Latest / Millennial Mustard Seed / S6 251. Rod and Pete - Rethinking Eternal Security, part 4

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S6 251. Rod and Pete - Rethinking Eternal Security, part 4 · Millennial Mustard Seed

• 0:18
  Welcome back to another mini episode.
• 0:20
  How's it going, Rod? It's going great and I'm excited
• 0:24
  for this one. We left the audience on a bit of
• 0:26
  a cliffhanger. We did, we did.
• 0:29
  And so I believe one of the things I said at the end of Part
• 0:33
  3 of this mini series on a rethinking eternal security was
• 0:39
  that we were going to dive a bit deeper into a comparison between
• 0:45
  eternal security and once saved, always saved or O SAS.
• 0:51
  And I know those things are often used interchangeably.
• 0:54
  And even as we were talking off air, I kind of had to catch
• 0:59
  myself and, and say, well, I, I, I guess you could make the case
• 1:04
  that they are, they are one in the same.
• 1:06
  But I'm going to try to draw some distinctions on this
• 1:09
  episode. But let's start here.
• 1:11
  There's a couple of key questions as we seek to
• 1:15
  understand how salvation works. And can you lose it?
• 1:21
  Can you reject it? Are you locked into it once you
• 1:25
  are saved? So here are two kind of
• 1:28
  overarching questions that we will tackle, but also just to
• 1:34
  put out to the listener to wrestle with.
• 1:37
  Not that Rod and I have all the answers, but let you guys be the
• 1:41
  judge, right? So the first question is after
• 1:45
  we're saved, after we make that profession of faith and the Holy
• 1:48
  Spirit comes in, do we retain our free will, our autonomy
• 1:55
  after the point of salvation? Or are we locked into a salvific
• 2:02
  state? In other words, you know, are
• 2:06
  there certain sins we can't do that.
• 2:09
  That's kind of what you're left with.
• 2:11
  If you say that we're locked into salvation after we make
• 2:14
  that decision, that would be the the one saved, always saved.
• 2:18
  People would say, Nope, God is going to preserve you.
• 2:21
  And that's our our second question.
• 2:23
  We're going to get to right. But do we have the ability to
• 2:29
  make the choice to do certain sins but not others?
• 2:33
  In other words, we can still sin, but we can't sin in the way
• 2:38
  of unbelief because somehow we're locked into that.
• 2:43
  We've lost that free will. I'll, I'll pass it to you Rod
• 2:47
  for a moment before we go to the next question.
• 2:51
  Yeah, I mean, this is the meat. Obviously I don't know if
• 2:55
  there's milk on the table to wash down this bite of meat,
• 2:58
  but. Bring your own.
• 3:01
  And so like Pete said, just to re highlight, we're not speaking
• 3:06
  in totality, like as an authority on these ideas.
• 3:09
  This is being presented so that we challenge this and we dig in
• 3:12
  for ourselves to go deeper because everything is multi
• 3:15
  layered in God's word. There two people can be right at
• 3:19
  the same time and the observer could say that they're both
• 3:22
  wrong. And so I just want to kind of
• 3:25
  highlight just this interim, and I know this is going to be in
• 3:28
  the English I'm going to read this in and I'm not trying to
• 3:32
  make something out of nothing, but I just want to take a glance
• 3:34
  at because I think this will help us understand even the
• 3:36
  framework of of Christianity Today because of verses like
• 3:40
  this. First, Peter 224, this is NIV.
• 3:44
  He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we
• 3:50
  might die to sins and live for righteousness statement
• 3:57
  following this says by his wounds, you have been healed and
• 4:01
  it's like really an interesting verse.
• 4:03
  Just a glance at in the English. Now I'm not going to pull out
• 4:05
  the concordance and dig into why the Hebrew was translated or the
• 4:10
  Greek in this case was translated to say that we might
• 4:13
  just like it says, if possible, dwell with your brothers
• 4:17
  peaceably. It's like God knew there's going
• 4:20
  to be contentions and stripes, right?
• 4:22
  And he's not saying I command you to live peaceably with
• 4:24
  everybody. It actually says do everything
• 4:26
  you can and and if possible, like by the way, I created you.
• 4:31
  So I know, I know how this goes, but I just think it's
• 4:35
  interesting not to go too far on this idea, but that we might die
• 4:41
  to our sins and live for righteousness.
• 4:44
  And I think that there's a lot more there than just at first
• 4:46
  glance. And and I think it does feed
• 4:48
  into what we're talking about. Like so the multi layered idea
• 4:52
  here, Pete, is that we're going to dive into certain verses and
• 4:56
  offer certain perspectives that can seem like we are a pendulum
• 5:00
  swinging from certainties to uncertainties.
