Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Church Manila providing another video on the topic of Calvinism and the topic of Perseverance of the Saints.
So this is the last letter in the Tool of Doctrine that Calvinists believe in and what they believe is something called the perseverance of the saints.
A lot of people mistakenly think that this is the same thing as we as Christians and believers believe.
It's actually quite different. And see the Bible teaches not the perseverance of the saints but the preservation of the saints.
What it says in Jude 1 is this,
Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called.
See the Bible never says we persevere, it says we're preserved in Jesus Christ.
And you say, well isn't perseverance and preservation the same thing?
No, they're spelled very closely to one another but they're completely different words.
See, preservation means that God keeps us preserved. He keeps us saved regardless of what we do.
Even if we do commit a big sin one day, even if we really do do something wrong, He keeps us saved.
But what perseverance of the saints teaches is basically that we keep ourselves safe.
That we will be a good person until the day we die. We'll keep changing and performing our lives.
We'll never fall away from the faith. We'll never be like some of these people in the Bible that just rejected the word of God.
No, and they'll say this, well if somebody ended up walking away and just living a life of sin, they were never saved to begin with.
And so that shows they don't really believe in eternal security because whenever anybody commits any number of sins, they just say, well I guess that person was never saved.
Psalms 37 verse 28 reads this,
For the Lord loveth judgment and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved forever, but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
So in Psalms 37 verse 28, it's talking about how He doesn't forsake His saints.
About how we as believers, we keep our salvation, we're eternally secure.
But the reason why we're eternally secure is the fact we're preserved forever.
Look, we do not keep ourselves saved. God keeps us saved.
If I had to keep myself saved, then I would lose my salvation every day because I'm a sinner.
I have not repented of all my sins. I still sin sometimes.
I'm not a perfect person like these Calvinists are basically claiming to be.
But you know what the Bible teaches is the preservation of the saints.
No matter if we do live a life of sin, no matter if we commit some terrible sin one day,
yes we'll reap what we sow in this life, but we are still saved forever.
Because He forsaketh not His saints, because we're preserved forever.
So even if we do not persevere, we are preserved.
And so Calvinists like to say they believe in eternal security.
And a lot of people think they do believe in eternal security or once saved, always saved.
But when you really break it down, it's not the same once saved, always saved that I believe.
It's not the same once saved, always saved that any soul winner believes.
The truth is that we are preserved by God, we're kept saved, but we do not keep ourselves saved
like the Calvinists like to say with the perseverance of the saints.
Thank you and God bless.