Bible Study (3/6/2024) 1689 Chapter 18

I don't know if it was him, he said it wasn't him, but I quoted him, and he was trying to justify trans and kids, and said, well, you're using geese to do that, well, geese said that we better for you to go millstone.

So I said, yeah, I thought that was a great phrase, was to go millstone yourself. It'd be better for you. We are, we are live right now.

But that's, this is what we're using the two minutes for. Yes, sir, what's up?

We're fighting a new fight on Twitter. It really matters. Oh, no? Dude, he was so much fun to hang out with, dude.

Oh, my gosh. That's so bad. So, oh, my gosh.

This just makes me mad to hear this right now, John. Yes, sir. Oh, no. I have no followers.

I'm going to go wreck that. Or someone, someone that follows you. Hey! That interacts with any kind of, you know, that guy.

That's terrible, dude. Nope. Holy no. She'll wreck that one.

That one's pretty good. How are you guys doing? Good. How are the newlyweds doing?

Good. Honeymoon phase is still there, not worn off yet. It's gone already.

I was like, ah. Jake's like,

I can start doing the real dry sarcasm now. I got a ring on my finger. Well, it's good to see you guys tonight.

It really is. Nope. That guy, he was, he, that guy is a preacher, dude.

Austin Keeler, he, so that's the guy that's in the video. He does a great job at preaching.

He did a wonderful message. I was telling Rick about it today, actually. It was really good. Dude. Also, I did want to let you know,

I was planning on buying you a Holy Nope T -shirt. And he ran out of them the first day, and I was planning on buying them the next day.

He was all out. I was bummed. John, I felt bad. I'm repenting to you right now about this.

I do, actually. Hey, this guy is like your biggest fan.

He's so funny, dude. Oh, did you?

All right, cool. Yeah, he's, he did a great job, and he did it, he prepared his message with like a week's notice.

Oh, wow. So, like, because somebody had backed out, and we were like, hey. That you got to replace, and they backed out. Was he already going to the conference?

Yes, so he was planning on already going to do the booth for the Holy Nope stuff. And then, because he preached the, he preached at Jeff's church for the

New Year's conference that they did. And so, Jeff knew he could preach, and was like, hey, dude. Or, like, really, last minute, is this something that you could do?

And he was like, yeah, absolutely. And he knocked it out of the park. He did a great job. Great, great job. Dude.

Well, and then, though, it's funny about that video. There's a guy over in, have you seen, have I told you about the guy over in Twin that believes that garbage?

Yeah, that believes just terrible things about God, and his name's

Buddy. What's his last name? I think it's Buddy something. But he calls himself a Sherpa.

A what? A Sherpa. Because he doesn't, he thinks the term pastor is too offensive, and so he likes to say he's a Sherpa. It's so bad, dude.

So, so bad. It's an embarrassment. Yeah, people. People. Well, yeah.

So I was evangelizing over in Twin, and I'm talking with these LGBT people, and having a great conversation.

And this guy comes in and says, well, I just want to let you know there's a different side of the story. God has fluid, gender -fluid pronouns that he uses.

And I was like, dude, you are, like, I just was like, dude, you're a false teacher. You need to leave. You're a wolf, and this is not good.

You should never consider, like, it was bad. It was real bad. But he's a Methodist guy.

Okay, no, no. Yeah. Yes. Which, I mean, like, yeah, very, very, I think he's

Methodist. He might be, maybe it's a Lutheran church. Like one of the –

I know there's a bad Lutheran church here. So anyway, well, we'll go ahead and start for Bible study tonight.

We had two minutes before, so we got some fellowship time in, and now we're four minutes past. I know. We're doing great things tonight, guys.

Would anybody like to volunteer to pray before we read for tonight? Anybody want to pray?

We just prayed a whole bunch. Rick, thank you. Lord God, thank you for all that you've given us. Thank you that we can gather and study your word.

Go through the 16 names. Bless this, help us to have understanding of who you are, better understanding of your own.

Love you more. Have love for what you've done for us. Bless this time.

Bless fellowship. Bless – Amen. Amen. Thank you, brother. So last week

I was told – so I've been gone for several weeks for Bible study now. John's like, I've noticed.

Because it was amazing is what you're saying. That's true.

I've noticed. That's so mean. No, I think that's perfect. That's probably what it is. Absolutely. That's probably what it is.

So, I mean, we've gone through several chapters in the 1689 since I was last here. Is there anything in the last – particularly last week, which

I know we covered Perseverance of the Saints last week, which is a wonderful topic. The conference I was just at, I got to preach on that topic itself.

What was some things that stuck out to us in Perseverance of the Saints? It's – that chapter is 17.

We're in chapter 18 today for assurance of grace and salvation. Once saved, always saved, not a license to sin.

That's good. That's a good way of saying that. Once saved, always saved kind of stuff.

Yeah, it's that free grace, antinomian type.

By antinomian, antinomian means against God's law. So I can have just faith in Christ, and my life doesn't reflect those beliefs.

It's all good. And even in the free grace movement, it would be I prayed the sinner's prayer, and now

I can be saved but not be sanctified. That's what free grace would teach.

And so that's what we were talking. We were talking about this before prayer meeting, that justification should sprout sanctification.

You can't separate those things. Sanctification doesn't bring about justification, but justification brings about sanctification, right?

We want to love God's law. We want to be conformed to the image of Christ. That should be ways and identifiers for each of us that we are in the covenant of grace and a part of Christ.

So, good. Is there anything else? I appreciate you, Don. Anything else that we can remember or recall from last week that would be an encouragement to say?

All right. Well, let's go ahead and look at this. So I know last week I was told that you guys read paragraph 1 and maybe didn't go into depth on it.

Is that correct? From chapter 18? We talked about it.

Okay. Let's go ahead and read paragraph 1, and then we'll just jump into 2 and continue on going. So I'll read this for us.

It says, What was some stuff that maybe you talked about last week regarding that?

Because I really like this paragraph. I love dear brother

Don here, and I would tell him, I would tell anybody that's in Christ, keep on looking to Christ.

You're assured of salvation. The day if I'm driving to work and I die, I'm in paradise.

If somebody dies on a deathbed and they're in Christ, they're in paradise. This is a great assurance that we have that we can know the hope that is to come for us, the hope that we currently have.

Is there anything that you guys can recall from last week from this single paragraph?

Just how it ties in with the previous one, talking about that there's going to be – people may have fallen to a grievous sin, but they need for a time to do the temptation for those who are saints.

They'll persevere and they will come out of that. And so here it talks about what about those that don't seem to come out of it?

Like what about false believers or those that we'd say, okay, they left the faith.

Maybe they lost their salvation. And so it says, okay, those that had a type of faith, those temporary believers, were unregenerate.

And so they can be deceived and deceive themselves and have false hopes.

So I just thought it tied in nicely with the previous chapter.

The one thing I did want to make mention of on this – I've seen this several times, and I think maybe not everyone in this room.

But maybe everyone in this room, we could look at people in life and say that those were apostate people. They left the faith.

They actually never really had faith. They had an appearance of something good for a month, and then they went away.

Or maybe they had it for years and then walked away, and now are some of the biggest blasphemers that we know.

One gentleman comes to my mind. His name was Brent. It was really early on in my

Christian walk that this guy seemed to have a real fire and zeal for the Lord. But then divorced his wife, abandoned his kids, renounced the faith, and went just crazy off the side rails.

And so it just showed that he had a vain hope. It was never really anything that actually was there for him.

So it's heartbreaking. This one's a tough one to think about, I think, because there are several people,

I can recall, that have that appearance. So let's go ahead and read paragraph two, and then we'll do some

Scripture reading. I kind of think it would be wise to read all of the Scriptures for this next paragraph.

Let's go ahead and I'll read this one again. Anything that sticks out to us in this paragraph?