• 5:04
  But when we really start to slow down and, and, and zoom out and
• 5:07
  see what God is saying and, and see how it's supposed to be
• 5:10
  personalized with fear and trembling, we're called to work
• 5:14
  out our salvation. We can start to build a case of
• 5:18
  of seeing through the preferences of others and
• 5:21
  starting to get to the heart of what God is communicating to us.
• 5:25
  Yeah, man, I, I just love the way that the Holy Spirit stirs
• 5:29
  up ideas in you when I'm talking and, and in me when you're
• 5:33
  talking and I'm I'm thinking of so.
• 5:36
  So one point I want to make too. And we're going to do a future
• 5:39
  mini episode on this in this series, talking about this
• 5:44
  particular thing I'm about to say, which is to look at all of
• 5:48
  the verses that exhort us to maintain our faith, to encourage
• 5:54
  our faith, to grow in our faith to, you know, walk in God's
• 5:58
  ways, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, you know, to
• 6:03
  put off the old self. All of these exhortations about
• 6:06
  good works and continuing in the faith.
• 6:10
  If we couldn't walk away from God, why were these exhortations
• 6:16
  given to do these things and become this kind of a person?
• 6:22
  And to me, the analogy is like, you know, you have a little 2
• 6:27
  foot sapling that you just bought at Home Depot and you
• 6:31
  plunked in your backyard and the next day you get a nasty
• 6:35
  thunderstorm with hail. And that thing is, you know,
• 6:39
  flattened to the ground versus an oak that's been planted for
• 6:44
  five years. It's got a, a trunk that's, you
• 6:48
  know, half a foot around. It's probably going to do just
• 6:53
  fine with a normal storm. And the idea is that as we grow
• 6:59
  in our faith, the longer we're a Christian, the longer we
• 7:03
  continue to feed ourselves with the understanding of God, the
• 7:09
  knowledge of his Word, knowing him personally, those roots go
• 7:15
  deep and we can handle the storms of life, right?
• 7:18
  We started talking about the parable of the sower in the
• 7:21
  first episode or two of this series.
• 7:26
  So I think that's when you look at that verse that you just
• 7:31
  quoted there about work out your salvation with fear and
• 7:35
  trembling comes from Philippians 2.
• 7:39
  It does seem to imply that we have a responsibility to
• 7:43
  encourage that work that God has begun in US.
• 7:49
  And the other thing I want to say to that is there also does
• 7:52
  seem to be another theme in Scripture where the more willing
• 7:59
  a vessel we are, the more God is able to come in.
• 8:04
  Something has to get emptied out, you know, where we get the
• 8:09
  Holy Spirit at salvation. But why does it say be filled
• 8:13
  with the Holy Spirit? If we can be partially filled?
• 8:17
  That would make sense. If if we're walking around
• 8:20
  filled all the time, there wouldn't be a verse that says be
• 8:22
  filled. So that means we got to empty
• 8:25
  something. We got to get ourselves out of
• 8:27
  the way. Like John the Baptist said, I
• 8:29
  must decrease so that he can increase.
• 8:33
  And so I think the whole idea is.
• 8:35
  I'm jumping out of my chair right now.
• 8:38
  Oh yes, I know. I'm I'm.
• 8:40
  I figured you were. But yeah, the whole idea is that
• 8:43
  we have to let God do his work and he is a gentleman and
• 8:48
  respects our free will. And so I I think we retain some
• 8:53
  autonomy after salvation. To answer my own question.
• 8:58
  And, and I agree. I mean, there's so many things.
• 9:01
  You nailed it. We're stirring each other to the
• 9:04
  greater identity and drawing it out.
• 9:07
  It's so important that we're drawing this out.
• 9:09
  Just like Paul would say, Did I come, you know, teaching the
• 9:12
  command commandments of man? No, Paul sits at the feet of
• 9:15
  Gamalia, the greatest teacher recognized at that time, and he
• 9:19
  rejects all of that for revelation of what the Spirit
• 9:23
  was giving him. But what I want to say here,
• 9:26
  when we look at Romans 11/29, Paul is, is having this
• 9:31
  dialogue, this discussion about God's plan for Israel and the
• 9:34
  Gentiles. He's emphasizing God's promises
• 9:38
  and gifts are permanent and are not subject to change and he's
• 9:42
  not going to withdraw them. And the verse goes on to say
• 9:45
  that for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
• 9:50
  Romans 11/29 and everything that we're like gearing up to here.
• 9:55
  It's like I think we view things Pete with a really earthly
• 10:00
  qualification for for these eternal ideas that God has laid
• 10:03
  out and it's like agape love. Most people can't define that or
• 10:08
  or Philadelphia's like brotherly love right or and so we we have
• 10:12
  a lot of what Chuck misser would say is hermeneutical hygiene to
• 10:14
  do over the next couple years. Laying more of a foundation is
• 10:18
  just becoming thorough, but at the same time understanding most
• 10:23
  of the time the idea of things like the word love in our own
• 10:28
  minds are built on our individualized experience and
• 10:33
  identification based on continual interaction with what
• 10:39
  love would come out to. Right.
