In the Hebrew epistle a great deal is said about the need for persistence in the Christian life. The converts were losing heart and the man of God sought to encourage them to "hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first" (3:14). "So do not throw away your confidence," he exhorts them, "it will be richly rewarded" (10:35). This concept of the Christian life as a journey to be taken, a growth to be attained, is being lost to us through two widely separated modern errors.
The first is that of the liberal, who cheerfully advises the unrenewed sinner to continue in the Christian life, overlooking the important fact that he has no life in which to continue. Where there has been no impartation of life to the soul of the man, growth and development are impossible. To assume that a saving act of God has been done in a man's heart when in reality no such act has been done is to set the soul of the man in mortal jeopardy and all but guarantee his final ruin.
