The Scariest Question You Can Ask

Is it possible to lose your salvation? This is probably going to be one of the hottest topics we have done, period. The thoughts went through my mind: don't talk about this, you're gonna, you're gonna lose people, you're going to have people that are upset with you.

This topic came up when I was in a Bible study, and there are people who still don't talk to each other to this day.

The early church fathers taught this. I mean, we're talking Clement or Origen, Alexander. The apostles taught it. We just read the scripture on it where we lost it is when a guy named came along and introduced— Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first I want to thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. I may be the one you hear, but as the Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians, the unseen parts of the body are just as important, if not more important, than the ones we see. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages. So thank you. If this podcast has strengthened you and you're not a patron yet, we'd love for you to join the team. Your monthly contribution will help us reach more people with timeless truth. Plus, you get some great insider perks, including private Q&As with me, as well as other exclusive content. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patreon. /patron. Now let's get back to the show. Hey everyone, welcome to the Jon Bevere Podcast. I am joined by my handsome son Arden. Arden, it's great to have you.

It's good to be on.

Arden, I need you on this program because this is probably gonna be one of the hottest topics we have done, period.

Well, and controversial too.

Yes.

This is very controversial. I remember we talked about this topic when I was in, just graduated from high school., and I came back and this topic came up when I was in a Bible study, and there are people who still don't talk to each other to this day from that Bible study. This was, granted, 10+ years ago because this topic came in and people disagreed on it. And so we need to preface that. Yes, there is disagreement on this. Yes, this is not something that should cause division and people to split or people to not be able to hear from people. Because it's an important thing to talk about.

Very well said. So I wanna make this abundantly clear. This is something today that I want you to listen to what the scripture says. I want you to listen carefully actually. And I don't want you to just say, uh-uh, as soon as you hear what I'm about to ask, because I'm going to tell you this right now, it is more beneficial for you to listen carefully, examine, pray about what I say than for you to adhere to something you have believed all along that maybe you've believed incorrectly. Now, I want to preface this statement with this is not me coming from a denominational background, a certain belief. This is me getting saved as a Catholic boy and reading my Bible and discovering this on my own as I read the Bible, then later on looking at what other teachers said about it not even realizing it was controversial. Okay, so here's the question. All right. Is it possible to lose your salvation? It's probably one of the scariest questions we can ask, but it needs to be asked. And so we go back to 2 Peter, verse 19 is what the last podcast was about. They promised freedom. These false teachers promised freedom. But they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you, you are a slave to whatever controls you. Next verse: And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ— stop right there. They've escaped from the wickedness of the world by knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Are they saved or are they not saved? Yeah.

Okay, definition would say yes.

Do they think they're saved or are they actually saved? Which one?

They're actually saved. They've escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Okay, so we know these people are saved and then get tangled up and enslaved listen to the word, buy sin again and overcome by it. Now, so we're not talking about backsliders. We're talking about people that give themselves back to slavery and are overcome by it. In other words, they stay in that place. They are worse off than before. Now wait a minute, what's before? What would before be in this?

Before the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before they came to the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and escaped the corruptions that are in the world. They're worse off than before. That's a heavy statement right there. Yeah. Now it gets more, it doesn't get worse, it gets more intense. It would be better. Why would it be better? Just listen to this. It would be better if they had never known the way of righteousness. Yeah. Okay, it would be better that they never got saved. Than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. Okay, wait a minute, it would be better that, better, why would it be better? Because Peter makes the statement that the blackest darkness is reserved, right? Jesus said to the servant who knew his master's will and didn't do it, he will be beaten with many stripes The servant who didn't know his master's will will be beaten with few stripes. So there are degrees of eternal punishment. We established that two podcasts ago. Yeah, we got a statement right here that we— you just can't ignore this.

Well, I know, and I feel like it's so funny because I'm feeling like, man, this is probably triggering people, but all we're doing is reading the scripture.

