Transcript

ANNOUNCER: What is perseverance in faith? Why is there a lot of confusion about eternal security these days? Hello, this is Grace in Focus. Glad you are listening today. We are a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. And right now, we are telling people about our upcoming national annual conference. It’s happening in 2026, May 18th through the 21st. It is a four-day event. We are inviting you to come and be with us at Camp Copass. A beautiful facility with great accommodations. The fellowship will be wonderful. And our topic is “Believe in Jesus For Life.” There will be many great sessions, great opportunities for recreation. And you can get all of the details about early bird registration right now at our website, faithalone.org. We also waive registration fees for first-time attenders. So come get all the information, get registered at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

BOB: All right, well, I’m here with Sam Marr and Sam, I think you’ve got a question from Grant. 

SAM: Yep, this is actually a follow-up to a previous episode where we talked about. And I think the question was, is belief a choice or something along those lines? Right. And it was same ask or grant. But he’s saying, we didn’t quite answer his question. So he wanted to clarify it a little bit. So the deeper question he had with this, basically he’s asking, is ongoing faith a choice? He said, I agree with the GES position that faith is not a choice, but I was trying to ask about verses such as 1 Corinthians 16:13, which talk about standing in faith. Does standing in faith mean don’t become unpersuaded or don’t disbelieve? So basically he’s asking, if you’re a believer, you’ve already received everlasting life,there’s a lot of encouragement in the New Testament to stand in your faith, remain faithful. Is it a choice? Does a believer choose to stop believing or is it something else? 

BOB: Grant, that’s a great question. It’s crystal clear that all throughout the New Testament we’re called to stand firm. We’re called to hold fast. There are many warnings in the New Testament against falling away, both morally and doctrinally. And what Grant’s asking about is falling away doctrinally. Is it a choice to continue to believe or is it a choice to stop believing? And my answer would be, yes and no. It’s not a choice per se. In other words, you don’t say, I choose to believe that 2 plus 2 is 4, or I choose to believe that George Washington was the first president. But you do have many things you believe that require continued diligence to continue to believe those things. 

For example, say that you’re a middle of the road Democrat, or a middle of the road Republican. If you don’t keep up with the teachings of your party and you start listening to people in the other party, if you’re middle of the road, you’re quite possibly going to move in the other direction. For example, Ronald Reagan was a middle of the road Democrat. He became a Republican. Well, was it a choice for him to go from being a Democrat to a Republican? Yes and no. The yes part of it was he chose to listen to people from the other party. And as a result, he became persuaded. And the opposite has happened. There have been people like Liz Cheney, for example. 

it’s possible for a person to not be diligent to continue to study the word of God. And so let’s say that you’re a believer and you stop going to church, you stop reading your Bible and you stop praying. Sam, what’s going to happen over time? 

SAM: Well, a lot of things, but you’re going to fall out of fellowship with God to a certain degree. And because of that, you’re probably going to experience a lot more doubt. You’re going to be less confident in the things that you once held to. You might even lose your assurance, things like that. 

BOB: And it’s not so much that you chose to lose your assurance. But you did choose to stop going to church. 

SAM: Yeah, and it goes, that’s kind of in the negative. In the positive, even if let’s say you keep going to church, you keep reading your Bible, but you also start reading a lot of weird, fringe sources. You start watching a lot of YouTube videos of kind of fringe pseudo-Christian things. There’s a lot of good Christians that end up kind of getting swept into these cult-like, I mean, they are just cults, whatever it is, a purity cult or a guy who says he’s Jesus and he’s come to earth, things like that. So they might believe everything the Bible says, but now they’re believing extra because they’ve been spending time in these other resources with these other people. And now they’re believing things that are contradictory to what the Bible says, and eventually you’re going to get to the point where it’s the same thing. You can’t believe what the Bible says and what this cult or this fringe group is saying. 

BOB: Right. That’s a good point. In 1 Timothy 4:16, maybe you can turn there, Sam. I don’t have the exact quote, but Paul says to Timothy, something like pay attention to yourself and to the doctrine, and you will save both yourself and your hearers. And 1 Timothy is all about false teachers who are influencing the church in Ephesus.Can you read 4:16? 

SAM: Yeah, it says, “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them for in doing this. You will save both yourself and those who hear you.” 

BOB: And he’s not talking about saving them from eternal condemnation. Timothy can’t save himself from eternal condemnation. He can’t save his congregation in Ephesus. But what he does is, save himself and his congregation from being swept aside by the false teachers. 

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BOB: Well, you gave an extreme example, somebody that’s a cult that’s claiming to be Jesus or whatever, but the same is true with, for example, I’m sure you’re aware, Sam, that there are untold millions of Protestants who are going into Orthodox churches and going into Catholic churches. Have you heard about that? 

