Now we understand that it's only our faith that saves us, but what would happen if, God
forbid, when we're saved, we commit a really bad sin?
What would happen if a saved Christian were to commit something as bad as murder?
I'll give an example.
There's been a series of really horrible and painful circumstances that have happened to
a born-again Christian.
This Christian goes to a bar, gets drunk, ends up getting into a bar fight and actually
kills somebody.
Will that Christian lose their salvation?
The answer is no.
Once you're saved, you're always saved.
You can never lose your salvation.
God promises us that we'll pay for all of our sins in this life.
He will not hold us accountable for them in the next life.
And God says in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 6, "For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."
So what God's explaining is once you're saved, once you're born again, adopted into his family
and you become his son or his daughter, he will chastise you, he will chasten you for
your sins.
So God forbid, in the circumstance of the example I gave, the Christian who ended up
killing somebody, this person, providing they truly were saved, God promises he will punish
him for his sin on this earth.
That could mean that he sends him to jail, afflicts him with disease, bad things will
happen to this person, but he will not lose his salvation.
Further on in Hebrews 12, starting in verse 9, the Bible reads, "Furthermore, we have
had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live?"
So what God's explaining here is just like our biological father, when we were younger,
if we were badly behaved, we would be disciplined and told off.
In this case, God is our father.
Just because we commit sins or a very bad sin does not mean God disowns us, he is always
our father, he will never disown us.
Just like your biological father will always be your biological father, God will always
be your God, your father.
And God tells us in Titus chapter 1 verse 2, "In hope of eternal life, which God that
cannot lie promised before the world began."
So when God promises you eternal life through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, if you were
a born again Christian that could lose your salvation, that would make God a liar because
he promised that once we're saved, we have eternal life.
And if we were to lose it, that means it wouldn't have been eternal in the first place.
And we know that God cannot lie.
So once you're saved, you're always saved.
And Jesus Christ says in John chapter 6 verse 37, "All that the father giveth me shall come
to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."
Jesus promising us that once we've believed on him, he will never cast us out, he will
never disown us, no matter what.
Continuing in John chapter 10 verse 28, Jesus says, "And I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."
So we know without question that once we're saved, we're always saved, we can never lose
our salvation.
The Bible says that we're sealed by the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption.
God says in 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 9, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as
some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance."
Again, God loves us, he wants us to be saved.
He doesn't want anybody to perish and suffer the second death.
The Bible says in Romans 10-13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved."
Again, the Bible says in Romans 10, starting in verse 9, "That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation."