Assurance Of Salvation (pt-1)

controversial issues, gay marriages, we've looked at a variety of different topics on Sunday night, women's roles and men's roles, and tonight we're going to look at something not so controversial but I think misunderstood many times, and that's the doctrine of assurance.

And so for those of you who are visiting, you don't have to be afraid or nervous, but I like to do things sometimes in the form of a quiz, and so Bob and Bill, would you hand out this quiz?

It's a quiz on assurance, there are 12 questions, and that will kind of be our outline for tonight. Sunday nights are a little more interactive,

I might ask questions, they're true and false, the first one is a definition, number three, there's a typo, there should be a plural form of the verb calls, and what you do is just go through and take about five minutes, if you have a pencil or even if you don't, true or false, and then you want to ask yourself this question, based upon my answer, true or false, can

I find a Bible verse to back it up? So the best thing to do is write true or false, and then a Bible verse, and then we'll use this as a springboard tonight for our topic, and I think it's maybe a little bit easier way to remember as we go through this.

Quiz on assurance, I think we should have enough, if not, we can make copies.

The typo is number three, the most popular religion in New England calls assurance a sin, so that should be a plural form of the verb, since you've got the singular subject, calls,

Mr. Bill comes home from college. Alright, again

Sunday morning is a little bit different and I just preach and don't really expect people to say anything back, those who say things back usually get escorted out.

On Sunday night is a little different and we have some feedback and back and forth, I don't know the answer to every question, although I can probably find out a lot of answers and know where to go, but I'll ask some questions and you can just raise your hand or you can just blurt out the answer if you'd like, but I want to deal with this issue of assurance of salvation for a variety of different ways, and I don't think we're going to get through all these tonight.

Actually, the bulk of my biblical work is in number 12, so the other ones just kind of put us in the right frame of mind and a good jumping off point.

Who can give me a good definition of assurance, it doesn't have to be with polysyllabic words or anything, what's a good definition of assurance of salvation?

God said it, keep going, okay, so I believe it's like the bumper sticker,

God said it, I believe it, and that settles it, you can always take that middle part out of that by the way, God said it, that settles it, whether you believe it or not, it's still true,

God's revelation is true, okay, good, someone else, Wes? Okay, knowing for certain or knowing for a fact that you're saved, okay, good, anybody want to elaborate on that?

Yes, Jonah? Okay, so that's going to flesh itself out a little bit more and I would call that subjective assurance where there are objective means and that's a subjective means where the spirit bears witness to our spirit in the context of suffering in Romans 8 that we're really

Christians, okay, good, anything else, Bob? Okay, did you get that, say that again, an inner confidence that you're a

Christian based on outer fruit and inner heart for God, okay, that's very good, so an outer fruit maybe a la 1st

John chapters 1 through 5 and then the inner confidence, the inner witness of the spirit in Romans 8, good, objective and subjective, good, anybody else want to add anything to that, assurance of salvation?

Alright, I mean, I looked at Baker's book of theology and they said, quote, assurance of a relationship with God in Christ is the way believers express the mysterious connection between the infinite nature of God and the fallible nature of humanity,

I just, in my own mind, I thought knowing for sure that you're going to heaven seemed a little bit easier than that, alright, number 1, the true and false, assurance is not a very important or vital issue, so it's not that big a deal,

I mean, why have a whole Sunday night series on it, how would you respond, why is it important, anyone, why is assurance important, there are several reasons why it's an important doctrine, okay, it enhances your worship, when

I fly to Tennessee on next Sunday, it's kind of nice knowing in my pocket I've got the return flight, that's good, alright, what else, it'll have an effect on how you live your life, that's exactly right, good, anybody else, give you my reasons, yes, okay, it's the most important, where there could be false assurance, people think they have assurance and they don't, that's exactly right, good, before you, yes,

Ajay, did you have something, peace, the peace that you know you're saved, okay, good, let me give you a few other ones, one of the reasons why

I think it's an important issue is these days we have a growing trend in evangelicalism towards man -centered gospel, and as the man -centered gospel goes up, you're going to see assurance issues go up as well, or at least be brought to the forefront, so if you've got

Dave Hunt writing a book, What Love Is This?, as he continues to lift the playing field up towards man -centered salvation,

I think the spin -off issues of assurance are going to go up and up and up, so this topic is not going to go away, now secondly, if you've got a church, you attend a church that preaches at a high level, you will have people in the church struggle with salvation and assurance of it more than you will if you've got a church that preaches a lowest kind of denominator of Christianity, in other words, if you're hearing verses like 2

Corinthians chapter 13, examine yourselves to see if you're in faith, and God expects you not to be bitter and to have anger and to have wrath and clamor and blasphemy and all wickedness, but be kind to one another and tender -hearted, forgiving one another,

Jesus Christ and God has forgiven you, and you hear these things come bellowing out of the pulpit, the congregation of hears those could be more apt to struggle with their salvation than those that hear,

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, everything's fine, walk the aisle, everything's copacetic, would you agree with that?

