The doctrine of perseverance is grounded on the immutability of God. God never changes. His eternal purposes never change. What God has purposed in eternity He will bring to pass in time, and what He begins He completes.

The saints persevere because God has begun a good work in them and preserves them to the end. “He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it...” (Phil. 1:6)

But what happens when families and churches get this doctrine wrong?

What happens when they get it right?

In this age when so many young people are leaving the faith of their fathers the answer to these two questions may affect far more than you think!

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches presents When Young People Leave the Faith, a message given by Steve Hopkins at the Power of the Gospel Conference. So you know, you hear people say, well, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the conference or to the meeting. Well, a not so funny thing happened to our family on the way to the conference here. We're approaching Auburn, Alabama, and we're in this bus. It's an E450 bus.

It's a 17 passenger and we've got 19 people in there. We're always overloading. And I've got 15 of our children that are at home. I've got my daughter-in-law and three grandbabies, and all of a sudden there's this strange feeling in the bus. Something in the wheel, something going on, you know, and my son Micah here that's at the back, 21 years old, is driving 70 miles an hour, 65, 70 miles an hour, and I said, you know what, keep both hands on the wheel.

I don't know if we're about to have a blowout, what's gonna happen here, and within two minutes, we lose the wheel on the back one of the wheels on the back of the bus the bus starts to sway back and forth we look over at my son is breaking we look over and the outside wheel on the driver's side passes us on the highway going about 20 miles an hour faster than we're going. Which immediately, to me, knowing kind of how all this stuff works, the lug nuts are sheared off and the other wheel is now rotating on the the the hub which means at any moment you know we just we go over. So I just cried out called out on the name of the Lord, Lord Jesus help us. And God heard this this poor man's cry and saved our family on the way here saved us from death. So we we were crying out I was crying out for my family and this morning and starting early this morning and for weeks now really I've been crying out for young people.

It's been noted that the young people in the churches of America are leaving the churches, leaving the church, leaving the faith faster than the churches can make new converts. It's pretty frightening what's going on. Far less, of course, in the more family-oriented churches and more doctrinally sound churches, far, far less. If you'll stand with me and open with me in your Bibles to the 10th chapter of the gospel of John, we always stand for the initial reading at Burnett Bible. And we'll just be reading two verses, John chapter 10, verses 28 and 29.

John 10, 28 through 29. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, maker of heaven and earth, eternal, infinite, immortal, invisible, God only wise, Lord, I humbly approach your word this morning with fear and with trembling and yet also with with joy unspeakable and full of glory as I seek to hold out the word of truth and the proclamation of this great doctrine of the faith the perseverance of the Saints and and then apply it Lord to our families and to our churches Most gracious God, I beg you, grant this people, O God, and those who will hear by recording at a later time, ears to hear. Open up the understanding, oh God, of every heart. We are poor, we're weak, we're needy, oh God. Strengthen us with all might in the inner man. Renew our minds by your word.

Enrich us with the holy treasures of divine truth and fill our souls, God, this morning with the riches of grace and truth that are found alone in your son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we ask it, amen. Let's be seated. The title of this message of you looking at the conference brochure is When Young People Leave the Faith. Mr.

Brown asked me to speak on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints with an emphasis on what happens when families, what happens when churches get this doctrine wrong. And there's something that we need to understand is that when we get the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints wrong, really we get it all wrong. We get everything wrong. And as I was thinking about how to prepare for this message and exactly what direction to go with regards to talking to families and to churches and what happens when we get this doctrine wrong, my thoughts really just began to go to young people, turn to young people, even the young people of the families of our congregations. Young people who have been raised in homeschool families.

Young people who have been raised in family friendly, age integrated, or what we call family integrated churches, where every one of us, I think, would say that we have heard of or witnessed personally many times a young man or a young woman who has walked away from the faith in their teens or their early 20s. And what I want to do this morning, Lord willing, is just to develop the doctrine for maybe about half the time, to develop the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints in the clear light of scripture, and then address the effect of getting it wrong and how it affects our families, and specifically young men and young women who are turning away from the faith in their teens and their early 20s. When we get the doctrine of perseverance wrong, we get everything wrong. The whole body of doctrine, you know, stands or falls together. So what I want to do is I want to begin by stating our propositions and defining our terms.

Our church holds to the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith and there in that Confession of Faith, our propositions here are found in one single sentence. Beginning with chapter 17, paragraph one, I'll read, those whom God had accepted in the beloved, that is in his son, effectually called and sanctified by his spirit and given the precious faith of his elect unto can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved." That's the doctrine in a nutshell. As our opening text this morning puts it, those who are given eternal life shall never eternally perish. And the life that has been given them is eternal. And because it's eternal, they will never eternally perish.