I can—

Peter, Chapter 2, verses 20 and 21.

I've been really careful not to go outside of it, and I'm gonna support it with so many scriptures. You and I are gonna talk about these scriptures, all right? So let's talk about what Jude, Jude in this very same context says, woe to them. They've gone the way of Cain. They have run greedily in the era of Balaam for profit and perished in the rebellion of Korah. All right, let's talk about Cain. He had a relationship with God. He brought an offering to God. All right, but he murdered— he ended up becoming a murderer. Yeah, let's talk about Balaam. Balaam's prophecies are still in the Bible. Yeah, God came to Balaam. It doesn't say— it doesn't say a deceiving spirit came to Balaam.

In a time period where you have 2 million people and God's only speaking to one of them. Yeah, like, that's crazy. God is speaking to Balaam in that time period.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Who's the other one? Korah. Korah was a priest. He's a Levitical priest. Okay. And he's angry because Aaron's the high priest. Yeah. And he says, Moses, you and Aaron take too much on yourselves. And he rebels against the place that God had put Moses and Aaron. And the earth opens up and swallows him into hell alive. Yeah.

Okay.

All three of these guys at one time walked with God. So Jude and Peter are talking, and Peter does the same comparison. He only gives Balaam, but they're basically paralleling each other. Hey everyone, I want to share the tool I use when I'm preparing messages, writing, or studying the Bible. It's called Logos. It is a powerful Bible study platform that lets you access commentaries, devotionals, and Bible dictionaries all in one place. The latest version actually uses AI to provide answers from your trusted biblical resources. Plus, it's now easier to use with plans starting at $9.99 a month. Visit logos.com/bivir to start your free extended trial today. Now let's get back to the podcast. Ezekiel 18:24. We need to read this. But when a righteous man, now this is God speaking directly. When a righteous man, let's ask the question, can a righteous man be a fake believer? No. I don't think so. I don't think so. If God calls somebody righteous, can they be fake? No. No. Okay, so God says a righteous man, not a fake righteous man, not somebody who pretends to be a righteous man. He says, if a righteous man, turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, sin, and does it. In other words, he continues in sin. Not, not somebody who falls and says, God, I repent, please forgive me. Yeah, we're not talking about that. We're talking about somebody who falls into a practice or a pattern of disobedience to God. Okay, he commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does. Shall he live? God's asking the question to these people. All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered. Now stop right there. God says it'll not be remembered. When God forgets, he forgets. Like, he buried our sins in the sea of forgetfulness, which means if you bring your sins up before you got saved, you bring your sins up that you repented of after you got saved, and God will go, what are you talking about? We don't remember it.

Yeah, when I forget, it's far from east from the west, which is two points that never connect. If you go from as far as from north to south, those points connect at a certain point. East from the west, those points never connect. That's crazy. It is a sea of forgetfulness that is infinitely.

Okay, so when God says he doesn't remember, it's as if he never had done it before. Yeah. So he had never done righteousness before. All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered because of the unfaithfulness of which He is guilty, and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die. Now, he's not talking about like a one-time sin. Jesus said, if you sin— Yeah. In Luke 17, he said, if you sin against your brother 7 times, and 7 times you go back and say, I truly repent. Mm-hmm. The apostles thought that would be enough, and Jesus said, no, not 7 times, 70 times 7. That's 490 times. And Jesus is saying, your Father's forgiveness is exhaust— inexhaustible. But there's 490 times of genuine repentance. I'm truly sorry, and if I had the chance, I wouldn't do it again. Now, we are talking about a person who says, you know what, I'm just flesh. I got needs. I'm just gonna satisfy those needs.

Just gonna continue to keep going on this path. Okay. 'Cause there is bondage that people can put themselves under in this idea. And I remember like when I was younger traveling with you, I remember feeling sometimes in those altar calls of being like, Man, we were just in an altar call last night. I'm pretty sure I did something wrong. Am I still saved?

