1689 London Baptist Confession (part 39)

Our Father in heaven, we thank you. We thank you that you would send the

Lord Jesus Christ to come to earth, to live a perfect life, to die in our place, to be raised on the third day.

And we thank you that through no merit of our own, you have placed us in him, that we might receive his righteousness, having our sins placed on him on the cross.

Father, as we consider the implications of the gospel, how we are to then think and live and to even organize and run a church and all the things that you have laid out in the

New Testament. Father, we pray that our time in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith would be edifying and profitable, that you would use it to strengthen our faith, to remind us again of the importance of scripture alone.

And Father, we praise you, thank you, and pray that you'd bless everyone here this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, we've been talking about assurance of faith, how we can know that we're saved, and even dealing with, we started talking about Satan and things like that, issues of that sort.

But we left off in Romans 8, and we were talking about assurance of faith, how the

Holy Spirit testifies to our spirit. In fact, let's read Romans 8, 11 to 16, to start here this morning.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised

Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

So then brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the spirit, you will put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. 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 whom we cry,

Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

And we mentioned last week that R .C. says that one of the ways, well, how does the

Holy Spirit testify to our spirit? I asked that last week. How does he testify? Some of you should remember, some of you who were here last week, through the

Bible. Okay, we read scripture. We're convicted, we're reminded of these truths, and we think, and we're, you know, when you read scripture, should you ever be afflicted by scripture?

Should you be unsettled by scripture? Yes, when? When you sin.

Should you be comforted by scripture? Yes, when? When you sin, right?

It's good to be reminded. I'm a sinner, and I'm forgiven.

These are good things to be reminded of. So the scripture testifies to us through the

Holy Spirit, illuminating our minds, convicting us, and then I guess we could say pardoning us, right?

We get convicted by the spirit, and then I think there's a certain sense like, you know, I pardon you, a comforting sense of God's pardoning when we read through scripture as well.

So that's where we left off last week. I like what R .C. says here.

He says he does, speaking of the Holy Spirit, he does not leave us alone to read this book. You know, it's not like the

Holy Spirit sends us off in the corner to read the Bible and figure things out for ourselves. In fact, 1

Corinthians 2, 14 would make plain that he comes alongside us. He illumines us.

He grants us the capacity to understand scripture. It says the natural man or the unsaved man looks at scripture and may understand parts of it, may even understand the words, certainly probably understands the words, but doesn't get the spiritual meaning behind them because he doesn't have the spirit of God to reveal the purpose behind scripture.

The word is infallible and the spirit's testimony is infallible. That combination, that one -two punch,

Sproul says, of word and spirit is what pulls us out of the depths of doubt. If you're doubting your salvation, what do you do?

What do people do when they doubt their own salvation? How do people handle it? Have you ever known anybody who was struggling with their salvation?

What did they do? Do more good things.

Janet? They get really anxious. I mean, I've known people who doubted their salvation and their response was to go into a funk.

And my question would be, what is the, I'll just call it the brain cloud. What does the brain cloud solve?

I've descended into my brain cloud. I don't know what good that does. If your counselors are you, yourself and I, I guess that wouldn't be right.

You, yourself and you. You, so it doesn't really help. Me, myself and I, there's three, but anyway, if your only counselors are yourself and your own thinking, well, that's how you got unassured in the first place.

That doesn't really help. The right thing to do would be to go to the word of God, right? Because if the

Spirit's testifying to our spirit and he's using the word, then we ought to go to the word to get our assurance of faith, to understand where we are.

And of course, if we're in the word and we keep reading and we're like more and more sure that we're not saved, well, that would be a problem.

And that could be the Holy Spirit convicting you that you've never been saved at all. Thoughts or questions?

Have you ever had anybody say something like, I'm not sure I'm saved and would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

I think it's a good thing, right? Because it shows that they're taking the kind of the, I'll call it the, this would be a marketing slogan, the

Pauline challenge. Examine yourself and see if you're in the faith.

Can we put that on? Have you taken the Pauline challenge? Hmm, I think

I'm onto something. Not really catchy, but it's kind of cool. Examine yourselves to see if you're in the faith.

So if somebody is examining and they're questioning their salvation, what's the wrong thing to do, by the way? Give them some kind of, like play the

Holy Spirit. I mean, I don't like to play the Holy Spirit in the sense that I don't like to tell people you're not saved because I don't know that.

But what's the flip side of that? Yeah. Oh, you're saved.

Don't you remember when you prayed that prayer? Don't you have your certificate of baptism? You know, come on.

You wouldn't have been baptized, especially not at Bethlehem Bible Church. I'm gonna talk about it this morning and I'm gonna say,

I'm gonna give you a little preview. If the waters of baptism saved, then what kind of monster would

I be not to take every single person and dunk them today? Right? Just to make sure that you're going to heaven.

Why wouldn't I do that? And, you know, in spite of the fact that Taylor and Asher Crane scrubbed the baptismal here yesterday,

I'm pretty sure it's still not gonna save anybody. So. Wider than snow, it may be, but it still won't make you wider than snow.

Our assurance can't come from the testimony of other people because they're fallible.

Only the Holy Spirit is infallible. Okay, the Baptist Confession of Faith, the

London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689, actually written in 1678, says this.

The infallible assurance doth not, doth not, does not, doth not belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it.

Translation, please. Sorry. Doth not belong to the essence.

Okay, so we'll unpack that. Possessing assurance is not essential to your salvation.

In other words, if you know that you're saved, does it mean that you are more saved? No. Now, how many doctrines are there in the

Christian faith? Nobody knows.

I mean, that's a ridiculous question. Sproul says Christianity has hundreds of doctrines about which

Christians disagree at many points. I'd hate to read that book. You know, a discussion of all the places where we disagree in the various viewpoints.

No, thanks. That's, no. But here are a few essentials.

And this is why, by the way, I objected to the fact, and I think we should all object to the fact that somebody would call, as he did a few weeks ago, that a well -known pastor would call

Martin Luther King Jr. a good brother, right? Meaning a good brother in Christ.

Why? Because he denied the deity of Christ. And here it says, Sproul says, no one who denies the deity of Christ is an

Orthodox Christian. They are not a true believer. Now, I just got through saying

I wouldn't tell somebody that they're not saved, but I'm telling you right now, if you tell me Jesus Christ is not God, then

I'm going to tell you, you're not a Christian. You're not saved. You're not in Christ. Because scripture is very plain about that.

And if you deny scripture, then you are denying the God who wrote it. Jesus said he was

God. One can not dispute the words of Jesus and then say,

I'm a Christian. When Mitt Romney says, I'm a Christian, I would politely say to him, if I was sitting down with him,

I'd say, Governor, no, you're not. Let me explain why. Your faith and you believe that Jesus Christ is a created being.

That there was a time when he did not exist. You may say that you're a Christian. You may profess to be a follower of Christ, but Jesus said,

I am God. And you say, no, you're not, sir. Not a

Christian. R .C. goes on to say, one may have many holes in his or her theology and still be saved.

You don't have to believe everything correctly. He says, let's say there are 10 essentials and we deny one of them.

Are we Christians? No, because it's one of the essential doctrines.

But here, how about this one? I thought this was interesting. He says, if you deny inerrancy, can you be a

Christian? In other words, if you say that the Bible may have errors, can you still be a

Christian? Here's his opinion. He says, it is vital, the doctrine of inerrancy is vital to the health of the church and individual

Christians, but it is not necessary for salvation. He says, however,

I do think that one must believe the basic teachings of scripture to be saved.

A person can't be saved if he does not believe that Jesus is who the Bible says he is.

