Once Saved Always Saved?

the book called the road to hell was advertised in a national magazine in England as read David Parsons autobiography the Rotel but actually that book was a miracle I was going to Italy to speak at a conference and I had a big case with my clothes in and little brief black briefcase and inside the briefcase was the entire manuscript of the book the road to hell and I write all my books with a fountain pen and there was only one manuscript of it and when I got to the airport in Bologna it was midnight it was dark and the rain was pouring down and we went to the car park and the pastor meeting me said get into the car and I'll put your luggage in the back of the car I think you called a bhoot they sorry ride the trunk that's it so we got to his house an hour later and he opened the trunk and pulled out my case and then close the trunk I said just a minute there's my briefcase no he said there was only the case and he hadn't seen the black briefcase on the luggage trolley because it was so dark and wet but I said all my notes for the conference are in that briefcase and there's a manuscript of a whole book called the road to hell in that briefcase we dashed back to the airport at 1:00 in the morning no sign of the briefcase no sign of the luggage trolley went to the Lost Property Office they hadn't had it handed in we went to the police and said we've lost a briefcase and the police smile and said you lost a briefcase in Italy as much say that's the last you'll see of it well I was sleeping in a garage that night actually and I knelt down by a camp bed and said Lord you've given me a wonderful opportunity to find out if you want that book published I said if you want it published you'll have to find it and bring it back because I'm not going to write it again and I said if you don't want it published I don't want it back the next day I drove a hundred miles to the Adriatic coast to her hotel where the conference was and I went for a lovely walk on the beach early morning and the dog joined me lovely friendly dog we had a lovely time together I came back to the hotel and a man walked up to me and put my briefcase in my hand and to this day we do not know who he was where he'd been that this is a hundred miles away the next morning and I opened it and all the manuscript was there but all the pages has been put into the wrong order and it took me about half an hour to put the pages in the right order but not a page was missing and that's how that book came to be published so I'm sure that God wanted me to publish that book but it's not a popular subject well there's another book I'm talking about tonight and my problem is how to give you the whole book in an hour we're going to have to put our running shoes on once saved always saved question mark there's another book by the same publisher with the same title without the question mark and that's by a good friend of mine called dr. Artie Kendall whom I'm sure some of you will have heard of but we differ on this point now what I'm going to teach you tonight comes straight out of last night I was talking about Grace and talking about saving grace but they're not pointed out that there are two other views of grace one called Sovereign Grace one called free grace and one matter on which they both agree is one saved always saved but for entirely different reasons Sovereign Grace says grace is irresistible it will force you to be saved and it will force you to be kept and it will force you to the point where you are completely saved and you can do nothing about that God has decided he has chosen you and therefore you will be once saved always saved free grace also agrees to that free grace comes more from the dispensational school while sovereign grace comes from the Calvinists school or the reformed school but free grace also says when you come to Christ not only are all your past sins forgiven but all your future sins have forgiven too therefore nothing you can do can stop the process of salvation whatever you do it's all already signed sealed and delivered but you are saved and I guess that my quarrel with that phrase is not only that it's not in the Bible but I don't agree with the first part of it that's my problem I'm not one saved yet and therefore I'm not always saved yet one day I'm going to shout as loud as I can I'm once saved so I'm always saved but I can't say it yet when my salvation is complete when my wife's husband is perfect then I'm going to shout once saved always saved because the most important thing I'm going to repeat myself quite a bit here is what you think saved means and in my understanding it means to be free from all sin all sins and to be exactly what God meant me to be when he made me restored to the perfect image of God and since Christ is the perfect image of God it means when I'm actually like Jesus through and through and when we stand by side-by-side you won't be able to tell the difference that's the objective of salvation God wants to restore us and all that comes from the very beginning of creation because one of the questions that we need to ask is why did God make us and that's a very important question and the answer is he already had one son and he enjoyed that so much that he wanted a bigger family I can't explain more simply why God created you and me God wanted a bigger family like his son and until we're like his son God can't fully enjoy that family his own son was so trusting and obedient then when we are perfect in love - he can fully enjoy family life with us that's why he made the world that's why he made us to have a bigger family like his existing son and you can understand that parents who love their child usually want another like the first but that was God's intention in creation when you go right to the end of history you find the other end of that purpose because you find that God's intention is to make a brand new universe that will never know sin there will never be polluted that will never be spoiled by war he has written off this present universe and he's going to make another one and therefore if he's going to put people in it he must make them