The last sentence, as a fruit of this journey, our hearts are kept both humble and whole.

And that's such a powerful, but that's something else.

Our hearts are kept both humble and whole. I think of a brother in Christ that I know, and he's somebody that's done a lot of work for the kingdom.

And he said that the more he thinks about it, he doesn't know if anything – the more that he seeks, and I don't remember exactly the way he phrased it, but the more that he sought worthiness, the more he realized his unworthiness and thankfulness to what

God has done for him. And so I agree. The longer life that we have in Christ, humility should be flowing from our hearts because we recognize what

Christ has saved us from. We know it. And God is able to keep that, keep you in that state of grace.

It's not inherent in me to be that, but it is.

I'm so thankful that it is true. Amen. Thank you, Don. So for today, let's go ahead and read all these different scripture references.

Leland, would you mind reading Hebrews 6, 11? Let's go ahead, and could you read 6, 11 through 19 since there's going to be two references in there?

Yep, and then John, I'll give you these out real fast. John, would you mind reading 2 Peter 1, 4? Catherine, would you mind reading

Romans 8, 15, and 16? Thank you. Jonathan, would you mind reading all those ones from Peter?

And then Christine, would it be too hard for you right now with the kiddos? Would you mind doing 1

John 3, 1 through 3? I'll let Leland start whenever he's ready. And we desire that every one of you will show the same diligence, the full assurance of hope unto the end.

That ye be not flawful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise.

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater than he could swear by himself, saying,

Surely, blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

For when he had sworn by Abraham, in an oath where confirmation is to them an end of all strife, wherein

God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong constellation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.

Fun way to make it, right? Yes. Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and set back, and which endureth into that within the veil.

Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Jonathan, would you mind going next?

All this may have surprised some of you, but we do not represent them.

With the ten academicians of education and technology, they will give accounts of ten distinguished academicians.

But each one has received a special gift, a coin, and a certain fundamental attitude, where whoever speaks, if he can do so, is one who is speaking to others.

Whoever serves, if he can do so, is one who serves God. And that in all things

God may be glorified in his presence, whom belongs the glory and the glory of his name.

Amen. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you. Katherine? Amen. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Christine, will you go? Amen.

Thank you, Christine. So when we read those, those are all really, really powerful

Bible verses. I think those are each one so we could do individual studies on, particularly with all the different doctrines that we see in there.

Leland, as you read that, what was something that stuck out to you from the Hebrew text? I mean that goes back to Perseverance, the show of showing your salvation.

I could compare that to James showing his salvation, not just speaking it, but showing it.

And that that great day came. But it's still that hope that we have in us that it's a true anchor.

And I think what stuck out to me is how many times I felt like I wasn't living up to God. Resting on Jesus and just having the prayer of God, I rest with you.

I rest with you. Because that's my hope. Right. And realizing that that is my hope and I just constantly turn back to that hope.

Amen. That's right. That's a great assurance. The same one that saved us is beyond the veil for us and is that mediator for us.

He never leaves that place. That's our hope right there, right? When he leaves that place is when we're going to see him again.

We'll be in the present then, right? So that's pretty great stuff. Right now he's at the right hand of the Father mediating for us.

John, what was something that, is there anything that really stuck out in the text you read? And you can say no, by the way, I'm not.

Catherine, if I don't feel like I'm making you do something. The last verse kind of stuck out just in the text of verse 5.

But they will give account to him who has offered him salvation because of his faith. Yeah.

That's talking about the general account that we're going to have to give before God. He's going to judge.

He's going to judge us, right? The next time Jesus comes, the first time was to reconcile people to him.

The second time is to cast judgment upon those that aren't reconciled to him. And so those are outside of the body of Christ.

They're going to, think about the long laundry list. Even maybe before we came to Christ, even before I came to Christ.

My laundry list of what I would have done to say, God, I'm good. Would have been saying,

God, I was baptized in the LDS church. I followed Joseph Smith. I went and did these good works.

