Can You Lose Your Salvation? Part 1
Have you ever worried about losing your salvation? Is that even possible? Many people say you can and many say you can’t…but what does God say? Join me as we dig into God’s word to find the answer.
Podcast 16 Transcript
(This is a computer generated transcript of this podcast. This is NOT a typed transcript and it has not been edited. Expect grammatical and syntactical errors.)
Hello and good day to you. I am B. R. Maul and this is Living God’s Way in an Ungodly World and I am your host. It is so good to have you here with me today. This podcast is the time that we take to learn of God’s word, to apply God’s word to our day-to-day living. Why is that so important? Well, because this world continues to unravel faster and faster and just like it says in the Bible, as it gets closer to the Day capital D, which is the coming of Christ, the more this world will hate God and will hate those who love his son, Jesus Christ.
I am one of those. Because I am a born again believer. I am a preacher and teacher of God’s word. I am an ambassador of Christ. And of course, more importantly, I am his child, a child of God. And you know what? I’m okay that the world hates me. I’m okay with that cuz Jesus loves me. And the thing is, he loves you too.
Jesus died for everyone, but not everyone is going to heaven. For those who continue to read God’s word, it is very evident, unfortunately, that the popular way, the easy way through this life is broad and wide, and many are on it, but unfortunately the end of that path is hell because the way following God, following his beloved son Jesus Christ is a narrow path. The gate is narrow, difficult to find, and once on it, it’s not an easy path to tread. That’s why you keep on coming back here. For those who are born again believers, we are brothers and sisters in our faith, in and through the name of Jesus Christ, we are family. And if you’re listening to this, you hear my voice, and you are not yet a believer, you are not yet a follower of Jesus Christ, but you stick around cause I want you to know my savior. I want you to know how much he loves you and learn from his written word. Today’s podcast is entitled, Can You Lose Your Salvation? Very important question and one that continues to be debated.
Why? I don’t know, because God’s word is quite evident of what he is saying, what he says, but I am convinced, and I share this often, that the enemy of God’s children, the devil, he already learned long ago, he cannot defeat Christ. And so now he’s going to go after his children. Also, those who can potentially be God’s children, which is anybody and everybody.
There’s nobody who is born condemned to hell, but everybody needs to come to know and to accept the name of Jesus Christ, and the devil’s doing everything he can to prevent that. Now we just came off of The Devil’s Dirty Deed. Yeah, the last four podcasts where I had addressed baptism and The Devil’s Dirty Deed is the great lie, which is one only needs to be baptized. One does not need to believe, one only needs to be baptized, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of pseudo religions today that use infant baptism as a way of claiming they are sending people to heaven. So please listen to that if you have not already, all four of those parts. And you are welcome to go to my website, brmaul.com, that’s www.brmaul.com click on contact and if you have any questions, please do so. Get ahold of me. I want to make sure you understand God’s word and uh, we will review it together. But with that said, now that I’ve already have made it clear that there is only one baptism. Often in our world, it is referred to as believers baptism, and that’s not such a bad title because, well, it is the only way or the only reason a person needs to be baptized is if they are a believer.
What I want to address is what comes right on the heels of the concept, the notion that one can lose their salvation because for the pseudo religions, two big ones, Catholicism and Lutheranism, that promote the fact that baby baptism is appropriate. They also must believe, and please hear me out. To believe that baby baptism has any effect and would in fact send a person to heaven then one also needs to believe that if that is the way they receive their salvation, that they can lose their salvation. All of this is not true and not of God’s word, so please understand it is not an option baptizing somebody without them believing. Is not an option. And if you are attending a church that teaches that, that that’s all one needs is baptism, then my advice to you is flee and get to a different church.
Now, why is that? Because it’s very evident in God’s word that we cannot lose our salvation, and that baptism always comes after one believes and is born again. Let me direct you to John one, and I’ll start with verse 10, 10 through 13. He was in the world, and of course John is referring to Jesus. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him.
