Before we get started, is there
anything that any of you men would like to share with the
folks before we get going? Any word from the Lord? I try to always ask that, and just
so you guys know, anything that the Lord lays on your heart throughout
the week, you know, you're always welcome to share those things
with us. Paul always give that place whenever
he was talking to the Corinthian church. But if anybody has anything
to say, feel free to say it. And of course, we understand
that from the men. Ah, never mind. I'm sorry. Never mind. I was going to share
a dream I had this week, but that's kind of weird. OK. Maybe we can share that one during
lunchtime. OK. Maybe not very good, but it works. But anyway,
just feel, you got, you men, if you have anything that you
would like to say, you're always welcome to say that. And anytime
you have anything that you would like to, a question that you'd
like to ask or anything to bring up, feel free to do that. How about we turn to our Gatsby
handbook, to, uh, hymn number 71. Hymn number 71. We'll sing this
to the tune of Am I a soldier of the cross? Jesus, the man of constant grief,
a mourner all his days. His spirit wants to rejoice aloud
and turn his joy to praise. Father, I thank Thy wondrous
love that has revealed Thy Son. To men unlearned and to babes
has made the Gospel known. The mysteries of redeeming grace
are hidden from the wise, while pride and carnal reasons joy
to swell and blind their eyes. Thus does the Lord of heaven
and earth His great decrees fulfilled, And order of His works of grace
By His own sovereign will. And how about hymn number 19?
We'll sing that if anybody has any requests after that. We'll
take any requests. Hymn number 19, a new song to
the land that was slain. We'll sing this to the tune of
Georgia the world. Behold the glories of the Lamb,
Amidst His Father's throne, Prepare new honors for His name, And
songs before unknown, And songs before unknown, And songs, and
songs before unknown. Let elders worship at his feet,
The church adorned around With vials full of odor sweet, And
hearts of sweeter sound, And hearts of sweeter sound. And call hearts and hearts of
sweeter sound. Those are the prayers of the
saints, And these the hymns they raise. Jesus is kind to our complaints,
He loves to hear our praise. He loves to hear our praise. He loves, He loves to hear our
praise. Eternal Father, who shall look
into Thy secret will, Who but the Son shall take that book,
And open every seal, and open every seal, And open, open every
seal. He shall fulfill Thy great decrees,
The Son deserves it well. Oh, in His hands the sovereign
key of heaven and death and hell, of heaven and death and hell,
of heaven and hell and death and hell. Now to the land that
once was slain, the endless blessings paid. Salvation's glory joyfully
may forever on thy head, forever on thy head, forever ever on
thy head. Thou hast redeemed our souls
with blood, has set the prisoners free, has made us kings and priests
to God, and we shall reign with Thee, and we shall reign with
Thee, and we, and we shall reign with Thee. The worlds of nature
and of grace are put beneath Thy power, then surely And bring the promise out. And bring the promise out. And bring, and bring the promise out. I wonder if those parts that
we're going to play are going to be electric parts. I don't think so. All right. Let's go ahead and
turn back into the Word of God. And how about we turn over to
Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 1. You know we couldn't pass through
without stopping at one of our favorite verses. Ephesians chapter 1. I'll just start at verse 5. We kind
of know what all precedes this. It says, Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. So God has predestinated us unto
the adoption of children. So if God predestinates anybody
to the adoption of children, do you believe that that can
be thwarted, changed, stopped, detoured, called back, revoked,
I don't think that can take place. He's predestinated. That means
to determine the destiny of one beforehand, right? Is that what
predestinated means? To determine one's destiny beforehand. And he said it was according
to the pleasure of His will. That was the grounds of it. But
what was the ends of it? That we should be adopted, right? That we should be into the adoption
of children. He's going to do that by Jesus Christ to Himself. Jesus Christ will be the one
who does the work. God will be the one who receives
the end result. And the end result is predestinated. His children will be His. I find that to be a promise of
God as well. I find that not only to be the
work of God, but a promise of God. If He has predestinated
that, then that's a promise to us that there will be an end
result. Verse 6 says, To the praise of
the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the
beloved. Is there ever a Scripture that
shows that He causes us to be rejected from the Beloved? I don't find that anywhere in
Scripture that He says that He rejects those who He has accepted. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace, wherein He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom
and prudence, So, in the work of Christ, we have received redemption,
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Can
that be revoked? Can we become unredeemed? Can we be once again unforgiven? Once we've been forgiven of sins,
can they become unforgiven? Now, most of us in here are probably
saying, you know, come on, you're kind of being a little childish
in your illustrations here. Brothers, let's think about this
whole notion of falling away from grace. Let's think about
someone who says that you can be lost and not persevere or
be preserved. That person, in essence, is saying
that I've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.
