Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Foreword Mike Ovey

Preface

1. Exhortations to persevere

2. How to understand the warnings in Scripture

3. Persevering in faith is not perfection

4. Persevering in faith is not works-righteousness

5. Faith and assurance and warnings

Epilogue

Sermon: Warning! Live by faith alone (Gal. 5:2–12)

PREFACE

I want to examine in the four chapters of this book what I explored with Ardel Caneday in a more thorough way in a book titled The Race Set Before Us. Why is another book necessary if a previous book has already been published? First, the length and comprehensiveness of the previous book has been off -putting to some, and as a result the thesis of the book has not been accessible to all. My hope is that the current book will bring some of the central themes of the previous work to a wider audience. Where this book seems too brief, I would point the reader to the longer work. Second, some have misunderstood what we were arguing for in The Race Set Before Us. Despite what we specifically set forth in the book, some have thought that we were proposing works-righteousness, an unreachable perfectionism, or even that true believers could fall from salvation by committing apostasy. Such conclusions directly contradict the previous work, and thus I think it will be helpful to consider the issues again in a less technical format, in order to provide further clarification of some controversial issues. In other words, another book is warranted because it will provide a fresh and somewhat different angle to the questions explored in The Race Set Before Us. In particular, I hope from time to time in this work to consider more directly the pastoral implications of the warnings and admonitions found in the NT.3 The role of admonitions and warnings is immensely practical in living out the Christian life, for it relates to the assurance of believers. Further, the study has important consequences for ministry, since it addresses how we should counsel believers from the Scriptures. …

1. EXHORTATIONS TO PERSEVERE

Let me begin with two stories to illustrate the concerns of this book. Years ago, a young woman and her husband came to a Bible study I was leading. Two days after the Bible study they visited our house for dinner, and she expressed a keen desire to become a Christian. I was hesitant because she knew so little about the Christian faith. Nevertheless, I concluded that I might be resisting the Holy Spirit, and one thing led to another and she confessed Jesus as her Saviour that night in our living room. I assured her after her confession of faith that she was securely saved forever: that nothing she did could remove her from the eternal life that was hers. Her husband shortly thereafter followed her in the same faith. They both grew rapidly in the faith during the next year, and we were regularly involved in Bible studies with them. But a year after her confession of faith, she changed dramatically. She decided to divorce her husband, quit attending church, and ceased going to Bible studies. I pleaded with her to at least go into counselling, but to no avail. All of this happened many years ago, and I have since lost all contact with her, though I know there was no change of mind or repentance in the next fifteen years.

The other story also relates to a friend who prayed with me to become a believer. I saw the radiance and joy in her life. She began to grow in remarkable ways. And yet, in a year or two the early bloom of her faith began to fade. She began to get drunk on a fairly regular basis. She ended up living with a person who was an adherent of Buddhism. On one occasion I said to her, ‘By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments’ (1 John 2:3). A number of years passed. She broke off the relationship with the first man and ended up getting married to another. Still no desire for the things of God and Jesus Christ manifested itself. And yet, after a few years of marriage, a change began to take place. Her desire to follow the Lord resurfaced, and she began to read Scripture, pray and take seriously her church involvement. Once again she began to talk to me about spiritual matters. She gave every indication that she belonged to Jesus Christ and that she loved him. A significant period of time had intervened between her first confession of faith and the return to her first love. Was her first experience a sham, so that she was truly saved the second time? Or did she lose her salvation and regain it later? Or was she a believer the entire time, with a temporary lapse in her faith and obedience?

In this book I intend to offer some advice as to what we should say in the situations I have sketched in above. But I am not only speaking to these particular situations, for the argument of this book is that all believers everywhere need the warnings and admonitions of Scripture.