He came to his own and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Well, let me break this down for you. So going back to verse 10, he was in the world.
So he was part of his creation and the world was made through him. So right there we know that he, Jesus created the world because the world was made through him. When he came down in flesh, he also put himself as in the world as part of his creation, which is magnificent and it is very hard to comprehend that.
He made the world, but he put himself in a position of being part of it and the world did not know him. Verse 11, he came to his own and his own did not receive him. If you are following along in your Bible, you may want to underline that word, receive verse 12, but as many as received him. Again, underline that word received.
To them. He gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. Underline the word, believe. These are verbs. This is action that is needed to take place. So this right here alone, standing alone, these verses shows us that we must receive him. And the pseudo Christian religions, Catholicism, Lutheranism, and many more teach that we are unable to receive him.
We are unable to accept him. We are unable to ask him into our heart. However it is, they want to verbalize it. They get confused and they say nobody can do anything. There’s no work of man that can get you into heaven. So there’s no way that you can receive or do anything to be a part of the salvation.
And I disagree because this is God’s word saying, but as many as received him to them, he gave their right to become children of God. So we must. Receive him. That is not a question. It’s in God’s word, so we must receive him. Period. There’s nothing else to say about that because a person needs to receive.
I won’t dive into it, but last podcast I did go into more detail why a baby cannot receive. But to reiterate the important part there is they will try to say then those who support infant baptism, well then a baby can at least receive spiritually well. How receiving something spiritually is not partaking in the works of salvation, but somehow verbally receiving into someone’s heart is a work of salvation, makes absolutely no sense. So now we know we must receive him. Well, I’m pretty big on words. I like to break down words and even the syntax of a sentence. Because in God’s word there is no word that is wasted. So what is receive, if you look up the Greek word receive is actually parallel and it means to receive near that is associate with oneself in any familiar or intimate act or relation to receive somebody, then the Greek word is showing that there’s intention behind receiving it. Okay? In a familiar or intimate act or relation. So receiving somebody, you see somebody that you haven’t seen for a while perhaps, and you miss them. So how do you receive them?
You give them a big hug and you embrace them. Well, that would be in a familiar or intimate act or relations. So being with them, enjoying their company, coming back to them and establishing that relationship. Right. And that is important in our walk with the Lord, because that’s what he wants. He wants a relationship with you.
He doesn’t want more people to know about him intellectually, to read about him and to even think he’s a really nice guy. No, he wants a relationship and one must receive him in such a way then to begin that relationship. So there’s certainly relationship in this receiving, and this is not spiritually receiving.
This is receiving with your flesh and blood. That’s taking the time to know about him. That’s maybe that’s listening to the gospel. Maybe that’s going to a church and listening to sermons. Maybe that’s listening to a believer or family or friends who are introducing you to Jesus and the gospel that is receiving his beginning of it.
Now there’s a difference between receiving and being given. If you look up the word give in the Webster’s American dictionary, it means to bestow, to confer, to pass or transfer to transmit from one person to another. So giving something, why do I bring that up? Because if we look at the difference then between baptizing a baby or a non-believer because these pseudo religions would also need to stand by the very fact then that if you can baptize a baby, you can also baptize a non-believer and give them salvation. But that would be giving, that’s not them receiving cuz the baby can’t receive. A non-believer who doesn’t want to receive isn’t going to.
Or even if you try to do it secretly, like misleading and try to baptize somebody into the kingdom of God, they’re still not receiving it at that point. They’re being given. So I’ll just go to the example of infant baptism since that’s what I just discussed over the last month. By baptizing a baby, then that baby is not receiving anything other than a wet head.
But in this case, someone’s trying to give them something. Now, hang on that notion just for a second, cuz I’m gonna go back to the reading. Verse 11. He came to his own and his own did not receive him, which is a choice. They rejected him. They did not receive him. Verse 12, but as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God.
To those who believe in his name. To believe is something that takes effort. We can’t believe in someone or something that we have no knowledge of. If you are not a follower of Christ, but you are perhaps listening to this message, And for those who go to a church and they’re trying to gather more information, or they’re asking questions with family and friends who are following Jesus, well, that’s the the steps towards receiving and believing.