I think it's true. It's also important because I think it's a good witnessing springboard because many false religions don't know if they're going to heaven.

We'll talk about this in a little bit, but there are religions that they don't know if they're going or not. You're going to go to heaven?

I hope so. What a great opportunity to talk about for sure you can have your sins forgiven, and when you witness, by the way, just go straight for the jugular.

Just say when you meet someone, I'd love to talk to you about how you can have all your sins forgiven in Christ Jesus, would you like to talk about that?

If the answer's no, well, then off you go. You don't have to do this whole thing, where did Cain get his wife, you know, does

Adam have a belly button? I mean, it doesn't really matter. Would you like to talk about forgiveness of sins?

And you can zoom right into the issue. Thomas Watson said, if you have assurance, be careful you do not lose it.

Why is it important to talk about assurance? Because once you get it, you don't want to lose something like that. An old

Puritan, Joseph Carl said, the greatest thing that we can desire next to the glory of God is our own salvation.

Listen, that's the greatest. And the sweetest thing we can desire is the assurance of our salvation.

The greatest is salvation. The sweetest is assurance. In this life, we cannot get higher than to be assured of that which is in the next life to be enjoyed.

All saints shall enjoy heaven when they leave this earth. Some saints enjoy heaven while they are here on earth.

It's a sweet thing to know that you're going. It should cause you to stay up at night thinking,

I know I'm going and I'm sure. When I die, I'm going to meet God face to face.

I think it's also important because, as Jack said, it helps the way we live and it helps the way we die.

John Wesley said, Christians die well. And I'll just expand that a little bit. Christians who are assured of their salvation die even better.

Is that proper English? They die well. They die more well. They die good bowel, like this morning, right?

For those of you who weren't here, you'll have to get the tape. Baxter's on his deathbed and here's what he says.

Richard Baxter from Kidderminster, England. I bless God that I have a well -grounded assurance of my eternal happiness and great peace and comfort within.

And he's getting closer and closer and closer to death. And then they ask him, Richard, how are you?

Almost well, he said, just right before he died. When you have a good doctrine of assurance of salvation, you not only live well, but you die well.

And every one of us is going to face the fact that you'll die. You may think it's morose, but I think it's a good thing to do.

We were stir -crazy sick for two weeks. What are we going to do today? So we all bundled up and we went down to the local cemetery.

And so I played a game with the kids and I said, every time you find a cross on a tombstone, you get one point. Every time you find a

Bible verse, you get three points. Whoever gets the most points gets banged up in hell.

Why I'm telling you this? I don't know. But what a great opportunity to go around and say, you are going to die, kids, you're going to die.

Edwards used to tell us four and five -year -olds, kids, you are going to be ready to die. Are you ready? I mean, you should be ready to die.

Are you ready? To know that yes, you're going to be put into that grave. And I told the kids, just whatever you do, put 2

Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21 on my tombstone. Why?

Because I want to preach the gospel when I'm still dead. That's what I want to do and I want my kids to walk by and say, I love my dad, and there's three points.

They'll put a Bible verse on there. But you're walking around the cemetery and it is just shocking because everybody dies.

You can be rich, you can be poor, you can be Arminian, you can be a Calvinist, you can be a Unitarian, you can be a Trinitarian, and you are going to die.

And it is good to know while you're dying to say, God, I know I can trust you and I'm confident that I'm going to be with you.

Who would want to live any other way? It is well with my soul, the stanza is, my sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

Ho hum, ho hum, ho hum. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul, he knew.

Another song, how firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.

What more can he say than to you he has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not desert to its foes.

That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no, never, no, never. Okay, number two.

People can have assurance of salvation and still go to hell. You can be assured that you're going, know you're going, and still not go.

True or false and why? True, why is that? Okay, I'm good enough.

I'm okay, you're okay. Okay, especially when you compare yourself to other people and you're more religious and you do more external things and religious kind of spiritual things than someone else.

Good, Cindy. Yeah, Matthew 721 just shouts there. I mean, you can do religious things and you can be involved in revivals and exorcisms and many will say to me on that day, even with intimacy,

Lord, Lord. Matthew chapter seven, good. And for those of you that want to look up some Bible verses, we'll get there. If you need an exposition, you can order the tape from this morning, but we'll get there.

We're just setting ourselves up. Anybody else? Yes. Well, I'll get to that in just a second, but you can have things happen to you to give you false assurance.

That's right, and so there can be people who think they're going to heaven but aren't. Now, I don't think my experience proves the point and we'll look at the proof in the text later, but I'm a classic example growing up as a kid.

I went on a mission trip to Galeana, Mexico. I went Colorado Rocky Mountains backpacking with the

Christian group. I went to church all the time. I was baptized in Lutheran Church. I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church.

I did all these things and you could put a gun to my head and I'd say, I believe in Jesus. At least I thought

I would do that. Who knows, because it never happened, but I thought I was going. Now, one man said there are four types of people in this world.