They're in the palm of God's hand and no man is able to pluck them out of his hand. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, if you've studied any theology you know is also referred to as the doctrine of the preservation of the saints and for good reasons. Very simply put, the saints of God persevere in faith to the end because they are preserved by the power of God unto life eternal. We persevere because we are being preserved. I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." You know, I was thinking about this passage of scripture and really, standing by itself, it should forever end any and all controversy as to the doctrine, even if we just stopped right here. You know, really, I should have been able to just walk up here and a moment ago take the book from the minister, find the place in the scroll where it is written that he gives us eternal life. We'll never perish. No man can pluck us out of God's hand. And then just taking the scroll and handed it back to the minister and sat down and that would just be the end of it.

You know, just like it should have been the end of it when Jesus walked into the church, the synagogue at Capernaum and staked his claim as Messiah and read from the book of Isaiah, but no, the next thing you know everybody's angry and they're trying to throw them off a cliff. And so it is with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. For some unfathomable reason, we have professing Christians in our world who when they hear this blessed doctrine, this comforting doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, they become angry and they really want to throw it over a cliff. A few years back I was teaching on this doctrine for several weeks at our church And a man took me aside. You pastors know what that's all about, right?

Took me aside after church and told me that his wife had been going home crying every Sunday. I said, why? He said, well, she was raised in a church, a denomination, that believed, once saved, not necessarily always saved, that Believers of God could, through sin and denial, become unborn, that they could remove themselves from the clutch of God's hand. And his wife had prepared about, oh, maybe 20 pages of scripture that she had said, well, this supports my position on this. Her position that salvation is ultimately in the hands of men and not in the hands of God.

And thus to be saved and to keep oneself saved really depends on the will of man and not on the will of God. This husband who was who really was at the time leaning towards orthodoxy, leaning in the direction of orthodoxy, which with regards to the doctrine of the perseverance of Saints, told me actually, he said actually pastor, I hope that, I hope the doctrine is true. I hope what you're saying is true. I hope my wife is wrong and I hope what you're saying is right here. I hope that it's not up to me to keep myself saved.

I hope that that God gives eternal life and that those he gives eternal life to can never eternally perish and nobody can can take the believer out of God's hand. I hope that that's true. Um, that Since this man was not the spiritual leader of his home, he ended up following his wife and her spiritual leading and the family left the church. John Gill. I love John Gill.

He writes in the 1700s. Now get prepared for this because John Gill is one of those theologians who is famous for writing 200, 250 word sentences. There's no period until you get 250 words. So here we go. John Gill writes in the 1700s, the doctrine of the saints final perseverance in grace to glory being a doctrine so fully expressed in the sacred scripture, so clearly written there as with a sunbeam, A doctrine having so large a compass of proof from scripture.

A doctrine so agreeable to the perfections of God. And the contrary so manifestly reflecting dishonor upon them, particularly the immutability of God, his wisdom, his power, his goodness, his justice, his truth, and faithfulness. The doctrine of the saint's final perseverance and grace to glory being a doctrine so well established upon God's purposes and decrees, his counsel, his covenant, a doctrine so well accord, which so well accords with all his acts of grace towards and upon his people. A doctrine so well calculated for the spiritual peace and comfort of the people of God. So well calculated to promote holiness of life and conversation.

One would think that every good man must at least wish it to be true. And thus it seems strange that any man believing divine revelation professing godliness should set himself to oppose it. Gill is saying, how could anyone who believes the Bible to be the word of God not believe this doctrine to be true? How could it be? And I think the most serious aspect of maintaining a contrary view to this doctrine, which Gil also brings out, is that the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is so manifestly agreeable to the perfections of God that to oppose the doctrine is to oppose the perfections of God, the divine perfections, and particularly the divine attribute of the immutability or unchangeable nature of God.

Simply stated, because God never changes, therefore his decrees never change. His decrees concerning his people never change. His decree of election never changes. Malachi chapter 3 verse 6 says, For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." God's decree is grounded upon the foundation of his immutability or unchangeableness.

Therefore the objects of his love are assured that they will not be consumed. They will not be forever cast off. James chapter 1 verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. Salvation is a gift of God.

God will not take it back. He is not a man that he should lie. This from John Owen in the 1600s. God himself is the fountain of all lights of grace which we've received. And in him there is no variableness nor shadow of turning, not the least appearance of any alteration or change." And then he says this about James 1.17, he says, the apostle is here arguing in this passage, listen to this, from the immutability of the divine nature, from the unchangeableness of God's nature to the unchangeableness of God's love towards those whom he hath begotten and bestowed light and grace upon.

In the same manner Paul says in Romans 11 verse 29 that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Repentance of course means a change of mind. The gifts and callings of God are not subject to change. God is not going to change his mind about these things. He has decreed it.

