So this is part three of a message that started out called Repentance, the Conscience, and Assurance. So it looks like it fit where the first week we did repentance, the second week we did the conscience, and today we're going to do assurance. Of course, those topics, they merit a little bit more than one message of peace. We could go forever on each one. Our text has been and will be today Second Timothy chapter two, if you want to turn there. The latter part of that chapter starting in verse 23, the last four verses. Repentance, the conscience, and assurance. 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 23. But avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they give birth to strifes. But the servant of the Lord must not strive. but be gentle to all, apt or able to teach, patient in meekness, instructing those who oppose themselves, if perhaps God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the trap of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. So again, this is part three. The first part, we looked at repentance. We looked at the fact that repentance concerns a change of mind. That's what the word means, a change of mind. And it's primarily a change of mind about what we used to produce in our own self. It's dead works, self-righteousness, and our pride in our old religion of our old idolatrous works gospel. So that's primarily what repentance was focused on there. Change of mind concerning who God is, who we are, and who Christ is. And in part two we dealt with the uncleansed or the defiled conscience of the unbeliever. We saw that the deceiving sin of self-righteousness could not be detected by the conscience. It can't be detected. It can detect everything else, any outward immorality, even inward immorality of the thoughts, but it cannot detect, the conscience cannot detect self-righteousness. So that is why it's a pretty good trap and tool of Satan that's mentioned in our text. So if we take what is written in our text and kind of go backwards, and I think Paul has done this, for example, in another place, Paul has done this in Romans where he talks, we don't have to go there in Romans, where he talks about salvation, how that, you know, the first 10 chapters talks about the foundation of the gospel. And then it talks about how that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And it talks about how that it gives a snapshot of conversion, what that looks like, how that people come to Christ in faith and confession of their sin and belief. And so Paul takes it in reverse and kind of gives a chronological idea. And that's what I'm going to do here. So unbelievers, compared to our text here, unbelievers are taken captive by the devil's will and are in his trap. In order to be recovered from that trap they need to be able to acknowledge the truth of the gospel somehow. In order for that to happen they have to be given repentance or change of mind so that they do not oppose themselves any longer and that is how that the conscience will be purged or cleansed. So I kind of just flipped that around and showed in our text what that looks like. So we should know backwards and forwards, coming and going, how this works. So just kind of in a review, last week, real quick, the defiled conscience or the uncleansed conscience, what it does is it wants to fix things, to find assurance, to ease the guilt. That's the problem. Here comes guilt. You break the law. Here comes guilt, fear, condemnation. And the conscience wants to fix things to ease that tender or flared up conscience. So the defiled conscience, it wants to find assurance in works and religious duties. We know about the fig leaf apron that Adam put on. We know about the veggie offering that Cain put together. So those are the type sacrifice testimonies that the defiled conscience will produce about what it means to really be a Christian. Right? You've got to put this fig leaf apron on and you've got to present these, the best vegetables that you have, which is not blood, by the way. But, you know, it shows my sincerity. It shows like, really, I'm getting to the nitty gritty of being a Christian. I'm living out this Christian life. Look at my fig leaf apron and my vegetable sacrifice. So that's the kind of conscience that remains defiled, that those in false religion, they never have their plea or assurance in Christ alone, his gospel or his righteousness. So it's always something else besides Christ's gospel and his righteousness. So their plea, what they do as they lay hands on The gospel, their plea is what they do with the gospel through the law. As they take the law in their Christian life, so-called, and attempts to calm down that raging conscience so that they can prove they're not guilty. As they handle the law, they show that I'm not afraid of this law, I want to do the law. So they take the law, they put their hand to the plow, and they show what they do with the gospel through the law. that they're not guilty so they can tame down their conscience. And what they want to present to the world and to God is, look, here's the condition I'm fulfilling. I'm sinning less. So I feel assured because I'm sinning less. Now, we know that that is just merely the evidence of an uncleansed conscience. And really, that's unbelief is what it is. Belief would lean on and count on and trust in the completely finished work of Christ as the only ground for our salvation. So that's what we want to look at today, this vital issue of assurance. Every week, I think, that I live and study and learn more, I see more and more and more the importance of assurance, how it affects our thoughts. So there's two things I want us to see that we don't want to do. I want us to see that we make sure that we don't do this when we talk about assurance. Number one, we don't want to assure someone's faith in a false gospel. So we're talking about assurance. We say, you know, the point obviously is assurance is good. But what we're saying here, assurance in a false gospel is not good, right? I think in times past, we had assurance in a false gospel. Some of us did, I did. So if we who know the gospel and know about this issue of assurance would give somebody assurance in a false gospel? I mean, first of all, that's not love and that's not honesty, right? Some people loved me and were honest enough to interrupt my ideas and the stuff that was coming out of my mouth and say, you know what? I think I don't know that you know the gospel or know Christ. They got my attention, they showed