Full disclosure, I may not be the best equipped person to talk about perseverance.

I have an unfortunate habit of ordering books and never getting around to reading them.

And then I order more books before I've started reading the books that I ordered previously.

And sometimes even when I do start reading them, I don't make it to the end.

But thankfully, the kind of perseverance we're talking about

today is more about God's perseverance than ours. It's the biblical doctrine known as

perseverance, or the perseverance of the saints. It's the idea that once a person is saved,

they cannot fall away finally from that salvation.

In the opening lines of Paul's letter to the believers in Philippi, he says,

I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

In other words, what God starts, he finishes.

People who are saved cannot lose their salvation.

It is possible for true believers to fall into grievous sin and even to walk away for a time,

but the salvation of all those whom God has truly regenerated and even to walk away for a time, but the salvation of all those whom God has truly

regenerated and united to Christ will be brought to completion. No one, not even ourselves,

can snatch us out of the hand of God if we belong to Him. But of course, for that to be any comfort, you'd need to know that you are in

fact saved in the first place. And dangerously, when some of us hear the phrase, once saved, always

saved, we think it means, because I once prayed a prayer or once went to the front at a meeting, then regardless of how

I live in the meantime, I'll always be saved. That is categorically not what the Bible teaches.

And if you're resting in that idea, please don't. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 2 is clear.

You are being saved if you hold fast the word which I preach to you.

Jesus says something similar in Mark chapter 13. You'll be hated by all because of my name's sake,

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