A person cannot be saved if he does not believe in the resurrection, which by the way, again, Martin Luther King Jr.

did not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. So he says, it's essential, the inerrancy is essential for the church generally to believe, we believe it here.

He says, but individual Christians can not believe that and still be saved. Well, let's put it this way.

A person gets saved. They genuinely trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.

They have repented of their sins, they received Christ, et cetera. And they say, but you know what?

I'm still not sure, I don't know that the Bible doesn't have any errors. I've heard that it does,

I don't know. Does that mean that they're not saved or does it mean that they don't have enough information to make an educated statement about it?

And I would go with the latter. You know, and there are other doctrines that where you can go yes or no or whatever, but if somebody denies things that are essential to the gospel, then they're not a

Christian. Are there questions, comments about that? Do you wanna know if you, you know, are you sitting there right now going, well,

I deny this essential of the Christian faith that might save, we can talk about it after class. The confession of faith goes on to say, yet being enabled by the spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may without extraordinary revelation in the right use of means attain thereunto.

And you're like, yes, I use that word thereunto all the time, that's one word, thereunto. Now the

Roman Catholic Church, and this is, by the way, just again to remind you, the 1689 based on the

Westminster Confession of Faith is written in response to Roman error, the

Roman Catholic doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that you can or cannot know that you're going to heaven, cannot, right?

Except there is a little, you know, a proviso, an asterisk, a footnote, and that footnote is this.

If you've had an extraordinary revelation that you can know that you're going to heaven.

So they say, excuse me, people like Mary, the mother of Jesus, Francis, Assisi, or other extraordinary saints could know, but most have to rely upon their participation in the seven sacraments and think to themselves,

I've been faithful enough to get into heaven. That's the, you know, the only assurance that they would have.

But the London Confession of Faith affirms that assurance is quite attainable by ordinary means.

It goes on to say this, the confession says, and therefore it is the duty of everyone, every

Christian, to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure. Let's look at 2

Peter chapter one. 2 Peter chapter one. And, you know, let's just read verse 10.

2 Peter chapter one, verse 10, if somebody would read that, please. Okay, talking about the fruits, thank you,

Carol. Just talking about the fruits that the Holy Spirit works in us and that we're to be diligent to see in our own lives.

Then Sproul says, since the Bible calls us to do that, to make our calling and election sure, it is obviously our duty to obey what scripture says.

So if we do not have the assurance of salvation, it is our duty to pursue it. It is our duty to pursue assurance.

The confession goes on to say this, that thereby his or her hearts may be enlarged in peace and joy in the

Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness to God and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience.

The proper fruits of this assurance. So far is it from inclining men to looseness.

Now, just a word about this, you know, what do people, what is the ultimate problem with assurance of faith?

Either from a Roman Catholic perspective or from, you know, your typical unbeliever, well, probably more like cultist.

Because if I'm talking to a Mormon and I say that I know I'm going to heaven, what's he going to say to me? Well, then you can do whatever you want.

And here's Rome's problem, you know, ultimately with the idea of assurance of faith. If you, and it says there, you know, this is the idea that they're combating in this

London Baptist confession of faith. So far is it, so far distance is it from inclining men to looseness.

Assurance of faith doesn't lead to loose morals, right? Assurance of faith, true assurance of faith leads to, what's that?

Godliness, you know, more service to the Lord instead of sin, you know.

But Rome was afraid of quite the opposite. I mean, think about this.

If you have assurance of faith and your assurance of faith is not based on your giving to the church, on your performing all the sacraments of the church, of your church attendance and just do, do, do, do, then what might you do?

Maybe unplug yourself a little bit from Rome. And the people in Rome are like, well, we're not going to have that.

So we're going to say that here's what you must do over and over and over again. Add infinitum.

Your life must be about performing the rituals that we say that you have to do.

And by the way, you can never know if you've done enough because we don't want you to be untethered from us because you are our resource.

