Introduction
   In the churches of Chr-stianity, behind the pulpit stands a preacher… his eyes fixed upon the assembly before him. His hands tremble slightly, as he raises a hand, points to the heavens and shouts with great enthusiasm, “Will the Almighty allow even one of His servants to become lost? Will He deny even one of those who have been called by Him entrance into the Kingdom? I tell you, ‘NO’.”
  Some of us have heard something like this – a claim that the Father will never allow someone, who was once found, to be lost again; or that He will never remove mercy from those upon whom He has bestowed mercy. Oh, no! They claim that one’s eternal salvation is assured, and that it cannot be lost. But is it true?
  When I was in Chr-stianity, I had heard this message many times. But it was a long time before I, through study, tested its verity. Eventually though, I became a Berean and studied diligently and Yahweh revealed to me what I will share with you in the following discourse.
O.S.A.S., or Once Saved, Always Saved – what is this doctrine of eternal security? And what are the foundational Scriptures employed in its defense?

Choice! It’s All about Choice
   Proponents of eternal security often use the following four verses of Scripture, as fundamental to their profession that one cannot lose their salvation:
  And I give eternal life to them; and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand, John 10:28-29. (New American Standard Bible used throughout, unless otherwise noted.)
  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angel, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of Elohim, which is in Messiah Yahshua our Master, Romans 8:38-39.
  Key words in these passages, are “no one” and “any other created thing.” They who promulgate this heresy defend their position declaring that “no one,” neither “any other created thing” can snatch us away, or separate us from the love of the Sovereign One – that is, “nothing” apart from ourselves. These verses omit CHOICE, and they omit SIN.
  In the Torah, Yahweh holds out both blessing and life and cursing and death (Deut. 30:19) to each of us and urges us, moreover, to choose life. It’s all about CHOICE. Good CHOICES produce good things; bad CHOICES incur bad things. And of SIN? Have you ever read Isaiah 59:2, in which Yahweh says, But your INIQUITIES have made a separation between you and your Elohim, and your SINS have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
  In the Messianic writings, the Evangelist John declares that everyone who practices SIN is lawless (1 John 3:4).
  Salvation is not a one-time event. It is a process – a process of justification (rendered, innocent or righteous) and sanctification (meaning, purification or holiness) and accomplished as we grow in grace and in knowledge, abandoning and separating ourselves from SIN. It is still, enduring to the end (Matt. 10:22, 24:13):

    • working out one’s salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12);
    • giving diligence to make one’s calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10);
    • earnestly contending for the faith delivered us (Jude 1:3).

The Apostle Paul said it this way: As we therefore receive Yahshua the Messiah, we should walk in Him (Col. 2:6).
  O.S.A.S. proponents assert we who oppose their doctrine are trying to work out our salvation, declaring that we don’t believe in the full, complete and perfect redemptive work of the Messiah. They take the stand that nothing must be done to inherit salvation, that it is a free gift.
  But if that were true, what do we do with the Apostle’s affirmation that not the hearers of the Law are justified before Elohim, but the doers of the Law (Rom. 2:13) … and confirmed, moreover, by a second witness, But be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves, James 1:22 KJV.
  Indeed, if that were true, what should we make of Paul’s conclusion, toward the end of his life,
  I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Master, the Righteous Judge, will award me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing, 2 Timothy 4:7-8.
If O.S.A.S. were true, what should we make of him writing,
  “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith… For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine … and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 4:3, 4).

Faith + Works + Endurance = Salvation
   Obedience that is shown by works remains a choice and an action. They who neither choose to obey, nor to do, are neither justified and sanctified, nor will they find admittance into the Kingdom!
James, the brother of our Master, posits that faith without works is dead. He asks rhetorically,
  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? … And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? James 2:21, 25. He concludes, therefore, that as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead, James 2:26.
  So, we can see that according to the Word, if our faith lacks works, faith can’t save us. Consider this: If Noah, when warned of the coming flood, hadn’t built the ark as he was instructed, but ignored Yahweh’s command, would his faith have saved him? The conclusion of Scripture, is, “NO.” Faith only works to our benefit if it is accompanied by obedience to the Commandments.
  So far, we have seen that ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED is Scripturally indefensible. But wait! There’s more. If ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS SAVED is true and correct, what was the point and need of the reproof, correction, instruction, rebuke, exhortation (2 Tim. 3:16, 4:2) – the five administrations of the Word – mentioned not only by the Apostle, but also found replete in the Tanach (the Old Testament).
  And of enduring to the end? The writer of the Book of Hebrews charges us to lay aside every encumbrance and the sin that would, and does, so easily beset us from running the race set before us (Heb. 12:1). The Apostle Paul, also likened this life of faith and obedience to running a race, and urged his charges to so run that they might win (1 Cor. 9:24). Yes, to run with endurance and with patience, because this race is not a sprint, but a marathon and much stands between us and the finish line.

