You know, David, one of the things that I would say the Hebrew Roots Movement messes
up right at the beginning is their foundation, and that is salvation.
You know, the Bible clearly teaches that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, and that
we can't lose our salvation.
Is salvation by faith or works?
Again, I don't have a concrete answer to that.
Man, that's an awesome question.
I wish that I could give you a solid answer, and I should be able to give you a solid answer.
But if you want to have eternal life, keep the commandments.
Wow, that's such a big part of it.
A lot of times people will say, well, they just believe Old Testament salvation.
But I'm here to tell you, brother, they don't believe in salvation in the New Testament.
They don't believe in salvation in the Old Testament.
It's always been the same salvation.
You know, it's always been through grace and by faith alone.
And Psalm 89 is a perfect place that shows us in the Old Testament that God would never
break His covenant with His children.
Now, we may break the covenant, and the Bible goes on to say in Psalm 89, verse 30, if His
children forsake my law and walk not of my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep
not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity
with stripes.
Nevertheless, my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from Him nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail.
So God's saying, look, I will not suffer my faithfulness to fail.
I have made this promise, and I'm going to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips.
So God is clearly saying that He will not break the covenant nor alter the thing that
has gone out of His lips.
Our present to the day that we die, it's a faith plus work system.
We have to believe on Christ and keep the commandments that have not changed.
We can't atone for our past.
But from our present to the day we go home to be the Lord, it's faith plus works.
That's basically what salvation is.
None of us know what it truly means to be saved.
I just have to completely die to the person who I was in order for Christ to live through
me, or I have no hope.
Now as I continue to keep the Sabbath, then I feel confident that in the end, He will
save me.
But if I don't, how could I trust in a prayer that I said that I didn't even mean?
And I don't think that the Hebrew Roots movement should cause us to want to prove salvation
through the Old Testament either.
This is obviously a very strong point, that it's even in the Old Testament.
But I think the New Testament should be enough to prove that salvation is always the same.
It was an everlasting salvation.
We can go to many Old Testament passages.
We can go to Isaiah 40, 41.
We can go to Psalm 89, and so on and so forth.
Show examples of people, men of God, that fell out and then that still went to heaven.
King Saul is a primary example of a man that, in the Old Testament, where he believes on
Jesus, the Bible says that God gave him a new heart.
And obviously we know King Saul, he was a bi-word, he was a proverb, because of such
a failure he was, of all the things he did.
And at the end, we know that the prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 28 says that tomorrow
shall thou and thy sons be with me.
And obviously we know Samuel's in heaven.
And so prophet Samuel looks at Saul and says, you're going to be with me.
And we know that Saul proceeds the ultimate sin in people's minds to kill himself.
So that would take all doubt that this guy might have repented at the last moment.
The last thing he did was commit suicide.
The last thing he did was kill himself.
And so, according to prophet Samuel, he's with him right now.
And so we could go on and on about these things, but at the end of the day, the New Testament
should be our final authority about salvation through Jesus.
And so if you could lose your salvation, then this passage in the Bible wouldn't make any
sense whatsoever.
And so obviously Saul fell on his own sword and committed suicide, probably one of the
worst sins ever.
But the Bible says that he's with the Lord right now.
He's in heaven.
And anybody that's put their faith and trust in Christ Jesus is eternally saved.
A lot of the strong principles, a lot of the strong teachings of salvation, of the gospel
in the Bible are in the book of Psalms, the book of Genesis, the book of Exodus, and so
on and so forth.
Truthfully, the Bible does not teach a once saved, always saved theology.
It's not like a light switch.
One day you're lost, one day you're saved.
People look at it like that and it's not true at all.
Being saved is a process that is not completed until the end.
At any time in your life, you could fall and lose out on everlasting life.
I think it's this thing that we all learned in Christianity, or at least those who came
through Christianity, is this idea of being saved.
One of the main leaders of the Hebrew Roots movement is a man by the name of Steve Burksen.
He did this 17 part series called, Are You Saved?
In his series, he went on to say several times to his audience just within the first few
minutes that there's no assurance of salvation and that no one is saved.
Now, anybody that's read the Bible knows that the Bible clearly says that we have been saved,
we are saved, and the Bible says nowhere that we are being saved.
These guys say, well we're being saved, well show me that in the Bible.
They can't.
The reason is because it's not there.
In fact, the opposite is true.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1-18, for the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, are saved, it is the power of God.
We are saved.
It doesn't say that we are not saved or that nobody is saved.
The Bible clearly says that we are saved.
In our King James Bible, we read many times that we are saved.
I want to read to you 2 Corinthians 2 verse 15, it says, for we are unto God a sweet Savior
of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish.
For by grace are you saved.
Romans 8 says, for you are saved by hope.
You are saved.