It is grounded upon his immutable nature, his decrees. He is not going to change his gifts and his calling. If God is immutable, unchanging, without any variableness or shadow of turning, as the scriptures teach, then his decrees, grounded in the immutability or unchangeableness of his nature, are also unchanging. My good friend, if we're going to make some definitions here, I like to go to Noah Webster. Love his 1828 Dictionary of the American Language.

I got the Bible here first, and then it's Noah Webster's dictionary in our house. After that, it's Pilgrim's Progress, and I could go on down the list. But my good friend Noah Webster defines perseverance in his 1828 dictionary of the American language with regards to its theological meaning. You're not going to find this in a modern Webster dictionary. They're not going to have the theological meaning.

They're not going to have, you know, three, four, five thousand passages of scripture in the dictionary to tell you what words mean. But it doesn't know, Webster's 1828, and he says, perseverance, the perseverance with regards to its theological meaning is quote, very simple, continuance in a state of grace to a state of glory. Continuance in a state of grace to a state of glory. In other words, those who enter the state of grace, that is those who experience the new birth, who by the grace of God are raised from spiritual death to spiritual life are kept by the power of God in that state of grace under the day when they're glorified. I had to explain this to my kids though.

Glorified doesn't mean to the time where everybody goes, oh wow, you're really great. No, that's not something we're talking about. When your body, when your corruptible body puts on incorruptibility, when you see Christ as he is and you're changed, okay, at the resurrection of the dead, at the return of Christ. So 1 Peter chapter 1, beginning with verse 4, tells us that the saints of God have been begotten again, or born again, to an inheritance that is incorruptible, that is undefiled, that fadeth not away. It is an inheritance that is reserved for them, the scripture declares, in heaven, and that they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, 1 Peter 1, 4-5.

The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is the doctrine that true believers, truly sanctified, truly regenerated persons in union with Christ by faith, by the grace of God, persevere to the day of their death or Christ's return and are eternally saved being preserved by God forever. 2 Timothy 4.18, The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work. Do you believe that? Paul did. The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me into his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen.

The language of scripture is that the saint's perseverance is grounded in the preserving work of God who sets his people apart Holy and preserves them under the coming of Christ first Thessalonians 5 23 through 24 says and the very God of peace sanctify you holy and I pray God your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you. God is faithful. Faithful is he that calls you who also will do it. It's the work of God ultimately.

Thank God it is. Thank God it's not left up to us, amen. Notice from this passage it's God who sanctifies, It's God who sets apart a man for himself. It's God who preserves him blameless under the coming of Christ. It's God who calls him.

It's God who brings it to pass. John chapter six, beginning with verse 37, tells us that Christ will never leave, leave, lose a single soul of a single saint given to him by the Father. All the Father giveth me shall come to me. It's going to happen. Him that comes to me, I'll know why is cast out.

I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me. This is the Father's will which has sent me. All of which he had given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day." These are comforting words. It's not within our power to for a saint to remove himself from God's hand, to remove himself from the love of God, to make himself, once he is born again, become unborn, to be a child of God and then become not a child of God. It's not within his power.

Jeremiah chapter 32 verse 40 speaks of God's oath, An oath which he will never turn away from. Jeremiah 30, 40 says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. But I will put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart from me. God with an oath assures his people with whom he is in covenant that he will not turn away from those he has graciously and eternally saved. And because his work upon their hearts, his work upon our hearts, because he has done this work upon our hearts.

They will, we who are saints, will never depart from him. He's never gonna leave us and he's not gonna let us leave him. That's for all those who say, well you know, I believe that God kind of hangs on to us, but you know we can pull ourselves out of, no, somebody says here, I'll put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart from me. That's the word of the Living God and that's good news. That's very good news friends.

God's decrees are immutable because God is immutable, that is unchanging in his nature and attributes. We can have confidence as the apostle Paul had confidence in the promise of God that when he begins, he performs, or he continues, he completes, he continues to the end, Philippians 1.6, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. It's another one of those passages of course that provides full assurance to true believers that they will never fully nor finally fall away from grace resting on the promise that what God begins in a person, he continues to perform until the coming of Christ. We're going to look a little bit closer at that in a few minutes when I start to apply this to how we get this doctrine wrong. But just for a moment now, what the doctrine of perseverance is not.

So that I basically in a nutshell giving you what the perseverance of the Saints is, the preservation of the Saints is. Now what the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is not. It is not the doctrine of the perseverance of merely professors of Christ, but the doctrine of the perseverance of saints. Professors of Christ may fall away, and if that's all they are as professors, they will fall away from their profession of Christ, but none has ever fallen away from possession of Christ. Professors of Christ can and will fall away from their profession, but none has ever fallen away from union with Christ by the grace of God through faith.

Professors may fall away, but saints never fall away. The word saint in scripture is used, of course, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. The Hebrew word we find in the Old Testament, which is translated saints, is Hasid, and it means holy ones. Let's look at how this word is used in Psalm chapter 37, verse 28. Psalm 37, 28, Hasid.

