Now an individual Christian is never in quite such a warning zone, because the individual Christian, if he is truly saved, will never be lost. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and all the texts that support it assure us of that. Our salvation cannot be lost. We may be in a warning for discipline; we may be in a warning for loss of privilege, loss even of a ministry, but we won't be eternally lost. But a church can be lost, and Israel could be lost, and in due course would be lost. We must not mix up the two. Yes, we hold to the doctrine of the perseverance, or preservation, of the saints, but we are thinking of a community: Israel, Judah, a church, an individual congregation. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church universal, but an individual congregation can have its lampstand removed and then it will be no more, so it can be in a warning zone. Sometimes there is disobedience in churches and wrongdoing, and, let’s say, the admission of extreme worldliness. There are crazy things going on, and many nonsensical things being taught, and yet, in spite of that, you hear that here and there there’s a genuine conversion, and some people will say, ‘Well, they've been blessed, so therefore it must be all right to be like that. It can't matter, after all.’ O yes, in the warning zone, in some degree God in his mercy, his amazing mercy, may continue to work, but you're in the warning zone. The lampstand may be removed, and that's a concept we need to think about, and churches at large need to think about. The people of Judah and Jerusalem hadn't put a check on this activity, this disobedience.
What’s our record like before God? We are loved by the Father and by the Son and the Spirit is within us, and we are children who receive constant mercy, but what’s our record like? Are we always slipping and sliding, with long periods of backsliding? Periods of disobediences, periods of doing nothing for the Lord, periods of compromise? There's a record you know, and sooner or later, we may have to be disciplined, and we may say to ourselves, ‘Why’s that friend of mine being given all sorts of opportunities in Christian work and Christian service, and they're not falling to me?’ Well, have we been unfaithful just too long? The mercy of God is still towards us; we are still his children, he’ll make us right in the end; he’ll draw us close; he’ll take us to glory, but we can't be privileged with much, because the trespass has been added to, and added to. So we’ve got to be as earnest as we can be, and as zealous, and as faithful, walking in communion with the Lord. There is a kind of point at which God has to move, and to discipline, and to restrain.