One, those who think they're saved but aren't. Cindy said Matthew seven. Number two, those we think are saved but aren't.

Three, those who are saved but don't act like it. You know, some of the Corinthians, they didn't act like it.

And fourthly, those who are saved and act like it. John Bunyan said, quote, then

I saw that there is a way to hell even from the gates of heaven. Trap door up in heaven, as it were, on his way to hell.

And we live in a day, and Jonah just brought this up a second ago, that there are people that promote false assurance.

What is your name? You give the name. Who gave you this name? Answer, my godfather and godmother in my baptism, wherein

I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Christ.

For me, I grew up as a Lutheran. In this little booklet, Baptism Saves, it says this. Baptism establishes a new relationship with God.

Through Christian baptism, we have our sins forgiven, become heirs of eternal life, and can remain his children forever.

Amazing grace, end quote. False assurance, when you say to kids who've been baptized, and this is not a discussion of believer's baptism, credo baptism, and infant baptism, pedo baptism.

This is when somebody is baptized as a child, and they can just think, okay, I've been baptized in a Christian church, therefore

I am. How about those who, in our circles, walk down the aisle, sign the card, do all the

Christian things. They could even be baptized here. I've been baptized by the pastor in this baptismal font. How about people who have had some kind of charismatic experience?

I've experienced something from God, therefore that validates my Christianity. How about if I'm a

Plymouth Brethren, and I have all these rules, and I don't read the paper on Sundays, and I don't do this, and I don't do that, and I don't do that, and therefore

I'm saved. I think there's a lot of false assurance. Why don't we just turn to that passage that Cindy mentioned a moment ago, so at least we can get our

Bibles open, Matthew chapter 7, verse 21 and 22. When people say,

I accepted Jesus, I sometimes say, and I know it is just to kind of, maybe it riles them up a little bit, but the real question of salvation is not, have you accepted

Jesus? The real question of salvation is, has Jesus accepted you?

That's the big issue. And here we find a classic example of someone who accepts Jesus, but Jesus has not accepted them because they didn't come to God through Christ on His terms.

I mean, these are just, I remember the first time I heard somebody preach these, it was just amazing. In fact, this is

John Kistler, the head of Soledad Gloria Books, was listening to MacArthur preach through these passages and got saved while he was back at Grace Church.

The Lord has blessed him in a wonderful book ministry, but verse 21, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, sweet, kind, loving

Jesus, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven, or he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter.

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? We proclaimed your word.

We foretold your word, in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles. Then I will declare to them,

I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. I think it is very important for us to deal with this issue of assurance.

All right, let's go to another one. Number three, the most popular religion in New England calls assurance a sin.

Elaborate. Okay, let's get somebody who hasn't. Fred?

Okay, could you elaborate on the sin part where they would think it was a sin to have assurance? Okay, that's true, and I'll quote from them in just a minute.

Okay, good. Other comments along the same line? Yes, Wesley? Okay, venial sin or mortal?

That's not a joke. It sounds like a joke, but it's not a joke. It's a mortal sin, it's a mortal sin.

By the way, on a side note, every sin's a mortal sin, right? Any sin against the holiness of God, see, that's the problem when we think of sin.

We don't think about God's holiness enough. We have this God who somehow leads with his love, he loves you, devoid of his holiness.

But when you see this thrice holy God, every sin against that thrice holy God makes that sin so bad.

For example, if you shoot President Bush and you shoot me, you're going to have to pay a lot more if you shoot

President Bush. Why? Because Bush is a better person than I am or more worthy to God? No, because in our system, there's consequences because of who he is, his position.

You sin against the thrice holy God, it's of course more, it's worse.

Rome calls this the sin of presumption, that you would so presume to know that you can go to heaven.

The sin of presumption. And it started with Gregory the Great, 7th century pope, and he said, you cannot know that assurance is possible, but he took it farther and he said, it's actually dangerous.

He said, the greater our sins, the more we must do to make up for them, the more we must do.

Whether we have done enough to atone for them, we cannot know until after death. We can never be sure of success, assurance of salvation and the feeling of safety engendered by it is dangerous for anyone and would not be desirable even if possible.

You can't know it's dangerous and you shouldn't even want to know. The Council of Trent, as they replied to Luther and the reformers, went farther.

Full papal authority, as they said this in the sixth session, Canon 30, Council of Trent, 1547.

If anyone says that after the reception of grace of justification, the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be cursed and go to hell.

Real translation, anathema. That's pretty heavy -duty stuff, isn't it? That's what your next -door neighbor's church teaches.

They might not believe it, but that's what your next -door neighbor's church believes. Turn to Colossians chapter 2 for a moment, and this isn't in your notes or anything, but I want you to see the text that you can be confident that every sin has been taken care of.

I think you should go to your Roman Catholic friends and preach to them the good news. Why is it good?

You can know. You can know that you're going to heaven. How would you like to have to wait? Can't live well?

You can't die well? You're always afraid? I mean, no wonder you would be locked up in your home not wanting to go out because you might get in a car accident or something else.

