{"id":19119,"date":"2016-08-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/soteriology-028\/"},"modified":"2016-08-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T05:00:00","slug":"soteriology-028","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/soteriology-028\/","title":{"rendered":"Soteriology 028"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[51],"series_event":[459],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19119","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-joshua","series_event-soteriology","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Soteriology 028","sermon_date":"20160821","sermon_month":"8","sermon_year":"2016","sermon_notes":3883,"sermon_slides":3893,"sermon_mp3":3891,"sermon_id":"8211693184","series_or_event":459,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":51,"chapter_and_verse":"24:20","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nSoteriology 28, Joshua 24:20\n\nAugust 21, 2016\n\n\u2026the book of Joshua, chapter 24 and verse 20.\u00a0 As you all know we\u2019ve been looking at the doctrine of eternal security.\u00a0 And of course eternal security is the idea that once saved always saved.\u00a0 So a person that has trusted in Christ and received the gift of life, can that promise be withdrawn?\u00a0 And our answer to that is NO, and we\u2019ve given about 13 eternal security arguments and here they are by way of review:\n\nBecause self-righteousness did not save us in the first place it is not a basis upon which salvation can be lost.\u00a0 Salvation is neither given nor maintained by works.\u00a0 If a believer can lose eternal life, then how can this life be what? \u00a0eternal.\u00a0 Number 4, The promises of the Bible guarantee security, John 10:28 and others. Number 5, God wants us to have the assurance of salvation, 1 John 5:14, something that would be impossible to have or enjoy if you could lose salvation.\u00a0 Number 6, The believer is already predestined for glory so what could we do to derail that.\u00a0 Number 7, We have been sealed by the Spirit\u2019s and can that seal be broken?\u00a0 It cannot be broken, Ephesians 4:30.\u00a0 Number 8, Christ keeps us from falling, 1 Peter 1:4-5.\u00a0 Number 9, Christ\u2019s is currently functioning as our intercessor and advocate; He wouldn\u2019t be doing a very good job in those roles if we could lose salvation.\n\nNumber 10, Christ\u2019s death perfectly dealt with all sins including the sin I might commit this afternoon; I\u2019m not advocating you sin this afternoon but should you sin this afternoon Christ\u2019s death has already dealt with that sin as well, so therefore what sin could you do that would cause you to lose eternal life.\u00a0 The answer is no sin.\u00a0 Number 11, A believer cannot be removed from Christ\u2019s body because we have been identified into Christ\u2019s body at the moment of faith.\u00a0 Number 12, The Bible does not specify which sins remove salvation.\u00a0 I mean, if there\u2019s a sin that can remove salvation, which one is it.\u00a0 Is it having a tattoo, is it smoking, chewing, don\u2019t smoke, don\u2019t chew, don\u2019t go with girls who do?\u00a0 What sin is it?\u00a0 And you would think if you could lose salvation the Bible would say stay away from that one, and the Bible never says anything like that.\u00a0 And then number 13, this is where we\u2019ve been the last few Sundays.\u00a0 People always ask well, what about the believer with the unfruitful life.\u00a0\u00a0 And we\u2019ve walked through very carefully that the Bible does address that issue.\u00a0 The believer with the unfruitful life still has salvation although they lose rewards and other, what I would call temporal benefits.\n\nSo you kind of put these thirteen arguments together, not one of them seals the deal, but when you look at all thirteen cumulatively I think you have a very strong case for eternal security.\n\nNow comes the other side of the ledger, what makes you more skilled as a theologian is not just putting out your arguments but being able to interact and answer the other side.\u00a0 So one of the things that I try to teach people to do is I try to teach you not what to think but how to think.\u00a0 And the other side has a ton of arguments that they use; I have 48 passages that we\u2019ll start working through today; we won\u2019t do them all today, don\u2019t worry.\u00a0 But you look at those passages at first glance and you say well, I see their point, there is an argument here that you can lose your salvation.\n\nSo a good theologian doesn\u2019t just toss out his own positive arguments, he can answer the negative arguments coming from the other side.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the section that we\u2019re moving into here.\u00a0 And this is why you have a lot of so-called people when they argue points they\u2019re not really having a conver\u00adsation.\u00a0 Do you notice that?\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s on Facebook or cable television, they\u2019re just like yelling at each other.\u00a0 And some of these cable shows I don\u2019t even watch any more because they\u2019re just shouting matches.\u00a0 And the reason they\u2019re not having a conversation is because they\u2019re really not doing good work intellectually; everybody is throwing out their pro arguments but they\u2019re not interacting well with the other arguments that come against their position.\u00a0\u00a0 So there must be some arguments that come against the position of eternal security or else people wouldn\u2019t be arguing about this issue in the church for many, many centuries.\n\nSo we have to be at some point intellectually honest and say the other side has a point here.\u00a0 But the danger isn\u2019t do they have a point, the danger is when you can\u2019t harmonize their point with your points.