SCRIPTURE Mark 4:14–17 “The sower soweth the word.  And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.  And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended”  

COMMENTARY In explaining the parable of the sower, Jesus tells His disciples that there are those who receive spiritual life (the plant, representing spiritual life, springs up) but they endure only for a time, but not to eternity with God. These are the seed on the rocky ground. But what they are not is not false disciples. They manifested the fruits of the Spirit and it is expressly stated they are offended (ex. fall away). One does not fall away from something they were never a part of.   In Jesus’s explanation to the Apostles, Jesus even tells them why they did not endure (trouble, persecution).  From the evidences we have, they believe and have spiritual life as their reaction is consistent with receiving the gospel, but only “for a time” (and an indeterminate time at that; this could have been years), and then the plant dies (symbolic of spiritual death).  Again, Jesus himself acknowledges that they were a part of the kingdom for “a time.” 

They will never receive the promised eternal life, because they did not “endure unto the end.”  Adherents of eternal security hold the mistaken belief that a person, once spiritually alive, that is “born again” (John 3:3), cannot die spiritually.  They should take a closer look at what happened to the fallen angels and to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.  The word offended (Greek skandalizō) means to “to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey; to cause to fall away,”