You are the means by which we will gain wealth and power. And the confession of faith says, listen, it's not about what you do, it's about what

Jesus Christ has done. And assurance of faith doesn't lead to loose living, it leads to higher living, to a more effective

Christian service ministry. Dr. Gerstner, who was

Dr. Sproul's mentor, once gave a lecture on the joy of the

Christian. What do you suppose he said about whether or not a

Christian should have joy in his or her life? What do you think he said? Yes, he did.

And he said this, joy should be the chief characteristic of every

Christian. Well, why is that? Aren't we supposed to be glum, glower?

If, as it were, you had a glimpse, I mean, let's just suppose that before you were saved or even while you were hearing the gospel for the first time, having your ears open, as it were, that you had,

I don't wanna call it a vision, but you had a real sense of the horrors of hell.

If you had a real sense of the wrath of God, if you had a real sense of the weight of your sin and what that sin was going to mean to you in the eternity future, and then somebody delivered you from that, wouldn't you have joy?

So the picture is, if we understand rightly who we are, what we've done, what we deserve, and then what we've been granted in spite of who we are, what we've done, what we deserve, then we have joy.

That's why it's the chief characteristic. We no longer face the wrath of God, we get the love of God.

And Gerstner asked, he says, well, what about anxiety? What about trials? What about conflicts?

He said, we tend to seek spiritual highs and look for experiences to make us feel good.

We wanna go to Promise Keepers, 100 ,000 men in a football stadium, we feel good, it's powerful.

I didn't go to that. I think I had a work conflict or something, because all my buddies were going, you know?

And I've told the story before, but it was so funny. We got together, how many guys did you have to have for like a small group?

Was it four or six or whatever? I don't even remember what the number was. But whatever it was, you know, the cops that all got together for our

Bible study, they needed one more guy to fill out the group. And so they invited me and I was like, okay.

I mean, I didn't, you know, I wasn't Steve Cooley, arch Calvinist or anything like that.

And so I was like, sure, you know? And so we got together and we were reading this book, you know, the seven promises of a promise breaker.

And we read the first chapter and we got together and everybody, you know, we're sitting there and we're supposed to discuss it.

What'd you get out of the book? And everybody said, I mean, I'm just kind of quiet. And everybody said, I thought it was lame. And I'm going, yeah,

I thought it was too. And here was the funny thing. They were all fired up from the meeting, but the book itself did not, you know, keep that going.

I think there's a sense in which everybody's looking for a mountaintop experience. And that's what Gershner is saying here.

We tend to seek spiritual highs and look for experiences to make us feel good. We are only as happy or joyful as the latest blessing has made us.

But when we read Paul's epistle to the Philippians, we realize that if we really understand what God has done for us, we can be nothing but joyful people.

If God never bestowed another blessing upon me for the rest of my days, I would still have every reason to be joyful for the blessings he has already poured out upon me.

And that's the essence of our joy, right? And, you know, what do you say to somebody who is struggling because of life circumstances?

What do you, how do you comfort them? This light affliction is gonna bring about a greater weight of glory.

I mean, well, what if somebody says, you don't know how bad this is? You know, you don't know how bad my troubles are.

Yeah. And that's right.

This is not our home. The things that come along are reminders of that, right? There was a, we had a few years ago, we had a homeless guy who visited the church and I was talking to him afterwards.

And he said, you know, he's describing his situation. And I said to him,

I think he was like 40. And I said, well, let's say you have another 40 years to go.

And I told you that your life was never gonna get better. But as soon as you died, all of your troubles were gonna be gone and you'd be instantly in the presence of Jesus Christ forever.

And everything would be perfect after that. You think you could make it 40 more years? He said, yes.

I never saw him again, but he said, yes. And I mean, the idea that we get, and, you know, can things be difficult in this life?

The answer is yes. Can difficulty come into our lives? Yes. But if we're fixated on the here and now, we're missing the whole point of the gospel.

The gospel has never been about, no matter what anybody says, having your best life now.

