302. Grace or Works?
What about
backsliding?
There has been this
age-old argument about
“Once saved always saved” and “If you don’t walk the walk you won’t make it to
heaven.” Which one is right? They are both wrong! Rather than take the courtroom tactics
of looking up Scriptures and trying to prove who is right, we are going down a
different path. We will not attempt to resolve this argument, but rather we
will look at it from a different perspective. I believe that God has a different
point of view. His!
How could Lot be
called righteous?
2 Peter 2:7 says, “And
(He) delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the
wicked.” If I had been God, I would not have taken Lot to Heaven. But we cannot
judge the One who created us. Lot lived totally in the world; he had chances to
repent but he did not. Yet God kept him safe and took him to Heaven. Don’t ask
me why. I would never want to get that close to Hell.
We are
made righteous totally by faith in what Jesus did for us. Nothing that we can
do, no kind of works can get us into the family of God.
Romans
3:20-21 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in
His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the
law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”
Romans 4:3
says, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was
accounted to him for righteousness.’”
In Romans 4:6 David is quoted as saying the same thing when he speaks of
the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.
Now the other extreme
was Esau.
He was Jacob’s twin
brother. Esau, on the surface, did not seem any worse than his twin brother
Jacob did. Jacob was a deceiver,
yet God intervened and supernaturally gave the firstborn birthright to Jacob
even though Jacob was the last one out of the womb. Esau despised his birthright, thinking that it was not that
big of a deal and sold it to Jacob for a bowl of stew. Yet later in life when he tried to
repent, he could not. We have a spiritual birthright when we are born of God.
This is a warning to us not to despise it. We could end up as Esau, who did not
make it.
Hebrews
12:16-17 says,
“lest there be any
fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his
birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing,
he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently
with tears.”
Proverbs
29:1 says, “He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, will suddenly be
destroyed, and that without remedy.”
The
Pharisees were a good example of not being saved by works. Matthew 23:33 says,
“Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?”
We are
saved by grace (life is imparted to us). Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For by grace you have
been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.”
We are maintained by
grace, not by works.
Paul asked the Galatians
who had bewitched them into believing that they could keep their salvation by
works. We need to know that
witchcraft will attempt to make us legalists, keeping some law and loosing our
fellowship with God.
Galatians
3:1-3 says,
“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth,
before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the
law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are
you now being made perfect by the flesh?”
Righteousness
is something that is implanted inside of us. What makes us righteous? What takes us to Heaven and makes us a
child of God is simply the life and Spirit of God implanted inside of us. You
have heard of a heart transplant.
Well, we have received a spirit transplant. We had little to do with that except to make Jesus our Lord
and accept His free gift.
But this
free gift is only a seed at first.
In
Mark chapter 4, Jesus tells us that everything works on the seed principle. The
sower sows the Word, the ground is our heart and there are four kinds of
ground: hard, rocky, thorny, and good. Satan comes to steal the seed out of the
first three grounds through persecution, cares, love of other things, etc. Only
50% of the seed stayed, and half of that did not bear fruit. Read Mark 4 and see the way Satan
steals the Word.
We are
born again by the seed of the Word of God. 1 Peter 1:23 says, “having been born
again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which
lives and abides forever.”
Jesus
said that the ENTIRE Kingdom of God works on this principle. Can a person have the
born again experience and then loose the seed? What does Mark 4 say? You answer
it.
Here is the key: We
are in a process like a plant that is growing. The process is intended to get
us ready for Heaven, but it can also be a process of backsliding.
We need to remember a
few things:
1. We
are only here on earth for a little while. God does not let us stay here just to
bring other people into the Kingdom of God. No, He wants us to mature and get
ready for Heaven.
2. We
are free moral persons; the only creation of God that can make a real moral choice.
When we get to Heaven, we will not lose that attribute. We will still
technically be able to rebel against God. So how can God trust us enough? We
must be matured while we are here.
3. We
get closer to God by process, and backslide by process, not in one giant step!
If you put a frog in a pot of hot water, he would jump out. But if you put him
in cold water and heat it up a little at a time, he would stay in, get used to
the warmth and finally boil to death. That is how Satan gets us. He will induce
us to make a little bad choice, then our conscience gets a little dark, then
another bad choice and a little more darkness sets in. Pretty soon the spirit of darkness
blinds us and we no longer know right from wrong. What Christian would make a conscious decision to leave
God? None. Instead they make a decision to love
the world, or illicit sex, or money, or power. You cannot serve two masters:
you will hate one and love the other (Matthew 6:24).