For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his Hasid, his saints. They are preserved forever. They're preserved forever. The word translated saints as it's found in the New Testament is hagios, and it means holy, It could be holy things that are set apart, a holy persons, a holy ones when it's in reference to persons. It's used in reference to both the redeemed holy ones on earth as well as those who return with Christ at his coming.

These are not mere professors. Again the second London Baptist confession of faith reads in chapter 23 paragraph 2. This perseverance of the Saints depends not upon their own free will but upon the immutability or unchangeable foundation of the decree of election. And we'll look at this just briefly. Romans chapter 8 verses 29 through 30, we've all heard this, it's called or referred to as the golden chain in theology.

For whom he did foreknow he did also predestinate. A lot of controversy about that scripture in the past, but I believe the correct interpretation is whom God foreknew, that is whom He foreknew in an intimate sense the person, not the actions, speaking of persons here, whom he foreknew, whom he fore loved and set apart as objects of his mercy and objects of his grace he did also predestinate. That is that he ordained a forehand by an unchangeable purpose to be conformed to the image of his son. Moreover, verse 30 says, whom he did predestinate, then he also called. That calling is the internal call of the Holy spirit, what theologians term the effectual calling.

And effectual calling being differentiated from the outward call of the gospel because it doesn't always bring about justification. But the text says that those who are called are also justified. So we know it's a different a different kind of calling. It is the inward calling. A calling that produces the intended effect.

That's what effectual means. It produces the effect that is intended. Confirmed by what's followed. All that are called in this sense come to be justified or declared just in the sight of God. Something that does not happen to everyone who hears the outward call of the gospel, I know that because I'll tell you what, do a lot of street preaching out in Texas and different places and a lot of people hear the gospel and You get a lot of signs and they're not always good.

You get a lot of reaction out there and it's not always people falling on their faces and crying out to God, be merciful to me, a sinner. But, so, whom he called, he also justified, whom he justified, then he also glorified. It's been referred to, as I said, as the golden chain. Imagine, if you will, that this chain, the first link on the chain, being the predestinating love of God, or by he foreknew or foreloved us and chose us in Christ before time began and the last link on the chain being the glorification of his people. When we are translated, when we are given new bodies, this corruptible puts on incorruptibility.

In between these two links lie the inseparable links of the holy calling and justification, a declaration of being just in the sight of God. It's a passage that is proof positive that what God begins, he completes. What he begins in his people, he completes. Our basis for confidence and perseverance, this is R.C. Sproul, our basis for confidence and perseverance is really not so much in our ability to persevere as it is in God's power and grace to preserve us.

If we were left to ourselves and our human weakness, not only could we fall away, we most certainly would fall away. However, the reason we do not fall away, the reason we do endure to the end is because of the grace of our Heavenly Father, who by grace called us in the first place. He sustains us by preserving us even unto our glorification. So now comes a time where I want to, I wish I had two hours to spend applying this doctrine to our families and to our churches and specifically to young people and this departure for the faith that we've probably all witnessed at some point in time, tragedies in our families, tragedies in our in our churches. I don't have two hours.

Um, I said I said this earlier. What we need to understand is that is that when we get this doctrine wrong in our families in our churches, we get everything wrong. We get it all wrong. One of the ways in which families and churches get this doctrine wrong is where children are brought up to conform to a set of principles that produce an outward appearance of inward change when no inward change has been affected. Nothing's happened on the inside, but they've conformed very well to an outward set of principles.

A code of conduct, a moral system, maybe even a good code of conduct, a good moral moral system, maybe a biblical one, is enforced and as long as the child looks this way and acts this way, as long as the outside of the cup is clean, no real attention is paid to what's going on inside the cup. I knew a family that was, in many ways, I say knew because this family was obliterated. I knew a family that was in many ways considered a poster family for Christian homeschooling. Clean cut boys and girls, modestly dressed, I mean clean-cut boys, modestly dressed girls, and yes sir, you know, yes ma'am, every hair in place. There was a large family, almost as large as our family, just a couple children less, I think they had 14.

They, like our family, well not like me but like my wife, tries to enforce with the family a pretty strict diet, Always in church every Sunday, paraded on the stage before thousands of other homeschoolers as the model Christian family at events they attended. But one by one as our children reached 16 or 17 years of age, they began to reject everything that they had been taught. And I watched these, these, these both daughters and sons, I think two of them did not go this route, as far as I can tell at this point. I watched them one by one run from this family and run from their their church with arms wide open embracing the world. I mean running into the world with greediness for the things of the world and conformity to the world.

Outward appearances of righteousness without any connection to internal realities will change as soon as those outward appearances are no longer able to be compelled by external forces or external force. Okay I can get these types of this kind of compliance you know through biblical discipline and of course we should use this biblical discipline, but I can get this out of compliance, but because the heart, the parents were not continually looking at the heart, and mainly at the feet of the father. He wasn't looking at the heart. He was satisfied that the external condition of the family met all the requirements of this particular homeschool organization. Looked really good.

