2019 Conference Message: Assurance of Salvation--(Part 3)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Thanksgiving Prayer and Congregational Encouragement

I�m reminded of your great love in which you loved us and how you rescued us from the domain of darkness. There was no way we could extract ourselves from our own sin and the devil�s hand and that domain of darkness, yet you, by your sovereign grace and wonderful mercy found in Christ Jesus, transferred us to the kingdom of your beloved Son.

And we�re reminded of your words about your Son, the Lord Jesus, �This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And Father, we are so thankful this morning that we can stand in your presence, able to stand, because we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We�re thankful for that. We�re thankful that we have the promises of heaven, that the joy of the Holy Spirit that he works in our hearts, directs our minds to think about these eternal things. We thank you for that.

Thank you for forgiving our sins. We confess that we have sinned even in the last week and days, and yet we know that your Son, the Lord Jesus, has a powerful atoning work that can cleanse us from every single defiling sin.

Thank you, Father, for doing that. And Father, I pray for this dear congregation. I pray that you would use her in many ways, not just here in the building on Sundays, but on workdays tomorrow for those who go to school, opportunities to preach the gospel.

Father, I pray for her as she�s learning in the great book of Colossians that she might proclaim him, the Lord Jesus, and tell about his excellent greatness. I pray for this congregation, Father, that you would have her walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

She�s been taught well about the Lord Jesus, and I pray now that she would be pleasing in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Thank you, Father, that you hear our prayers.

We�re thankful that even when our prayers are weak, the Spirit of God, he prays, the Lord Jesus, our great intercessor, even though his work on earth for atonement is done, he�s still praying for us now.

We thank you for that. So many great truths to think about, and we just are thankful this morning that we can be alive today to herald the good news and to receive the good news that Jesus Christ is a friend of sinners.

Thank you so much, Father. In Jesus� name we pray, amen. Well, just before I start my message this morning, thank you all for your hospitality. Evan and I have been received warmly here at the church.

It feels like family. Isn�t it amazing? You can meet other Christians that you�ve never met before, and there�s a bond that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ as friends and family, and especially I�m thankful to John and to Debbie for their hospitality at home.

I�ve been treated like a king in the last week, the last few days. It seems like a week. And I know I speak on behalf of Evan as well. So thank you very, very much. I look forward to coming back next year, Lord willing.

The Need for Christ-Exalting Preaching

Well, I have two sermons this morning in only 45 minutes, so my first sermon is very short. I have not traveled as much as Evan, but I�ve been around the world, and I know what it�s like to desire a pastor, although not perfect, but a pastor to stand up and preach about the perfect one, the Lord Jesus.

I don�t know if you think this is an odd thing. A general thing, a common thing, but to have somebody stand up here every week and tell you about the glories of Christ Jesus, I hope you know how blessed you are.

Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon once about when God kills a pastor, it�s a judgment on the church, and that is if he preaches the gospel. Now, I don�t want you to be judged, and I don�t want you to get killed anytime soon, but I know Bible-teaching pastors and Christ-exalting pastors when I see them and interact with them, and I hope you�re thankful to the Lord.

I mean, these days people want dynamic leaders and pastors who can do drama and contemporary worship. I read an article once about churches look for pastors who are good at shepherding, administration, recruiting, team-building, problem-solving, contagious faith, servant leader, loves God, loves and worships Him, wants to be a choir director, orchestra, drama, handbills.

Do you do handbills at all? No. Okay, okay, all right. Friends, whatever John can do above and beyond preaching the gospel to you every week, I�m glad for that, but I hope you�re glad that you have a pastor that proclaims the Word of God.

Is that worth a million dollars to you a year or a thousand dollars or what? Honestly, this is the truth. I wouldn�t be here if he wasn�t a pastor who got up and preached the Word of God, highlighting the work of Christ Jesus every week, no matter what, right till death do us part.

So I�m thankful to be here and stand in this pulpit where I know Christ is proclaimed every single week. That was my first sermon. It was a short one. Now part two. I often study the words of someone on their deathbed.