Because like MacArthur says, if your best life is now, then guess what? The next place isn't gonna be so good, right?

Because if heaven is infinitely better than this life, and we're like, okay, this is my best life now, well, then there's only one way to go in the next life.

Yeah. If you reduce everything to atoms and molecules, you know, our next life is the compost pile.

And Pastor Bob said something, and I'll try to translate. He said, you know, the Bible, the New Testament is replete with, replete with, which

I think means full of, emphasis on things above, right?

On Christ returning and taking us up. And so it's not about our best life is now, you know, in fact, whether it's 1

Peter, or whether it's the books, the letters to the church of Thessalonica, the comfort is always doctrine, truths of what has been done for you, what lies ahead of you, you know, when

Peter's talking about an inheritance that is undefiled, imperishable, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

He never says, Peter never says, it's your best life now. You know, this is as good as it gets.

Paul never says, focus on the here and now. This is where it's at.

I mean, are we to enjoy life now? Yes. But no matter how good things are here, you know, even if we have no persecution, even if we're not like the people in Cappadocia, or Thessalonica, or the different areas of ancient

Christendom, which were being persecuted, even if that never happens to us, even if we're fat, dumb and happy, you know, and those who are thin just rejoice in that.

Whatever this life holds for us, the promise of joy, the promise of eternal bliss, the promise of being free from disease, sin, death, all these things, sorrow, is not in this life.

It's in the next life. In this life, you will have trouble. It's guaranteed.

And that trouble, you know, maybe is in the next room. Maybe somebody in your family, it may be, you know, the government, it may be a lot of different things.

But the promises of scripture are never about this life and the goodness thereof.

It's always about being with the Lord for eternity. What do you say to somebody who's suffering, who's anxious, who's going through trials?

It could be worse. It's all about the next life. And Sproul notes,

I just kind of summarize this, and I think this is right. You know, whatever your troubles are, what is the greatest thing in all of scripture, on top of the fact that your sins are forgiven and everything else?

Your name is in the Lamb's book of life. You just go, that's incredible.

I mean, not in the end notes, but you know, actually, I was reading this whole debate on end notes the other day, and I, so, we're not in the end notes.

We're actually in the Lamb's book of life. Not even a footnote, just right in there. Now, peace is set forth about, in scripture, as the first fruit of our justification.

Let's look at Romans 5, verse 1. Romans 5, verse 1. And if somebody would read that, please.

Go ahead, Anthony. Okay, since we have been justified. So, believers, justified, declared righteous.

And notice it says, by faith, that's the instrument. We have what?

Peace with God. Now, what means this peace? I have a, what's that?

He's no longer our enemy. I was talking about this with regard to, you know, all this reconciliation talk here recently.

And the biggest act of reconciliation isn't the horizontal reconciliation that happens as a fruit of the gospel.

It is the vertical reconciliation. That is to say, we have peace with God. He's no longer our enemy.

He no longer hates us, right? And we no longer hate him.

Christ has brought the two parties who were at odds, who were at war, and has made us more than friends.

We are now children of God. We've been adopted in Christ. Here's what

Sproul says. He says, peace with God does not end our conflict with the world, right? Our flesh, our residual sin, as it were, the effects of sin, or the devil.

However, we have peace in the midst of difficulty. Why? Because our most pressing need was peace with God, and it can never change.

I just really enjoyed, years ago, sunrise service at Grace Community Church.

Sunrise, I think it was like at seven, something like that. More or less sunrise.

MacArthur, you know, because they have three services Easter Sunday morning. Big crowd. And MacArthur gets up there and he says, you know,

I wanna tell you about your worst enemy this morning, and I started thinking, well, what's he gonna say?

You know, like, your worst enemy is you. Your worst enemy is the state. Your worst enemy, and he says, let me tell you something about your worst enemy.

It's God. And then he just started going off, and I thought, that's right. If you don't have peace with God, you've got nothing.