Colossians chapter 2, verse 13, in this context of Colossians, the larger book, talking about Christ is sufficient for everything you need, especially here in this context, salvation, forgiveness of sins.

And this will work out well because we just talked about this special word this morning in our sermon as well.

Colossians 2 .13, and when you were dead in your transgressions, you were spiritually dead in your, not just sins, but your transgressions, your recalcitrant, hard -hearted sins against God and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has nothing to do with spiritual circumcision,

I mean, a temporal circumcision. He made you alive together.

The union with Christ is what he's talking about. He quickened us with him having, what do you think the root word there is for forgiveness based on this morning's sermon?

Chorus. He graced you. He granted favorably with nothing deserved to you, so much so that we translated, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

He forgave them. He granted it as a favor. As a favor. Now remember, those are everything.

Ignorant, high -handed, original, actual, past and future, thought and deed, omission, commission, mortal, venial, every one.

And at the end of that sentence in Greek, it's got the word transgressions in the original, and that's emphatic.

Every one of your transgressions. Verse 14, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us.

That is amazing. That's why forgiveness is often called remission, because we have a debt against God we owe, and so now when you relieve the debt, it's remission.

The debt is remitted. It was hostile to us, of course it was, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Wiped it out. He rubbed it out. And I just want you to know, if you've got a Roman Catholic friend, one of the best things you can do is tell them they can know they can go to heaven.

That they know they can have forgiveness. And that's how I would preach it. That's to me good news. What kind of good news is it to say you may be able to go to heaven or you might not?

Okay, following right in line here. By the way, any more questions about that? Comments? Alright, number four.

You can know for sure if you are saved beyond a reasonable doubt. You can just cancel that part out if you'd like.

You can know for sure if you're saved. Can you know? And then give me a Bible verse. Okay, 1

John 5, 11, and 12. Let's go there. You can for sure know. 1 John 5, 11, and 12 will include 13,

I believe, as well. 1 John. By the way, as I just turned there, if you want to give the

Gospel of John to someone who wants to know about salvation, I think that's what you should do. To give someone a good book to read who's struggling with their salvation, this is an excellent recommendation.

1 John 5, verse 13, and here we have the dear beloved one writing, verse 11, and the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

You can think of Ephesians chapter 1, 2, 3, in Christ, in Christ, in Him, in Christ. He who has a

Son has life, talking about spiritual life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things, verse 13,

I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

And it's interesting, if God gives you eternal life, He gives you the smaller things, too. Verse 14, this is the confidence we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will,

He hears us. And so you can know. I'm sure you're all familiar with this verse.

John 20, verse 30 and 31 says, many other signs before Jesus also performed in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book.

But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Number five, now of course you may say, there's lots of verses that say you can lose your salvation and we'll have to get to those, but just hang in there with me.

Number five, God did not have to tell us that we could have assurance. Did God have to tell us that you could know for sure?

Well, in the sense, yes, that He told us and therefore that was His purpose. That's why when you try to talk to kids and they'll say, can

God make a rock too big for Him to move? You get these kind of conundrum kind of things.

That's why the children's catechism says, can God do all things? Answer, God can do all

His holy will. And so of course it was His will to do this. But in just the philosophical kind of question,

God, if He would have wanted to, He could have just said, if you believe you're saved, He didn't have to tell us anything about promises.

What I'm trying to get at is the promises of God are kind of like the icing on the cake. Let's turn to one, 1

John 2 .25, since you're there. I just love it that God has given us promise after promise after promise.

Sometimes do a little word study and look at the word promise. God would promise to us, and I think back in Genesis chapter 15 where God made the promise to Abraham, and how did

God make that promise? An unconditional promise to Abraham. Remember how they used to make promises back in those days?

Okay, let's get some animals. And so you would get some special animals, some larger and some smaller, and you would just cut those animals in half.

Set them side by side, half the animal here, half the animal here. If it was just a small bird, you didn't have to cut it in half.

And then arm in arm, you would walk almost like a wedding ceremony. You would walk together with that person that you promised down through those split bloodied animals, symbolizing what?

That you were having a covenant, you were cutting a contract, and that cutting was literal. You cut those animals, set them to the side.

It cost you those animals, and you walked down, and you said, if I break my word on this promise, what was done to the animals will be done to me, right?

That's why when we have weddings in America, we have them walk down the middle of the aisle.

Why? You can do it anything you want, but I like the symbolism. Groom's side sits here, the bride's side sits here, they walk down the very middle.

You have the two sacrificial families, one side here, one side there, I don't want to take it too far, and they're cutting the contract, walking right down the aisle.

And then God said, well Abraham, I know you won't keep your end of the bargain, and I promise things by myself, and I'm the only promise keeper that ever lived, and all the promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, so Abraham, your job for our little promise is you take a nap over there, and I'll walk through the middle of these by myself, swearing by my own name that I'll keep my own promises based on my own nature.

It's wonderful. Look at 1 John 2 .25, and this is the promise which he himself, anytime you see a he himself, there's always emphasis.

