Before we get into the scriptures, I thought I would give a little background to my belief journey.
First off, I’m not a Calvinist. I’m a Christian. I follow Christ Jesus, not Calvin.
I know very little church history, and very little about the “fathers of faith”, as people like to call them, throughout church history.
It’s not that I don’t believe we can’t learn a wealth of knowledge from these people, but rather that I would rather quote and be convinced of doctrine… from the bible itself.
So, I often wilfully keep myself ignorant of the people of God throughout history (outside of the bible) so as not to put them on equal footing as scripture – as we are so often prone to do.
As a Christian, I believe that the bible is the word of God. Everything in it is true. And so, I seek to do the things that are written in it, knowing that the promises that are also written in it that are for me will be applied to me.
Before I got saved… no, scratch that… before God saved me… I was an atheist. I did not believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being at all. I was not looking for God (seeing as how I don’t believe in Him). I also didn’t try to disprove that there was a God (why waste my time in trying to disprove what I don’t believe in).
That’s not to say I didn’t believe in the “spiritual realm” or “spirits”. But I definitely didn’t believe in a God or gods or anything like that.
Unlike most people, I didn’t believe I was a “good” person by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, I may not have actually done many “bad” things, but I really did want to. And if I believed I could get away with a lot of stuff, I would have done them no questions asked (and I did do a lot of stuff and did get away with a lot of stuff).
And unlike most atheists today, I didn’t believe in evolution. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t make logical sense. Aliens must have created us or we were spirits who found out how to take on human flesh or something like that –I didn’t really think about it that much, as I didn’t much care.
The only time I read any portion of the bible was when someone wanted to test my reading comprehension.
I knew very little about Jesus, and never heard that He was God or that He died for sins or any part of the gospel until I was 20.
Keep in mind that I had been to various churches since I was a child, yet never heard the gospel.
The first time that I can remember feeling conviction was when I was invited to a church service in the autumn of 2000.
I don’t remember what the pastor was preaching but I distinctly remember feeling as though he was directly talking to me, yet… it wasn’t him.
In my mind, I kept asking if this was God. There was an altar call, and I didn’t go up. I put my feelings down to the manipulation of my feelings by the preacher. After all, I had been in enough churches, and seen enough stuff go on in churches to know what they did.
I had also been into horoscopes, and know how they speak about general things, so it’s hard say that they are wrong as it’s so generalised that what they say could be attached to anything.
So, I left the service feeling… not exactly the same as I came in, seeing as how I’ve never felt conviction before, and did find it really uncomfortable. But by the time I went to bed, I mentally filed the experience under Christian manipulation.
The next day, however, and for every day that week, God dealt with me… outside of the church, with no one speaking to me. At first I thought it was just me thinking to myself. So I asked questions I had no answers to, and got answers to them. My sins were brought before me like never before and I felt horribly convicted.
Again, all of this is happening outside the church. There is no preacher preaching. There is no Christian witnessing to me. I am not recalling Sunday’s sermon to memory at all.
By Friday, I was no longer an atheist. I believed that there was a God, and Jesus is who He was.
What was I to do with this knowledge? I didn’t have a clue.
So, I went back to the church where I first felt conviction.
And it happened again. I can’t remember the sermon at all, but through it all, I felt like the spotlight was on me. Like there was no one in the room but the pulpit, and me. And I hear the words of the preacher, but it’s not his words.
The difference now was that I believed there was a God. But, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
So throughout, I was again asking in my head, ‘is this you God?’
Once again, the altar call came. This time though, I was open enough to say to God, ‘if this is what you want me to do send some one to come get me’. After that, I watched as a man got up from the front row, came all the way to the back row… some 7 rows behind him… look directly at me and asked if I wanted to give my life to Jesus.
That was it. I was up at the front on my knees… repeating after the guy.
All of that lead me to this point, on my knees at the altar.
After I finished repeating everything the guy said, he says to me ‘you’re now saved’.
I asked him… ‘saved?’ He said yes. At the time, he had a church leaflet in his hand. The front had graphics on it with a black background, the other side what just blank… white. He shows me the leaflet and says to me, your sins were black like this leaflet, now your sins are white as snow, and he turns the leaflet around.
