I invite you to take your Bibles if you have one or want to reach for one and open to that

passage because we're going to be looking at other verses in the vicinity of this

of this text, something has raised the issue of the assurance of salvation in this church to which John was writing.

It runs all through the letter this issue of whether or not

the people are sure that they have been born of God or not. There are two things that I've been able to bump into in this book that would explain what has brought this issue up to the fore in this church. Let me try to point you to those two things. The first is found

in chapter 2, verse 19. John refers to a group that has left the church.

They have pulled out, and this departure of some significant people

have caused a tremendous questioning on the part of the church. He says they went out from us but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might

be plain that they all are not of us. Now it's not hard, is it, to hear the struggle that John is responding to with those

words. Here's what I hear behind those words. They were saying, John, I thought you taught us that when a person

believed in Christ they had eternal life. I thought you taught us that when Jesus

calls his sheep, they hear his voice, he puts them into his hand, and nobody can ever pluck them out of his hand and they're secure.

What are we to make of these people who've left, John?

And John's answer to their distressed question is,

I haven't changed anything that I've ever taught you.

The sheep are indeed eternally secure in the Father's hand.

They do have eternal life, and therefore my interpretation of what has happened in the departure of this group from the church is that they never were of you.

They never belonged to the flock of the sheep in your church. If they had been of us, John said, they would have continued with us.

Therefore the sheep are eternally secure and they prove it by not leaving.

It's precisely because John does believe in eternal security,

the eternal security of the sheep, that he has to conclude if a person

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