You can always underline that himself, because something's trying to be brought out. He made to us eternal life. I promise you eternal life.

He himself promised. It's not Moses or somebody else, it's God himself promised eternal life.

He sealed us in Ephesians 1 .13 with the Holy Spirit of promise, by name he's even called promise.

All right, here we go, let's pick it up a little bit more. Number six, assurance stems from other doctrines.

I could put it this way. You can know more about assurance if you study other doctrines.

Furthermore, if you have a struggle with assurance, and you're not sure if you're saved, study other ologies or other doctrines, and that will help you with assurance.

True or false? True. Give me some doctrines to study to help you with your assurance. Okay, election, good, we'll talk about that in a minute.

What else? Yeah. His sovereignty, good. Sufficiency of his work, isn't that good?

When Jesus finished his work on the cross, it is finished and done. And Hebrews talks about sacrificing once, good.

There's a whole bunch of them. But let's turn to Romans chapter 8 and take a look at this whole idea of the golden chain of salvation.

By the way, when I was at the graveyards and tombstones the other day, I noticed on two different tombstones, there were three links of a chain.

Does anybody know what that means? I saw some Masonic symbols and I knew those, but I don't know what three links of a chain would be.

Nobody knows? All right, well, here's five links of a chain. And this is a helpful doctrine, a helpful passage that will increase your assurance of salvation.

You're saved. I don't want it to increase your assurance of salvation if you're not saved. If you're turning to Romans 8,

Thomas Watson said, when God calls a sinner, he does not repent of it. He doesn't change his mind.

He calls you, he calls you. So let's look at this first chain. Romans 8, verse 29.

By the way, what's the first word there? What does this all follow out of? What's the context?

Just like reading John 3 .16. Can't read John 3 .16 without reading John 3 .15. Can't read

John 3 .15 without reading John 3 .14. Just keep backing up. But it starts with a four here, and he's just come right out of this idea that God in His great wonderful way can cause things to work together for good.

And He can take the sins of Joseph's brothers and cause good out of them. And so now he says, how can

God cause all things to work together for good? For His glory? For His people?

How can He do that? Well, here's how He does it. The first link, a doctrinal link that will help us with assurance is foreknow.

For whom He foreknew, He predestined. So the first one is foreknow, and if you're not careful, you'll just look at that word in a very

English way and say foreknow. And as God looks down the corridors of time, He knows who does what, and He sees who's going to repent and believe, and therefore

He picks him. There are two problems with that view. The first one is it doesn't understand man's sinfulness and depravity, because God will look down the corridors of time, and He'll see four kinds of people.

He'll see, according to Romans chapter 5, He'll see sinners, He'll see enemies, He'll see helpless, and He'll see ungodly.

And left to themselves, that's what He'll always see. Looking down the corridor of time, no one's going to respond of their own initiative.

Secondly, though, it betrays just studying only an English word. How many people have read the

Attributes of God by Pink? That chapter on the foreknowledge of God is an absolute must.

The foreknowledge of God, and looking back at how it was used, like in Jeremiah chapter 1 in the Old Testament, where,

I'll just read it. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And study sometime in Pink's little chapter about four loving people, loving them before time.

Not seeing what they would do, of course God knows what they'll do, I'm not arguing against His omniscience, but this is

He foreloves, with the whole ayat in the Hebrew, four loving people, that's what He's after.

Loving people before. By the way, when you study that passage, do you know

God does not foreknow? When the foreknowledge texture is used in Scripture, He is never said to foreknow an act,

He's always said to foreknow people, did you know that? God doesn't, He knows what you do, but this idea of He loves you ahead of time,

He's talking about loving you, He's not talking about loving what you do, He's talking about before time He loves you.

So how can you be sure of your salvation? It's kind of like this question, well Mike, when did you get saved? I'll tell you when

I got saved. I got saved in the eternity past when God chose me. I got saved at Calvary when

Jesus died for me. I got saved at 29 years old when the Spirit of God regenerated me.

I am being saved now every day as I say no to sin and yes to God through the Spirit of His power that dwells in me.

And I one day will be saved from the presence, power, and, you just get me wound up.

I one day will be saved from the actual presence of sin and glory. I'm saved five times, five ways.

So when you think about assurance of salvation, it's not just, and here's what I'm after, it's not just well,

I had a bad devotional week this week and I don't feel saved. It may in fact be true, when you have bad intimacy with God, it's hard to have good assurance of salvation, but assurance is not just based on what we do.

That's why my favorite book in all the Bible for assurance is what? Galatians.

Because Galatians makes very sure that you're not saved by anything but the grace of God and if you want to add anything, you want to add salvation, it's believing and having proper devotions, believing, making sure you serve, believing, and all these other things which are good, but they don't save you.

So when I really struggle and I think, could I be saved or could

I not be, and I don't struggle like I used to when I was a newer Christian, I struggled a lot more, I would read Galatians because it is

Christ's finished work at Calvary and I believe that. I believe that if you put a gun to my head and all my family's head and say,

Mike, if you renounce Christ as the only way we'll let them all live, I think by God's grace I'm going to die and let them die.