4.
There are several types of choices we have to make daily. Depending upon our
choice, we either get closer to God or further away from Him.
a.
Moral choices. Yes or no to stealing,
lying, cheating, illicit sex, gossip, and the list goes on. Are we obeying the
Word or our flesh?
b.
Trials and suffering. Yes or no to trusting in God’s Word more than our
circumstances. Are we trusting the Word or our flesh?
c.
Authority. Yes or no to the
Lordship of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Yes or no to the authorities that God
puts over us like teachers, pastors, police, parents, etc. If you cannot obey
who is over you, then leave. If they are asking you to sin, then do not obey
them. God will protect you from even evil authority. I was under evil authority at a time in my life for over 8
years and God blessed my submission in a mighty way!
d.
The World: The
“world” is a spiritual kingdom just like the Kingdom of God is also spiritual.
1 John 2:15-16 says that the craving for sensual gratification, the greedy
longings of the mind and the assurance in one’s own resources are attributes of
the “world” (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life). Each time
we choose one of these attributes, we move away from God.
5. We
are not perfect, but we can walk and live in repentance. We will blow it from
time to time, but God gives us a perfect forgiveness just as we had never
sinned. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It takes a
long time to exhaust God’s forgiveness. He makes it easy for us as long as our
heart is right. King David was one of the worst criminals in the Bible, yet he
is highly prized by God as a beautiful example of repentance, having a “heart
after God.”
Each
choice gets us closer to the point of no return, either up or down, either
toward Satan or God. Humans have been given a
psychological make-up that makes them unable to change after so many choices.
They become free-willed bond slaves to someone, either Satan or God. Romans
6:14-18 says, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under
law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but
under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves
slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading
to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though
you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to
which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves
of righteousness.”
Getting back to the
seed idea in Mark chapter 4, let us look at the different results of the planted seed
that Jesus spoke about.
1.
Ground one.
Satan
stole the seed. If these people think they are once saved, they are wrong! A
lot of these people went up to some altar and were baptized, and think that
they are going to Heaven. They are deceived.
2.
Ground two.
Satan
stole the seed. These people are also deceived.
3.
Ground three.
The
seed took root and the plant grew, but it was unfruitful because of the love of
the world. These people may be going to Heaven. Old Testament Lot is our
example here.
4.
Ground four. The seed produced
plants and fruit, some more than others did.
The question
is, can
Ground three backslide all the way and lose its’ salvation? I don’t know. Look at Lot. It
is too dangerous to play around.
Would you like to go into Heaven like Lot. Jesus might say, “You know
son/daughter, I suffered on the Cross and in Hell in order to set you free from
the World, the Whore, the Harlot. The Prince of the Harlot is Satan, My own
worst enemy. How is it that you are flirting with the Whore, the one I set you
free from? I have a Bride and I am a faithful Husband. You don’t need the
Whore, the World.”
One
thing I do know. God’s grace and mercy are more abundant that we
can imagine. If grace will not
draw people to God, I don’t know what will. God wants to find every way He can to keep us from
backsliding. The book of Hosea
shows this! On the other hand, we should not think, “I will just live my life
as I please and God will understand.”
That is not Biblical. Grace
is not a cover up. Grace is the
power available to us to live up to what God expects from us.
Matthew
24:48-51 says, “But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying
his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the
drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking
for him and
at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the
hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The bottom-line.
Actually, both sides of
the argument that we talked about in the beginning of this lesson miss the
truth, while both sides have a part of the truth. The trouble is that both sides are looking at the arguments from
the wrong point of view and they are asking the wrong questions.
Here is my
answer: Christianity is a relationship with a Person, Jesus, God Himself. But the relationship is not a casual
one saying “Hello, how are you today? I am doing fine, thank you.” NO! The relationship is:
a.
Lordship.
Romans
10 says that we are saved when we make Jesus LORD, that means boss, master in
every way. We are bought with a
very high price; we are no longer our own to live our own life. To attempt to live one’s own life after
salvation is an abomination and is very dangerous. In secular slavery, the slave master would not allow his
slave to live his own life. In
spiritual slavery, Jesus will not impose Himself and thus violate one’s free
will. So it is up to us to submit
daily to His Lordship, especially by being obedient to His Word. Adam and Eve’s sin was not in drinking
or smoking but in thinking that they had enough sense to discover good and evil
for themselves. Remember, they ate of the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE of good and
evil. That does not look like sin
on the surface, but it is really arrogance, saying I can operate my life
without the Lordship of the Word of God.