You are saved by hope.
And so there's no question about it.
When Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, he says, and I know them and they follow me.
He says, and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.
So when we're saved, Jesus says, we have eternal life and we shall never perish.
You know, the woman that touched the hem of Christ's garment in the New Testament, she
said, hey, if I can just touch his garment, the hem of his garment, I'll be healed.
I'll be whole.
And he looked at her when she touched the hem of his garment and he said, daughter,
be of good cheer, thy faith hath made thee whole.
You know, so with Steve Burksen, how could anybody say, well, be of good cheer.
No one is saved.
Be of good cheer.
You've been made partially whole.
Right.
The Bible tells us that salvation is only by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, then therefore we are saved the moment we have that faith, the moment we believe
and call upon the name of the Lord.
Well, then we are saved at that moment.
The Bible makes it very clear.
John chapter number three, verse number 36 says, he that believeth on the son hath everlasting
life.
And he that believeth not the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on
him.
And so it says that we have it.
You have everlasting life, meaning you have it right now.
Jesus himself said, John 5 24, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and
believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death unto life.
And so at that moment that we believe we are already passed from death unto life.
Do I believe I have eternal life or it's something that I get later?
I can't give a yes or no answer to that.
I believe if I was to drop dead right now, yes.
I will be in the kingdom, but Yeshua will let me in.
People like Michael Rood or people like Steve Burksen, they haven't understood what a promise
means.
They haven't understood what a promise means, let alone a promise of God.
The Bible says he can't lie.
And so that's the assurance right there.
If God promised it, which the Bible says in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot
lie, promised before the world began.
God has promised us eternal life, the Bible says, and this life is in his son.
So if God has promised us eternal life, how sure can you be of that promise?
How certain are you of that?
Are you going to think that God is a liar?
He doesn't lie, the Bible says.
So to lose your salvation, it involves all those things.
You reject the Lord Jesus Christ.
You don't endure unto the end.
You receive no chastening for your sin.
And lastly, you're not keeping the commandments still applicable, and we can only keep these
commandments through the Lord Jesus Christ in perfection.
If we don't do that, why should he accept us?
Well, if they can't even get salvation right, if the Hebrew Roots movement cannot understand
the gospel of Christ, the very foundation of our faith, why would we trust them for
anything else?
Yeah, why would we trust them to tell us the name of the Savior?
Why would we trust them to say what we should wear in church or how we should look in church
or what we should do in church?
They're not even saved, the Spirit of Christ doesn't dwell in them.
Another one of the strange doctrines of the Hebrew Roots movement is this idea that circumcision
has some part in salvation, but the Bible is very clear that salvation is by faith alone
without the deeds of the law.
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of
Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be
justified.
It takes a circumcised heart along with the flesh.
No one will enter the kingdom unless they are circumcised of heart and of flesh.
And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, except you be
circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.
And these certain men which came down teaching that, Paul calls them in the book of Galatians,
false brethren crept in unawares.
These people who came down.
Notice they're just certain men which came down from Judea that taught this garbage.
He calls them false brethren in Galatians chapter two when he refers back to this.
So basically the apostle Paul would call Zach Bower a false brother, crept in unawares.
He's a wolf in sheep's clothing if he's teaching this garbage that you have to be circumcised
to be saved.
Even the casual reader of the New Testament knows that you don't have to be circumcised
to be saved.
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
So the Bible tells us here in the New Testament that we are circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands.
And so if we were to be circumcised with hands physically, then this verse wouldn't make
any sense.
Why do I believe once saved always saved is a nonsensical doctrine?
Well there's a number of reasons.
For one thing we should be moving on to other more important issues.
I don't think it's easy to walk away from your salvation, Matt.
I think it's, you know, it's got to be a very conscious, willful decision.
One of the things that I noticed during an interview with one of the men in the Hebrew
Roots movement was this idea that God would actually abort his children.
And this guy even said, look, God will do a spiritual abortion on somebody that doesn't
remain in the covenant.
Nobody's completely born again in terms of us being finalized until the day that we die
in Christ.
We are conceived spiritually in Christ.
And we are developing as we grow in the Lord, as we grow and we mature in learning God's
commandments and learning how to follow Christ and crucify the flesh with the lust thereof.
And God in his foreknowledge, if he sees this person is not going to cut it, at that point
whenever God chooses to, he says, I'm done.
You are now aborted.
We saw from God's word that those of us who are saved are in the covenant, whether we
like it or not, because God said he will not break the covenant.
It's God who holds us in his hand and says, I will not let my children go.
He says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
It's God that said those words.
So it's man's wisdom that says that God will abort his children.
It's the wisdom of God and the power of the cross that says once we're saved, we're always
saved.
God has every right to abort anybody who is conceived in Christ if they do not endure.