We're not trying to go there. We're not there.

I got to go get my life again.

We never want to go there.

And I continued to see myself in this unhealthy way of like in salvation, out of salvation, in a salvation, out of salvation. No, no, no, no. What we're talking about, I'm in. Jesus died on the cross. I made that decision to give my life fully to him. I make mistakes. I fall short of things. But yet I have never questioned my dedication to— I've given my life to Christ. What we're talking about is people who are deliberately continuing. They know I shouldn't be doing this.

They're committing adultery against God and they keep doing it.

They're continuing to keep doing it. They read scripture and it convicts them and they're like, that's just Old Testament. I don't need to do anything about it. Excuse me, sir. That's like— he was talking to these people. It's okay. He knows me. Jesus knows my heart.

I make mistakes in my marriage.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean I'm not in marriage anymore. Lisa forgives me when I say I'm sorry. I break fellowship. Yeah. Okay. But now if I go sleep with a woman and I start seeing this woman on a regular basis and Lisa says, what are you doing? Yeah. Okay. And I go, look, I'm married to you, but I want this relationship. She better divorce me. That's gonna cost me my marriage.

I know, but we feel appalled that that wouldn't be the case basically with God. Like, we're like, what do you mean she better divorce you? Like, in a worldly perspective, yes, she better divorce you. You would look at her and you would applaud her. But yet then we look at the correlation with God and we say, what do you mean a God would allow me or not allow me to continue to keep doing the things that I'm not supposed to do, and then say, I don't know you. And that's something that—

I don't know you. Another one's, I might have once known you, but I forgot your righteousness. So I really don't, I never knew you.

But again, I wanna make sure this is so clear because this is why it was so divisive in that moment for me a long time ago, is that I watched as people were trying to rectify this and feeling like the shame and feeling this burden of, Am I saved? And like, how do I know if I'm fully saved? And they continue to go through this wave of emotions of feeling like this. We're not talking about that. Nope. We're talking about deliberately walking it away.

And that's why I want everybody to continue listening to this podcast because we're gonna make it so abundantly clear that first of all, if you have done something like this, you wouldn't even wanna walk with Jesus anymore. Because if in fact the Holy Spirit leaves you, He's the one that draws us to Jesus. You wouldn't even be listening to this podcast. You would be like, okay.

It's probably a good sign right there. If you're listening to a podcast, you're on the right track.

Right, right, right. So we're gonna make this abundantly clear, okay? Now, James makes this statement, James 5:19-20. Do you know 15 times in the book of James he says, my brothers and sisters, or my brethren? Okay, here's the 15th time. It's the very last 2 verses of the book of James. He says, brethren. So are we talking to Christians? Yes. If anyone among you— among who? Brethren— wanders from the truth and someone turns his back— so that's backsliding— let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death. And will cover a multitude of sins. So we know James is talking to believers. He says, okay, when you wander from truth, you are called now a sinner, okay? This doesn't mean he's no longer born again. He's habitually sinning and needs to return to obedience. But if he persists in his sin, James makes it clear that the final outcome will be death. Yeah, how do I know that? Because Proverbs 21:16 says, a man who wanders out of the way of understanding— all right, James said, brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth— so we got the same thing here. A man who wanders out of the way of understanding shall abide— abide is your final resting place— in the congregations of the spirit of the dead. The spirits of the dead. Okay. They'll abide, that's where they're gonna rest, in the congregation where they're congregated of the spirits of the dead. That's the Lake of Fire, okay? Now, the Book of Life, we hear about the Book of Life 8 times in the New Testament. It's called the Lamb's Book of Life, it's called the Book of Life. It is basically very important to understand because when God sits at the right throne judgment, He's going to have the Book of Life, and he's going to have the books. What are the books? The books record everything you and I did in our life. If our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, guess what? Those books were abolished. Okay, those books are covered by the blood of Jesus. One of the two. But if our name's not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, everyone whose name's not written in Lamb's Book of Life will be cast into the eternal lake of fire. Philippians 4:3, here's an example. And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for these were two women that weren't getting along, for they worked hard with me telling others the good news. They worked along with Clement and the rest of my coworkers whose names are written in the book of life. There's an example of the 8, okay? Revelations 20:14-15, this lake of fire is the second death. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21:7, the Apostle John emphatically tells us the only people who will be admitted into the eternal city of God are only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Which is a free gift, right? All right, now here's what I want to say. In Revelation 3, Jesus is speaking to a church, okay? Now I wish I wrote down what church it is. Uh, I think it's Smyrna. He's speaking to a church. Yeah, you can check me out as I'm, I'm talking about. That's why you're talking. I want to make this really clear. Um, if you could actually go there, that would be good. Uh, Sardis, Sardis. Sardis. No, I think it's Smyrna in Revelations 3. Here, I'm going to go there really quick.

