Well, good morning. It's good to see you. Let's begin with prayer. Father in heaven, we're so thankful for the church. We live in a sin-cursed world filled with sin, unrighteousness, all sorts of evil. And we know that here we have no lasting city, but we are seeking the city to come. who's founder and builder is God. We are so thankful that you've prepared a city for us, not because we are better than anyone in this world, but because you of your own free and sovereign grace have called us out of this world. and have chosen us to be a part of this city. You have given to us faith and repentance. You have applied the blood of Christ to us by the Holy Spirit. And we were confessed that we believe, we believe these things. And so we are so eager to gather together. We're eager to be with the people of God, even though we are sinful and we often sin against one another and offend one another. Yet, Lord, you have given us the grace to cover a multitude of sins, to overlook sin, to forgive as we have been forgiven. So we thank you for that. We pray that you would richly bless our time today, the study here in Sunday School, and also especially from the call to worship to you dismissing us with your blessing And everything in between, we pray, God, that you would pour your spirit out so that we may grow in respect to our salvation, so that we may grow in our knowing you and that we may grow in our our holiness. God, we we need your grace. We need you to minister to us because we are desperate and needy. Oh, God, you are all powerful, all sufficient. The great I am. and from you and through you and to you are all things. So, Lord, we bow now to you, our mighty God. We look to you to give to us what we don't have in and of ourselves. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, this is the last lecture in this lecture series titled The Whole Christ. And the whole Christ is referring to we have everything we need in Christ. That's what that's referring to. Deals with issues of legalism, where we try to rely on our own righteousness, we don't see God the way he is, a loving, gracious, merciful God, or going towards antinomianism, kind of a false escape from legalism. We have everything we need in Christ, and so that's why the title The Whole Christ. And this is centered on a controversy that happened in the 18th century in Scotland, lessons learned from that, where You had the Church of Scotland say that you needed to repent in order to come to Christ. So you need to deal with your sin first before you can come to Christ is what they were saying, and that was an error. There's some men called the Merrow men. They were called the Merrill Men because they held to the theology of a book that became the center of this controversy called the Merrill of Modern Divinity that articulated the truths they believed in that they were promoting. And that is that you repent by coming to Christ. In order to repent, you come to Christ, not in order to come to Christ, you repent. So in other words, this is how I deal with my sin is I In turning from it, I turn to Christ. I can't, I'm powerless over my sin. Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. And I rely on Christ and I have everything I need in Him for deliverance from my sin. And so there are four main issues in this controversy. Can anyone think of what they were? Okay, legalism. Thanks, honey. See, now I can see you guys. I can see all the weird looks you guys give me. Yeah, legalism is one of them. The first one is one I just mentioned, how Christ is offered in the Gospel. We don't say you need to do something in order to come to Christ. We say, come to Christ. He's freely being offered to you legitimately by God. And if you come to Him, He will receive you. He never casts away the one who comes to Him. Come. We give that call to everyone indiscriminately. Saying come. It's a legitimate offer from God. A genuine free offer. So that's the first issue, is how we offer Christ. The second issue, Steve, you said it's legalism. What's legalism? How have you been defining legalism? Yes, Troy. Yeah, so it's knowing his law apart from his love, which I think this is a definition that we don't hear too often. It's usually that some of the consequences of adding, or some of the consequences that flow out of this heart of legalism, which is adding to God's law, saying thus says the Lord where he has not spoken, binding people's consciences, where the Lord has not bound their conscience. But it flows out of this heart, as you said, Troy, knowing God's law apart from knowing his love. And that's legalism. Knowing his law apart from knowing his love. It's knowing the rules apart from knowing the one who's given the law, that he's good, that he's loving, that he's gracious. It's believing that he just wants to command without care. We saw this in the garden, where Satan put a dark face on God. This is where it all began. This is how the world was plunged into sin. Satan in his craft comes and says, did God say you shall not eat from every tree? Well, Yeah, technically that's true, I can't eat from every tree, but the focus became on a God who's restrictive and just wants to withhold, rather than a God who's loving, good, and generous, and who's given His good law for our good. I mean, if you want to know what it's like living in a lawless society, go visit Chaz, the ancient ruins of Chaz, as it's been called. We know the law is good. The problem is, we're sinners and we are by nature