“Does Revelation 3:16 teach you can lose your salvation?”

The letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2,3 are not written to us today, they are written to Tribulation churches. John prefaces Revelation by explaining that he was their “companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom” (1:9), and then went on to describe the Tribulation and the kingdom of heaven on earth in the ensuing chapters. That is, he saw a vision of the future and was their companion in those things in the virtual reality sort of way that such prophetic visions afforded the prophets.

In describing the Tribulation, the Lord said,

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matt. 24:12,13).

Iniquity will begin to abound when the beast issues his mark, and believers won’t be able to buy food or raiment without it (Rev. 13:16,17). Believers in that day must help other believers with these things to be saved (Matt. 25:31-46; James 2:14-17), and they must continue to help them “unto the end” (Heb. 6:10-12) of the Tribulation (cf. Matt. 24:3) to be saved (24:13,14). If they let their love for their brethren wax cold, they won’t continue to help them, and this will show they never “believed to the saving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39), forcing God to spew them out of His mouth (Rev. 3:16).

In our day, believers should help others with these things (Gal. 6:10), but our salvation doesn’t depend on it!

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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