Now, here’s where syntax is important, because at the end of verse 12, in the new King James version, and that’s the one I use primarily is a colon. Also in the King James and I believe in the NIV V version, there’s a a colon, but there’s also some have hyphens and some only use a comma. But I’m not too crazy about that because what follows in 13 is an explanation then of, well, what does receiving and believing in his name, what does that pertain to?
13. Answers that. Verse 13, who were born not of blood, so of spirit, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So those who were born of God, which is spiritually. And as we looked at in John three a few weeks ago, that’s what Jesus was telling Nicodemus, God is spirit. To be born of God is to be born of the Holy Spirit, which is not of flesh and blood.
But what really applies to our situation here is the two statements, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. Well, why is that? Well, because baptizing babies is the will of man mankind. Think about that for a moment. We are told specifically that he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name.
What does that consist of? Who were born not of blood, but of God, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. I say to you that under the tradition of a family, taking their baby, bringing it to another human being, and this baby cannot receive and cannot believe on their own, it is the will of the parents at this point that their baby be saved.
And sure the will of the pastor or priests and or the will of many of those who are witnessing in the church. But it’s still just the will of man. It’s the will of flesh that negates it right there. So just in John one versus 10 through 13. Beloved, there are so many reasons why we cannot baptize a baby now, if it were possible, and I’ll, I’ll talk about that in a second.
That’s where it would be pretty sticky, because then yes, losing a one salvation could very well be the case. But we’re talking about something that’s done of God, our salvation. So stick with me here cuz I’m still closing the chapter on infant baptism to go right into Can you lose your Salvation? Infant Baptism wants to flip flop the salvation according to God, and I say, wants to flip flop because it doesn’t give a person salvation, but they want to be able to flip flop it, so even if it did, it wouldn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work, because instead of receiving Jesus, which is the Bible way, right, we need to receive him and believe in him instead of receiving Jesus the person, or in the case of infant baptism, a baby is given Jesus. So instead of being justified by the blood of Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit and living a life being sanctified, a person must live a life of good works, which of course doesn’t work. We can’t live a life and work a good life and work our way into heaven. Okay, that is salvation by works.
Not biblical, although many pseudo Christian religions also promote that. But if that is the case, and if someone’s trying to work their way into heaven, then yes, they could lose their salvation if one was able to actually get it in that process. Now I addressed this bogus way that a baby can receive the Holy Spirit through their own spirit in last week’s podcast.
They try to justify that even though it’s not with God’s word. They say, well, sure the baby can’t, you know, verbalize it, but they can receive it spiritually. And then of course they go on to make all kinds of ridiculous, uh, arguments trying to set that up, which I don’t understand why, because God is the one, he’s the one who said, this is how it’s gonna be done.
People can argue the fact that they wanna do it this way, but just because they wanna do it this way. It doesn’t mean it works. What I didn’t point out last week, and I will now is this, Jesus didn’t make people believe in him when he walked the earth. And please really think about this because God has the power and ability to make people follow him if he wanted to.
But he in his great wisdom has designed it where. We must give our love to him. We must receive him and accept him, but he didn’t go around and and spiritually make people receive him and accept him as their Lord and Savior. And I proposed a question to you. Why wouldn’t he then, if God made it possible to bypass receiving his son in order to go to heaven?
And he decided I can do that by making someone believe. Or giving them salvation without them knowing it or even wanting it by, by splashing water on them. Then why didn’t Jesus do that over and over and over again? Why didn’t he just tell people then who actually do believe in him and love him to make sure that here’s how you baptize people, whether they want to or not, because we really can’t say.
We can do that with a baby, but we can’t do it to other people. It doesn’t work. So either we can baptize anybody and everybody and force salvation on them or we can’t. And age has nothing to do with it. I mean, think about the fact that he could have even saved all the Pharisees this way, John the Baptist, when the Pharisees came down and said, Hey, what do you think you’re doing?