\u00a0 And I believe all of the arguments that come against the eternal security position have an answer, and so I want to try to teach you how to answer those arguments as we move into the second part of our outline here on the doctrine of eternal security.\n\nAt this point a lot of preachers or teachers would just say rejoice, you have eternal security.\u00a0 The problem is it\u2019s hard to rejoice when in the back of your mind\u00a0 you\u2019re thinking well, yeah, but isn\u2019t there a passage over there that says such and such?\u00a0 So you really can\u2019t rejoice until you get those so called problem passages answered in your mind.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what we\u2019re moving into here.\n\nThe gentleman in church history who really began to develop systematically the idea that you can have salvation and then forfeit salvation is Jacob Arminius, who lived from about 1560-1609.\u00a0 Jacob Arminius is a Dutch theologian and he\u2019s the one that began to really not, I don\u2019t think invent the idea that you could lose salvation but he began to systematize the idea that you can lose salvation.\u00a0 And he began to put forth academic thought in a systematic way and that\u2019s become known today as Arminianism.\u00a0 Arminianism, one of its tenants is you can be saved and not be saved.\u00a0 I could be saved on Sunday but lose it on Monday.\u00a0 Yet, I believe all of the Arminian passages can be harmonized with the thirteen very clear arguments that we\u2019ve made in this series on why you cannot lose salvation.\n\nAnd I\u2019m coming from the premise that God is the author of the Bible and therefore the Bible cannot contradict itself.\u00a0 So God can\u2019t say something on Sunday and something different on Monday; it\u2019s impossible for God to do that.\u00a0 So when you have passages in the Bible that seem to teach two different ideas we have to learn to harmonize, and I believe that all of the passages that Arminians use can be harmonized with the very clear passages which teach you cannot lose your salvation.\n\nSo we\u2019re going to look at these passages that you can allegedly lose your salvation, we\u2019re going to look at them in biblical order, so here\u2019s the order we\u2019re going to follow.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ll look at some Old Testament passages which we\u2019ll start today.\u00a0 There is a ton of passages in Matthew including the one that bothers everybody, the unpardonable sin passage, Matthew 12, we\u2019ll get into that at some point.\u00a0 There\u2019s some passages from John, passages from Acts, passages from Paul, passages from James.\u00a0 The book of Hebrews, oh my goodness, there\u2019s some major passages in Hebrews that look like you can lose your salvation.\u00a0 There\u2019s some in 2 Peter, some of you have already brought up 1 John, some passages in 1 John so we\u2019ll get to that.\u00a0 There\u2019s a few passages in the book of Revelation and there\u2019s what I like to call at the end, a miscellaneous argument that Arminians go to quite a bit and we\u2019ll learn how to interact with that one.\n\nSo here we go; let\u2019s start with some Old Testament passages, if we could.\u00a0 And here are the Old Testament passages we\u2019ll look at; maybe we\u2019ll look at those today, all of them, maybe we won\u2019t.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see how far we get.\u00a0 But the first one is the Adam and Eve argument.\u00a0 You remember God created Adam and Eve, Genesis 1 is a record of what He did in seven days.\u00a0 Genesis 2 is a record of what God did on day 6 with the creation of Adam and Eve.\u00a0 And then what happens in Genesis 3?\u00a0 The fall of man, so people say well, there is Adam and Eve, they had salvation, Genesis 1 and 2, then they lost salvation, Genesis 3.\u00a0 So Arminians start right there at the beginning of the Bible and they say look, you can clearly lose your salvation.\n\nBut I would like to say from the onset that the Adam and Eve argument is an apples and oranges comparison.\u00a0 Adam and Eve did not begin in a lost condition; they began in a state of holiness which as I\u2019ll show you in a second was unconfirmed disposition towards God.\u00a0 So Adam and Eve are very different than us.\u00a0 I was lost, then I got saved; Adam and Eve were never lost, right?\u00a0 At least at the beginning, they didn\u2019t start out in a lost condition, and then they fell and they moved on into sin and lost salvation at that point.\n\nSo when people like to throw up Adam and Eve I basically like to say well, that\u2019s basically an apples and orange comparison.\u00a0 Adam and Eve did not begin in a condition, in a lost condition but an unconfirmed condition or disposition toward God.\u00a0 So they\u2019re in a completely different category.\u00a0 And one of the ways to validate this is to compare the Garden of Eden, have you ever done this, Genesis 1 and 2, you compare the Garden of Eden, what Adam and Eve had to the eternal state, Revelation 21 and 22.\u00a0 And this is a tremendous teaching because God originally created a world with no evil or sin in it, Genesis 1 and 2, and we\u2019re progressing one day to an environment that God will put us in, the last two chapters of the Bible, with no sin or evil in it either.\n\nAnd the story of the human race is we started off in a garden and we\u2019re going to go to a city and there\u2019s a cross in between.\u00a0 That\u2019s how you can summarize the Bible: from the garden to a city (the New Jerusalem) with the cross and the resurrection of Christ in between.\u00a0 And one of the questions that\u2019s asked is well why doesn\u2019t God at the end of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, why doesn\u2019t He just put us back in a garden again?\u00a0 Why does He put us in a city?