‘Once Saved Is Always Saved, Our Future Sins Are Forgiven,’ Is This So? Part 1 -A Sermon By Elise Beatrice

‘Once Saved Is Always Saved, Our Future Sins Are Forgiven,’ Is This So? Part 1

A Sermon by Elise Beatrice - Tuesday 27 May 2025

Holy Father, in the name of Your Son, Jesus, please let Your great presence be here and let Your Holy Spirit guide us. Please help me, my Lord, to do this according to Your will. We love You, God.

Thank You, Father, for Your Son, Whom You sent to us, and He died for us on the Cross. Holy Father, we thank You so much for Your greatness and Your beauty, and Your forgiveness, and Your grace, and Your mercy, and Your marvellous kindness and generosity. Yes. We thank You for this sermon, for the inspiration, whatever it is that You will give us, in the Name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.

Many believers claim today that once saved is always saved, and that our future sins are forgiven. But is it really so?

Let’s dive into the Scriptures. Let’s begin with 1 Timothy 4:6-16.

1 Timothy 4:6–16

“6 If you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ Jesus, one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed. 7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. 8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 9 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it.10 This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers. 11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. 12 Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. 13 Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.

14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.”

This is an example of a good father who is speaking to his spiritual son, Timothy. The Apostle Paul is standing here like a father who is going away on a trip, just like the Lord Jesus at the Last Supper, giving His disciples instructions to follow and remember. He said to them later, according to Luke 22:31-32,

Luke 22:31–32

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

So, this was Christ with His disciples. He knew He was not going to be with them for long. So, He gave them lots of teachings to prepare them for the life they would have to face ahead without Him being physically among them. So, it is an example of a great Father. Christ is our Everlasting Father, our good Father. He is coming here to teach the children, and He has to prepare the children before He leaves. He is saying, “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have pleaded in prayer so that you will not lose your faith.”

This is showing us that it depends on our faith, on how much we remain faithful to the teachings of Christ. So, the Apostle of Christ is doing the same thing.

When you work hard as a spiritual leader to bring people to the Lord Jesus, it is joy in your heart that they remain in the faith and live by the teachings they have been taught.

There is not a single righteous servant of the Lord out there wishing for a bad thing to happen to their students or to those they brought to Christ. So, the same way that Christ was gathering His disciples to command them to be alert and vigilant, for satan is the one taking people’s faith away, deceiving them daily. And if they stopped listening to God, if they forgot for a moment what the Lord taught them, if they did not endure and persevere in their trials, satan would sift them like wheat, break them apart and take away their faith.

So, it is a privilege for a father to be pleased with the one he taught and brought to Christ and say, “Wow! They are remaining in the faith.” That is a great achievement. But suppose Timothy did not remain in the faith, but let himself be led astray. That would not be because of the apostle Paul. The parent can teach us a great lesson, but it is up to us now to take what we know and stick by them, and live by them. Suppose a godly parent teaches you the principles of the Lord, as a child, you should listen and let them be rooted in your heart so that you will never turn from those teachings. But if you don’t do that, and you make wrong decisions and let satan sift you like wheat, that would not be the fault of the one who taught you. The apostle Paul here is giving instructions to Timothy. So now, Timothy must keep those instructions in order to be healthy, remain in the faith and spiritually alive. But if he turns from those instructions, he can be spiritually dead. It does not take years for somebody to commit a deadly sin; it takes a second to make that decision and another few seconds to commit that sin. Somebody can be fine today, and tomorrow they’re totally led astray because of one bad choice they have made.

So, we’re taking the example of the Lord Jesus; He is preparing His disciples, who walked alongside Him and listened to Him, warning them of the danger, satan, our number one enemy, who is the one sifting people like wheat.

Those who have lost their faith or have a wavering faith, and there’s no one around them to bring them back to the path, satan can quickly sift them like wheat. Satan plays such people like a ball. He bounces them to the left, right, back and forth, all around, higher, lower, and there they go out of control.

