Yes. And? "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Ro. 10:17) This is not news to me. As the parable in question clearly indicates, only the last hearer truly believed in his heart the word of God that he heard.
Just wanted to make sure you believe the parable is talking about salvation. There are some Eternal Security proponents who do not think that it is talking about salvation as an attempt to defend their wrong doctrine. Okay. Good, you believe it is talking about salvation. This makes my job easier.
The parable of the sower says in Luke 8,
"They on the rock
are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root,
which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away." (Luke 8:13).
We are told that they believe for a while.
Believing in Jesus according to the Bible equates with life.
For Jesus says,
"he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (John 11:25).
And John says,
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name:" (John 1:12).
So they were saved for a time and then they fell away.
Again, Luke 8 says, "and in time of temptation
fall away." (John 8:13).
You cannot fall away from something you never had. They had fallen away not because they never had it but because of temptation! It it is what the text says.
The believer whose seed was choked by riches or the cares of this life was then seeking to live for pleasure. They then died spiritually.
We see this elsewhere whereby a believer seeks to live in pleasure and they are dead spiritually.
In 1 Timothy 5 we learn of the widows who live in pleasure are dead spiritually while yet they live physically.
"But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." (1 Timothy 5:6).
Believing widows have the potential to cast off their first faith (1 Timothy 5:11).
In fact, some of them (at the time of Paul's writing to Timothy) had already turned aside after Satan (1 Timothy 5:15).
Okay.
Stop right here.
You cannot turn aside after Satan if you are already in Satan's grip by being an unbeliever.
You said:
And so? No one is contesting the fact that the Prodigal Son sinned. What is in contention is the idea that, as a consequence of his sin, he was no longer his father's son and that this is an analogy to a child of God being saved and lost. But as I pointed out, at no point in the parable is the Prodigal ever not the son of his father.
But the point was about being dead or alive. The father said he was like he was dead when he was prodigal. Living family members do not spend time with dead family members. Living family members do not keep dead family members at the dinner table and try and play ball with them and go to the theme parks together. Living family members spend time with other living family members. The dead are buried and are no more. They are turned to dust. Dust cannot be a son.
You said:
The whole substance of our argument is about whether or not our sin is powerful enough to undo God's salvation of us. I don't think so, and consequently, when I read the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin I don't understand them to be teaching a saved-and-lost doctrine. Why does the shepherd search for the lost sheep? He tells us:
Luke 15:6
6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'
The fact that the sheep was lost in the first place suggests that a sheep can lose their salvation. If the sheep was forever secured in the salvation and safety of Christ there would be no talk of being lost and found at all.
There are plenty of verses in Scripture that teach that sin is separation from God.
Start with Genesis. The devil said to Eve, "yea, ye shall not surely die." (Genesis 3:4).
Where in the Bible does it say that the devil changed this tactic or trick?
I mean, we see sin as separation from God in even the New Testament.
Peter tells Simon to repent of his wickedness in the hope that in his prayer to God, that he would be forgiven. You cannot be saved if you are not forgiven.
Jesus says if you do not forgive you will not be forgiven by the Father (Matthew 6:15).
Nowhere does Jesus say that Matthew 6:15 was some kind of point that you cannot keep His laws.
Paul says if any man speaks contrary to the words of Jesus and the doctrine of Godliness, he is proud and knows nothing (1 Timothy 6:3-4).
James says God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
So if you are proud, God is going to resist you and give His grace to the humble instead.
Not sure how you cannot see the many warnings in the Bible like this.
They are everywhere!
You either have to ignore them or change them into saying something else.
You said:
At no point does the shepherd behave as though the lost sheep is not his sheep. And at the end of the parable he exclaims to his friends, "I have found my sheep which was lost!" The entire reason the shepherd sought the sheep was because it was his sheep! There is, then, no ground for a saved-and-lost reading of this parable.
The point of the parable is repentance.
No repentance and a believer is not going to make it.
If you were to read John 10 again, it says that his sheep FOLLOW him.
These are not sheep being dragged about their necks on leashes.
For a sheep can stray and get lost.
The fact that it can get lost suggests that we have free will and that we can choose to walk away from God (even after being saved at one time).
You said:
What theme is that? It can't be a saved-and-lost theme. The lost coin was searched for by the woman who had lost it because it belonged to her. It was no strange, unknown coin for which the woman looked, but her own lost coin. This, then, doesn't sound at all analogous to being an adopted child of God and then not.
The point is that repentance and heaven is the theme in all three parables.
It is speaking in spiritual terms because Heaven is a spiritual place.
When the Father seen the Son return home, he said his son was dead and he is now alive again.
Again, this is speaking in spiritual terms because we see a connection of repentance and heaven going on in all three parables. So if the parable is speaking spiritually, then the son was dead spiritually while he was prodigal.
You said:
It seems evident to me that these two parables don't set the stage for the parable of the Prodigal Son in the way that you think they do. Rather than confirming your SAL view, they appear to me to sharply deflate it and confound the reading you're giving to the story of the Prodigal.
OSAS is clearly refuted on almost every page of your Bible. I can write all day non stop on all the verses that refute such a wrong doctrine. It is wrong both biblically and morally.
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