I was faithful. All these kind of things, right? And that's when Christ is going to say, depart from me, worker of iniquity.

So he's going to come back and judge us off those things. And all my works were done to try to become

God, right? And so we would see in every instance of somebody that is unbelieving, there's going to be a certain level of where they're trying to justify themselves before a holy and righteous

God. They just can't do it. They just won't be able to do that. And so I think that's where I would go with saying that that's what that last verse is talking about.

But yeah, appreciate the question. I'm thinking on that. That's a good one. Catherine, what was something that you noticed in your two verses from Romans?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, amen.

I love it. Yeah, yeah, there's a certain level, and it's a different type of fear, right?

When we think about like when Christ comes again, it says that there are people who are going to scatter to the mountains thinking that they can hide from God, but they can't find a place to hide away from him, right?

And so there's a certain level of scaredness when we talk about that from people that aren't in Christ, but those that have been like how you said, how you read in there, we cry out,

Abba, Father. When the father would take off his belt to discipline a child, is there not a reverent fear of what the father is doing?

Yeah, because we know, yeah, terror, right? We know the father. There's a relationship there.

And so there's still a fear in that sense, but it's a reverent, loving fear that we know that he's our father, right?

And so that's I think one of the really cool parts in creation is that the father and having these offspring, it demonstrates kind of what it's like for us when we're born again, and now we have a relationship with our father in heaven, right?

When we were born, we cried out for our parents. We cried out, and here it says when we're born again, we cry out,

Abba, Father. And so when we know we're a sinner, when we know that that grace has been given to us, we can't help but as children in faith, as newborns in faith, cry out to God.

So I appreciate you reading that. Christine, what was something?

I really like the verses you read. What was some stuff that you saw in there? Yeah. Right. Amen.

I really like those verses. One thing that I think our flesh struggles with is we like to be known in this world.

We like people to think well of us in this world. We like to be seen as honorable in this world, right?

But what did this scripture that Christine just say? They will not know you, right?

There should be a level of an expectancy that the more we are obedient to God, they're going to hate us and reject us for that.

And so don't expect a world where you're going to be able to be comfy with your neighbors that hate God. They're going to hate you too.

They're going to hate you too. And so don't read the

Bible and think to yourself, ah, yes, everybody's going to love me because I'm this Christian. No, no, that's quite the opposite that's going to take place.

In fact, if I would argue to a certain degree, there's times in our places that people will know us and maybe enjoy being around us and stuff.

But if that is all you see in your Christian life, you never see persecution. You never see the world hating you.

You probably, you might want to check what you have faith in and how you're actually behaving because the world that hates

God is going to hate you too. So that's something that I noticed. And so I think that really can play out in everything that we do in life, right?

Like in our workplaces, in our neighbors, in our friendships, in our families. A family that rejects

God, if our family rejects God, should they hate you as a family member too?

Ultimately, yeah. They will hate you at some degree and at some level because of why they hate the

God that you cry out Abba Father to. Emily, Jake, Kimberly, Dawn, do you guys have anything that you noticed from hearing those verses read?

Rick, who's not in here right now with us, is there anything that stuck out to you guys by those Bible verses particularly that were read?

Nothing? Covered it pretty good?

Cool. Emily, you got anything? No. Don't put that evil on me.

Dawn, is there anything that you noticed in there that you really considered in those Bible verses and even in that paragraph?

The realization of what individually you can achieve, not on your strength or not on your – because we all, whether we want to, we all are jealous and we want to be put up to.

We want to be thought well of. We have to look to God for direction and finding the truth, finding where we should stand on all issues,

I think, and only in realizing that and accepting the direction that God gives you and really realizing and accepting through faith what's really there.

The presence of God, the direction that God gives you, that's all attainable, but you have to go to God to find it.

You can't do it on your own. Nope. You'll get messed up. You'll get messed up real quick if you try to do it on your own.