me some things in the scripture that I've never seen before that had to do with the center of the gospel about the righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel. And what do you know? I know I don't know that, you know? So I'm grateful, eternally grateful for that taking place. I know it was God working in them to show me that. So if we were to pat someone on their back in their false religion just to kind of like tame down the atmosphere, we don't want that tension between us and them. We just say, it'll be all right. That's evil. That is not good. So the idea is we actually hope that they doubt their salvation that they think they have if they're under a false gospel. We hope they doubt their salvation because they don't have salvation. Secondly, We do not want to cause a true believer to lack assurance based on the wrong criteria. And that wrong criteria obviously would be the law or any form of it. Any form of conditionalism, works, or obedience. would be one or a number of reasons to cause someone to lack assurance by using that criteria. And we do not want to cause a true believer to lack assurance based on that wrong criteria. So we don't want to give true assurance to those in a false gospel. And we don't want to cause true believers to lack assurance based on the wrong criteria, which would be some form of obedience. So doubt, for example, to lack assurance is doubt. Let's just cut to the chase and say it's doubt. And let's equate doubt with what it really is. It's unbelief to whatever level. And unbelief is nothing short of sin. OK. Lack of assurance is doubt. Doubt is unbelief. Unbelief is sin. So causing doubt through basing assurance on wrong criteria is sin itself. If I'm a teacher, which I claim to be, and you all say that I am, I'm a preacher and a pastor of this church. If I cause doubt by basing assurance on the wrong criteria, everything I say is sin. It's going to be preaching a false gospel too, by the way, which disqualifies me from being up here. So these are the things that I've taught you to be sensitive toward and to watch me for and to watch other people that stand in other places and supposedly proclaim the gospel. So doubt causes the conscience to feel that guilt. We're kind of going back to last week. It feels condemnation, then it feels fear. We know that causing fear in the believer by law also is a lie, and it is sin on whoever's teaching their part. So on my part, if I was doing that, it would be sinning. It would be lying. We know Andy quoted this at the end of last week's message in the question and comment section. He talked about there's no fear in love. Love casts out fear. So we'll get to some more of that in a minute. So false teachers who cause doubts in the mind of God's children, they have a special place in hell. I'm just going to say it and say it clearly. It's evil to do, and they have a special place in hell. False teachers that cause doubt based on the wrong criteria. So our text, 2 Timothy 2.24, We're kind of going to go back over it. We're going to talk about assurance. We talked about repentance and the conscience. Now we're going to look at our text focusing on assurance. But the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient. So as the Gospels preach, we need to realize a few things. that we know that the gospel, and we've gone over this in our Chosen in Christ series, we're in the evangelistic section of it, that the gospel is God's divinely appointed means to use to save his people. We know that. We know that also nothing is added or taken away from the gospel to make it more effective. We know that too. We cannot violate that. And we must remember that unbelievers, they're totally depraved. They're ignorant. They're spiritually dead, deaf, dumb, and blind. They lack an understanding of spiritual things. We need to know that going in. So that's why the warning is there. Be easy on people. People need to be given the means. And you need to do it in patience. You need to be able to teach. Because it's confusing already. And if you're to teach, You have to communicate things in a clear way and things have to be consistently put together in order for them to take it in. Now we know they're dead and God will not allow them to take it in until they get life, but I'm talking about let's not us make the waters muddy by confusing things. We have to clearly communicate the gospel and not add our own stuff in there and muddy the waters. In meekness. not in pride, not preaching down to people, making fun of them, meekness, low-key, laid-back, where we have compassion, we care. We want them to know what we know. This is doing this in love, instructing those who, and we must know this, that they oppose themselves. If we do this, just maybe, Maybe, perhaps, God will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of this truth that we're giving them. So they are either deceived into a false assurance, perhaps they're in false religion and they believe a false gospel and they are like, they think, well, I got 100% assurance. What are you even preaching to me for? They're either deceived in that or they're chasing assurance to attain assurance that they don't have because their conscience constantly feels guilt because of the law and they're seeking assurance and they're always grabbing for it. It's just out of their reach all the time because they see they can't do well enough to have their conscience at ease. So this verse here says at the end of concerning maybe God will give them repentance to acknowledge them the truth. This verse here says that the truth will set them free. If they believe that truth, it will set them free. And there'll be an assurance that's outside of themselves, an unchangeable, sure and certain assurance that does not change. It has nothing to do with them. That's unbelievable in and of itself to say, you know, where's your assurance? And you say, it has nothing to do with me. People's just like, what? How can that be? That's the truth. If you have assurance, that's the truth. That's, that's a very hated doctrine. And sometimes it takes us to get used to that because, and the reason I say that is because the residue, the residue of the crap that is still in our minds, the garbage that is trying to come our way from the outside, from the enemies of the cross, because that's all we hear. So it's a constant battle against the enemies of the cross, the world that we're crucified to and they're crucified to us, concerning that idea. Verse 26, that they may