Please turn in your Bibles to John's first letter, 1 John chapter 5. You may not realize it, but John's gospel ends this way. There's lots of other things that Christ did that if written down the whole world couldn't contain all the books about what Christ did. But these things have been written for you in order that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing in Him you might have life in His name. Great. Now, how do I know that I've savingly believed in Christ? How do I know that what I'm thinking is faith isn't really what the Bible calls faith? So John writes a letter later, 1 John, and by the time you get to chapter 5, he really starts the letter saying, do you want to know if you're right with God? Well, read this epistle. But in chapter 5, he says something amazing. Pick it up at verse 9. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that He is born concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. In other words, if you really do believe in Christ, you have an inner testimony, an inner witness. Whoever does not believe God has made Him, God, a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning His Son. And this is the testimony that God gave us. Eternal life and this life is in His Son. Now check out verse 12 and 13. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you might hope... Oh, wait a minute, that's not it. In order that you might cross your fingers and hope to die. No. Well, it says here, in order that you might know that you have eternal life. Know, he says, you can know that you have eternal life. I said this morning one of the tragedies that came out of the Reformation is Rome hardening its stance against the Protestant Reformers' superior insights into Scripture, and they're saying, no, there is no such thing as knowing you're going to heaven, there is no such thing as assurance of salvation, there is no such thing as saying, I know that when I die I'm going to heaven. because that would undercut the whole Roman system. All the bric-a-brac, and all the rigmarole, all the stuff you had to go through, and then purgatory, and all the saying masses to get people out of purgatory, and all the money they were making from all this junk would be undercut if you could say, well, because of Christ, I know I'm going to heaven. I know that my salvation is secure in Christ. But in their Council of Trent, they say, no, anybody who teaches that, Who professes to have it is anathema, from the Greek word anathema, which means you're under the curse of God. May God curse you for saying you know that you have assurance of salvation. Well, thankfully, that's not what the Bible teaches, even though it is what the Catholic Church teaches. God does not want you to wonder, guess, pray, cross your fingers, or hope that you have eternal life. He wants you to know. He wants you to be sure. And my last point today is, why should a professing Christian want to have assurance of salvation? Well, there are several reasons. I would want to have you have assurance of eternal life. It's a glorious thing to have it. It doesn't mean you're not a Christian if you don't have assurance, but it means your Christian life has a limp. Like if you watch me walk across the parking lot, it's like, well, it's not pretty. But I am walking. In the same way, if you don't have assurance, you could be a Christian, but your walk's going to be not as pretty. So I want to try to show you three things this evening. First of all, what does the Bible teach about assurance of salvation? What does the Bible teach about assurance of salvation? Number two, what causes a person to question or doubt their salvation and to lose assurance? There are things that you can do or not do that will mess up your sense of assurance. You can put yourself in a bad place and you can find yourself with a shredded assurance. And we're going to look at those things. And finally, why should a professed Christian want assurance of salvation? One of the most glorious reasons in the world was we'll look at. But let's pray. Our Father in heaven, this morning we looked at the message of salvation, that God made him who knew no sin, Jesus Christ, to become sin for believing sinners, that whosoever believes in him would find that they have the righteousness of Christ given to them, that he might become the righteousness of God in him. That's not a fairy tale. It's not a Marvel comic. It's blessedly true. Because of who Christ is and what he's done, and by our looking to him and trusting in him, all of our sins were pardoned on Christ. He atoned for every one of them on his cross. In his blessed record of 24-7-365, obedience and love and submission is credited to us. Lord, we thank You that we can come to You in Christ's name. We thank You that we can come expectantly in Christ's name, because You love to answer Your Son's prayer. I cannot imagine Your Son ever praying a prayer that You didn't want to bless. In the same way, we come to You in Christ's name, asking that You would bless us for His sake. Give us Your Spirit. Have Him be the teacher. Have Him be the illuminator. Take great glory for Yourself, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. The Bible Doctrine of Assurance, how you can know that you have a saving relationship with Christ. How you can know that you have a saving relationship with Christ. First of all, the Bible does teach assurance of salvation based upon four things. First of all, the first reason why you should have great hope is because salvation is dependent on Christ. The finished work of Christ as your Savior is the constant. If I'm having a bad week or a bad month, or a bad year, or if you've gone through a period of backsliding. Does that mean that Jesus Christ didn't die on the cross? Did that mean that Jesus Christ's righteousness was not given to you as a gift? No. Your sanctification, how you're doing, is not the measure of your salvation. Christ's finished work on the cross is a measure. We looked at 2 Corinthians 5.21. God's counted all of your sins on Christ. God's counted Christ's righteousness to you. Is that true or is it not? You have to ask yourself. When I read these words, when I read 2 Corinthians 5.21 or a host of other verses, are these verses true? Case in point, turn to Hebrews 10.14. I want you to eyeball this verse and think about it yourself. Hebrews 10.14. It's a verse I come to a lot. It's a chapter on forgiveness and being a great sinner, I need a great Savior. And so chapter 10 is about the work of Christ. He's talking about how the work of Christ is superior to everything that was done leading up to it in the Old Testament. Verse 14. Sorry, I'm looking at the wrong verse. For by a single offering, that's Christ on the cross, He, Christ, has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. I'm reading it from the ESV. If you're reading from the New American Standard, it might be slightly different, but it'll say essentially the same thing. For by one offering on the cross, He has perfected for all time. Well, how has He perfected me? I have His righteousness, and there is no sin, outstanding, clamoring for my arrest and condemnation, because it's all been atoned for by Christ. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being made holy." Sanctified is an awkward derivation or connection to the word holy. Holified sounds even worse, so we go with sanctified. He's perfected you for all time in terms of you have Christ's righteousness. There's no gradations of righteousness. Not that, ministers, we have a superior level of righteousness because we're ministers and you guys are just laymen, you'll have to deal with it. No. Any Christian has the same righteousness as any other Christian. We each have the righteousness of Christ. Period. I don't have more righteousness or less righteousness. I have Christ's righteousness and it's the only righteousness I need. for by a single offering we'll put your name in there. He has perfected for all time your name who is being made holy." God has given you Christ's righteousness, He's atoned for all of your sins in Christ, and He is in the process of making you holy. So I can have assurance of salvation based upon the fact of what Christ did, not based upon myself, not based upon my performance. I'm looking to Christ. The whole basis of Christianity is Christ. It's really not about you. And it's not about me. It could be about anybody. But it is about Christ. What kind of a Savior is He? Does He save sinners while they're still sinners? Yes. Does He give them His righteousness? Yes. Does He work to make them holy