The heart of the children, at least the majority of the children, were not affected. They were not affected. Never before had I witnessed such a disturbing change than in outward appearance, as I did in the young people of this family when they reached 13 years. The decline was rapid. You know, it was so rapid that it alarmed even the community, the unbelieving community where they lived.

People were just stunned. Had someone call me, or call my wife, I think, and said, did so-and-so, did this father, did so-and-so, did he die? I said, my wife said, No, what do you mean? Well, I just saw his daughters out on the streets of such and such a city. They were dressed like prostitutes.

We have a saying in Texas, whatever's in the bottom of the barrel eventually comes to the top. And you know whatever is in the heart is eventually going to be manifested in the in the in the in the actions and the deeds of the body. Acts of outward obedience with no connection to Christ will not save the souls of our children. Christ is of none effect, and the way the Apostle Paul put it, for those who seek a righteousness as it were by the works of the law or who are contented with outward conformity, outward appearance to righteousness. If what we produce in our children is no more than conformity to a particular moral code, then we are producing in them precisely what Jesus condemned in the Pharisees.

You Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup. You're very contented to have the outside of the cup and platter clean, but your inward part is filled with ravening and wickedness. We've got to look to the hearts of our children, even when they're very young. The souls of such children, though they be raised in picture-perfect homeschool households, will perish eternally, and their blood will be upon the hands of their instructors. Our young people must be taught from their earliest years that what God begins, he completes.

That is God who begins a work in the hearts of men. It is God that begins the work in the hearts of men. And that if it is not a work of God in the heart, that is if the internal affections of the heart have not been radically altered by a work of God upon the heart. There's nothing there to complete. You're persevering in something but it is not the faith of God's elect.

If God has begun to work in the heart, the soul remains. If God has not done a work in the heart, the soul remains dead in trespasses and sins, an object of God's wrath, and it will not matter in the end how spotless that cup and platter appear. It's not gonna matter. Not gonna matter. We dads, fathers, and pastors, we've got to be going for the heart of the children.

We've got to be going for their hearts. We've got to get inside their world, we've got to spend the time with them that's necessary to know what's going on. This billboard I passed many years ago, children spell love T-I-M-E And it's true, got to spend the time with our children. I don't care if it hurts you financially. I mean, I really don't care if it means that you spent the time with your children that is necessary to get inside their lives, Get to the heart, get to the root of what's going on in their lives.

Diagnose, make a proper diagnosis and then spend the time with them in the scriptures and in prayer, family worship time, personal, you know, one-on-one time that it takes to know what's going on. I walk with my children. I know everybody probably can't, maybe your neighborhood's where you live or whatever you can't do, but we walk. We walk every morning. I think I've been on 3, 000 walks in the last maybe four or five years with my children, my little ones that I walk with.

And then I try to every morning communicate things to them. We go on that walk, communicate biblical principle and then try to find out where they're at as we look at the great things that God's created. Oh look at all the wonderful things out here, look at the leaves are starting to change, isn't that wonderful what God does in the season? And try to bring it all back to God and bring it all back to Christ. We've got to spend the time that is necessary with our children.

We've got to spend that time with them. A man that goes to our church, he was a nuclear physicist working for a major corporation in California and got home one evening as he always did late, left early, got home late and his five-year-old boy was sitting there and with his mother and the boy looked up to his mother he said he said to his mom he said, mom I really like that guy over there. She said, who? He said that that guy right there. He said, son that's your father.

And when Eric heard that story he was just blown away. What? To my five-year-old son, I'm just that guy that comes home and sleeps in the master bedroom every night. That was it. No time with the kids.

He quit that that six-figure position. Started a lawnmowing business in little old Burnett, Texas. We see him on the streetcars, don't we, all the time? His boys are out there, they're mowing with him, he spends time with his kids. They're on track.

He gave it up, he gave up the American dream for a vision of the biblical family life. Okay, That's not even in the text, so I just need another hour. Can I have one more hour? No? OK.

All right. So I'll go a little bit longer. So whenever I talk about this, inevitably there's going to be some young person out there that says, yeah, I thank God I'm not one of those legalists and one of those hypocritical families that are, you know, only concerned about outward appearances and they completely miss what I'm saying. They go off the other end. They're all grunged out and intentionally looking like the world around them.

They've got this idea in their mind that they're some kind of, you know, hip Christians. They fit right in with the world. They listen to the world's music, they watch the world's movies, they dress in the world's sensual garb, and they think they're on the cutting edge of contemporary Christianity. And you know, maybe it's all based on, you know, I prayed the sinner's prayer, I walked an aisle, I made a commitment to Christ, I got baptized, I don't know. But just like the legalistic young man or woman I just spoke about, There's never been a change of heart.