I've prayed the prayer, whatever you want to say the thing was. I came to church. I walked the
aisle. I shook the preacher's hand.
I prayed the prayer. I went through the baptismal
waters. I signed on the dotted line somewhere. I go to Sunday
school, blah blah blah, or whatever, you know. But then comes a time where he
says, you know, I'm a child of God. I'm born again. I'm forgiven
of my sins, and I stand on those things. As a matter of fact,
whenever he stands in the baptismal waters and is baptized, that's
what he's professing, is that Jesus Christ has died, was buried,
and resurrected for him. He was united to Christ in that
death, burial, and resurrection. And that that work was His. It is accounted for Him. It was
as if He was there. And so to say that is to claim
all the promises of Jesus Christ. It's to proclaim all the work
of atonement. It's to proclaim all those things
which are given to the child of grace in salvation. But to
come back and say that I can walk away from that, I can fall
away from grace, I can lose that, means that where once I was forgiven
of sins, no longer am I forgiven of those anymore. Because the
only way that you are not going to be with God is if your sins
have not been forgiven. That you still stand in your
condemnation because of your sins. And so, the child of grace cannot
fall from that, cannot ever enter into another state again, where
he is not beloved, where he is not a part of the beloved, I
should say, and that he is not forgiven. Once you've been forgiven,
you are forgiven. And someone will say, well, yeah,
but that was for all my past sins, but not all my present
and future sins that I'm committing now. I've committed so many sins
that Jesus no longer will forgive me. Okay, that his death wasn't
enough to forgive you of all those sins? Not to mention it
doesn't say that because whenever Jesus actually died, every one
of your sins were future at that point. So see, there's a fallacy,
this thought that we can fall away and become something else.
And here the scriptures gives us ample proof that what God
has predestinated cannot be undone. What Jesus has atoned for and
bought and purchased with His blood can't be counteracted and
go backwards again. It has been atoned for. Look
if you would down to verse 14. Speaking of the Holy Spirit that
is given to us. It says, which is the earnest
of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession
under the praise of His glory. So whenever the Holy Spirit sets
its seal upon us, that seal is a guarantee that the purchase
price that was paid and the inheritance that came with it is going to
be had. It is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of that purchased possession. Every one
of us here at some point in time has probably purchased a car
or a home or something like that, and we've had to put a down payment
down on something, right? That's earnest money. Whenever
you put a down payment on that, that's telling that lender, here,
here is an earnest of what I owe you for the rest of this. Okay? And so this is telling you that
there is an intent for me to come back and redeem the rest
of all of this. And so whenever we have the Holy
Spirit, that is the sign and the seal that there is a full
inheritance that is awaiting and a full redemption to come. Now, while we have been redeemed
by His blood in the fact that there is forgiveness of sins,
a reconciliation to God, and things such as that, the redemption
of these bodies are still to be had, right? The Bible says
that we await the adoption of these bodies, the redeeming of
these bodies. To make these bodies and what
we have inwardly and outwardly together are both eternal. An
eternal body and eternal soul. And so, the Holy Spirit is given as an
earnest. Now let me ask, can that be removed? The seal was
set by God. Stand. The connotation of this
whole verse is back in a long time ago. Kings and people in
authority would write letters or make decrees and then they
would drop wax or some kind of something similar to wax on that
and then they'd take a ring that had their insignia on that and
they would press that in there and that pressing of that ring
or that signet upon that wax was the declaration of this comes
from my authority. This comes from my lips and I
put authority behind everything that's said in this. Or they
will seal that up where the two pieces of paper come together
and they'll put that on there and they'll put that ring on
there and that was to only be opened up by someone who was
worthy to open that up or was designed to open that up. Well,
brother, that's kind of what this talk about. The Holy Spirit
