so unfortunately, that was the case. Safeguards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

So that then the safeguards you brought up a good point. You know, there was a point where Jesus says, They will cast out demons in my name, but yet they never knew me. So the question is, is even you as a follower of Christ, is there moments when you do things for the name of the Lord? But also sometimes you do things selfishly. We all do, absolutely, yeah. But the whenever you're doing it in the name of the Lord, he works. So the question is before you are saved, if you are truly doing it in the name of the Lord, isn't the Lord the one doing the work and not them? So they can still the Lord can still use that or work through them, even though they are not truly saved.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

Oh, God can do whatever he wants.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

For sure. And that's what that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

But no, it all boils down to heart. Yep. That's 100%. It's just your heart. And if you are a follower, then you will want to put safeguards in your life. You will want to do introspection on a regular basis. You want to kind of clean house, I guess, um of the insides to make sure that Lord, I don't want anything other than you going on in my life. Yeah. And that says a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

Well, this is this is one people might use uh and send to their friends that have this conversation. So quick, really quick, here's a few passages for them to dive into if you're wanting to study why we believe. Once saved, always following, or once saved, always saved, if saved. And that is John 10, 27 through 29, where Christ talks about no one can snatch believers from his hand. Uh John 6, 39, and where Jesus says, Jesus will lose none that the Father has given him. Romans 8, 38 through 39, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Ephesians 1, 13 through 14, where believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit. In Philippians 1 6, God finishes what he starts. Those are just a few handful ones that are the foundation and why we always point back. I always go back to as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

Uh the ransom passage is another one. Yeah. The ransom that was paid for your salvation. And again, the the the the permanent payment of your salvation of your soul has been purchased by the blood of Jesus. That is the currency, and can that currency be relinquished?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:59

Well, I always go back. Too as well. Look throughout scripture. Was there ever a time where we see somebody give their life to Christ and then lose their salvation?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

Is there any example? They would argue Judas, but take what we don't see that he really that's the question.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

We never received the Holy Spirit that had not fallen yet. Because that happens in Acts 2. And so from somebody that receives the power of the Holy Spirit, sealed by the Holy Spirit, somebody that has salvation, do we see any of them ever give that back up or lose it?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

Yeah, I would argue no.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

But then again, we never see any of the apostles get baptized. So did they?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

We don't see the apostle. Well I I would assume yes. But it tells about Matthew 28. I mean, as Jesus should pick up a new disciple and a new father, it never about them being disciplined. It's one of the things. But we also baptize that is where, like, I mean, when we read scripture, understanding we are not viewing a transcript of everything. But I would I would say of course, but I would say the evidence that Matthew 28, Jesus concludes his earthly ministry with, hey, go and baptize.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

Would be pretty pretty good evidence that they prew. It does not accord in any of them. And that's why in in theology we would call that the argument from silence fallacy, where in people will say, Well, Jesus didn't speak on this topic, therefore it's irrelevant. Well, how do we know he didn't speak on this topic? We don't have his hourly transcript of everything you talked about. But good stuff. I love this topic. It was a great topic to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Well, this week we're actually taking a hold on the uh made news sermon series as we got our men's conference on Saturday. Mark Griffiths is going to join us on Sunday where he's going to be preaching for us. And we're actually going to sit down with Mark next week for our podcast, for the Make Heaven Crowded podcast. So excited about that. Tune in next week. You're not going to want to miss it. Until then, go make Heaven Crowded.