over the course of their life? Yes. and sometimes it's up and sometimes it's down in terms of my performance, has nothing to do with the finished work of Christ. It's done. It's finished. In business you'd say it's a done deal. The finished work of Christ as my Savior is the constant that I can have assurance of salvation. When I'm thinking, well, am I special to God today? Am I going to go to heaven when I die? If I'm in a car wreck on the way home this evening, God forbid, will I wake up in heaven or hell? I don't worry about that. When I think about dying, I'm 68, so it'd be smarter to think about dying than going out for the high school baseball team, wouldn't it? I mean, given my age and everything. So when I think about dying, you know, I don't want to be burned alive, and I don't want to do that. You know, you think of things in a way you don't want to die, but who knows how you're going to die. But the point is, I'm not afraid of dying, the pain I'm done into, but waking up, I don't have a fear of that because of who Christ is. Christ is my salvation. When Martin Luther went back and forth with a Catholic cardinal about justification by faith alone and Christ alone, the guy goes, well, what are you going to do to replace indulgences and Mary? And he went through the list of all these. What are you going to replace them with? Jesus Christ. There is nothing beyond Jesus Christ that would make us more or better acceptable to God. Jesus Christ is our salvation. A second assurance of salvation, and again, this is the main one I hold on to because I don't hold on to my track record. For years I would struggle with, how's my week been? How's my day been? Am I being a good Christian today? Am I making progress? And I would look too much at myself. And we're going to see one of the main things later that can take away assurance is by having ingrown eyeballs. Kind of if you flip over and you're looking inside, and how am I doing? A second reason for having assurance of salvation, the Bible says, is the trustworthy promises of God based on God's trustworthy character. When it all comes down to it, the only thing you and I know for sure is what this book says, because the witnesses are dead. Their words have been recorded. The prophets, the apostles, they're all dead. Jesus Christ is no longer living on planet Earth in the body. I can't talk to him like the apostles could. And the question is, is this word trustworthy? Can I stake my eternal destiny on this book? Is God a cosmic trickster or jokester? God forbid. The words of this book are trustworthy. For example, Philippians 1, 6. You know, Philippians 1, Paul talks about, you know, there's some days I'd like to be through with all this junk and go to heaven and check out. I'm tired of living on this fallen planet, battling sin, battling the devil, battling the world. I'm just tired of the battle. I'd like to check out and be with the Lord. but that's kinda sorta selfish since he's called me to minister to people and there's things I can do to help people, so I guess part of me wants to stay here and do good, but to be honest, checking out would be great. He says in Philippians 1.6, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, Philippians, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. I'm confident of this. God didn't begin a good work in you only to say, well, chuck this, I'm moving on to something else. God doesn't move to a plan B. If He's begun a good work in you, if He saved you, He's going to save you to the end. Because salvation is not based upon you or me, it's based upon Christ. What kind of Savior is He? Does He save people who are sinners? Yeah. You should raise your hand on that too. Does He save people who are sinners to the very end? Yeah. Do they sin up until the time they go to glory? Yeah. Salvation is based upon the kind of Savior Christ is, not based upon the kind of sinner you are. He who's begun a good work in you will continue to perform it right up until the day He returns and takes you to glory. We'll look back at the passage we just looked at in 1 John. Wasn't that a glorious passage? And I kind of went through it kind of fast, but if we want to read it again real quick. Verse 9, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. Well, let me ask you, do you believe God? I mean, if He says something in His Word, do you believe Him? You go, well, I don't know. Maybe He's got crossed fingers behind His back and He's not really going to do this. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that He is born concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself." You know this to be true. Whoever does not believe God has made him, God, a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God is born concerning His Son. If you don't believe what the Bible says, you're calling God a liar, and you've got problems. And this is the testimony that God gave us. Eternal life. And this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Bingo. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. Underline the word know. Not guess, hope, pray, cross your fingers. Know that you have eternal life. Is God trustworthy or not? You believe what people testify about in other things, and then the Bible says you should always have two witnesses, and so the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all testify, the Word of God testifies, you have ample witnesses. Is this true or not? Is God trustworthy? That's really what this all comes down to. Is this book of God trustworthy? You're staking your eternal destiny on this book. One time I did a word study in the Bible on the word ashamed. And ashamed is, we think of ashamed as kind of like being embarrassed, only worse. Embarrassed is kind of embarrassing, but to be ashamed is, wow, I did something really bad or stupid or dirty or something, and I've got to stand account for it. People are going to see what a terrible person I am. The Bible says, those who trust in Christ will never be put to shame. I had to ask myself, why would they be ashamed? I mean, what would they have to be ashamed of? It's Judgment Day. Here's myriads of angels sitting in witness. Here's God the Father, God the Son, seated on their thrones. You're brought in. Here's you. This person put their trust in Jesus Christ and thought He was going to save them here on Judgment Day. And all the angels burst out laughing, and the Son and the Father burst out laughing, and they're all pointing at you. What a sucker! They believed it! What a great cosmic con! They believed all this stuff. Do you think God is like that? Those who put their trust in Christ will never be ashamed. I don't care what you go through in this world, on Judgment Day you won't be ashamed you put your trust in Christ. Please turn to Malachi 3.6, a verse that will make the hair in the back of your head, if you have hair in the back of your head, stand up. It was the first verse that Charles Spurgeon ever preached on when he went to London as a 19-year-old. If you read this, it's one of the most glorious sermons you'll ever read. You can find it on the internet. Just take Virgin's Sermon on Malachi 3.6 and see what it pulls up. The first half is the most exhilarating, wonderful, mind-blowing thing you can ever read. The second half is the scariest thing you'll ever read that makes you get the heebie-jeebies. This is what Malachi 3.6 says, For I, the LORD, do not change, therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. For I, the LORD, capital O, capital capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. God's covenant name, Yahweh. I Yahweh, I the covenant God, don't change. I've made a covenant. I solemnly swore to save you and to save you to the end. And in Hebrews 8 and 9 it says God made a promise to save you in Christ and he's sworn that he would save you. Two witnesses you need. You got them. My promise, my swearing. May I cease to be God if I don't go through with this. Because I, O Israel, do not change, therefore you are not consumed. A million years from now, as men count time, God's not going to go, you know, I'm just really kind of tired of y'all, and poof, you're gone. I made a solemn covenant. I sent my Son to save you. I raised my Son from the dead. We sent the Holy Spirit. He worked in your heart. He made you to see Christ. He made you to see your sins. He helped you to flee to Christ. He gave you the new birth. Because I don't change, you'll never be consumed because my work is good. And as Spurgeon went on and talked about that, it was just exhilarating. But the scary part, the