THAT IS SIN. All the other
moral sins are the RESULT of that.
b.
Indwelling life. Our relationship is more than Lordship as
discussed above. It is also God
indwelling us by the Holy Spirit and making us His children. Galatians 2:20 (KJV) says, “I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” In John 15 Jesus explains that He is the vine and we are the
branches. The very sap of His life
runs through us. His life replaces our life. It does not supplement our life, nor does it clean up our
old life; it is instead of our old life.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:28 that we should consider the lilies of the
field, that they neither toil nor spin. Why don’t they have to? Because they are lilies by birth, they
have life in them. They do not
need an exterior law telling them how to be lilies. It should be the same with us. Christ lives His life in us.
Our old
nature, the flesh, cannot be cleaned up, nor made right for God. Never! The only thing that God desires for our flesh is death, so
that His life can live in us. This
is a process, however, and it happens little by little all of our life. The old tendencies of the flesh stay
with us, but they are like flowers without roots. The crucifixion of us with Christ as an historical fact
killed that old nature, the old flower was cut off. However, you can put cut flowers in water and they will
continue to live for a while. If you leave certain varieties in water long
enough, they will produce new roots.
So we
have two aspects of the relationship: the indwelling and the lordship. If a person chooses one
of the above without the other, they will get into error. One will lead to new
age permissiveness; the other will lead to legalism.
The problem
with legalism and rules-based Christianity is that it leaves us
always failing, and that leaves us with guilt and that guilt keeps us away from
the very thing we need the most, the presence of God.
The problem
with total permissiveness is that we never find ourselves pressing into
the presence of God so that He can change us. I personally know people who have really backslidden. I also know some “Lot’s,” some people
who look backslidden, but according to what God has told me, are going to
Heaven.
Remember
this is not for you to judge others by, but for yourself. Why get into the danger zone if you do
not know where the edge of the cliff is?
I heard a story of a man who lived across from a church. For 20 years he would do indecent
things to the women coming out of the church. One day he called them over to pray for him. They were amazed. They thought that he had really
repented! Just as they began to
pray, he said, “No wait! They are coming for me, it’s too late, I’m going to
Hell.” And he died.
Proverbs
29:1 says, “He
who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, will suddenly be destroyed, and
that without remedy.”
God
has some definite feelings towards the backslider. Grace is God’s power to lure us. We work and obey God because we were paid in
advance. We do not work in order
to be paid. The love of God leads
us to repent.
What
changes a person is not legalism or works. That leads you further from God. What changes you and makes you fall
more in love with Jesus is getting closer to Him, even and especially if you
have been bad. The love of God
leads men to repentance.
God
justified us and made us righteous while we were sinners, free of charge to
us. He is looking for ways to keep
us. He makes it easy IF we
cooperate. In the Book of Hosea, He shows His emotions about backsliders. Again and again He lures them with
love. If love and grace will not
lure someone, nothing will. Hosea
13:14a says, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem
them from death.” Hosea 14:4 says,
“I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has
turned away from him.” Hosea 14:8a
says, “Ephraim [Israel] shall say, ‘What have I to do anymore with
idols?’”
What has
stripped the seeming beauty
from the
idols of the earth?
Not a
sense of right or duty,
But the
sight of His matchless worth.
Not the
crushing of those idols,
With its
bitter void and smart:
But the
beaming of His beauty,
The
unveiling of His heart.
'Tis the
look that melted Peter,
'Tis that
face that Stephen saw,
'Tis that
heart that wept with Mary,
Can alone
from idols draw – Draw
and win
and fill completely,
Till the
cup o'erflow the brim:
What have
we to do with idols
Who have
companied with Him?
Anonymous
Based upon
Who Jesus is, you should be head over heels in love with Him and be honored to
lay your life down for His will.
If you do not feel that way, please pray this simple prayer. “Oh God, I confess that I most likely
do not know the depths of Your love for me. I confess that I need for You to reveal Jesus to me so that
I may see Him, and seeing Him that I may have the heart to fall in love with
Him. God, let me see You, let me
see Jesus.”