I preach this morning the seventh sermon of a series on the distinctive doctrines and practices of our Baptist people. There remains just one more sermon of this series which will be preached two weeks from today on the subject "The Primacy of the Baptists." The subject for this morning is "Once Saved Always Saved."
Can a Christian, one who is born of God’s Spirit, one who is a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, so sin or so apostatize as to be utterly and eternally lost? Will every believer, every Christian, every child of God, in the face of all of his sin and shortcomings and in spite of the world, the flesh and the devil, reach Heaven at last? These are the two questions that are before you to be answered.
There are two great systems of theological thought and these two determine the answers to these questions. One is called Arminianism, which has for its main idea, salvation by works, the other is designated by Calvinism and has as its principal idea, salvation by grace. On the point of which of these is true turns the answer to the questions which are proposed for this morning’s consideration. Let me, then, indicate to you, first of all what we do not mean when we say that it is one of our distinctive principles and teachings that every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ will ultimately go to Heaven in spite of all of his sins.
We do not mean by that that every church member is going to be saved, or that every church member is already saved. There are lots of church members that you may know and that I may know, who perhaps have never experienced the regenerating grace of God’s Holy Spirit. They profess without possessing. They are spurious professors of the religion of Christ. Their pretensions are artificial and mechanical and not of life.
We do not claim that all members are to be saved and the Bible bears out that contention. If you will read in John’s Gospel, Chapter 8, verse 31, you will find words like these:
"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed."
If they do not continue in his word they are not his disciples, never were and, therefore, cannot be saved. Let us read again in Hebrews, Chapter 3, verse 14:
"For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end."
Let us read 1st John 2:19. "They went out from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."
Everybody can bring up examples of church members that departed from the faith and went back into sin and can say that that proves the doctrine of apostasy. It proves nothing of the sort. It only proves that the man who did that was never of the people of God nor a partaker of the divine life nor a regenerated soul. He simply professed what he never possessed.
When we say that every child of God will finally be saved we do not mean that every one who is active in Christian service will be saved. Jesus said in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 7, verses 22 and 23 that:
"In that day many will say to me Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? And in Thy name cast out devils and in Thy name done many wonderful works?
"And then (said Jesus), will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." There is a great deal of philanthropic and humanitarian service that is not Christian at heart though it may be done in the name of the teacher of Nazareth, it is not done in the name of the Savior of Calvary. I remarked the other day that I feared that a great many things that belonged to good have been seized of the devil to accomplish his purpose in defeating the spiritual work of Christ. For example, if I should preach every Sunday morning and evening on the subjects that I am requested to preach on for this organization and that and the other, I would preach fifty-two Sundays in the year on Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day and Children’s Day, and Anti-Tuberculosis Day and House-Screening Day and a thousand other things and there would not be one day left for Jesus Christ. If the devil can seize the things that belong to God and crowd Jesus out, he is well pleased. All things that are good are not of God and so we do not mean that every one who is engaged in benevolent services shall be saved.
We do not mean by this doctrine that Christians will not be tempted. We are plainly warned in the Word of God that they shall be tempted. In Peter, 2:9, we read:
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." Hebrews, 2:18:
"For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted."
1st Corinthians, 10: 13:
" There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." God’s Word fore-warns us, that we shall be tempted; that Jesus Himself was tempted, which guarantee that no believer shall ever be lost. What is the nature of salvation ?
The saved are elected of God. In Ephesians
"According as he hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, according to the good pleasure of his will." All that are saved are elected of God from all eternity, and if a single one of them shall ever be lost, we will have to cut out of the Bible all the Scriptures on election and we will have to crumble into atoms the great promises of God concerning His election and keeping of His children.
The saved are regenerated.
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Ye must be born again." (Jno. 3: 3-7) In nature the relation of parent and child cannot be changed, much less can it be changed in grace. Who can unborn you and make you the child of another? Born into God’s heavenly family, the nature of that salvation makes it impossible for any one to be unborn and transformed back into the child of another. The saved are the children of God. They are no more servants with the relation to the Master dependent upon their own works but sons sustaining a relationship as unchangeable as the nature of God.
"But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." (John 1: 2)
We are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 4:7).
I ask the most ardent advocate of the doctrine of Apostasy if he believes that God’s child shall ever sink into hell. If one single Christian is ever lost, it will be God’s child in the burning pit and I do not believe it.
The saved are such as they are by grace and not by works. (Ephesians, 1: 8-9) "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast."
If salvation depended in any way upon us, upon our works, or efforts or anything that we might do, then when we come to eternity, we might stand in the presence of Jesus and say, "Jesus, you did very well in coming down there upon the earth and dying for me and paying the price of my sins, but unless I held out faithfully, unless I had done something myself, I never would have gotten here, and now because I was good and served you, I demand that you let me in." But we are told in the Word of God that in Heaven all boasting will be excluded and that we will simply sing in one glad, joyous refrain, "salvation to our God Who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb. "God will have no boasting in Heaven.