recover themselves out of the snare or the trap of, notice this character, the devil. who are taken captive by him at his will. Devil is the word diabolos. You've heard diabolical, right? It means false accuser, slanderer, and a traducer. I never heard that word traducer, so I had to look that up. Traducer means to speak maliciously and falsely of. That's what the devil does. That's what his name means, therefore that's what he does. Well, as you can imagine, this devil would oppose assurance based on Christ. His goal would be to block that idea. I don't want you to have assurance based on Christ. Therefore, what can I do to get you in my trap to upset your assurance or to make you have assurance in something else besides Christ alone? That's the devil's chief goal of this ancient diabolical beast that crawls on his belly. That's his goal. So his greatest tool is religion. No doubt about it. His most subtle, greatest tool is religion. And him making you be good, in your mind, what he says is good, he wants you to think is good. He wants you to, like he told Eve, you can be like God, right? We have that humanistic idea that we can be good to be accepted to God. If we can do that, we'd be like God anyway. That's the lie. So compare that idea, the satanic devilish idea of this snare and trap that he has people captive in, that he accuses us of as just anything. He'll accuse us of anything to cause our conscience to flare up so that we'll get on that treadmill again of doing good to be accepted. Compare that idea to the word that we look at a lot is the word hope. And the word, as we look at it, I always check the original and make sure it's the one that, hope's used a couple different ways, but the one that I always emphasize is when it is used in a way that is defined as a confident expectation. Confident expectation. So compare the idea of the devil, who's the accuser, to the hope that we have, that's nothing in what he talks about, but it's the hope in Christ alone, and it's our confident expectation of that truth. And he wants to block that idea. That's his goal, is to block that idea. So, confident expectation. Now, okay, in and of itself, is that good? A confident expectation? Well, you could be deceived and have a confident expectation and be deceived. I had some form of a confident expectation when I was deceived. I believed a lie. My confidence was what was inside. I was told to, if I would come down the aisle and do a certain thing, You know, I did that for a while. And then it was if I repented in some way to where I could quit sinning, that lasted about a day and a half. You know, I was 15. So after a while, I just didn't have any confidence. I was just kind of stumbling around until I was like 22. I was caused to believe the gospel. Then I had a real confident expectation. And then I had real assurance of salvation that was outside of myself. For the first time, for the first time. Any expectation of confidence that's in oneself is deception, automatically. So a confident expectation or hope, it better be outside yourself. Because there is no hope. Paul said, in my flesh dwells no good thing. You don't want to put your hope there. You don't want to mix your hope either. Well, there's Christ. And look inside. That's double-mindedness. That's mixing grace plus works. We can't do it. So there is something we can base our hope on, and that is the point of our conscience. We'll not be able to accuse us. So if it's Christ alone, that's outside of us. That's where we have our confident expectation. If that's the case, our conscience cannot accuse us. No more. That's over with. Wouldn't that be the remedy? I mean, is it that easy? Here's a question. Is that even right? Is that even allowed to happen? Right? I mean, it's not like I've discovered something here and I'm announcing it to you for the first time. That this is the remedy. This is how you fix this. And everybody says, I'm kind of on board. That seems to be pretty good. And then we say, that's pretty easy. And then we say, are we allowed? Is that even right? We have to answer these questions. How many people are preaching about this stuff and just they don't think about any of these questions? Is that right? Is it right to have a confidence which is totally, completely, 100% outside of yourself and not any of it inside yourself? Is it right? I'm telling you, it better be that way. That's the only way that it can be and should be. If it's anything else, you're in trouble. You're going to have a miserable life. you're going to have a miserable life. And not only that, it reflects upon what gospel you believe, depending on how you think about this assurance thing. So a popular response that people use in their excuse to doubt their salvation is that, well, you know, I don't doubt Christ. I doubt myself. How long did it take to think that one up? And you're a genius, right? What does that give away? Gives away where they're looking. They're looking inside themselves. They're looking to themselves. And they see that their obedience is weak. Duh. They see that their love is cold. Yeah. They see that their fruit is not really flourishing. So then they feel unsaved. Because of guilt, here we go again, the conscious is accusing them because of the law. You see what I'm saying? You're back on the treadmill. So what makes, here's what makes things even more confusing, where other people, and some of them even have a PhD behind their names, they'll go further to try to comfort these people and they'll say, you know what? I think that because you're having these doubts, Those doubts are probably the best evidence that you are saved. John MacArthur says that. He spent seven minutes saying that one time in a question and answer thing in a conference. That's ridiculous. That's the most ridiculous thing that you can think of in the topic of assurance. It's like the opposite of what you should think and say, what he said. It is confusing. It's double-minded. It is. It should be obvious to us. So let's look at a few issues that might help us unravel this mess and direct our focus to the right area. Number one, we are never directed anywhere in God's Word to look within ourselves, to have confidence for a complete acceptance before a holy God. We do not look in ourselves. We're not directed to. Satan will always try to get us to look in ourselves instead of looking to Christ alone. And therefore, always, doubt will result. And we just, again, need to come clean and say, look, doubt is unbelief and unbelief