This sermon emphasizes the importance of abiding in faith and continuing to trust in the finished work of Christ. It addresses the need for genuine repentance, love for others, and obedience to God's commandments as evidence of being a child of God. The speaker highlights the danger of false professions of faith and the significance of bearing good fruit as a reflection of one's true spiritual condition.

So when you're sitting across the table from someone who said to you, I am not sure that I am a child of God, I am not certain that I've passed from death to life, please help me. And you've gone through number one, if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. If we say we know him and keep not his commandments, we're a liar. Any man who doesn't love his brother is still dead in his sin. Love not the world, neither the things of the world, any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. You brought them one, two, three, four, now you come to five, let that therefore abide in you what you've heard from the beginning, and you're saying now, are you abiding in the profession of faith you made? Are you abiding and continuing in the repentance that you express? Are you continuing to trust in the finished work of Christ? Are you staying, are you standing on that grounds in which you came into your profession of being a child of God? That's the issue, because you see, the person that's gone out from us, all of the argument, all of the evidence, all of the support is that they were not of us. And so when someone is talking to you about this, you'd better bring them right straight to the Word and let the Spirit of God speak to their heart through the Word. I've had people say, well, you know, my husband was saved, but he's been backslidden for many years now. I can't get him to go to church, I can't get him to do this, he doesn't want to pray. But I was in a church, you know, many years ago now, and I told the people, I'm here to help you, and if there's anything I can do, I want you to come to me and I'll join you in prayer, I'll be of all the help I can in the few days I'm with you. And the first one that came to me was a lady, and she said, you know, my husband made profession of faith in Christ when Evangelist So-and-So was here. And there's only one verse of Scripture in the Bible that he knows, and she quoted it, and the Evangelist told him that if anyone ever tried to say he wasn't a Christian, that he should use that verse. So he still continues in his drunkenness, he still continues in his immorality, and I know he's cheating and he's stealing, but he claims he's a Christian and that it's just that he's weak. And she said, I wish you'd pray with me that my husband would be recovered from his backsliding. And I looked her square in the eye and I said, I'm sorry, I can't. And because I can't, of course I won't. She said, here I am, the first one to come, after you invited us to come to you and you'd help us and join us. No, I said, you misunderstand. I didn't say I won't help you and I won't pray, but I can't pray the way you've asked me to pray. You've asked me to pray that he'll be recovered from his backsliding. I said, I don't know too much about it. The Word doesn't have too much to say about backsliding. But I know this, you can't backslide until your front slid sometime. I don't think he's ever moved. I think he's still dead in his sins. And you know, she looked at me and she said, well, I've been suspicious about that. You know, if you see a bird and it's got a bill like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it's got webbed feet and it waddles like a duck and it swims like a duck, I don't think you're being prejudiced if you think that's a duck. Even though it may have a sign on its chest that says, I am an eagle, I still think you'd have a perfectly justified in thinking that perhaps it was a duck. And the Scripture tells us that by their fruits we will know them. And so it tells us also that the ones that come and identify with us and claim to be part of Christ, part of the body of Christ, that give ear to seducing spirits and follow heresy and go back into the world and leave that which they profess to have, we have reason to believe that they are in very serious problem and possibly have not been born of God. I think the Apostle tells us that those that are born of the Spirit should, must, abide, continue to stay in Christ on the very basis in which they came to a profession of faith in Christ. Fifth evidence of being born of God is abiding, continuing.