Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 825 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Thomas: Now, let me pose this question, then I'll try to answer it. If you can lose your salvation, I'm talking about the salvation that you get from Christ--eternal salvation. He's made unto us all those things. He's the Author and the Finisher of our faith according to Romans chapter 12. But, if you can, on what grounds--upon what grounds do you lose it? Think with me just a moment. If you can lose it, what is it you have to do to lose it? Or what is it that you fail to do, to lose it? Can you name any one thing?

Well, you say, I quit going to church. Well, you ought to quit if you don't have any desire to go. If you don't love the Lord, you don't need fellowship. But my Bible says, "...If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." And, of course all kind of doctrines are being taught. Some say, well Christians don't sin. Is that right? Is he breathing?

( laughter ).

The only ones I know that don't sin are dead.

( laughter ).

They're not breathing. One time...a brother loved me very much 'til he found out I crossed him on his doctrine. He said, Christians don't sin. I said, they don't? Oh, he said, they make mistakes.

( laughter ).

Brother, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Now, I'm not advocating that you live like the Devil. I'm not advocating that you run with the Devil's crowd. I'm advocating that you separate yourself from all that and that you come to Christ...and I'm not talking about Christ in the sky--Christ in His people.

( congregational amens ).

Hallelujah! You know...and here's another good scripture, Philippians 1:6. Here's the problem. That says, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." And here's the problem. The Lord isn't the One that's always done the work. They may have some religious folks, maybe some even saved, I'll grant 'em that. And they get on to somebody and they beg him and they wheedle him...and they just...all the time.

It's like a young man I knew. He was the son of a first cousin of mine. He said to me one day, several months ago...he said, oh, if he'd only accept the Lord. Now somebody's gonna disagree with me on this, but I want you to think. Don't jump to conclusions. "Just accept the Lord." I went to a church one time. It wasn't a church that I belonged to, but it was one in the area. I never will forget they had a preacher there that night. This guy had been in prison and he wore--he'd go around on the streets wearing these convict, coon-tailed britches, with the stripes running around. He'd advertised the meeting. So I went one night. Somebody whispered to him and said Baptist preacher's here.

( laughter ).

Boy, he lowered the boom on me. He said, so you believe in just accepting the Lord, do you? What I'd like to know, has He accepted you?

( laughter ).

'Course, I knew what he was doing. But you know, there's some truth to that. Much of this stuff--accepting the Lord is nothing! That's almost like a young man and a young lady getting married. Now, listen to me. And the next day he says, honey let's have a baby today. It just don't work that way. There's a process of hearing the Incorruptible Seed, the Word of God. There's a process we call conviction. There's a process in which God deals with that person.

And I'll tell you right now. It comes right down to the place...do you want Him? Do you want the world? Do you want God and eternal life, or do you want to die lost? God's got to deal with you--got to work with you. And then if you're hearing the Incorruptible Seed, faith comes.

You can't even be saved if you wanted to, unless somebody has the Word. You want me to give you a good example? Cornelius--1st Corinthians chapter 10...He was a devout man, prayed to God always, gave much alms to the people, but he wasn't saved. He'd never come to faith. And he wanted God, but he didn't know how to get Him. So, God sent an angel to him. And the angel told him, your alms have come up before God, and your prayers. He said, now send to Joppa. There's a fellow over there by the name of Simon Peter. He'll come and tell you words whereby you and your household can be saved. There's somebody has to minister life and faith to you before you can be saved.

( congregational praise ).

You can't be saved without that. Hallelujah! There's two religious ways. I want us to...these scriptures that most everybody is familiar with. But nevertheless it won't hurt to look at 'em again, 'cause they fit in right here. There's two religious ways and most people are on that broad way. Matthew chapter 7, verse 13 and 14. "Enter ye in at the strait gate...." Now that word strait is s-t-r-a-i-t. It's like a narrow passage like the Straits of Gibraltar or the Bering Straits. That's a narrow passage ships go through.

But what he's saying here is out of all the religious ways, there's one that's right. It's that strait gate...s-t-r-a-i-t. It's a narrow passage. "...And broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." Now, let's note. Most people are going in that broad way--that wide gate "Because strait is the gate..." verse 14, "...and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

You want to know why? They're not looking for it. They listen to somebody else and they say this is the church you oughta join here. Maybe it's your family religion. Maybe you've got a good friend that goes there. He's a friend of the deacon or the preacher himself. But it's not a person.

This is what needs to happen for a person to be saved. This is found in John 7, verse 17, "If any man will do his will..." God has to work with the human will. You're not gonna get saved 'til you reach the place that you will to do His will. If you will to live your own life here, that's what you'll do. God has to cut you off. Your will has to be worked with. You have to reach the place where you will to do His will, though you don't know it.