And he said, Hey, you brewed a vipers. He accused the Pharisees of coming down and thinking that they could just get baptized, and that’s good enough. If it was good enough, why wouldn’t, uh, John at that point, invite even the Pharisees down to the river then? And even though they didn’t want to or even believe in the fact at all, and just baptize them.
That’s more souls to be saved. Because remember, God doesn’t will that anybody shall perish. God doesn’t want anybody to go to hell. Not at all. He, he loves everybody. But for those who reject him, that’s their choice and he allows that. I had somebody tell me, well, I’m not going to lose my salvation just because I was baptized as a baby.
So does the act of baptizing a baby or a non-believer or somebody who does not wanna believe. Cause that person who is baptized to go to hell, of course not. The only determining factor of figuring out whether someone goes to heaven or goes to hell is whether or not they believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
As Roman 10, nine and 10 says however, For you brother and sisters that are hanging onto the fact that you want to attend a pseudo Christian Church that promotes infant baptism, know this, that it is misleading and giving people an easy out not to look into their salvation because many just believe I was already baptized.
Quit telling me I need to do anything else. I was told by leadership, I was told by my parents, I was told by loved ones, and I assure you, these people have not read God’s word. And as for leadership who continues to practice that, please be very mindful. You better rethink staying as a pastor in a pseudo religion that continues to tell people that it is okay to baptize a baby.
Because then you are intentionally leading them. Cause if you have heard my words from my mouth right now, you fall under the jurisdiction in the book of James four 17. For he who knows to do good but fails to do it. To him it is sin. So moving on in John one. Let’s drop down to verse 32. 32 through 34.
Read. And John bore witness saying, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he remained upon him, him being Jesus. I did not know him Jesus, but he as God the father who sent me to baptize with water, said to me, upon whom you see the spirit descending. And remaining on him. This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
Verse 34. And I have seen and testified that this is the son of God. It’s important to know that John the Baptist didn’t just one day decide I’m gonna start baptizing people. As prophets of old God spoke to him directly and told him upon whom you see the spirit descending and remain on him. This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
He’s the one God the Father gave the instructions of start baptizing people in the water because you are gonna pave the way. So when my son comes, he’ll take over. Jesus did not baptize with water when he walked the Earth. Only his disciples did. You can check that for yourself now. Why? Well, we just read why in verse 33 of John one.
This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God himself baptizes those who are born again with the Holy Spirit. So if Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit, someone who is born again, the biblical way, once born again, they instantly receive the Holy Spirit. My question is, do you think that Jesus baptisms are reliant on man baptizing with water?
In other words, since Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit, Does that not have any effect then until a person is baptized with water? Certainly not, and that would be horrifying. In fact, the very thought is horrifying. God, our father wants us to be a part of building his kingdom, and that is wonderful. We are to go out to all nations and we are to tell people the gospel and we are to baptize them in the name of the Father, son and the Holy Spirit, but.
It’s important to know, beloved, that he does not put any dependency on our works whatsoever. I mean, that would be horrible if God did place a believer’s salvation, a believer’s entrance into heaven on the stipulation that he or she gets first baptized with water in the appropriate way. Because as people, we mess things up all the time.
So even if someone was a true believer and they were born again, But they still could not receive their salvation until baptized with water. How horrible would that be? That would be terrible. And especially for those who wanna slice corners and and do things their own way that don’t even wanna baptize with full submersion.
They go, ah, we’ll just throw some water on you. There’d be so many ways that we could botch it up. As human beings, we would be the only reason that believers would be going to hell because they weren’t baptized with water or they weren’t baptized the right way. So, in other words, water has nothing to do with our salvation at all.
Absolutely nothing to do with it. Jesus told us to, and that is because he already baptizes the new believer with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit’s residing in them. It is an outward expression. That is packed full with built-in blessings. I call ’em built-in blessings. Built-in isn’t a biblical term there, but I call it builtin blessings because when we do something that God has told us to do, when we follow his commandments, when we live a life of righteousness, we receive what I call built-in blessings, joy, and peace.