is sin. Just facts. Secondly, we must always doubt ourselves. That's the point. That is healthy to doubt yourself, knowing that you should doubt yourself. That way you know about yourself, what God says about yourself. That shows God has given you a change of mind about who you are, because before you might not have doubted yourself. Now you know, and you should doubt yourself. So if we get to the point where we have confidence in ourselves, then we're in big trouble and we're headed for no small fall. Reminds me of that text, and great was the fall thereof. So there would be some, in other words, be some hard lessons that would follow if we're to venture off track, start looking at ourselves and, yeah, I'm not doing, you know, I'm doing good, doing good. Well, if you're one of God's, that's when he's going to chastise you and he's going to cause you to know that you're not doing very well. And the Lord has a way through his providence through a sovereignty of squeezing maybe the residue or the remnants of the remaining self-righteousness out of you and bringing it to the surface so you can repent of that. Thirdly, faith is sometimes weak, very weak. It may be there, but it may be weak. So we know that God guides and directs our lives and His providence in such a way that he teaches us, he molds us, he grows us, he causes us to grow in the grace and knowledge of himself. He can do that. He's sovereign. He knows what he's doing. He's wise in his ways to teach us. The word of God is used. The gospel is the means whereby God causes faith to be strengthened in us. And we are built up in the faith as we look to Christ. So God knows what he's doing there. Fourthly, as human beings, frail, sinful human beings, we cannot, we cannot trust our feelings, our emotions. We can't do it. That is not solid ground. That is something that changes all the time. When it comes to our feelings and even our circumstances, we're like a leaf in the wind. You know, people have good days and bad days and, you know, what they would title a good day and bad day, I have no idea from person to person. But as God's people, we should say we're having a good day because we're in Christ. And we're bulletproof and there is nothing that can affect our assurance because we trust in Christ alone. Can't we just do that? And it's easy to say, right? Let's do that. Don't forget to do that. Now, I mean, that's what we should do. That's the easy answer. So whether we admit it or not, we're changeable. Isn't that part of why we gather together and we hear God's Word preached, or we study the Word on our own, or we read theological books about the gospel, or we listen to sermon audio of people that we enjoy listening to, so that we don't forget, and so that our faith will build up, and so that our faith will be stronger, and so that our assurance will be stronger. Because we know that we're weak, and that we're changeable, and that circumstances come, and Satan is trying to get us in that trap all the time. But Christ, He is the same yesterday and today and forever, and that's who we are to be looking for. So that we can... Wouldn't you want to have an assurance that it's the same yesterday, today and forever? Well, our object of faith is, why isn't there assurance? Because we don't always look to Him. Somebody is trying to get us to look inside. That's the only reason. Simple as that. So assurance based on what? What is the foundation? The gospel is the promise of absolute certainty that salvation is conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ without any contribution of our works or merits that we could ever think of doing. The promise of the gospel is based on Christ. That's outside of us. That work actually is finished, right? That work is finished and The Father awarded, rewarded Christ the throne, the highest spot he could be. He's exalted there. And even now is being worshiped by angels. And he is in the highest place that he can be or ever will be in this world or any world to come because of his accomplished redemption. He is not changing his authoritative position from there. So in other words, he is the Lord, our righteous Christ, Jesus, the righteous, and he is advocating, praying for us on that throne. In other words, our righteousness is seated at the right hand of the father. And since we are in Christ, we are in union with him. He represents us. That's where we are, in God's mind, in union with Him. I mean, do we believe that or not? If we do, how come we don't have assurance all the time? It's because we forget that and we start looking inward. Are we trying to get up there and say, move over, let me be a part of that throne. Watch me do this with the law, therefore I can scoot you up. There's a spot for me, there's a space for me, right? Let me fiddle with this law so I can get up there and scoot you over some. That's what's going on. That's what's going on with the conscience. Satan is attempting to re-defile it. To get it dirty. So the promise that all salvation is conditioned on Christ. He's the representative of God's people. That promise was established in the Eternal Covenant of Grace. We talked about this in our Chosen in Christ series. This happened before anything was even created. This is in the purpose and mind of God, in God declaring the end from the beginning. He says, this is going to be the end result. This is where I'm starting. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is the starting point. As a result of that, I think I'm going to create the world. That's the way that works. Christ must die, therefore Adam must fall. That's how important this thing is to him. So Christ was declared at that time to be the High Priest, the Son of God, the High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek that was promised in the covenant. And all salvation, the government of salvation was going to be on his shoulders. And because God could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. that Christ was to be such a high priest to fulfill all those terms of that covenant. There's terms and conditions. We're not involved in that. Christ is the fulfiller of the terms and conditions of that covenant. So there's this rich source of assurance that should be able to be drawn from that eternal purpose of God and God promising that salvation is only based on the personal work of Christ. It's just like this giant treasure chest of that, and you open it up and what's it show? Salvation conditioned on Christ. But we want to create our own