The Place of Suffering
   Proponents of O.S.A.S. haven’t considered, evidently, that Yahweh in His Word never promised us a smooth and calm passage, only a safe landing if we endure. With both much tribulation (Acts 14:22) and persecution (2 Tim. 3:12) will we enter into the Kingdom.
  Suffering? Oh, yes! The Master suffered and left us an example that we, too, would suffer (1 Pet. 2:21). We must face many trials, perhaps not so trying as the Apostle who catalogs his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:22-28, but trials nonetheless. Hebrews 11:32-38 relates that many suffered for righteousness’ sake and concluded of them, “Of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38).
  We must finish the race but, in doing so, it not only requires endurance through the trials of our faith but wisdom, too. Our adversary uses many tricks, snares, and distractions to prevent us from completing our course of faith.
  Our walk in the Faith should mirror that of ancient Israel. Yahweh heard the appeal of Israel for deliverance, from their labors in Egypt. With a strong hand, He broke the power of Egypt, the symbol of sin. In a similar manner, Yahshua’s death on the stake broke the power of our sin.
  Nevertheless, we, like Israel, are in a wilderness. Many of Israel grumbled and wanted to return to Egypt. Ten times they tempted the Elohim of their deliverance so that they perished in the wilderness and were prevented from entering the Promised Land and into His rest because of their disobedience.
  Likewise, if we aren’t walking in obedience and found faithful in enduring suffering, we may also be barred entrance into His rest and denied admittance into His Kingdom and eternal life. We should not look back as they. “For any who once puts his hand to the plow and looks back is unfit for the Kingdom” (Luke 9:62). Remember Lot’s wife, Luke 17:32 KJV. Our old ways are in the past, and should remain there, buried… drowned in pure water by the washing of the Word.

What about the Vomit and Mire?
   They, which think to support the heresy of O.S.A.S., say that if someone walks away, they never really believed. Perhaps they should review the authority of Scripture:
  For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Master and Savior Yahshua Messiah, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire,” 1 Peter 2:20-22.
  The Master, too, speaks about a house that is exorcised of an unclean spirit, but because it is not furnished, the unclean spirit returns with seven … more wicked than itself, to assume again residence in that house (Matt. 12:43-45).
  A corroborating third witness comes from Hebrews 6:4-6 KJV:
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the Good Word of Elohim, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they impale to themselves the Son of Elohim afresh, and put Him to an open shame.
  So, it is possible to fall away and make it im-possible to be renewed to repentance. Keep in mind, they which have fallen away were once established in the Faith; that they were not, as the O.S.A.S. folk conjecture, weak in the Faith of Messiah.
  Moreover, in Hebrews 10:26-31, there proceeds a warning about willfully continuing in sin after coming into knowledge, that Messiah’s blood will not cover willfully continuing in sin – that is, falling away – and by doing so, one is excluded entry into the Kingdom.
  As we posited earlier, salvation is a continuum – we are not saved, we are being saved … its evidence manifested when we receive His commendation, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21 KJV).
  In Matthew 13:3-9, Yahshua relates a parable of a sower who went out to sow seed, which is an allegory to the Word being sown among men. Some fell beside the road, and the birds came and consumed it. Other seed fell upon rocky places, and sprang up but when the sun rose, it was scorched and died because it had no root in depth of soil. Others still, fell among thorns which choked them out. Lastly, some seed fell on good soil and yielded a crop, thirty-, sixty-, a hundred- fold as much as had been sown.
  In the parable, Messiah made it clear that all of the Seed (the Word) produced a measure of faith, but when elements contrary to its growth resisted the Word’s production, immediately the Seed died. Only That Which fell upon good, fertile ground of the heart yielded increase that both remained and abounded to the account of them who had endured all the elements of our metaphorical birds, sun, and thorns.
  Yes, though many will say on that great and notable day, “Master, Master, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and cast out demons in Your Name, and do many mighty works in Your Name?” (Matt. 7:22) only to hear His reply, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23).

Other O.S.A.S Objections
   O.S.A.S. advocates may protest again, saying the fallen away were never in the Faith or that they never believed. But it is clear here that they proclaimed to have in His Name prophesied, cast out demons, and done many mighty works. (Notice, this word works.) So, to some degree they must have believed that He had approved of their works. (Incidentally, their expulsion from before His presence is attributed to His deeming them workers of lawlessness.) If these, then, possessed a degree of faith, their faith was negated by their having relegated the “handwriting of ordinances” as contrary, blotted out and nailed to the stake (Col. 2:14).
  Continuing their protestations, O.S.A.S. pro-ponents will insist that the Holy Spirit can’t be taken away from us once we are sealed with the earnest of our inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14). Yet, we are admonished not to grieve the Holy Spirit of Elohim, and we read evidence that the Spirit of Yahweh left one Saul (1 Sam. 16:14-15) because of his disobedience… yes, taken from Saul upon whom earlier the Spirit of Yahweh had come, turning him into another man (1 Sam. 10:6). And seeing Yahweh changes not, and that He has removed His Spirit from people before, could He not, would He not, remove His Spirit from us, too, if we persisted in disobedience to His Commandments?
  There remains yet one more, final refutation against this heresy of “Once Saved, Always Saved.”
  Yahweh in one place declares to Moses, “Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My Book” (Exod. 32:33 KJV).
The one who overcomes will be clothed the same way, in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the Book of Life, and I will confess his name before My Father and His angels, Revelation 3:5.
  The Psalmist David, in his praise to Eloha, petit-ions the Sovereign One concerning his adversaries, saying,
  May they be wiped out of the Book of Life, and may they not be recorded with the righteous, Psalm 69:28.
  Note well, the Book of Life makes a distinction between the unrighteous and unfaithful and them which have “by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality” (Rom. 2:7 KJV) and who received “eternal life” as their reward.
Again from the Revelation of Yahshua the Messiah, we read:
  And all who dwell on the earth will worship Him, [everyone] whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb Who has been slain… Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the Commandments of Elohim and their faith in Yahshua… And if anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire, Revelation 13:8, 14:12, 20:15.

Conclusion
  This message is not intended to scare anybody away, but to bring a healthy fear; and reverent obedience toward the Father. We can lose our inheritance into eternal life, if we presently waste the substance of the life that has been given us in rebellion or walk away from the Faith that has been delivered to us. In time past, people who were thought established, strengthened, and settled in Faith and belief of the Truth have walked away.
  So, for the joy that is set before us, let us run with patient endurance the race that is set before us, that after we have done the will of Yahweh, we might receive the Promise.