The chief legacy of Jesus is peace, John 14, 27. Peace I leave with you, my peace

I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Why? Because the worst thing that can happen to you, and think about the context in which Jesus says that.

You know, the last full night that he's with the, last full evening he's with the disciples,

Judas is already going to betray him. And they're going to come in a few hours to arrest him.

He knows all this. And he's comforting them, and he says, my peace

I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. What does he mean? He means that he's going to establish peace with God, and they need never worry about anything.

Whatever the world can, I mean, you think that they were thinking about these words as they died, as the apostles were put to death, as they were hung upside down and crucified, and all these terrible things that were happening to them.

I think they were. Because they were thinking along these lines, I know what happened to my

Lord. I know I deserve worse, but I have peace with God. And we look at the circumstances in our life and we go, oh, nobody knows how

I'm suffering. They don't know the trouble I'm in. They don't know the bills I've got. They don't know what it's like to lose their job.

Maybe they don't. But if you have peace with God, your number one problem in life is solved.

Yes, but I don't have a place to live. I don't have food to eat. Well, there are ways we can help you with that.

But we can do whatever we want for your body. And if your soul is not right with God, it doesn't change a thing.

You still got your main problem in life, which is you don't have peace with God. The confession goes on to say this, true believers may have the assurance of their salvation.

It's funny how they leave out little articles, definite or indefinite, and it makes it hard to read in old

English. May have the assurance of their salvation, diverse ways shaken.

In other words, by diverse ways shaken, diminished and intermitted, interrupted, as by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which wounded the conscience and grieveth the spirit by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God's withdrawing the light of his countenance and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light.

Yet are they never destitute of the seed of God and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart and conscience of duty of which, excuse me, by the operation of the spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived.

And by the witch, in the meantime, they are preserved from utter despair. And I'm sure that probably sounds exactly like what you wrote on your

SAT essay when you were applying for college, which is why you wound up going to junior college.

So let's just talk about it a little bit. Sproul says it this way, he says the divine.

So when you hear somebody talk about the divines, what are they talking about? Do they mean that the men who, he's talking about the

Westminster Confession of Faith. But does he mean that the men who wrote the Confession of Faith were divine?

No, this is just like a way of saying the men who put together this

Confession of Faith warn that a host of things can diminish our assurance.

One of those things is negligence and preserving it by failing to make use of what they might call the ordinary means of grace.

If you fail to read and think about this, what do we mean by means of grace? I think that can be problematic if you think, well, these are means by which we get more grace, right?

Because how much grace do you have? All that you're ever gonna get.

You have the grace of God. He has forgiven you all your sins. Now, what they mean, generally speaking, is there are ways of, well, let's put it this way.

If you eat Twinkies for a solid month, how are you gonna feel at the end of the month?

Fluffy. Well, it's like somebody posted, they took a picture of them at Cinnabon this week and I made a comment on it because I've said for years, here's my diet, and I need to write this up and put it in a book.

A Cinnabon for breakfast, a Cinnabon for lunch, and a sensible dinner, and you just shed the bounds. Maybe, maybe not true.

If you eat junk food all the time, you're going to feel junky, right? If you fail to attend church, well,

I don't want to put it that way. I can put it in a more spiritually acceptable way. Have you ever had a job, and I know there are some in this room, you ever had a job where you could not, could not go to church for an extended period of time, whether it was several weeks or a few months or whatever, and how did you feel?

I mean, anybody who says, I didn't miss it, I'd be concerned about them.

You know, I can remember when I was a new believer and having scheduled 16 hour

Sundays, you know, for, I think it was like, it was a little funky thing in the schedule.

I think it went for like, it was either two or four months, and it just seemed like forever, right?

