MrWonder's Bible Chat

MrWonder's Own Testimony of OSAS

I Thought I Could Be Lost Again

For twenty years, I did not believe in OSAS. I argued against it vehemently, every chance I got. My view was simple--I was saved by receiving Christ, therefore I could be lost again if I chose to reject Christ. It didn't worry me, because I knew I wasn't going to reject Him--so I didn't fear loss of my salvation (which is one of the arguments OSASer's would use on me--that I had no peace in my salvation--I had plenty of peace--I wasn't going to reject Him). I rocked on for twenty years, happy in my superior knowledge (that's how I saw it). Then one day, I just decided to ask God about it. I asked Him to show me the truth, if He pleased. I was reading Kingdom of the Cults, by Dr. Walter Martin (the 1965 edition--the later edition doesn't have it) and he made mention of the fact that every sin we have committed was future when Christ died. It hit me that when God saved me, every sin I would ever commit after that point was still future, yet I believed I was saved. I realized in a flash that since God knew if any person would "reject" Christ after "being saved" then God would be foolish to save them--it would indicate He does not have knowledge of the future. Then I got to thinking about John 1.10-13 and saw that when a person believes all he can, and trusts all he can, it is STILL up to God's will to convert them into a sheep--born again by the will of God. Then I thought to myself, that if God saved a man, and then lost him again, it would make God double-minded--knowing the person would ultimately reject Christ, why would God join the spirit of that individual to the Spirit of Christ, making them one spirit? I saw He would not.

Here is where the problem lies: Many people THINK they got saved, but they never did. Once saved, Always saved is true--IF you get past the ONCE. Only God knows for sure who is saved. It is the mark of a FALSE PROPHET to give another man the assurance of salvation when the Holy Spirit has not given that man the assurance. Assurance is the Holy Spirit's job--not ours. We CANNOT tell another man he is saved--that is a lie of the devil. We can only say "The best I can tell, I think you are a brother in Christ." I don't know if Billy Graham is saved (judging by some statements he has made) but I do think he is.

So when these people that we think we know are saved fall away, then we think OSAS did'nt work. Sure it did and it does. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning--He is able to complete what He starts. If GOD gives the new birth to a person (I said IF He gives it to them--not if they or we THINK He gave it to them), if He genuinely, really, truly, gives them sho'nuff, genuine, real-thing, honest-to-God salvation--then it is theirs forever and they will never fall away, for they are "kept by the power of God, through faith, until life eternal." God keeps them--they do not keep themselves.

I cannot save myself--I cannot. Nor can I keep myself saved--I cannot. Only God can save me--only God can keep me.

Wrong For Twenty Years

As stated, for twenty years I was convinced a person could be lost again. But when God showed me the truth, He showed it to me so forcefully, and has enforced it to me repeatedly since then, that I am now fully, completely, totally convinced that God never saves someone and then says,

"Oops! I have made a major mistake! I will have to lick that calf again, because I have done gone and saved a person who will ultimately go to hell. Oh what an embarassing mistake I have made! Hope the angels weren't watching!"

NO. God will never say that, because God will never SAVE SOMEONE and then LOSE THAT person. Never. He is perfect--He doesn't make mistakes.

People come at this thing from a humanist viewpoint--all man and no God. It is a performance issue with him--perform good--you're saved--perform poorly--you're lost. Apparently he has never read the story of Balaam and how God fussed and fussed about how rotten Israel is (it's in Numbers, about chapters 24-27 or thereabouts) and then when Balaam prophesies, God says "I behold no iniquity in Jacob." Well if He didn't see any sin in Jacob, meaning Israel, then He sure doesn't see any in me.

ALL MY SIN WAS IMPUTED TO CHRIST. THERE IS NO SCRIPTURE THAT SAYS GOD WILL REMOVE MY SINS FROM CHRIST AND IMPUTE THEM AGAIN TO ME.

Impossible to be Lost Again

It is as IMPOSSIBLE for me to be lost again as it is for CHRIST to be lost. I am ONE SPIRIT with Jesus Christ--if I go to Hell, HE GOES TO HELL TOO. We are one spirit-- we cannot be separated by Heaven or Hell. We are a package deal--we go together.

One wrote:

The whole trouble with certain teachers is that they think being "born again" is the same in every sense as a physical birth, and much false teaching is based upon this assumption. The new birth is a moral change, not a physical one. It is a change of heart, will, motives, desires, life, and conduct, but not of organism.

No, it IS as a physical birth only MORE SO than the physical birth is. It is not just a moral change--it is a SPIRITUAL change--a new birth, and the change in the spirit is far more important than any physical change could be for the spirit is the REAL man, not the body, and it is the spirit that is saved, not the body. It IS a change of heart, will, motives, desires, life, and conduct AND a change of ORGANISM--the organism of the SPIRIT, for the spirit was separated from God, thus DEAD to God and the Holy Spirit has joined that dead spirit to the Living Spirit of Jesus Christ and that spirit of the new-born man now has the same life as the Spirit of Jesus Christ and that is eternal life, and he can never die, for he has eaten of the tree of life.

Go back to Genesis and see that Adam was not created righteous--he was created INNOCENT--UNTRIED. He had to be tried and when he was tried, he failed. Genesis says that IF the man then ate of the TREE OF LIFE (the CROSS is our Tree of Life) that he would LIVE FOREVER, and he would live forever in that state of sin. One partaking of the Tree of Life in the Garden and Adam would have lived forever even though not born again.

Born Again

Well the Christian has been BORN AGAIN from above, from the Holy Spirit and is united to the Spirit of Christ. For a Christian to go to hell means Christ is going to hell too. ALL MY SINS were punished in CHRIST JESUS--there is NO SIN on me and there isn't a devil in hell or a person on earth man enough to put ONE TINY SIN on me again.

You have proved you see salvation as a performance-of-the-human issue with Christ contributing NOTHING but a little salt on the meat. In my religious belief, CHRIST PAID IT ALL--not just the interest with me doing the principle--CHRIST PAID IT ALL. If He paid it ALL then I owe NOTHING. If salvation is a FREE GIFT, then I can't purchase it because it isn't for sale.

When the advertiser says, "FREE! For only ten dollars!" you have been had. If I pay ONE PENNEY, it isn't FREE. My salvation is a FREE GIFT of God, bought and paid for (it is finished) by the obedience of ONE MAN, Jesus Christ, not by my obedience.

I obey ONLY BECAUSE I am saved. It is LEGALISM to believe one is saved because they obey, but it is a walk in the Holy Spirit to obey BECAUSE one is saved.

Had you written: I can find at least 10 ways a person who THINKS he is saved proves he is actually lost and has never been saved at all, then I would have agreed with you.

A saved person cannot be lost, for if he is lost, then so is Christ.