and able to keep God's law and hostile to it. So we need to be regenerated. But it comes through seeing God for who he is. He's not this this hard master. He's a gracious and good master who is kind to all and is eager to bestow his blessings, his blessings of salvation to all who call upon him. Well, this then leads to the third topic we talked about, which is what? Yeah, antinomianism. So, we saw that in the garden, how legalism leads to antinomianism. Antinomianism is a false escape from legalism. So God is viewed as a hard master. Remember the parable of the talents? Where you have three servants, two of them took the talents that God had given, money God had given, and brought more back to God. And then you had the wicked servants, he's called. And you know his reason for not doing anything? Well, I knew you to be a hard master. Therefore, I was afraid. I lived in fear. And he viewed God wrongly. But that goes back to Genesis 3. Did God say you can't? You shall not? See how hard he is? Rather than God, who said in Genesis 2, you are free! You may surely... Look how generous and good and gracious I am. And when we have that view of God, where, as Eve did, she started to add to God's law. We can't even touch the tree. We've got to add to God's law to make sure we keep God's law. That leads to this heavy burden that we can't keep, especially as sinners, because the law condemns us. We know our sin. We know our shame. It's a matter of what do we do with it? Do we ignore it? Do we suppress the truth and unrighteousness? Or being burdened from the law, break out against it into antinomianism. Well, the law, no, that's bad. God doesn't really want me to keep the law. I'm just going to break out against it as Eve did. And coming to the conclusion, well, you know, I guess it is good for me to eat because God is not good in withholding it from me. And so this is a false escape from one's legalism. stemming from this false view of God, from not relying on Christ to rest. That is the way out of legalism. That's the way out of the burden of the law is Christ saying, come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy laden. Why do you think they're burdened and heavy laden? Well, because it goes back to that view of the old man from the garden that Satan gave. And he says, I will give you rest. Then the law becomes our friend. Then take my yoke upon you. And my yoke is easy. My burden is light. And it's not that the Old Testament law is just unreasonable, heavy. You know, the Ten Commandments, you know, don't commit adultery. No, that's bad. You should you should commit adultery. That was a bad law. No, of course not. Rather, when we come to Christ, it's the same moral law, the same ten commandments. It's just now the law is not condemning us because we've been justified in Christ. We now stand before Him righteous no matter how much we fail. But our righteousness is in Christ and now that law becomes light and easy only by the grace that's found in Christ. And the fourth and final topic in this lecture series is assurance of salvation. And so this is what we'll wrap up with today. This is what we've been focusing on the past three lecture series, two or three. Assurance of salvation refers to being confident or sure that you are saved, that you have received salvation, that you are loved by God. And you can see how this then ties in with the topic of legalism and antinomianism, right? Why does God love me? Because I'm so righteous. Because I've done such a good job. I'm not like that person over there. I've had it all. Of course God loves me. Well, that's relying on my own works to get God to love me. Here's the opposite side of that, which is the exact same heart. I'm too sinful for God to love me. Why would He love me? I'm not righteous enough. You see how those are the same thing? I'm still relying on my own righteousness. On the one hand, I'm righteous enough. God loves me now. Oh, I'm not righteous enough. God doesn't love me. Both are basing God's love on one's righteousness. One just believes he has enough. The other one believes he doesn't have enough. So you see how those those are related there. But why should I have assurance of salvation? Well, it's not because I'm progressing in holiness enough. It's not because of hominism, this false view, a false escape of coming out from underneath God's law. God lowered his standard. So I've met the standard. Rather, God loves me because he is God and he freely gives his love. And I know this because He gave His Son up for me while I was still a sinner, while I was an enemy. And so my assurance then is not based on how righteous I am, but based upon, first and foremost, who He is, what He has done, and that we may freely come to Him. He's a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, and truth will by no means clear the guilty and he has dealt with our guilt by crushing Christ on the cross. A loving God freely gives his love. We don't need to earn it, neither can we. And assurance is very important because It's assurance of salvation that then drives and motivates obedience, where it's not this heavy burden, trying to add up, I didn't add up, I've got to hide from God now. 2 Corinthians 5.14 says that it's the love of Christ that compels us, that motivates us. So we need to be assured of His love. so that we'd be motivated to love and good deeds. Remember where Jesus is dining with the Pharisees and an adulterous woman, a prostitute comes in, a woman who