They�re striking, aren�t they? They�re very poignant. How about words of martyrs, Christian martyrs? John Bradford�s words in prison before he was executed, quote, �I have no request to make. If Queen Mary gives me life, I will thank her.

If she will banish me, I will thank her. If she will burn me, I will thank her. If she condemn me to perpetual prison, I will thank her. Jarring words. Hugh McHale on the scaffold in Edinburgh, 1666, said these words before he was hung,.

�Now I begin my communion with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father, farewell mother, farewell friends and relations, farewell the world and all its delights, farewell meat and drinks, farewell sun, moon, and stars.

Welcome God and father. Welcome sweet Lord Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. Welcome blessed spirit of grace and God of all consolation. Welcome glory. Welcome eternal life. Welcome death. O Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed my soul, O Lord of truth.

Those are amazing words to me. Paul the Apostle, essentially on his deathbed as he writes his last epistle, says in 2 Timothy chapter 1,. �But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.

Amazing deathbed words. And my goal in this conference and this morning as well is for you, Christian, to have assurance of salvation that you could say from your heart and mean it unto God, �I know that my Redeemer lives.

And if it's not a strong faith like that in a strong Lord, I will even gladly accept a weak faith in the strong Lord that says, �Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Thinking about the surety of your salvation, it is a fact that everyone here will die and stand before the Lord Jesus.

And then what will happen on that day? And we have lifted our eyes in the last two days upon the Lord Jesus and His work as mediator and as friend of sinners. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, what makes hell hell and what makes heaven heaven?

Well, God is everywhere, remember. It's not like He can't be in hell. He is omnipresent. But what makes hell hell is there's no mediator there. And what makes heaven heaven is the Lord Jesus and He, the mediator, is there.

And so everything we're doing in this conference is trying to direct you back to the Lord Jesus to think about the triune God and stop thinking about ourselves primarily. The outline of the last two days, and this is part three, is if you have assurance, how to keep it, and if you don't have assurance, how to get it.

And so by way of your review, would you turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 7 today, and we're going to talk a little bit about what we've seen the last two days. If you haven't been here the last two days, the pastor in me wants to say you can get the cassettes, eight tracks, or reel-to-reel or DVD.

The radio host in me wants to say if you've lost your salvation the last two days, no, just kidding, by not attending. The elect were here the last two days. I want you to know that. And without going through every point as we turn to Romans 7, we've essentially said don't look to yourself primarily.

Look to the Lord Jesus Christ and His love found in the gospel and the promises of God. He'll never cast you out. He'll never leave you. I will never leave you or forsake you. And we've been using the book of Romans chapter 5 and chapter 8.

And you notice the way Romans 7 ends and then Romans 8 begins, which will summarize the last two days. Romans 7 24, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Now one of the things I have my students do is to tell me with one word or one sentence what a particular book is about.

And so there are 66 books in the Bible, and it's a good way to understand a theme of a book so you can interpret a book in light of what it's saying. So if you understand generally what a book is teaching, you can understand specifically what the book is teaching.

And so if you had to summarize the book of Romans in one word, I wonder how you would summarize the book of Romans. And for me, I'd summarize the book of Romans with the word, well, the Sunday school answer is Jesus.

That would be right as well. But I'm thinking about a particular word, righteousness. And so as we parachute into Romans 7, what's been going on with this book is Paul is talking about righteousness. And since God is righteous and you are a creature, he expects you to be righteous.

But because of the fall, you along with everyone else, with Adam, we're unrighteous. And so chapter 1, 2, and 3a talks about unrighteousness. And then everything changes in chapter 3 where we realize that this righteous Jesus who's earned righteousness for you by perfect life and he dies for unrighteous people by his sacrificial death, confirmed by the resurrection, grants righteousness to unrighteous people.

And then those righteous people in chapter 6 and 7 live, not perfectly, but they in fact live righteously. And so you've got this theme of righteousness. We don't have it, we need it, Christ earns it, Christ grants it, and we live in light of.