perfect before he does otherwise it'll be the same as this one I had a story of a professor who invented a television set that you could tune into the future to see what was going to happen and he gathered people around for the first time to demonstrate his new TV and they asked him to switch ahead thirty years and he fiddled with the knob to thirty and the picture came and they all gasped the whole earth was devastated nothing but ash everywhere as far as the eye could see that clearly been a nuclear holocaust and everything had gone and the people there stared at this screen and then to their surprise the ash began to stir it and out from the ash came a little boy monkey and he looked around he said they've done it haven't they and I'm the only bit of life left and he sat there looking very miserable and depressed when suddenly just a few metres away the ash stirred again and out came a little female monkey and the male monkey thought life's not so bad and he went up to and took her by the pore and said but look what people have done to our world he said we'll have nothing to eat and she said well I've got something I've managed to save something and she opened her pore and he was a little apple the male monkey looked at and he said don't let's begin that all over again but when we look ahead we see a new heaven and a new earth and new people to inhabit it people who will never spoil it place where there's no sin and no temptation and everything can be enjoyed to the fool that's God's idea he meant the Garden of Eden to be like that but it got spoiled so quickly but he's going to do it again but this time he's prepared to take people who have spoiled this world and make them into creatures restored to his image and now perfect and able to look after his world properly that's a great idea and that's the future so whether we look at the beginning of creation or the future of a new creation we see God's plan and purpose all the way through of having a larger family who will please him and with whom he can have real fellowship that's God's purpose and that's why I want to underline again that salvation is a process which takes time it's a process of taking old sinful people like us and making us into new people that's because God loved us he could have said I'm going to wipe out this world and wipe out all the people in it and start again he once nearly did that and he could do that he once nearly did it in the days of Noah's Flood and he wiped out that generation but he saved one family alas one of the first things Noah did when he got out of the ark was to get drunk and expose himself to his own son and the whole sad story started again it's almost as if God said right that doesn't work I'll have a better plan than that and the plan was to save sinners and make them into Saints and then make the new world do you realize that creation is happening again but in reverse order in the first creation he made the heavens and the earth and then he put the people in it later this time around he's making new people first and when he's got enough new people ready he'll make a new heaven and a new earth last its creation in Reverse we are now in the second week of creation but I'm going to say much more about that tomorrow morning but isn't that an exciting thought God's come back to work and he's creating again and incidentally that's one reason why we would worship on a Sunday and not on a Saturday the Jews worship on a Saturday to celebrate the finish of his old creation we worship on a Sunday to celebrate the beginning of a new creation but more of that tomorrow morning when our once saved always saved what does it mean to be one saved I've told you it means to be perfect means to be the people God wanted you to be and that's going to take him time and take us time and the three stages of salvation are when we're set free from the penalty of sin which we call justification when was set free from the power of sin which we call sanctification and when was set free from the possibility of sin and that's called glorification and those are the three steps which God intends and all of them comprise salvation and you can't say I'm one side until you reach all three and that's when I'm going to shout and that'll probably coincide with the Lord's return to earth there's a verse in Hebrews that says that he will appear a second time not to deal with sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him and I'm waiting for him and that's future and I'm waiting for my say salvation I'm looking forward to being saved and that's when I'm going to shout once saved always saved when the work is complete if you say it before then you think the works past when you use the verb save only in the past tense looking back and say I was saved then you're talking as if it's finished as if it's all complete and I teach people never to say I was saved there and then but to say I began to be saved there and then and what a difference that makes you thinking when you say that I began to be saved in 1947 and yet it's obvious to anyone who knows me that the it's not complete yet particularly to my wife she knows I'm not there yet but she knows that I'm not what I was and I love the man who prayed Lord I'm not what I was sorry I'm not what I ought to be I'm not what I'm going to be but praise the Lord I'm not what I was and that's where we all are I'm not what I ought to be yet I know what I'm going to be but praise the Lord I'm not what I was that's the process of salvation that God is doing and he's doing a good work in me and he will complete the work that he's begun provided I cooperate with him you see the question before us tonight is can I interrupt the process of salvation can i delay it can I stop it altogether or as people generally ask can I lose my salvation well if you haven't got it all yet you can't lose it all but you've started being saved can you lose that or is it automatic inevitable that it will be completed notice that whenever the scripture talks about the process being completed there is an expression not of certainty but of confidence Paul writing to the Philippians says I am