\u00a0 And the answer to that is the environment that Adam and Eve were in was a probationary environment.\u00a0 They were untested.\u00a0 Yes, they were in a perfect environment but the human race hadn\u2019t been tested yet and that\u2019s why there had to be a tree of knowledge in Eden.\u00a0 When we get to Revelation 21 and 22 there is no tree of knowledge or the opportunity to rebel against God because man has run his test, the test is over.\u00a0 Man is not on probation any more.\n\nSo that\u2019s why there\u2019s a big difference between Eden and the New Jerusalem or the eternal state; one is a probationary environment, the other is a permanent environment.\u00a0 And so when you study Genesis 1 and 2 you\u2019ll see there\u2019s a division between night and darkness, that comes as early as Genesis 1:4.\u00a0 You get into the eternal state and there\u2019s no more night at all, Revelation 21:25, because Jesus is the glory of that eternal city and no luminaries are necessary.\u00a0 Genesis 1 and 2, there\u2019s a division between land and sea; you get into Revelation 21:1 and you\u2019ll see there\u2019s no more sea.\u00a0 I take \u201csea\u201d there literally, so it\u2019s a completely different world than what we\u2019re familiar with.\u00a0 I think 80% or three quarters of our world is under water now because of the oceans and when God puts us into that eternal city there will be no more sea.\u00a0 Genesis 1 and 2 there\u2019s the sun and the moon; you get into Revelation 21:23 and there\u2019s no sun and no moon.\n\nGenesis 1 and 2 you\u2019ll see a river flowing out of Eden, Genesis 2:10; you get into Revelation 22:1 and there\u2019s a river flowing, not out of Eden but from God\u2019s throne.\u00a0 Genesis 2 you have gold in the land.\u00a0 You get to Revelation 21:21 and there\u2019s gold throughout the city.\u00a0 You get into Genesis 2:9 you\u2019ll find a tree of life in the middle of the Garden; you get to Revelation 22:2 and there\u2019s trees, plural, trees of life throughout the city.\u00a0 Genesis 1 and 2\u00a0 you run into the strange sounding stones, bdellium and the onyx I think is how you pronounce that.\u00a0 Genesis 2:12, but in Revelation 21 and 22 there\u2019s all manner of stones, not just a couple of types of stones.\u00a0 You look at Genesis 1 and 2 into Genesis 3 and you find God walking with man in a garden.\u00a0 You get to Revelation 21:3 and God is dwelling, not in a garden and He\u2019s not walking with man in the garden but He\u2019s dwelling with His people.\n\nAnd probably the key thing found in Genesis 1 and 2, as I mentioned before, that\u2019s not found in Revelation 21 and 22 is the existence of the tree of knowledge.\u00a0 There has to be a tree\u00a0 of knowledge in the equation.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because we\u2019re made in whose image?\u00a0 God\u2019s.\u00a0 And if I\u2019m really made in God\u2019s image I have to have choice, I have to have volition.\u00a0 And if I really have volition there has to be an avenue for rebellion against God should I choose to take that avenue.\u00a0 So man at that point is being tested.\u00a0 Then when you get to the eternal state, the New Jerusalem, the last two chapters of the Bible, you\u2019ll find that there is no tree of knowledge in the eternal city because man has already been tested.\n\nSo it\u2019s really a wonderful study to take the first two chapters of the Bible and the last two chapters of the Bible and to discover that God, when He created the world created a world in which there was no evil.\u00a0 And when everything is said and done humanity, the redeemed, will live in an environment where there is no evil.\u00a0 So if you want to know what\u2019s normal, Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22 are normal.\u00a0 What we\u2019re experiencing now is an abnormality.\n\nNow I would not believe that unless I had the light of God\u2019s Word to tell me that.\u00a0 Without the light of the Word of God, which tells me how things were and how things will be one day, the only thing I\u2019d have to go on is what I can see in front of me and so I would just think that what is happening now with evil and death and hurricanes and tornados and murders and gang violence and drive-by shootings and rape and kidnapping and all of these terrible things that happen, I would think that\u2019s how it\u2019s always been and how it will always be.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a viewpoint called uniformitarianism, which is the idea that you pretend that what you see in front of you is uniform, but we are not uniformitarians.\u00a0 We do not think as Christians that what we see in front of us is standard; we have the light of God\u2019s Word that tells us it\u2019s abnormal.\u00a0 And living like this is what gives us Christian what?\u00a0 It starts with an \u201ch,\u201d --- hope.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have the light of the Word of God the only thing you\u2019re left with is the present world and your observations of it and hope disappears if you become uniformitarian in your belief system and you start to think that what is in front of you has always been and will always be.\n\nAnd by the way, this\u2026 I don\u2019t mean to spend too much time on this but this is what distinguishes the Christian worldview from every other worldview out there.\u00a0 Every other worldview out there, whether it\u2019s Hinduism, reincarnation, evolution, you just name the view, it doesn\u2019t have this belief system that evil is finite or evil is time bound.\u00a0 They just pretend that what they see in front of them has always been and will always be and our belief system is very different, we believe that evil, yes, it has its heyday, but it\u2019s very finite and it\u2019s very time bound.