Now, my question for you is… was I saved?
To this day I can’t answer that question. Why? Because I didn’t know what saved meant. I didn’t know what salvation was. What was I being saved from? What does it mean to be a sinner?
In other words, I didn’t understand a thing.
As far as I understood, God proved that He was real and I wanted to obey Him.
That was as much as I understood.
From that point on, my eyes… to the level of my sin… were ridiculously sensitive. Without anybody saying a word to me, I couldn’t believe how much sin I surrounded myself with.
For the next week, everywhere I went became a problem… literally. I saw sin everywhere. And each day, I became more and more panicked.
Why? Because not only did I see sin everywhere, but I began to remember more and more of my sins from days, months, years gone by.
By the next Sunday, I was back answering the altar call to receive salvation. No one had to come get me. My hand shot up first for those who wanted to receive salvation. I was the first one at the altar.
Why? Because I hadn’t asked God for forgiveness of these sins that I remembered throughout the week. When I repeated after the guy last week, I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I had no sins in my head when I repeated the prayer. I didn’t even understand what it was I was repeating, much less believed it in my heart. I was just doing what I was told to do, by someone who seemed to have a relationship with the God that proved He was real to me.
The first time I did this, it was the same guy who prayed the “sinner’s prayer” last week with me who was there again. Before he started, he asked me why I was there again.
I told him, ‘you don’t know who I am. You don’t know how much sins I have’. He humoured me, and prayed the sinner’s prayer with me again. This time, I meant every word. I so desperately wanted to be forgiven of my sins.
See, now I had a small inkling what sins were. And I realised that I was exceedingly sinful.
I did this for a month or so. Every service, I was the first to raise their hand for salvation, and the first to be at the altar praying the sinner’s prayer.
Every service, I was desperate to have God forgive me of my sins.
And the issue was that I wasn’t even asking God for forgiveness of sins that I was doing that week. As far as I was concerned I was pretty good. It was my planet-sized sins of the past.
Every week, more and more of what I had done would come to me. In my naivety I thought that I had to literally ask God to forgive me for each and every one or else I wasn’t forgiven.
These people were talking about how good God is and how Holy He is and all I could do was look at myself and know that I’m not that. I’m nowhere close to that. I’m not even in the same solar system as that.
Week after week I was longing for salvation. I was longing for God to grant me total forgiveness. But my sins… they were just so many. But I was determined. If I had to go to the altar for the rest of my life, so be it.
That was my attitude. I’m going to chase after forgiveness.
Now, this pattern stopped after one concert where one of the altar workers recognised me and said, ‘haven’t you prayed the sinner’s prayer before?’ I said yes, that I have to pray it every week or I’m not saved.
He then told me no. You only need to do it once.
Keep in mind though, that’s all he said. He didn’t say why it was only once. He didn’t try to assure me that I was saved. Only that the sinner’s prayer need only be said once.
This guy, however, didn’t believe in OSAS, though. Now that I’m thinking about it, that is strange. If you don’t believe in OSAS, then you must believe that you have to repent for all of yours sins or your not saved. And just asking God to forgive all your sins isn’t the same as feeling Godly sorrow for each sin, acknowledging it as sin, and begging God for forgiveness.
Although this brief information stopped me from answering the altar call for salvation again, it didn’t stop me from thinking along the same lines for the first 6 months of my salvation.
Every altar call, I was praying in my chair, begging God for forgiveness. Confessing any and every sin I could draw to mind that I hadn’t asked Him to forgive me of yet.
Not only that, but I still wasn’t assured of my salvation. Even after my baptism I was stressing out my family about how I might not be saved because I don’t remember if I was baptised in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
Even the decision to get baptised was simply done because I was told that Christians get baptised. So I just wanted to be obedient so that I could be saved and not lose my salvation.
And any time I believed I sinned or remembered a past sin that I hadn’t asked forgiveness for, I truly believed that I was no longer saved.
I say all of that to show you that I once held to a way more extreme denial of OSAS than most people even think to do.