confident that the Lord who began a good work in you will complete it against that day and the letter to the Hebrews does the same thing after giving a solemn warning that those who go back cannot return because they cannot repent he then adds but I am confident that this won't happen to you now that's not saying I'm certain it won't it's saying I have high hopes that in your case the job will be completed and we need to notice that word confident it's not the word Sidon its meaning I have high hopes that in your case it will be completed I thought tonight one of the things we should do is do a bit more Bible study and look at some of the passages which teach that the process of salvation can be interrupted and delayed and even stopped altogether so that it never is completed did you find that in your Bible well we'll find it tonight and so I thought we'd look at passage after passage but do you know this and I'll say this in my book there are 80 passages in the New Testament warning you not to allow the process to stop 80 separate passages every writer of the New Testament has a warning to Christians not to lose what they found in Christ that's enough for me 80 and we'll look we're having time to look at all 80 but I've listed them in this book so you can look the love for yourself and those warning passages are really taught by preachers we love the texts that give us assurance of the future we love such taxes I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor anything else can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus that's at the end of Romans 8 and you'll hear that quoted again and again but what preachers don't point out is that there's one thing missing from that list of things that can't separate us from God's love and that's yourself did you ever notice and when Jesus said no one can snatch you from my hand he did not say that you can't jump out of his hand and all those lists of things that cannot prevent us from staying God's love don't include yourself not one of them it's a comfort to know that nothing else and no one else can stop the process of salvation but you can and that's the serious thing that I'm teaching tonight because the scripture invariably balances up the picture and when there's a verse like that it isn't far away that you'll find another verse that says something very different and one of the passages out of those 80 in the New Testament is in Romans 11 where it says and if you do not continue in God's kindness you too will be cut off like many of the Jews were cut off and that's only on the next page after that wonderful statement in Romans 8 now this is the problem with our Bible God didn't put chapter and verse numbers in it and therefore you can't if you have a bar without verses and chapter numbers did you know that what was one published you can now get the New International Version without chapter numbers and without verse numbers do I hear a hallelujah no don't say because the preacher asked but none of you said hallelujah spontaneously there but there's a Bible you can buy without chapter and verse numbers wouldn't you like one well a friend of mine a professor of law in a university in Malibu in California his name is Lagarde Smith he produced that Bible with no chapter and verse numbers in it and I hope you'll get a copy because you'll have to know your Bible a bit better to find anything in the Bible you have to know the context and you have to read the context you can't pick out the text as a kind of proof for a doctrine you have to take the text in its context and I have noticed in the Bible wherever there's a verse that tells us that he is able to keep us there's another verse that tells us we must keep ourselves what a balance take the little letter of Jude at the end of the letter of Jude it says God is able to keep you and present you faultless before his throne of majesty he's able to but just three verses up from that wonderful promise there's another verse that says keep yourselves in the love of God there's the balance and if you only quote one of those two texts you're unbalanced take Paul's letter to Timothy his letters in one verse he says he is able to keep what I've committed to him but if you only read that verse you'll not read the companion verse just about on the same page that says I have kept the faith keeping going is a cooperation between you and God he's able to keep and you are to keep and this balance is everywhere in Scripture but if you only quote texts you come out with a one sided balance imbalance wherever we read about God's keeping power you'll find an exultation to keep yourself and as we keep ourselves in the love of God he keeps what we've committed to him that's the balance that's the whole truth and not a dangerous half truth so there's a responsibility on us to go on cooperating with God to go on believing in him to go on responding to his kindness to go on to the end and endure and it's those who endure to the end who are saved in other words to put it quite bluntly it's not those who start the Christian life will get saved but those who finish in faith what a lesson that is and many many people start but they don't finish and the New Testament is full of warnings to those who start and don't finish faith is a continual relationship of trust and obedience and as long as we keep in the faith he will keep us well now let's just look at one or two of the passages out of those 80 which say this kind of thing I've already mentioned Romans but let me start in the Gospels what about John 15 I am The True Vine that Jesus and my father is the gardener he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful you are already clean because of the word I've spoken to you and now he says remain in me and I will remain in you there's the balance again you stay in me and I'll stay in you but the underlying warning is if you don't stay in me I won't stay in you there it is so what will happen if we don't remain no branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain in the vine neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me I am the vine you of the branches if