God sustains our faith, not by keeping it away from trials, not by making sure it's never

tested, God sustains our true faith by putting it through hard times.

He sustains our faith by means of trials. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. How is it you can face

illness or the loss of a job with strength and purpose? How can the hardest times of life

be opportunities to grow spiritually?

Today you'll see why if you're a Christian you can face difficulty with the confidence

that God has not forgotten you, that he's using everything in your life to accomplish a good result.

In short, John MacArthur is going to show you that if you're a believer, God won't let you go.

That's the title of John's current study here on Grace to You.

And now here's John with the lesson.

We are continuing a study on the subject of the perseverance of the saints.

That is, I think, a good biblical title to describe a doctrine that is often called the doctrine

of eternal security, of the security of the believer.

The bottom line in this doctrine is that when the Lord saves someone, that salvation is forever, never to

be reversed. The Bible is clear on that basic truth. And the basic truth is that salvation

by its very nature is irrevocable.

In spite of the clarity of Scripture however on this, there are those who have fallen under

the influence of teaching that denies it.

There are many in the Christian church who are living in some kind of fear with the possibility that

they could lose their salvation.

They are warned that they can by sin or failure to believe forfeit that salvation which God has given to them. That is to say,

a believer can become again an unbeliever. A new creation in Christ can become again the old.

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