Many continuously say, “Once saved, you are always saved.” Some really teach that. And others teach that all our future sins are forgiven. This is our Lord here. Christ, obviously, had forgiven Simon Peter when He called him to follow Him. Simon said, “I am a sinful man.” And the Lord Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” That is already proof that the Lord Jesus had forgiven his sins, his past sins. And all His disciples, when He called them, He forgave them all their sins, including Judas Iscariot and Matthew, the tax collector. Then Simon Peter sinned against the Lord when He denied Him three times, but he repented of that new sin, and the Lord restored Him three times to confirm His forgiveness. However, Judas Iscariot killed himself and will go to hell, not because of his past sins, but his new sin of betraying the Saviour for thirty pieces of silver coins, since the Lord forgave his past sins. The Lord won’t forgive you for a sin you have not yet committed. Everyone must acknowledge their sins, repent of them, and then the Lord can forgive them and take them away. Every sin you commit is a different sin. If the Lord forgives you today, He wipes out all your sins you repented of. Once He forgives you for all those sins you have committed, you are clear. But now, suppose you sin again tomorrow, or in ten years’ time, and it is a deadly sin, or any other sin, it has nothing to do with the sins that the Lord has already forgiven you before. If you commit a new sin, you will need to deal with that sin in the same way you dealt with the past one. You will need to turn from that sin and ask for forgiveness to the Lord. But don’t make it a game, don’t take the Lord’s grace for granted and keep practising new sins. The Lord’s mercy and grace are not a ticket for you to keep sinning, but to remind you of His death on the Cross for us all and to remain faithful to His teachings, live for Him and hate evil.

Since it is sin that takes us to hell, if God blots all those sins away, including our future sins, that means He has erased all the sins of our lives. Suppose He did that, then we would not need to ever repent again; we would not need to live our lives and repent daily like when we do the Lord’s Prayer we say, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” And this is a prayer the Lord Himself gave us that we should pray every day. So, if the Lord has forgiven all our future sins, what sins then are we begging Him to forgive us daily? What sins are we praying to our Lord, “Please forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us?” What sins are we asking Him to forgive? Those are the sins that we may sin daily, some even without knowing. That has nothing to do with our past sins. Every sin we have repented of totally, once He blots them out, He never reminds us of those sins again. But that does not mean that people won’t commit new sins. So, if that was the case, that ‘once Christ forgives you, He has taken also your future sins away’ or that ‘once saved is always saved,’ then He would not be telling us to pray daily, “Please forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us?”

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15).

Matthew 6:14–15

As we can see, this Verse applies to us all in all generations, and today and tomorrow, as long as we live on this earth.

“So, if our Lord Jesus has already forgiven our future sins, or once saved is always saved, as some believers teach, why then does the Lord say, ‘But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Don’t you believe that your future sins are forgiven? These are the future sins in this Bible verse, not the past ones.

Our past sins are forgiven when we receive the Lord Jesus Christ, embrace what He did for us on the Cross, and repent of those sins we know of. But we don’t live in the past, but in the present, heading to the future, and each day comes with its many troubles, some of which lead many, who believe their future sins are forgiven, to pile up unrepented sins against God. Yet call the Lord, ‘Lord, Lord.’ So, if the Lord has forgiven your future sins, why then will He say to you, “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you evildoers”, although you believed in Him?”

The Scriptures say, in Hebrews 10:26-27,

Hebrews 10:26–27

“Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.”

So if our future sins are forgiven already by the Lord, why then will there be only God’s judgment and the raging fire for those who turn from the truth after knowing it?

Yes, suppose Simon Peter lost his faith, he would not be saved just because God previously forgave Him and died on the Cross for his sins, too.

The Lord Jesus is not telling Simon Peter, “Don’t worry, I have forgiven all your sins, so even if you sin in the future, you’ll still be with Me in heaven.”

He is not saying that. He is preparing people, telling us not to stop fighting. We are in the battle between good and evil, in a battle that we have to fight daily. Even if a devoted servant of the Lord, who is remaining truthful to His teachings, were to turn now to sin, their past righteousness would not save them, as Father God says in Ezekiel 33.