a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit apart from me you can do nothing and now the warning if anyone does not remain in me he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers such branches are picked up thrown into the fire and burned if you remain in me and my words remain in you ask whatever you wish and it will be given you this is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples there it is very clear you remain you stay you live in me and I will remain in you and will produce fruit together can I say this very clearly eternal life is not in me it's in Christ and if I stay in Christ I have eternal life but he didn't give eternal life to me it's still in him as John says somewhere else this life is in his son I don't have eternal life in me but I do have it in Christ a branch doesn't have life in itself the vine has the life and if the branch stays in the vine it'll go on living but if the branch gets cut off it'll die so I have eternal life in Christ I don't have it in David portion and if I remain in Christ I go on having eternal life that's what John 3:16 actually says for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever goes on believing in him will never perish but go on having eternal life there it is if you remain in Christ you have life but if you don't you'll die and the dead branches are gathered and thrown into the fire now that's just one passage and that's in the same gospel where you read Jesus saying I know my sheep and none will pluck them out of my hand but you need to balance it up with this passage and take the whole truth together the whole gospel tells you the whole truth let me now turn to romans i've already quoted that wonderful verse in all these things we are more than conquerors through through him who loved us for I'm convinced that neither death nor life neither Angels nor demons neither the present nor the future nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord wonderful promise but now turn just one page and let's read chapter 11 in which Paul is talking to Gentile believers about the Jews and he points out that not all the Jews made it in fact out of two and a half million Jews who left Egypt - made it into the promised land and Paul in the letter to Corinthians says that's a lesson for us to learn setting out from Egypt is only the beginning getting into Canaan was the end of his Redemption for them but most them never made it and he said that's a warning to us it's not setting out it's getting in it's not starting it's finishing that is going to be the thing and so having talked about some of the Jews many of them who were cut out of God's people one way or another he says in verse 19 verse 18 do not boast over those branches the Jews who were cut out if you do consider this you do not support the root but the root supports you you will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grand grafted in granted but they were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith don't be arrogant but be afraid for if God did not spare the natural branches he will not spare you either consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God stillness to those who fell but kindness to you provided that you continue in his kindness otherwise you also will be cut off he's talking about the Jews to the Gentile believers in Jesus and he said they were cut off but don't let that make you arrogant or secure because God will deal with you in the same way he dealt with them he's the same God and if you do not continue in his kindness you too will be cut off I don't think you can twist those words around they can only have one message and it is that we are no more secure than the Jews were if we don't continue trusting in God that's the serious passage how often have you heard it quoted by preachers the big problem with all of us preachers is that we select the verses we preach them and we don't preach on all of them we select those and if you're not careful we select those that we know the people like to hear the comforting texts and we just keep the others a little bit quiet I believe that we should be preaching the whole Bible the whole Word of God the whole counsel of God in fact Paul said to the Ephesians when he left Ephesus you know how I've taught you I have declared to you the whole counsel of God the whole truth let's turn the pages to Hebrews and I'm not going to read Hebrews 6 though that's the passage that you may think I was going to read where it actually says that if you turn away from Christ after you have belonged to him there is no possible repentance there's no way back I've been asked by some Christians how far do you have to backslide before you can't come back I say that's a dangerous question don't even run the risk there was a rich lady in England advertised for a chauffeur to drive her Rolls Royce and she asked each applicant for the post how near could you drive to the cliff edge without the car going over and one applicant said well I would go about six feet from the edge another said I would go about three feet but one applicant said madam you are so valuable that I wouldn't go near cliff edge and he got the job now that to ask how far do I have to backslide before I reach the point of no-return that's someone playing with fire that's someone saying how near can I get without going over the wrong question don't go anywhere near that don't backslide because it's quite clear from Bible teaching that there is a point of no return I don't know what that point is only God knows but don't run the risk don't even think about how far you have the backslide stay right there in Christ so I'm not reading chapter six though I have noted already that it finishes we want each of you sorry even though we speak like this dear friends we are confident of better things in your case and though he's giving him a warning of the point of no return he says I'm confident not certain I'm confident that you won't go anywhere near that point but God's patience can run out and we need to remember that but I'm going to turn to chapter 10 where there is to me a far more serious warning though many