Their outward appearance has never changed because their internal affections of their heart have never been changed. So see, it cuts both ways. You boast you're not a legalist. You just love the world and the things of the world. Jesus says the reason for that is because the love of the Father is not in you.

So it cuts both ways. God has not begun to work in this young person's heart, so there's nothing there to complete. I don't know the effect of when I speak on these things. I'm not trying to hurt anyone, but I would rather you hurt for a moment, young man or young lady, than to see you hang your hopes on some false notion of what it means to be a Christian persevering in the faith. You're not persevering in the faith of God's elect when you're conforming to the world around you, if not.

If you're a saint, if you're a holy one, the world will hate you. Yeah, that's what the Bible says. Just like the world hates Jesus, the servant's not greater than his master. That just comes with the territory. Calvin speaks of those who have nothing of Christ but the name and sign, yet they still want to be called Christians.

How dare you boast of the sacred name, he says, none have intercourse with Christ but those who have acquired the true knowledge of him from the gospel. The apostle denies that any man truly has learned Christ who has not learned to put off the old man with his corrupt, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and put on Christ. These, he says, are convicted therefore of false and unjustly pretending a knowledge of Christ. It doesn't matter, He says, the volubility, the eloquence with which they can talk of the gospel doctrine is not an affair of the tongue but of the life. John Calvin.

Crisis is truly received. Eternal life is truly existent when it possesses the whole soul and finds its seat and habitation in the inmost recesses of the heart. Young man, can you honestly say that that's an accurate description of where you are with God? That it's found eternal life is its seed and habitation the inmost recesses of your heart. The doctrine in which our religion is contained must be transfused into the breast, says Calvin, and pass into the conduct and so transform us into itself.

That's what the power of the gospel does. That's not to prove unfruitful. It ought to penetrate the inmost affections of the heart. That's what I'm going after here is if the affections of the heart, the internal reality of what's going on in the heart of that young man or that young woman, If that's not real, if that's not genuine, if it's not really a work of God, there's nothing there. It's emptiness.

It must fix its seed in the soul and pervade the whole man, Calvin says. False notions of the preserving power of the grace of God have also witnessed. This is where a young man or young woman, could be an older man or older woman for that matter, is trusting that they're in a state of grace and being preserved under glory though they are involved in secret sin. This is not the situation I'm describing here with secret sin is not that situation where this young man or this young woman is resisting unto bloodshed and striving against sin, only to be overcome in some rare circumstance or occasion. What I'm describing is concealment, is a concealment of some hidden iniquity with the intention to go on in that secret sin without relinquishing it.

An intention to go on regarding iniquity in the heart, which God says in his word, if you regard iniquity in your heart, he's not going to hear your prayers. Why even pray? In other words, don't pretend to be a Christian if you're living in secret sin. You're living in secret sin. There must be an open forthright from the affections of the heart, denial of it all.

I will not do this thing. I am never going back to this. I'm not going to live in this sin. I'm not going to live a lie. But the person who's deceived is the one who goes on a secret sin, reserving a hidden place, you know I'm gonna just I guess there's one little thing here I'm not gonna mess with, a reserving a hidden place for a particular lust or passion all the while convincing themselves that in the end the preserving grace of God will carry them through to glory.

Don't be so sure. That's not what the preservation of the Saints means. That's not what the scripture is talking about. Don't fool yourself. You're feeding a monster that will one day rise up and crush the life from your breast, young man, young woman.

One of the Puritans used to say, you allow one little thief to get in the house, he'll let the rest in. Which brings me to the fourth way in which families and churches get this doctrine wrong. Please hear me. Young man, young lady, please hear me. The fact that God preserves his saints to the end does not mean that you do not need to persevere.

Perseverance is necessary because our enemy perseveres against us. There is no truce in the devil's heart, no cessation of arms in our enemies camp, " says William Gurnall 400 years ago, and nothing's changed has it? In those 400 years. Satan asked to have Peter to sift him his wheat. Remember that?

Jesus then assures Peter, I prayed for you that your faith fail not. Oh, okay. Then I can leave off the means of grace, like watching and praying? No? Just a few verses later, verse 40, he says, pray that you enter not into temptation.

Those who get it wrong, who get this wrong reason, if God's gonna preserve me, then Why do I need to preserve, persevere in watching and praying that I enter not into temptation? God's gonna preserve me, right? If God's doing the preserving, why do I need to be serious about mortifying sin? He's gonna preserve me anyways. If God is preserving me, why do I need to pour out my heart in earnest prayer?

Why do I need to draw near unto God? Why do I need to consume the word of God when I can just flip open the Bible once in a while and you know, read a passage here and there like most Christians do? Why do I need to engage in secret prayer? That's a whole other topic there. Why do I need to be concerned about secret sin?