The first 6 months of my salvation were very turbulent. I had very little to no foundation in my faith, other than God is real, Jesus is God, He died to forgive sins, and if we confess our sins He will forgive us.
The church did not give me a complete gospel message. They did not properly lay the foundation of Christianity. Even though I went through their new believer’s class and got my certificate, I still had no foundation.
So what stopped this extreme denial of OSAS? It was the general teaching of the church that you’re doing all right as long as you stay in church. And I was definitely not going anywhere.
Over the next 5-7 years, my family and I studied the bible together, learned some good and bad theology via the church, and tried to live right in the light of the scriptures.
The church was not theologically or practically healthy, but it took us a good amount of years before we finally realised that.
The church was against OSAS. The pastor would preach against it every now and again, saying how those people literally believed that you could do anything you want and still go to heaven. That was always the crux of the argument.
Every now and again scripture would be used (now, I realise that they were taken out of context), and at the time the defence seemed airtight.
I still believed that someone could lose, or better yet… give up their salvation.
After all, Jesus does say that no one can snatch you out His hands, so you can’t have your salvation taken from you. You won’t wake up one day and wonder where your salvation has gone.
But you can walk out of His hand.
That was the teaching that permeated the church, and that is what I believed.
God won’t force you, they taught. He’s a gentleman. If you want to go, He’ll try to stop you, but after awhile, if you really want to leave, He’ll let you leave.
Again, what the church taught seemed to make sense, and that’s what I believed.
Now, I started to question this denial of OSAS when I started to seriously think about… backsliders.
The church taught that backsliders were people who were once saved, and turned their back on the Lord to go back into the world.
You see, every now and again, the church would do a gentle push to try and bring backsliders back.
When I started to question within myself the validity of the denial of OSAS, I had been at this church for about 5-7 years. There were people who I had seen come, be active in ministry, then leave. People, whom I admired for their talent, or their work in ministry and even some pastors, were amongst the ones that had left.
And remember, the teaching was that you’re all right as long as you don’t leave the church.
These people had left the church. And for all intents and purposes, as far as everybody that I was acquaintance with was concerned, were not saved anymore.
The majority of the time it seemed to be true. It’s not like they left this specific church to go to another church somewhere else. They just seemed to have left God.
Now, I was never close to these people so it’s not like I could call them up and find out what was going on. But the pastor said they weren’t saved any more so I guess they weren’t saved any more (you can see my immaturity right?).
However, it was coming back from an outreach when a member of the church and I was talking about our past perception of the church before salvation. He and another guy in the church, who were good friends, came into the church together and backslid together.
But, then came back, and He says, ‘he’s glad he’s saved again’.
Without thinking, I said, ‘but I thought you could only be born again once. Not be dead, be born again, die again, and be born again… again’.
I don’t remember what he said after that. It wasn’t anything serious I’m sure. He didn’t think anything about what I just said. But that played on my mind.
‘You Must Be Born Again’, was the battle cry of our church. One of the more well known pastor’s in the fellowship even made a very good song centred around that very thought.
The song talks about how salvation is found only in Jesus. Following Buddha, Allah, or Selassie can’t save you. You must be born again. And only Jesus can do that.
I’ve heard the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus preached in the church. Not in any depth mind you, but I knew that Jesus says you must be born again.
This is Jesus telling Nicodemus the only way some one can be saved is for them to be born again, born of the Spirit.
So, the cracks in my denial of OSAS came when I realised that being able to lose your salvation and gain it again, and possibly lose it and gain it again, and possibly lose it and gain it again – was not biblical.
You must be born again is a one-time event. It’s never shown that a person can be born again… again.
It makes no biblical sense for someone to be spiritually dead, then spiritually alive, then spiritually dead, then spiritually alive again.
Now, even though this was my conclusion, I still didn’t believe OSAS. OSAS, as the church had told it to me, didn’t make sense to me. You cannot possibly think that you can do anything you want to do and still go to heaven.
So, my conclusion was that I had no conclusion. I was able to declare that I was not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to be able to make a decision. As far as I was concerned, I was going to leave it to the Lord.