\u00a0 There was a time in which evil didn\u2019t exist and there will be a time in history in which there will be no evil whatsoever.\u00a0 The poor evolutionist who believes that man goes from the goo the zoo to you over billions of\u00a0 years through the survival of the fittest, they believe that this process has always been going on.\u00a0 The strong have always dominated the weak, the weak have been dying off, this is always the way it\u2019s been and it will always be.\u00a0 And how different the Christian point of view is on this, and it really gives us hope.\n\nAnd when you\u2019re witnessing to people they\u2019re going to ask you, if they don\u2019t have any familiarity with Christian arguments and things like that, they\u2019re going to say well, you know, you believe in this God of love buy my grandmother or mother just died of cancer, now you\u2019re going to tell me about a God of love.\u00a0 And your answer to that is really going back to Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22.\u00a0 Cancer is a horrible thing but God designed a world without cancer in it; we brought cancer and all kinds of other repercussions into the world through our own choice to go through the tree of knowledge and rebel against God, and God is at work in human history; He\u2019s actually entered human history to die on a cross for our sins and He\u2019s working in such a way that one of these days cancer and all of the other ramifications for sin will be a thing done away with.\u00a0 So that\u2019s basically your answer to people that want to blame God for everything that\u2019s wrong in the world.\n\nAnyway, to understand that Adam and Eve were in a probationary environment to begin with allows a person to draw distinction between what Adam and Eve lost and what Arminians are saying we lose.\u00a0 Arminians are saying you can be lost, you can be saved, you can be lost and they use Adam and Eve as an example but right out of the gate that\u2019s an apples and oranges comparison because Adam and Eve were never lost, saved, lost.\u00a0 They were saved and then lost.\u00a0 And a lot of people like to ask well once they were lost did Adam and Eve ever get saved.\u00a0 I believe that Adam and Eve, particularly Adam, I will see Adam one day in heaven, and the reason I think that is because of Genesis 3:15, which is the first presentation of the gospel, it\u2019s called the protoevangelium.\u00a0 And then when you get outside of Genesis 3 and you look at Genesis 3:21\u00a0 you learn that God took animal skins and clothed Adam and Eve, so both of them I think were saved. \u00a0They received the provision of God.\u00a0 \u00a0[Genesis 3:15, \u201cAnd I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.\u201d\u00a0 Genesis 3:21, \u201cThe LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.\u201d]\n\nGenesis 3:7, they started off working for salvation because they wanted to clothe themselves you remember. [Genesis 3:7, \u201cThen the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.\u201d]\u00a0\u00a0 And God said no, that\u2019s not how you\u2019re going to get saved, you\u2019re going to get saved through the death of an innocent sacrifice.\u00a0 By the way, where did these animal skins come from?\u00a0 I mean, do they just all out of the sky?\u00a0 No, obviously God killed an innocent animal right then and there and He used the skin from that animal to clothe Adam and Eve.\u00a0 To my knowledge they received that provision and God is sort of highlighting how He\u2019s going to forgive sin, ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 So they received the provision of God.\u00a0 I believe that they had faith in this coming Messiah who would fulfill this transaction of dying sacrificially on the cross; they had an awareness of it from Genesis 3:15, the protevangelium.\u00a0 [Genesis 3:15, \u201cAnd I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.\u201d]\u00a0 So I believe Adam and Eve ultimately are saved and we will see them in heaven.\n\nSo that\u2019s the first Old Testament argument, you can\u2019t use Adam and Eve as some kind of prototype for our loss of salvation.\u00a0 Adam and Eve were in a completely different category.\n\nThe second argument \u00a0people like to use are Nadab and Abihu, and Korah\u2019s rebellion so very quickly what happened to Nadab and Abihu?\u00a0 Who were Nadab and Abihu?\u00a0 Look at Leviticus 10 for a minute, look at Leviticus 10:1-2, here\u2019s a couple of priests who were drinking on the job.\u00a0 This is when God set up the whole Tabernacle system with its worship and sacrifices at the time of Moses at the base of Sinai, and it says, \u201cNow Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD which He had not commanded them. [2] And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.\u201d\n\nLater on in the chapter it makes reference to alcohol and so many people think that they were drinking on the job.\u00a0 But you know, they just had kind of a Frank Sinatra approach to spirituality, \u201cI did it my way.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So God, yeah, You have Your instructions but we\u2019re going to offer up sacrifices the way we want.\u00a0 And God set a pretty strong precedent there, did He not?\u00a0 He killed them on the spot.\u00a0 And people say oh my gosh, Nadab and Abihu, they obviously were saved because they were priests in the Tabernacle\u2026 well, they obviously lost their salvation and went to hell.\u00a0\u00a0 And they make the same argument with Korah\u2019s rebellion; there\u2019s some people there, Korah, Dathan and Abiram and they decided to have a little protest against their pastor, in this case their pastor was Moses, and they basically said we don\u2019t like the fact that you\u2019re the pastor, I want to be the pastor.