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EARNESTLY CONTENDING
FOR THE FAITH:
A Study In Eternal Security
With Scriptures Part 1
(An Adobe PDF Version Of This File Is Available Here)
(A WordPerfect Version Of This File Is Available Here)
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THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH. THAT IS WHY HE IS GOD. |
Eternal security is the theological term that precisely and accurately expresses the Bible doctrine of eternal salvation that every born again child of God possesses in the Lord Jesus Christ. Many professing Christians use the phrase “once saved, always saved” to refer to the theological doctrine of Eternal Security. “Once saved, always saved” is an accurate description of what true Bible believing salvation is. “Once saved, always saved”, is also a much abused phrase that is used to justify the ungodly acts of those who have made false professions of faith and show no evidence of having exercised saving faith. They have never repented after a Godly sort because God the Holy Ghost is not in them! Many of the unsaved members in our Baptist churches use the “Once saved, always saved” doctrine to justify what they call backsliding. If the salvation that you claim to have has not changed you, then you are still on your way to an eternally burning lake of fire. Salvation changes people. Eternal security is not a license to sin. Eternal Security does not promote the Antinomian heresy that states that once a person is saved they have no obligation to be obey God’s moral laws. Antinomianism is the heresy that is being promoted today in some Independent Baptist churches by a group of apostates that calls itself “Recovering Fundamentalists”. The “Recovering Fundamentalists” mock the old time way and reject Biblical standards of conduct and dress. God describes the Recovering (?!?) Fundamentalists in Jeremiah 6:16-17:
The Biblical old paths require faith and repentance as conditions for salvation. Faith and repentance is the ROCK solid foundation upon which Eternal Security is built. As soon as a lost sinner receives the Lord Jesus Christ, they are in possession of what the Bible calls eternal or everlasting life. To have Christ is to enter into an everlasting covenant with God the Son and God the Father that is sealed by God the Holy Ghost from the moment the sinner exercises saving faith 1 John 5:10-13 says this:
“Sadly, there are many people — including Christians — who have no real assurance of salvation. Regrettably, there are others (especially those within the “holiness movement”) who teach the real possibility of personal apostasy, that a child of God can actually lose his salvation. A refrain to a song entitled ‘I Am Determined̓ (taken from the “Pentecostal Praises” song book) has these words:
A faith in Christ that is conditional — which requires “living up to it” or “holding out faithful to the end” — is NOT saving faith. An assurance of salvation based upon “feeling it in my soul” is a very shaky assurance to say the least. The eternal security of the believer rests solely upon the Word of God. We are saved now and forever because of what Christ has done for us and in us, and we are assured because the transaction is in writing.” Amen! That transaction that is in writing is the King James Bible we hold in our hands. The Bible does not use the phrase “Eternal Security” to describe the believer’s relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, but it leaves absolutely no doubt that a “born again” child of God is saved for ever in the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal security is a theological term that refers to the Biblical condition that results from anyone exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repenting of their sin. Faith is the father of salvation and repentance is the mother of salvation. Faith and repentance come together in holy matrimony to produce a “born again” child of God. If either faith or repentance is missing in an individual, then that individual is a false professor who is an illegitimate child of the Devil. Hebrews 12:8 refers to these illegitimate children as bastards because they have not THE spiritual Father. Our churches are chock full of men, women, and children that have prayed faithless “sinners prayers”. Proof that their prayers were faithless is that there is no evidence of repentance in their lives. If you have not repented, then you never exercised saving faith. If you have not repented, then you are still on your way to hell. If you have exercised saving faith, then you will repent. You cannot help but repent because repentance is the gift of the Holy Ghost to all those who exercise saving faith. Repentance is something that is in you. If faith is in you, God the Holy Ghost will work repentance out of you. Repentance is God’s proof to you that you have not received a counterfeit salvation. An eternal security that is not based in Biblical faith and repentance is a fire breathing false God that is birthed in the pits of hell. Tragically, in many of our churches, the Satanic application of the otherwise Biblical doctrine of eternal security is a lie of the Devil that is latched onto by those who have made faithless false professions that have never changed the way they live. The problem for them is that they have NEVER, EVER become the new creature of 2 Corinthians 5:17 which states:
Salvation changes folks. If you have not been changed, then you are not saved. God does not leave people in the sin he saved them in. There is no Eternal Security for you if you have not been changed. If you have not been changed, then you are still on the way to an eternally burning hell fire. Eternal Security is not for unbelieving religious professors who have never been saved to start with. Eternal Security and Backsliding are the heretical Baptist fall guys for every imaginable sin and abomination that is habitually committed by reprobate church members who have prayed faithless “sinner’s prayers” and then been pronounced saved by some deceived individual who is falsely called a soul winner. The “sinner’s prayer” has become the Nehushtan of New Testament churches. Unbelieving “sinner’s prayers” are the witches’ brew that has been put into the needles that are used to innoculate countless lost people to the Gospel. Warning, faithless, unsaved religious professors walk and live in Matthew 7:21-23 which says:
Many years ago, I worked with a lady who was a strong advocate of the doctrine that states that you can lose your salvation. Her oft repeated sentiment went something like this,“You Baptists that believe in eternal security believe that you can get saved and live like the Devil”. I told her, no, I do not believe that because anyone who claims salvation and continues to live in sin has never been saved to start with. They are a child of Satan. Period! Eternal Security is not for faithless lost sinners that live in sin and that show no evidence of having repented. A truly born again Christian cannot lose their salvation or give it back. Since God will not accept our works for salvation, it is a cinch that he will not allow us to keep our salvation by works! In the life of a Bible believing Christian, sin does not break relationship with God. Sin breaks fellowship with God.