That’s how he blesses us. So when we are baptized in water, it has nothing to do with the transfer or helping of salvation at all. But we are still blessed because we openly are showing God himself, God the Father, we are showing ourselves. So those are the two most important audience members right there, God and ourself, that I am a child of God, but also we’re showing the world.
And isn’t that great that God provides this way for us to still participate, to be able to visually show the world that we are children of God. I’m glad that he gave us baptized people in the name of the Father, son and the Holy Spirit, and that’s great because if we would’ve just came up with it, well, Jesus didn’t tell us to do anything, but we need to show the world.
Well then it wouldn’t be right. He didn’t tell us to do that. But over time, the enemy has placed the seed of it needs to be done in the minds of those who had the influence, and then others continue to run with it. And these are the same people who go to seminaries who teach false doctrine based on the fact that that’s what’s been going on for centuries.
So when you are born again, you cannot lose your salvation. Let’s take a look at a few passages that solidify that, that show us straight up that we cannot lose our salvation. Okay? The first one is Ephesians one 13 and 1413 reads In Him, you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed you were sealed.
With the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession to the praise of his glory. Now, in him, you also trusted, that’s Jesus. You trusted in the gospel, you trusted in him. And after you heard the word of truth, That is the gospel and then believed you were sealed.
So there’s a lot of words there. You should probably underline because the first part in him, you also trusted. That takes effort, doesn’t it, to trust somebody. You’re obviously listening, you’re observing, and you’re making a calculation. Can I trust this person? Okay, so there’s some action right there after you heard underlying that.
The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. So you trusted in him A, after you heard the gospel, which is God’s word, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, continuing on. So in him also having believed. So now you also have to believe that more action, right? You were sealed, underlying, sealed.
With the Holy Spirit of promise, underlying promise, who is the guarantee underlying guarantee in your Bible of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to praise of his glory. There are so many terms in there that are action terms that also show us that once we have gone through that process of believing.
Being born again and receiving the Holy Spirit that you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, a promise. These are things that we cannot undo. We are not able to break that. And I’ll talk more about this next week. One more, and that is Second Corinthians chapter one, verses 21 and 22 reads. Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God who also has sealed, there’s that word again, who has sealed us and given us the spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
This time, the word given is used because God gives us. After sealing us the spirit in our hearts, but that’s because we’ve already received him. So now he can give us, he’s not forcing himself upon people. God, our father doesn’t work that way. He is not forcing people to go to heaven. He is not forcing people to live eternity with him who don’t want to live eternity with him because they want their own life.
That’s the way it is. Next week I’ll talk more about this being sealed, why we can’t unseal it, and we’ll also take a look whether it’s next week or the week after. Why then we can know that we have our salvation. And for those who seem to have fallen away, that is only an illusion because a person doesn’t lose their salvation.
They either A, never had it. Which means they were never born again, or B, they still have their salvation, but they’re not right with God. And I will talk more on that as well. The devil cannot take your salvation from you, but our enemy can take away every blessing that our Heavenly Father wants to give you on this side of eternity.
And these are the people who you can’t tell ’em apart from an believer, from a heathen, and yet they could be born again. So more on that in the coming weeks. Stay true to your walk by brothers and sisters. Make sure you are staying in God’s word each and every day, and continue to pray to him each and every day.
Hopefully you have a group of believers to come together with on a weekly basis. And worship with one another. And even if you’re going to a church to worship, I do pray you’re still meeting with brothers and sisters outside of church in the weeks or months to come. I’ll be talking more about the importance of coming together and holding each other up because we need to be strengthened and we get that through our savior and he uses us the body of Christ with our spiritual gifts to do so.
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Until next time,
God bless.
Songs
“Heroes Inspire Hope” and “Mountainscape” by Humans Win
“Mysterious Fairytale Villain” by Media Music Group
Sound Effects from Storyblocks.com