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| Q: | Is it true "once a Christian, always a Christian"? A friend has deeply hurt her fiancée by cheating. She was abused by her father in Europe and has cheated once on her ex-husband, admittedly. She left her husband and divorced him, as he did violate his marriage vows by constant verbal abuse and degradation. She would intentionally run up credit card bills to irritate him and then finally left him without warning. She met a wonderful Christian man who saved himself for 40 years for the right person. She cheated on him just as suddenly as her ex-husband. It crushed this wonderful man she was engaged to. She now lives with a worldly friend and takes advice from her two female "worldly barflies". She has questioned salvation when this wonderful man said to her, "if it cannot still work out, I'll see you in heaven". Can her soul be in danger? What advice do you have for her, and consolation for the wonderful man. | ||||||
| A: | Yes, a person can lose saving faith. I will try to answer the last part of your paragraph in which you ask for help to give your friend and her (former?) fiancé. It is always difficult to answer a question like yours without more complete information. I would urge you to also take this question to your pastor. He could more directly help you. The betrayal of love and trust that happens when a child is abused by a relative is a terrible thing for a child to wrestle with. It can cause problems in relationships that may continue for a lifetime. Your friend who cheated on her ex-husband and then divorced him and who has now cheated on her fiancé shows the pattern of some of those problems. Encourage your friend who has hurt her fiancé by cheating to get some very competent Christian psychological counseling. She also needs to talk to you or her pastor, if she has one. She could talk to your pastor. She needs to talk to a knowledgeable Christian about her relationship to God. This is the other disturbing part that I see in this pattern. She is beginning to doubt that God could or does love her. This also happens to those who have been abused. It also happens to those who have deliberately sinned. They know that they have done wrong. They know what they are doing or plan to do is wrong. Yet, they deliberately sin. Of course, they will doubt that God can forgive them. Your friend needs to know that what she has done is wrong. If she is living with a man and having sexual relations with him now, she needs to know that that is also a sin. (I am unsure about what you are saying about the "worldly friend" with whom she is living. She needs to hear the Law of God. Hebrews 13:4. But, if she knows her sin and it is guilt that she is expressing when she "questions her salvation." Then she especially needs to hear and know that while she may have forsaken God in her life, God has not forsaken her. Lamentations 3:22-23 "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." I John 1:9 "(He) will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Isaiah 53:6 "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." I Timothy 2:3-4 "God our Savior...wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." II Corinthians 5:19 "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them." Her Jesus also went to the cross to pay for her sins. Her Jesus is really HER SAVIOR. By grace, through faith in Jesus her sins are forgiven. Repentance is sorrow for sin and faith in Jesus Christ for forgiveness. With the Law and the Gospel encourage your friend to break the pattern of sin in her life. With the Gospel encourage her to believe in Jesus for her forgiveness. Encourage her finally to live a more Christian life as a fruit of her repentance. That might include:
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