If I see someone who for, let's say, 3-4 years seemed to have walked with God - loved the saints, endeavoured to pray and to know the Word, congregate with other believers, and all the such - and then they begin to fall away gradually - they begin to walk away, they begin to allow the world and sin and other things enter their life, they begin to enjoy the fellowship of the wicked. I don't go to them and tell them, "you know you're a Christian and you need to avoid backsliding". I go to them and say, "you have made the good profession; you have declared among many that you are a believer but now you are beginning to live like an unbeliever. It is very, very possible that you never knew Him, that up until this point it has all been a very deceiving work of the flesh because if the work of God doesn't continue, it never was the work of God.
- Paul Washer (from sermon, 'Examine Yourself' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky8dTyPpiAo)
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