is given to us as a signet from God saying that you are my possession,
that all the authority of God is behind what is going on here
and that the full redemption of this will take place. So he is our earnest. The Holy
Spirit is our earnest that God will finish or complete this
work of redemption, as far as our body is concerned, of His
purchased people for the praise of His glory. Again, His glory
is the center of all these things. Any guys got a thought on that before we move on to the next
chapter? Ephesians chapter 4. Again, we see in verse 30 that
the Holy Spirit of God is given to us as a seal. That's what I was talking about,
this signet, a seal, S-E-A-L, seal. It says, Ingrate not the
Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. So there is a day of redemption
for the child of grace. And the Holy Spirit is that seal. You can't remove that seal. I
can't remove that seal. Nothing can remove that. So here
again we see preservation of God. He has sent His Spirit to
preserve His people as a preservation, as a guarantee, as a reminder
I mean, all these things is given for our persevering. We persevere
because of this preservation or this preserving act of God. Look at Philippians chapter 1. I quoted this earlier, but let's
take a look at it. Philippians 1, verse 6, it 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. Now, brethren,
I don't know about you, but it doesn't get much clearer than
that. Who is the one who is performing the good work in you. It's Jesus
Christ. Who is the one that is going
to keep you and finish that work on the day of Jesus Christ? Him. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it. He'll perform that good work
until the day of Jesus Christ. Not until the day you walk away
Not till the day that you apostatize, you sin too much, you get down
in the dumps and lose your way, whatever phrase you want to put
on it. He's going to carry that out until the day of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I find that to be very comforting.
I find that to be very assuring. I find that to be a promise of
God that we can count on. He will begin the good work and
He will be the one to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Turn with me if you would to
2 Timothy. If you guys think of any other verses
that I might miss in between, you're definitely welcome to
share that with us. Second Timothy, chapter two. Looking at verse 19. Nevertheless, the foundation
of God standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them
that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ
depart from iniquity. The Lord knows those who are
His. Now again, we've talked about
this before. The word knowing there isn't just a cognitive
understanding of Him. It isn't just a mere assent to
their existence. He knows them in an intimate
way. Known unto God are all those people that are His. The Lord knoweth them that are
His. That means He knows those who
are not His also, right? He knew Judas. He knew Pharaoh. He knew Lucifer. He knew all
these things. But what does He mean? He's meaning
that in a particular way, in a special way. just as in the
end whenever it says that there will be many on that day that
will say, Lord, Lord. And He says, depart from me,
you doers of iniquity. I never knew you. Well, of course
He knew them. There was the book and record
of everything that they had done. Of course He knew them because
they had just given an account of all the things that they had
done and the transgressions against God were brought before them.
God knew everything about them, everything that they had done.
He had created them, purposed them, and had seen and knew all
things that they had ever done. But yet He didn't know them in
a special, intimate way. He had not set His love upon
them. And here, the Scripture says, the foundation of God standeth
sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are
His. You know, there's never a place
in Scripture where it says that God loves somebody and cease
to love them. He either loves them or He hates
them, according to the Scripture. That's not a popular thing to
say, I know. It's surely not being taught
in a lot of places, I'm sure. But the Scripture is very clear
that the Lord hates all workers of iniquity. The Lord hates Esau but loves
Jacob. There are those who work evil
that the Lord hates. They say, wait a minute, we work
evil. Yeah, but remember, blessed is
the man unto whom the Lord imputed not sin. While we are workers
of iniquity, while we are doers of evil, While we are, by nature,
children of wrath, by nature of Adam, because of our eternal,
vital union with Jesus Christ, that is not laid to our account.
