Posts
Thru the Bible Radio Network
P. O. Box 7100
Pasadena, California 91109
http://www.thruthebible.org/
from the New Scofield Reference Bible.
Printed in the United States of America
1963, Revised 2005
How You Can Have the
Assurance of Salvation
While I was a pastor in Pasadena, California, an attractive young couple who had come to us out of a liberal church spoke to me one Wednesday evening after the service and exclaimed with great joy, “We have received the assurance of our salvation tonight!” The next Wednesday evening they came down smiling after the service and said, “Correction, please. We did not get the assurance of our salvation last week; we got saved.”
They were thrilled as they related their experience in going home the week before and getting down on their knees and actually receiving Christ as Savior; this experience gave them assurance. This is the manner in which God intends the gospel to come to men and women – “in much assurance.”
Emotionalism
Some depend upon an emotional experience, and they do not have the knowledge of their salvation. The gospel has not been given to them accurately, and they merely rest upon an emotional upheaval. If the experience was significant, then they fall back upon it to fortify their faith. When the emotional experience wears thin and there is not much to rest upon, then doubts and uncertainty creep in to make the heart disturbed. Many of these people do not know the assurance that there is in the gospel:
That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance
of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ. (Colossians 2:2)
Again, permit me to resort to a personal experience to clarify this point. One Easter Sunday, two couples came forward at the invitation. One couple was overcome with emotion; the other couple was stoical. The elders who dealt with them could not get a clear statement from the emotional couple because they were weeping so. The contrast was so great that some even doubted the genuineness of the couple who shed no tears. However, time proved that emotion was no indication of a real experience of conversion, for the emotional couple were pulled out of one ism shortly after that incident and then became involved in a second ism.
The couple who seemed to have no emotional experience at all grew in grace and the knowledge of Christ. It became a joy to see them take their regular places in the services of the church. This couple had the “full assurance of understanding” from the very beginning.
Sin
Unconfessed sin in the life of a believer is the greatest single factor in robbing one of the assurance of salvation. God wants us to have the full assurance of faith; this comes experientially through fellowship with God. Sin breaks our fellowship, and this, in time, sets up a chain reaction that breaks our assurance.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in
darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. (1 John 1:6)
We can bluff our way through before others by putting up a front that all is well. But underneath, doubts begin to gnaw like little foxes at the fringe of our faith, and we actually feel that we are not really God’s children. We dread the light because it makes us more conscious of our doubts. God is still our Father nonetheless, and a conviction of sin is pretty good evidence. We have lost our fellowship – not our salvation.
The Christian should come to the light, which is the Word of God. It reveals our sin, but it also shows us the remedy. The blood of Christ is still potent, and it is the basis of forgiveness for the sins of a child of God.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)
The believer who walks in the light and discovers sin in his life knows that the blood of Christ keeps on cleansing him from sin; consequently, he goes in confession to Him:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(1 John 1:9)
Immediately, fellowship is restored for the sinning saint. The family fellowship is resumed and confidence and assurance are restored. You see, the child of God is always disturbed by sin in his life, as he knows it breaks fellowship with God. In fact, the line of demarcation is drawn at this point between God’s children and the devil’s offspring:
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth [practices] not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. (1 John 3:10)
Deliberate and continual sinning, without remorse or without repentance, is a clear indication that one has not come into the place of sonship. The child of God is distressed, disturbed, and distraught by the presence of sin. He hates the sin in his life and longs to be delivered from it. The presence of sin robs him of his assurance. The legitimate child of God can never compromise with the sin in his life.
How Can I Know?
Having listed the main things that rob a person of the assurance of salvation, let’s look at some things that are evidence of salvation.
Desire to Obey
The child of God longs to obey God and to please Him:
And by this we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. (1 John 2:3)
This desire to obey God gives him an assurance that he is a son of God.