Which part?

He's talking about— it's Sardis. It is Sardis. Yes, it's Sardis. Yeah. Now I'm going to read this. Write this letter to the messenger of the church. Stop right there. Jesus called this not a supposed church. He called it the church of Sardis. Okay, this is the message from the one who is the Sevenfold Spirit of God. I know all the things you do and that you have a reputation for being alive, but he said you're dead. Wake up. So here he is saying, hey, get out of your state of habitual sin. Wake up, strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. So this is a church that's really gone dead. I find your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. I'm reading right from the Bible. This is Revelation 3. Verse 3, go back to what you heard and believed at first, 'cause at first that's what made 'em a church. They believed the gospel, they served in the gospel, right? And hold firmly to it. Listen to what he says to this church, repent and turn to me again. In other words, one time you did turn to me. Yeah. If you don't wake up, I will come to you suddenly as an unexpected thief. Now remember, we are not ignorant of the day. The day of the Lord is like a thief, and we're going to get into this when we go to chapter 3. Yeah, but we're not ignorant of that day. But he said to this church, you will be ignorant. I'll come to you as an unexpected thief. Yet there are some in the church of Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. Your clothing, your clothing is your spiritual robe of righteousness that God gives you. They're soiling their clothing. They're spilling the sin of the world on their clothing repeatedly. Yeah, they're in habitual sin. Who have not soiled their clothes with evil, they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. All who are victorious will be clothed in white. Listen to this statement: I will never erase their names from the Book of Life. Whoa, hold on a minute. Erase? Erase? Wait a minute, erase their names? Yeah. Okay, now let's go back to what Jude said. Jude said they are twice dead. How is a person twice dead? They were dead without Christ. They became alive by coming to know Jesus, right? The way of salvation, it would've been better they'd never known. They came alive and then they became dead again. Yeah. Their names got erased from the Book of Life. But I will announce before my Father and the angels that they are mine. So Jesus said, there's gonna be, there can be an erasing, an erasing of the names. All right? Now the Amplified Bible says, I will not erase or blot out his name from the Book of Life. I wanna continue with this because Arden, on this podcast, I'm staying away from a lot of thoughts and words outside of scripture. I'm trying to keep scripture, scripture, scripture on this one because this one is so controversial. I would rather, if you're gonna argue, argue with the scripture, not with me. And I wanna say something else. I still love you. You're still my brother and sister in Christ if you disagree with me. I love you. I love you. I love you. And the reason I'm telling you this because let me tell you something, Martin, the thoughts went through my mind, don't talk about this. You're gonna lose people. You're going to have people that are upset with you. If you choose to do cancel culture with me, okay. I don't see this as something that is essential to us being brothers and sisters in Christ. I do not see that. I believe there are great brothers and sisters in Christ that believe you're unconditionally secure, that you can last forever, and they're walking a holy life. They're my brothers and sisters. So I am not separating myself from you. I am only trying to show you what I have read in the scripture for 40 years, 45 years, and I see it over and over and over again. And I feel, and this is what I wanna say, I feel so important about this that I think, I feel that I would not love you properly if I didn't share this with you. And I'll never forget when I was on a golf course, a senior pastor of a church who took over the church for his father said to me, He said, my father looked at me one day. I'm gonna correct that. He said, my father was sitting with another pastor who strongly disagreed with him on this subject one day. And he said, my father looked at that other pastor. His father was the senior pastor of the church he took. He looked at the other pastor across town. He said, let's just do a scenario and say this, the scenario being, Let's say you're wrong and I'm right. Yeah. If you're wrong, there's a lot of people that are gonna suffer eternal death because they found a false security in what you taught. Yeah. He said, if I'm wrong, I just got people that have lived a holier life. Yeah. Because they had a little more fear in their life, healthy fear.