And only by the blood of Jesus Christ are we made where we can
stand in the good of all that. Nevertheless, the foundation
of God stands sure having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that
are His. Look if you would down to chapter
4. Verse 18. And the Lord shall deliver me
from every evil work and will preserve me will preserve me unto His heavenly
kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, unless you
believe that the Apostle Paul was an exception, that God treats
the apostles on a different standard than He treats everyone else
of the children of grace, Paul here is saying that he will be
preserved unto that heavenly kingdom. Now how can Paul say that? Where's
Paul's confidence that he will be preserved? Because what I
hear from the preachers and the perpetuators of falling from
grace or losing your salvation is that we don't have security. We don't have assurance. We don't
have this place, that we could very well fall away and prove
ourselves to be reprobate. But yet we've learned over the
last few weeks that God puts His Spirit within us. That Spirit
tells us that we are the children of God, reminds us of that, shows
us that we are set with the seal of being God's possession and
that we will receive the full redemption and that we will be
saved unto the day of Jesus Christ. And here Paul says that he knows
that the Lord will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom, to
whom be glory. Again, His glory is at stake
here. The glory of God is at stake in preserving His people.
If one of His persons falls away, then Jesus' work was for nothing. That's why Jesus told the Father
in John 17, I have lost none, that you have given Me. I have
not lost one. His honor was at stake. If Jesus
lost one, He did not succeed. And so this is what I tell all
my friends and my family, is that when it comes down to it,
your Savior, your Jesus that you hold to, is a failing Savior. He didn't actually save anybody.
I'm seeing a conversation between a couple of guys I know on Facebook
right now, one guy particularly that I've had conversations with,
and I don't want to mention his name because I think some of
you guys know him. But I've had conversations with him in the
past to the point where I think he just kind of either blocked
me or wrote me off because he didn't get nowhere with me on
that. But he's talking to another one
of my friends on Facebook. And the whole thing is this whole
aspect of there is a genuine desire of God to save everybody. This genuine offer of salvation
to everybody. And that God genuinely gives
this call or this offer of salvation to even those He has not elected. And it's all based upon Fulbright
teaching and in the end it comes back to free willism or Arminianism. But yet this guy claims to be,
you know, a Calvinist. He's from a reformed Baptist
church. He's a missionary. And he holds
these things, but yet he battles anybody that says that this is
not true. And he goes to bat and he starts
calling up all these authors and preachers of old and theologians
confessions of faith and stuff like this. But yet he can't find
scripture except out of, again, you know, he has no desire in
the death of the wicked type stuff that are out of context.
Brethren, the honor of God is at stake here. If that's the
Jesus or the God that you have that sincerely desires the salvation
of every person but yet has not done His due diligence to do
that saving, or has done the due diligence for everything
needed for salvation, but doesn't follow through with applying
that, then you have injustice in God. Whether it be on the
Father's part, on the Son's part, or the Holy Spirit's part, there
is an injustice that's going on. God didn't accept the work
of the Son. The Son didn't do enough. work
to do it, or the Holy Spirit didn't bring that and keep that,
which was purchased. One way or another, God's glory
is defamed by the teaching of falling from grace and not preserving
and persevering. He will preserve me unto His
heavenly kingdom. Any thoughts on that before we
go further? Hebrews chapter 7 please. Hebrews chapter 7. One of my favorite verses. Wherefore He is able to save
them to the uttermost. To the uttermost. Right off the top of my head,
I can't think of what the opposite of the uttermost is. Do you know that? Put that in
there. He doesn't say that. He says, Wherefore he is able
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God. And they
say, Aha! There you go. They got to come
unto God. Oh look, there's two more words after that. By Him. Wherefore He is able to save
them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." They come unto
God because of Him. But those who come unto God,
He saves to the uttermost. Kind of sounds like a... Kind
of sounds like a verse that Jesus
said, right? All that the Father hath given
me, shall come to me, and all that come to me I will in no
wise cast out." I ask those who believe in falling from grace,
did you ever come to the Lord Jesus Christ? But He says all
those who come to Him, He will in no wise cast out. But He's able to save to the
other most that come unto Him. Why? Seeing He liveth to make
intercession for them. You see, it's not your work that's
keeping you. It's not your work that's making
you saved to the uttermost or keeping you to the uttermost.