people have not noticed it verse 26 if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses how much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the Covenant that sanctified him and who has insulted the spirit of grace for we know Him who said it his mind to avenge I will repay and again the Lord will judge his people it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God and a versa to further he says so don't throw away your confidence now that's a serious word listen carefully if you deliberately keep on sinning after you've received the knowledge of the truth not even the cross of Christ is available for that he is echoing the Book of Leviticus all the sacrifices in Leviticus were for accidental sin unintended sin that you just fell into but didn't intend to and then you brought a sacrifice for unintended sin but here we're dealing with someone who quite deliberately knowing what they're doing having the knowledge of the truth goes on living in the same way and therefore cutting themselves off from the efficacy of the cross that's a serious warning let's turn to one other passage and then perhaps we'll break from our reading and look at some other matters turn to the second letter of Peter verse 20 of chapter 2 if they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome they are worse off at the end than there were at the beginning it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on it on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them of them the Proverbs are true a dog returns to its vomit and a sow that is washed goes back to wallowing in mud wonder if you ever had a sermon on that passage to say to someone if having escaped from the world by knowing Jesus as your Savior you then go back to the old way of life you are worse off than if you had never known the way of salvation now if backsliding simply robbed you of your reward in heaven but you were still able to go there then frankly you're not worse off than you were before but this is saying you are worse off to a start of the Christian life and escape from the world and then go back into it you are worse off because you are more responsible now you have known the way of salvation and now you've turned you back on it and you knew what it did for you that's a very serious warning and one that we should note in Holy Scripture it's God's Word and therefore people who have started and known the Liberty in Christ the freedom from sin the D offered and then go back it's characteristics of dogs when they're sick that they go back and lick up the sick and I know what pig farmers alike I know what pigs are like given the right care of pigs they're one of the cleanest animals on the farm but not given the right care they just love to go back and when you've wash them clean perhaps for a Agricultural Show and they look beautiful pink and nice put them anywhere near some mud and they go right back into it and Peter here says you're worse off than if you'd ever not known which doesn't mean you're still going to heaven but we'll lose a bit bit of reward means you're not going to heaven you've known the freedom that Christ can bring and now you've turned you back on it now I could take you to 80 passages in the New Testament like those I've read to you 80 and one passage from every writer of the New Testament has a warning in it like that somewhere and if you read the Gospels Jesus had that warning more than once when he told the parable of the sower he said it's possible to receive the word of the kingdom and for it to begin to grow in you and then for it to be choked by the cares of this world warning after warning in Scripture which we ignore at our peril David are you trying to make us scared yes because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the New Testament doesn't leave the fear of the Lord behind in the old it's there in the new as well again and again feel the Lord what is there to fear from the Lord the answer is hell when I wrote that book on Hell I say in that book I fear hell I'm not one of those preachers as say you unbelievers are all going to hell but I'm going to have blow you jack I'm alright I cannot preach like that I can only preach on hell because I fear going there myself I fear as Paul said lest having preached to others I should be cast away myself it's a very healthy fear when we brought up three children we wanted to teach them fear of the healthy kind not phobia a phobia is when fear paralyzes you and so dominates you that you can't move can't do anything but we wanted our three children to be afraid of the traffic on the roads we wanted them to have a healthy fear and we didn't give them bicycles until they had that healthy fear of traffic and one of our daughters was involved in a very bad accident she escaped but the others didn't but we taught them to have a healthy fear a fear of dirt a fear of infection but a healthy fear it becomes a phobia if your children don't ride their bicycles on the road but a healthy fear and they can go and you taught your children healthy fear and the Bible does there's a healthy fear of the Lord and it's related to the fear of his judgement the fear of final rejection that's a healthy fear and we need more it the one thing I miss in so many churches I go to is the fear of the Lord there's a kind of Paulina swith God that is very disturbing I think I've told you the one young man said to me we worship God Almighty in our church and I'm afraid that summarizes quite a lot of worship as if were partying with God and just he's a great guy and we're having great fun with him it is a fearful thing said the author of Hebrews to fall into the hands of a living God and I've had preacher after preacher twist that verse and say it's a fearful thing to fall out of the hands of the Living God that may be true but in that verse it says it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God occasionally I have preached in churches where people have trembled in the presence of God and one group of Christians who did tremble before God were called the Quakers because they literally shook in their meetings as they realized that