“If I tell a righteous person they will live, but then they turn to sin, expecting that their past righteousness will save them, they will not live, I will destroy them for their sins.”

These are the words of the Lord, and that Same Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. And He sits at His Father’s Right Hand. Father God is His Son, and His Son Is Him. What He agrees with, His Son agrees with.

And the Lord said, “The wicked behaviour of a wicked person will not condemn them if they turn to repent.” So, you can be a murderer who has done so much, but when you turn to God to repent of your sins, He will forgive you. This is not to give you a ticket and a passport to sin and do whatever you want, because you know that God said that ‘the wicked behaviour of a wicked person will not condemn them if they turn to repent.’

You cannot put God to the test. So, suppose you take this decision and say to yourself, “Okay, since I love murdering people, I’m going to murder a hundred people, because I must, and after I finish murdering them, I’m going to go and say sorry to God, because He said that ‘the wicked behaviour of a wicked person will not condemn them if they turn to repent.’ In that case, the Lord won’t forgive you because you have planned to do evil to test God; He won’t forgive you. But this is in case you have sinned all your life, and you did not know what you were doing, or you found yourself in the darkness somehow, without knowing what you were doing, and now that you are in the darkness, you are staying in that darkness saying to yourself, “God will never forgive me of all the wrong things I have done.” In that case, God knows the heart of that one who is so genuine and who is so regretting, but they are staying in the darkness, saying to themselves, ‘that is their fate,’ though it might not be their fate.

So, we cannot put God to the test.

So, why would the Lord say, “The righteous behaviour of the righteous person will not save them if they turn now to sin. I will destroy them for their sin? Why would He say that if He has forgiven all your future sins, as some people claim?

When the Lord is saying ’a righteous person,’ He is regarding that person as righteous. And those we regard as righteous are people like Job, like Abraham, who walked before God and were blameless. And everyone who is living by the words of God, teaching the words of God and abiding by those words. They strive for righteousness, and they hate sin, and do not associate with evil or everyone who lives in sin and won’t repent. Those are righteous; the godly are the righteous. So, the Lord can declare you godly, meaning you’re righteous now because of the righteousness of Christ. But God can declare us righteous by finding us blameless in our ways, because we live according to His ways. Then, if you turn to sin now because you think your past righteousness will save you, the Lord says, “No, you will die. He will destroy you for your sins. Not the past sins, because when God declared you righteous, that means there was no unrepented sin. God had already forgiven you and even forgiven your past sins, and in His eyes, you became righteous by living in righteousness. But would you keep up with the righteousness? That is the question?

God is not going to destroy you for your past sins that He has already forgiven; He will destroy you for the sin that you have just sinned that has taken that righteousness away from you. So, when people say ‘once saved is always saved,’ obviously, when God is saying that you are righteous, if you remain in that righteousness, you are saved. But if you turn to sin, that salvation you lose it. That means you had the salvation when you were living righteously in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as people have the Holy Spirit in them because they’re obeying Christ, and He gives His Holy Spirit to live in them, but if they begin to not listen to God, they grieve His Holy Spirit, and His Holy Spirit departs from them. But the Lord had declared you righteous and blameless in His eyes to the point that He sent His Holy Spirit to live in you.

The Lord Jesus said in John 14:15-16, “If you Me, obey my Commandments, and I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.”

John 14:15–16

The condition for having God’s Holy Spirit with us is to obey the Lord Jesus. When the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, it is because, through obedience to God, to His teachings, the Lord Jesus has declared us righteous, blameless and godly.

So yes, we are seeing here that those who listen to God and let His Holy Spirit remind them of the teachings of the Lord, it is always the same Holy Spirit reminding all of the same teachings of the Lord.

The Lord Jesus said to Simon Pieter, “But I have pleaded in prayer so that you will not lose your faith.”