second half of this wonderful sermon was, because God doesn't change when it says in the scriptures, those who do not believe in Christ are condemned forever. He said, when you've been in hell 10,000 years, as men count time, and you think, I cannot bear another millisecond in this awful place, and you look up and it says, condemned forever. And God doesn't change. I don't lie. The same God who guarantees your salvation is the same God who guarantees the length of time people will spend in eternity away from His presence. The trustworthy promises of God. I don't change, so you can put your trust in me. If you put your trust in me, you'll never be ashamed. If you put your trust in my son, you'll never be ashamed. And I won't let you go. A third reason for assurance. You're trusting in the promises of God. You've trusted in Christ. You believe that God doesn't well-shun His promises. Then you have to look at your life. Has my life changed? I claim to believe in Christ. There are people who claim to believe in Christ. America's full of them. Their life has not changed one whit, one iota. They're the same person they were X number of years ago. Treat their wife the same way. Treat their husband the same way. Treat their kids the same way. Treat reality the same way. Cheat on their taxes the same way. Do all the things they used to do. Their language never changed. Their love for God never changed. Their love for God's Word never changed. They never loved God. They never loved His Word. And they still don't. They claim to be Christians. Has your life changed? The Bible says that you cannot have Christ save you and God the Holy Spirit give you a new life and remain the same. I mean, just even logically, if you're not talking about spiritual things, but just logically. Could the infinite God the Holy Spirit take up residence in a finite creature like me and I stay the same? And I go, well, it doesn't seem logical. It seems like you'd have an enhanced life. It seems like you would change. Well, that's what you see happening when I first came to Christ. My life was changing, and I wasn't trying to do it. And it was really weird, because I'm watching myself change, going, this is really spooky. You know, you kind of watch yourself, and this is spooky, because I'm not trying to change. I'm changing for the better, thankfully. And my life was changing. If my life had never changed, I'd have good reasons to say, well, why do I think I'm really a Christian? Does becoming a Christian mean nothing's different? I know a woman who had gone forward at the age of seven because her Sunday school teacher said, your dad's the music director and this would make him feel good if you went forward. And she went forward and the pastor dutifully told her she was saved. And they dutifully dunked her that night. And she was told she was a Christian. She went back to living life as normal. And she thought that being a Christian meant no change. And she was very la-di-da about her Christian life. And finally, someone went by her house and said to her, you know, I don't know that I have any confidence that you're a real Christian. You don't seem to have any Christian aspirations. You don't seem to have any Christian proclivities. You don't seem to want what Christians want. You don't seem to dislike what Christians dislike. I don't see any evidence of a changed life. The person didn't say it ugly, but they did say it pointedly. That night you're lying in bed and your spouse rolls over to you and says, someone still came by today and talked to me and said they're not sure that I'm a Christian. They don't think I'm a Christian. What do you think, dear? Now you can really make a wrong move here. You can give her false assurance, oh no, that person, they're stupid, they don't know nothing. Of course you're a Christian. I was there the day you prayed the prayer. I actually heard one guy say that, as if the prayer was magic. You can make a wrong decision the other way. Well, I've been wondering for years, dear, if you're really saved, because I ain't seen nothing. That wouldn't be a real smooth move. But the spouse said, I don't know, honey, for years I've wondered myself. Not a yes, not a no, but reality was speaking. The next morning she made her kids, who she was homeschooling, play in a room by themselves. If you come out of this room, you're dead. Closed the door, went in her own room, and she told the Lord, I don't know if I'm a Christian or not, but God, if you're real, please speak to me through your word. Please change me. Please, for Christ's sake, work in me. And for the first time in her life, The Bible began to be God's book to her. The letters on the page were God's words to Christians that she understood. And her life began to change. Now she still has a ways to go and she still struggles. But her life began to change. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians chapter 1. Beginning at verse 4. For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you. Really? How does Paul know that God has chosen these people? Because our gospel came to you not only in word, in other words, I came and preached it, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we do not need to say anything." Meaning when they visit other places they've already heard about the Thessalonians and how they began to obey Christ. For they themselves report concerning the kind of reception we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Paul begins by saying, look at how your lives changed. We came to you, we preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God worked in your heart, you began to follow Christ, you became imitators of us as apostles in the Christian lifestyle, you became such witnesses despite persecution, despite poverty, that your testimony has gone throughout the Mediterranean Christian world. Their lives changed. And you have to ask yourself, since I've made a profession of faith, has my life changed? If you're a real Christian, you've seen your life change. I didn't ask you if you were perfect. I didn't ask you if you're ready to be enshrined in some hall of fame. But I did ask you, has your life changed? Have you seen yourself change? And a fourth reality of knowing that you're really a Christian, a fourth means of assurance, is the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit. We just read that, or where John told his people that you have this witness in yourself, but Paul brings it up in Romans chapter 8. And there's a caveat here, because some Christians interpret it the wrong way. Romans chapter 8. Have you ever heard someone say, my spirit doesn't bear witness that that person's a Christian? It may be true, but the Bible doesn't say my spirit's going to bear witness with whether or not another person's a Christian. Let's read Romans 8, 15 through 17. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." Some versions said, you've not received the spirit of slavery again. Martin Lloyd-Jones once preached a message on that word again. How do you receive the spirit of fear again? He says, well, before you're a Christian, you're afraid of God. He's the judge. You don't want anything to do with Him. You have a spirit. You relate to Him as a slave would to a harsh taskmaster. But when you become a Christian, you have the fear of a son who loves and reverences his father, but wouldn't do anything to hurt him or offend him or make him look bad. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Meaning, I stay with Christ to the end. Real Christians persevere, the perseverance of the saints. Real Christians are real Christians to the end. They're not real Christians for ten years and they bag it and go off and do something else. Real Christians stay real Christians to the very, very end. The sense that God the Holy Spirit is testifying that, yes, I am God's child. The Bible doesn't say here it testifies about whether or not you're a child of God. I don't have infallible discernment. No minister or elder has infallible discernment. There have been people I worked with for years I thought were Christians and subsequently apostatized. They fell away from the faith. Paul records some of those sad things in his epistles. He talks about people, well, they used to walk with me, but they don't anymore. They used to be one of my helpers, but they're not anymore. They love this present world. They've left. They've gone back into the world. But if I am a real Christian, I will persevere to the end, which is the final demonstration of being a real Christian, is you persevere to the end. The world, excuse me, a lot of cheap grace people, I could call it eternal security, are once saved, always saved. But Reform people, people following in the footsteps of the Protestant Reformation say, Let's not describe it in terms of cheap grace, let's describe it in terms of Bible grace. God perseveres with you and preserves you and you persevere in your faith and you are preserved right to the very end. You make it. You may be the world's, you may think like you're the world's weaniest Christian, but the Lord says, if you're a Christian, if you have saving grace, I'll keep you to the end. Ian Murray likes to tell a story of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his deathbed and Ian Murray went to tell them of a common friend they had known for many years, and this man during life had been like John Bunyan's Mr. Fearing, always kind of a timid, I don't know, and just kind of a dithering kind of Christian. They said in the last couple of months of his Christian life, he was like a lion. He had such strong faith and assurance, and he ended very well. And Ian said, I made some remark about the man, and Dr. Lloyd-Jones rebuked me saying, don't knock saving faith. Dr. Lloyd-Jones could barely speak at this point. Don't knock saving faith, don't knock dying grace where you have strong faith to the very end. You know, one of the things that we're so naive, I don't know if it's living in America and lack of suffering or lack of persecution, but we think, well surely, surely Satan wouldn't give us a hard time at the very end. I mean, what if we're sick? What if we don't feel good? Oh poor baby, are you feeling bad? Are you just feeling terrible? Good. Let me give you some more things to feel bad about. Let's talk about that sin you committed in 1987 and nobody else knows about it but I know about it. The devil will stomp on you with cleats if he can. Thankfully the Lord most of the time holds him back. But he will bring up sins you've long forgotten. One man was on his deathbed and he remembered one time he was drunk in a bar and called the Lord Jesus Christ a person of illegitimate childhood, let's put it that way. And it was reminded him of that and he was aghast and thought he had lost his salvation. And Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminded him from Scripture, well let's look what the Bible says, does Christ forgive all of our sins or just some of them? Is this sin under the blood of Christ? Yes. Then is this sin forgiven? Yes. Do you have the righteousness of Christ? Yes. This sin isn't a problem, that's Satan's problem, but it's not yours. God gives you grace to persevere to the end. Not most of the way, not part way, but to the very end. Now, going and looking at some of these things, we might be tempted to say, well, what kinds of things might cause me to question my salvation, to doubt my salvation, to lose my assurance? And I could think of seven. Maybe you can think of more, but I try to think of people I've talked to over the years who question their assurance. The first one is people who go on sinning without repenting. We're all sinners, so the question is not if we're ever going to sin again. The question is, when I'm sinning, do I repent? If I go on sinning, do I repent? Look at 1 John 1. We're going to flip through some Bible verses here, so have your Bibles out and be alert. 1 John 1. 1 John, again, is a book that's written to help you discern if you're a child of God or not. And so John talks about fellowship. 1 John 1, verses 5 through 10. This is the message we've heard from Him. and proclaim to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. God is holy and there's no sin in Him. If we say that we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, I'm a Christian and I own an X-rated movie theater. I don't think so. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. In the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, it doesn't say when, because some people just don't get around to confessing their sins. If we confess our sins, He is faithful. What does faithful mean? You can count on Him. He's faithful and just. What does the word just mean? I punished all of your sins on my son. I gave you my son's righteousness. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we've not sinned, we make him to be a liar and his word is not in us. Is that the kind of back and forth you'd have if the Holy Spirit pricked your conscience? You say something sharp or snide to someone. You say something unkind. You do something and you're kind of stabbed by the Holy Spirit. Whoa, they had it coming. They started it. And you argue and you never get around to confessing your sins. You never get around to repenting of your sins. That's going to become a problem after a while because you're going to see in your life a discrepancy between what you profess to be and how you're living. And most people can't live as a hypocrite very long. It's going to bother them, weigh on them. In August, oh, 15, 18 years ago, it was a hot August night. It was in the 80s where myself and two other pastors are standing in a man's front yard. Actually, we're sitting in a car outside of his yard. He used to be a pastor in Jackson. He had committed abominable sins. He even had gone to a church to confess his abominable sins, only to kind of con them and get out of certain circumstances. So everything about him was a lie. We prayed in the car, we reluctantly got out of the car, and the reason why it was at midnight or eleven o'clock was because we wanted to catch him at home and he was very evasive and elusive. We knocked on the door and he came to the door, and here's three men that he used to know when he was in his right mind. We said, brother, can we talk to you? He came outside and sat on the hood of his car and we talked to him for the better part of an hour. He didn't get mad. Didn't get sad. He just sat in the hood of his car and took it all. We recounted his sins, what he had done. Didn't deny him. Didn't get mad, didn't get sad. Just sat there like Proverbs says, that certain sins can reduce you to a loaf of bread. If he'd stuck a loaf of bread in the hood of his car, it wouldn't have been any difference. And the fact that there was no reaction, nothing seemed to matter to him. And the Lord gave me one idea and I said to him, you know, I'm so sorry for all these years I thought you were a son, but you were just a tool. God used you for a couple of years. And you know what you do through working with a tool? You put it on the bench in the garage and you go in the house and close the door. But a son comes in the house and a son lives there. I thought you were a son, you just proved to be a tool. No, I'm not a tool, I'm a son. And I said, you can't say that, because a son is a lifelong repenter. You stopped repenting a couple of years ago. You can't righteously, biblically say, that you're a son, because you're acting like a tool. No, I'm not a tool, I'm a son. I said, you can't say that biblically, because sons are lifelong repenters. Until you start repenting regularly and continually, you have no assurance that you're really a Christian. You're just a tool. I've seen that man since then. He represents himself as a son. I even saw him at a conference wearing a suit. I think he got a job at some church somewhere where he's reinvented himself. But he's never repented of his sins. Sinning without repenting will cause you to lose your assurance. A second cause of losing your assurance is negligent or haphazard attendance on the means of grace. Come to church about one out of four Sundays and don't do the best job of paying attention. Skip Sunday school a lot and ensure that you'll be in a really weakened condition so that any breeze blowing by will blow you over. You can't be haphazard or negligent on the means of grace and stay a strong Christian. You know, when people are poorly fed, and a person who doesn't avail themselves of the means of grace is going to be poorly fed, what happens? They don't usually die. I mean, very few people die of actual starvation. Some other disease will pick you off before the starvation actually fully gets there because you're in such a weakened condition. People who profess to be Christians, they don't avail themselves of the means of grace. And ironically, if you ask your elders, are some of the people in this church who struggle with assurance here tonight? Well, I don't see them. That's just the way it goes. So you can assure yourself, if you want to struggle with assurance, make sure that you're very haphazard, casual, or negligent on tending