little, Satan wants to bring this imaginary treasure chest of salvation conditioned on us. We open it up. And whatever we can imagine that's in there, it's ridiculous. We know it's just a bunch of doodoo that we're supposed to be flushing, but we're looking at it and it's supposed to be shimmering. We try to polish that stuff, right? We know we can't polish that stuff. We got to flush it. That's what false religion's all about, is polishing that stuff. And Satan's laughing about it. He fell for that? We should know it stinks to God, it should stink to us. So the covenant of grace is really only the beginning. It was eternal. It's only really the beginning of this outflowing spring of assurance that we can tap into. The covenant of grace, election, God's love, the death of Christ, the work of the Spirit, all these things. Look at 2 Timothy 1. And look at some of this promise here. We looked at this months ago in our series, but we need to be reminded of the eternality of salvation and the promises connected to it. Second Timothy chapter one and verse nine, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace. which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So I just wanna say something right here about this. Who saved us and called us not according to our works. He's talking about in time, this happened in time. But it was according to the purpose of grace and that purpose was given us in Christ before the foundation of the world. But we were saved and called with a holy calling in time, not according to our works. Let's just not get that blown out of proportion there. But verse 10 is now, it's made known, made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. What did he do? What's the big deal about him? I'll tell you what the big deal is. This is where our assurance is. This one abolished death. It's not just talking about physical death. The day God told Adam, the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Primarily, we know that God was telling Adam, you will be declared legally condemned. And we know that the whole world was condemned in him. And then spiritual death flows from that, then physical death, and then eternal death in hell. Christ abolished death. He abolished condemnation by righteousness established and imputed that results in justification. He abolished death by his death. And he has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. So we need to think about that stuff a little bit more. And that kind of brings time and eternity together and kind of puts it in a nutshell, declares the end from the beginning. This is what we have right here. This is what we have. That promise was actually fulfilled as Christ finished the work. So there, right there, we see that that little statement who has abolished death in that statement. We see the value and the merit and the ground of assurance. So when our conscience is defiled, can we remember those words? He has abolished death. What are we going to do? Are we going to argue with that? Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. I want to be a part in abolishing death. That is death when you think that way. You are acting like one who is dead when you think that way. That is the old man that you need to say, no, get back in the grave. You are dead. I don't identify with you anymore, I identify with Christ. So this idea, this promise of assurance based on Christ's finished work, Him abolishing death, it has a solid backing for confident expectation. I said earlier, we can have a confident expectation and be deceived. Well, here's our solid backing for a true confident expectation that God will accept. Remember I asked the question, is this even right? Here's what I'm talking about right here, right here. This is the backing. I could give examples of, and I have before, of money. If any of you know, and I think a lot of us do, about the value, the true value of money, what it's worth. We can see through that facade, right? Money has no backing. It's worth the paper that it's written on. It's a piece of paper. The $100,000 bill and the $1 bill are written on the same paper. They're worth the same amount. They're not backed by anything. Money used to be backed by gold. So here's our comparison. You could get that money and say, you can take this to wherever the US Treasury and hand that in and you can get that amount of gold that's written on that dollar bill. $10,000 worth of gold. You take that paper, you can go collect gold. Well, you can't do that anymore. It's not backed by gold anymore, right? There's no standard, a gold standard. It's not there. Same with salvation. What is the confident expectation, your assurance backed by? Is there something that it's backed by that has real value, merit and grounds of acceptance? And if it's Christ's merit of his, him abolishing death, the value of that, that establishing righteousness transferred and charged and imputed to your account. And if that is there, then it is not only right to have assurance in that. It's our only hope of assurance. So we asked that question like 10 minutes ago. We said, is it that easy? And then we said, is it even right? The law demands it. It's the only thing that's right. It's the only solid way, the only clear way of looking at God's law and justice as perfectly satisfied because it's backed by him abolishing death in the place of his people. So that work that Christ accomplished That work actually demands the justification for all of his sheep. It demands it. And the father is not going to say, well, hold on a minute. No, it gladly demands it. The father says, yes, that's what I was looking for. That was my purpose. The father got ahead of it. That was his purpose. Christ worked it out as it's imputed and as we're judged. Yep, that's what I've been waiting for. That's what I've been looking for. You're accepted in the beloved. Justification is demanded by the accomplished work of Christ for the person. So there's a sense in which we can actually use this idea or word entitlement. The finished work of Christ for his sheep actually entitles them to all spiritual blessings in Christ, and that includes assurance of salvation. It's because that entitlement is backed by something. It's not just like, I'm spoiled, I get entitlements. It's backed by something. I can go back and say, they can pull the paperwork out. You're chosen. Christ did this for you. It was established. It's imputed. Yes, this is what you get. So there is a confident expectation on something that has solid ground. It's