That's right. Thank you, brother. I appreciate the words. My mind just keeps on taking me back to what Christine read.

We should not be trying to cozy up and be liked by the world. That's not our mission.

That's not how we disciple the nations. That's not how we tell them to repent and believe in the gospel. There's a level that we need to know that as Christians, they're going to be offended by it because it's truth.

Truth offends. We know Jesus says that I am the light, and the world is His darkness, and the light exposes them, and they love the darkness rather than the light.

That's John 1, right? So we expect this. Yes. Yep.

Yep. Yeah, in their attempt to try to cozy up, it's actually not done what they were hoping it would do in that sense, right?

Yeah. And in all of these things, the thing that blows my mind away, it's still Jesus. I can't remember the chapter in Luke.

It was Michael Schultz, another guy I got to meet at this conference. The rich young ruler comes to Jesus, and he says, what must

I do to enter into the kingdom? And Jesus gives him this laundry list of, hey, you need to keep these commandments, right?

And there's some other stuff that's going on in the background. And the rich young ruler says, I've done all those things, right?

So we all know that he's a liar right then and there. And Jesus says, well, then sell all your possession and follow me.

And the man walks away. He can't do that. He can't reconcile doing that.

And it says that Jesus looked at him and loved him. Looked at him and loved him.

And so even in Jesus pronouncing judgment upon this person, saying, you don't come into this kingdom, where are you going to go?

You're going to go run to the world like the rich man did. But it says that Jesus looked at him and loved him. And so there is –

I'm not saying that we should just be trying to be offensive, right? That's not what it is.

It's that by loving God, by loving our neighbors, by showing the grace that we have, they will hate us, and it's okay to be hated.

Be comfortable with that. When I was working in the BLM and we'd go and sleep out in the desert all the time, the saying

I always heard was get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's just the world you live in, right? Your feet are going to be sweating.

You're not going to have enough socks. Your underwear are going to be dirty. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

And that's what I think a lot of the Christian life is like in this world. Embrace the suck.

There it is. Embrace the suck. Embrace it. So let's go ahead and read paragraph 3, and then we'll do some more

Scripture references. I'll read it again for us. This infallible assurance is not such an essential part of faith that it is always fully experienced alongside faith.

But true believers may wait a long time and struggle with many difficulties before obtaining it.

Yet with the enabling of the Spirit to know the things freely given to them by God, they may attain this assurance using ordinary means appropriately without any extraordinary revelation.

Therefore, it is the duty of all to be as diligent as possible to make their calling and election sure.

In this way, their 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.

These effects are the natural fruits of this assurance. Thus, it does not at all encourage believers to be negligent.

Emily, would you read Isaiah 50 .10? I already asked. Yeah, I can't take it back.

Here, I'll give you my phone. Isaiah 50 .10. Jake, would you mind reading 1 John 4 .13?

Kimberly, would you mind reading Romans 5 .1 -2? And Dawn, would you mind reading

Romans 6 .1 -2?

And then Rick, would you mind reading Titus 2 .11 -14? And that way, everybody got to read tonight.

Thanks. I have to read God's Word. I know.

Your hands are busy. I know it's challenging. I'll let you start, though, dear. Yep. Jake, would you mind doing the

Psalm text now? Or the 1 John, excuse me. Kimberly, would you do the

Romans text now? Amen.

Amen. Dawn, I'll let you go next. What? It's amazing.

What shall we say, then, of which you continue in sin, that grace may increase?

Amen. Yeah. May it never be. Rick, I'll let you read

Titus 2 .11 -14. For the grace of God that brings salvation to the fears of all men, teaching us that denying them cutliness and worldly lusts is to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking to the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great

God, the Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.

Amen. Thank you. So when we look at this paragraph, paragraph 3, we read these quotations that are suggested to us to read along with these things, and we didn't read them all, of course.

I think especially in the case of Dawn's text, there's different stages.

Do we expect—I go back to what Catherine read before, right? When a child is born, do we expect

Owen to have the same understanding that Shepard has? Do we expect Shepard to have the same understanding that Nehemiah has?