\u00a0\u00a0 And they weren\u2019t respecting really Moses\u2019 authority, they weren\u2019t respecting the authority that God vested in the line of Aaron, and so God opened up the ground and all of the disgruntled church people just disappeared into the ground, is basically what happened there.\u00a0\u00a0 And so it\u2019s a tremendous testimony of how God feels about people that challenge His God ordained authority structure.\n\nBy the way, prophetically, in the book of Revelation, chapter 12 it talks about the devil pursuing the woman, the dragon is the devil, he\u2019s pursuing the woman, the woman, I believe, is the nation of Israel (for a lot of different reasons), and something comes out of the dragon\u2019s mouth, it\u2019s some kind of flood and he\u2019s trying to destroy the woman and it says there in Revelation 12 that God opens up the ground and absorbs the flood so that it can\u2019t hurt the woman, and He protects Israel during the second half of the Tribulation period through this process of opening up the ground.\u00a0 So it\u2019s interesting that God is pretty good ad opening up the ground and causing problems to disappear.\n\nSo people think Korah\u2019s rebellion, they all lost their salvation and went to hell.\u00a0 Let me give\u00a0 you some thoughts on that if I could.\u00a0 It never says that they lost salvation with Nadab and Abihu, or Korah\u2019s rebellion.\u00a0 What it really talks about is what I would call maximum divine discipline.\u00a0 Someone can be disciplined to the point of death and it happens several times in the Scripture, we\u2019ve gone over many passages in this class that indicate that.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not necessarily the same thing as saying they lost their salvation.\u00a0 In fact, loss of salvation and loss of fellowship is the issue here, not the loss of eternal security.\u00a0 There\u2019s absolutely no comment in Numbers 16 or Leviticus 10 that these folks lost their salvation.\u00a0 You have a punishment from God, discipline from God which can sometimes be very severe but that\u2019s not the same thing as saying someone lost their salvation.\n\nIn the New Testament times that we live in, \u201cwhom the Lord loves the Lord\u201d what? \u201cchastens,\u201d and sometimes the chastening of the Lord, the discipline of the Lord can be extremely severe and if you\u2019ve ever gone under the disciplinary hand of God, I believe at certain times in my life I\u2019ve been under it, it\u2019s not a fun place to be but that\u2019s not the same thing as saying someone lost their salvation.\u00a0 Sometimes the disciplinary hand of God is so severe in our lives because the correction is necessary we confuse it with the loss of salvation but in none of these passages does it ever make any point about the salvation status of those involved in Korah\u2019s rebellion, nor does it make any direct comment about the eternal destiny of Nadab and Abihu.\n\nLet me take you to a similar passage, and this is why I had you open to Joshua 24:20, people use this often to teach that a believer can lose their salvation.\u00a0 The book of Joshua, chapter 24 and verse 20, and this is what it says: \u201cIf you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods,\u201d this is at the death of the Joshua generation, so a great generation is passing away and you have kind of a closing address to the people to stay in the will of God as they\u2019re in Canaan, the Promised Land.\u00a0 It says, \u201cIf you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.\u2019\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So people look at that and say wow, God actually is going to, if they violate His commandments, as the nation of Israel is in the Promised Land, God is actually going to \u201cconsume\u201d His people, God is actually going to do \u201charm\u201d to His people, and people say well, that clearly teaches that those folks were saved and then they lost their salvation.\n\nBut again, I would comment on this as follows, that this is not a commentary on someone\u2019s eternal destiny, this is a commentary on the disciplinary hand of God which can be very, very severe.\u00a0 God can discipline people, sometimes to the point of death, sometimes to the point of destruction although their soul can be saved, or is saved.\n\nAnd let\u2019s go back to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 28, just for a minute.\u00a0 It\u2019s very important to understand this. \u00a0\u00a0These passages are directed at the nation of Israel, and when God brought the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage and took them to Mt. Sinai He put them under a treaty that they agreed to.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a fancy-dancy title, are you ready?\u00a0 It\u2019s called a suzerain vassal treaty. It\u2019s a treaty that\u2019s very, very different than the Abrahamic Covenant which is unconditional, and actually I had to turn to Deuteronomy but just looking back for a minute at the book of Exodus, chapter 19, this is when the nation of Israel is in Canaan ready to enter into this treaty and you take a look at verse 5, it says: \u201cNow then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples of the earth, for all the earth is Mine.\u201d\u00a0 Notice the \u201cif\u201d clause there; if you do this, then I will do that, if you don\u2019t do this then I will do such and such.\n\nSo this treaty is what you would call conditional.\u00a0 The Abrahamic Covenant, going back to Genesis 15, gave the nation of Israel ownership over her blessings, land, seed and blessing; the Abrahamic Covenant is unconditional, it\u2019s something that God unilaterally is going to do.\u00a0 But whether a given generation enjoys those blessings is really up to them.\u00a0 God will never cancel Israel\u2019s blessings; He can\u2019t because the Abrahamic Covenant prevents that, but whether a particular generation can enter into those blessings and enjoy those blessings is conditioned upon their abiding to the Mosaic Covenant which is a conditional covenant, which is laid out as a suzerain vassal treaty.