Can you briefly say whether a believer can be lost?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ’ (1994).

And the brief answer is, certainly not. That is, I can say it briefly—a believer cannot and will not be lost. That is the brief answer. I suspect the question may have been provoked by certain things I said during my talk on Romans¹ that since salvation is by faith, what happens if someone, having believed, found that tribulation arose so severe that their faith was destroyed, so that they weren't a believer any more. Then if they weren't believers, they must be lost, and that may have provoked in your thinking this question. Am I saying, therefore, that a believer could be lost? And the answer to that still is, no. Why not? First we have the statement of the Lord Jesus: 'I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. My Father that gave them me is greater than all, and none shall pluck them out of his hand either' (John 10:28–29). But, for the next reason still, a believer will not be lost because his faith will not be permanently broken.

How can you be sure of that? Because of the intercessions of our Lord. I cite the actual example of Peter when our Lord told Peter that he was about to deny him. Our Lord said to Peter, 'I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail.' Christ didn't pray that his godliness didn't fail. That failed miserably. Christ did not pray that his courage wouldn't fail. That failed disastrously. Christ did not pray that his testimony should not fail. It was ruined. Christ prayed for that fundamental thing, Peter's faith, and as a result, in spite of the fact that Peter denied the Lord, and that is serious indeed, yet underneath he remained a believer. When he said he didn't know the Lord and wasn't a believer, he was lying, in fact. And his faith did not fail. He remained a believer, and came through. He owed it, of course, completely to the intercessions of Christ. Peter was not a special favourite to receive this benefit from our Lord's intercessions. Christ has no favourites, and the Bible says, 'Therefore, he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him'. How? 'Because he ever lives to make intercession for them' (Hebrews 7:25). So where there is true faith, it will endure, and we are to know it will endure, that tribulation will work endurance. We are to know it. The way God is able to guarantee it is because of the intercessions of our Lord.

¹ See transcript, chapter 4: 'Israel and the Sovereignty of God'.