Eternal Security is based in part on the Bible doctrine of “everlasting life” or “eternal life”. Since the Bible uses the terms “everlasting life” and “eternal life” to describe the fact of salvation, the obvious must be stated here. For the believer, the terms “everlasting” and “eternal” are always in the present tense. That means that “eternal life” and “everlasting life” are always present possessions. Having had “eternal life” or “everlasting life” is an impossibility that rests in a contradiction of logic. It floats in a foundation of quicksand. The phrase “everlasting life” is used 11 times in 11 verses in our Bibles. All but one of those is in the New Testament and that one is in Daniel 12:2 where it is used strictly in a prophetic context. The phrase “eternal life” is used 26 times in 26 verses in our Bibles. All of those are in the New Testament. The phrase “life eternal” is used four times in our Bibles. All of those are in the new Testament. The phrase “life everlasting” is used four times in our Bibles. All of those are in the New Testament. The fact that all 45 passages are placed in a context outside the Old Testament is a message in itself. Before we move on, we need to understand that there is a difference between the words “eternal” and “everlasting”. If we look up the words “eternal” and “everlasting” in an Oxford English Dictionary (OED) we will see the definitions are different. Distinguishing the terms is critical especially when we are studying the deity of the Godhead in terms of time. If a presumed deity is not eternal, he cannot be God. In our culture, in America in 2026, we tend to use the two words “eternal” and “everlasting” interchangeably, but they are different. A short definition of eternal would be “having no beginning and no ending”. A one word definition of eternal would be “timeless”. We often speak of eternity past and eternity future. When God said in Exodus 3:14 that he is “I AM”, he is stating that he is the timeless “Self-Existent One”. He exists outside the bounds of time. The Lord Jesus Christ applied that divine attribute to himself when he said in John 8:58: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM”. Now, a short definition of everlasting would be “having a beginning in time with no ending”. I like to think of time as the space between two different events. On September 15, 2026, I turned 77 years old, and have been saved a little over 34 years. In recent years I have been trying to figure out why the King James translators used the words “eternal life” in some places and the words “everlasting life” in others to describe what we call salvation. Just when I think I might have it figured out, I have to go back and study it again. The two words are used together in John 3:14-16:
Now, let us continue with our study of eternal security by asking the following question.
