Strive To Enter In At The Gate

The answer to this question “Can you loose salvation” is yes. The Holy Bible never teaches a “once saved, always saved” doctrine! Yet it is one of the most believed false doctrines of western civilization.

There are a lot of key words throughout the Holy Bible that affirms that you can lose your salvation such as: “If,” “Abide;” “Continue;” “Obey;” “Hold Firm;” “Watch out;” “Watch closely and Strive”

These words maybe insignificant by a personal perspective, and these words can be so easily skimped over, but they are very strong words in there context in the Holy Bible. And context are very important in studying the The Holy Bible.

And always remember, that the Holy Word’s of God interprets itself, and is illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God. Man need’s not to interpret, for the Word of God can easily be twisted, or taken out of context.

Especially to those who do not know the Holy Bible or have the mind of Christ, nor is born-again and have the discernment of the Holy Spirit. Context is important.

This “Once saved, always saved” false doctrine teaches, “Once you ‘accept’ Jesus Christ, you will always be saved, no matter what you, or I do,” This is a dangerous doctrine that will destroy you.

It preys on humanities ignorance of the true word’s of the Holy Bible. It also gives a false sense of security, and false hopes.. It lowers the standards and the boundaries of God.

And it offers a sinning religion where there is no failure, no personal accountability, no fellowship or communion with God. Ultimately perverts grace and cheapens salvation that Jesus Christ died on the cross for. And it also offers a counterfeit “alternative.”

Every Christian has a personal duty to put this flesh under the subjection of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (since it is the Holy Spirit who leads and guides us into all truth by the direction of Jesus Christ: John 16:13-15).

To discipline thy self in reading and studying the Holy Bible and to know the truth, because again, what you don’t know can and will destroy your soul to eternal damnation.

According to Jesus Christ there is a price to pay to keep salvation, and that price is self. For some, this is a heavy price to pay. To deny one self, and pick up the cross and follow Jesus Christ,

Mark 8:34-38 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

Jesus also ministered on this same line when someone asked about, “who can be saved,” in

Luke 13:22-28 And He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

What does the Word Strive mean? ‘To wrestle, contend, try very hard.’ To do what? To enter Heaven through the narrow gate. In the King James Version, it says, “to enter in at the strait gate.”

The word strait literally mean difficult. We know salvation is easy to obtain (Romans 10:8-20). So Jesus is teaching here, the way to keep eternal life is difficult according to God’s standards, but not impossible.

The key in keeping salvation is to deny yourself (deny the world and sinful gratifications), pick up the cross (mortify the deeds of the sinful flesh) and follow Jesus Christ as Lord daily. This is what it means for all Christians to work out your own salvation in keeping salvation, as it is also written,

Philippians 2:12-16 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,

among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.

Why are we working at keeping salvation? There are many things in life that will try to draw and entice us away from Jesus Christ.

James 1:14-15 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

Sin brings forth death not just physically, but sin also brings forth a spiritual death absolutely. Just like in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve was alive spiritually until they sinned against God.

That’s why after they have sinned “there eyes were opened” they realized they were naked and ashamed. They could not see God any longer. They heard God and were afraid, and they hid themselves from God (Genesis 3:1-8). That’s spiritual death!

Just because Jesus Christ saves us, doesn’t mean we are incapable of sinning against God nor are we exempt from the temptations of the flesh and of the devil. Wolves waits for an opportunity to drag away the sheep one by one away from the sheep fold, and away from the Shephard.

satan is that wolf and he is still out to kill, to steal, and to destroy! And he will not stop until he is thrown into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10). That’s why the Apostle John warns Christians about the world, the flesh and the devil

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—

the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

So What Is The Will of God?

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

And 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

The summation therefore, if you are dead to Christ and alive to sins, then you are dead in your trespassed and sins spiritually. And if you die in your sins, you will not make Heaven because your name will not be found in the Book of Life

Revelation 21:27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Woe brother! Are you saying God blots names out of His Book of Life? I’m not saying that, but the Holy Bible is. Jesus Christ Himself is ministering to the dead church. He concludes, if they overcome being dead to Him, then He will not blot out those who are written in the Book of Life,

Revelation 3:5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Going back to Luke 13:25-28, Jesus Christ continues to teach about the consequence for those who die in their sins, not just for the impenitent sinner, but also Christians who has un-repented sins in their life and heart

When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ 

then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Not one un-confessed and un-repented sin will ever enter the kingdom of Heaven. God will not ever, wink and nod you or I, or our sins past those gates of Heaven.

If we have unconfessed, and un-repented sins in our hearts and lives, then we can miss Heaven completely. What are sins that the Holy Bible mentions? There are many listed in the entire Holy Bible.

The Lord’s intentions are not to oppress humanity with the, “do’s and don’t rules.” They are guidelines, boundaries if you will, teaching man what sin is. What separates us from God our Father, and what displeases Him.

