I just read some of John MacArthur's blog, and love how he puts it. He's another one that also believes in God's promises.
Copy/paste...
"If your hope of eternal life is tied to the consistency of your earthly obedience, what hope is that? When you compare your obedience to the divine standard, when you compare yourself with the holiness of God, how do you measure up? A thousand lifetimes wouldn’t enable me to perfect holiness before an absolutely holy God; a thousand lifetimes would only reveal how utterly corrupt I truly am.
There’s no hope in the doctrine of conditional security. None at all. In fact, ever since that first encounter with someone who believed he could lose his salvation, I’ve met a number of people with the same fear. They constantly fret over the possibility they’ve unwittingly forfeited their salvation, having committed a sin so bad that God has disowned them"
"Not only do I believe the doctrine of conditional security is false, I would even dare to say it is blasphemous. The idea that you could lose the salvation God gave you slanders God and runs contrary to a number of the Bible’s core doctrines."
"Beyond the impossible burden of maintaining personal salvation, the doctrine of conditional security also strikes a blow against the power of God. To say you can lose your salvation—which the Bible says God accomplished through the death of Jesus Christ—is to make God into an impotent deity with no actual power to save anyone. The full exercise of His divine power is at the mercy of a weak, finite, and sinful creature who may or may not cooperate with Him"
Who's John McCathur?
Did he know Jesus or John the Apostle (or someone who knew an apostle)??
Here's someone who did:
Because of the character of the principle of sin, perfection in this age is attained to not fully but in part according to the quality of the war carried against the powers of the devil. Good works are not part of a business agreement between God and man whereby God is obligated to reward external and utilitarian acts of charity. Rather good works are the product of the double struggle waged against the devil and for non-utilitarian selfless love for God and the neighbor. [ 3 ] Therefore communion of divine life through the human nature of Christ is not enough for salvation. The mystical (sacramental) life is not a magical guarantee of eternal life. Christians must also wage an intense war against Satan. " ... if we endure all the assaults of the prince of this world and escape them we shall attain to ( or enjoy) God." (Mag. 1)
Faith and love for each other is one identical reality, as well as the beginning and the end of life in Christ. (Ign. Eph. 14.) Unity with each other in love is "a type and evidence (of teaching) of immortality." (Mag. 6.) "All these things together are good if you believe with love." (Ign. Phil. 9.) Faith is to "be gathered together (synaxis) unto God." (Mag. 10. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung." (Ign. Eph. 4.) Only in such a harmony of love can we know that we are partakers of God. (Ibid.) Therefore salvation and sanctification can be accomplished only by a unity of love with each other in the life of Christ. (Ign. Eph. 2.)
It is only by participation in the divine life and love of God in Christ through corporate love of neighbors that one may attain to immortality, be justified, and avoid death. (Ign. Eph. 20; Rom. 7; Smyr. 7.) It is exactly for this reason that those who live in Christ with selfless love for each other are "stones in the temple of the Father, prepared for the building of God the Father, and drawn up on high by the instrument of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope... You, therefore, as well as your fellow-travellers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ." (Ign. Eph. 9; also 15; Mag. 12; Phil. 7.) Christians do everything together "in the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit." (Mag. 13.)
The ecclesiology of St. Ignatius rests exclusively and harmoniously upon the biblical teaching concerning salvation and its appropriation. The resurrected flesh and blood of God (Ign. Rom. 7; Eph. 1) is the only source of immortality, of unity with each other in Christ, and of power to struggle for selfless love and simultaneously defeat the devil. Salvation is not magical. God Himself saves those who gather together in the life of selfless love with their clergy epi to auto. The visible Church is composed of those only who continuously share in the corporate eucharistic life. This life of selfless love for God and neighbor is an end in itself. Good works are not, therefore, performed for utilitarian motivations as part of a divine-human business, but rather are expressions of the struggle for selfless love, as well as a most effective weapon against Satan. God has no need of man's acts of charity.
It is man who needs good works, prayer and fasting as a spiritual exercise for selfless love and as an effective means of remaining attentive and spiritually alert against the attacks of Satan. Justification by faith alone is a non-biblical myth (Eph. 6:11-17) of sentimental magic based on the false presupposition that salvation is primarily and essentially a matter of divine internal psychology. [ 18 ] Beyond the life of unity centered in the corporate Eucharist as an end in itself there is no Church and only God can know if there is any salvation. Where the Church is not locally manifested and being formed by God epi to auto there is the rest humanity being carried to and fro by the prince of this world. "I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given me." (John 17:9)
Ignatius, A.D. 110
Do not err, my brothers. Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If, then, those who do this in regard to the flesh have suffered death, how much more shall this be the case with anyone who corrupts the faith of God, for which Jesus Christ was crucified, by wicked doctrine? Such a person, becoming defiled, shall go away into everlasting fire and so shall everyone that listens to him. (Letter to the Ephesians 16)
Pray also for me, for I need your love along with the mercy of God so that I may be worthy of the duty for which I am destined and so that I will not be found reprobate. (Letter to the Trallians 12)
Ignatius, A.D. 110
Do not err, my brothers. Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If, then, those who do this in regard to the flesh have suffered death,
how much more shall this be the case with anyone who corrupts the faith of God, for which Jesus Christ was crucified, by wicked doctrine? Such a person, becoming defiled, shall go away into everlasting fire and so shall everyone that listens to him. (Letter to the Ephesians 16)
Pray also for me, for I need your love along with the mercy of God so
that I may be worthy of the duty for which I am destined and so that I will not be found reprobate. (Letter to the Trallians 12)
Pseudo-Clement, A.D. 100 - 150
Let us, then, not only call him Lord, for that will not save us. For he says, "Not every one that says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall be saved, but he that does righteousness." Therefore, brothers, let us confess him by our works, by loving one another, by not committing adultery, speaking evil of one another, or cherishing envy; but being continent, compassionate, and good. … By such works let us confess him, and not by those that are of an opposite kind. It is not fitting that we should fear men, but rather God. For this reason, if we should do such wicked things, the Lord has said, "Even if you were gathered together to me, into my very bosom, yet if you were not to keep my commandments, I would cast you off and say to you, 'Depart from me. I do not know where you are from, you workers of iniquity.'" (2 Clement 4)
Let us, then,
repent with our whole heart, that none of us may perish needlessly. For if we have commands and [if we] engage in withdrawing from idols and instructing others, then how much more should we not perish because we already know God.
Let us therefore help one another and lift up the weak in what is good so that all of us may be saved, convert, and admonish one another.
Let us not only seem to believe ,
but let us also remember the commandments of the Lord when we return home.
And so much more...
Quotes about Eternal Security from Christian History