It's His intercession for you that keeps you to the uttermost. He is interceding for you. Brethren,
I think there's a lot more to that statement than what we sometimes
apply. A lot of times we reply that
Jesus is praying for his people. I don't think that's necessarily
what it's talking about. I do agree with Brother Roy Smith
whenever he preached on this, and he talked about how in the
Old Testament that inner seed was the blood that was spread
upon the altar, and how even though that that time of atonement
was from year to year, all throughout the year that blood on the altar
spoke, even though the person was not there. even though the
priest was not in there, that blood spoke in their place. The sacrifice and the priest
offering the sacrifice, that blood spoke on the behalf throughout
that year. And so Christ's blood speaks
intercession for all of His people. But brethren, I believe there's
also an interceding of Christ in the fact that He is actually
by His Spirit preserving us as we've just been reading in several
of these verses. He's given us the Holy Spirit
to keep us, to preserve us, to encourage us, to ensure us. All these things, He's given
us that Holy Spirit. And in that way, He is interceding
for us. He's going between what we know
of this Holy God and of our sinfulness. And He is interceding between
those things with assurance from His Word and from His Spirit
that we are His. Hebrews 10, verse 14. Hebrews 10, verse 14. For by one offering He hath perfected Now let's talk about, let's just
stop there. Don't go further. By one offering,
he has perfected. Brother Larry can give you three
points in a poem about what people teach about self-perfection. He comes from that. Him and his
wife, and Mark all know too well, they come from that kind of preaching
and teaching that men have ability within themselves to do the things
of God and be perfected in this lifetime by walking right with
God, by following all His commandments, doing all these things. It says
here that by one offering He hath perfected forever Them that are sanctified. Now that phrase has a different
meaning to those that Brother Larry came out from among. But
that word sanctified means to be set apart. Those who have
been set apart. A lot of times we take that word
sanctified, meaning those who have become more holy. Brethren,
whenever God set us apart in Christ Jesus before the foundation
of the world, We call that election, don't we? Sanctification has
aspects of election. Or election has aspects of sanctification,
however you want to say that. To be sanctified means to be
set apart for the purpose and the use of God. For God's work, for God's use. And so, The Bible here says that
Jesus, by His sacrifice once, has forever perfected. So if
that is the case, how can you ever fall from grace? No, no, no. We did not say that
you would be perfect in this lifetime. We didn't say that
you would never sin. We said that He, by that sacrifice,
has written your record of perfect. before God forever. That's why the Apostle Paul in
other places can say, though all these things happen,
though we fall, though we fail, though we struggle with sin,
though I do the things that I don't want to do and don't do the things
that I want to do, there is no condemnation to those who are
in Christ Jesus. Why? Because they have forever
been perfected by His one offering. So, brethren, how can you fall
from grace whenever forever you have been perfected by His offering? In 1 John 5, verse 13, we find this, These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may
know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God." Now, it's kind of funny because
he says there's something that happens and there's a result
from that something. Number one, he says that we may
know eternal life, that we have eternal life. Well, I thought
we only had a hope of eternal life. I thought it was just a maybe-so
thing. It says here, these things are
written that you may know that you have eternal life. And it
says, and that you believe on the name of the Son of God. And
some guys say, well, there you go. We have to believe on the
name of the Son of God so we might have eternal life. No,
wait a minute. If you look at these, he says
he's writing to them that believe on the name of the Son of God.
So he's already writing to people
who already are believing in the name of the Son of God. That they might know, the ones
believing on the Son of God, might know that they have eternal
life and that they might believe on the name of the Son of God.
That kind of sounds weird. That sounds redundant, don't
it? I have written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God. Well, wait a minute. I thought I was already believing
on the name of the Son of God, but you're writing to me so that
I will believe on the name of the Son of God? No. What does he mean by that?
I'm writing these things so that you might know you have eternal
life and continue to believe on the name of the Son of God.
It's the Son of God who brought you in. It's the Son of God who's
going to bring you out. It's the Son of God who began.