God Almighty was there they're now called a society of friends what Quakers gone out of use but it was the early Quakers from where I lived in Buckinghamshire England who came out and established Pennsylvania the man called Penn from a village next to where we lived in England who came out and brought Quakerism to one of your Northeast States William Penn Pennsylvania and he was a Quaker he belonged to a people who were so aware of the presence of God Paul says work out your salvation with fear and trembling because God is working in you when did you last see someone working out their salvation in fear and trembling because they realized Almighty God was doing something in them well I'm just throwing this out I know I'm emphasizing one side of things but it's the side that's been neglected because it's the side that people don't want to hear about and I promised the Lord when I began to preach Lord I want to give people what they need to hear not what they want to hear because I care for the people I speak to I want to give you what you need to hear and these are things you need to hear now of course this raises a lot of questions in people's mind one of those questions is the question of assurance so let me deal with that do you mean David that we can't be sure a Salvation that we can't be sure of God's love do you mean we have to wake up every morning wondering whether we're still in or out no that's not ik I don't wake up every morning am I savor I'm an otter am I going to be saved or am I not God wants us to be sure of him of his purpose in you and the New Testament is full of assuring promises to give you an assurance but many Christians that I told to are basing their assurance on the wrong thing they want a written guarantee in the Word of God that will give them assurance you see many people don't want to be saved but they do want to be safe you know what I mean by that they're taking they're coming into faith as if they're taking out a life insurance policy they've been told if you die tonight will you be in heaven or hell and they don't want to be in hell so they take out a life insurance policy and they're assured from the Bible that they're safe you're not safe till you get there but you can be sure that you're going because our assurance is not based on the promises of Scripture because the early Christians didn't have the scripture they didn't have the New Testament so they didn't base their assurance on the scripture the assurance is based on the spirit not the scripture but on the spirit and it's the Spirit Himself who bears witness that we are the sons of God and while we walk in the spirit we shall be sure where we're going as soon as you're not walking in the spirit and start walking your own way you will lose your assurance that's how you know when you're getting out of guns away but as long as you're in the way of salvation and the Spirit is leading you you will have a witness in your spirit that you are on the way to heaven and that as you keep on the way is bound to get you there I'm putting that in a very simple manner it's as if the sat-nav is telling you you're on the right Road just keep on this road and you're certain to arrive that's the kind of assurance the Bible gives you and it's an assurance from the Holy Spirit he is the source of my assurance and if I grieve the spirit the first thing that goes is my sureness my assurance that I'm on the right way that's my understanding of assurance and the witness of the Spirit will be borne out by the witness of my conscience if you read John's letter you'll find it's full of this phrase that you may know that you may know and he points to the spirit first how do we know because he has given us his spirit there it is and how do we know because our conscience is witnessing that we're living a new life and the two witnesses of the Spirit within us and the conscience in us is going to make us very very sure I'm on the way to heaven that's my understanding of assurance not the kind of deduction from a text that says the Bible says so I believe it that settles it that's not a guarantee it's not the assurance that were offered there is no absolute guarantee that you will make it but you can still be very sure that you're on the way of salvation that leads to heaven so that's one question I as get asked when I talk about being saved and being sure that you're being name notice I don't say we are sure that we have been saved but we are sure we are being saved we know within our hearts from conscience and the spirit within us I'm on the way and I will get there if I keep on this way it's that little word if underlined that in your Bible every text that puts an if in it for example at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15 we find Paul outlining the essentials of the Christian faith and there are three and he says the death of Christ the burial of Christ which we'll talk about tomorrow morning and the resurrection of Christ which will begin to talk about tomorrow morning these are the three fundamentals of the faith and he says this is the gospel I preached to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand by this gospel you are being saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you that's one of the if verses and I could quote so many more that have that little word if in there's an if and it's always followed by an exhortation to hang on to hold firmly to press on you're in a race and it's no good saying I've started the race so I'll guarantee I'll finish it no you press on to the end of the race and you reach the end of the race and that's what Jesus did even when the worst happened to Jesus he pressed on in spite of the shame that he was subject to he pressed on and he came through and he finished and he was able to say on the cross it's finished I was given a prophecy many years ago when I was very uncertain about the future it was about 1980 I was the minister of a successful quote Church in England and things were going very well and I knew that the church needed to move forward into the 80s but I couldn't see my own place in it and so I went away on a retreat with