Perseverance of the Saints, 1 John 2:18-19

Last week... 1 Timothy 4:1 describes those who will leave the faith. A quality of God's people is that they are guaranteed to finish life in the faith - they will persevere until the end, overcoming, enduring, striving, continuing, and remaining in faith. Today's message is about the doctrine of eternal security (also known as the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints)

Main Text

1 John 2:18-19
"Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us."

Closing: article referenced from Desiring God website by Jon Bloom
"Many of us love Robert Robertson’s hymn “Come Thou Fount” because of these lines:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,? Prone to leave the God I love;? Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;? Seal it for thy courts above.
We understand this. We all keenly feel our proneness to wander from the God we love. And we all want this terrible proneness to decrease.
So if we sing this hymn seriously and in faith — really wanting God to keep us from wandering so we persevere and make it to his heavenly courts — what are we asking God for? What does losing our proneness to wander look like?
A Severe Mercy
God has left us plenty of mystery in how he “keep[s] [us] from stumbling and . . . present[s] [us] blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 1:24). But it’s not all mysterious. From Genesis to Revelation, we find a consistent element present in the lives of persevering saints of God. And it is captured in this brief sentence in Psalm 119:67: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.”
What cured, or at least decreased, the psalmist’s proneness to wander? Affliction. If the writer of Psalm 119 was working with Robert Robertson on composing “Come Thou Fount,” he may have suggested the last sentence to read something more like,
Here’s my heart, O take and break it;? So I love thy courts above.
To borrow a phrase C.S. Lewis used when comforting a suffering friend, God uses affliction as “a severe mercy” to help keep his saints from going astray."

Passages on Doctrine of Eternal Security / Perseverance of the Saints

• 2 Timothy 2:8-13 - “[8] Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, [9] for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! [10] Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. [11] The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; [12] if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; [13] if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.
• Jude 24-25 - “[24] Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, [25] to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
• Jude 17-23 - “But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. [18] They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” [19] It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. [20] But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, [21] keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. [22] And have mercy on those who doubt; [23] save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
• 2 Peter 1:10-11 - “[10] Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. [11] For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
• John 6:37-40 - “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."
• John 10:27-28 - "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.