This clip from a pastor’s workshop , March 2025,  is a perfect example of the Calvinistic poison that causes people, God’s people, to continually be unsure and confused about their relationship with their heavenly Father. Week after week, people leave church services wondering if they are really saved and if God still loves them. John Piper has been teaching this for over 50 years, and it has infiltrated Bible-believing churches across America.

Imagine going to work every day wondering if you still have a job or if you will be fired. How does that play out and affect how you live life and work for that company? The effect is just as real when it comes to worship and service.  Many do not realize what is actually happening week after week, and why people fade away into the shadows and even look for another church and pastor.

Listen to the whole video clip provided or even the whole message.  You will conclude that a Christian, who is a believer in the person and work of Jesus, is not secure in God’s saving work.  Even John Piper, the speaker at the conference, as well as other pastors in the audience, might end up in Hell if they don’t persevere.

Note: If you have any questions about the clip being taken out of context, I have also provided the link at the end of this post to view the whole message – (the clip is around the 32 min. mark)

Click Here For Video Clip

This type of extreme* Calvinism theology leaves God’s people with the same feeling week after week — They just don’t and never will measure up to be worthy of God’s love and may even be lost. God’s people are beaten down in such churches.

Most extreme Calvinistic teachers and preachers are not as forthright or clear as Piper is at this pastor’s conference. Those from a theological background or education know what is being subtly taught and preached from many church pulpits on Sunday. However, many of God’s people innocently absorb the theological outlook that is being taught. The congregational effect is subtle, pernicious, and cumulative. There is a slow dripping effect over time, and unknowingly, there is the development of a spiritual depression instead of joy in one’s salvation and God’s love.

Piper makes many nuanced statements to avoid being suspected or even denounced that he believes a Christian can lose their salvation, and yet he unmistakably suggests that you might! He states that if you are “elect,” you will not fall away or depart, BUT at the same time, he suggests that you might not be saved at the end — and that he himself might even end up lost. It’s theological double-speak, and it insulates him from being nailed down as to what he really believes.

It is double-speak to say that genuine Christians (“the elect”) will certainly persevere, while still holding out that some Christians might not make it to the end — even as Piper says about himself. Does John Piper have concerns that he might not be a genuine believer in the person and work of Jesus?

John Piper is absolutely clear in what he and many pastors who are present actually believe. While it is often left unstated as clearly as it is by Piper, those attending this pastor’s conference overwhelmingly accept it. Piper’s theology will continue to find their way into the present theological mindset and preaching of these pastors. In fact, I believe that many pastors will repeat and restate his words in the coming months.

And we all can hear the pushback. Yes, of course, we all need to periodically examine ourselves as to whether we are in the faith.

However, Piper states that he has people doing that every week as they listen to God’s word.

  “I keep people saved every Sunday . . . I’m a means of getting people to heaven.”

— wow

— WORDS MATTER!

John Piper is speaking at a well-known and established pastor’s conference. Without question, he has worked on his message and knows exactly what he is saying. His words and wording are not off the cuff and he is not speaking spontaneously. WORDS MATTER, and he knows what he is saying and he knows what he is allowed to say to this group of mostly like-minded pastors.

Note: Piper has held this position for decades, though not often stated as clearly. Many have never taken the time to read Bethlehem Baptist Church’s statement of faith, of which church Piper was senior pastor for years.

Interestingly, when one of the mainstream preachers falls into gross immorality — there is no question about their salvation experience or saving relationship with the Lord. They don’t indicate that they were never a true believer (and few, IF ANY, suggest that option). They are not “re-baptized” as now “new true believers” who just came to realize they were lost. “Everyone” merely allows such national pastors to go to rehab, repent, seek God’s forgiveness, and become pastors at another or the same church. “No one” even questions the sincerity of their past salvation experience. Those pastors don’t even believe that they were unbelievers or that the passages in Hebrews** (which Piper cites) apply to them. John Piper’s own son is divorced, and at the time, no one questioned whether he was a believer throughout his first marriage, if he fell under the condemnation of the passages in Hebrews that his father cites, and /or if he needed to be “re-baptized” again, now as a new believer. Why? Perhaps because they believe that they are exempt from the disturbing and unsettling warnings and burdens they lay on the shoulders of others.

John Piper’s message, theology, and 50 years of influence are some of the primary causes for the lack of comfort among God’s people about their security in God’s love.

Knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, that we are firmly in the hand of our Lord, and He is in the Father’s hand, that we have been given eternal life (not a week or merely years of life, only to lost it all), and that our righteousness is found in the Lord’s righteousness and is not found in our failures or tainted works, is the cause for our joy and hope in His return for His people!

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* I use the word “extreme” because those who hold such extreme positions easily and quickly dismiss the charge that they are “hyper-Calvinists.” Who is going to accept the criticism that they are hyper-Calvinist? Nevertheless, that is what many of them are, but simply dismiss such a charge thereby.

** The passages in Hebrews are wrongly understood in light of THE ARGUMENTS BEING MADE in their context and the people being addressed (as well as being twisted, abused, and misused).

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