Yeah.

Which one do you wanna be on? Which one do you wanna be on? Right.

Yeah, and that's why this can't be. I mean, like, look, you and mom, you guys are still married. You guys disagree on the rapture. But that's the thing is I want to see more people. You have these disagreements, but they do not separate. They do not go away. But also understand, why is this such a, like, point of strain for people? And I remember when I was in that Bible study, I didn't know it was a point of strain.. It came up. I was the one that was sharing. It came up and I just talked about it like, yeah, this is like, everyone knows this, you know, reading it from scripture and immediately saw the outfalling of it. And I remember I had a long conversation with one of my friends who were still good friends today afterwards, who didn't see eye to eye with me on it. And afterwards I just was like, let's go through scripture. And I just started showing him scripture. He's like, it says that? It says that? And I'm like, yeah, I can't ignore these things. And so it was an illumination. And we've been great friends since. And he really is like, you know, he sees it the way that I was seeing in that moment because you see some of these scriptures and you're like, man, I can't ignore that.

So you know what people say to me? They retort, but John, God said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. But John— Or that no one's ever leaving you in the palm of God's hand. Palm of God's hands. And I said, wait a minute, the Bible says he'll never leave us or forsake us, but he never said we can't leave him or forsake him.

Yeah, well, if you couldn't leave him, that would actually take away our ability for free will. And God would never do that to you. So it could not be that you can't do it. It is, again though, it is a, if you have experienced the Holy Spirit, if you experience the good news of God.

It's so difficult. It is so hard to lose yourself.

Yes, it is not this thing that's going in and out. It is so hard, but it is something we need to tell people about.

So I'll never forget a minister who lived in the 20th century, and I respect this minister so much. He was faithful in ministry for over 75 years. That says a lot right there for me. Okay, I've been in ministry 41 years. This guy's 75 years. Okay, that's crazy. His books are over 65 million in print. Wow. 65 million, okay? I'm like, wait, his Bible school that he started has graduated now over 20,000 students. Okay, so this is a man I highly respect. In one of his books, he reported that Jesus appeared to him in 1952, literally appeared to him in a vision. And there's a reason that I believe Jesus appeared to him, because he was raised in a denomination that taught him unconditional security. That you can never ever lose your salvation. So he's praying for this pastor's wife. This pastor's wife, she was very beautiful, she was very talented, and she felt like her beauty and her talent were being wasted in the church. And she started missing nightly meetings they were holding, and she was going into the city and doing things. And this minister is interceding for her. Really pouring his heart out, crying out to God, "God, bring her back." Jesus appears to him and said, "Stop praying for her." And he went, "Lord, why?" Yeah, "What do you mean?" He said, "This woman was a child of mine." That's Jesus' exact comment to him. "She was a child of mine." And he basically said, he said to him, he said, "She has chosen," the world over me. She doesn't want me, she wants the world, right? Yeah. So this minister retorted and he said, I should pray for her though. And he said, no, I said in my word there is a sin that you should not pray for. And he said, what? He said, in the vision Jesus said 1 John chapter 5. And he said, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, what? And so he goes and he sees, if anyone sees his brother or sister sinning a sin which does not lead to death, He will ask and God will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. And the minister said, but Jesus, that's physical death. People die physically. And Jesus said to him, I'm not talking about physical death. If you read the whole chapter 5, he said, I'm talking about spiritual life and spiritual death.