Does the theological doctrine of eternal security mean anyone who claims to be saved is saved, regardless of whether they show any evidence of having become a born again new creature? The answer to that question would be a resounding NO. Salvation requires a new birth that produces a new man that is a new creature. I am about to read several extended passages of Scripture. As I read them, I want you to ask yourself, am I born again, and am I that new man or woman that has become new creature? Let us begin by reading John 3:3-8:
John 3:3-8 is where it all begins for the unbeliever. Ye must be born again. The Lord Jesus Christ makes it clear to Nicodemus that he is not talking about a physical rebirth. He makes it clear that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. That which is born of water is the natural physical man and that which is born of the Spirit is the saved, new spiritual man; that new creature. That spiritual man is the born again Christian. He or she is that new creature that has experienced the “washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” that is the work of the Spirit. See Titus 3:5. Ye must be born again. Have you been born again? There is an old saying that states “born twice die once, born once die twice”. According to Revelation 20:14-15, there is coming a time when death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire. That casting into the lake of fire is called the second death. Whosoever is not found in the book of life will be cast into that lake of fire. I ask again. Have you been born again? If you have been born again, the Holy Ghost is going to work in you to conform you to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a lifelong battle that is pitched from the moment you are saved. I have a question for those who believe you can lose your salvation. How can you be unborn? Before we go any further, I want to partially define from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) two King James words that most folks have a problem understanding because they do not know their definitions. Those words are “concupiscence” and “lasciviousness” CONCUPISCENCE: Eager or vehement desire, the coveting of carnal things, desire for “things of the world”, libidinous desire, sexual appetite, lust [Libidinous means to be totally given over to lewdness]. LASCIVIOUS(NESS): Inclined to lust, lewd, wanton, inciting to lust or wantonness. [Wantonness is the total abandonment of all restraint in all things evil] We will now look at three passages of Scripture that compare and contrast the born again new man with the old man. These passages are Romans 6:1-14, Ephesians 4:17–24, and Colossians 3:5–14:
Returning to Romans 6:1-14, in the baptism of a born again believer, we see a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul gives us a heads up warning in Romans 6:1-14 that we will face a battle with sin. Paul goes on in Romans 7:4-25 to tell us about his personal battle with his sin nature. That battle is the new man fighting the old man. When we get saved, our flesh does not get saved. Our spirit gets saved. That whole concept is critical when you study the book of 1 John. I say that now because later on we will deal with the presentation of sin in 1 John where we find perhaps the strongest passage in the New Testament dealing with why the believer cannot lose their salvation. In Romans 6:1-14, specifically verse 4, we see what being born again will do for a believer. It will cause that believer to walk in the newness of life because he is a new man that has been created by the Holy Ghost as a new creature in God. It is that new man that has had his old man crucified by God the Holy Ghost. If the opposites of the admonishments given to the believer in Romans chapter 6 are applied to what appears to be unbelieving professors, it could enlighten and expose them to their lost condition. If your want and habit is not to walk in the newness of life, then you are probably lost. If sin in general continues to reign in your mortal body and you cannot forsake it, then you are probably lost. If sin in general has dominion over you and you cannot forsake it, then you need to seriously examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says this:
Returning to Ephesians 4:17–24, we see that it occurs at the front end of the longest passage in the New Testament dealing with personal separation and holiness. In that extended passage that goes all the way to the end of chapter 5 verse 33, are the standards of conduct that God expects the new man to live by. That new man is a manifestation of the new creature God has created in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you reject those standards, or rule them out in your life, or routinely just cannot live by them, then you are not a new creature. Therefore, you have absolutely no guarantee of Eternal Security. You are yet in your sins and will spend eternity in hell and the lake of fire if you do not put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of your sin. One of the most troubling statements that I have heard over the years from members of Independent Baptist churches is that “the Devil is making me doubt my salvation”. Because of hurried up, shallow presentations of the Gospel in our apostate age, it is no surprise to me that many professing Christians in our congregations doubt their salvation. If you are of the persuasion that the Devil is making you doubt your salvation, then you have been set up by the Devil to receive one of the greatest deceptions in modern professing Christianity. Why would the Devil make you doubt your salvation?!? I submit to you that it is the Holy Ghost making you doubt your salvation because you either are lost, which is the most likely case, or you are saved and in sin and the Holy Ghost is attempting to restore you to full fellowship with God by motivating you to forsake your sin. If you are having recurring doubts about your salvation, listen very carefully to this. That means that the Spirit of God is not witnessing to you that you are a child of God! Why is that? There are several clues given in Romans 8:8-16:
Colossians 3:5–14 is much more specific than Romans 6:1-14 and Ephesians 4:17-24 in identifying the sins that the new man is to put off. It is a sordid list. Colossians 3:12-14 identifies the character of the new man. He is to be identified with bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearance of others, forgiveness of others, and charity, The things in Colossians 3 verses 5-8 are the things that the new man must put off. They are the character of the old, unsaved man. Those sins of the old man include fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy communication. Do you continually identify with those sins? Are you still the old man? If you find that you cannot put off those sins or do not want to put off those things, then you are in serious trouble. Again, if you reject those standards, or rule them out in your life, or routinely just cannot live by them, then you are not a new creature. Therefore, you have absolutely no guarantee of Eternal Security. You are yet in your sins and will spend eternity in hell and the lake of fire if you do not put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of your sin. That is the oft repeated refrain of this study. Continuing on, turn in your Bible to Romans 7:4-6 where we read:
Back in August of 1992 when I first got saved, and for several years afterward, I heard a lot of preaching from 2 Corinthians 5:17 in Independent Baptist churches. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”. A lot of that preaching on 2 Corinthians 5:17 was motivated by an attempt to scrub up lost sinners who had been put on church rolls even though they showed no evidence of repentance. They had been led in faithless, unrepentant “sinner’s prayers and then told that they were saved. Attempts to scrub up those lost church members on the outside who had been manipulated into praying faithless “sinner’s prayers” produced hell bound rebels that were nothing more than whited sepulchres that were full of dead men’s bones. Those folks were made twofold more children of hell by false religion. The Holy Ghost does not work from the outside inward to a lost man or woman’s heart. The Holy Ghost works from the inside of the heart to the outside of a man or woman. False religions and apostate and heretical churches want to see something on the outside that they can glory in. The Holy Ghost said in 2 Corinthians 5:12:
Does the theological doctrine of eternal security mean anyone who claims to be saved is saved, regardless of whether they show any evidence of a changed life?” The short answer to that question is NO, because salvation requires a changed attitude toward sin and towards God. The Bible calls that changed attitude repentance. SAVING REPENTANCE IS A HOLY GHOST WROUGHT PERMANENT CHANGE OF HEART THAT RESULTS IN PERMANENT CHANGE OF ATTITUDE AND ACTIONS TOWARD SIN AND TOWARD GOD. That does not mean that we cannot or will not sin. It means that our whole attitude and “want to” has changed toward sin and toward God. Some like to call that change of heart a change of mind. I would remind you that saving repentance is both a work and a gift of the Holy Ghost. Repentance is one of the most despised doctrines in apostate American Christianity and even among many so called fundamental Independent Baptists. Satan hates the doctrine of repentance because it exposes the utter folly and the utter futility of the false religion of those who claim to be saved and continue to live in their sin all the while corrupting the doctrine of Eternal Security to justify their wickedness. No friend, if you have not repented of your sin, you will die in your sin and go to hell. I have written an extended article on the doctrine of repentance that covers 35 typewritten pages. It has a 15 typewritten pages at the end of it that answers the question “Is Saving Faith A Gift Of God”. That document on Repentance was written in response to a group of Steven Anderson followers who publickly challenged me on the doctrine of repentance when I was teaching a series on Salvation and Soul Winning at Camden Baptist Church in Saint Mary’s, Georgia. The complete document is located HERE. Steven Anderson is that Independent Baptist heretic that despises repentance and hates and detests Israel and the Jew. Mark him and his followers and avoid them. The words repent and its cognates occur 106 times in 100 verses in our King James Bibles. When I use the word cognates, I mean words like repent, repents, repented, repenting, and repentance. I have studied in depth all 106 occurrences in context. The word repent and its cognates occur 64 times in 59 verses in the New Testament. That is over 60% of the occurrences. So, repentance is a New Testament doctrine whose New Testament frequency exceeds that of the Old Testament. If you want a complete study of the topic, please refer to the document that I just mentioned. There is a loud and proud arrogance associated with the worldly repentance of unsaved false professors that manifests itself in legalism and pharisaical attitudes. There is a meek and humble Godly Spirit (spirit) associated with the repentance of a born again Christian. That Spirit (spirit) is described in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 and 1 Peter 3:4:
A false professor can believe in God and still be going to hell (James 2:19). A false professor can pray to Jesus and still be going to hell (Matthew 7:22-23). A false professor can prophesy in Jesus’ name and still be going to hell (Matthew 7:22-23). A false professor can cast out devils in Jesus name and still be going to hell (Matthew 7:22) A false professor can do wonderful works in Jesus’ name and still be going to hell (Matthew 7:22-23). A false professor can have a zeal for God and still be going to hell (Romans 10:2-3). A false professor can have a zeal to make proselytes for God and still be going to hell (Matthew 23:15). A false professor can be very interested in Jesus Christ and still be going to hell (Matthew 19:16-22). A false professor can profess to know God and still be going to hell (Titus 1:16). A false professor can follow Jesus for a while and still be going to hell (John 6:66). A false professor can serve Christ as an apostle and still be going to hell (John 6:70). A false professor can even believe on Jesus’ name and still be going to hell (John 2:23-24). False professors put themselves in great peril by playing games with God. You can fool man, but you will never be able to deceive God. Fake or feigned faith without repentance will put you in hell. Faith is the blossom of salvation that is pollinated by the Holy Ghost so that it can produce the fruits of repentance. Without faith it is impossible to please God. If you are lost and you continue to reject the conviction of the Holy Ghost, there will come a time when God will quit dealing with you. Holy Ghost conviction is God’s call to you to put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you continue to reject that call, Romans 1:28 speaks of a time when God turns individuals over to a reprobate mind. Those with a reprobate mind have never repented. Those with a reprobate mind have been rejected by God and can never repent. They are going to hell. The doctrine of repentance identifies false professors and is used by the Holy Ghost as a tool to point us to those who have made false professions. Repentance is the salt that limits the leaven of sin and false professions. Because most churches refuse to preach repentance, false professions have become the leprosy of apostate churches and deceived Bible believing churches in America. This discussion about false professions only covers about three-quarters of a page here. In our document on repentance, it covers 8 pages. We will now say a little bit more about the jots and tittles of repentance. Let’s read all of the following passages:
Saving Biblical repentance is the work of the Holy Ghost in the unbeliever that brings about an everlasting change of mind toward sin and toward God. It comes in response to the convicting work of the Holy Ghost. It delivers you from the habit of sin, or, if you will, habitual sin. It changes your “want to” and gives you the power through the Holy Ghost to forsake your sin. Many times attempts at repentance in the unbeliever come in response to conviction from the Holy Ghost. Many years ago, I told Brother Sammy Allen of my attempts to turn over a new leaf before I got saved. His response was that I was already repenting before I got saved. While I agree with Brother Sammy, I also believe that my repentings were my unbelieving responses to Holy Ghost conviction. Repentance is not in any way based upon human works. Repentance is not a work of the human will. Repentance is the work of the indwelling Holy Ghost. After a person puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God grants repentance to the believer through the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will manifest himself through the works of repentance that are wrought in and through the believer. In a sense, repentance is a fruit of the indwelling Holy Ghost. As Brother Sammy Allen said over and over; no fruit no root. If there is no fruit meet for repentance, there is no root in the tree of life. If the salvation you claim to have does not change your attitude and your actions toward God and toward people, then you have not repented. Repentance is also an evidence of saving faith. Pastor Charles Lawson of Temple Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee had this to say about repentance:
True repentance is always coupled with faith. It is impossible to have saving faith and not repent. Amen! Repentance is the life blood of both salvation and sanctification for the Christian. Repentance is pumped through the heart of faith in the individual who has been regenerated by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost must be present so that he can form God’s work of salvation in you. It is the indwelling Holy Ghost that works repentance in you. God’s work of salvation in you changes your outward conduct. Some of the fruits of the Spirit from repentance are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. For decades now, I have written, preached, and taught in much depth on the absolute necessity of repentance in salvation. Many fundamentalist preachers and teachers rightly expound and pound on the absolute necessity of repentance as an element of biblical salvation, but they teach and preach the required repentance in an unscriptural manner. In doing so, many, if not most, Independent Baptist preachers make repentance a work of the flesh, or of the will of man (John 1:13). Because of that error, many Independent Baptist preachers are rightly accused of advocating a works based salvation, or the Calvinistic doctrine of “Lordship Salvation”. They are right on the necessity of repentance in salvation, but they use theological error to advocate for a doctrine that is plainly taught in the King James Bible. Have you repented? Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish in eternal death in the lake of fire. That leads to the question of what eternal death is? Many unsaved folks and heretical “Christian” cults look upon death as being a total lack of existence and consciousness or they advocate for the heresy of total annihilation. That is the wishful thinking of a lost man. Death is nothing more than a change of location and a change of state. Death is separation. When you die, you move from a temporal earthly existence to an eternal existence where you will either exist in eternal death in hell and then the lake of fire or you will exist in eternal life in heaven. If you die lost, you will exist in conscious, eternal separation from God in the torments of the lake of fire. How is it that the dead can stand before God in Revelation 20? Answer, it is because they are dead in their trespasses and sins. In Revelation 20:11-15, it is written:
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THE FOLLOWING TRACTS:
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