Think of the King Saul in the Old Testament.
He started off fine, but then he started to mess up.
Brother David, when I was first introduced to the Hebrew Roots movement, one of the things
that they had told me several times was that they believe in salvation by faith alone and
that you can't work your way to heaven.
But I remember one evening I was sitting with some of my friends and one of them, he was
an older man.
He was probably about 60 years old.
And he looked at me and he looked at everybody.
He says, you know what?
He says, I know that we have said that keeping the Torah, the commandments is not a part
of salvation.
He's like, I know we say that, but who are we kidding?
You don't hear any of them telling you that the gospel is salvation by faith alone and
that it's not of works and that it's just believing on Jesus Christ that saves you and
that you can't lose your salvation.
They teach that if you don't do the deeds, if you don't do the works, if you don't keep
the commandments, that you're going to lose your salvation.
So the texts do say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
But what does it really mean to believe?
To really believe means to obey.
One of the major doctrines that the Hebrew Roots Movement teaches is the idea that faith
and works are actually the same thing.
They say, well, if you have faith, that means that you have works because faith and works
are the same thing.
But the Bible says in Romans 4-5, but to him that worketh not, but believeth.
So we see a distinction between belief and works.
So you could say like faith is actually doing the work.
Exactly.
It's always funny how these work salvation teachers, they always want to try to change
the definition of faith to somehow include works.
Well, that makes Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 meaningless.
If he sits there and says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves
it is the gift of God, not of works.
You're saved by faith, not of works.
So how can faith and works be the same thing or how can faith include works when it says
in Romans 4-5, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.
It's him that worketh not, but believeth.
He saved.
And they say, well, you know, if you have faith, it'll include works.
Okay, let's back up.
Him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is
counted for righteousness.
The pad answer would be, you know, Ephesians 2, 8 that we're saved by grace through faith.
The question of then becomes what is faith?
And that's where there's a bit of a divide between the Hebrew roots and Christianity.
I think is what establishes faith.
So this doctrine of the Hebrew roots movement where they say works and faith, they're the
same thing.
Works and faith, your works are because of your faith or whatever cute way they want
to package it.
It's just completely foreign to scripture, completely foreign to the New Testament.
And in Romans 11-6 it says, and if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace
is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then it is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work.
And so he puts it two separate opposite things.
If it's grace, then it's not work.
If it's work, it's not grace.
Do I think it's possible to be saved and do not do any works?
Not forever, no.
I think you eventually have to make a decision here and start being obedient or not.
So no, I don't believe that.
There was a man in the Hebrew roots movement who told me, hey, if you go out to reach people
with the Torah, they'd never say with the gospel, they'd never say with Jesus.
They say, hey, once you get seasoned enough in the Torah to go out and reach people with
the Torah, which has found no, that idea is found nowhere in the Bible, but he says, once
you become good enough to do this, he says, make sure you use Jesus's name to reel them
in first.
Because if you say the name Yeshua, that will, that will cause them to doubt you.
That will, they'll, they'll think that's weird.
Use the name of Jesus just to get them in.
And once we have them in, we can slowly start telling them that his real name was changed
and that his real name is Yeshua.
And so that's the sign of a cult is when somebody can't be straightforward and honest and say,
well, I believe in Yeshua, they slowly introduce it by using Jesus's name.
So instead of using Yeshua, let's say with somebody out in the street, you might use
Jesus's name first.
Always.
Yeah.
Always I will use the name Jesus, unless I'm with a Hebrew roots fellowship, then of course
I'll say Yeshua.
But if I just use the name Yeshua or Yahweh or Yehovah or however they pronounce it this
week, it's important, but not as important as drawing folks in.
So does that make sense?
I mean, it's more like I would rather try to gain someone's interest and desire to meet
Jesus than to push them away by using a name they're not familiar with.
And if the name of Jesus really is Yeshua, don't we believe that the Savior name has
power?
Why is it that we have to go to a door to preach the Torah and we can't tell them the
name of the Savior?
We have to use, in our opinions, some counterfeit name in order to draw them in and then tell
them the real name.
It shows that there's no power in what they're preaching.
It shows that it's not the true name of the Savior.
And so I like to start there and then say, oh, and by the way, did you know his Hebrew
name was Yeshua?
And why that's important, because Yeshua means God saves.
For those of you that are in the Hebrew roots movement, one of the best ways to know you're
in a cult is when certain information or certain beliefs are being withheld from you until
you've gotten deeper into the religion or deeper into the cult.
And the Hebrew roots movement is one of the best examples of withholding certain beliefs
and withholding certain information until the perfect time when they can really deceive
you.
I know you and I had already talked about this, and I don't have any judgment towards
you because this is all I knew my whole life growing up.
But I think that Jesus means hail Zeus.
I refer to him as white Jesus now.