It's the Son of God who's going to finish. If you believe on
the name of the Son of God, you have eternal life. And keep believing
on the name of the Son of God because that's the only way that
you have eternal life and will experience eternal life. But if there's a falling from
grace, or even just a maybe-so, hope-so, then this verse right
here just needs to be removed. Now, I know a lot of people who
want to remove the fifth chapter of 1 John. They believe that
part of it's not even in the Scripture. But anyway, that's
another day, another story. Any thoughts on that? I mean, that's how I understand
that to me, and I don't see it to be a redundancy. And I surely
don't see it to be a condition. Do any of you brothers have any
other outlook on why he mentions that he believed on the name
of the Son of God twice? I mean, they're already believing.
So to me, it would be an encouragement to continue to do that. Revelation chapter 3. A few verses
in Revelation and then we'll close out the study here on perseverance
and preserving. Again, if there's anything in
between, brothers, be glad to hear from you. If I missed some
things that stand out, it should have been, man, how could you
miss that one? Revelation chapter 3. In Revelation chapter 3, we find
it says, verse 5, He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in
white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the
book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father and
before his angels. Now we know, if you look at the
rest of Scripture, we know that the ones who overcome are the
ones who have been made overcomers. They overcome because of the
blood of Jesus Christ. That's what caused them to be
overcomers. But it says here that He will
not block their name out of His book, but will confess His name
before my Father. Side note, don't get hung up
on that and think that there's a possibility to be blotted out
of the book of life here. If he says, I will not blot you
out of the book of life at all, there's a possibility that you
can be blotted out. No, what's the promise say? The
promise says that the people of God, that there is no possible
way at all, ever, that He will ever blot you out of the Book
of Life. That He will confess their name
before the Father. I can't remember if it was here
or somewhere in some conversation I've had, actually just recently,
we talked about this very thing about what it means to be blotted
out of the Book of Life. This church that Paul was writing
about, they were very They was very prideful of the citizenry
of their town. And you had to meet some certain
stipulations before they would allow you to be a citizen of
their town. And if you brought dishonor upon their town, they
would block you out of their membership role of that town. And you wouldn't be a citizen
of their town anymore. And so those people knew fully
well what it meant to be ostracized or to be removed from acceptance within
their city. And so the Lord wrote to them
here in terms that they would understand about their own citizenry
in the place where they live. And he said, listen, nothing
you can do is going to cause me to block you out of this book.
You've been made an overcomer by the blood and you will be
presented before the Father." He's giving them confidence that
they will be given to God. In chapter 13 and verse 8, We find some people who are going
to worship God other than the children of grace. There is going
to come a time, brethren, I believe, that the Bible speaks of where
every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord. That doesn't mean they're all
going to be saved because they do that, okay? It says here, it says in verse
8, Revelation 13, 8 says, and all that dwell upon the earth
shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of
life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Now
if you remember back whenever we talked about election, we
brought this verse up and we've seen, especially when we talked
about reprobation, that God purposely did not write names in a book. He knows everyone and he wrote
some names and he chose to not write other names. Okay? Now everyone's going to be worshipping
at this time and giving the due worship to God. But it says here
that these are going to be the ones whose names were not written
in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation of the world.
But the reason I threw this in in preserving and preservation
is because of this. We cannot fall away from grace
because the name was written before the foundation of the
world in the Book of Life. Every child of grace name was
written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world.