I'm willing to stake my temporal life and my kids' temporal lives and my kids' spiritual life and my spiritual life on the fact that Jesus is my substitute.

He died, God raised Him from the dead, and I'm only trusting in Him. And Galatians makes sure you get rid of all the other frills.

But foreknow, when you think about it, even if you don't take my view, remember the state of man who will not respond to God and also remember what foreknowledge knows.

It doesn't know actions, it knows people. Well, what's the second chain? The second chain is predestination.

This literally means to mark out. How can it be predestination if God knows down the corridors of time and picks who chooses

Him? That wouldn't be predestination, by the way, that would be post -destination. But here, He literally marks out. It's as if He foreloves people and now

He carves it out. Very similar words. What's the third chain? What's the text say?

He calls. He calls. In the epistles, it's always the effectual call where God calls you, you're saved, you're regenerated.

Take a look at John chapter 6, if you would. This is an effectual call. This is when the

Spirit of God changes you and you respond. People think sometimes salvation is caveman -esque, where you're the cavewoman with long hair and God's the caveman with the big stick over His shoulder and is grabbing you, the woman by the hair, off to the next cave.

You can't do anything about it. Screaming and shouting. I used to have some men at my home Bible study in Los Angeles. They thought that God was like Daryl Gates' SWAT crack house tank.

Ever seen those? When the crack houses first hit Los Angeles in the early 80s, they had these tank kind of things and they would basically bulldoze these crack houses and all the

SWAT team guys would get out and then just arrest everybody. Somehow you don't want to get saved, but God's going to blast that door down.

It's not a good picture of salvation at all. Of course, it has the good idea that God takes the initiative and man is not willing for this to happen, but it's not right.

God, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, regenerates us, gives us a new nature.

That new nature, instead of saying, God, that new nature said, now I love you, God. I love you so much.

You've given me a whole new nature. I always love to think about nature with tigers and cereal.

You think, yeah, this is really getting deep. I'm glad I came out tonight. I'm glad we started up Sunday night services again. You give a tiger that hasn't eaten for a day or 14 days, you figure it out, a big bowl of oatmeal and that tiger is not going to eat it.

You can coax it. You can put maybe a little meat flavoring in there and maybe he would eat it or she would eat it, but it's nature doesn't like to eat oatmeal and an unbelieving person's nature doesn't want to worship

God, but when God and His love and His kindness regenerates you and grants you new birth, a la

John chapter 3 or Titus 3, your new nature says, I love oatmeal.

I don't know, maybe in the millennial kingdom, tigers do eat oatmeal. Maybe before the

Ark, they ate oatmeal. You can study that sometime. That's a good study.

Did animals before the fall eat meat? Pretty big

T. I don't think you'll find any of the animals eating meat before the fall. You can look at the answers in Genesis for that.

John chapter 6 verse 37, all that the Father gives me shall come to me and no one who comes to me and the one who comes to me,

I will certainly not cast out. How do they come? They come because God affects the way

He calls them. He doesn't just say, hear ye, hear ye, He calls yes through the gospel, but then

He changes them. Look down at verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

And he was saying, for this reason I've said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the Father. And so you have this foreloving, this marking out predestination, and then you have this calling where God calls you and you know

He's going to regenerate you and give you a brand new heart and mind. Fourthly, let's go back to the text, the fourth link,

I think it's Steele and Thomas who call this the golden chain of redemption in their little book.

But the fourth link is justification. He justifies. Who could tell me a definition of justification?

This is the make or break your pastor's week by getting the right answer. Make sure you give the full answer, not the half answer.

Okay, all right

Cindy, there you go, did you catch that?

Just as if I never sinned and just as if I've always obeyed the law of God. That's justification where God treats you as if you perfectly obeyed the law because Christ has obeyed on your behalf and just as if you've never sinned because no sin's against you because Christ has perfectly bore those sins on your behalf.

Then the last link is, and think about it, think about it in terms of assurance. If God has paid for all your sins on Christ, if God looks at you like you've always obeyed, should that increase or decrease your assurance?

It should increase it. And then lastly, He glorifies. That's really the key to unlock this whole thing.

How can God cause everything to work together for good? It's ultimately going to end up in glory, to be glorified.

Now who can find, and I'll give you a dollar if you can find it, who can find something about your part in this little golden chain?

Don't you love that? There are parts where we are responsible to obey and follow and trust in the first John to love

God, to love not the world, to love our neighbor, to confess sin, to confess Christ. There are things that help us with our assurance.

But I love this part because there's nothing in there. It's all about God, just like salvation.

It's all about God. Philippians 1 .6, For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus, and you make sure you obey as you go along.

No, He's going to do it. Alright, here's a big one. Let's do this one and then we'll have to quit for tonight. You can take yourself from God's hand.

You can lose your salvation is what I'm after. Where do they get this, by the way? You can jump out of God's hands.