\n\nNow a suzerain vassal treaty was a common form of treaty, reformed criticism has looked at suzerain vassal treaties in the Ancient Near East, when this was written, and it\u2019s examined those treaties and it\u2019s discovered that those treaties all have parts to them, I think I\u2019ve got five, six parts here on the screen, and what you\u2019ll discover in the Bible, particularly the book of Deuteronomy is the whole book of Deuteronomy is laid out like suzerain vassal treaty.\u00a0 So God is taking the treaty structure that the Jews were familiar with in the Ancient Near East in their day and He\u2019s entering into that treaty with them, which is a conditional treaty.\n\nSo what you have in that treaty is a preamble, then you have what\u2019s called a historical prologue, which is tracing the relationship that the parties have had with one another prior to the entering into of that treaty, and then you have what are called the covenant obligations and this is what the vassal must perform.\u00a0 Let me explain those terms, suzerain and vassal; suzerain means superior, vassal means inferior.\u00a0\u00a0 So in this treaty structure a superior entered into a treaty with an inferior and said if you do such and such then I\u2019ll bless you, if you violate the terms of the treaty then you\u2019ll be under a curse.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the same type of format that God is using as He\u2019s entering into this treaty with the nation of Israel.\u00a0 The whole book of Deuteronomy is laid out based on form criticism exactly like a suzerain vassal treaty that we have knowledge of from the Ancient Near East.\n\nSo you have covenant obligations, what the vassal is supposed to do.\u00a0 In other words, obey the Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy 5, and all of their amplifications, all of the applications of the Ten Commandments to various circumstances, Deuteronomy 6-26.\u00a0 A suzerain vassal treaty had storage instructions and reading instructions.\u00a0 So the covenant text, which is the terms of the agreement were stored in a particular place and they had to be read out loud, usually by the suzerain\u00a0 to the vassal.\u00a0 And then there were witnesses to the treaty; and then every suzerain vassal treaty had a blessings and curses section; here are the blessings for obedience, here are the curses for disobedience.\n\nSo when you get into the book of Deuteronomy you\u2019ll discover that the whole book is laid out exactly like a suzerain vassal treaty, you have a preamble, chapter 1, verses 1-5.\u00a0 You have a historical prologue which traces the relationship between the two parties prior to them entering into the treaty, chapter 1 verse 6 to the end of chapter 4.\u00a0 Then you had the covenant obligations that the vassal must adhere to, Deuteronomy 5-26.\u00a0 And then\u00a0 you have in depth storage instructions and public reading instructions; they had to actually publicly read and acknowledge this treaty regularly and you\u2019ll God instructing Israel along those lines in Deuteronomy 27:2-3, Deuteronomy 31:9, 24, 26.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s actually the acknowledging or the calling of witnesses to the treaty.\u00a0 Now what witnesses can there be for God?\u00a0 There can\u2019t be any witnesses for God, right?\u00a0 So who does God summon as His witnesses?\u00a0 He summons heaven and earth as His witnesses, Deuteronomy 32:1.\n\nThen, and this is really the spine of the Old Testament, and if you can\u2019t understand this you really don\u2019t understand why Israel went under discipline, is under discipline today as I speak, although one day that discipline will be lifted, the blessings and cursings section.\u00a0\u00a0 What the suzerain will do to the vassal if the vassal obeys, what the suzerain will do to the vassal if the vassal disobeys.\u00a0 And if you understand the blessings and curses section here in Deuteronomy 28, and by the way, there\u2019s a parallel passage in Leviticus 26 that says virtually the same thing, once you understand this you begin to understand God\u2019s entire program with Israel, why they went into captivity, why they went into discipline, why they\u2019re under discipline even now as I speak, although in 1948 they\u2019ve been regathered into their land in unbelief, but even as I speak they\u2019re still being bullied by the nations, are they not?\u00a0 Two-thirds, roughly, United Nations resolutions go against, when the subject of Israel comes up two-thirds of those resolutions go against Israel.\u00a0 Even our own country is becoming more and more anti-Israel and that\u2019s a sad thing to watch but it\u2019s an outworking of these blessings and curses.\n\nSo let me give you a flavor of this.\u00a0 Deuteronomy 28:1-14 are blessings for obedience.\u00a0 Notice what it says:\n\nDeuteronomy 28:1, \u201cNow it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today,\u201d in other words, if you obey the covenant text, the Ten Commandments and the applications of the Ten Commandments to various circumstances, \u201cif you obey the LORD then what\u2019s the Lord going to do?\u00a0 He \u201cwill \u00a0set you high above all the nations of the earth. [2] \u201cAll these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God: [3] \u201cBlessed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> in the city, and blessed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> in the country.\u00a0 [4] \u201cBlessed shall be<\/em> the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. [5] \u201cBlessed shall be<\/em> your basket and your kneading bowl. [6] \u201cBlessed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> when you come in, and blessed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> when you go out.