I agree with you.
I find it difficult to believe that some on this thread are not saying that, indeed. Sure seems like it.
"once saved, always saved" is anathema.
Look it up.
When we preach to all humans "out there", are we saying there are two different rules? Do not be a murderer, do not be an adulterer, but if you're saved, you have different rules? Both can end up in hell, surely.
If Deacon Smith gets in an argument with Mr Jones both Christians over a land boundary {as an example} and it escalates into a fight and in anger Deacon Smith and Mr Jones shoot each other will either go to hell? No but both will physically die as a result of their anger.
On the other hand if Preacher Joe who runs the First Church in where ever has made a life long habit of molesting his daughters and allowing his daughters to be molested I would have to come to a conclusion that Preacher Joe is a shyster the word dwells not within him nor did they ever. In other words He likely uses the position for self gain. There are many people in church for purposes other than to worship the LORD. It's a business club to them or a social group. And there are some preachers who are no more saved than a pig is a poodle.
Murder is serious yes as is adultery. In the eyes of some church doctrines I am guilty of the second due to marrying a divorced woman. She never cheated on her husband but he sure did her. Was I wrong to marry her? According to some church guidelines yes. According to our own preacher who BTW was about as conservative in doctrine as you could get {Missionary Baptist} we were told in the eyes of GOD her marriage ended when he took the other woman {child} over his wife.
Was it sin for us? Not sure a Priest and a Baptist preacher gave their go aheads as they saw the circumstances. The LORD told me Go Ahead. We went ahead.
Jesus tells us how marriage was intended to be. But I don't think he wants a woman to have her body beaten and cheated on by a tyrant husband either.
Ones I do know who have left their wife for another live to regret it. I am helping a person close to me now through a divorce {she was abandoned recently for another woman} and hopefully to a man who will be a good father and husband. Despite all the pain the man caused to many of us I pray for him and he is on a path of self destruction few return from. No I don't think he has ever excepted Christ. But I don't know.
I personally believe if he was saved and had a conscience which he had not severed he would have been guilt ridden. But the man could tell you the Lord was coming soon with a straight face and steal you blind the next second.
Some of my own backsliding lasted several years at a time. Did GOD let me perish? No. And not because of any good in me because there is little if any good in me. He did it for His own purpose and will.
One of the best examples of GOD's mercy to His chosen is shown us in the very exodus of Israel of the tribe of Israel. They were a disobedient lot weren't they. Making images to worship, sexual impurity, you name it. Did GOD give up? No He had made a Covenant. What did he let them do instead? 40 years in the wilderness till they learned that He is the LORD their GOD. An entire generation perished including Moses their leader. This was a result of their sin on earth. GOD did not give them to the devil.
Where would a Christian stand who falls? Out of fellowship. You sin Brother Bill and as a result you will wonder in the darkness you created until you wake up and repent. GOD knows where you are and will still call you. When you wise up fellowship is restored. If not you live in the stench on this earth you created. Once saved and by that I mean a sincere heart humbled before the LORD answering His call of salvation yes always saved. It is as irrevocable as the Covenant of Israel for it depends not on man to fulfill it but GOD's Word.
I've seen good men fall. A deacon who went to church. I knew him as a kid. His wife died. Let's call him Clem. His pain overwhelmed him and he started drinking. He never harmed anyone but his own liver and health. He had a cousin a woman with 9 kids who's husband had left her for another woman. The man did not so much many weeks buy as much as a loaf of bread. When that happened who showed up? Her cousin the drunk with bags of groceries to feed the kids. He'd drink his beer and pass out and go back to work Monday.
Next door to them was another deacon. A man of good standing in the church and community. Every Sunday Brother Sam would ask the kids to go to church. Sometimes they did sometimes not. Brother Sam was proud of bringing in those kids to church. What the church did not know was the kids had no running water in the house. They carried water from neighbors spickets. It was a rural area. Deacon Sam didn't want his well going dry so he didn't let them have water although common sense said where he was that was not going to happen. The water table was very high. Someone else instead let them get water from their well.
Now three people one day will stand before the Lord Deacon Sam, the man who left his wife and kids hungry, and Deacon Clem. Which would you want to be of the three? I'd rather be Clem. Yet many preachers would be quick to say Clem was headed to hell. Clem drank because he had a pain within him that could not be comforted. I don't know much about Clems last days as he died just a few years back. My guess is he finally got help otherwise he would have died from drinking long ago. Despite his faults Clem did more for the children than their dad and the deacon next door. Clem gave them food he fed the children the drunk he was.
Mark ch 9 41If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I assure you, that person will be rewarded.
R.I.P Brother Spook.
No one not even the man he bought the groceries from knew what he was doing with them. Why would a drunk who lived in people barns buy several 5 pound rolls of bologna, bread, potato's, cornmeal, and bags of soup beans? My wife asked me that as she knew the man also for years. I told her the reason. I played with those children as a kid.
My guess is Brother Clem cried many a time Father have mercy on me a sinner. There is a say "But for the Grace of GOD Go I". None of us know what we'll be tomorrow or what will come our way. Thank GOD we have a mercifull Savior who understands and even our very spirit groans in prayer where our minds can not.
There was only one sacrifice on the Cross. If you assert you must continually repent for eternal life, then you deny His saving work. This does not mean in any fashion that fellowship with God remains the same upon post salvation sin with respect to the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in further sanctification of the believer. The passages that stress confession after post salvation sin, refer to the believer continuing in fellowship with God through faith in Christ. They do not refer to a loss of eternal life, again and again and again, only to receive eternal life agian and again and again after confession, nor is eternal life a vacuous promise only to be found after a future Judgment. The Judgment has already occured on the Cross. Another series of judgments occur, but for the believer they are focused on the believer's eternal rewards, not grilling the believer to see if, well, maybe, just maybe, if his sins weren;t too terrible, he might just be allowed sortof to come on into heaven grudgingly.
Once saved, always saved is only anathema for the condemned who not only rebel against the mind of Christ, but who seek to counterfeit His plan with their own works independent of faith through Christ. It is the Gospel for believers.