We walk in a manner worthy of our calling and of righteousness given to us. And Paul says at the end of chapter 7, as he's working through all this, we're not kind of Wesleyan perfectionists, we still deal with sin.

And he says with language of exhaustion, this is what this word wretched comes from. It's exhausted language. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of death. Note congregation, this is the language of maturity.

This is how mature Christians talk. Here's our problem when we think about assurance though. We become Christians by sovereign grace, God makes us born again, 1 Peter chapter 1. And we begin to think, you know what, I'm thinking that I'm sinning more now that I'm a Christian.

Has that ever gone through your mind? I have dealt with people and tried to help them with assurance because they think, you know, before I was a Christian, I just sinned a bunch. Now that I'm a Christian, there's some sins of course I've stopped, but I think overall I sin more.

Do you really sin more or do you recognize your sin more? Right, and so one of the signs of a mature faith is to realize this very thing. Paul is a mature apostle when he writes this. And he's come to an end of himself, and that's really what Paul wants every person to do.

You come to the end of yourself with this exhaustion of hard labor. This would be a word that would be used in the fields of Alaska when you're trying to cut down trees for an airport. That's this word, exhaustion.

It's used one other time in Revelation chapter 3 where Jesus talks about the church at Latter-day See because you say, I am rich and you have become wealthy. You have need of nothing and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, forceful, forceful terms.

It is not good for godly saints and great saints, if you will, to think, I'm really good. No, great saints bewail even the sin that's in them, and they do it forcefully. Paul says in chapter 7 verse 25, as everything begins to turn into chapter 8 as well, thanks be to God.

I mean, if you look at yourself long enough, like Luther said, you won't know how you can be saved. But if you look to the Lord Jesus and his work and his promises and the love that he has for sinners, you won't know how you can be lost.

And therefore, Paul turns with a cry of victory. Is there any man who's able to save us? Is there any man who's not like this? Is there any savior? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We're going to talk about deliverance ministries.

That's the Lord Jesus. And he just says thanks, it's a Greek word for grace. He's just given me the victory through Christ Jesus as Paul would say in 1 Corinthians. I was jarred when I read this statement by a theologian.

The problem with many Christians is not their despair like that of Paul, but their lack of it. If coming to the end of ourselves is essential to turning to God for our deliverance, then many Christians will never turn to God for victory over sin because they do not recognize their true condition or take it seriously enough.

We have to be realist about the sin that still dwells in us, even as Christians, and that should force us not to keep going inside of ourselves. My kids make fun of me because every time I talk about Luther and how we're curved in on ourselves, I do this.

And then they're taking pictures of me and stuff while I'm preaching, doing this, you know, and I'm like, you guys, you're out of the house, get off to college. The big picture as we're talking about assurance at the conference and now this morning on the Lord's Day, you are going to get no surety, no, if you think of assurance and the root word sure, you're not going to be sure of your salvation, Christian, if you keep looking inwardly and you're honest about yourself.

And so Paul turns here and he moves to chapter 8 verse 1, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. This is the great chapter on the security of the believer. When I was a kid, I watched ABC's Wide World of Sports on Saturday.

Did you watch it? It was channel 7 in Omaha. The older people watched it, the younger people. It was a TV show on a network channel that we only had three channels and PBS, right? And remember the very beginning of the Wide World of Sports, it showed that skier and that skier was going to go on that big ski jump and there was going to be the thrill of victory, but instead there was the what?

Boy, you guys are good. Switch it around for Romans 7 and 8 essentially. It's the agony of defeat, but now we've got chapter 8, it's the thrill of victory. And when chapter 7 was sprinkled with all the words I, I, I, I, I, we move now to chapter 8 and it's the chapter of the Holy Spirit.

And that's the last point I want to make for our assurance. How to get assurance is look to the person and work of the Holy Spirit and we're going to talk about Him today, the third person of the Trinity, one God, three persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and we want to focus on the Lord Jesus yesterday and the day before, but today is on the Holy Spirit moving from agony to ecstasy.