to the means of grace. Look at Hebrews chapter 10. Believe me, I'm not trying to be judgmental. I'm not trying to be snide. I was a pastor for 31 years. I saw the irony. They wanted their Christian life to be better, but they wouldn't exert any effort to make it better. They wouldn't attend to the means of grace, which God says, this is my appointed means to grow, to be healthy. Hebrews chapter 10, pick it up at verse 19. After he's been talking about all the great things God has done for them in Christ, and I read verse 14 earlier, about by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. When he gets to verse 19, he says, Therefore, brothers, based upon all this good stuff I've told you about forgiveness and your status before me, Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He's opened up for us through the curtain that is through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Based upon the work of Christ for us, we should be encouraging one another, we should be getting together and, Brother, where were you last week? We really missed you and it would have been good for your soul. I'm sorry you missed it. And not simply being truant officers and, Mr. Bro, where were you? But actually encouraging and looking out for one another. In chapter 4 of Ephesians, Paul says, God's given gifted men to the church for what reason? To the building up of the bodies, so you won't be carried back and forth like waves thrashing in the sea like children. and people who are haphazard in attending the means of grace, they never quite get their doctrine down. They never quite put two and two together and have it be four. I heard somebody on the radio last week, and he said this, and I was checking out the grocery store, and there was a magazine there, and it said this, and I'm confused now. Well, yeah, if you're feeding on twinkies and garbage, you'll be confused. You need to be under the means of grace. We don't need to be carried back and forth for every wind of doctrine by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Do you know who the cults pick off? They don't pick off well-taught people. They pick off people who go to churches that don't teach anything, or people who attend church haphazardly, and have only a smattering of the truth, and the cults come to your door and say, let us help you put it together. You don't even need to leave your house. We'll come for you. Number three, another thing that can cause you to question your salvation is failing to believe God's Word and fail to walk by faith in God and His Word. I said this morning, feelings is not faith, and neither is walking by your feelings. You know, I went through a period where, and I'm a very feelings-oriented person, and I can, I don't, every, I'd wake up every morning and feel bad, and feel guilty, and I'd have to work through, okay, why do I feel bad? Why do I feel guilty? And I'd have to work through it every day, until I realized after a couple of years of this that I was being whipsawed by the evil one. But I was just walking by my feelings. Like I said, if you have a bad cold, I come to you, hey brother, how are you doing? I don't know, I've got a bad cold, I don't know that I'm a Christian. You wouldn't say that because you just know you have a bad cold and you don't feel anything. But some Christians live the rest of their lives pretty much by their feelings. They're up and down. Or we live by our circumstances. The carburetor fell off my car. My girlfriend dropped me. The pastor called me good old what's-his-face and he forgot my name. And they list all the circumstances of things that went wrong that week. And so this is a terrible week. And circumstances shouldn't control how we're doing in our Christian life. When someone's, yes, how you doing Larry? Under the circumstances, okay. What are you doing under there? You should be looking to Christ. You shouldn't be living under the circumstances. I mean, problems come into all of our lives. Hardships, heartaches. I'm not minimizing them. I've spent my time crying under my pillow. But it doesn't mean we quit. It doesn't mean we're not Christians. It doesn't mean that God loves us. Or sometimes we walk by sight. What I can see. Well, I don't see this happening. For example, you have a relative. I can't believe that person in a million years would ever become a Christian, so I'm not going to witness to them because it wouldn't do any good. Really, you have infallible sight and you can see in the people's hearts and you just know that this isn't going to work out because you just can't see it happening. That's garbage, that's false. That has nothing to do with the ability of God to do anything or what He said in His Word. Romans 5, 1 says, Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. We have a settled attitude that God is for me. There's no odds to any sins clamoring for my arrest. Martin Luther said, you will never find peace until you find it and keep it in this, that Jesus Christ takes all your sins upon himself and bestows all his righteousness upon you. That gives you peace, regardless of what happened today. God's on his throne. And regardless of what happens in the world of men, God is on his throne and Christ is for me. Think of the line in Charles Wesley's And Can It Be. Bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown for Christ my own. Why can I be bold? Why can I do this? Because I've had a good day. No. Because I got a good night's sleep finally last night and I feel really peppy. No. Because I took my vitamins today. No. Because I'm just naturally a good person and always sweet. No. I can come boldly forth and take my crown through Christ my own because of what He's done for me. It's not about me, remember, and it's not about you. It's about Christ. Is Christ still the Savior? Does He love sinners? Does He love sinners in the midst of their troubles? Yes. Does He love sinners who are confused and hurting? He said, Lord, I don't even know how to pray. You look at the Garden of Gethsemane, you've ever seen somebody in torment? If you knew that you were going to be facing hell, what do you think your prayer life would be like? Christ knows the battlegrounds we face, and I'm still for you. I'll never let you go. I'm still for you. Am I going to forget the palms of my hands anytime soon? Am I going to forget what I've done for you? A fourth reason we can lose our grip, lose our sense of assurance, is I stubbornly want something even though God says no several times, but I want it, I want it, I want it, and He better give it to me. You want to read one of the scariest verses in the Bible, turn to Psalm 106. God help you if you find this to be true. Psalm 106. I remember coming across this verse years ago and just staring at it. When I say that Christ is my Lord, that means He's the boss. He calls the shots. He has final say. He welcomes my input, though He never needs it, but He doesn't slap me around for giving Him input. But at the end of the day, it's His will be done. That's what Christ prayed, but that's not sometimes how we pray. Psalm 106, verses 13, 14, and 15. But they soon forgot His works, and they did not wait for His counsel. But they had a wanton craving. Wanton means out of control. I must have this. I want this. But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the wilderness. He gave them what they asked for, but sent a leanness in their soul, or a wasting disease among them. What if God gave you what you wanted, and it proved to be the biggest curse of your life? He gave them what they asked for, but sent a leanness into their soul. I don't want to be so strong-willed and stubborn and foolish and pig-headed. Lord says, fine. You want it, smart guy? You can have it. You'll wish in a million years you'd never got it. And learning to be tender-hearted and submissive and saying, not my will be done, but thy will be done. I was reading one of Jan Karen's novels, and she had the main character, she said, pray the prayer that's always answered. I go, what's the prayer that's always answered? So I kept, I read about three of her novels before I forgot. not my will be done, but thy will be done." That prayer is always answered. You know, in Psalm 73, Asaph talks about, I was so out of joint, I was so miserable, I had such a bad, stinking attitude, and I didn't want to live for God anymore, and I wondered which end was up, and look at all these other people, and they're not walking with God, and their lives are fat and happy, and all these other things, and I was just miserable, and And God didn't give him what he asked for. God opened his eyes to see the real reality of the situation. A fifth reason why we can lose our assurance of salvation is wrongly interpreting fatherly discipline or training as spiritual rejection. Sometimes we have earthly parents, the Bible says, they tried the best they knew how. I don't know of any parents who go, okay, now, wife, today we're going to work on how we can really screw up our kids. What's your idea of how we can mess up our kids' lives? Okay, good, I was thinking that too. No parents sit down and say, let's mess up our kids' lives. But some parents are just naturally good at it. And, I'm kind of making light of it, but everyone here has been hurt by their parents to some degree because they were sinners and they didn't always do it right or perfect. And some parents have done a really poor job. Dads have an even greater influence because the kids think God is like their father, only bigger. And that's a wrong idea. So your dad wasn't so great. And so, maybe your mom wasn't so great, but you experienced a lot of rejection growing up. So every time something tough happens to you, you interpret it as rejection rather than, I love you and I don't want you to grow up to be a weakling and a weenie, so I'm training you to be a godly adult. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. This is a great passage to outline and to read through and look at closely. But in Hebrews chapter 12, The author of Hebrews, which is kind of a long sermon really, is talking about how we respond to discipline. Let's read verses 1 through 11. Well, let's pick it up, I'm sorry, pick it up at verse 3 for the sake of time. Consider him, consider Christ, who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the shedding of blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? Okay? So this is the exhortation that addresses you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Do not be weary when reproved by Him. Now discipline here doesn't mean bend over. It means I'm going to train you. It may involve bending over. It may mean sitting you down and instructing you. But the word here is training. For the Lord disciplines, trains the one he loves, and chastises, sometimes that's punishment then, every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is training you as sons. For what son is there who his father does not discipline? And if you're left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. I didn't go up and down the street on my block disciplining everybody else's kids. They weren't my kids. It wasn't my place to do it. But I did discipline my own kids. If you're really God's child, you'll be disciplined. A man told me one day, he called me up and he said, I've been fired. I said, what? He was high up in his company, number two salesman in his division. And so we got together and he was weeping and he said, last Friday I came home from work and I was watching my wife up by the house with my daughter and my son and thinking what a beautiful picture that is and I know that I've been disobedient and hard-headed lately and I know enough about the Bible that if I'm on God's child, He should be chastening me and I'm not experiencing any chastening. I'm not experiencing any discipline. I'm plunging ahead in my disobedience and God's not doing anything. That was on Friday. On Monday they go to work, well we need to cut the budget back and we're going to save a lot of money by letting you go. Cut does love me. He says, I talked to my boss, there is no reason other than they said they wanted to cut the budget, but God's chasing me. He's cutting my job off from underneath me. He does love me. Then he said, what am I going to do to support my family? I said, I don't know. God will find something for you. But guess what? For the first time in some time, you're heads on right. You can be praying for your kids. You can be with your family. You can have a spiritual mind. You've just told me you haven't been right with God for some time. You ought to be training you and disciplining you. Losing your job was the big hit. You know, you want to touch a man? Let me get you fired. Let me touch your body. Let me touch someone else's body. God can do heavy duty things to get your attention, and the least of that was to lose his job. So he did, but he was spiritually minded and spiritually engaged for the first time, and his kids were in a better condition than when he had a big paying job and was out to lunch spiritually. If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they, meaning our earthly fathers, disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. My dad didn't have a father. He died when my dad was six. My wife's grandfather died when her father was six. They didn't have role models. They had to make it up as they went. got a lot of things right, got some things wrong. We still love them and respect them. For they discipline us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He, God, disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Let your drooping hands, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet. Suck it up and stop blubbering so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. In other words, you don't have to mope around. The fact that you're undergoing discipline doesn't mean that you're not a child of God, it means you are a child of God. If you cruise through your whole Christian life and God never does beans when you're out of line, then you've got something to worry about. I don't discipline people on my block who aren't my kids. God doesn't discipline those who aren't His kids. Interpreting spiritual training as rejection is a wrong way of thinking. Number six, my time is flying. Looking at myself and my performance as the basis of my acceptance before God. This might be one of the biggest things. Looking at myself and my performance as the basis of my acceptance before God. How am I doing this week? How did I do last week? I'm sure God is displeased with me because last week was a good week and this week doesn't look any better. I mentioned earlier, it's ingrown eyeballs. It's just always looking at myself. Do you know what you see when you look inward all the time? Sin. Really, seriously. If you're always looking at yourself, all you will see is your failures and your sins. Turn over to Hebrews, excuse me, Philippians chapter 3. Paul talks about this very issue about your past and your present and how you should be looking at your lifestyle and your ups and downs. After talking about wanting, saying no to his past and putting on Christ by faith, Paul says in verse 12, not that I have already obtained this. Now when Paul wrote Philippians, he'd been a Christian 25 years. Now come on, Paul, are you kind of slow? Are you kind of a defective Christian? I mean, you've been at this 25 years, you're an apostle. Not that I've already obtained all this, or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider myself I do not consider that I have made it in my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Paul says, I don't look at my failures as determinative for my life. All of us have failures. Some of us may feel like we've had some blockbuster failures. And for some of us, this becomes the defining thing of our life. Oh yeah, I did this. And? The defining thing of your life is not any of your sins. The defining thing of your life is you becoming a Christian, God taking all of your sins and placing them on Christ, God giving you Christ's righteousness, God the Father and God the Son together, giving you the Holy Spirit to live inside you. That's the defining issue of your life, not any of your sins, not any of your failures. I had a guy call me up one day and I was on my walk and he said, He was an ultra-perfectionist. When I accused him one time of he and his wife who are perfectionists and they would have arguments, I said, I'll bet you take your arguments to three decimal points. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, he shut up. No, seven. Okay? Anyway. And he talked about that he'd had a really rough week and a rough month and oh, he was sure that he was a vast disappointment to God. And I was surprised what I found myself saying. I said, I didn't know God had that high of an opinion of you. He goes, I beg your pardon? I was thinking, oh boy, what did I do? What I meant to say, I said, I think you're more down on the fact that you didn't live up to your own standards than the fact that God's condemning you in Christ. I don't know that God's condemning you in Christ, that you're a sinner, but I know that you're ultra-perfectionist. And if you're a perfectionist, it's either perfection or nothing. And if you're a perfectionist, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Would you like to get a 90 in that test or walk down the street naked? Well, let me think. 