Latest / Millennial Mustard Seed / S6 253. Rod and Pete - Rethinking Eternal Security, part 5

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S6 253. Rod and Pete - Rethinking Eternal Security, part 5 · Millennial Mustard Seed

• 0:25
  So Rod, where where we were leaving off on the last episode,
• 0:31
  we were talking about you. You brought up an excellent
• 0:34
  segue to something that I was just talking to my wife about
• 0:37
  today, which is this, you brought up the David and
• 0:43
  Bathsheba moment and, and her question is, well, what if a
• 0:48
  believer goes through, you know, a very, yeah, David and
• 0:53
  Bathsheba type of season in life where they're, you know, they're
• 0:58
  they're really walking in sin in rebellion to God.
• 1:03
  My answer to that is I think at that point you're in danger that
• 1:09
  if you continue in that, again, it goes back to the parable of
• 1:12
  the sower, you're in danger of letting those thorns and weeds
• 1:17
  choke out the good soil plant so that it bears no fruit and it's
• 1:25
  tossed into the fire. And I've heard anecdotally
• 1:31
  similar things from people I know.
• 1:34
  I had a Co worker who was professed faith in his teens or
• 1:40
  20s, something like that. And then he was kind of doing
• 1:44
  his own thing and he was sewing his wild oats.
• 1:47
  And he did that for a number of years I believe.
• 1:51
  And he literally heard God in his mind at one point say knock
• 1:56
  it off or else. And it was kind of that Esther
• 2:02
  moment that you just mentioned on the last episode, like you're
• 2:06
  literally going to die if you don't do this.
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  This is the time. This is now or never, right?
• 2:12
  Make it or break it. And then we had a guest on the
• 2:16
  show, John Mylar, who, who had a similar thing where God was
• 2:21
  like, yeah, you better knock it off or you're not going to like
• 2:24
  what I'm going to send your way. So I know that's a bit of a a
• 2:30
  sidebar, but even even in the the first parts of of this mini
• 2:34
  series, mini episode series, rather that we were wrestling
• 2:40
  with this idea of can you fall away because you sin for a
• 2:44
  while? No, but if you continue in it,
• 2:47
  you might become callous enough to not want God anymore.
• 2:53
  And I think that's the danger. Yeah, I think that's really well
• 2:57
  said. And I mean, let let's line this
• 3:01
  up with the and this is a touch of sub deco.
• 3:04
  Hopefully I don't trigger anybody here.
• 3:07
  But suicide, you know, we look at that statistically and right
• 3:12
  now, unfortunately, the largest category of of age group of
• 3:16
  people in our country that commit suicide is teenagers.
• 3:20
  And it's like, my God, like that.
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  The more than me and Aaron just went through and did the
• 3:24
  breakdown and we're just blown away.
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  And somebody asked me in all sincerity, who, who had lost of
• 3:32
  someone very close to them from suicide.
• 3:35
  Are they in heaven because they killed themselves?
• 3:38
  And and so we're talking about walking away from our faith from
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  a way that can be gauged through the church lens or, you know,
• 3:50
  denominational glasses if you can.
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  But let if you look at this, you are literally ending your life
• 3:56
  early. And I had to wrestle through and
• 4:00
  I prayed about it and I'm going show me in the Bible where it
• 4:03
  says if you commit suicide, you're not with the Father.
• 4:05
  Exactly. It's not there.
• 4:07
  No. And it alludes to that idea of
• 4:11
  the spirit or the psyche of a person or even the body of a
• 4:15
  person being broken to the point where it's a torment of its own.
• 4:19
  And and I don't think anybody who commits suicide, not a
• 4:24
  qualifying statement for every single case, but somebody who
• 4:26
  was like, they love the Lord. They go through the season of
• 4:29
  their life. Maybe, you know, a bomb goes off
• 4:33
  because they're serving, you know, they give their life to
• 4:35
  serve over in one of the wars at 25 years old, a bomb goes off,
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  they get hit with shrapnel, their bodies all torn up.
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  They come back, they're in excruciating pain, they're
• 4:43
  having severe headaches. And this is actually a really
• 4:45
  close story to a founding member of mine who committed suicide.
• 4:48
  So I'm kind of painting it roughly close, but not exact.
• 4:52
  And there gets to a point in time in their life where they
• 4:54
  just can't handle it anymore. And they're crying saying I just
• 4:57
  want to I just want to see the Lord.
• 4:59
  I can't do another day. They're tormented and is that
• 5:03
  person now never saved or were they always saved or like why we
• 5:09
  arguing that? Show me in the Bible where it
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  says and so that was my take away with this, this individual
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  and it triggered a lot within me.