He wants to know the will of God, and therefore he wants to know the Word of God. So he goes where he can hear the Word of God:
Oh, how love I thy law! It is my mediation all the day…. I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love….
I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil. (Psalm 119:97, 113, 162)
He finds that he not only has an appetite for the Word of God, but he also begins to understand it, and thereby growth takes place:
But he that is spiritual judgeth [understands] all things, yet he himself is judged [understood] of no man. (1 Corinthians 2:15)
There are other tests that indicate to a trembling but trusting heart that he or she is a child of God. God urges us to make the tests so that we may have assurance:
Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith; prove yourselves. Know ye not yourselves how Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are discredited? (2 Corinthians 13:5)
Reality in prayer
A reality in prayer is evidence that we are children of God. There is a very remarkable statement in this connection made in the third chapter of 1 John:
And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. (v. 19)
As the child of God approaches the Father, a holy boldness confirms the heart. This is not presumption – it is the assurance that a child has in approaching a father. However, sin or some other impediment may make us hesitant and reluctant to approach the Father. God does not hear us because of our reluctance but because of Christ, and He hears us regardless of our condition:
For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. (v. 20)
Nevertheless, when our hearts are rightly related to Him, then there is a confidence given to us:
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. (v. 21)
Furthermore, when we are in His will, there are added tokens that we are His children:
And whatever we ask, we receive of him, because we
keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. (v. 22)
Answered prayer is an argument that one is a legitimate child of God. The prayer life of the believer is vital in assuring the soul of salvation.
Love for the Brethren
A love for the brethren and a passion for the souls of men are evidence that we are children of God. One of the most convicting and confirming facts sealing assurance to the heart is love of the brethren. Scripture is positive at this point:
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (1 John 3:14)
Animosity and hatred in the heart will rob the child of God of assurance. Malice toward another Christian produces bitterness of soul and is therefore not a fertile soil to cultivate assurance. Malice is condensed anger. Lack of love for another believer robs more Christians of real enjoyment and satisfaction in the Christian life than perhaps any other single factor. It not only blights the soul of the Christian, but it also destroys any public testimony:
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)
To love other believers is not elective:
These things I command you, that ye love one another. (John 15:17)
Do not let a little root of bitterness rob you of assurance. Make things right with other believers.
Not only will the believer love those within the Christian fellowship, but there will also be a desire for those outside the fold to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. It is impossible for Christ, the One who died for sinners, to be in the heart and there not be a longing for the salvation of sinners. A sterile and frigid Christian is not likely to experience the sweetness and joy of full assurance, but a vital Christian, who knows something of the Savior’s compassion, will find the joy of belonging and an abiding experience.
Conscious of Being His Child
A consciousness that we are children of God comes to the soul and says that we are the sons of God. This is the gracious work of the Spirit of God and not the product of psychological presumption.
By this know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:13)
This does not mean that we are conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit, but it does mean that we are conscious of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not speak of Himself, but He speaks of Christ:
Nevertheless, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and he will show you things to come. (John 16:13)
Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to make us conscious that we are the children of God.
The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. (Romans 8:16)
There is a counterfeit humility going the rounds today, and it sounds very pious, but it does not have the ring of the genuine. Some say that we are to grovel in the dust and act like worms – this is the modern way of putting on sackcloth and ashes. It is true that we are sinners; there is no good within us, no good comes out of us, and we have nothing in which to glory save the cross of Christ. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit does not bear witness with our spirit that we are the “worms” of God. No, He incourages us when we are in times of weakness and trembling, and in spite of all our failure says that we are the children of God.
A remarkable thing is stated in the following verse:
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. (Romans 8:15)
The word Abba is an untranslated Aramaic word. The translators of the first English Bibles, who had great reverence for the Word of God, who believed it was indeed the Word of God, would not translate it. Abba is a very personal word that could be translated “my Daddy.” We don’t use this word in reference to God because of the danger of becoming overly familiar with Him. But the Spirit affirms it and causes us to realize that God is our very own Father through regeneration and by adoption.