• 10:40
  So you're, you're like, I love these new shoes that just came
• 10:44
  out. It's like here in America, you'd
• 10:47
  know exactly what I mean, but it but if you went back a couple
• 10:50
  100 years and said that people would be blown away like the
• 10:53
  word love, like is this guy crazy?
• 10:56
  Is he going to foam out of the mouth?
• 10:57
  How could you love a shoe or bear shoes?
• 11:00
  And so God is set is prescribing to us through the power of the
• 11:05
  Holy Spirit without a doubt that what he has set before us it it
• 11:11
  it has nothing to do. We can't qualify it.
• 11:16
  We didn't originate it. We're not the authors of it.
• 11:19
  We're not operating and and controlling the movement of the
• 11:22
  cosmic chess match. Shout out to LA Marzulli cosmic
• 11:25
  chess match. And it's just really interesting
• 11:28
  because the once saved, always saved idea here seems as if
• 11:35
  there's some sacred secular divide that you can step over
• 11:37
  and all of a sudden you're like, Oh no, I'm not saved because I
• 11:40
  just did this yesterday. Who can save me from this
• 11:43
  wretched flesh? You know I'm alluding to Paul.
• 11:47
  Why don't you? Yeah.
• 11:47
  Come on, pick it up. I.
• 11:48
  I like I like even that you use the word set before us, because
• 11:53
  think of that verse I've set before you life and death choose
• 11:57
  life. It is a choice.
• 12:00
  It is a choice. So here's the second question.
• 12:03
  And we're and we're probably not going to get to the eternal
• 12:06
  security O SAS comparison in this episode.
• 12:09
  We'll we'll do it in the next one.
• 12:11
  But here's the second question to ponder.
• 12:14
  So we're Rod and I are, I think in agreement on we do retain
• 12:19
  autonomy after salvation. We do have the ability to still
• 12:24
  sin and up to and including deciding to have complete
• 12:29
  unbelief after we've professed belief.
• 12:33
  So here's the second question. Is God's assistance by the Holy
• 12:37
  Spirit for the believer such that he will absolutely preserve
• 12:42
  that believer. So that's kind of where the once
• 12:46
  saved, always saved camp. I believe lives is their saying
• 12:51
  look at the promises of God and we're going to we're going to
• 12:54
  spend an episode going through a nice list that I found online of
• 12:58
  a lot of seemingly proof texts that seem to point to all of
• 13:05
  God's promises. This is what I felt the Holy
• 13:09
  Spirit spurred in me when I looked at this list.
• 13:13
  And I went, wait a minute. I think all of these are
• 13:16
  actually true, but there's still room for someone to walk away
• 13:21
  from their faith. How is that possible?
• 13:24
  And that's, that's kind of what Rod and I are trying to answer
• 13:28
  during this miniseries. So is God's assistance so
• 13:33
  unconditional by the Holy Spirit that he will absolutely preserve
• 13:38
  the believer? So we were talking off air a
• 13:42
  little bit, Rod, about the prodigal son story that everyone
• 13:46
  probably knows very well, right? The son basically wishes his
• 13:52
  father dead by asking for his inheritance before he even
• 13:55
  passed on. He leaves the house, he lives
• 13:59
  wild. He spends all his money living
• 14:03
  immorally, and then he's broke and penniless and wants to come
• 14:08
  home. And he comes home and he's
• 14:12
  expecting to throw himself at his father's feet and say, just
• 14:16
  let me be a servant. His father is practically
• 14:19
  looking for him to come back, sees him a long ways off, runs
• 14:24
  out to him, a very undignified thing to do, runs out to him,
• 14:28
  throws his arms around him, throws him a big old party and
• 14:32
  says my son was dead and now he's alive.
• 14:36
  Which incidentally, OK, Dead does not mean you can't respond
• 14:41
  to the gospel. OK?
• 14:44
  Dead just means separated. His son wasn't literally dead.
• 14:48
  He was separate from his his fellowship, from his family,
• 14:52
  Right? So why do I bring up the
• 14:54
  prodigal? So imagine he comes back, His
• 14:58
  father welcomes him with open arms.
• 15:01
  He's blown away by his Father's love.