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  And then looking statistically, what are we doing to inculcate
• 5:20
  the younger generation to prevent literally a mass exodus
• 5:25
  ending their lives early? I mean, it's bad enough for the
• 5:27
  whole gender thing. I won't get you any red flags by
• 5:29
  going deep on that here. But you know, Pete, from God's
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  perspective, like the measure of faith that he gives each and
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  every single one of us. He's the author and the finisher
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  of our faith. A righteous man fall 7 times but
• 5:45
  he get back up 7 meaning completion not 7 as in like a
• 5:48
  cat has 9 lives and you have seven chances to do your day.
• 5:51
  Been a Beersheba nonsense and all of a sudden you don't
• 5:53
  qualify. But what you said is a good
• 5:56
  indicator, particularly if God sends an an angelic voice.
• 6:02
  In my opinion because angels are messengers, they deliver
• 6:06
  messages. So in this case, if somebody is
• 6:09
  like, man, I've been sinning and living wrong, God, can you save
• 6:15
  me? Can you fix it?
• 6:15
  And he's whispering to you, you can't be doing that no more.
• 6:19
  I'm giving you a warning. He can send a prophetic person
• 6:21
  to you to speak it to you. He can warn you in dreams.
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  So I do think that habitual willing sin from a a heart
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  posture of not only rebellion but like hostility towards God
• 6:34
  is what can qualify very quickly to.
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  To the danger zone. Yeah, to the.
• 6:41
  Let me jump in and pick up with that thought, because one of the
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  things that that Timothy bents a concept that that he dropped
• 6:53
  early in, in, in one of our not early and I'm one of our
• 6:56
  episodes, but in, but in our earlier episodes with him, we've
• 7:00
  had several Luke and I have was this concept of boundaries.
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  And, and that, and this is a bit of a sidebar to the eternal
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  security topic, but it's relevant because we're talking
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  about sin and, and salvation and sinning your way out of
• 7:18
  salvation is something that people wrestle with.
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  So it's part of the topic. But he talked about boundaries,
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  not just sins, right? And this brings up this point
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  that all sin is not equal. It is not the same.
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  If I have a thought, might be an evil thought.
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  If I act on that thought but nobody sees, that's another
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  level. If I act on that thought with
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  another person, maybe I say, hey, let's go rob that bank.
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  I don't just rob it myself. I grab that person and say let's
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  go do this. That's another level.
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  Then I start a gang of people who rob banks.
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  That's another level. You can imagine that if God is
• 8:08
  going to intervene, especially if I'm a believer and I'm doing
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  these things and I've had this in my life, Rod, you can
• 8:15
  probably think of stories in your life where God was like,
• 8:18
  no, you're not going to continue down that path.
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  I had some indiscretions in my my teen years, things that God
• 8:27
  was like, Nope, I'm not letting you get involved with that.
• 8:30
  It ended very quickly. Let's just say that, you know, I
• 8:35
  don't usually get my car window smashed on a Sunday night, wake
• 8:40
  up to it on a Monday morning. That was kind of like God
• 8:43
  saying, let's not be doing what you were doing there, right?
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  So there are times when God is like he steps in and he goes,
• 8:52
  no, let's get back in line. So all sin is not the same.
• 8:58
  And yes, we sin basically every day, but God doesn't smash us
• 9:03
  over the head because hopefully we're doing it with restraint,
• 9:08
  right? And the point I also want to
• 9:11
  bring up is, as we were talking about having a sinful season,
• 9:15
  but still being a believer, but the danger that you might become
• 9:19
  callous to God and walk away at some point, That is, the danger
• 9:24
  is God's nature is that he will leave the 99 to try to find that
• 9:29
  lost sheep. He's going to fight for us.
• 9:32
  He is going to fight for us. At some point, he might stop
• 9:36
  fighting. That's the danger if we keep
• 9:38
  hardening our heart. Let's jump in, Rod, since we
• 9:43
  keep talking about such other good things to wrestle with.
• 9:48
  Finally, let's compare Eternal security.
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  And once saved, always saved. In my opinion, I think eternal
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  security has more to do with the object of our faith and the
• 10:04
  reliability of God as the author of our salvation, the one doing
• 10:10
  all of the saving that we don't save ourselves.
• 10:15
  And I think once saved, always saved, looks at the person and
• 10:20
  says that person can never fall away because they professed
• 10:23
  faith. So maybe let's just do a little
• 10:26
  comparison. We talked about a broken and
• 10:30
  contrite heart that God will not despise.
• 10:34
  There's verses about a guarantee of our inheritance and
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  essentially if we meet the conditions, we're clothed in
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  those wedding garments, He's going to let us in.
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  God will absolutely not renege on His promises.
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  On the other hand, once saved, always saved says we can't walk
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  away. The prodigal.
• 11:00
  The prodigal cannot have the free will to leave the house
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  once he comes back. That's foolishness.
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  Absolute foolishness, right? Of course he can walk away if he
• 11:09
  wants to. Once saved always says.