98 or naked. I don't know. It's not hard. Perfectionists can't stand anything that isn't perfect. But hey, newsflash, this is a fallen planet. There's nothing perfect. Everything has been marred by the fall. Every person is marred. Every relationship is marred. You've never met a perfect person. You've never met a normal person. You've never met a situation that's going to be perfect in this life. Regeneration doesn't promise perfection, it promises substantial change. You're not going to receive the perfected outcome of your faith until the millisecond you step into glory, until you get a new resurrection body without sin. In the meantime, you're going to have to live with the rest of us on a fallen planet where everything is bent and twisted like those pictures of the rubble of World War II, buildings knocked down, people trying to build their lives back up, and to say, I'm just failing all the time." Well, don't look at yourself. Think of it this way. A woman in my church went through six months of misery. She said, I didn't want to come to church. My husband made me come to church every week. No matter what you preached on, no matter who preached, all I heard was, I'm a miserable failure as a Christian. And she said, I was just in torment. One Sunday, my kids wanted to go in the church library to get some books out. So I went and I stood there dutifully and my eyes were kind of glancing up and down the rows. Being an older church, we had an extensive library. And her eyes cast upon the spine of a book. It says, The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ. She said, I didn't read the book. Didn't read the first chapter. I just read two pages at the beginning of the book. And pow, it nailed my problem and I was fixed. Thomas Shepard, the poor, doubting Christian drawn to Christ. You have gotten into the bad habit of only looking at yourself and your performance and not looking to Christ and laying a hold of Him by faith. If you want to look at yourself all the time, you're welcome to, but you're not going to ever be any happier and you're going to be disappointed and frustrated and angry and in the dumps because you are not called. In Hebrews chapter 12 it says we are to look at Christ, looking unto Him, the author and finisher of our faith. Someone once described it as the gaze glance life. I live my Christian life gazing at Christ and once in a while glancing at myself. But if you're upside down you're always gazing at yourself and once in a while glancing at Christ and that's not healthy. I actually knew a man who to this day is in a spiritually bad condition. He prayed every day, God show me my sins to keep me humble. Well he had a lot of other things to be humble about but all he prayed every day is show me my sins. Do you know what it's like every day to look at your sins and not really look clearly at Christ? Luther said this, daily I must still work at the task of laying hold of Christ. Habit causes me to do this because for so many years I considered him a judge. His word condemned me. This view has become like an old, bad, rotten tree that sunk its roots deep into me. But in thinking this way, I lost Christ, my Savior and my Redeemer. I've got to look at Christ. I've got to look at Christ. I don't look at myself. I don't look at the law's condemnation of me. And finally, another thing, and I'm moving on for the sake of time, another big reason why we struggle with assurance is because of spiritual attacks of the devil. I do believe in the devil. I believe the Bible teaches a personal malevolent influence, a fallen angel called many names. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Do you want to be devoured this week? Do you want to be eaten up? Do you want to be chewed up? Ephesians 6 verses 10 through 20 is the longest passage in the Bible on spiritual warfare. It's written to a people who, according to Acts 19, when Paul preached in Ephesus for the first time, repentance and the mini revival that went on there, people brought forth all their junk, all their occult paraphernalia. They made a giant bonfire and they said the stuff that was burned up, there was about 50,000 days wages. That's a lot of Ouija boards and tarot cards, okay? And they were into the occult, and so the devil goes, well, I had these people, let's see if we can bring them back. So Paul writes to them extensively about spiritual warfare and spiritual armor and says, you need to stand firm. Okay, have your helmet. Do football players wear helmets? Did Brandon and I wear helmets? Yes, hard to believe we wore helmets in the day. And if you don't wear a helmet, bad things happen to your head, but why is your head important? Well, we know why our head, our brain's important. What's the next biggest thing it talks about? The breastplate of righteousness, the Kevlar vest of the Christian life, all the vital organs from here to here that you don't want to get hit. Now, if you want to run around in your birthday suit and do spiritual warfare, then you're welcome to it, We can look and see all the arrows sticking out of your backside and every other place because you're not wearing your spiritual armor. Spiritual warfare is real. And if I have Christ's righteousness when the devil says, well, fine example of a Christian you are. And what about that sin committed in 87? And what about this? And what about that? And how much have you been witnessing lately? And how much have you been praying lately? It's the litany of things that we don't do. We go, yeah, you're right. And the devil gets us on this mental track of we're terrible Christians. But wait a minute. Christian life was never about me. It was about the kind of Savior Jesus Christ is. Does He save people who don't witness all the time? Does He save people whose prayer life is not written up in books? Does He save people who are garden-variety sinners like us, garden-variety Christians? Yes. He saves them to the end, to the uttermost. I have the righteousness of Christ. There's no better standing I could ever have. God loves all of His creation, but He loves His elect like He loves the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you get your brain around that? He loves His elect people like He loves the Lord Jesus Christ. He has a general benevolent love for all of His creation, but His elect people He loves like He loves the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm bearing Christ's righteousness. There are no sins on my record, period. They're done. They're taken care of. Colossians 2, 13 and 14. God has forgiven all of your sins, having wiped out the certificate of debt that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Christ. The devil has nothing legitimately to condemn me for. He can say, well, what about this? Under the blood of Christ. What about this? Under the blood of Christ. You're not so hot. I have the righteousness of Christ. Anything he can throw at me, I must point to Christ. Christ is my entree to heaven. Christ is my warranty, my guarantee, the surety of my salvation. One time, I know I'm running over here, but I'll just finish up. In 1994 or 5, I was on the board of a small Christian organization in another state, and I was leaving to go over there on a Friday, see my kids in college, go to the board meeting on Saturday, turn around and drive home and preach on the Lord's Day. Done it before, but this was different. I got my little red Escort and take off. And I'm in the car about 12 seconds, and the devil just comes upon me with a sense of, you are a terrible Christian, you're a terrible pastor, you're a terrible excuse of X, Y, and Z, and I couldn't, you know, I just, boom, I was in it. Imagine this little red escort going down the street and this little plastic sword out the window kind of going like this, and the devil's just wailing at me. That's not true. That's not true. Just terrible. I mean, it's like I'd never fought a spiritual battle in my life, but I was getting wailed on this weekend. So all the way over to Greenville, this happened. As soon as the meeting started, it went away. As soon as the meeting was over, I get back and went, again, driving over. See my kids, it goes away. Leave my kids. Get up the next morning, same thing. Finally, I'm driving back to Atlanta, and it's still going on. Sunday morning, it's still going