about a hundred pastors and I said Lord will you please tell me this week whether I am to go on leading this church or whether you have something else for me to do and there I was normally a pastor in that situation having built new premises and fill them and got everything going would want to stay there the rest of his life but I wanted to do what the Lord wanted and one of the speakers in that retreat when he finished talking to us said I have a word from the Lord for four men here I don't know who they are but you will know whether you're one of the men that God wants to speak to and he proceeded to give three words from the Lord not one of which made any sense to me and then he said my son you have ministered to the extent of your gift in the place where I certainly put you and you are no longer bound to stay in that place I set the land before you but one thing I require of you that you surrender all the remains to be done in that church into my hands for it is my church not yours and that prophecy when every word to my heart and he finished by saying and I want you to go out and so serve me that one day you will be able to look into my face and say Lord we did it lovely boy and I took a recording of it home to the elders of the church and I said I'm submitting that to you I believe it was for me but you got away and judge it I'm not going to respond to that unless you confirm it and the elders came back to me and said we believe that of the Lord will let you go and I went out into the unknown and yet within two years I'd spoken in two hundred cities and towns in Britain and I've been traveling ever since I'm a for the Lord but that's been going on and Here I am I believe I'm here in God's will and I tell you this it's not boring serving the Lord but it's very tiring but I believe I'm doing what God wanted me to do how do I get on to that I'll have to go back to where I was the other question I've been often meanest one is about how can you be sure how can you have assurance under what you're teaching and I've said I believe you can but it's not the kind of written guarantee people want but it's an inward assurance from the Holy Spirit in your conscience that you're on the right track that leads to heaven and if you stay on that track you'll make it you'll get there the other question I get asked about is the question of predestination now it's a word in Scripture I believe in the predestination of God but people say if God has predestined something for you surely it's bound to happen no I believe that's a misunderstanding of the word predestination treating that word as if it's the same as predetermination that's a very different word unfortunately most people don't see the difference to predetermine something is to make it happen to force it to have it's bound to happen if it's predetermined but God doesn't predetermine he predestined what is predestination it is preparing a destiny for someone and I can give you a very simple illustration I grew up with an ambition to be a farmer and when I left school at 16 I went onto the farm and worked on the farm you may not believe it but I used to get up at 4:00 in the morning to milk 90 cows I couldn't do it now but that's where I got my complexion working in the open air now mention that because on Friday night I'm going to talk about a girl who worked in the open air and got a similar complexion but there you are that's a clue guess what I'm going to preach about don't tell me now well now I enjoyed working on the farm and I thought where will this career lead one day my father called me into his study for he was a professor of Agriculture in the university and he said David I know you've wanted to be a farmer and I'm sharing this with you now that when you're 21 I've arranged for you to rent a farm for yourself and I was terribly grateful to him for thinking of that but I said I'm sorry I can't do that because a few weeks ago my Heavenly Father told me to be a preacher and it had happened in this way I was already preaching but not in churches in the over there down at the beach outside cinema cues wherever people gathered and my pulpit was an American Jeep an old army jeep and I would park this Jeep and stand up in the back and preach I just wanted the world to know about Jesus and so it came to the point one morning I said Lord if you tell me by 12 o'clock today which you want me to be preacher or farmer I'll be what you want me to be and all my forebears had been preachers or farmers or both right back to John Wesley but I said tell me by midday today and I'll do what you want that's the kind of guidance I have found to be so useful and I don't do anything unless God clearly tells me it's his responsibility to guide me it's not my responsibility to try and read his mind that's my thinking about guidance and I've told the Lord if you will tell me clearly what you want me to do I'll do it if you tell me clearly where to go I'll go there if you tell me clearly what to say I'll say it but you're my boss and you've got to tell me and then you know I'll do it and I've kept my side of the bargain and he's kept his and it's his responsibility which of you going in to work on the Monday morning would have a boss coming to you and saying guess what I want you to do today know if the boss wants you to do something on Monday morning he'll come and tell you and if he doesn't come and tell you you assume that he wants you to do on Monday what you did on Friday and to carry on where you are now that's my thinking about guidance don't move unless the Lord tells you clearly carry on doing what you're doing until he clearly says change of job change of location whatever I found that's important too many Christians put themselves in a case where in the place where they've got to have guides and got to do something and got to find it somehow twisting God's arm until he tells them what he wants them to do don't change anything until he tells you to and then change and it works beautifully but if you get impatient and drop your job or leave the place where you are and then try and find something else that the Lord wants you to do you're