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 7, \u201cThe LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated\u2026 and it goes on and on.\n\nSo Israel, if you obey the covenant text, here\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen\u2014you\u2019re going to be the lender and not the borrower; you\u2019re going to go out and fight against your enemies and\u00a0 you\u2019re going to win in overwhelming battles, and you\u2019re going to become financially lucrative and wealthy.\n\nNow what happens if the opposite occurs?\u00a0 What happens if Israel disobeys?\u00a0 I\u2019m glad you asked.\u00a0 Look at Deuteronomy 28:15, the curses start to pile up.\u00a0 Now did you notice something; there\u2019s only fourteen verses here for blessings; how long do the curses go for?\u00a0 Verse 15 all the way through the end of the chapter, verse 68.\u00a0 So it\u2019s almost like God knew what would happen.\u00a0 But here come the curses according to the suzerain vassal treaty if you disobey Me.\u00a0 [15] \u201cBut it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today,\u201d in other words, if you don\u2019t obey the covenant text that you\u2019re supposed to store and read regularly, then \u201call these curses will come upon you and overtake you:\u00a0 [16] \u201cCursed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> in the city, and cursed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> in the country.\u00a0 [17] \u201cCursed shall be<\/em> your basket and your kneading bowl.\u00a0 [18] \u201cCursed shall be<\/em> the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. [19] \u201cCursed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> when you come in, and cursed shall<\/em> you be<\/em> when you go out. [20] \u201cThe LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed\u201d notice that expression \u201cdestroyed, and until you perish\u201d see, isn\u2019t that the same terminology that we read in Joshua 24:20, perishing, \u201cyou shall perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. [21] \u201cThe LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. [22] \u201cThe LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish.\u201d\u00a0 And it goes on and on like this for a whole chapter.\n\nYou see how all of these are physical curses, just like the blessings were physical, material blessings.\u00a0 And this is the great error of the prosperity theology movement because what I watch them do on TV is they say we\u2019re all guaranteed to be rich and they quote Deuteronomy 28:1-14, if you obey God, God is obligated to bless you.\u00a0 But the fact of the matter is who is this covenant made with?\u00a0 The nation of Israel, not the church.\u00a0 In fact, the church doesn\u2019t even exist yet; the church won\u2019t even exist until much later in biblical history, beginning in Acts 2.\u00a0 So this is a covenant only for the nation of Israel; it has zero to do with the church.\u00a0 The church is a completely different plan and program of God.\u00a0 According to the book of Ephesians the church has been blessed with every what?\u00a0 Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.\u00a0 [Ephesians 1:3, \u201cBlessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,\u201d]\n\nThis is not talking about spiritual blessings, this \u00a0is talking about physical blessings and curses.\u00a0 He\u2019s not talking here about the heavenly places; he\u2019s talking about actual physical things that would happen to the nation of Israel.\u00a0 So God has separate programs for Israel and for the church, and so to quote Deuteronomy 28 and try to make it sound like if we obey God He\u2019s obligate to financially bless us is to misunderstand the plan and the programs and the covenants of God.\n\nPsalm 147:19-20 to me is very clear,\u00a0 on this, it says: \u201cHe declares His words to\u201d who? \u201cJacob,\u201d who\u2019s Jacob?\u00a0 Israel.\u00a0 \u201cHis statutes and His ordinances to\u201d who?\u00a0 \u201cto \u00a0Israel. [20] He has not dealt thus with any nation;\u201d including the United States, right?\u00a0 Including Sugar Land Bible Church, we have never been the recipients of the Mosaic Covenant.\u00a0 This is a covenant agreement that God exclusively entered into with national Israel.\u00a0 It says, \u201cAnd as for His ordinances, they have not known them.\u00a0 Praise the LORD!\u201d\n\nSo when God articulated these blessings and curses, which is a normal part of the suzerain vassal treaty, He was speaking only to national Israel.\u00a0 Now these curses can get very severe; He basically says\u00a0 you\u2019re going to out if you disobey Me and you\u2019re going to borrow rather than lend, you\u2019re going to go out and you\u2019re going to fight your enemies and you\u2019re going to start to lose, your crops are going to be consumed with locusts, and these things.\u00a0 And see, this is why Joel, the prophet, begins to prophesy locusts coming upon the nation of Israel in the time period Joel prophesied in, Joel is one of the earlier prophets.\u00a0 Why is he talking about locusts?\u00a0 He\u2019s talking about locusts because that\u2019s what Deuteronomy 28 specifies.\n\nSo Deuteronomy 28 and it\u2019s parallel passage in Leviticus 26 is really the spine of the entire Old Testament.\u00a0 It\u2019s the spine of God\u2019s dealings with the nation of Israel and once you accept that and understand that your whole Old Testament starts to make a lot of sense;\u00a0 you begin to see why the discipline of God on Israel was so severe, because they were actually into a formal treaty with the Lord, a conditional treaty called the Suzerain Vassal Treaty.\u00a0 And these curses would just pile up and pile up and pile up until what would happen?