on. I can't get beyond this. I'm driving from my house, it was about three minutes from the church. I turned on Old Chapel Lane, was getting ready to turn on this last road, and I said to the Lord, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that my sin is not the basis of my Christianity. I'm pleading with you based on the finished work of Christ. Would you bless these people today for Christ's sake? Would you give me the Spirit for Christ's sake? He's atoned for all of my sins. and He's given me His blessed righteousness, would you bless these people for Christ's sake?" Boom! It all evaporated. And I could preach, and I could pray, and I could minister to the saints, not because I was a great guy, but because Christ is a great Savior in the midst of spiritual battle, I had to go back to the basics of who Christ is. Let me close with some reasons why a professed Christian should want assurance. The joy and peace of knowing that you're right with God and will be forever. Romans 8-1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Oh, I can remember knowing that my sins were forgiven, knowing that I was Christ, the feeling of liberation, the feeling of peace and joy. If you ever had a dirty, nasty job and were immersed in it for some time and could finally take a shower or a bath, whatever you could get cleansed and you're doing it, oh, this is the best feeling in the world. Temporally, maybe, but the best thing in the world is to have all of your sins cleansed by Christ. And know that you're right with God. The God who made all this is your Father. Second of all, the joy and peace in facing times of hardship and suffering. You know, you all know Romans 8, 28. It's one of the first verses someone gave to you when you're first converted. You go, you've got to find this verse, you've got to know this verse. It's really important, it's really helpful. And it is really important, and it is really helpful. But to read the context, going back to verse 13, 14, and 15, we're going through all kinds of suffering. We're living on a planet that's going through all kinds of suffering. The planet can't wait until the final installment of the elect is finished, and Christ returns, and then this world of sin and misery is going to be undone. And then he says, Now we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, for those who are the called according to His purpose." And then he goes on and says, no, don't stop there. He says, who is going to bring a charge against God's elect? God's the one who elected you. God's the one who sent His Son for you. Is He going to condemn you? Would He choose to save you? Would He send His Son to die for you? Would He give you the Spirit if He didn't love you, was not committed to you? And he goes on and on and on like that in chapter 8. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, or losing my job, or losing my health, or losing my whatever? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as so many sheep to be slaughtered. But no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced, Paul says, I've thought about this and I've gone through some miserable times. For I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. Just because I'm going through a hard time doesn't mean that God doesn't love me. And Romans 8.28 is given in the context of suffering so Christians would know God's not given up on you. Was Jesus' life everyday Disney World? No. Did He not like Jesus and was just kind of given in the back of His hand? No. This is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. That He learned obedience and He takes us through things that we wouldn't wish upon ourselves or anyone else. He says, I'm going to make you a better Christian. I'm going to make you more like Jesus through this. We can find joy and peace in facing hardship and suffering when we have assurance. We can find joy and peace in facing death. For while we were still helpless at just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps maybe for a good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. I'm not looking forward to wrath when I die. I'm looking forward to glorification. I'm looking forward to the end of my battle. I'm looking for the fulfillment of my aspirations and the beginning of eternity." The great Protestant champion, J. Gresham Machen, was on his deathbed in North Dakota, suffering from double pneumonia, which until penicillin was invented the next year, if you had double pneumonia, you died. In God's providence, he was to die in that North Dakota hospital. His final words to his friends back in Philadelphia were this. Thank God for the active obedience of Christ. Now, the active obedience is Christ perfectly obeyed the Father and has given to me, the believing sinner, is my righteousness. He said, I'm facing death. Am I going to look at my Princeton degrees? Am I going to look at all the books I wrote defending the faith and being the champion, the stalwart of evangelical and fundamental Christianity in America? No, I'm looking to what Christ did. Christ is my confidence. I'm on my deathbed. Thank God for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it. If I didn't have Christ's righteousness, I couldn't face eternity. I like this by Bible commentator and Puritan pastor David Dixon. He's on his deathbed and he says, I have taken all my sins and cast them into a pile. I've taken all my supposed good deeds and cast them into a pile. I have fled from both of them to Jesus Christ and I find sweet solace there. Sweet peace and joy in believing. I'm not looking at my sins, and I'm not looking at the supposed good stuff I did. I'm looking at Christ, and that's just fine with me. I feel safe there. Let me close by quoting a couple of hymns that we didn't sing today, but I'm not going to sing them to you, unless you wanted to exit more quickly. Edwin Motes, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame. but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." In the eternity, you're going to be happy. When my mother-in-law, Mrs. Cook, died a couple years ago, we said that day, she's the happiest she's ever been in her life. Her battle's through, she's in heaven. The head of the Moravian church, Count Zinzendorf, said, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness are my beauty, my glorious dress. In the midst of flaming worlds, in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. If I have your righteousness and you've atoned for all my sins, I can face the fires of judgment, knowing that I'm safe in Christ. And let me close with Horatius Bonar's great 19th century hymn. Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul. Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole. Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God. Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear the awful load. Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin. Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within. Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee, can rid me of this dark unrest and set my spirit free. Thy grace alone, O God, to me can pardon speak. Thy power alone, O Son of God, can this sore bondage break. No other work save Thy, no other blood will do. No strength save that which is Thine, is divine, can bear me safely through. I bless the Christ of God. I rest on love divine. And with unfaltering lip and heart, I call the Savior mine. His cross dispels each doubt. I bury in His tomb each thought of unbelief and fear each lingering shade of gloom. I praise the God of grace. I trust His truth and might. He calls me His. I call Him mine. My God, my joy, my light. "'Tis He who saveth me and freely pardon gives. "'I love because He loveth me. "'I live because He lives.'" And all the saints said, amen. Thank you for your patience. Our Father and our God, give the saints assurance. Give the saints a sense of their forever certainty with you because of the great person who Christ is and the great work that He has done. God became a man so that He could save us. The God-Man keeps us saved. The God-Man has given us the Holy Spirit to keep us, to keep us on track, to keep us forever. Our assurance of salvation is as sure as anything in this world. Oh Lord, if we're doing anything or have been doing anything that would make our assurance weak or give us doubts, would you help us to repent of it and turn away from it? Help us to look to Christ, not ourselves. He is the basis of our salvation. He is the basis of our keeping. He is the basis of our assurance. Would you do this for Jesus' sake? Amen.