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  Once saved, always saved says we will for sure endure and be
• 11:17
  faithful. But anecdotally, Rod, we talked
• 11:22
  about it, that's not true. And this brings up kind of that
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  Mike Heiser quote that Blurry Creatures, Blurry Creatures has
• 11:31
  on the beginning of every episode.
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  If one person is right, it busts the paradigm.
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  Or maybe it was LA Marzulli that said that.
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  I forget. If one person is genuinely A
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  believer and walks away, it busts the paradigm of once
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  saved, always saved. That's it.
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  It's busted. Once saved, always Saved says
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  there's no way we can do anything to lose salvation.
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  I've literally heard and seen people post on Christian
• 12:04
  Twitter, Christian X and say things like that.
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  That you can live like the devil and shake your fist at God, but
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  because you profess faith you're going to heaven.
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  Nonsense, the devil loves that idea.
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  I'll throw it to you, Rod, for the last word.
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  It makes me think of the sheep and the goat nations at the end
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  of the age. You know, there's a lot of
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  verses that people can run to and say, like Ephesians, you
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  know, for you're sealed for the day of redemption and putting
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  doctrine and preferences out of the way and looking and seeing
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  through the scope of all of those based on my my own
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  personal relationship with the Lord, my wrestling matches.
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  At times I kick and scream. He he never does, though.
• 13:00
  It's it's it's me who makes all the complaining sounds on most
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  of this journey. He says to the sheep and the
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  goat nations when you gave me water when you when you you
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  served it to the least of these you did it unto me.
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  And there's other people who were saying we did this right.
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  We cast it out demons in your name and and we built an empire
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  Christian Church and crusaded through blah, blah, blah, blah,
• 13:29
  blah. They did all these amazing
• 13:30
  things. But what I think is really
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  interesting is that God's ways are higher than our ways.
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  His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
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  And as we wrestled through the five parts now, Pete on Once
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  saved, always saved, eternal security or can you lose it?
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  I think I would close out with just saying loving God only can
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  exist by recognizing he loved you first.
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  And if you can come to that place and recognize it's always
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  been about him and we are his inheritance, maybe, maybe it'll
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  help you open that door and, and settle the question of where
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  you're at with the Lord. Because we're not here to tell
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  you what to believe. We're not here with some grand
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  climax at the very end and say, now this is how you have to do
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  it. We, we are here to present the
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  case to you and to ask you to study for yourself and, and to
• 14:41
  keep chewing on that meat because as, as we know the days
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  that we're living on, it requires us to go a little bit
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  deeper and to be a little bit more thorough.
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  So Pete, I'm, I just really appreciate, you know, your
• 14:56
  heart. You can spark me to that
• 15:00
  excitement to want to dive in and go deeper again and and to
• 15:04
  to pass it back and forth with a, a glow.
• 15:08
  That's right. So it's an honor to be here with
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  you, man. Yeah, I appreciate it, Rod.
• 15:12
  No, I just keep thinking that that Temple of Doom movie with
• 15:16
  Indiana Jones with those 3 stones right in that Indian
• 15:20
  village. And when you brought the stones
• 15:23
  together, they glowed and when you pulled them apart, they
• 15:26
  stopped glowing. And I feel like that's how it is
• 15:28
  with with God's children when when we have a couple of Holy
• 15:33
  Spirit indwelt people, we glow when we get together.
• 15:39
  I'll I'll drop a couple things here that we will talk about in
• 15:43
  future episodes for you guys to kind of wet your appetite.
• 15:48
  We're going to talk about keeping the plugin, keeping that
• 15:52
  faith in and that's kind of a Derek Prince term of keeping
• 15:55
  that that plugin remaining faithful.
• 15:58
  And how is that a responsibility towards appropriating the grace
• 16:04
  that saves? And for that matter, Rod, we
• 16:08
  should dive into that very verse, that famous verse.
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  It is the gift of God, grace by faith that we are saved.
• 16:17
  That's often a misinterpreted verse.
• 16:19
  People aren't sure what's being referred to there, the grace,
• 16:24
  the faith, or the saving on a free On a future episode, I
• 16:30
  would like us to talk about the difference between belief and
• 16:34
  faith. I was just watching an episode
• 16:38
  of Nelson Walters. I'll give a shout out to him on
• 16:41
  his excellent YouTube channel today and he mentioned about the
• 16:47
  demoniac with Legion and how those demons knew exactly who
• 16:52
  Jesus was. They were not atheists, but they
• 16:57
  certainly weren't saved. So what's the difference between
• 17:01
  belief and faith? What is the root of the word
• 17:05
  belief? It actually comes from beloved.
• 17:11
  And then what are the two types of beliefs, intellectual ascent
• 17:16
  or being having that beloved commitment?
• 17:20
  So just a few things to drop in there as Rod and I will continue
• 17:24
  to unpack this rethinking of eternal security.
• 17:29
  So thanks, Rod. Appreciate you being here.
• 17:33
  It's always an honor. Looking forward to the next
• 17:35
  menu.