1. More times than I can count.
2. Over 20 years and some very serious sins.
I still believe I was saved, because I did not reject my libertarian free will in Christ all that time. Also there was some mercy because I was blinded to the sins I had let loose in my life. When God revealed the sin to me about 5 years ago, I repented very fervently for many months.
First off, if you really did repent of your sins, you only did so because without violating your free will, God himself orchestrated things in your life that would lead you back to making that choice of your own will to repent and turn to him. If God didn't do this, and just gave you the choice to repent, you wouldn't have repented and the reason why you wouldn't have, is because sin runs that deep within us.
Therefore, we also need to repent of any idea that we could ever come to God only based on him giving us the choice to repent alone.
In other words, nobody repents and gets truly saved just by their own choice to do so, but rather God maps out their lives and without ever violating their free will, he works around it in their lives to bring them to the point where of their own free will they give up on themselves and turn to him in repentance and faith.
If you would like just a short argument against Eternal Security (I use the term OSAS loosely here), I can paste it in from another forum.
I don't believe we need a form of eternal security to feel secure. We should not be trusting a doctrine anyway, we should be directly trusting God himself.
OSAS assumes any promise it finds in the Bible is unconditional, but this assumption is unwarranted.
Consider this verse: "I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever. But now the LORD declares: Far be it from Me!" 1 Sam. 2:30.
The original promise did not directly address the conditions involved, they were assumed from other Bible passages.
Your first error of interpretation in the above verse is that this is not a promise from God but rather a commandment from God.
In other words, "Your house and the house of your Fathers will walk before me forever" is a commandment from God and not a promise from God and therefore God didn't change his mind about anyone's spiritual salvation in this verse at all.
Your second error is that you didn't also show the rest of what God said right after this, "I will honor those who honor me".
Your third error, is that you fail to understand that although all of ethnic Israel were saved physically out of Egypt, not all of the ethnic people of Israel were actually saved or would be saved spiritually to be the children of the promise but only a remnant of them were and Paul in Romans 9 very clearly reveals this also.
That is why out of the first generation that were physically saved from Egypt only two were saved spiritually but the rest died in their sins in the wilderness.
For God gave them a two part promise, one referring only to those born of the flesh and the other to those who would be his elect to be born of the Spirit.
The one was that they would be in number as the sand of the sea shore and which represents the ethnic only physical seed and physical salvation of the flesh and the other was that they would be in number like the stars of the heavens and this represented those (always a remnant) who would be spiritually saved.
Note, when you look at the sand and compare it with the stars, you would naturally see that there is much more sand than there are stars and which reveals that the spiritual people would be a remnant compared to the physical descendants.
Could eternal security be more clearly stated?
100% yes, it could be more clearly stated.
For this promise to mean eternal security it must with absolute clarity and precision make it clear that there are no conditions and variables that could apply to it.
Now that is funny, for you are demanding eternal security to be clearly stated when you you don't require this about your idea that God is a trinity of persons?
The fact is, there is much more taught about predestination and the believers eternal security than the scriptures that you put together to come up with your belief in your trinity.
This is a presupposition brought to the text from man made ideologies, that clearly does not fit the verse I quoted nor all the times the Bible gives clear conditional warnings that express an actual potential and hypothetical.
As I have already shown, the presupposition here is on your part because you presumed that in 1 Samuel 2:30 God was speaking of a promise to the whole ethnic people when it wasn't but rather a commandment that they should walk before him forever.
To make someone "feel secure" by giving them hundreds of warnings that don't apply to them but sound like they do, is the most unreliable and dishonest way God could possibly bring security to us.
Ah but the scriptures speak to a mixed crowd, unto those who are just sitting on the fence of faith and which the warnings pertain unto and to those who are in the faith.
You will see this if you read Hebrews 6 very carefully, for the first 12 verses are a warning to those who have only tasted of faith in Christ but haven't consumed faith in Christ in their hearts yet and then from verses 13 to the end of the chapter it is speaking to those who have consumed faith in Christ within their hearts.
Notice the words "but beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things which ACCOMPANY SALVATION THOUGH WE THUS SPEAK.
Notice this also, "for the ground which drinks in (consumes) the rain that often falls upon it receives blessing from God but that which bears thorns and briars is rejected".
Why is it therefore rejected, because it never actually consumes the rain but only tastes it and like those who he is giving the warning unto among them and who are only born of the flesh and not the Spirit.
Also when you say "by faith" you are implying we have to do something volitionally to apply the Work of the Cross.
Oh for certain, faith without works is dead but this is not referring to your works but rather the working of God by his Spirit and without which one is not truly saved at all.
This is what Paul means in Ephesians 2:8-10 below.
For by grace you are saved, through faith AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES, it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast, FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS UNTO GOOD WORKS WHICH GODS HAS PREPARED IN ADVANCE THAT WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM.
Notice whose works Paul is speaking of here, for it isn't yours but rather God's through his Holy Spirit working within the believer and producing within the believer what the believer could never produce himself and which is the only way that the believer could be made acceptable unto God also.