CAN I AS CHRISTIAN LOSE MY SALVATION? – PART 2
HEBREW 6:11 “To have the full assurance of hope until the end”
Sakkie Parsons
My previous writing in this short series of two I concluded as follows:
Does this tell us that we must constantly doubt when we sin as a born-again child of God, whether we are saved or not and whether we will one day go to Heaven or not?
Also: For now –
I can lose my salvation, by using my own will and throwing it back in the face of my Saviour.
In part 2 of this series I want to share with you about:
“To have the full assurance of hope until the end.”
I want to start by sharing with you something from a program I listened on TV one day. I say “listen” because I’m blind.
So also keep in mind that I may not explain it exactly as it happens but I am sure it is very close.
This is a tourist activity.
They take you on a boat out on the sea to where there are many sharks.
Then they throw blood, fish and bait into the water.
Then the tourists climb into a kind of iron frame cage and they lowered it under the water.
Now there are many sharks around them that they can study while not giving a thought to death or any danger, because around them is this wonderful iron framework – but if one of them were to move out of that cage, it would be a completely reversed situation.
Then they are in immediate danger of death and this is something that will surely be in their minds at all times.
Even though no one in that cage is considering that option of getting out of the cage, they certainly have that choice.
This is also how it works after my repentance.
For as long as I am in the hand of our Lord-
Yes, for as long as I keep my eyes on Jesus and walk in His ways, I am completely safe and do not even have to have a thought of danger in my heart – but the further I move from Jesus, the more greater the danger become and if I keep moving away, there come a time when Jesus is no longer even on my spiritual horizon and then I no longer care where Jesus is.
Then the Word becomes true which says:
HEB 6:4-6
4 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 if they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Oh!
I myself stumble a lot and sometimes I stumble so terribly that I even fall and I have fallen so hard in my life, that it felt that I am crushed.
But one thing, I get up and even though it sometimes goes stumbling because of the hard fall, of one thing I make sure – I make sure I do not lose sight of Jesus.
For, I have seen it so many times in my life, that people fall and the lain can get so comfortable that they no longer want to get up and in that matter allow that Jesus, for whom they once followed with so much zeal, disappear into the distance over their spiritual horizon. Because how nice to bluff myself and soothe my conscience and think, ‘ I was saved once, so I’m saved forever.’
The Word says of those people, who reason ‘once saved always saved’ and live their lives just like the unbelievers around them:
2 PETER 2:22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
This brings me to what I consider in my personal life, to put it this way, to be the grossest insult to the sacrifice that Jesus brought to us at Calvary and that probably because I knew the pastor so well and he was such a good and eager leader.
I share it very briefly with you:
A friend told me one day that the pastor had contacted her and told her that he was in love with her and that they should start a relationship.
When she asked him:
“Pastor, what will the Lord say about it?” he said to her:
“We will only confess it to the Lord and then everything is right again”
And then the leader is out of the ministry and there the leader of the congregation is back in his vomit, already rolling in the mud. Because then, as a married man, he also made another lady pregnant.
Jesus says to the church in Sardis:
REV 3:2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
On the threshold of death and it is not your physical death, you can still turn around but once you are over the edge, there is no, but no turning back.
Look at what Jesus is saying to His followers so that we who do this can know we never have to doubt our salvation:
JOHN 15:9-11
9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
Always be sober and vigilant. In other words:
With great respect said – Just don’t move out of the cage of Jesus’ embrace.
For see, outside the embrace of Jesus in your life, there are no man-eating sharks that will still let you get away with perhaps just one limb less or a large wound.
Beyond the loving protection of Jesus, the Word warns us:
1PET 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
To conclude:
Can I as a Christian lose my salvation?
Then my answer is:
No angel, no spirit, no circumstances can deprive me of my salvation. Only I, myself, however, can surely relinquish (give up) my salvation.
If you are reading this writing and it seems to you that you are moving further and further away from Jesus. It seems to you Jesus is fading from your sight because of your way of living – Do not let Satan catch you outside of the embrace of Jesus, as he caught the pastor I told you about.
Jesus’ Spirit now says here where you read what you are reading now:
REV 3:2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
I conclude with a passage that someone sent me while I was writing this and that I would like to say to you now:
HEB 6:11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,
HEB 6:12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Greetings,
Sakkie