And he specifically says, anyone sees his brother. So it's a brother in Christ. It's a brother. It's not if anyone sees an outsider, that's leading to death. So should definitely be praying for this.

So, so this minister said to Jesus in the, in, in the dream, he said, but this isn't what I've been taught, this isn't what I believe. And Jesus said, anything you're taught and you believe that doesn't line up with my scripture, it's error. And then Jesus gave him the scripture, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, who 'Who have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away,' and that means permanently fall away, overcome by sin, 'to renew them again to repentance, since they have crucified again themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame.' And put him to an open shame. This woman, she crucified again Jesus and put him to an open shame in her life.

And that's, go ahead. No, I was gonna ask you, so obviously we have a lot of people that will come to churches and we really celebrate this of people rededicating their life. How do we balance that out? Or what is this like in correlation to scripture within that?

I think a person who rededicates their life would be like me looking at Lisa saying, I've been a jerk for about 2 years with you. And I'm gonna rededicate myself to be a good husband. It doesn't mean I lost the marriage. We're not talking about this, you know, I—

So it really is, it's such a deliberate, and it's one level of walking away from God, but it's such a deliberate shutting down of all things that was God. It's not like, okay, you know what? I haven't seen God show up and this isn't working out for me. I'm going away, I'm getting into drugs, different stuff. It is a— it is a— I completely— I want nothing to do with the gospel.

I'm going to partake in things. I'm going to stop there on that one. I'm not going to stop. I'm going to elaborate on that one. Yeah. I had a woman come up to me and she was in tears and she said, you know, I got saved, some things really went wrong in my life, my husband, all this. And she said, I screamed out one day, I don't want anything to do with you, Jesus. I am "Done with you." And she was weeping thinking, "I've lost my salvation." And I said, "No, you haven't." I said, "Let me tell you why. Babies do things that are stupid." I remember Alec when he was like— Hanging me?

Well, no, no, no.

What instance are we talking about? He was a young little boy. He was under 10 and he screamed out the window, "Call the police! I don't wanna be at home anymore!" Called child services. And Lisa walks up and says, "Okay, let me tell you what will happen to you if they take you away." And she was like, "Do you want that?" He was like, "No, no, no." So children do stupid things. A child would look at a parent and go, "I hate you. I don't ever want you to be my father again." And yet, you know, 2 days later, you're like the greatest father that's ever existed. We do stupid things. But if my 20-year-old, my 25-year-old says to me, "I hate you. I want nothing to do with you ever again," that's a different thing. Thing than if my 5-year-old says it. Okay, listen to what the writer of Hebrews says. They have to be enlightened. They have to taste the heavenly gift. They have been filled with the Holy Spirit. They have tasted the good word of God. They have tasted the power of the ages to come. Those 5 things have to be in place. What is he describing right there? A very mature Christian. Yeah, she's a mature Christian. She is a pastor's wife. She went into ministry saying, I love Jesus, I'm going to ministry. But she went to the world and said, I'm done with serving Jesus. I'm going to the world.

Yeah, 'cause I think you see a lot of people rededicate their life that they weren't fully in. Right. They have not gone through these things fully and they fall away and then they come back and it's a different situation.

So I wanna put a wrap on this particular podcast and say this, to walk away from salvation is a very, very, very difficult thing to do. You actually have to try. Yeah. To walk away from sin. I mean, to walk away from Jesus, you have to try hard. And if you do, you will have no desire to come back. Yeah. So the fact that you have a desire to come back means the Holy Spirit is still in there and he's still wooing you to Jesus.