Why do I need to get up in the morning and put on my spiritual armor? The armor of my warfare, engaging the battle every morning when I rise with spiritual enemies and principalities in high places. When the scripture teaches that God will never permit me to be fully or finally overcome anyways, That's dangerous thinking. That's dangerous thinking for a Christian. Why abstain from worldly lust which war against my soul?

I'm gonna be preserved. Why flee fornication? Why resist the devil? Why cry out to God and the watches of the night? Like I was crying out last night for your children.

Why pursue Christ like a heart panting after the springs of water that only Jesus can give when I can just relax and take my ease? It'll all turn out the same in any ways. He's going to preserve me. Young man, listen to me. I have seen stronger, more vigilant souls than you taken down.

Pursued by the adversary, flattered and then deceived, deceived and then desensitized, desensitized and then taken by the eyelids of a strange woman reduced to a loaf of bread and before long seen running like an ox to the slaughter until a dart strikes through his liver. Serious business, the perseverance of the saints, of the holy ones of God. I beg of you, awaken from your slumber if you're slumbering, young man. Be diligent. And young ladies, you're not exempt.

I know of a young woman who grew up in a home school family, a large family. I visited her church. I saw her elders diligently teaching her the catechism down in the basement of the church. I heard her father pray for her. Day after day I saw her sit around the table with her family talking about the things of God.

And then I watched her shake her fist in the face of God and say, I'll not have this man Jesus to reign over me. It's happening. She fell away from her profession. No one falls away from possession of Christ or union with Christ only professions. I was stunned by the rapid descent.

Maybe she got in with the wrong crowd. I don't know. Maybe like Eve, she started having private conversations with a snake. There's plenty of those on the internet and in chat rooms. Oh daughter.

Maybe she was influenced by some friend at church, I don't know, maybe an older sibling who had, was wayward and was infecting the younger siblings. Her family is grieved for her. Her family is grieved for her. God only knows if her present rebellion will end in full and final apostasy. God changed her heart.

Only the Lord can change her heart. You know, this girl believes in God, don't get me wrong. Romans 1 tells us that she does. Everyone knows the one true and living God. They just suppress the knowledge they have of them in their own righteousness.

Her great sin is that she's unwilling to give God the glory, the God she knows, the glory she knows he deserves, she's ungrateful. Because of that, because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful. She's not thankful for being to God for being. I said this right to her face like you're not thankful to God. No I just am not convinced.

No you're convinced. You're just that you're just an ungrateful wretch. Those are words I used. I'd rather say to your face, you're an ungrateful wretch, and you, someday, those words have an impact that maybe you repent than to go on and nobody have ever been stern enough with you about the condition of your heart. You're not grateful for being born in a country where the gospel is preached.

You're not grateful for being placed in a home with Christian parents that prayed for you. You're not grateful that you heard the gospel your entire life. You don't thank God for anything. You don't thank God for your home. People say, well, I'm grateful.

Grateful to who? Grateful to who? If you're not grateful to God, you're ungrateful and you're unthankful. If you're not grateful for her home, her family, her next breath, her next heartbeat. She doesn't need more proof about God.

She needs to repent and believe the gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners like her and like me. I guess I chased that rabbit long enough. So the fifth way in which families and churches get the doctrine, I see that five minute warning coming up, and churches get the doctrine of perseverance wrong is a failure to take seriously the numerous biblical warnings concerning the reality of apostasy. Again R.C. Sproul says that although we have all the assurances of the Word of God concerning the preservation of the Saints to glory, we must still quote take seriously the warnings of apostasy that frequently occur in the New Testament.

Paul himself talks about how he has to pummel his body to subdue it, lest he in the final analysis becomes a castaway, 1 Corinthians 9.27. Keep my body under, I bring it to subjection, lest by any means when I preach to others I myself should be a castaway. The reality is that the history of Christianity is strewn with the corpses of false professors who in the end departed from the faith. Paul speaks of Demas. He was a previous co-worker, remember, alongside the Apostle Paul, who it says, quote, love this present world.

Started out with a vital profession of faith, ended in destruction and the abyss of apostasy. People within the visible church, as the road goes on, as was the case in Old Testament Israel, certainly do fall away from the profession of faith that they've made and into destruction. Same is true in the New Testament community. People can join themselves to the visible church, profess faith in Christ, but under duress fall away. In some cases, fully and finally.

We must conclude from the teaching of Scripture, however, that such cases of apostasy are wrought by people who made a profession of faith, yet whose profession was not authentic. It wasn't real. And we're going back to the realities that are within the heart, the affection, the true affections of the heart, aren't we? But friends, I like the Apostle Paul and confident of better things concerning you and I hope for all of our children, things that accompany salvation, things like, well, the graces that we are afforded, perseverance in prayer, perseverance in study of the Word of God, perseverance in memorization of scripture, mortification of sin, hiding the word of God in our hearts that we might not sin against him, perseverance in the love of the brethren, and forgiving others who are trespasses, perseverance in faith, faith in Christ Jesus. We must always, of course, be ever looking to Him who is the author and finisher of our faith.