has devoted herself to that type of vice on the street. And she brings this jar of the most costly ointment and she's weeping, and she's washing Jesus' feet with her hair and her tears, and pours this oil, which probably costs three-fourths of a year's wage, and she probably obtained it through the money she made in her sinful lifestyle. And remember the Pharisee's response? If he knew what kind of woman she was, he would not be receiving her. And Jesus' response to the Pharisees was she loved much because she had been forgiven much. And she came to understand that forgiveness she had received. And out of that, she loves much. She was assured of His forgiveness. And her response is that she loved Him much. And it's not that the Pharisees needed to be forgiven little. It's just they didn't really think they were all that bad. They grew up religious. And so they really didn't have an appreciation and thankfulness for the forgiveness they've received. So, it's understanding the great love with which He has loved us, even when we were sinners. The law of God comes in and does its work. It shows us our sin and misery. But then we see that God has taken care of all that guilt and shame at the gospel with Christ being crushed for us. And that, we were assured of that, that not only has He died for sinners, but He's died for me. I'm sure that it was for me. And how do I know this? Well, because he says, whoever comes to him, he will by no way cast out. And I don't have any qualifications. Nobody has any qualifications for coming to him other than you're a sinner and helpless. And he says, come. So we come and we know that he has loved us, that he has lavished his grace on us and that then, that assurance, that is what motivates us to love and good deeds. Apart from that, it is just legalism. It is knowing God's law apart from knowing His love. And that is just going to create all sorts of issues. It's not going to produce a really true, joyful obedience to God. And so, in the rest of this lecture today, Ferguson is going to give us some more helps towards assurance of salvation. He did this in the last lecture, now he's going to give us some more today. And he's going, and he titles this, Hindrances That Strew the Way, based on a hymn titled Thou Hidden Love of God. There's hindrances that strew the way on our way to assurance of salvation. It's kind of like getting up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and there's a bunch of Legos along the way. And it's those hindrances. Well, these are hindrances to assurance of salvation. Before I get into them, are there any questions or comments up to this point? This is just an excuse for me to drink water. Okay. So first, hindrance. When we confuse the foundation of our salvation with the superstructure of that salvation. And let me explain this. I'll repeat it again. When we confuse the foundation of our salvation with the superstructure of that salvation, In this illustration, the foundation of the building, imagine Assurance of Salvation as a building in this illustration, the foundation of that is the justification we have based solely on the righteousness of Christ. So, we stand before God, accepted by Him, solely on the basis of the work of Christ, his perfect righteousness to the whole law, and his shed blood for us that cleanses us from all our sins. And the structure of the building are the fruit and evidence of salvation. And that's part of the building, if we look at 1 John, but that's not the foundation of the building. So we don't make our fruitfulness the foundation of our assurance. The foundation ever remains the righteousness of Christ. Some of the ways that we do this is when we look at our service How fruitful are we being for God's service rather than the righteousness of Christ? And we begin to doubt God's love. We begin to doubt that we're gods when, oh man, I'm just not being fruitful enough. Or we start to rely on our sanctification as the basis for our standing before God. And of course, we would never articulate that, but it's definitely something that we fall into. What happens when I sin? What happens when I fall into sin? What do I think how God views me then? He's probably pretty angry at me. I mean, I know the truth. I blew it. God's been so kind to me. I've done this. I'm going to spend extra time in my devotions. I'm going to spend extra time in prayer. I'm going to go out and do something for the Lord to really make up for what I've done here. You start to rely on those works to make up for sin. rather than, not to say that we don't spend time in prayer and do those things, but that becomes what we go to to kind of make up for our sin rather than looking to the gospel and receiving again this free grace. And that's actually when it's the most difficult to believe. Like, I've blown it. And God's just going to freely forgive? Yeah, you know why? Because my forgiveness and salvation is not based on me at all. It wasn't based on me to begin with, and it's never going to be based on me. And so we can never add to our justification. We need to come back to the fact that our justification, our righteous standing before God can never be added to, can never be improved upon. and also can never be diminished. It remains the same because Christ's righteousness is always the same, and His righteousness is what is credited to us. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? Okay, second, is an inconsistent obedience and this gets to the What what he would talk about last time with regards to What we see in first John by this we know we've come to know him if we keep his commandments It doesn't say this is we come to know him by keeping his commandments rather This is how we know that we have come to know him. We keep his commandments the the one who does not love his brother is not of the truth, versus the one who does love his brother, he is of the truth. Now, again, this is not the foundation, okay? So this is part of the building, but it's not the foundation. So if I find myself not loving my brother, if I find myself not keeping God's commandments, not living righteously, the answer is not, Just tell me what to do so I can do it. Rather, the answer is I need to go back to the gospel. Remember that the Pharisees who like, well, if Jesus knew how sinful that person was, he would not receive her rather than the adulterous woman who said he has loved me. And therefore, because I know he loves me. I love him. So we go back to the foundation, which is Christ's blood and righteousness for us. He has loved us and given himself for us and supplying all our needs. So we always go back to that foundation. But then the fruit and evidence of that is us walking in obedience. And an inconsistent obedience can be a hindrance to assurance of salvation. And so we do need to be repenting of sin. We need to be turning from sin. But we don't do it. We don't. Again, we don't try to get our act together in our own strength so that we can be righteous before God. Rather, we always and first and foremost, go back to the Gospels. The only foundation for us standing before God. Remember how David repented. We want to see a good picture of repentance. Look at Psalm 51. What does he say? God, I oh God, I will get my act together now. You watch me. No, God be merciful to me according to how great I am. No, according to the greatness of your sense of love, blot out my transgressions. He's relying on God's love. He's relying on God's greatness to take care of his sin, to wash him. And he doesn't say restore to me my salvation. Rather, he says, restore to me the joy of my salvation. And so we go back again to God and we look to Him. Third is, he calls it a misunderstanding of affliction and suffering in our life. I got this title, Frowning Providence, from his book, which his lectures are based on the book. It's the same material. But it's called a frowning providence. It's the belief that because things are going really badly for me, God must not be happy with me right now. God must not love me. I'm now not sure that I'm in God's good graces because things aren't really going the way I had anticipated or I had expected. Ferguson points out that the deeper problem underneath this belief is the belief that one can be sure of God's love because of the blessings they're experiencing in this life. So they look to how things are, how are things going in my life as a measurement of whether or not God loves them. And this is basing our assurance on the providence of God rather than on the promises of God. And so a frowning providence may be a hindrance to assurance of salvation. And this is this should not be that. In fact, it says that. If we're without discipline, then we're not your son, so there are going to be times of difficulty in our life. And Romans five says that suffering produces character. And so we should not look at God's providence and say, ah, It's going badly, therefore God doesn't love me. That's just not the way we should be thinking about it. Rather, we should always be relying on God's promises. Fourth, a misunderstanding of what union with Christ does and does not do. And basically, this is a misunderstanding of how justification and regeneration change the Christian's relationship to sin. And there's this belief that because I have been saved, I'm not going to struggle with sin anymore, neither will I fall into sin anymore. That it really shouldn't be this big, much of a battle. And that's not true. I think that's something we really have to grasp. Any one of us is capable of grievous sin. I mean, David, a man after God's own heart, commits adultery, hires out a hit to cover his sin, to murder Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, who was a Gentile and who was actually more faithful to the kingdom than David himself was. We are capable of falling into grievous sin, and we shouldn't be surprised when we struggle with sin. Because Galatians 5.16 says, the spirit and the flesh are now waging war. It's precisely because of our union with Christ that now the battle begins. Fifth, attacks from the devil. Ferguson says in his book, Satan knows he cannot ultimately destroy those whom Christ saves. Satan is therefore determined to destroy our enjoyment of our new relationship to the Lord. No one is able to snatch us out of Christ's hands. Nothing can separate us from the love of God and Christ. Nothing. Satan can't do it. But he can certainly attack the enjoyment of that salvation. And this is how Satan does it. He quotes Calvin who says, Satan seeks to drive Christians to madness by despair. He seeks to drive Christians to madness by despair. He seeks to get them into despair. And the way Satan does this is by causing us to focus on our guilt and beaming us up with that, condemning us with that, apart from finding any hope in Christ. It's just us dwelling on our guilt. The way Ferguson puts it, is the devil deals in guilt-edged stock. And this comes from a