Where's the verse? Well, Hebrews 6, and we'll have to study that, but where can you jump out of God's hands?

Okay, well, let's look at someplace else for time's sake. Let's go to John 10. And if I were going to argue that you could lose your salvation,

I might go to 2 Peter or I might go to Hebrews 6 or I'd probably go to John 10.

That's where I'd go. It wouldn't last very long, but John 10, you can take yourself from God's hand, and we'll have to have a two -parter, so you have to come back for the whole suicide thing.

John 10, verse 22, at that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter.

Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The Jews, therefore, gathered around Him and were saying to Him, how long will you keep us in suspense?

If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered, I told you, and you do not believe.

The works that I do in my Father's name, these bear witness of me. And you could read John chapter 5 sometime to see all the separate witnesses to bear of Christ's messianic nature.

But you do not believe, can you imagine? Study this sometime. You do not believe because you're not of my sheep.

That's amazing. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them.

Not you. And they shall never perish. Not you. And no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my

Father's hand. I and the Father are one, of the same nature and essence of deity. I am God.

Now, here's what they'll say. No one can snatch you out of God's hand, but you can jump. They'll say, this passage is talking about enemies and false teachers coming to get you to snatch you away.

That can't happen, but you can jump. Huh? Well, it's kind of like baptism.

How would you respond? There's one passage in particular that you need to respond to when it comes to losing your salvation that someone says, but you can jump.

What's that passage? Pardon me? No one can pluck them out of his hand.

What verse is that? Verse 28. And no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

But what if I said to you, yeah, but you can jump. This is just defensive. This is not talking about someone there.

I can jump. And I mean, I would never argue that, but I hear it argued. So here's how I solve this.

Turn back to Romans chapter 8, and this is really beautiful. It's a wonderful way to end the service tonight.

Again, I'm not trying to defend the position that you can jump out, because I don't think you can. If you did come up with your own salvation, you could lose it, by the way, but since you didn't come up with your own salvation, how can you lose what you didn't get, didn't earn?

That's the beauty of it. As you increase in your salvation from God's sovereign perspective, your assurance will go up.

Look at Romans 8 .35. If someone says that you can jump out, I say this.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who shall divorce us?

Separate means to put some space in between. And you know what you do if you're struggling with assurance?

Who shall separate Mike Avendroth from the love of Christ? You can just kind of put your own name in there. And then he gives things that will not separate us from the love of Christ.

Marriages break up because they say, I've grown apart, we don't love each other. By the way, this is not your love for God, this is

God's love for you. The first one, tribulation, that means to be squeezed, to be put in a vice, this is external tribulation.

Two, distress, this is a little more internal problems. You're in a little tiny space, you're in like a corner, there's no way out.

Three, persecution. Four, famine. Five, nakedness. Six, peril.

You're exposed to all kinds of treachery. Seven, sword, death. By the way, he says in verse 36, you know,

God's people always undergo trial. You meet a person who says they're a

Christian, they live a trial -filled life. Verse 36, just as it is written, for thy sake we are being put to death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

Verse 37, but in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer, we are super -Nikes, we overcome through him who loved us.

And then now he gives these ten more. For I'm convinced that neither one,

I stand convinced, I'm persuaded, neither death, life, angels,

I think those are good angels, you study to see if that's true, good angels, principalities, I think those are bad angels, those are fallen demons, nor things present, nor things to come, all the different flowcharts of possibilities, all the different things in time, all the things that could possibly come, nor powers, maybe that's

Satan or it could be human governments, nor height, nor depth, that may be a language of astronomy or it might be space and the bottom of the sea, we're not exactly sure, nor, and here's the answer to my question, you can jump out, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our

Lord, and without acting like talking a two -year -old talk, I say are you created, yes you are, then you can't separate your own self from the love of God, how could you, none of these things, what kind of salvation would that be by the way, what if you could lose your salvation, if you could lose your salvation, you would, and then

Hebrews 6 says you can never get it back, nor any living thing,

I used to sell batteries, and I sold Duracell batteries, and we hated, I sold the copper top, it wraps around the copper top, and then we despised the

Energizer guys, that bunny, the incessant bunny, and there was that guy,

Robert Conrad who played that tough guy in the Wild Wild West, and then he started doing

Energizer commercials, and he put a battery up there, and what did he say,

I dare you, I dare you, you read Romans 8, this great chapter about not having anything or anyone be able to separate you from the love of God, and I just think, how could

I say then, you can jump out, anything and everything in this passage including you, well time's going by fast, next time we'll look at suicide does not yield in a loss of salvation, all people do struggle with assurance, you can be glad Charles Spurgeon struggled, oh yes, okay, you know what, it's your time, we can keep going if you want, are you being kind and tender -hearted, okay, yes, okay, yes, sometimes if I ask the congregation, who is that, it's maybe because I don't know,

