For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. (II Timothy 4:10)

The often repeated argument that those who fall away were never saved to begin with will not stand the test of reality. If this argument were true, no individual could know whether he was truly saved until the day he or she died and stood before the Lord.

There are numerous people who truly were "saved" at one time who later fell away, who backed away from the path on which the Lord was leading them, who neglected their salvation in favor of some worldly delight.

Was Paul mistaken about Demas in the first place? Did Demas' love for the world and forsaking of Paul not affect his salvation? Or is it just the Jews who must behave righteously or else they never were saved? What nonsense is preached today!

Most believers know of one or more persons who started in the way of eternal life and then turned back into the world. But the theoreticians keep on in their removal from reality proclaiming that if a person turns back into the world he never had eternal life in the first place.

Is there a passage in the Scriptures that teaches if we once put our hand to the plow we are not to turn back?

And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:62)

The doctrine that teaches a genuine Christian cannot turn back is set forth to please the pleasure-seeking, lukewarm, backslidden, careless, sinful, rebellious churchgoers of our day. Their ministers inform them that they cannot possibly lose God's favor no matter how they behave. Why don't their shepherds warn them that their behavior indicates they never have been saved from the beginning, if this is what the leaders truly believe?

Christian scholars, teachers, and evangelists indeed are teaching a perversion of Paul's doctrine of grace and the morally and spiritually corrupt fruit can be witnessed on every side.

No matter how the leaders may hedge their statements and beliefs when confronted with the implications and fruit of their teaching, the contemporary understanding of grace is reflected in such reasoning as: "I ought to try to do good. But if I continue to sin, Jesus loves me and has saved me by grace. I can fornicate, use profane language, abuse my body, lie, steal, gossip, and never set aside my own life and seek the Lord Jesus. I know my behavior is not pleasing to the Lord, but this is what we all do. When I die I shall go to Heaven to live in a mansion because I am saved by grace."

This is what numerous believers in Christ think in their mind and believe in their heart and it is the reason why the Christian churches are not setting an example of morality in the eyes of the nations of the earth. The perversion of grace has destroyed the Christian testimony. The light of the world is not shining.

The only spiritual light of the world is the good works of the Christian people (Matthew 5:16). When the Christians are abiding in their statements of doctrine rather than in Christ, works of righteousness and holiness are not revealed in their personalities. There is no moral light to guide the nations.

To be continued.