Do we expect Nehemiah to have the same understanding that Dawn has in life, right? John's saying, yeah.

There's going to be different stages that we're in, right? And so that's what this paragraph's getting at, that maybe we aren't assured of this quite yet.

Maybe somebody is born again, and they're still struggling with this idea, how could God pay for my sin where I sin in such a way there's no way he could save me, and there's these struggles that they have, right?

And those are good struggles to fight through. But then you might go to somebody, and you might go up to Spurgeon, right, somebody that's been in the faith for a while and really conformed to the

Word of God and what it teaches, and he says, no, there's nothing. There's nothing, right? He's just assured of this salvation that he has in Christ.

So there's going to be these different levels of sanctification maybe is a good way of saying it, or growth, walking, that we can expect.

Student is inaudible.

Right. Right. Absolutely. No, that's a fact. I love it. I'm happy that you went there.

Very happy about that. Emily, from the text that you read, was there anything that stuck out?

You can say no. Is there anything that's – nothing that you can think of?

All right. I know. Your hands are full right now. Thank you for reading, Jim. Student is inaudible.

Yeah. Through the Spirit. Love it. Kimberly, was there anything that stuck out to you in the text that you read?

Yeah. Amen. Yeah.

I agree. That's good. Catherine just got handed off the baby like in football.

It was a good little move right there. Go on. Thank you for that.

That's good. Don, what stuck out to you in your text? The Apostle Paul does this over and over.

Yeah. And he asks a question. Your faith grows, you know.

And how do you – you're left low, you know, like how can

I – Yep. You don't even want to – you want to just go on.

Let's go tomorrow. You know, not until we – let's go out and sin some more.

Right. So that grace may abound. Let's do it so that this can happen. When I was younger and I used to laugh.

It was a self -contained laugh when we would sing that hymnal. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the shore.

Far from the shore. And the answer always was I was sinking deep in sin.

Whee! Right. Yeah.

Love it. That's the kind of response that is ridiculous.

Yeah. It's a ridiculous notion, right? If there was a Christian, like – and I think

John started to make mention of this at the beginning of the study. It says I'm saved, once saved, always saved, which

I believe in that doctrine. I believe in that doctrine of eternal security, right? If you're saved, you're always saved. But if somebody says, oh,

I said the prayer, I'm good to go, right? I can – let's go sin, right? I got this license to go out and do whatever.

That's terrible. And the sad part about this is that these people are the people that still claim, guess what, titles. Titles that you and I claim, that they're

Christian, that they're saved, right? They still say all these same things that you and I say. The part that really hurts is that it hurts the character of Christ when that happens.

And what I mean by that is as an LDS person, I still remember being taught in LDS seminary that the

Christian believes that you're saved, you can go out and license to sin. I had a seminary teacher teaching this to students, high school students.

Christians just believe that you can go out and do whatever you want, right? Exactly. Exactly.

Yep. And it's just like, man, it hurts. It's like dirtying up that title that's the – it's like the banner that's over our doorpost,

Christian, right? And here you have the person next door that painted it on themselves, and they're like, yeah, I'm a Christian, right?

It's like, man, you're just mocking Christ at this point.

Like it's not okay. It's not okay. And so there's long -lasting – where I'm going with that is there's long -lasting effects to bad doctrine.

Really, really so. So they need to read Romans 6, huh,

Don? Yep. Yep.

Right. And then they immediately tack on a – typically then they immediately tack on a workspace salvation, right?

Oh, you believe that you have a license to sin. I actually am saved because I did these things, and look how good

I am, right? And so it's – I'm going to counter this bad doctrine with another bad doctrine.

And then it just continues to muddy that water up even more and more and more. Then you find yourself in 2024 in the

United States of America, and yeah, you have people trans and kids, and you have some people that are saying that I'm a

Christian, and that's okay to do. And then it's just unbelievable how bad that can get.