I do know, but I'm going to ask the congregation anyway, I just wanted to make that little point, just quickly, because we're going to spend a whole sermon on Hebrews chapter 6, one and following, but who is he talking about, if you had to try to solve the puzzle of Hebrews chapter 6, what steps would you take first of all, think broad, broadly, okay, well that's one point, if you have fallen away, if that theology is right, that you can lose your salvation in Hebrews chapter 6, one to eight, you can never get it back again, so it's one time loss, and then it's impossible, so that's one way, okay, there's people from rocky soil, okay, that's another way,

I didn't think about that in Mark chapter 4 with the parable of the soils, and some receive with joy, and then persecution comes, but I want you to think bigger picture,

I want you to think about analyzing a book of the Bible, yes, the book of Hebrews, when you understand the book of Hebrews, and the

Hebrew audience, that will be very helpful, who are the three audience members that the writer of Hebrews, let's say it's

Paul, I'm not sure if it is or not, maybe I want it to be Paul, but Barnabas or someone else, the

Spirit of God, who is he writing to, who are the three different groups, some are actual

Jewish Christians, some are those that are close to Christianity, Jews, but don't want to accept, and some are not concerned at all, so you have three groups, so you'll see as time goes on, he starts, he's like preaching to the choir, but then he interjects himself with these warnings, right,

Hebrews 2 warning, etc., that's one of the ways I would go about it, the second thing I would do is look at verse 9, what are the first few words in verse 9,

Hebrews chapter 6 verse 9, Daniel, yeah, okay, good, let me read the

NAS, but beloved, verse 9, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, that we are speaking in this way,

I won't solve the conundrum tonight, but I will say this, the key to understand Hebrews chapter 6 verses 1 through 8, is to understand who he was writing to, and to understand what verse 9 is, because verse 9 is talking about things that accompany salvation, even though he was writing in this particular way, which way, this way of all these ways that people in Judaism get so close, but be so far, so that may not be a good enough answer for tonight, but it'll have to suffice that you can,

I think, solve the problem by saying he was giving a warning to those who were close, but far away, they were really engrossed in spiritual things, look at verse 5, they've tasted the good word of God, some say they tasted, but they didn't swallow it, this problem all started, and I said something good about the

King James Version this morning, so I can say something not derogatory tonight, because I like the translation,

I actually like it more and more as the years go on, especially because it's got the ye's in there, like Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32 to date, but ye, to me, excellent, but how does the

King James translate verse 2 of Hebrews 6, that's when we really started getting in trouble in the early 1600s with this doctrine, instructions about, does it say washings, what does it say, baptisms, and that's where we ran into trouble, do your homework in the next week or two, and see if the

Jews did all the things in verses 1 through 8 as part of religion, and I think they were religious, and they were there, and they did the washings, they did the externals, and the writer of Hebrews says you're still not close, now let me talk to you about things of salvation, verses 9 and following, but I'll give you a longer answer later, okay,

I'm so glad you're bringing up all these topics, and we're just going to get into those sometime, blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit, no, so you can't be forgiven if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, so in our topic of assurance, first we're going to kind of set it up, today was almost like an introduction, then we'll go over some key passages that we would use for, a la

Romans chapter 8 and John chapter 10, and others, we'll look at 2nd Peter chapter 1 and the whole book of 1st

John, it's a jet tour, and then we'll look at passages that seem to contradict what we believe, because that wouldn't be fair, so we'll look at Hebrews 6 in depth, and we'll look at the blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit, I believe in Matthew chapter 12 in depth too, but I think just to quickly answer your question,

I think that the blasphemy of the Spirit cannot happen today, because Jesus is not on earth casting out demons, but he will be one day in the

Millennial Kingdom, so when Jesus is on earth casting out demons, and you go to him and say what you do is by the spirit of the devil,

I think that's unforgivable, because it says in this age you're the one to come, and this age was when

Jesus was on earth, and the one to come is when he will be on earth again, most people say if you think you've committed that sin, you haven't committed it, and it's unrepentant hard -hearted sin against Christ, and I don't think that is, because at least

I hope it's not, because I committed it for 29 years of my life, good questions though, well and then we'll look at giving assurance to other

Christians, and how we should be very careful, because that's not our job, we will look at people, and number 11, that many many people struggle with assurance, including

Lloyd -Jones and Spurgeon, and then we'll look at the real text found in 1st

John and 2nd Peter, so we've got a long way to go, let's pray, Father thank you for tonight, just getting together, and so thrilled that our dear congregation wants to learn and study, and bring their families out again on Sunday night to grow, and Father that you've given us the promise, and as that Puritan called it, sweetness, the sweetness that we know we can see you face to face, and Father we might not all make it home tonight, there may be some who are killed, and some who have heart attacks, who knows what might happen, so I pray that all the people here, visitors, children, longtime members, would know for sure, that they would

Father completely trust, not in their own self -righteousness, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and Father they would believe in salvation by works, not their own works, but the works of Jesus Christ, his life, and his death, and his resurrection, and I pray that everyone might believe, and might have eternal life, and might have assurance of that, in days to come as they study.