People have called Romans 8 one of the greatest chapters in all the Bible, and my guess would be if you've gone through any trouble in your life, in any trial or struggle, you've probably laid your head down on this, how do we say it?

Pillow? How do you say it? Pillow. How do people not say it? Pillow? Oh, I've never. I've never. Yeah, the pillow of faith conference for next year is Romans 8 where you lay your head down on this soft, sweet chapter.

Focus not on ourselves, but on the work of the Holy Spirit. The chapter that starts off with Christ Jesus ends with Christ Jesus. This chapter that starts off with no condemnation and ends with no separation.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of life, verse 2 of chapter 8, in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, amazing words, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

If you just stop there and consider for a moment, what we were supposed to do, perfectly keep the law, obey God, perfectly, perpetually, personally, entirely, the Lord Jesus did in our place. There's two ways to heaven.

The first way is the legal way, perfectly obey the law. It's an impossibility for many reasons, including we have Adam's sin credited to ourselves. But if we could somehow erase that and perfectly obey the law, why would God not let you into heaven?

Do this and live. But since that's an impossibility now, we need another way, and it's still through law keeping, but it's just through Jesus the representative. And so what happens is if you ask yourself the question, am I saved by works, what's the answer?

Well, we have a division. Your pastor just said yes and you all said no. The question is, whose works are you saved by? By our own works. Oh, he said, oh yes, I should have thought of that. That's a good question to ask people.

Are you saved by works? Yes. But they have to be perfect works, perpetual works that are perfect, and they have to be done by another because we know we all have sinned and fallen short, what, of the glory of God.

So we need law keeping. And so what we couldn't do, what's the NASA say? God did. And he sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh. He wasn't sinful, but he had human nature because he had to be our representative.

I mean, God didn't send a bunch of goats and bulls and calves to be killed in our place. Here we have the Lord Jesus sent by the Father so that we could be holy, not just positionally before God, but then as the Spirit of God is working in our lives, we could be practically holy and live holy lives commensurate with our calling.

And the only way this can happen is by the Spirit of God. Do you see it at the end of verse four? But according to the Spirit, we see him, the Spirit of God, as he has even attended to the work, Hebrews, Romans isn't talking about this, but the Spirit of God even attending to the work of Jesus, hovering over the Virgin Mary to make sure the conception is proper and pure, sending Jesus out into the wilderness, impelling him out there, being at the baptism, everything about the Lord Jesus Christ, including Jesus offering himself to death, is powered by the Spirit of God, Hebrews chapter nine.

So his active obedience, his life, his passive obedience, his death, all because of the Spirit of God. Now let's talk about the Spirit a little bit, and then I want to directly discuss how he is related to sanctification.

And let's just pick it up in chapter eight, verse five, please, as we kind of give, it's almost kind of like a jet tour. You're going to notice as we read these verses that the liberating message in Romans eight is you are not intended to live your Christian life on your own, by your own strengths, by your own bootstraps.

Before I read the verse, just to keep your attention, you know, there are actually seven solas of the Reformation. I didn't know if you know that or not. Evan talked about some of them, about, you know, you've got the foundation, we're at sola scriptura, and you've got three pillars that come up about sola fide, faith alone, sola gratia, grace alone, and it's through Christ alone, and the canopy over it, through to God alone be the glory.

Those are the five typical solas. There are two other solas that you might want to know about, and since I fly home tomorrow, I'll just throw the hand grenade out there. Sola homeschula, that's another one of them.

There's some high fives going on there. I don't mind homeschoolers at all. I did a little bit of every kind of schooling. And sola bootstrapsa, have you heard that? Just pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Everything in this chapter is going to be driving you to God did everything for me. He's done everything that I've needed. He's taken care of me, and He's not just going to save me and let me be on my own.

So the writer Paul wants to highlight the ministry of the Holy Spirit, so you could be encouraged by His work in your life, because you're going to need Him. You're not meant to live your life by your own sweat and toil.

Sweat and toil is involved, but that's not the start nor the end. Verse five, look what the Holy Spirit does. He helps Christians set their minds on God's desires. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.