"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." Jesus Christ said that. Do you will to do His will? Seek Him on that grounds and immediately God begins...He sees your heart. To think God doesn't see your...you're not gonna slip in. You're not gonna get in any other way. If you try to get in any other way, Jesus said in John chapter 10, you try to get in any other way than the way that God has provided through His Son, the same is a what?

-- Congregation: Thief and a robber.

-- Brother Thomas: Thief and a robber. You ain't gonna rob God and get by with it. You're gonna come through there. Hallelujah! Or not come at all. "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Now the reason is that most people will adopt their religion that their family's a part of, or somebody that they know about, it's easier. But it's not salvation.

You know I read this one time and I wondered about those two ways there--strait gate and the wide one, narrow way, and so forth. And I read then down in the 15th verse, that says, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." There's where they come from. There's where your narrow way...your two ways come from. The broad way and the wide gate, that's the false prophet's way. But the man that's sent from God, he says, you must be born again.

( congregational amens ).

And "...Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Hallelujah! Then in the book of Luke...let's go over there just a moment. That is Luke 13. Now once again this is recorded by the great physician or at least the physician Luke. "Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."

Is that true? Praise God! Very few. In other words, God knows it. You've got to look to Him, cry out to Him. In Jeremiah he says, "...Ye shalt seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Then again He says, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." We don't know anything.

( congregational amens ).

In the natural, we don't know a thing. 1st Corinthians 2:14 says, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them..." Here's why. "...Because they are spiritually discerned." Hallelujah! That's the reason.

So what ground do you have to believe...on what ground, that you lose your salvation? What I want to know is, how you lose something that's eternal. John chapter 10, Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them...." He knows 'em before you come to Him. He knows you even before you were ever born. He saw you from eternity. "...I know them and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish..."--That's those that follow Him, those that hear His voice--"...Neither shall any man..."--that includes yourself--"...Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Then He adds this. "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." If your salvation isn't secure, my brother, you would never make it.

( congregational amens ).

I'm glad. Praise God! And we serve God because we love Him. Because we love Him, we love His people.

( congregational amens ).

Praise God! So we're perfected forever by one offering. And when people are taught that you believe on Jesus and you get saved, but then you've got to do this, you've got to do that to keep it. Does that minister faith? That injects unbelief in there right to begin with. If you're saved on that ground, don't worry, you'll lose it. I don't believe I can lose it. I don't intend to lose it, 'cause it's not in my hands.

( congregational amens ).

It's in His hands. Hallelujah! There's no faith in that, no rest in that. If you can't rest your hope in Jesus Christ, you're in bad shape. In Hebrews chapter 4, that's what He's dealing with here. Let's go up to the third chapter first. I'll make a comment or two there. What He's been talking here about is those who came out of Egypt under Moses' leadership and God swore in His wrath they'd never enter into His rest.

In the third chapter He said, "...They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways." That's like a bunch of these church members. They just go to church on Sunday, that's all. They don't know God's ways. They're not trying to learn God's ways. If you were to go to school and learn as much about your subjects as you do in some churches, you'd never get out of the first grade. You'd never learn your ABC's. That's right.

But He said here, "They do alway err in their heart; and they have not know my ways." So God swore in His wrath. God didn't like it. "...They shall not enter into my rest." It's God's rest. He has to give it to you. In the fourth chapter the writer says, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them...."

Now why didn't it profit 'em--the Gospel? "...Not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Verse 3 says, "For we which have believed do enter into rest..." We enter into rest. Third chapter, verse 18 says, "And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest..." Who are those now that God swore wouldn't enter into rest? "...But to them that believed not?" B-e-l-i-e-v-e-d--believed not. "So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."

The way people are taught has a lot to do with their profession. And unbelief and the concept of being able to lose it, if you don't measure up, they're taught that to begin with. No wonder they can have all these experiences. And they get all these experiences, you'd think boy they're fixed up for real, and then lose it in 30 days. I don't preach that kind of Gospel.

( congregational amens ).

I believe the God that I know--the God that knows me better than I know him...I believe when 'that' God saves you, He saves you for eternity.

( congregational amens ).

I believe He had plans for you before He ever saved you.

( congregational amens ).

It wasn't just Jeremiah that God said, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Let's go to Psalm 139. These scriptures you need to hide away in your heart.

The psalmist here, he had a revelation of God that few of us have. Verse 7 says, "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me."

God sees you in the dark as well as in the sunshine. Every hidden secret, every thing that you've ever done, God knows it. That's why He can be just when He judges and also a justifier of them that believe. "If I take the wings of the morning." No let's go down. "If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

Now watch what the Psalmist says here. "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb." Do you think that was just David? That's you, too. "...Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well."

Now watch verse 15. "My substance..."--That's what you were made out of--"...Was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect..."--Now, watch this--"...And in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." Does that sound like God can lose you? Or you can lose it? Whoever that is, sure ain't gonna lose it. Our God is a faithful God.

( congregational amens ).

Return to Transcripts Page

---

---