Q. Is there such a thing as a Christian who isn’t saved?

The church teaches ‘once saved always saved’, but is that true? It’s true if you’re saved; but what if you’re not really saved?

The parable of the 5 foolish virgins in Matthew 25 strongly suggests that it’s possible to lose the Holy Spirit, and confirms that you can’t get the Spirit from someone else. You alone are responsible for the Spirit to stay in you.

Think about the …

* the seed that fell by the wayside. The Word germinated but then got choked by the cares of the world.
* the person who got thrown out of heaven … How do you get to heaven and then get cast out?
* the branches cut off from the main branch. The Jews were God’s chosen people but ended up in bondage and died in the wilderness.
* the seven letters to the churches in Revelation. God threatened He would remove their candlestick.
* King Saul; started saved and ended up possessed
* Judas practiced the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but ended up damned
* Rahab practiced prostitution but ended up an ancestor of Christ; the opposite to the above examples.

Everyone thinks they’re saved when they ask Jesus into their heart; but what if that’s not the real criterion?

Luke 14:26 says you can’t be Christ’s disciple unless you’re dead to yourself and dead to everyone else’s favour. A saved Christian has unconditionally surrendered to what God wants.

It’s like this ….

A father says to his son “stop it”
The son says “I can’t”
The father says “then go to your room”
The son obeys and sits on his bed waiting for the father to soften and come in and say it’s ok.
The son thinks he has been obedient by going to his room and doing what he was told. When the father finally comes in and says “ok, you can come out”, he thinks everything’s resolved, but he’s missed it; the son should not have been in his room in the first place; he should have “stopped it”; that’s what he was told to do. He’s being disobedient and thus defiant; doing it his way, not the father’s way. The son is relying on the father to soften; when it should be the son who is the one who should soften. You can’t soften your heart until you see that what you’ve done is wrong. If you hold a defensive position you’ll harden your heart. Obedience isn’t a sign of salvation; changing your heart is. The prodigal son softened his heart and submitted to the authority of the father; his older brother hardened it. It was the heart that the father measured, not just the obedience.

Metamellomai repentance is saying with your head “I will stop being naughty”. It’s Judas repentance; sorry for myself for getting caught. Metanoeo repentance is saying with your heart “sorry, God, I’m wrong”. Most Christians don’t seem to have grasped the difference, and they justify their Christianity with obedience and good behaviour. When God sends them to their room, they defend their behaviour; they say God’s too harsh; they won’t soften, and they justify themselves by their obedience of going to their room, and can’t see they are being disobedient to the instruction to “stop it”.

If you ever said in your heart to your parents “you’re not going to tell me what to do” then it’s impossible as an adult to practice metanoeo repentance without a change of heart by seeing yourself for who you really are.

Jesus came to save us from our sin, not from our circumstances.

An unsaved Christian wants the best of Egypt and the best of the Promised Land at the same time, and doesn’t even realise that they are dying in the wilderness.

You can measure where your heart is by your attitude to authority, your reaction when somebody gets a better deal … “happy for them” vs. “sad for me”, and your mood when you don’t get what you want. If you can’t be thankful for others’ blessings because you miss out, then you’re not saved.

Q. how do you know whether what you’re doing or saying is right or wrong?
A. It doesn’t matter to a saved Christian, but it does matter to an unsaved Christian.

An unsaved Christian wants to be right so they look good to others, and feel good to themselves. A saved Christian realises that once you’ve signed the contract, and agreed from the heart, it’s irrelevant what you do or say; it’s irrelevant what’s right or wrong; the blood of Christ covers everything, and uses everything, evil and good, for good Romans 8:28, 9:21-23. A saved Christian’s attention is solely on the Promised Land; his heart has left Egypt. A saved Christian is free from the bondage of Egypt’s right and wrong; in his heart he’s committed to the commandments and is thus free from their fracture. A saved Christian is free from the fear of doing or saying something wrong contrary to the commandments of God. Richard Wurmbrand says as much in his book “If prison walls could speak”.

Abraham failed with Hagar. He failed twice by lying about his wife being his sister. Yet God referred to him as perfect and the father of faith. God, Himself, tested him by telling him to disobey His own commandments and kill his son. That’s the love of God. Then God changed his mind; He has that right. The whole issue had nothing to do with right or wrong; it was a test of his heart, and an exposure of God’s heart. When you’re committed to ‘right’ in your heart, you can live above the wrongs you do. This is called the love of God.

The enemy uses the guilt of our words and actions to create doubt in our hearts, but true Christians should always trust what they say and do, is God. Jesus said and did some weird things. He spat in the dirt; He said “eat Me and drink Me” in John 6; He called the Pharisees “white-washed sepulchres”, and He called the Syrophoecian woman a “dog”. He told His mother to mind her own business; He called Peter, “Satan”; and He doesn’t pray for the world John 17:9. Besides being God, why could He trust what He did and said was right? A. His heart was in the Promised Land, not in Himself John 4:34, 6:38.

Q. how do you know whether what someone else does or says is right or wrong?
A. It doesn’t matter to a saved Christian, but it does matter to an unsaved Christian.

In 2Chronicles 18, God used a lying spirit in the mouths of false prophets, to deceive King Ahab into expecting a safe return from battle. God can do whatever he likes. Micaiah spoke words from both a deceptive and a negative point of view and paid a price for speaking out. Saved Christians are generally not well liked; that’s why most Christians are unsaved. It didn’t really matter whether what Micaiah said was right or wrong; it didn’t matter if it came to pass or not; his heart was in the Promised Land. God had it all under control despite Jehoshaphat’s folly of dressing up as Ahab, and despite whether Micaiah said one thing or the opposite.

You won’t be able to trust what you do and say, nor trust what others do or say, if your foundation is “what about Me?” The answer to eternal life is soften your heart unconditionally by taking your heart out of Egypt.

I hope this confuses you enough to re-evaluate your truth.

God bless

Pastor Phil Gordon