But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. Isn't that fascinating? We think about things in the world, we're drawn to the world, and what does the Spirit of God do?

He redirects our minds. I'm watching this particular channel, it's like He's changing the channel. So now let's think about assurance for a second. I'm going to just telegraph this. Do you ever think about spiritual things?

Now you might say, I'd like to think about them more. But do you ever think about spiritual things? Who Jesus is? Life, death, eternity, heaven, hell, evangelism, doctrine. Who is making you think about those things?

Satan? CNN? Some of you think it's the same thing? Okay, Fox News? He is directing you. So what happens with Christian assurance is this. Well, I see all kinds of fruit in my life, I must be good. I love other people, I love God, I love to serve, I love those things that are spiritual.

That's okay, but here's what I'm after in Romans 8. Who gave you those desires? Because then you're not just thinking about, well, I have this desire. I want you to think about who gave you those desires.

The desire to set your mind on spiritual things is the work of the Holy Spirit. So instead of now looking to self again, we're looking to the work of the triune God, how Christ has secured salvation, and now how the Spirit of God is applying this practical sanctification and He sets your mind on things and you think, I want to think about them more.

But friend, Christian friend, at least you're thinking about them to some degree. That's the idea. What are the results of these thoughts in verse 5? Verse 6 says, for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

He further describes the mind set on the flesh, verse 7, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. There's an issue of root there, not just behavior.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Well, the Holy Spirit takes the mind of a Christian and He redirects it. He also lives in you. Do you notice verses 9 and 10? You however are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And by the way, the language in the original is, but as for you, and it's very dramatic.

I maybe could summarize this from the Old Testament. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Everyone who's a Christian gets the Holy Spirit. You all get the same amount of the Holy Spirit because He's not measurable.

He is a person. And one day, and I know some of us as we get older, look forward even this day in verse 11, where the Spirit of God will give life to our bodies if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. And He actually is obliging you to live in this godly way. Verse 12, so then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.

Unrighteousness has no claim on us any longer. And then we are able to put to death the bodily sinful deeds. Verse 13, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.

And now we move to the section that I'm really after this morning. And it's one of those sections where you just think, this is rich food for my soul. Verses 14 through 17, the Holy Spirit and His children.

Verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, legally. And He's not talking about lead and some kind of personal guidance. This is about sanctification. And what does the text go on to say?

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption. As sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. So let's just step back for a second and kind of think big picture again.

We're gonna take a look at what the Spirit does and how He affects people and how these people, when they are affected by the Spirit of God, should say to themselves, it's got to be the Holy Spirit's work in my life because I wouldn't normally act like that.

True or false? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That's right, that's Galatians chapter 5 verses 22 and 23. What we're going to be after in this section before we dissect it a little bit is going to be simple.

If you have any love, joy, or peace in your life, who gave you that if it's really biblical love, joy, or peace? Who gave it to you? It has to be the Holy Spirit. I think here's what we do with our Christian life.

We look at our life and we think, you know what, I don't measure up like I should. And that, in fact, may be true. And that affects our assurance because we're thinking, you know, how could God love someone like me and I'm not really doing things as well as I should?

As we've learned the last two days, that's the wrong way to think about assurance. Because if we're really honest with ourselves, we're gonna see more sin than what we care to deal with. So how can any sinfully redeemed person ever have any assurance at all?

But if I start asking myself the question, do I see any evidence of the Holy Spirit in my life and being guided along sanctification? If I ask myself the question, Mike, do you read the Bible enough? That's not going to give me assurance.

But if I ask this question, has the Spirit of God convicted me to read my Bible? And do I read my Bible some? Who gave me that desire to read the Bible? Do I ever want to evangelize people? Do I ever want to tell them about the good news that they can go to heaven when they die?

Who gave you that? You don't say to yourself, well, I don't evangelize like my favorite evangelist. But do you have any desire? I think here is the Merriman doctrine coming to full bloom. Obedience should not give rise to assurance, irrespective of believing, Thomas Boston said.