So again, be firm in doctrine. Know God. Know the world hates

God, and know you're going to be hated by God. It's okay. It's okay. Rick, what was something that you took away from the

Titus text that you read? Just that as we follow

God, we think we can follow the truth, we're obedient. Knowing God in us, the worldly life, is soberly, righteously.

As we're going through that, we're looking for the blessed hope. So it goes – the assurance comes along with being obedient.

They attain the assurance using ordinary means appropriately without any extraordinary revelation. You don't have to have a vision of God to know that we actually are saved.

But as we do the ordinary things, we have that assurance more and more.

Yeah, absolutely. The part

I appreciate with what you just said there is I think each one of us has experienced this, right?

When we first were saved, maybe there was a desire to go to church, but maybe you were like, it doesn't really matter if I miss this

Sunday or anything like that. But then through time and plugging yourself in, you're like, wow, this is what

God has commanded me to do. I love this. This is edifying. That's a means of grace right there.

That's one that I would say in many perspectives is a small thing that we can do, and it's confirming,

I think, to myself anyway. I know I might be preaching most Sundays, but every time I come to church, it's a blessing to worship with everyone in here.

Absolute blessing. I'm encouraged every time I get to meet with any one of us in this room, very much so.

Well, let's go ahead and do—unless is there anything else that stands out to us in that paragraph 3 from 1689 that we want to make mention of before we go to paragraph 4?

Assurance of grace and salvation. All right, let's go ahead and read paragraph 4 then.

And this is where we'll end tonight is in paragraph 4. True believers may in various ways have the assurance of their salvation shaken, decreased, or temporarily lost.

This may happen because they neglect to preserve it, or fall into some specific sin that wounds their conscious and grieves the spirit.

It may happen through some unexpected or forceful temptation, or when

God withdraws the light of His face and allows even those who fear Him to walk in the darkness and to have no light.

Yet they are never completely lacking the seed of God, the life of faith, love of Christ, and the brethren, sincerity of heart or conscience concerning their duty.

Out of these graces, through the work of the Spirit, this assurance may at proper time be received—or revived, excuse me, may be revived.

In the meantime, they are kept from utter despair through Him. What stands out to you guys in this paragraph?

So unlike our salvation can't be shaken, can't lose that, the assurance can be shaken.

You can have more assurance or less assurance depending on what happens. So there can be a point in our life where we are assured of our salvation, and then something happens, whether neglect or sin or whatever, we lose that assurance, but we can lose our salvation.

We've lost it. And that's kind of interesting. I was thinking of like the contrast with Islam is that you can never have assurance in Islam.

It's not a paradise. The only way that you could be assured was if you were,

I guess depending on which sect, if you were committing jihad, if you died in an act of…

Then you're assured, right? That was assurance. We didn't have assurance until you did that. So with Allah, you never know because you can keep

His law perfectly, and you can't know Allah. So He could decide that you're not going to go to paradise because it's up to Him, even if you were completely obedient to Him.

So other religions, you don't have the assurance. You don't know if you've done good enough or not or performed it.

Have I done enough to attain? Right. That was not where my mind was going, so I'm thankful for that.

That was really good, Rick. Thank you. Anything else that sticks out to us in this paragraph? Sentence 19.

Let's hear it. What does it say? Amen.

Amen. Yeah. Like I said,

I really appreciate what Rick just said, that salvation can never be lost, right?

But our understanding of that assurance can waver at times. But praise the

Lord that it also can be revived, right? That's wonderful. That is wonderful.

So I guess what my mind wonders, like we see on the outside what we can't see on the inside.

So we may think, oh, that person's completely fallen from grace. They're stepping in them. We don't know what's going on in their heart.

We don't know what's happening in their heart. And so we're in salvation status before the time, because we don't know what their heart's on inside.

If we can point to their actions, that's an unlegitimate action. That is what you're showing me.

