No man or woman, no one who has repented of sin, and found the Lord, and experienced the new birth, and now walks with him; no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him. It seemed to you when it all happened as though it was your own decision, and in a way it was. God worked in such a way within you that he brought you to the point where you voluntarily ran to Christ, and fell on your knees, and gave your life to him, and asked for his forgiveness and love. But actually, it was his secret work in your heart that dragged you there, against human, natural resistance. Naturally speaking we resist him, we are against him, we will not listen, we avoid him. And then the Holy Spirit works and illuminates and regenerates and works within, and draws us against all that resistance to himself and to Christ.
Why, Luther put it perfectly. In 1525, there was published what turned out to be probably Luther’s most famous work – The Bondage of the Will, his answer to Erasmus. That is the trouble with us all. We know it is not so much that men and women cannot come to Christ. It is that they will not come to Christ. Luther put his finger on it perfectly: The bondage of the will.
These are magnificent words. Not one truly saved person will ever be lost. We may wander, we may stray, and if we are truly saved, even if it takes the firm hand of God and a harsh discipline to bring us back to the right way, he will do it. He will bring us back. Each one is constantly in view. In view of the Father, in the view of the Son who suffered and died to purchase each one. Of course, in the view of the Holy Spirit who dwells within. Attacks are implied, attacks by the world, attacks from our own fallen, lower nature. Attacks by the devil to tempt us and discourage us, but everyone will be kept.