Creflo Dollar - Can Sin Cause You To Lose Your Salvation? - Part 1
Can sin cause you to lose your salvation? Let's go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and I wanna look at this in the King James and the New Living Translation. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23 and 24, first in the King James and he says this: "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly," all one piece. "Sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole," watch this, "spirit, your whole soul, your whole body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ". And God is faithful. "Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it". So God is saying, "I'm gonna do this". Let's read this in the New Living Translation. The New Living Translation says this, he says, "Now may the God of peace make you holy," that's what it means here, when he used the word "sanctified". "May the God of peace," this is so interesting.
The God of peace has committed to making you holy. God says, "I'm going to make you holy," okay? "Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit, your soul, your body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful". So that's a powerful promise where God is saying, "I am accepting the responsibility of making you holy. Your whole spirit, your whole soul, your whole body". So he mentions the tri-part being of man. Man is a spirit, he possesses a soul, and he lives in a physical body. Now, here's the part I want you to get. You know, we have kind of been trained that we're responsible for becoming holy and we're responsible for making ourselves holy, and God is saying here that "I'm gonna make this happen". God is saying, "I am going to make you holy".
And notice in that verse of Scripture again, we are spirit beings, we have a soul, we live in a body. You are not a body, you're not a soul. You are a spirit being. That's who you are. You are a spirit, you possess a soul, that's your mind, your will, and your emotions. That's your thinker, your feeler, and your chooser. That's what your soul is. For the most part, the church has used spirit and soul interchangeably as if they were the same thing. But they're not. You are a spirit, you have a soul, okay? And you live in a physical body. A physical body. That is your earth suit that gets around, gets you around in this natural world. It's kind of like driving in a car. You're not the car, but if you drive by and we're familiar with your car, we'll say, "There go Jimmy," okay? But that's not Jimmy. That's the car he's riding in.
Well, your physical body is the earth suit, your soul is your mind, will, and emotions, and you are a spirit being. Say this out loud: "I am a spirit, I possess a soul, I live in a physical body". When we die, your spirit and soul will leave your body, your body remains and returns to the dust of the ground. Your spirit and soul enters into this realm where you left physical matter and then there'll be spiritual matter, and it's just a wonderful thing. You're gonna really, really enjoy it. And so, he has made a commitment to make it happen. So, immediately, he's moving us into the place where we're trusting God. Now, when you get born again, your spirit is sanctified and perfected forever. When you get born again, the day you get saved, the day you believe and say, "Jesus, come into my life," the part of you that was impacted was your spirit. Your spirit now is made holy and perfect. So you are already one-third perfect. Your spirit is perfect, once you get born again. Your spirit is holy once you get born again, all right? Let me show you something here and I think we have time to do this.
Hebrews chapter 10, if you have this in your Bible. Let's see what the Bible has to say about this. Hebrews chapter 10 and this is foundation for where we're going. Hebrews chapter 10. The one thing I wanna show you is that there's one sacrifice for sin forever, one-time sanctified, one-time perfected. All right now, notice this. I am saying to you that it's going... the sacrifice is the body of Jesus Christ. Watch this, verse 5. Hebrews 10:5: "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifices and offerings thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me". And then he goes in verse 10, he says, "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all". The body of Jesus Christ was sacrificed for us. Verse 11: "And every priest standing daily ministereth and offering oftentimes the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins".
So now he refers to the priests back in the day when they were receiving at the altar the goat, the sheep, the different birds, those were the sacrifices he was referring to and he says, "None of those sacrifices that they offered at the altar could get rid of sin". But it was that one-time sacrifice of the body of Jesus that got rid of sin forever. Look at this, verse 12: "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified". Now, so you and I, when we got born again, our spirit is sanctified and perfected for ever because of what Jesus has done. Jesus is the final sacrifice and when you believe Jesus and accept him into your heart, then your spirit is made brand new, the new creation comes in. The old man moves, the new creation comes in, and you're born again, all right? You're born again. You're born again because of what Jesus did.
If Jesus never died on that cross and sacrificed his body for us, there would be no way that anybody could get born again. In the Old Testament, nobody got born again. In the New Testament, after Jesus was raised from the dead, ascended on high, took his seat at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, now men can get born again and their spirits can be sanctified, made holy. Your spirit man is holy. Your spirit, that is a new creation on the inside of you. Glory to God, that's a new creation, your old man is gone, your new man is there. That's a new creation. If you understand that, say "Amen". Now, here we go. We good? Here we go. Since you aren't saved by your own goodness, your lack of goodness can't unsave you. "Well, somehow I don't believe in that".