Losing our faith is sin. The Scripture says, “Without faith, we cannot please God. So, if we lose faith, we are displeasing God. And losing that faith is because we have begun to believe a lie. The lie comes from who? From the father of lies, who is satan.

And the Lord had been pleading because He saw that Simon was at risk of losing His faith especially since he denied Christ three times. Christ had seen that if He did not plead for him, he could have lost His faith afterwards. And if He did lose his faith, he would no longer be a godly person. He would no longer be that apostle of Christ who obeyed Him. His new life would have been a life full of sins. Even in front of Christ, as we have seen, satan was already using Simon Peter’s mind to cause Christ to change His mind about the Will of God He was on earth to do. When the Lord Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan,” He was bringing our attention to realise that what Simon Peter was telling Him at that moment was not the ways of the Lord, but the ways of satan. Simon was not satan. But the Lord said, “Get behind Me, satan,” to wake Simon Peter up. Simon Peter was convinced he was doing what was right, while indeed, those thoughts were put in him by satan. So, if the Lord had not told Simon Peter, “Get behind Me, satan,” Simon Peter would not realise that he was taking the evil thoughts from satan. And that is what satan does continuously.

And if he was using Simon Peter right in front of Christ, let alone when Christ is not with us physically. That’s why we need to listen to His Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ is with us, and if we are listening to Him, it is like Christ Himself is with us face to face.

“If the Lord Jesus had forgiven Simon Pieter’s future sins, He would not need to tell him, “I have pleaded in prayer so that you will not lose your faith.” When you believe that your future sins are forgiven, that means it doesn’t really matter whether you lose your faith or commit another sin, or live as a lazy Christian, since you believe your future sins are forgiven. Therefore, you believe you will go to Heaven no matter your new unrepented sins, right?

Please get yourself out of that devil’s trap, purge yourself from the teachings of demons, and let the Lord Jesus rescue you with His sound teachings.

And here, just like the Lord Jesus, the apostle Paul is instructing Timothy, saying, “Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress.16 Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching.”

Yes, how we live is very important when we are the servants of the Lord.

We must live to show an example to others. We must live to remain in the faith, to reflect the Character of the Lord Jesus.

Christ wants us to live in a way that when people see us, they will know that we love Him, our Lord Jesus. Loving Him means listening to what He says and teaching well. The teaching is what leads people to Christ; if you teach well, according to the Scriptures, and the inspiration the Holy Spirit gives you to explain the words of God, if you teach well, you lead people to Christ, and you save their souls. Though Christ is the One saving their souls, you have contributed to their eternal life. If you teach wrong, you are snatching them from the hands of the Lord and pushing them into the fire of judgment. Teaching wrong is contributing to people’s eternal damnation. Once they listen to those wrong teachings, they will be led astray.

The Apostle Paul is saying to Timothy,

“Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.”

I’m speaking here to those who say, ‘Your future sins are forgiven, and ‘once saved is always saved.’”

Timothy is living in the Lord at this moment, which means all his past sins have been blotted out by the Lord for him to even teach well, because we teach well with the help of the Holy Spirit. So, at this point, Timothy is saved. He is forgiven by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is now a new creation.

Though he has become a new creation, the apostle is not saying to him, ‘Because you are a new creation, it is your guarantee that you will go to heaven, even if you stop listening to the Lord today.’ He is not saying to him, ‘Because Christ died to save you on the Christ, all your future sins are forgiven. If you sin, know that it has already been forgiven.’ But he is saying to him, “Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation.” That means what Timothy knew at that point, if he did not stay true to it, he could lose his salvation. He would not say ‘for the sake of your own salvation’ if it was not a danger for Timothy to lose his salvation, though at that moment he was so righteous that the apostle was so pleased with him.

‘Timothy, now, you’ve been teaching right, you have been following my example, and I’m so pleased with you.’ That is in a way what the apostle is saying, “But you must stay true to what is right, to what you have learned, to what you have understood. Because if you don’t, your salvation is in danger.”

So, yes, he has salvation now, as the apostle Paul sees, but he must remain true to what is right in order to maintain that salvation. And the same goes with us.