While I was praying one morning shortly before Christmas, my little seven-year-old daughter tiptoed into the room and placed a letter before me. Since I was getting nowhere in my prayer, I paused to read the contents of the letter that she had scribbled in her childish hand.
Before Christmas, a father always comes into his proper position in the home and is treated with due respect. Nevertheless, the letter caused me to drop to my knees and be conscious anew and afresh that God was my Father. I cried out in joy, “You are my Father, and I love You. You have been gracious to me, and I know You always will.” The veil was removed from my eyes, and my soul was flooded with a fresh consciousness that I was a son of God. This was the gracious work of the Spirit of God.
Dear Daddy
I love you, you have bin kind to me and I hope you will keep on Being kind to me
Love Linda
There is an experience of salvation for the child of God that he does not have to seek. It will come, for it is impossible for the Holy Spirit to regenerate a sinner and for Christ to dwell in the heart and there not be a corresponding experience.
Dr. George Truett told a story out of his long and fruitful ministry at First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. One day he had the sad office of conducting the funeral of a young wife and mother from his congregation. After the service, friends gathered around the young husband and the little girl who were left. The friends urged the father to go with them to their homes for a few days.
He refused with the statement that he would have to face the reality of life without his wife and, therefore, he would begin at once. He took the little girl back to the lonely house where everything in it reminded him of his wife. The little girl, sensing that something was wrong but not old enough to appreciate the situation, kept calling for her mother. The child did not make it any easier by constantly reminding the father that he was not feeding her or putting her to bed as her mother was accustomed to do.
When the father had finally tucked the little one in bed and gone off to bed himself, thinking the little girl was asleep, he cried aloud in his anguish of soul, “Oh, God, it is dark down here.”
The child, who was not asleep, began to cry and said, “Daddy, it is dark over here, too. Take me in bed with you.” The father took the little one in bed with him and attempted to soothe her sobbing. Then she reached over in the darkness and felt the face of her father. “Daddy,” she said, “I can go to sleep if your face is toward me.” Being assured that his face was toward her, she soon dropped off into peaceful slumber.
The anxious father thought over this incident and the simple faith of the child in him. Then he cried out again, “Oh, God, it is dark down here, but I can bear it if I know Your face is toward me.” Soon he, too, was sound asleep. The Holy Spirit, in a time of darkness and emergency, confirms to the sad spirit of the child of God that he is a son of God and that the heavenly Father does not have His face averted from His own.
When Did I Believe?
Perhaps these words have not been convincing to many anxious souls because they cannot establish, with any degree of certainty, a moment in time when they had a transforming experience with God. But there does not have to be a date for a “second birthday.” Multitudes are kept in uncertainty because they hear others testify to a day, a moment, and a place when they passed from death to life. If you have had such an experience, it certainly must be gratifying. But many others have not been that fortunate; yet they, too, are born-again believers.
If I may be permitted a final personal reference, this is my experience. I have never been able to put my finger on the moment that I was converted. As a boy, I went to an altar under a brush arbor, but no one thought to speak to me about my soul or to explain the way of salvation. The devil formerly used this to disturb my mind when I heard someone testify to a transforming
experience. That master of doubt and deception would lean over my shoulder and whisper, “How do you know that you have accepted Christ?”
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer gave me the solution to this problem in a class lecture when I was in seminary, and the devil does not disturb me on this score anymore. Now I say to him, “Perhaps you are right. I may never have accepted Christ in the past. But you are witness that here and now I accept Him with all my heart. Now I am a child of God.” If this has been your difficulty, then I beseech you to accept Christ this very moment – assure your heart and have the peace of God.
Do not look for an experience! Do not probe your feelings! Do not use psychoanalysis! Believe God! Take Him at His Word! Trust His faithfulness! “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). Christ says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Will you come?
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12)
No comments:
Post a Comment