\u00a0 Look at Deuteronomy 28:45, \u201cSo all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not\u201d what? \u201cobey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. [46] They shall become a sign\u201d actually I\u2019m in the wrong place there, I was reading verse 45, which is very good also.\n\nWhat I wanted is verse 49 and 50, \u201cThe Lord will bring a\u201d what? \u201cnation against you from\u201d where? \u201cfrom far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you shall not understand,\u00a0 [50] a nation of fierce countenance who have no \u00a0respect for the old nor show favor to the young.\u201d\u00a0 So the height of discipline would be a foreign nation would come against national Israel and disperse them from their own land.\n\nNow this is an articulation of the cycles of discipline; we know that this happened multiple times in Israel\u2019s history.\u00a0 The Assyrians dispersed the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because God said that would happen in the time of Moses.\u00a0 God articulated it 700 years in advance.\u00a0 The Babylonians came against the remaining southern kingdom in about 586 B.C., brought them into captivity.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because God said it would happen as articulated through Moses at Mt. Sinai, as you understand these cycles of discipline.\u00a0 In the time of Christ Israel could have enthroned Christ and received the Kingdom; they rejected Christ and so what happened 40 years later?\u00a0 What empire did God use?\u00a0 The Romans in A.D. 70.\n\nAnd even today as I speak the nation of Israel, although God has regathered them in unbelief continues under the disciplinary hand of God and that discipline is not going to be lifted until they go back to the terms of the covenant and the covenant ultimately points to who?\u00a0 To Jesus.\u00a0 So the remnant of Israel or the nation repents, changes their mind about Christ and enthrones Christ the discipline hand of God over Israel will continue on and on and on.\n\nAnd I\u2019m in favor of helping the Jews and blessing the Jews whatever we can, but the fact of the matter is you have to understand that the Jews, I\u2019m not talking about a believer in the church age, I\u2019m talking about the nation of them, they are under the disciplinary hand of God as I speak because they haven\u2019t met their obligations yet under the Mosaic Covenant.\n\nSo having said all that, going back to Joshua 24:20, what is it talking about here when it says, \u201cIf you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s not a statement here about someone\u2019s eternal salvation.\u00a0 People in the Old Testament were saved just like they\u2019re saved individually in the New Testament.\u00a0 Abraham believed God, as an individual, and it was credited to him for righteousness.\u00a0 He looked forward by faith to a Messiah that would come and deal with the sin problem; we look backward to a Messiah that has already come and we look back by way of faith, just like they looked forward by way of faith.\u00a0 We happen to know the name of the Messiah; those in the Old Testament didn\u2019t know His name.\u00a0 But we\u2019re all individually saved the same way.\n\nAnd once you have that salvation it cannot be lost.\u00a0 But even though a lot of these folks were saved, because they looked forward by faith to a coming Messiah, it doesn\u2019t mean the nation of Israel can\u2019t go under discipline.\u00a0 In fact, the discipline, as we\u2019ve talked about, was extremely severe for them, and sometimes the description of the severity of the discipline, we misunderstand that for a loss of salvation.\u00a0 But you have to keep those two categories separate in\u00a0 your mind.\u00a0 The disciplinary hand of God, in this case what the Jews, as a nation, experienced and are continuing to experience, it has nothing to do with the issue of personal salvation.\u00a0 It is God\u2019s dealings with a nation and we know that because He gave them a suzerain vassal treaty; it has all of the parts of a suzerain vassal treaty, including a very important part of the suzerain vassal treaty, the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience.\n\nSo what I\u2019m trying to get at is once you understand this you\u2019ll start to be able to make sense of a lot of these passages, very severe disciplinary passages in the Old Testament.\u00a0 They\u2019re not making statements about a loss of salvation. What they\u2019re going is commenting on the disciplinary hand of God as expressed in the suzerain vassal treaty of the Mosaic Covenant.\n\nAnd the problem with Arminius is he started to go through the Bible and he started to \u201ccherry pick\u201d verses without understanding Deuteronomy 28.\u00a0 Deuteronomy 28, which comes earlier is an explanation of those severe verses.\u00a0 But if I\u2019m just going to cherry pick a verse here or there and ignore the suzerain vassal treaty structure and ignore Deuteronomy 28, yeah, there\u2019s an argument to be made that you could lose your salvation.\u00a0 But the argument begins to disappear when you understand the background for those statements as articulated in the suzerain vassal treaty.\n\nSo these passages, I don\u2019t think teach you can lose your salvation.\u00a0 The Adam and Eve, Nadab and Abihu, Korah\u2019s rebellion and Joshua 24:20.\u00a0 And I had planned on finishing all of these Old Testament passages today, I didn\u2019t so we\u2019ll pick it up with Saul, who lost the Holy Spirit, 1 Samuel 16:14.\u00a0 Well, doesn\u2019t that mean Saul lost his salvation and went to hell?\u00a0 You\u2019ll have to come back next week to find out the truth about that.\n\nSo anyway, you at least see the direction we\u2019re moving in.\u00a0 Any questions, thoughts, comments.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t