not sinking sand like the song we sang a while ago. So the gospel ministry is to make use of what Christ paid for concerning all these spiritual blessings. That's what the gospel ministry is all about. It's what this church is all about. And that's what you as individual members, as you go out into the world and you exercise all these spiritual blessings in Christ, you're entitled to them. You're given them. Use them. That's what I'm saying today. I'm saying, use these things. Don't cast them away. Don't waste them. Don't take them for granted, I should say. So Christ operates in the capacity of a prophet, priest, and king. So God's people are to be fully engaged in him in those capacities. His offices are there for you to use, right? Do you think that would lend to our assurance if we were engaged in that way? Think of it in an earthly way. And for whatever stupid reason, we can almost always get on board with earthly examples. I don't understand it. It's because we're humans, I guess. So think about the Bible that we have. We got them all over the place. We're tripping over them, right? What went into that? Well, some people gave their lives. Some people were killed over the translations of the Bible that we can have in our own language, right? We know some of the stories. We know about Tyndale, Wycliffe, and some of these ones. We know about the apostles who were killed that the translators and the transcribers wrote about in these Bibles that we can now hold and even have electronically. All these things were laid out. Christ died, right? Yea, rather, is risen and makes intercession for us. All these things are laid out. We should not take one of them for granted. Use them. Use that Bible that was given. The apostles died. Are we into the apostles doctrine? This Christ that died, he's the chief cornerstone. Are we into what he says? Are we assured by him? Do you see how much we lack in being engaged and participating in what we, we could have a fuller, a more solid assurance. But a lot of times we, for whatever reason, our frailness, listening to other people, we walk around with our spiritual tail between our legs lacking when we don't have to. Make use of the means. So how does this assurance fit in? So during our initial believing that the promise, and even also after in our daily believing of that promise by faith, we should have assurance based on something other than what Christ has given us faith in. That's what happens. It gets diverted and we, instead of looking at Christ alone, we get diverted. So since Christ is the object of our faith, which is all God given faith is, is looking to Christ. Do we look to something outside ourselves for assurance? And if so, is it safe looking there? So does God given faith cause us to look inward introspectively to bolster our assurance? Is it Christ? That's good. Plus what we do. So if we're looking to Christ alone and his accomplished work, what assurance would we be lacking? That's the question, I guess. If we look to his finished work of his abolishing death by his death, what would be lacking other than that? What do we need besides that? Really nothing, right? Do we not believe the promise of the gospel? In assurance, do we not trust that his work is good enough, sufficient to have security? Or do we need something else to motivate us? That's kind of like going in the direction of spiritual adultery or fornication. We're supposed to be married to Christ. Are we going to look and dabble some other way? He has Christ as the way, the truth, and life. Do we dabble in other ways? Do we have our mind drifting to other sources of assurance? So what is the standard? I think this is another simple way of solving some of this problem. People are not real honest about the standard. They don't have an all the way gospel, right? They have a flexible idea. So here's a question. What is it that takes away the wrath of God and gains God's favor? What takes away the wrath of God and gains God's favor? Is it anything you do? We need to face up to that. I mean, just like right now, we need to face up and answer that question. Can we answer that question 100% with 100% assurity? What takes away God's wrath gains God's favor. Can we conclude? Do you really believe that there is nothing in you of who you are, what you can do, even if it's the work of the spirit in you that can take away God's wrath and gain God's favor? There is nothing. You can think about imparted or infused righteousness all day long, and on your best day, it's not going to work. It can't take away God's wrath and gain God's favor. Something that Christ did a couple thousand years ago is what it is, and we weren't there to affect it either way. That is what gained God's favor and took away His wrath is The establishment of that perfect righteousness, that propitiation, that work, that sacrifice that satisfied His demands, that met those holy standards of what He required. That's the only one and final thing that can do that. Gain God's favor and take away His wrath is the death, the satisfactory death of Christ. So, I don't know if you guys believe that. I think you do. If so, shouldn't that be the answer to the very same basis of our search of salvation? It's that simple. I keep going back to that question, and I think I might have stated it in a certain way that got you guys to think, because I saw you guys smiling real big. Is it that simple? Is it even right? Here it is again. We keep touching on that issue. If we answer that question of what God's standard is, of asking the question of what can take away His wrath and gain His favor, and we conclude It can only be that propitiation. Lord Jesus Christ, as he established righteousness by satisfying God's law and justice to meet his perfect standards of what he requires, all those conditions were fulfilled right there. Then we must conclude that that is the same spot we must have our assurance. That's unchangeable. That won't change. So what motivates us? I mean, obviously, we just came off of the topic that should motivate us. Some talk about this term tension. Should we put what some have termed tension between salvation by grace alone and the biblical teaching that says faith without works is dead? Do we get tension and put it in there? And so that, you know, half of our Christian life and Christian walk is always talking, oh, Shrevevelt works are dead. I don't have any insurance. Are you serious? Do you see the trap again that Satan is luring you in? Does this tension promote fear of