CAN I 'LOSE' MY SALVATION? ie. can i walk away from the Lord who saved me? (in times past they called it 'BACKSLIDING')

GOD SPEAKING TO THE PROPHET EZEKIEL (Ezekiel 3.16-21) taken from Keil-Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

v16  'and it came to pass after the lapse of 7 days, that the word of Jehovah came to me as follows: v17 Son of man, I have set the to be a watchman over the house of Israel; thou shalt hear the word from My mouth and thou shalt warn them from Me. v18 if I say to the SINNER, Thou shalt surely die and thou warnest him not and speakest not to warn the sinner from his evil way that he may live, then shall he, the sinner, die because of his evil deeds, but his blood will I require at thy hand.  v19 but if thou warnest the SINNER and he turn not from his wickedness and his evil way, then shall he die because of his evil deeds, but thou hast saved thy soul. v20 and if a RIGHTEOUS man  *turn from his righteousness, and **do unrighteousness and I  LAY A ***STUMBLING BLOCK before him then shall he die; if thou hast not warned him, he shall die because of his sin, and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH HE HAS DONE SHALL NOT BE REMEMBERED, but his blood will I require at thy hand. v21 but if thou warnest him - the righteous man - so that the righteous man sin not and he do not sin, then will he live , because he has been warned and thou hast saved thy soul.

COMMENT...Ezekiel is like one standing upon a watchtower (habbakuk 2.1), to watch over the condition of the people, and warn them of the dangers that threaten them (Jeremiah 6.17; Isaiah 41.10,) as such, he is responsible for the souls entrusted to his charge. from the mouth of Jehovah, ie. according to God's word, he is to admonish the wicked to turn from their evil ways, that they die not in their sins...if the prophet does not warn the wicked man, as God has commanded him, he renders himself guilty of a deadly sin, for which God will take vengeance on him as on the murderer for the shedding of blood...the righteous man who backslides is, before God, regarded as equal with the sinner who persists in his sin, if the former, notwithstanding the warning, perseveres in his backsliding (v20)..(* 'to turn oneself from his righteousness' denotes the formal falling away from the path of righteousness), not mere 'stumbling or sinning from weakness'. (**do unrighteousness, act perversely) 'so that in consequence of which he die'.  (***'OBJECT OF OFFENSE', by which any one comes to fall, is not destruction, considered as punishment deserved, but
EVERYTHING THAT GOD PUTS IN THE WAY OF THE SINNER,
IN ORDER THAT THE SIN, WHICH IS GERMINATING IN HIS SOUL,
MAY COME FORTH TO THE LIGHT
AND RIPEN TO MATURITY.
God, indeed, neither cause sin, nor desires the death of the sinner; and in this sense He does not tempt to evil (James 1.13),
but He guides and places the sinner in relations in life in which he must come to
a decision for or against what is good and divine, and
either suppress the sinful lusts of his heart or
burst the barriers which are opposed to their satisfaction.
if he does not do the former, but the latter,
evil gains within him more and more strength,
so that HE BECOMES THE SERVANT OF SIN
AND FINALLY
REACHES A POINT WHERE CONVERSION IS IMPOSSIBLE.
for the subject spoken of (in the next verse..21) is not that the backsliding man 'in general only dies if he is not warned...that meaning is not in v21, it is 'that he (in that verse) gives sure obedience to the warning - but only the possibility is supposed that one who has transgressed upon the way of evil, will yield obedience to the warning, but not that he will of a certainty do this.

other verses along this line: revelation 3.5; matthew 5.21;  I john 5.16; hebrews 6.4-6...