Can you lose your salvation? Yes. So do not do it.

So many preachers today tell us that once you are genuinely regenerated by the Spirit of God, trusting Christ for salvation and the forgiveness of sins, you can NEVER ever be lost.

But we should be careful about following the opinions of men because they have many followers.

After all, there was a time that most professing Christians were Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics trust the doctrines coming out of Rome. Those doctrines DO NOT teach unconditional eternal security for someone who is born of the Spirit. But if you went on the principle of following the majority opinion in the Middle Ages, you would have bought into Roman Catholic doctrine.

God does not establish biblical truth by a democratic process. There is no safety in numbers.

We need to be strongly acquainted with what the Bible plainly says. There are no prizes for being able to twist and deny the plain meaning of scores of individual Scriptures, so as to hold onto the doctrine of eternity security as it is called. If you don’t forsake sin to follow Christ and stay with Christ in purity of heart, you will not be ultimately accepted just because you strongly held onto some doctrine based on a few clever reasonings.

Here are some verses which demonstrate that it IS possible to fall away. And it is pretty easy to do it, too.

Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. (Hebrews 2:1)

So it is possible to DRIFT AWAY! Slowly, slowly, by passively going with the flow of this present evil age,  you can neglect the will of God, start getting cool in your love for God, neglect obedience to the Word of God, and end up with a heart that is quite indifferent to God. Those cold towards God, and those lukewarm, will be rejected in the Final Judgment.

“So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” (Revelation 3:16)

Hebrews 2:1 tells us that we MUST give MORE EARNEST heed to the things we have heard.

It is a MUST. It is not a suggestion reserved for spiritual giants.

To give MORE EARNEST heed means we take this whole thing really seriously. It means we really give attention to the full message of the gospel so its power will keep working in us.

You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4)

There is a bit of a fad going on today in Christendom where people are trying to become more Jewish in their customs in order to please God. It might start off with innocent curiosity but it develops many times into an insistence that unless you “keep the Feasts” or “keep the Sabbath” you are really not right with God. This is what Paul was addressing here in Galatians. He was not telling the people, “Since you got the idea that you have to stop fornicating, lusting, cheating, lying and stealing in order to be pleasing to God, you are legalists and have fallen from grace” as some might suggest.

This verse proves that people CAN fall from grace. You can do it through legalism, which comes in various forms. You can also do it through loving the world, as Demas did (compare 2 Timothy 4:10 with Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 1:24). Grace is what empowers you to know and love God and forsake sin. It is not a word or a provision that invalidates every warning in the New Testament given to believers.

Jesus explicitly states that many fall away. Concerning the stony ground hearers, Jesus said in the parable of the sower:

But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. (Luke 8:13)

If you do not give more earnest heed to the Word until it germinates and produces a root deep into your heart, you are going to fall away when trouble comes.

The Bible does not say, “they only thought they believed”. These people actually believe – for a while. The point is, you have to keep believing or you will be lost. And to keep believing, you have to keep paying attention to the Word of God.

Some preachers try to defend the idea of eternal security by saying that the people who profess Christ and later fall away “were never really regenerate Christians in the first place”. This doctrine is simply an ADDITION to SCRIPTURE designed to defend a serious LIE which contradicts the Bible just as much as the idea that you should pray to Mary for forgiveness.

“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John 15:6)

All the four gospels were actually written down AFTER the death and resurrection of Christ so it seems rather foolish to me to embrace the teaching that Jesus’ teachings and statements before the cross were abolished after the cross. Jesus made this statement the night before He was crucified. He made it to apostles. He was warning them, and others that it is ESSENTIAL to stay connected to Him. This is done through loving obedience (John 15:10) and continuing FAITH. If anyone does not stay connected to Jesus, he will be cast out as a branch, wither and thrown into eternal fire.

This is straight up and down, black and white. I know it is severe. Jesus does not promise salvation to those who do not want Him.

For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. ²⁸ Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26-29)

According to this Scripture, it is possible AFTER HAVING RECEIVED THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL and having been SANCTIFIED, to be rejected forever because you, by your thoughts, words and deeds “trample the Son of God underfoot”, “count the blood of the covenant a common thing” or by “insulting the Spirit of grace”.

To deny this because you have a “doctrine of grace” that tells you that this can never happen is simply to exalt human tradition and opinion over the Word of God.

People wonder why “there is no fear of God in the church”. It is basically because there are teachers everywhere, especially on TV and radio, who tell us day after day that once we have believed there is nothing to fear.

Many other verses in the Bible prove that it is possible to lose your salvation. The point is, DO NOT DO IT.

Give more earnest heed to the gospel. (Hebrews 2:1)

Stay connected to Jesus through obedience to the truth through the Spirit. (1 Peter 1:22)

Add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, godliness, brotherly kindness and Christian love.

Then you will make your calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:5-10).

All this is done by the power of the Holy Spirit as you humble yourself and give heed to the Word of the Lord, especially about the power of the cross and blood of Christ.