SAM: Yeah, especially with my generation, it’s kind of been a big trend for younger people. We’re turning to traditional Christianity as they see it, Catholicism. 

BOB: But if you do that, if you’re a person that’s sure of your eternal destiny and you now become Orthodox, it’s not going to be long before you lose your assurance or if you become Catholic, it’s not going to be long before you lose your assurance, because what you’re hearing, again and again is we can’t be sure. If you’re a Catholic, right, you’ve got to keep the seven sacraments to stay saved and you know, the seventh sacrament, the last rites, you need that. And of course, even if you’re saved, you’re going to spend so many thousand years in purgatory unless you’re some super saint, right? So what we listen to makes a difference. I would encourage all of you unless you are extremely well grounded in the faith, don’t read Roman Catholic literature or Eastern Orthodox literature. Don’t read articles by people who hold to lordship salvation because if you’re not extremely well grounded, you’re not going to be able to deal with the arguments they make. I read lots of lordship salvation literature because I respond to it, right? And we write blogs and magazine articles and things, but unless a person is well grounded, I wouldn’t recommend reading those things because you’re possibly going to be confused. Also, I think Sam, this really points up why it’s important to be in a solid church. 

SAM: I think that’s exactly right. And I think we’ve heard from a lot of people that come in GES, they find us one way or another and say, you all have helped me a lot. They were kind of a carefree Christian. I don’t say that to be demeaning, but maybe they grew up Christian and it’s like, okay, now I’m going to go find my church or whatever and they just go to the first church down the road. Maybe it’s kind of like the church they grew up in and they just start listening to what the pastor’s saying and then for the first time in their life, they’re realizing, okay, this is weird stuff. I’m reading the Bible and listening to what he’s saying and they don’t really seem to match up. 

But for a lot of people, that’s what happens is your church kind of determines your view on the Bible and if you’re not questioning of your pastor and the other people in that church, then you’re just going to passively believe whatever they believe. And so if you find the one of the million perfect church that perfectly teaches doctrine all the time, then that’s great. But for the rest of us humans, you have to compare everything, even your pastor, even Bob and Ken and other smart intelligent people, compare everything they say to Scripture for yourself, see where it’s in line and see if it’s out of line, be a Berean. That’s how you stay grounded. And if you find that your church does not do that or doesn’t encourage that process of comparing what’s taught to what the Bible physically says, then that’s just not a good environment to be in. 

BOB: Exactly. You know, maybe we don’t want to be free thinkers. Maybe what we want to be is open thinkers. So I’m open to the word of God. I’m a Berean, Act 17:11. I search the Scriptures, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to read everything in church history because church history is filled with lots of error. It doesn’t mean I’m going to read every commentary because commentaries are filled with error. I want to make it clear this applies to me too. I realize I could fall away from the faith. I realize I could become a lordship salvation person. I could become Roman Catholic. I could become Eastern Orthodox. I could become an atheist. I need to hear solid Bible teaching. I need to be in a solid church. I need to read literature and listen to things that help me. 

I can’t tell you how many seminary students have gone to seminary and lost their assurance of salvation. In fact, there’s lots of seminary students that have become atheists. It’s not a guarantee that you go on for higher education, you’re going to somehow grow in your faith. There’s lots of pastors I know of who have lost assurance of their salvation. 

All of us need to realize what Grant’s talking about here. It’s not a choice to remain steadfast in the faith in the sense of, okay, I’m going to be steadfast just because I’m determined, but it is a choice to continue to fill my mind with Scripture in a solid Bible teaching church and don’t allow myself to be misled. That is a choice. And so it’s vitally important for us that the people who are closest to us are really close friends, the people at our church, that these are people who are building us up in the faith, not people who are leading us astray. 

SAM: I think it’s just like at the moment of faith, you had to be open and receptive to God’s word, and that’s why you believed. He didn’t force you to believe and you didn’t choose to believe, but if you were open, then you did. If you have a closed-off heart or you know someone has a closed-off hardened heart because they’re not open, then that’s not going to change until their attitude, their behavior, their heart changes, and it’s the same for a believer. If your heart becomes hardened or it starts to stray from the truth, that’s where you’re going to start believing things that are different than what you believe when you’re open to God’s truth. 

BOB: Absolutely. So let’s keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: We invite you to check out our Monday, Wednesday, and Friday five minute YouTube videos at YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. You will love the content and learn a lot. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address: it’s radio@faithalone.org, that’s radio@faithalone.org. Please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible, that would be a great big help.

On our next episode, James chapter two and eternal security. Please join us. Until then, let’s keep grace in focus.