Or, You can’t Lose It, If You Never Had It.

We’re back in the chat room, and thanks to our participant. Even though we ask chat participants to be muted during the main part of the show, trust me we had people today. Thanks. We had some interaction in the pre and post show times.

Meeting the hosts, is where we get the details of the happenings in our lives in the past week. Keith and Chris had pretty much nothing going on. Nathan clears the air on his absence last week, and what exactly he did in Branson. We share a couple humorous baptism stories.

The Main Topic boils down to losing your faith. World religions can often have very good teachings, even close to what the bible has to say, but there’s a subtle difference. Is humanity the highest order to base the teaching on? Or should it be God?

Keith presents a real world situation of someone’s statement on why they claim to have lost their faith, and why they don’t see a need to pursue it again. In affect, feeling like the quality of their life hasn’t suffered, but has even been enriched in the ways of humanity. Keith points out a couple of passages, 1 Timothy 6, which deals with false prophets, and fighting the good fight of faith. Also 2Peter 1:5-12, which has a similar theme of the dangers of false prophets.

It boils down to how is your quality of life holding up? What fruit are you producing? When times get hard, have you finally come to the place where your tank of ethical treasury has run dry, and you find yourself compromising, and betraying those ethics?

Nathan presents a segment, we originally planned it to be a short segment, but it fit so well with the other talking points that we ran with it. Focusing one of those often misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted passages, Nathan shares:

Matthew 7: 21-23 (KJV).

21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

The problem.

* People use this to point out the idea that someone can lose their faith. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven…”

* That getting to heaven is based on works: “…but he that doeth the will of my Father…”

Or

“…have we not prophesied… cast out devils… and in thy name done many wonderful works?”

Context is key. Paying attention to what is said, and what is not said is important.

Nathan puts it this way:

Matt 7.21-23 is often considered scary to some. They believe it talks about loss of salvation. However, it does NOT!

Sometimes in order to interpret what a passage says, you first need to know what it DOESN’T say. This passage is NOT saying one can lose his salvation. We can see this more clearly by looking at three factors:

* The Bible doesn’t contradict itself 2 Tim 3.16-17 says God inspires all scripture, and since God inspired it, he knows what he’s talking about, and will not contradict himself.

* We see in more than one passage that once someone trusts Christ, they are sealed.

* Ephesians 1:12-14 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.