The only thing that you can do with salvation, you got two choices:
You believe it, or you reject it. That's what you got.
There's a string of issues here that are related where...
I'll just, again, I don't want to be the bull in the China closet here, but I'll say it this way.
Where our prior theological systems sort of get in the way.
And here's what I mean: We sort of are taught and assume that
the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in a believer is out of the gate permanent.
Now the question that needs to be asked is, why do we think that?
She says Calvin. Well, that would be correct.
No, I mean, why do we think that?
Well, chances are, we think of that for a number of reasons.
We'll look at passages in the New Testament where the Holy Spirit's presence in the believer
is referred to as a down payment, or the arrabōn, which could be like
an engagement ring or something like that, where it's like a deposit. And so,
keyword, the assumption that we make is that, Oh, well, if God makes that deposit,
it's permanent, you know, cuz God's gonna carry through with that.
Is that what those passages say?
The other thing that gets in the way here is because we presume that the difference
between the Old Testament ministry of the Spirit
and the New Testament ministry of the Spirit is this permanency.
We bring that to the table.
We think that that is what's new about the New Covenant.
There's got to be something new about the New Covenant because it's new.
Okay, Scripture calls it new. All right.
So that means if there's something that distinguishes it from the Old Covenant.
But we sort of fill in that gap with certain notions, theologically,
and we do it with such frequency, and it gets
passed down from tradition, to tradition and tradition, that it becomes like a doctrine.
The way of reading this or that verse has now become a doctrine.
And we often don't realize that, well, you know, what, deposits do get withdrawn.
Engagements are broken. Okay, this just happens.
God did divorce Israel. The Holy Spirit did leave Zion.
He really did. Read Ezekiel, he left, I'm out of here, goodbye. Okay.
Didn't God mean that to be carried through?
Well, sure, you know, God wanted Israel to be Israel.
Why wasn't it? It wasn't God's fault.
It was what it was, it became what it was because people
who profess to be the people of God, became idolaters, and worshiped other gods.
Okay, it's not the fault of God. It's the fault of individuals.
Why does that change in the New Testament? Well, because it's the New Covenant.
How did we take that question and make that the answer to this other question?
How did we do that? Well, we just do it. That's just the way we do it.
Again, what I'm suggesting is, maybe that's really not what's new about the New Covenant.
Maybe what happens is the Spirit of God does indwell the believer,
and will not tolerate the believer worshipping another god.
Just like he didn't tolerate that in the Old Testament.
You know, salvation cannot be lost.
Like, "oh, I dropped my salvation. Where did I leave it?"
Okay, "oh, I sinned too much, you know, and I lost it." Well, newsflash,
pro tip, ok, salvation wasn't performance-based to begin with.
That which cannot be obtained by moral perfection cannot be lost by moral imperfection.
It has nothing to do with merit and performance.
So you don't drop it. You don't lose it.
You don't leave it on the roof of your car, okay? That's not the way it works.
The only thing that you can do with salvation, you got two choices:
You believe it, or you reject it. That's what you got.
In the Old Testament, if you believe that Yahweh was the God of all gods,
and then you rejected him, God's not sitting there.
"Oh, I shouldn't have promised that now, what am I going to do?
You know, Oh, darn, you know, my hands are tied now.
I'm going to have heaven filled with Baal worshipers, boy, I'm stupid!"
No, no, no, no, no, no.
You must believe. You must be aligned with the true God.
The Spirit of God comes to indwell the believer so that you will know that God is with you.
You have gifts so that you know that God is with you.
God is in your corner. This is the down payment.
Philippians 2, now, if you keep believing, if you're a disciple,
if you remain loyal to the God of Israel.
You show what you believe, by the way you live,
and you don't go off and worship other gods.
He's never going away.
He's going to be with you through horrible things, through trials, through testings.
He's going to be there.
God wants you to succeed, and he's given you the Spirit of God
to help you every step of the way.
"Well, what if I have a doubt? What if I sin?"
That isn't the question. Neither of those is the question.
The question is always the same: who do I trust for salvation?
It's not who do I trust to keep me alive?
It's not who do I trust to get me out of this jam?
It's not who do I trust to get rid of this disease?
It's who am I trusting with eternal life?
It's one question.
Okay, it's one question.
And God asked that you believe that he has provided the answer to that.
And there's no other answer.
You go to heaven, not on the basis of your own merit,
or what you do or how you perform?
Or you know, "I have a doubt fly through my head."
Well, no kidding. Okay. You know, Jesus was there too.
He's human, he knows how human minds work, he gets it.
But at the end of the day, those are not the questions.
The question is where is your allegiance? Where's your loyalty?
Who do you believe?
Because the Lord will not tolerate you believing in somebody else.
You might doubt, you're going to struggle, you're going to sin.
Boxes checked. Okay, the apostles check all the boxes too.
Okay, boxes checked.
The one that needs to be unchecked is; "I don't believe this anymore.
I like this other God over here. Or I don't believe in any God at all.
I'm going to be my own God, well, that's a winning situation."
Okay, that's the box that needs to be unchecked, perpetually, in perpetuity.
The Spirit of God is with you. He is with us.
And he plans to stay unless you tell him to get lost.
Okay, God will not force people into the kingdom.
He asks one thing: do you believe that the basis for all of this
has been accomplished by somebody else, and not you?
And not some other god. That's your final exam. That's what it is.
But what we've done is we've taken certain passages and we've pre-loaded them
with theological perspectives.
But if they're repeated often enough, they become doctrine.
And all I'm suggesting is well, some of those things that we just sort of assume,
they really don't work well, like over here and over there and we got a problem.
You know, I love "problem passages."
Okay, that just means: "this is messing with my theology over here.
It's a problem passage. I don't know what to do with it."
Well, maybe you should just dump your system and like, start all over again.
You know, just a suggestion. It's work. Okay. It's a lot of work.
But you know, I think it's worth it. So, that's the way I would approach that.
The Spirit of God is certainly with us and he doesn't plan on going anywhere.
He doesn't plan on going anywhere.
If you believe you are eternally secure.
If you don't, you're not.
How can you have unbelievers in heaven? I mean, just think how simple that is.
If you believe, you're eternally secure.
If you don't, you're not.
How could you be?
Who's not in the kingdom? Who's not in heaven? People who don't believe.
I mean, look how simple that is. And yet we've turned this into a conundrum.