The saved have eternal life. This is declared forty-three times in the New Testament. Some of the most familiar of these passages are John 3: 14; 3; 16; 3: 36; John 5: 24 and 10: 28 "Everlasting life," ’Eternal life," hath Everlasting life," "I give unto you eternal life." Will you note with me the present tense of the verb "hath" and "give"! The salvation of the soul is always everywhere in the Scripture spoken of as a present possession. It is not something that we are going to have at the end of life’s journey but something that we have now, to have and to hold and to rejoice over through time and eternity. Now, if it is the eternal life and a present possession, where will the possessor ever lose it? Not until eternity ends. If whatever he has comes to an end then it is not eternal life, therefore not salvation.
The saved are not now condemned nor shall they ever be condemned. In Romans 8:1, we have :
"There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
John 3: 18;
"He that believeth in Him is not condemned."
There is no condemnation on him now no matter what he is or where he goes or what he does.
He that believeth in Him is not condemned and’ (Jno. 5;25) "shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death into life." Certainly if the believer is not now condemned nor ever shall be condemned, then there is no probability, not to say no possibility, that he shall ever be lost.
The next proposition is this:
That the character and work of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, guarantee the security of the believer. The character of God is holy. Angels and archangels bow down before Him and say, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," and when the Savior was here on earth he lifted up his voice in the Garden of Gethsemane and said, " Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those thou hast given me." The character of God guarantees to every child of His that believes in Him, salvation at last in spite of all his sins and temptations.
Have you ever stopped to think about it what kind of a God the doctrine of Apostasy makes of our God? If God cannot save those who are committed to Him, or rather if He will not do it, He is then a perjurer, a covenant breaker and a liar. Let me make this clear. He Himself says so. Listen to His word. He is a perjurer because he fails to keep His oath, having sworn by Himself because He could swear by no greater. In Hebrews, Chapter 6, verse 18, we read:
"That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us; which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." God Almighty has lifted up holy hands and taken a solemn oath that of all who believe in Him, not one shall be lost but that He will bring them to Heaven at last. If He fails to do it, He has perjured Himself, and I do not believe God has done that.
And then, again, He is a covenant breaker, if apostasy is true, because He has entered into a solemn covenant with His Son, Jesus Christ, who says:
"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and this is the Father’s will that all of which He hath given me, I shall lose nothing." (Jno. 6: 37-39.) In the solemn councils of eternity when Jesus and God covenanted together for the redemption of the world, God the Father solemnly promised his Son that if he would come to the earth and die for the salvation of a ransomed people that the Almighty God guaranteed that not one of them should be lost. And if any one of them shall be lost, God has broken His solemn and sacred covenant with His Son, and I do not believe that my God is such a God as that.
Not only that, but worst of all, God has lied if a single child of His is ever lost because He said in his Word,
"I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish." If that life ends, it wasn’t eternal life and it was not what God said it was. He deceived me when I became a Christian. ’God wrongfully deceived me when He said He would give me eternal life if it wasn’t eternal. Oh, to the dogs with the doctrine that makes God a perjurer, a covenant breaker and a liar. The holy character of God guarantees beyond the shadow of a doubt that every soul that trusts Him, however weak or faulty or stammering, that soul, will be brought safely into the eternal home in the Father’s house at last.
And, moreover, the power of God guarantees that. We think of our God as omnipotent. If He is omnipotent, then He is able to do what He says He will do. The great, almighty, omnipotent One, from whose hand swings out the universe, He has promised me salvation and He is able to guarantee it to me by virtue of His omnipotence. If the devil can get one child of God away from Him, he is able to get all of them, and then if the devil fails to do this, those who are not gotten are saved by the disgrace of the devil and not by the grace of God.
Christ’s work is both substitutionary and propitiatory. He died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was raised again for our justification.
"Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin has left its crimson stain, but His blood washed it white as snow."
What is the status of this matter? I am a rebel against God and will not submit to His holy Law. Jesus Christ offered to take my place under the law and pay the debt of my sin. He atoned for all the sins that I have committed, do now commit or ever shall commit, by His death on the cross. God saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied. God accepted for me the payment which Jesus made. Now if God comes and exacts from me the second payment, He is more unrighteous than man. Jesus paid my debt and God cannot require me to pay it again. The work of Jesus in my behalf guarantees that I shall not be lost. Do I sin today? Yes; I am sorry for it but it is paid for in the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Christ’s work was not only substitutionary and propitiatory but it is intercessory. John 17:11;
"Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." Then in the 42nd verse of the same chapter, He says:
"I thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast heard me and that Thou hearest me always."