Yeah.

Your conscience. Please, please, please, please don't get into a state where you're like in salvation, out of salvation. That is totally— I believe that is a bad doctrine. Oh yeah, that is a doctrine of a demon. Yeah, we are talking about somebody that willfully says, I'm walking away. Now that's going to keep a healthy fear of God in you because it's going to keep you from flippantly giving yourself to the slavery of sin, because slavery to sin will harden your heart. Brethren, don't harden your heart through the deceitfulness of sin. So that causes you to go, I wanna stay sensitive. The early church fathers taught this. I mean, we're talking Clement or Origen, we're talking Alexander of, all these early church fathers, they taught this. The apostles taught it. We just read the scripture on it. Where we have lost it is when a guy named Calvin came along and introduced the unconditional once saved, always saved. Hey, look, I believe Calvin is a brother. I believe he's in heaven, but I don't believe what he introduced to the church was healthy because now we've got these people that just basically give themselves to slavery of sin, yet they're getting harder and harder and harder and harder. And if you keep flirting with sin, you'll eventually become a slave. So we've just gotten done with chapter 2. What is our posture? Number 1, let's expose the error of false teaching, false teachers. Number 2, our hearts are to be broken for false teachers. Jeremiah 23:9, Jeremiah cried out, "My heart within me is broken because of the false teachers." And number 3, we should gently share the truth with them and give them opportunity to repent. 2 Timothy 2:24-26, a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, be patient with difficult people, gently instructing those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil's trap, for they have been held captive by the devil to do whatever the devil wants. I would say that our position is to always have hope for people. Love always hopes. God is the ultimate judge. And I would say that we should, no matter who a person is, what they're teaching, what they've done, always attempt to bring them back unless Jesus puts it on our heart and says they have sinned the sin unto death. Yeah, I don't say pray for them. And so that is a very important subject because I will tell you this, in my own personal life, having this understanding has helped me walk in a healthier fear of God. It has helped me to walk a more godly, consistent life. And I feel like that fruit has been very beneficial and I hope it benefits everybody who's listening.

Yeah, I love that. I think that's a really powerful understanding of, you look at this understanding of what I believe here, and it's meant something that has drawn you closer to God rather than further away. And I think that's always something within the nuances of arguments that you can get into with people. You really have to evaluate it and look at it through that lens of, yes, this might not be crucial to my salvation in this moment or crucial to my salvation through this life, but is this something that's gonna take me Closer to the heart of God? And if it is, I want that. Yeah. In the same way those two pastors having that conversation of saying, if I'm right, it's just going to cause a lot more people to be a lot more sought after. If I'm wrong, it's going to cause a lot more people to seek after God.

Yeah. If I'm wrong. You're wrong. There might be a lot of people that hear, depart from me, I don't know you.

Exactly. And I think that's something really good to run your filter through these things that can be controversial topics. Can be very divisive. I just think more and more, I just wanna make sure this is understandable for people is that please don't go and find this as an argument to go have with other people and show them how they're wrong. It's not supposed to be.

Gently teach, kind.

Yes, correct. And if they just don't see it.

They don't see it, that's fine.

Leave it, pray for them. Don't divide. The church looks for opportunities to divide with one another, and that's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to look for things. That's why Jesus said, or no, that's why it said, hang on. That's why it said that you are only to unite on one thing. And what is that? The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's the only thing.

I had two pastors look at me, senior pastors, both big churches. They said, you know, John, you and I don't see eye to eye on once saved, always saved. I said, I know. And they said, but we understand you. We get you. You come to our church, you're not gonna teach on that because you don't wanna divide. I said, you better believe it. There are so many other things I can preach on at your church. This is not something to be contentious, divide, and cancel people with. This is something I think that will help you live a much godlier and holier life. And that's a result, that results in we get to be in His presence that much more. We love you. Until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast with Arden and John Bevere.