• 15:03
  And obviously this is a picture of God's love for us, that we
• 15:07
  can come back in any state. A broken and contrite heart God
• 15:13
  will not despise. According to Psalm 5117, that's
• 15:20
  the type of God he is. But let me throw this question
• 15:23
  out. If he comes back and his father
• 15:28
  receives him, does his father lock all the doors so he can
• 15:33
  never leave again? Does his father say, oh boy, I
• 15:37
  better double my efforts to make sure he can never leave because
• 15:41
  he left once? Or could his heart be hard like
• 15:46
  it was before and he, in the middle of the night, steals a
• 15:49
  bunch of his father's wealth and heads on out to wild living
• 15:52
  again? Could he do that, Rod?
• 15:59
  This, this is once again, I have no, no milk to wash down the
• 16:03
  meat. I'm chilling on what comes to
• 16:07
  mind. A couple different things.
• 16:09
  I want to say absolutely the free will is applicable at all
• 16:12
  times because we can demonstrate that through antidotic old
• 16:16
  testimonies. Other people's, you know, oh,
• 16:19
  I've been a drug dealer. I've, you know, I was a gang
• 16:21
  banger. I, I was taxed, you know, theft
• 16:26
  or flawed or whatever. Like those stories are there
• 16:29
  where people have come and gone back, right.
• 16:32
  But I think about the timing and the, the, the measure of and
• 16:39
  time's a funny word. There's multiple implications
• 16:41
  for that. That's a bit of a, a head nod to
• 16:43
  something we have planned in the future also.
• 16:46
  But Esther is the one that it this verse in particular, like
• 16:50
  torments me as I'm listening to your question.
• 16:53
  And Esther has said if she doesn't rise up for the occasion
• 16:58
  to speak to the king on behalf of the judgement through Haman,
• 17:03
  you know who's who's trying, who's trying to get all the Jews
• 17:04
  murdered, that God will find another, he will raise up
• 17:08
  another and and God says you and your family will die.
• 17:11
  And it's like, whoa, OK, that's interesting.
• 17:16
  Throwing a monkey wrench in this whole micro or mini episode
• 17:19
  here. And but at the same time, we
• 17:24
  literally have, we literally have God saying to us, nothing
• 17:32
  can remove you from my love. Nothing can remove you from my
• 17:35
  hand. And it's like, so, so where are
• 17:37
  we merging between these two? And it makes me think about the
• 17:43
  where God places you, where you're at and the importance of
• 17:46
  that time slot. So I think that there's majors
• 17:49
  right there. There's minors and and the idea
• 17:55
  that a righteous man falleth 7 times yet is again the wicked
• 18:04
  fall once and are no more. And it's like if God is building
• 18:08
  this momentum in your life and you're walking by faith with him
• 18:12
  and growing and you're starting to learn more and it's it's not
• 18:14
  Christianese. It's it's relationship based.
• 18:18
  You can still have your David and Bathsheba moment on top of
• 18:22
  the house, get discipline for it and come back.
• 18:26
  But then there's there's other times where God is literally
• 18:28
  speaking to Esther in this example and saying, if you don't
• 18:33
  go speak to the king and say you're going to die, I will
• 18:37
  disregard you and raise up another.
• 18:39
  And it's like you're like, let's discuss the contradiction here,
• 18:43
  right? But it's.
• 18:45
  Not those. Those are some good Nuggets.
• 18:48
  They are some good Nuggets but to to bring it back Pete to
• 18:51
  answer it in totality. Yes, you can walk away again,
• 18:56
  but to end this and put a little bell on it and and a teaser when
• 19:01
  God is talking through the apostle in the New Testament and
• 19:05
  he says I pray that your mind, your body and your soul is found
• 19:08
  whole and blameless at the coming of the Lord.
• 19:12
  I think one or all three or two of the three of those parts of
• 19:17
  people can be crushed and it can look like a disqualification
• 19:21
  like as in that person was given their body over to perverse
• 19:26
  things. They can't qualify.
• 19:27
  Look at the life choices, but but their heart can still be
• 19:31
  after God. So I think to really walk away
• 19:35
  and be disqualified, there has to be some type of agreement,
• 19:37
  Pete, with mind, body, your psyche.
• 19:39
  You have to like we, we talked about in Part 1, I, I reject
• 19:43
  what you want from me, God, and I don't want nothing to do with
• 19:45
  you, right? You're acting it out and you're
• 19:47
  of a different spirit. And I think that there's a
• 19:50
  rhythm that you can get into where you're not you're not
• 19:53
  saved. And that's my perspective.
• 19:56
  I'm not trying to sell anybody else, but that's kind.
• 19:58
  Of where I, I agree and I, I feel like let's, let's call this
• 20:04
  an episode at this point. But we're just going to keep
• 20:08
  right on rolling and you guys are going to have to wait until
• 20:14
  we post Part 5 to hear the the continuity of what we're about
• 20:20
  to talk about. So until then guys, chew on this
• 20:24
  perfectly and thank you for listening.