in trouble don't move until the Lord says move so that morning I said Lord if you want me to be a preacher or a farmer or even both tell me by midday today at 10:30 I'm having coffee with a friend who is also working on the farm and he looked at me and he said David you won't finish up behind the plow er you'll finish up in a pulpit now said Lord that's not clear enough and I left my friend went out into the street a street in the city of Newcastle in the northeast of England and I could take you almost of the very stone on which I was standing when I met a retired Methodist minister whom I hadn't seen for years and years and I said to mr. Scott it lovely to see you again how are you I needed Nancy just a David why aren't you in the ministry I said that clear enough Lord and so I never got the farm that my father had prepared for me but if I had taken that farm I could always have said My father predestined me to be a farmer here do you understand what I'm saying he didn't predetermine it and I in fact said no but had I said yes I could have talked about predestination what my father decided beforehand should be my destiny and that's what predestination means it doesn't mean that God treats me like a puppet and predetermines me to do that but when I accept his plan and it's a much better plan than mine when I accept his plan I can say he predestined he prepared the plan I've accepted it and I now know that long before I accepted it he planned it all and as I look back over my life I'm not proud of many things I have regrets but his plan for me has been absolutely right and he predestined me for that he had the plan long before I knew it but at the age of 17 I submitted to that plan and said okay Lord I'll do what you want and I have no regrets about that in fact I wouldn't change places with anybody and it's lovely to reach the end of your life and realize that you did keep to the plan God had for you and he tailors the plan to each person and I can see that even before I accepted his plan he was preparing me for it as a young farmer we had what we called young farmers club and they had speaking competitions and I began to learn to speak in public before I became a Christian and God was using the Young Farmers Club debates to prepare me to speak clearly and convincingly and I can see he had the plan and he was preparing me for the plan and the plan for me that's predestination and I love it but it's not predetermination he didn't force me to do it I could have resisted it I could have said no to my heavenly father and yes to my earthly father and I'd be a farmer milking cows right now I have no regrets because farming has become a real problem activity in our country and many farmers are committing suicide because they're finding it difficult to make a living so I don't regret it for that reason I regret not being a thumb because I loved it I enjoyed it but I still wouldn't go back and make any other decision so predestination fits in as well well I think I must be drawing things to a close the fear of the Lord is part of our walk with God one day when we're perfect in love all fear will go there'll be no need for it perfect love casts out fear but as long as you love is imperfect there's a healthy fear of not making it and that doesn't make me neurotic I don't get up every morning wondering if I'm a Christian but I know if I get out of that way of God and my assurance begins to go thank you Lord for warning me I'll get back on the road quickly and that's why John Bunyan wrote a book called pilgrims progress and he saw the Christian life 'as away as a road and people began on that road and slipped off it and when pilgrim and have you read pilgrims progress I hope you will because when he gets to the River Jordan at the end of the road and he sees the heavenly City in the distance and he realizes that all he needs do is cross that River he has a friend with him and that friend looks at the river rather than the city and he says that rivers deep and it's dark and it's dangerous I don't like to try crossing it and the friend turns to the left and there's a path leading away and the friend leaves pilgrim and goes down the path and John Bunyan writes this I saw then that there is a road to hell even from the gates of heaven and that's where I got the title of my book the road to Hell even at the end of your pilgrimage you could still get off the road and perhaps when you get to my age you have to be doubly careful not to let things go and get off that road but to finish triumphantly now my favorite hymn writer is Charles Wesley his hymns are full of Scripture in an eight line verse you can have sixteen verses of Scripture mentioned he was soaked in the Bible and he had a great gift of poetry and somebody once told me if you can't find a hymn of Charles Wesley for them to sing after you've preached you have to as should I have preached on that because he covered the whole Bible in 6,000 wonderful songs and we've lost most of them but there's one quite short song he wrote and I want to read it to you now to prove that I've been preaching the right stuff because he wrote a hymn for it and here's the hymn our Lord with trembling I confess a gracious soul may fall from grace the salt may lose its seasoning power and never never find it more lest that my fearful case should be each moment knit my soul to thee and lead me to the mount above through the low veil of humble love lovely well that's my message I'm afraid the vast majority of evangelical preachers would not preach what I've said tonight don't believe it because I've said it don't go away and saying do you know what David Paulson says don't you dare use my name go home go home study the Word of God get into your Bible and find out whether what I've told you is there and then go and tell people what the Bible says what the Word of God says you

Channel: David Pawson - Official

Views: 141,055

Rating: 4.6805625 out of 5

Keywords: David Pawson, Christianity (Religion), Perseverance Of The Saints (Belief), Salvation (Belief)

Id: hG-zaJXv5D0

Length: 79min 20sec (4760 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2014