Well, okay, well, let me ask you a question. Were you saved by your goodness or were you saved because of your goodness? So did God save you 'cause you were so good? You weren't saved because of your goodness. But yet, after you get saved, people now begin to come and tell you and they say, "Well, see, you're not being good, so you're not gonna be saved no more 'cause you're not being good". No, no, no, no, no. I wasn't saved by my goodness in the first place. I'm not gonna be unsaved because of my goodness. My goodness didn't determine my salvation. Are you following me now? Let me say it again. Since you are not saved by your own goodness, what does the Bible say? We were saved by what? Grace. And we got it through what? So you were saved and you didn't deserve it. It was a favor for you to be able to get saved, and it was not by your works. Your lack of goodness can't unsave you. And there are people that think, "My goodness is what saved you".
Now, that don't mean you go crazy but you need to understand your lack of goodness is not gonna unsave you 'cause you weren't saved by goodness. I think I've said that enough, amen? You got it. All right, now, so if you confess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are born again. If you confess faith. It's this simple. Lord Jesus, I have faith in you and I receive you now. Born again. If you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, born again. If you confess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, born again. Born again. You don't have to do a goody-goody. You don't have to do any...born again. I almost cracked up yesterday. On the news they had this story about the priest has got to go and baptize all these people over again 'cause he used the wrong words. And then because he used the wrong words, your baptism, it didn't take. I need to preach to him. You confess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're born again.
Now, here's the key. Since faith is the issue, faith is the issue, how do you get born again? By faith. By faith in Jesus Christ, you became a born again Christian. Not because you deserved it, not because of your goodness, not because you acted right. One day you decided, "I have faith in Jesus Christ," and got born again. And I'm glad of that because I'll never forget it. I'm ashamed to say it, but I got born again one day and I was cussing the next day. They had to tell me, "Now you can't do that no more". I'm like, "Well, why the blank not"? I didn't know. But thank God that my lack of goodness didn't unsave me. We keep looking around trying to figure out how to undo what our faith in Jesus Christ has done. By my faith in Jesus Christ I am saved. So this is important. Since faith is the issue, sin doesn't cause you to lose your salvation. Ooh, I said it, didn't I. Since faith is the issue, sin does not cause you to lose your salvation.
You know, you have to be in a lot of different ways to even say that. And I'm gonna show you that in just a moment because we are so self-righteous in church, we're so busy judging somebody for what they did wrong, as you put blindfolders over what you do wrong. Are you ready for this? You're gonna still love me after this, right? All right, now. Let's use an illustration here. Someone might say, "I believe if you sin, you'll lose your salvation". I've heard people say that. "I believe if you sin, you'll lose your salvation". And then they'll go on to, watch this, "You can't tell me that a person who commits or who committed a grievous sin can go to heaven. You can't tell me that. There's no way you can tell me that".
All right, let's check this out. James 4:17. See, one of the problem is somehow another, you're trying to put sin in different degrees, in different categories. You're trying to say that this is a number ten sin, and this is a number five sin, and this is a number one sin. The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible does not deal with sin in degrees. And you know, somebody says, "Well, you know, adultery is a greater sin than lying". The Bible doesn't say that. Somebody says, "Well, murder is a greater sin of being deceptive". No, no, no, Bible doesn't say that. Bible does not say that. And so that's what this illustration is. "Oh, but you can't tell me that somebody who committed a grievous sin, I mean, you can't tell me somebody that killed somebody and killed a whole bunch of people, you can't tell me that they're still saved".
Well, Paul made it. In fact, three of the top guys in the Bible committed murder. What? Moses committed murder, David committed murder. Huh? And the apostle Paul himself committed murder. I believe you gonna be all right. You're gonna be all right, all right? All right, so now let's look at Scripture and see what Scripture says and then you'll see what I'm talking about here. Look at James 4, verse 17 in the King James and then the New Living Translation. James 4:17, King James, he says, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin". All right, so you wanna look at sin? So right here, he says if you know to do good and you don't do it, it's sin. Look at this in the NLT. To know to do good and do it not, all right, now, watch this. He says, "Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it". So that's sin. Oh, but you certainly wouldn't think about that. I mean, have a bad attitude with a waitress in a restaurant, that's sin.
Let's give a definition to sin. Sin is missing the mark. There's a mark that God has put. Sin is missing the mark. And our idea and our religious thinking about sin is what's messed a whole lot of things up. All right, now, watch this now. Go to Romans 14:23. Romans 14:23. I don't expect everybody to agree with this. I ain't got time for that. It's time to rock and roll. I'm gonna say the truth and you're gonna have to go and figure out between you and God whether or not you can accept it or not. Look at this. "And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: and whatsoever is not of faith is sin". All right now, the first two things I mentioned, that covers, like, everybody. Whatever's the first one that we talked about, the fact that to know to do good and to do it not, I mean, how many of us in this room, there was something we knew to do but we didn't do it? And you go off and say, "Man, I should have did that, I should have did that". And he said that's sin.