Rather, believing gives rise to obedience. I begin to see the work of God in my life and I'm trusting in Jesus. I wish I trusted him more and I see that he's changed me. I wish I was more changed, but I see the change and that is because the Spirit of Christ is in me, the Holy Spirit.

I mean, where is Jesus right now, by the way? Is he in your left ventricle? Is he in your heart? He is in heaven, by the way. If you ever see Jesus in an omelet, you know it's not Jesus. Why? I've seen Jesus in French toast and stuff before.

That's not Jesus. He's in heaven, exalted, and he said he's going to come back. He's up there praying and interceding. But he said in John 14 through 16, I'm not going to leave you alone. Why would I leave you alone?

Why would I? I love you and I'm going to go die for you and I care for you and you're my man in spite of who you are. And by the way, you're on your own. He said, I'm going to send another one just like me and his name is the Holy Spirit.

And as that Holy Spirit begins to work in your life, I don't want you, dear Christian, to say, you know what, I'm not acting like whoever, you know, my favorite, I'm not acting like Adoniram Judson. But do I have desires for the Bible?

Do I have desires for holy living? The certainty of assurance is grounded in the person and work of the triune God, specifically the Lord Jesus Christ. But that gives way to the work of God in us, but it's still the work of God in us.

You say, well, I confess my sins once in a while, but not as often as I ought to. Who gave you the desire to confess your sins in a world that says you don't sin, you have dysfunctions, you have illnesses, you have diseases.

I know the world is selling false propaganda. Who gave that to you? That's the idea. Verse 15, a verse that's so often misunderstood. But if you understand it correctly, it's even better than what you thought it was as you misunderstood it.

Does that make sense? We're going to tear down and then we're going to build up. For you did not receive, verse 15, the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

So we have the spirit of God, he's bearing witness that we have a father, that we have a heavenly father. This sounds a lot like Galatians 6 to me, that God has sent forth his spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.

Now Abba, typically people default to, you get to call God Daddy. That has nothing to do with this passage and that's not what Paul is saying. Semitic term for father, Ba, and the definitive article Ab, it means the father.

And Michael Barrett says it is not to be equated with the equality or the phonetic simple expression data that the English speaking children so easily utter, Abba is not a nickname, it's not a childish term of endearment, rather, quote, it is an honorific title that expresses the utmost reverence and respect due to any father.

And infinitely more, so when referring to the heavenly father, although not a trivial term of endearment, Abba does express the intimacy of the father-child relationship. Pastor, what's your point? Dear Christian, when you're struggling, what's your knee jerk when you need help?

The doctor calls you and says, it's terminal. The unbeliever, how do they respond? They deny it, they become Christian scientists, they say death is an illusion, they say I'm gonna just take herbs and defy all this, I'm gonna just do all the medical research, I'm going to just do whatever I can, and I'm not against herbs and medical research.

But what does every Christian do, maybe not right away, but eventually, when they get the news, what do they say? Father help me. That's the sign of a Christian, because the spirit of God has put that in your heart.

Help, I'm at the end of my rope, I don't know what to do, Father, help me. And by the way, do you see the term cries out? This is not some little whimper. When you cry out, Father. This is a word used for when ladies cry out, when it's time to give birth.

Ten centimeters dilated and here comes the baby, this is a screech, this is crying out in pain. Ferguson writes, Sinclair Ferguson, the picture is not that of the believer resting quietly in his father's arms in childlike faith, but the child who has tripped and fallen, crying out in pain.

That cry is the mark of the presence of the spirit of adoption, not least because it shows that when in time of need, it is towards our Father in heaven that we look. No wonder the Lord Jesus, in that crucible, cries out, Abba, Father, all things are possible for thee, remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

Friends, the sign of Christianity when everything else just gets gutted is, Father, help me. I need you, I need your assistance. And that is not a sign of weak faith, that's a sign of faith. One of my favorite songs is Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

We sang it, I think, yesterday or Friday night. Remember the second stanza? And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his what? Doom is sure. And what's the next line? One little word shall fell him. And as our friend said once on a podcast, what's the word?