If you are righteous and teach right, and you are bringing many people to Christ, and then suddenly, you go from being righteous to unrighteous to the point that the Lord says to you, “I will destroy because of your sins,” you will also undo the good work that you did in other people’s lives, if they’re still following you. So what is the point if you’re righteous today and bring many people to Christ, then suddenly you turn from the truth and begin to teach wrong, and then you re-convert all those people you brought to Christ, lead them astray, and they return to the darkness just as you, yourself, have returned to the darkness. So yes, the apostle is giving this instruction to Timothy, ‘Remain truthful to the teachings I taught you, the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Because, at least, the apostle is confident that what he taught them would not lead them astray.

So when people say, “Once saved is always saved, our future sins are forgiven, it is not the case. The Lord and His apostles, prophets, and true disciples never taught that.”

The Lord Jesus said, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Remain in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love” (John 15:9-10).

John 15:9–10

So, we must remain in Christ’s love to maintain salvation once the Lord has declared us righteous, godly, by the scriptures, not by our mind.

We don’t declare ourselves righteous and godly or blameless by our own mouth and what we think, but it should always be by the Scriptures.

Once we recognise we’re godly by the Scriptures, it does not mean that we should relax. We are in the battle between good and evil; we cannot relax. Those who relax in the fight receive the devil’s missile.

So stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you. And this is proof that once we’re saved, it does not mean that we are always saved, even if we turn to sin. This is also proof that once the Lord forgives us of our sins of which we have repented, it does not mean that also our future sins are forgiven.

If you don’t take your sins to Him, and renounce evil, just because He died for everyone on the Cross does not mean that you are included in the Salvation. If someone gives you a gift, and you don’t receive it, that gift does not automatically become yours. You must receive it in order for it to be yours.

So, why will the Lord Jesus say to some on the Last Day, “I never knew. Depart from Me, you evildoers?” Why will He say that to them if He forgave their past sins, and also their future sins? Why will He say that? Surely those people have repented of some sins, and were actually genuine, and God would have forgiven them. But then, they sinned again and did not listen to God.

And some have even cast out demons in the Lord’s name, and they believed in Christ, yet they did not do what Christ said, which is, “If you love Me, obey My Commandments.”

Those are the words of the Lord Himself. So, don’t let anyone fool you to think that your future sins are forgiven and that even if you’re righteous, and sin now, that salvation is guaranteed. We should remain true to what is right for the sake of our own salvation and the salvation of those who hear us. So, definitely, that is what I strive to do every day. I refuse to contribute to someone’s damnation.

So I pray you will listen to this and listen to the words of God. I know it sounds good to you that somebody tells you that all your future sins are forgiven. I know it may comfort you and make you feel good if somebody tells you that ‘once you are saved, you’re always saved.’ I know this sounds good to you, and you want to think of that and feel good about yourself. But what good is hope if it is just false hope?

Think about those to whom the Lord will say, “I never knew you,” though they were Christians. Think about them.

We love hearing about good things, but let’s make sure that what we store in our hearts is the truth, according to the Lord Jesus Christ. If it is not the truth, we’re just comforting ourselves with something we want to believe, even if it is false. So, may the Lord Jesus’ peace be with you as you choose wisely.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your teachings. Thank You for all Your servants, the apostle Paul, Simon Peter, and all the others, my Lord, who remain truthful to Your teachings. I thank You for every single one of them You have used to teach us today. For we know this truth because of all those ones who were there before, and You used their lives and their experience to teach us today. I pray that people would open their eyes and their hearts to Your words so that You would help them to understand them. I thank You so much, Lord, for Your grace. Lord Jesus, I thank You for Your Holy Spirit in me, who helps me to speak this.

So, I pray, my Lord, that they will listen so that You will rescue them.

So, Lord, thank You so much for Your grace and Your love and Your peace, my God Jesus. Oh, Thank You, Father, Thank You for Your Son.

Please hear my prayer, in the Name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.