All right, so did you lose your salvation because, you know, you knew to do something but you didn't do it at that particular time? Or, you know, "whatever's done not of faith," I mean, how many times have you done something that was not of faith, all right? That's sin. But did you lose your salvation because, you know, that's sin. That's just like the other sin. "No, that's not a"... No, no, God is not weighing it based like, you have to do that in order to stick with that faltered idea that you have about once saved, always saved or not saved or losing your salvation, all that kind of stuff. All right now, listen to me very carefully. He says, "Whatever's done not of faith is sin". Now look at Galatians 3:12. "Whatever's done not of faith is sin". Galatians 3:12: "And the law is not of faith".
Whoa, so if whatever's done not of faith is sin, and you're still living by the law, it's sin. Well, the Bible says the law produces sin. I'll show you that in a moment. "And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them". The law's not of faith. It doesn't take faith to live by the law of Moses. It doesn't take faith at all to live by the law of Moses. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:56. 1 Corinthians 15:56. He said, "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law". The law strengthens sin. So if you live by the law, and the law strengthens sin, do you lose your salvation because you don't understand at the time? I lived by the law for a long time, I didn't know about this gospel of grace. God didn't throw me away. I didn't lose my salvation, all right?
Look at this in the NLT. Look at this in the NLT, 1 Corinthians 15:56 in the NLT: "For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power". I now understand that living by the Mosaic law, you know, it was given to bring men, really, it was given to hurt you. The law doesn't care anything about you. It was given to show you how bad you are, and notice again, the sin that's there. So if all of those things are true, then we should have all lost our salvation. All sin is on the same level in God's eye. That's the point I wanna make. All sin is on the same level in God's eyes. Now, somebody just says, "I haven't committed what's considered big sins, but I have broken God's law. I haven't done the big sins, but I have broken God's law".
Well, what does the Bible say about that? James 2:10. If you decide that you're gonna live by the law, James 2:10, he says this: "For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God's law," phew. The law is like a plated glass window. I remember as a little boy, me and my friend, he'd just got a BB gun and we were shooting a box in the house, in front of a glass sliding door. So he hit the box and I hit the box, and then I took it and aimed and it fired up and the BB hit the glass. Okay, so whether you throw a chair through the glass or a BB, the glass still gotta be replaced. So we weren't smart, we put a piece of masking tape on it. Took the mother a while to discover it. Took a couple of years and she called and, "You get down here, I'm gonna whup you".
Back in those days, your mother would give other people permission to beat you. I don't understand that, but the whole glass had to be replaced. If a small BB or a big brick, it still meant the glass had to be replaced. So if you violate one tiny command, you're guilty of breaking the whole thing, okay? Now, people who say, "You have to be holy, you can't have sin in your life and still think you're saved," you have to categorize it into big sin and little sin in order to even say that. In order to even say that, you've got to say that's a big sin or a little sin. You can't be holy. You just can't have sin in your life and still think you're saved. You can't even say that statement unless you look at sin as big sin, really bad sin, and little sin, and kind of insignificant sin.
That's the only way you can make that statement, 'cause it means you gotta throw away everything that God says about this. You know, let's look at, for example, adultery versus speeding. You know, if the born again believer who committed adultery and didn't confess it before dying goes straight to hell, then so does every believer who has ever got caught speeding. Every one, 'cause it's on the same level. I know that's so hard because, for so long, we've categorized it, "This is the big sin, adultery". "This is the little sin, speeding". But from God's eyes, he's like, "It's still sin". If the guy goes to hell for the big sin, and the guy don't go to hell for the little sin, God's not a God of justice.
Listen to me carefully. So if that were true, then nobody would make it to heaven because we all come short and fail in many different ways. Nobody would. I mean, that's, phew. Look at Romans 3:23 in the King James and the New Living Translation. Romans 3:23. We all fall short or we all miss the mark. It shows that place of inferiority in people's lives. He said, "For all have sinned, and come short". Everybody's sinned and come short. I know that just messes with you. "Oh, well, I've never sinned. I don't smoke, I don't look at R-rated movies. I don't look at my naked body when I get out of the shower. I don't do any of those things". All right, so now we've got your sin: self-righteous. Self-righteousness is your sin, and self-righteousness is unrighteousness.