And so when you finally get to go to church, you're just like, it was like going on vacation. It was such a relief to be sitting there and singing and looking around and going, these people believe what

I believe, and we're rejoicing and we're hearing the word and we're getting the word preached to us. And I was like, I honestly,

I couldn't have been happier if somebody said, here are two tickets, you can go anywhere you want in the world for a week.

I would have preferred that, you know, hour and a half in church, because that's, and that's the mindset we should have.

There's nothing I want more than to be with the brothers and sisters that I have in Christ. There's nothing

I want more than to be exhorted and be encouraged and be challenged by the word of God.

There's nothing I want more than to sing the praises of him whom I worship.

These are the things that should be true of us. And so when we neglect these things, you know, if you just say to yourself, you know what,

I'm done with church. I can't take it anymore. You know, somebody said something mean to me or whatever, or, you know,

I really don't like Pastor Mike's ties. And, you know, I think a lot of us feel that way. And so you're at home for weeks in a row or whatever, and then you start getting anxious and you're not feeling well, and you're thinking to yourself,

I don't even know if I'm saved. Well, duh, what is wrong with you? Right?

When you neglect, when you forsake the assembly of the saints, when you say to yourself, well,

I don't care that Paul told Timothy, preach the word, I don't need to hear the word, right?

That's not in the same sentence or whatever. Paul didn't give that same urgency, hear the word.

If you neglect these things, if you push away the comfort that is in the word of God and the comfort of the

Holy Spirit, well, then why wouldn't you expect to feel anxious, to not be sure of your salvation?

We should be longing for these things, right? They feed our spirits. And just like we wouldn't neglect our physical body, most of us wouldn't by going on the

Twinkie diet or the Cinnabon diet or whatever, you know, a steady diet of junk food. I mean, maybe you did that while you were in college.

Your best meal was Top Ramen. But ultimately, if you eat like that, you're not gonna feel well physically.

Well, if you eat junk spiritually, you're not gonna feel well spiritually either. I like what he says, and we'll close with this.

He says, if we come to a place in life where we think, talking about assurance, because we can be knocked down by sin, we can have all these troubles.

I summarize it this way. We can be knocked down by our sin, right? We can feel low because of our sin, but we can't be knocked out because our standing is not based on our own strength, but it's based on what

Christ has done, on his merit. Sproul says this, if we come to the place in life where we think,

God, this is all I can take, I literally cannot take one more thing. He says, even if you're feeling that way, you shouldn't say it, because it seems every time a

Christian says that, God gives us something else. He seems to say, don't tell me how much you can take.

I'll be the judge of that. Because with everything I put on you, I give you the grace to bear it, right?

My grace is sufficient for you. That is why we never surrender.

To give up would be a complete repudiation of the assurance of God and his grace, of God, the repudiation of the assurance of God and his grace that he has bestowed upon us.

How can we handle the difficulties of today? Because we have the grace sufficient to handle the difficulties of today.

Besides that, our hope is not fixed on getting through today. Our hope is fixed on the future, on Christ, on being with him eternally in heaven.

Well, we need to close, because we've got a baptism to do here in a few minutes. So let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you for assurance of salvation, that we are not limited or confined to a treadmill -like system of works that Rome would have imposed upon us, that you, by your grace, have restored the gospel, freed the gospel, as it were, so that we can see what you have revealed to us in your word, and we can read it for ourselves and know what you intend, that you have promised us joy.

In spite of our circumstances, now we can have joy no matter what they are. And we think of the way men and women who followed you suffered for decades after the church was established in ways that we can't even grasp now, losing their homes and being persecuted, physically put to death and tortured in all manner of things.

And we think we have difficulty because somebody said the wrong thing to us. Father, forgive us for our shallowness, but encourage us and exhort us by the truth that you have given us, the spirit that dwells in us, that we might have that assurance of faith, that we might serve you and honor the

Lord Jesus Christ in how we think and what we do, how we speak and how we love one another, how we come alongside one another.

We ought to be, of all people, the most joyful, even as Dr. Gershner said. Father, make it so, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.