But we can't say you're not saved because we can't know that. And so if they are, we do trust that by the end they'll still preserve if they are truly

God. But God does everything He did for us. Like it's still not on us to do what

He produced us to do. And so you may have been going through whatever you're going through in life to act as emissaries to another region that they would not be able to reach unless they were senior or different.

Right, unless they had been brought through that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm tracking you. That's good. That's really good. Yeah, my mind,

I think each one of us can talk about the sin side of things on this, right? Like there's sometimes where sin infects our lives in such a way that, man, it makes us shake bad in our faith and our assurance, right?

That's what this is saying, and I think each one of us could attest to that, right? There's also,

I think, something that maybe the confession doesn't – maybe it does. Maybe when it says that when

God withdraws the light of His face, it could – there's sometimes circumstances in life that really make us waver on things.

And I'm thinking specifically like death, right? Something strikes at the very core of the faith, right?

It just, boom, you're kiltered, you're tiltered, you're toppling. I don't know. There's a whole bunch of different words.

You start shaking just from that. And so I think maybe that it's a good reminder for us as Christians that we can't judge the intentions of the heart.

And so how should we – maybe when we see somebody faltering or tiltering in their faith, shaken in their faith, how do we approach those people?

Maybe they need to be encouraged of the assurance that they have in Christ, right? Maybe they need to be encouraged of the assurance that is the

Christ, that you were saved yesterday, you're saved today, right?

That might be something that's really impactful to somebody in those situations, whether it is that they've fallen into sin or whether it was something like death,

God's light, or whatever the example is. I think that might be what that's talking about in this paragraph,

God removing His light from His face. So it just seems like they're in the shadow of darkness, right, that Psalm 23 text.

Everybody's going through different things in this room today, right? Not everybody, like Jake and Kimberly, were married just a little while ago.

Not all of us experience what one another is going through right now, right? And so being intentional and cognizant about that and then ministering to them in their different areas is important.

Is there any final thoughts on this text that we – this paragraph, the text that we've read, everything put together?

What may be something that you guys put together? What's something to conclude these four paragraphs together with the scripture we've read?

There's a lot of talk in 1 John about how our work kind of proves us.

Like our assurance, of course, is private, but our salvation – and of course our salvation is networked with John.

He takes a picture that our works kind of assure us of our salvation.

I wish we could find a direct description of that. It's in 1 John 5. I'm opening it right now. I'm looking for it myself.

I'm pretty sure it was – Amen. Amen.

Yeah, I would even look at verse 13 too. These things I've written to you who believe in the name of the

Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life, right? So all those verses go hand in hand with one another, right?

I know that when I'm in my life, any time that I think, you know, people are dead and people are good, people are not good people.

They're in the shape of this, they're like God. Am I really Lord? Am I presumptuous?

Do I have a false assurance? And I think that's by design. By design, we should have that.

We should wonder at our salvation when we're living the life that we need to live. Yeah, that would be a byproduct of that, right?

That's good. We should expect that. That's good. That's really good. Yeah. Yep.

Yep. Really? That's cool.

That's good. Yep. That's good.

Yep. That's really good. Anything else?

I think that's a good story to end on right there. That's pretty powerful. As we consider this, again, as the week progresses and we're making ourselves ready for the

Lord's Day this Sunday, just be assured that if you have faith in Christ, your salvation has been bought for you 2 ,000 years ago.

Be assured of that. Be assured of that. And if you're going through a hard time right now, be revived.

Continue to do those means of grace that we see in this text that we've been reading about. Would anybody like to volunteer to pray us out for the evening tonight?

My wife is already very—I'm not going to even look at you right now because she's already turning away.

Brother Don, would you mind praying us out for the evening? Heavenly Father, it is so good to be able to come as a group together to just look into you, into your direction for us to follow.

Give us your path. Give us your wisdom. Give us your strength for all things in life.

Help us each to reach and find you in our need, and always look to you for your presence in our lives.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to just come to do as we are doing.

It helps us grow in our love of faith. Thank you for the first day.