It's God who begins the work in you and God who completes it. Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who must always be looking to Him. Apart from Him we can do nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing. Then when temptations arise, even floods of temptation, as they will, we find ourselves maybe even down for the count, we can look up in faith to him who is able to keep us from falling. Ever drawing strength from Christ to persevere.

He's the one we have to be looking to to persevere. Remembering that that that by which the gracious soul perseveres is the continual supply it receives from Christ. This is Augustus Topplety. I live, says Paul, yet not I, but Christ in me. The unbeliever lacks this vital union.

Without this vital union, he's sure to both waste and consume. Remember Cain? He sins, he falls farther and farther like a stone tumbling down the hill until it reaches the bottom of despair. That's the history of the world, right? Second Timothy 3.13 tells us evil men shall wax worse and worse.

Not so with the Saints. We can be encouraged by this. That's not the situation with the Saints. With the holy ones of God, those who are being preserved under the heavenly kingdom, who persevere to the end. When a saint falls, he rises again.

Proverbs 24 verse 16 says, a just man fallest seven times, a just man fallest seven times and rises up again. You may fall into some really bad stuff. Doesn't mean you're out of apostate. Come on back. The just man falls seven times and he rises again.

God is going to bring you back out of it if you're really one of his children. He's going to bring you out of it. He's going to bring you out of it. Peter denied Christ, remember? He denies Christ.

He doesn't go on being a Christ denier after he's repented, does he? No, he goes on, the Bible says, to strengthen the brethren. He uses those experiences now to help others who are in the same condition that he was in. The true, the just man falls seven times, rises up again because when he falls he has a principle of life within him that cries out to Christ. And this interest in Christ stirs him up to seek help from the only one that can give it.

Lord save me. Remember Peter again when he was when he was seeking and immediately Christ puts forth his hand. Amen. Immediately Christ puts forth his hand. Call on the name of the Lord in every situation even impossible bus accidents.

That's what David did when he cried, thou holdest me by my right hand, Psalm 73, 23. Praise God for the comfort of his word. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. That means everything, the world, everything. That which is born of God overcomes all of it.

So, says Spurgeon, where your shield, Christian? He's talking about Christian in the book, what's the book? Pilgrim's Progress, that's third on the list, remember, and I can't even remember it. Okay, yeah, third on the list. You gotta have it in your household, The Bible, the American dictionary, and yeah, okay.

Wear your shield, Christian, says Spurgeon, and wear it close upon your armor. Cry mightily unto God that by his spirit you may endure to the end. How blessed are the eyes that see, how happy the hearts that that feel the propriety and energy of these inestimable truths. Augustus top lady. How ought such to demonstrate their gratitude by a practical glorification of God in their bodies and in their spirits which are his, which belong to God.

Remember always, brothers and sisters, who it is when you are a true saint of God, who it is who made you to differ, who it is that made you to differ from others, and that a man can receive nothing except to be given him from above." John 3 27. Not unto us therefore, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name alone be the praise of every gift and of every grace ascribed. For thy loving mercy and for thy truth's sake. Friends, let us never forget that we are members of Christ's body. We're members, If you're a saint of God, if you're one of his children, you are members of Christ's body, of his flesh and of his bones.

Ephesians 5.30. Remember that your citizenship is in heaven. It's already there. Philippians 3.20. Remember that you've been delivered from the power of darkness, Colossians 1.13.

Remember that you have redemption through the blood of Christ, Colossians 1.14. Remember that the handwriting of ordinances that were charged to your account have been blotted out. Colossians 2 14. And remember that if God is for you, who can be against you? We are not of those who draw back into perdition, brothers and sisters, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul, Hebrews 10, 38.

We are sealed unto the day of redemption, Ephesians 4, 30. We are of those who are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Christ and called, Jude 1. Finally, what shall we say to these things, Romans 8? If God is for us, who could be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, no, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. And they in all these things were more than conquerors through him that loved us. For 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, or any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. As I close friends I just want to to say don't don't despair please if you have a child that has left the faith continue to pray. Don't Don't become weary in well-doing.

Continue to pray. Continue to pray. I've seen children come back. I've seen them come back. Sometimes it takes many, many years.

Keep pouring out your heart before the Lord. Keep giving, giving your children the gospel. Keep showing your love toward your wayward children, though the more you love them, the less they may love you. Love them anyways. Love them anyways.

Love them still. Tell them that you love them. Confess your faults to them. Humble yourself and keep crying out to God in the night watches for their precious souls because God is listening. God's listening.

Thank you very much. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of Conforming the Church and the Family to the Word of God. And for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org. I C dot O R G.