There's no way that you can fall away from that and enter again
into death whenever you have been marked out by God and your
names written in the Book of Life, to me that's just as assuring,
that is just as promising as any of the other Scriptures,
is the fact that names are written in the Book of Life and we just
read that they will not be blotted out of that Book. Look with me if you would at
Revelation chapter 17. Revelation chapter 17. Again, we find the same phrase. There is a book of life, and
there are people that are in that, and they are not going
to be part of this group. So we've seen that the overcomers
will not be blotted out of the Book of Life. That the Book of
Life holds names that God wrote down before the foundation of
the world. And in verse 8 it says, The beast that thou sawest
was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and
go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth
shall wonder whose names were not written in the Book of Life
from the foundation of the world when they behold the beast that
was and is not and yet is. So there is a group of people
that are going to look to this beast and wonder and behold him. But it's not going to be the
people who are in the book of life. The people who are in the book
of life will not be deceived by this. The people in the book
of life will not fall away and follow the beast. I'm not talking about just the
future thing. I'm talking about here and now, brother. We're
not going to be deceived by that. You look at today's society and
these people that are in awe and wonder of all these musicians
and actors, politicians, entrepreneurs, businessmen, corporations, scientists,
They just drool at the feet of all these men because of the
wonder and the awe and the majesty of how great they are in their
artistry and their knowledge and their governing and all these
things to make the world, bring the world to peace and all these
things. Brethren, it's the beast. It's
the beast. And the children of grace are
not going to be awestruck by that and follow that. So it tells
me that we can't fall away from grace and follow after the beast
and be found in this group of people. Why? Because we are the
ones whose names are written in the book of life. Those who
follow after the beast are going to find death. They are in the
book of death, so to speak. Finally, look with me, if you
would, at Revelation chapter 21. Revelation chapter 21. Look with
me down to verse 27. And there shall no wise enter
into it. Talking about the city of God
here. And there shall in no wise enter
in to it anything that defile it, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination or maketh a lie, but they which are written in
the Lamb's book of life." The only ones who are going to
be a part of that kingdom and city of God are going to be those
whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. So we've
just seen here in Revelation a contrast between those whose
names are written and those whose names are not written. Those
whose names are not written, they will be deceived and follow
after the beast. But those names who are written
in the Lamb's Book of Life, they will be overcomers. Their names
will never be blotted out. They will not be deceived by
the beast, and they will enter in to the holy city of God. Now brethren, there are a lot
of promises, a lot of scripture of the work of God. As a matter
of fact, I really and somewhat purposely didn't put in all the
verses that talk about persevere, that uses the word persevere.
Now you can go back and look those verses up if you want to
go look those up. The Bible does tell us, those
who persevere to the end shall be saved. Okay? My point was to undergird those
things with the fact that the reason that anybody can follow
that admonition or does follow that admonition is because what
we've just learned over the course of these last few weeks is that
we are preserved to persevere. We are preserved by God. It's
His hand that keeps us. It's His Spirit that keeps us.
He is the One that keeps us from falling away. Listen, we can't
fall away positionally because of legal action. We can't fall
away practically because of interaction. And so, the child of God is given
a hope of eternal life because of the assurances of Scripture.
by the security of God Himself that He gives to His people.
Anybody got any questions? Any comments or anything? Any
additional? All right, brother. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Bless the Lord and bless the
food. I have a kind of fellowship around today. Gracious heaven,
Father, again we come to you and we thank you so much for
these great and precious promises. We thank you, Father, that salvation
from beginning to end, before the foundation of the world and
even after the dissolving of the foundation of this world,
is gone. Your purposes will stand, that
all that you have declared and decreed will be, that your people
will not only be made willing in the day of your power, but
will be kept by that same power. Father, I just pray that today
this has been an encouragement. I pray that it has been to the
edifying of you people here. Father, Lord, I just ask that
you just let these things sink into our mind on a day to day
basis as we face the things of life and when discouragements
come, that we have a hope that this isn't the end of all things,
and this isn't how it's going to be forever, but that one of
these days that we will be given a new body, that we will be united
physically with our Savior, and that we will spend all of eternity
with You. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord,
I pray that all those who know the name of Christ Jesus will
come to the understanding and know the security that they have
because of the work of Jesus Christ, a work that cannot fail,
a work that did not lose any for which it was done. Father,
Lord, I pray that they might come into that assurance, come
into that knowledge, come into that beauty, come into that comfort,
Father, of knowing that they are yours and that they are kept
by you. Again, we ask you to bless this
food that we're about to eat, the hands that prepare the Lord.
We thank you for them. We also thank you, Father, for
the fellowship we have around the table. And we ask, Lord,
that you bless this day. Be with us as we leave this place,
Lord, that we might also be used to minister and to testify
the things of God to those that we are around. In Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.