British expression for stock that is good and needs to be invested right away. The way they put it is G-I-L-T. It's a different word. It's guilt-edged stock. It's good stock. Now is the opportunity to jump on it. Ferguson takes that expression and says it's guilt, G-U-I-L-T, to refer to Satan sees your guilt and he's going to take advantage of it. This is my opportunity. They just sinned. He probably tempted us to sin by saying, oh, see how pleasurable sin is? Isn't it great? No, you'll be rewarded by this. God's a rigid, harsh master. So you jump into sin. Then he says, see how bad sin is? So it's backwards. And that's how Satan works. And he uses the difference between Judas and Peter. Judas knew his guilt. Judas knew he had he confessed it. He says, I betrayed an innocent man. And he threw that blood money back to the leaders. And the leaders were like, so? See to it yourself. That's not on us. And so Judas knew he was guilty. He knew that he had committed guilt. But how did he handle it? He went to despair. He did not look to Christ. Peter, he knew his guilt, right? He cursed in denying the Lord Jesus. And he went away weeping bitterly. But he found forgiveness in Christ. And even the angel at the empty tomb said, go tell my disciples and Peter that I have risen. Peter who had just failed. and he had not quote-unquote made up for it. But still, God's love went out to Peter. And there's this famous saying that I'm sure many of us in here have heard. For every look you take at yourself, take ten looks at Jesus. You know, you see your sin. That's good. It's good to see sin. We don't want to be blind to it. But keep going down the road. Don't stop there. Don't park the car there in despair. Go to Christ. Look at Him ten times. Look at what He has done to atone for sin, His love for sinners. And Ferguson quotes a hymn that says, When Satan tempts me to despair. Ah, older Christians understood how Satan worked. How does He tempt me? To despair. There's no hope for me. I've sinned. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin. Because my sinless Savior died, my guilty soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied. to look on Him and pardon me. That's our hope. What happens when I sin? Satan tells me. See? See what you've done again? You can't get it together, can you? You think you love God? Look at how you act. There's no hope for you. What do we do? Is God satisfied to pardon me? Yeah, he raised Jesus from the dead. Christ's work is enough. Christ wasn't lying or inaccurate when he said, it is finished. That is my only hope. So if God is satisfied to look on Christ and pardon me, then I should be satisfied to look on Christ and know the forgiveness I have in Him. We don't say to Satan, I'm not as bad as that. No, I'll do better next time. I'll get my act together. I'll pray really hard and then I'll do better next time. This is actually Satan then tempting us to rely on our works of righteousness, which is exactly what he wants. He wants us to just stay in this cycle of, see how bad your guilt is, OK, OK, I'll get better. Oh, self-righteousness. Oh, I fall again. Oh, guilty. Oh, I'll get better. He does not want us to look at Christ. He wants us just staying fixed on ourselves, even though it feels like a righteous thing. Of course I hate sin. Of course I'm going to get my act together. And we don't. We don't because we're not relying on Christ. Six, our consciences sometimes condemns us. And we don't want to harden. We don't want to be hardened to our conscience. We don't want to ignore it. But our conscience, while it detects and registers guilt, it does not offer forgiveness. So this kind of flows out of the last one, where instead it's Satan harassing us. It's our conscience that condemns us. And while we want to listen to our conscience, we do want our conscience to be better informed. Sometimes it makes us feel guilty when we shouldn't feel guilty, perhaps because of legalism. But in any case, we want to go to the gospel because the conscience can't atone for sin. Only the gospel can. And so that's where the gospel says to our conscience, silence in the presence of Jesus. Seventh. We become neglectful of the instruments God has placed in our life to help our assurance, which is the ordinary means of grace in the Lord's day, the fellowship of God's people, the ordinances of baptism, which is a sign from God of his love. Remember from 2 Peter 1, 9, where Peter says, this is why somebody who isn't growing isn't growing. It's because they've forgotten that they've been cleansed. What's a good picture God has given us to help us, to remind us of our new identity, that we've been cleansed? Baptism. Yeah, oh, I've gone down in the water. Oh, I've come out. It's a sign from God that my sins have been washed away, that I'm clean. Even though I continue to struggle with sin, and I will to the day I die, my new identity is I've been washed in the blood of Christ. From the Lord's Supper, assuring us that we have communion with Him, that we're invited to come and dine with Him. Especially in the Ancient Near East, it was a sign of fellowship. the reading and preaching of God's Word, prayer, all of these give us Christ, taking our eyes off of ourself and pointing us to the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel of grace. When we neglect these things, then we will struggle in our assurance. Well, I've kind of gone a little over. Any questions or comments? Okay, well, let's watch the video.