punishment to motivate us? Or is God's grace enough to motivate us? We saw that he abolished death by his death. You need more motivation than that to do anything. Do you see the expression of love in that? If he abolished death by his death, do you see that that itself is an expression of love for God to love the world that he gave Christ to do that? Is this the love that the scripture talks about that constrains us, that we serve by? It is. Or do we persevere based on some form of terror that we might not be preserved? So do we persevere in that idea of fear and scariness that I just got to keep going because if I don't, I might not be preserved. That's fear. That's not looking to death of Christ. That's looking to what we're doing under the law. That's that tension. Are these so-called tensions, are they threats that move us along in hopes of finally making it in the end? So then we come back to the question, can we really be assured on the certainty of our salvation before we die based on Christ alone? Or are we letting these legalistic theologians and preachers set up new standards that are not in the scripture so that we can be assured by those Do the scriptures teach us to look to Christ in faith for assurance, or does it teach us to look to ourselves in faith of our own obedience? These are basic questions. I'm asking a bunch of different things from different angles. Go to Colossians chapter 1. We've gone here several times. I want us to come here with kind of a different angle in mind. We want to look at something really negative that's not in the text. I want to put it there and pose a question negatively. that will show that if we look at this negatively, we're going to be in trouble. I want us to see that trouble on purpose because it's really the way that the religious world is. Colossians 121, that's one of my favorite texts. To me, this is a good assurance text. And you, talking to the saints or the believers at the Church of Colossae, and you who were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. And we know these wicked works could either be immorality or they could be sins of self-righteousness, either one or both. Notice this. Yet he has reconciled. Verse 22 shows how that was done. The ground of reconciliation. in the body of his flesh through death. Here it is talking about his death again. We saw earlier that he abolished death. This is how he did it. In the body of his flesh through death to do what? Here's the effect. To present you three things. Holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight. This means judgment at any given point in time that God discerningly looks at the believer. Those three things, check them out. Holy, that means separated or set apart. Unblameable, can't be charged. People can lay anything to the charge of God's elect, right? Unreprovable, it can't be, cannot be reproved in any jot and tittle in any way in God's sight. And then here's what people make a fuss about is the word if, as if this is bad. Verse 23, what they're saying, this is the case if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. So there's our assurance. But let's talk about this if thing for a second. Now, let's say that we don't continue in the faith grounded and settled and that we are moved away from the confident expectation, the hope of the gospel. Let's say that we don't continue and that we are moved away. What does that mean? That means that we don't believe the gospel. That means that we are into the satanic trap that opposes ourselves that operates on the platform of the conscience that produces self-righteousness, of establishing righteousness of our own, and that we are not submitting to the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, and that we really don't believe that his body of his flesh through death can present us wholly unblameable and irreprovable because of our mix and our being involved in trying to establish righteousness of our own so that we ourselves can establish our holiness progressively so without which no man shall see the Lord. You see the folly and foolishness That is, this, I'm telling you, this is the most subtle false gospel that there is. Sliding in stealthy conditions. The smaller, the better. Well, I put something up on social media yesterday. What I said was some say election is unconditional, but salvation is conditional. And I explained why and then explain why it wasn't. I explained why some say it is. And then sure enough, here comes people saying that it is. And they say that repentance is conditional. Well, you know, we just did two messages on repentance, two right in a row. I would ask anybody, I would say, are you willing to bet your eternal salvation on whether or not you have repented of every known sin? Are you willing to do that? Your eternal salvation. Are you willing to bet? on whether or not you repented of every known sin. You know what, there's a second point behind that. Is that what saves you in the first place? I mean, that's the easy question to answer first, no. Okay, then so you're gonna be stupid enough to bet your eternal salvation that you think you've covered everything perfectly? You can't remember all your sins, especially unbelievers. And I would ask those kind of people, are you willing to make your repentance the replacement for Christ's blood as propitiation. And that's what's being done. Taking Christ's blood and saying, no, this is not sufficient. Let me move that over. Just like moving him over off of his throne. I'm going to put my repentance, the quality of it and the quantity of it. And by the way, I'm having to do this less as I live because I'm sinning less, right? So I'm willing to put that on the line and go to judgment and this be part of my plea. Do you see this? That's insanity. Repentance is not the perpetuation. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. The gospel is not your repentance. The gospel is a finished work done outside yourself. Do we maintain salvation in any way, shape, or form conditioned on our obedience or even our repentance? No, we don't. And if we do, if we were to say yes, I would say to whoever says yes, that's a repentance that needs repented of. That's what the scripture will tell you. So salvation is holy in every part by grace alone, apart from our works of obedience by faith. Is that the kind of grace that is enough for full assurance? Let me quote this text that we looked at. I think it was last week. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. So are believers commanded to do anything? Yeah, it's all over the scripture. We're commanded to do all kinds of stuff. Scripture says in Titus that God's people are a people that are zealous of good works, and we're to be careful to maintain good works after we believe the gospel. Are we to be concerned on how we do that? We better be, because we can step back into the same pile that we just repented of. Most definitely, we need to be concerned about the motive. Are we to do all this service to God by faith? Of course. Otherwise, it's of the flesh. Faith in what? The service itself that we're doing? No. Faith in the fact that we're doing it the right way? No. No. Strike two. Faith in Christ that we're already accepted fully in Him before we do anything. Right? Whatever we do or what we don't do, we're not to do it to be accepted or we don't do it so that we're going to be afraid that if we don't do it, will be rejected may be afraid we're going to go to hell. Those are false motives. Fear, punishment, promise of reward, those are false motives. Now, I've talked to enough sovereign grace Calvinistic reform people that will argue with me on that point. They say, no, those are good motives. But I've argued with people where they say both are good motives. That's a lie. Have fun with that. You're going to not have assurance. Love constrains us. We already talked about that. We serve because we're thankful. We serve cheerfully. If you can't serve cheerfully, don't serve because you're going to step into wrong. You're going to step in the landmine of some things that are going to mess up your conscience. So believers catch this. They serve God by faith, knowing that our obedience does not contribute to our acceptance, but our acceptance has already been previously taken care of. and always will be by Christ alone. That's already established. So that's how we serve him with that in mind. So we start the walk of faith as a full saint. We don't start the walk of faith becoming saints. It's never conditional. That's a Catholic idea. So in justification and sanctification in that state, our acceptance with God is never conditioned on our character and conduct at any time. Some people might say, man, that's dangerous to even talk about that. It's grace. You're afraid of grace? That's sovereign grace. We shouldn't be afraid to have that tattooed on our skin. So that truth not only establishes the parameters for our service by faith, but it shows the effects and the results of the gospel itself. So this should be the clear tone of what we teach. The most concise, I guess, biblical phrase that's in the scripture is Ephesians 1.6 that says, we are accepted in the beloved. That's not dangerous to God's people. That is the very motivation for their service. And if somebody says that's dangerous, you can bet they're a legalist, which means they're an antinomian. So that means that the father wisely designed salvation in such a way that he only accepts his people in Christ on Christ's behalf for his sake because of him conditioned on him. That doesn't leave any space for us. Any questions or comments? that you do, the gospel is the means. Yeah, read it. It says, but now is made manifest by appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life in, immorality to light. How? Through the gospel. Right there. I mean, it's telling you that is the means. Yeah. So what God had purposed eventually made manifest and rolled out in time by that message that matches what his purpose was in eternity. He's often said this, and I think I wrote an article about it, but you can take your time and explain this out about how that all these things harmoniously match and flow. The eternal purpose of God and the plan, Christ comes and he works it out, it matches. This message that's recorded concerning what Christ did that matches what the father plan is preached out, it's the same. That same message is believed the same way that it's preached. And then the Spirit, of course, is involved there, and the Spirit reveals and shows and teaches, then reveals something different. Like the Gospels preached, this is what I'm getting at in reference to saying who's saved and lost. It's not a new message and a different message that doesn't match that says that Christ died for all, and then you do something to make up the difference. the things match all the way through. So the Spirit causes us to believe that. And when we believe that, we turn around and we preach that and propagate that and it is reproductive in a sense. In the means, that's what you're talking about. So they match and they flow. Eternal plan eventually comes and makes itself manifest in time in every generation. That's how that thing keeps going. And it all matches. There's no deviations. kind of makes me think too, like, the gospel being the means for the sheep to, you know, they believe the gospel, and that also, like, his word doesn't return to him void, right? It's accomplishing its task, which is the declaration of the gospel, the means to save the sheep. Not just the finished work of Christ, but it's so powerful, the finished work of Christ is so powerful that The true gospel, speaking of it, is not enough for the conversion. Right, right, right. So over the years, I've talked with many different believers since 1987 that are at a bunch of different levels. And it's interesting. The same thoughts that come from them match my thoughts, whether that's the first week they're converted or they've been converted for years, whether they are in this area, they're on the other side of the world. That truth, God keeps it consistent with God's people. The truth that sets us free, you know. We fellowship in that truth. And when we don't see that truth, that truth is not manifest, it doesn't come from their lips and doesn't match our ears. I don't know, I'm not fellowshiping with you, I don't believe that, I came out of that, I don't want to be a part of that. That's that satanic trap that just brings those bad memories of me posing myself and being on that treadmill of self-righteous religious works. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Those aren't fond memories for me. It's a nightmare. I don't want any part of it again. It's my goal to deliver the means to be a part of the rescue of pulling them out of the fire, as it says, I think in Jude or something. We know God does it all. But it should be an urgent call for us to be involved in telling them, look, your house is on fire. You know what I'm talking about. All right.