 How long would it take you to look through the Bible and find an example of some believer who lost their salvation? Well, here's a hint. You'll be looking an awful long time. Well, we get started. Remember this one thing, this rule. Whatever the Bible says when the Bible speaks, we speak, but when the Bible is silent, we're silent, right? So we want to be careful that we don't say something or put something there in the scriptures that aren't there. If salvation is the greatest possession that a person could ever have, wouldn't it be nice for a person to be assured that they couldn't lose it? Wouldn't you want for it to be protected that there could be no loss of it? But doesn't it seem like there are a lot of people who actually root for people who lose their salvation? It sounds bad, but it's just amazing how people fight and fight and fight at the notion that you cannot lose it. That's kind of mind-boggling. But to get on to our, to the point of what we're talking about, is there any example in the Bible of someone ever losing their salvation? Well, there's going to be two examples that people tend to refer to. One, Judas to Demas. Judas, because he walked with Christ, because he was a disciple of Christ, people may assume that he is in fact, or was in fact, a believer who lost his salvation. However, a closer look at the scriptures would tell us that Judas was never a believer. In John 17, we read verse 12, So the Bible refers to Judas as the son of perdition. He was never included as someone who is a believer. As a matter of fact, when we turn to chapter 6 of John, we read John's account and let's see what he says. In verse 70, he says, Jesus answered to them, So Jesus makes it clear that he chose a devil. He didn't choose him to be a believer. And so it was never, there's never an example of anyone in scripture ever referring to him as a believer because he's called a disciple that doesn't necessarily entail or can note that he is an actual believer. As a matter of fact, John goes on to speak more about Judas or people in that same situation in 1 John. In verse 19 of 1 John chapter 2, he says, So John identifies people who have left after hearing or knowing this, that they were never really a part of the faith and the reason why they left so that they can kind of make it known or it would be made known that they were never really a part of us because they left. Remember that verse as we think about demas because that might be important to understand about demas or at least some view it that way. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul is writing and we hear him saying something that some folks might take that here's a guy who was a believer who departed from the faith and is now to be treated as someone who lost their salvation. So let's read and see if we can glean the same thing or maybe something different. In verse 10, he says for demas in love with his present world or having loved this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Cretians has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dameshah. Luke alone is with me. So some would say that see here is demas an example of someone who was formerly with Paul who was a believer who left for the world but is at the case. There are three different views about demas that may one of them may indicate that demas did not lose his salvation or was never believed in the first place. One the first one is that he was never a believer because as John had stated that if anyone who has gone out or left seemingly left they were never really a part of us and so maybe that applies to demas. Another view is that maybe Paul is bothered by the fact that demas left him but it doesn't mean that he left the faith. The same holds true or they would compare demas with John Mark. Remember Paul sort of lambast Mark for not staying with him and there was this dispute between Paul as well as Barnabas about John Mark. Now obviously Paul comes around because in this same chapter Paul is talking about Mark and asking him to come with him. Only Mark has stayed with me and so Paul was wrong about Mark when he spoke about him and so is it possible that Paul was wrong about demas? That's possible. A third view even more likely view is this. Notice something about the verse. He mentions demas but he also mentions Crescent and he also mentions who else? He mentions Titus. Now we don't know much about this other fellow but why would he put Titus in the same category with demas? Demas has gone to Thessalonica, Crescent has gone to Galatia and Titus has gone to Dalmatia. It seems a bit odd that if one has departed from the faith why would you include Titus who we know for a fact has not? So what I think is apparent here is that demas has not departed the faith. He's just simply departed from the presence of Paul. Maybe his idea was to go to Thessalonica while the other two went in different places and Paul was not necessarily happy with that and so he says they have departed me and maybe the sense that Paul is writing is that not that he loves this world in the sense that he is wanting to be a part of this world and the things of the world but he is loving the people of the world. He wants to go tend to them and share the gospel with them. That might be a more suitable fit for what has happened with demas because again he puts demas he doesn't contrast demas with Titus. They are being compared. Again we know what has happened with Titus because Titus talks about his love. I mean because Paul talks about his love for Titus. So one of these things are at play here but it can't be that demas was a believer and then left because that would make John's view incorrect. It could very well be that demas was never a believer or what I think is that Paul is bothered at the fact that demas has left him and he's alone because after all Paul is human and demas has decided to go to this other town leaving Paul alone so too does Crescent so so too does Titus and so what does Paul say bring me Mark. So I think it's very clear crystal clear that there is no example of anyone ever departing the faith. As a matter of fact we don't have anybody including Paul's even speaking about demas saying that a person has departed the faith. We don't see where he says that this person was a believer and now they're not. We do on the other hand see the apostles the gospels speaking of how no one can lose their salvation and again we'll cover this later on when we deal with the Greek and how language matters that it bears out that grammatically speaking it forecloses the option of anyone ever losing their salvation but here it's clear no one can find an example of anyone in the bible having once been a believer and now no longer a believer.