Why was it important anyway, right?
A couple of years after that I realised that it was actually important. When we realise we have assurance for our salvation, and understand what God, through Christ, by His Holy Spirit has done for us – our response to, interaction with, and zeal for God becomes different.
If you don’t believe that God keeps you saved, then by default, you believe that you keep you saved.
There is no other option. You keep yourself saved by your works.
The church verbally affirmed that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They verbally affirmed that salvation is a gift lest any man should boast.
Yet, they added to that, saying that you have to maintain the gift – which in turn allows people to boast, seeing as they have kept themselves saved.
The person who denies that it’s God that keeps them saved, must believe that repentance is not of God, but is of man.
If repentance is of God, then it’s God that does keep them saved, as He causes them to repent (which is what the bible says).
When you deny that God keeps you saved, you must by default, believe that you have no real assurance of your salvation. At any moment you can die and you won’t know whether or not you’ll go to heaven.
As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that these people don’t realise the incredible righteousness and holiness of God.
They will say to you that those who die in their sins won’t go to heaven. So if a person is saved, and lies and dies before they repent, they must go to hell because liars won’t enter the kingdom of God. And sinners can’t stand before God.
Yet they don’t realise that they too are still sinners. Even saved, they are still in the flesh. Sin is with them always until they die or the rapture/resurrection comes when the corruptible puts on the incorruptible.
Their hearts are still wicked and full of sin.
And lastly, as I’ve just recently witnessed, people who believe that God does not keep them saved, must… by default... openly contradict and deny the very words of God Himself.
And when I say the words of God, I don’t mean the bible as a whole (even though they must deny that), but I mean the very words that it is recorded that God Himself has spoken. To hold to the denial that God keeps us saved is to go against the very surety of God’s own testimony.
I truly believe that people, who hold to this denial that God keeps us saved, if they are saved, do not have a firm foundation of their salvation. They do not understand what it means to be saved. They do not understand their position as someone who is saved. They do not understand the importance and absolute miracle of what God has done.
I have used the same verses that they use to show that we can lose our salvation, only to now, having both my feet firmly planted on the rock of my salvation, be able to see that they clearly don’t say what we make them say.
The majority are taken out of context and twisted.
And I have witnessed first hand that when you show people what the context says, that they do not care.
They will not believe that God keeps them saved. They believe that they must do something. They must contribute something. They must, in some way… shape… or form… have some kind of hand in salvation.
This is the natural inclination of man, that we must do something in order to gain salvation. You may think keeping isn’t the same as gaining, but you’re wrong.
All those that deny that God keeps you saved believe that only those that endure to the end will be saved. And they will make sure that they endure to the end so that they willbe saved (future tense).
This is not something that the bible teaches at all. If you read the bible and let it speak for itself, you will not leave it believing that you can lose your salvation, but exactly the opposite – that God keeps you.
So, now that I’ve given you that “short” background, you should know that I’m not looking down at people from a theologically haughty position.
It’s not that I believe that I “know” more than anybody else or anything like that.
I truly believe God has allowed me to go through those things in my walk with Him, in order for me to get to know Him better.
He has opened my eyes, and many others before me, to the reality of what He has already told us. When you really think about the things He says about those who He saves, there is no doubt in your mind what He means. Yet even when we acknowledge His words, we are still full of unbelief.
All people who deny that God keeps them saved, and still claim that they are currently saved, are in real denial of the reality of their sinfulness.
They really do hold to a form of “eternal security”, whether they want to believe it or not.
How I was in the first months of my salvation is truly one who completely denies “eternal security”. And I came face to face with my utter sinfulness, and complete inability to save myself and keep myself saved.
I was ever fearful that God was ready to throw me away because of my unrepentant sin. Yet these people claim that they don’t have to repent of ALL their sins and yet God saves them any way – which is what OSAS is actually about.
That is not possible if God doesn’t save you and keep you saved.
Join me next time when I lay down a “minimal” skeleton argument as to why I believe that if God has saved you, He will keep you saved.
Also, there will be a quiz – don’t get too nervous though – it is really easy, if you indeed trust and believe the words of the Lord.
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