He has drawn for us the boundary line what not to cross. This is not an exhaustive list of all sins, we will only stick with what the New Testament shows. So lets quickly review:

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:3-7 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.

Notice here, that the Word of God is not just ministering against those who do not know God, or His righteous ways. But these are instructions from God, inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, written by the Apostle Paul to the born-again Christians of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we read on, we see a deeper trend of this:

Galatians 5:19-21 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. That includes both Christians and impenitent sinners alike.

So What Does Sin Do?

Sin seeks opportunity to deceive and to put to death (James 1:14-15). To steal our relationship with God, the Father. And destroy our faith in Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 1:18-20). Ultimately sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2)!

This is why God instruct all Christians to stop sinning. To recon ourselves to be dead to sin! let not sin reign in your mortal bodies! And mortify the deeds of sin in your members (both mentally and physically)

Romans 6:1-14 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For He who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.  And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin,

but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

And finally in: Revelation 21:6-8 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”

Lets stop it here for a second. There is something important that needs to be pointed out. Jesus had said, “To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.” Jesus had mentioned this earlier in: Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

With this, as He also mentions: “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be My son.” Overcome what? Sin, and the temptations thereof: The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life. Having the desire, the drive to reject and to abstain from the practices of sin.

Sin takes the flesh to be in cooperation, in order to fall short of the glory of God. So the equation here is, self. “Deny yourself, pick up the cross and follow Me.” Then Jesus Christ mentions, once we overcome sin, “will inherit all this.” All what? The promise of salvation.

The promise of the kingdom of Heaven. See, here is where the Lord mentions conditions for salvation in Him. Based upon our own choices every day. So this already disproves that the keeping of salvation is an unconditional gift of God.

Furthermore, The Apostle Paul ministered to the church of Rome by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He ministered to “Christians” specifically, which is the Book of Romans.

And we see him addressing the specific problem that were going on in the church, that Christians continued to sin after their conversion to Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul warns Christians on the consequence of deliberately sinning, found in

Romans 1:18-32 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

You see, God will give a Christian over to the desires of the heart. If you desire God and draw closer to Him, He will draw closer to you (James 4:7-10).

But if you desire a certain sin or sins, if you do not repent from them and continue to reject His truth, and His conviction of His Holy Ghost, God will eventually start the process of total excommunication from His presence forever. We find this truth as we read on 

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness;

full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;

who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

You see, once God excommunicates you from His presence, there is no repentance after. Because a reprobate mind cannot do so, no longer. Being filled with all unrighteousness and wickedness as listed above.

A reprobate is not a person thats filled with just one thing or another on this list. A reprobate is filled with all sins, unrighteousness and wickedness listed above. Which points to a second witness of this fact in

Hebrews 10:26:31 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Any Christian living in continued willful sins is not only an adversary of God, but has trampled the Son of God underfoot, and treated His precious blood (the very blood that was shed for the remission for sins and deliverance from sinning) as something common.

So the conclusion is obviously plain, when a Christian continues to willfully sins against God, you trample the Son of God and crucify Him all over again. Because it is our past sins that crucified Jesus Christ our Lord to the cross.

You treat His precious, Holy, delievering blood as something common and insignificant, denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You also insult the Spirit of Grace. Not to mention, when you sin, you deny grace and walk out from under it

Therefore, there is no longer salvation for that person, but judgment on earth and in eternity!

So lets recap: Those who practices, partakes, condones and is in the agreement with sin, such as the obvious: murder, sexual immorality of all kinds including, homosexuality; bi-sexuality and transsexuality, bestiality which is idolatry:

The practice of worship, of God Almighty’s creation, rather than worshipping God the Creator. Placing whatever thing above God Himself is idolatry.

Liars, and thieves. The proud, which are the arrogant; self centered, boastful, which again falls under the category of idolatry. Those who practice and agrees with, condones drunkenness, greed, gossip, which leads to discord, jealously, defaming of character, slanderers.

Those who practices and agrees, and condones with witchcraft, which is obviously spell and curse cast and divinations. Even illegal drug use falls under witchcraft/sorcery, according to the Greek word: “Pharmakeia,” where we get the English word: “Pharmacy” from.

Which is generally “described as the use of medicine, drugs, spells. And later the word was used of poisoning, and then sorcery, accompanied by drugs, incantations, charms and magic.” (According to the study notes of the “New Spirit Filled Life Bible; published by Thomas Nelson.)

Those who practices and condones hatred, revenge, jealousy. Who practices and condones discord, fits of rage. Those who are cowardly in the things of God, the ministering of God’s Word.

Those who are ashamed of Jesus Christ, which falls under backsliding. Giving of your heart in exchange for the things of the world, will not inherit the kingdom of God. The Apostle Peter ministered this by the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit in:

2 Peter 2:19-22 for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit (sins),” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud (filth of the world).

These are they who will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and Christians are not exempt of this judgment as we have just read. To Be Continued in Can You Lose Salvation? (part 2)