If a single child of God is ever lost, the prayers of Jesus are not worth a snap. He prayed His holy Father to keep them. Do you believe that God will hear and answer that prayer? One of the sweetest things that can be experienced is the joy of knowing that you are being prayed for. I received a letter the other day from one of my dearest friends in the ministry. Far on the eastern coast he is, and he said, "Dodd, I never go to sleep at night without calling your name and asking God to bless you." I go away from here in an evangelistic campaign and am strengthened and helped by the consciousness that this great church at home is praying for me, and that a beautifully, consecrated wife is praying for me, and that the children, in the simplicity of their little hearts, say each night, "Lord, please take care of Daddy," and that in a little Tennessee home there is an aged mother that prays for me, but oh my brother, greater than all of these, higher and holier, is the joyous thought that back yonder in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Son of God looked down the vistas of time and saw me and said, "Holy Father, keep him through Thine own Name," and I am the object of that intercessory prayer. Not only that, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous. He knows that I sin, He knows that I stumble, He knows that I fall, but with all that my Savior at God’s throne of grace lifts up those nail-pierced hands and says, "Father, I have suffered for that child, don’t let him be lost."
Not only that, but there is the work of the Holy Spirit.
"Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." (Ephesians 4: 30.) The seal is the stamp of possession. Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price, with the price of the blood of Calvary, and when that purchase price was made, the Holy Spirit was given as a seal of that contract as an earnest that God would keep His contract and that His children would be delivered. You made a purchase down town and an earnest in money was given to guarantee its delivery and the whole institution from which you bought it is back of that guarantee. And so the Holy Spirit is the seal of God’s people unto the day of redemption, guaranteeing their delivery.
The last proposition is this. The certainty of the salvation of the child of God rests not in him but in God. Not by wisdom nor by the arm of flesh nor by the ways of man, but of God. Let us read in 1st Peter 4:15;
"Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their soul to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." When one is saved and that soul is committed unto God, then God at once becomes responsible for it and disregarding what the individual himself is or does, God is responsible for that delivery. Let us read again, Colossians 3:3;
"For ye are dead and your life is hid in Christ in God."
1st Peter, 1:5;
"Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time."
How are we kept? How is my salvation gnaranteed. It is guaranteed by the Power of God. Let me make this clear, if I may, with a simple illustration: You are off out here in the country and you want to get to Shreveport. At the end of the journey is some great pleasure for you. Somebody tells you of a train that is coming to Shreveport. You believe what they say and act on that faith and you get on board the tram. Now the moment that your faith leads you to act, your responsibility for getting to Shreveport ceases and is transferred instantly to the train. You go in and sit down with no further responsibility concerning the matter as to whether you will get to Shreveport. When I accepted the Lord Jesus as my Savior, acting upon the faith which I have, trusting in Him, all the responsibility for my soul’s getting to Heaven is transferred from me to Him and if I am lost, He is responsible and not myself.
You are disturbed about the different kinds of conduct of God’s children. Suppose two people on that same train, one sitting on this side playing cards and drinking whiskey, and the one sitting on the other side is reading the New Testament and praying; what has that to do with whether or not they will get to Shreveport? It has nothing to do with it. It is not a matter of conduct. It is a matter of place. If they are on the train, regardless of what they are doing, they will get to Shreveport. If I am in Christ, regardless of my character, regardless of my conduct, I am going to Heaven.
Now, does that give me a license to sin? Nay, verily, nor does it encourage me to want to sin.
I submit to you this morning that this doctrine of the safety of the child of God greatly honors our Heavenly Father and that teaching which is contrary is bound to dishonor Him because it is distrustful of Him. I submit to you, furthermore, that this doctrine which I have announced this morning is the most inspiring doctrine to the children of God of any that I know. I declare to you, my brother, if I believed in the possibility of Apostasy I could not sleep or rest at night and I would not be fit for my daily duties on account of worrying about myself instead of helping somebody else.
This doctrine of the safety of the child of God encourages the holiest of living among God’s children for it has behind it the holiest and mightiest of all motives that control the hearts of men and women. It has behind it the great motive of love. If I can be saved by the grace of God and He is responsible for my salvation and He has given me His word that He will save me and all we are to do is to leave it to Him, out of love and gratitude to Him, I will give Him the deepest and most consecrated service of my life for what He has done for me.
The man who serves God because he is afraid that if he does not he will not get to Heaven is a hirling and is not a child of God and is not serving Him out of love. Oh, my brothers, my plea to you this morning is that you get upon the Solid Rock of Jesus Christ, that you may be able to say, "On this Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."
On this glorious doctrine I rest my soul for time and for eternity and I give to my God the most joyous songs of a grateful heart for the manifestation of His mercy and of his Wonderful grace which has redeemed me and which thus keeps me.