Assurance of Salvation. Can you know for sure? (part 2)

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Bodies In The Wilderness: An Object Lesson For The Church (part 3) - [Hebrews 3:7ff]

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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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
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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.
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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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.
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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.
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This is Mike Abendroth, and today is a first for me. I am taping the show,
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I'm recording the show here digitally with my dog in my studio.
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There she's just kind of wandering around, and there she is looking. She'd like to go out and snoop some.
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In just moments, I think she'll probably get tired and lay down and just kind of just give up.
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But anyway, if you hear barking, if you hear snarling, I have instructed her at my command that if I say anything unbiblical or ungodly or unrighteous, having some kind of poor motives, that she is to immediately come over and bite me.
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I'm hearing sounds here too. I think all the snow is sliding off the roof here at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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Anyway, what we're talking about today is assurance of salvation. Can you know you have assurance? The Bible is clear about it.
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It takes a child's understanding to just read this one verse in 1 John 5 .13. These things
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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.
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You can know that you have eternal life. God wants you to know. He wants you to experience subjectively what has been granted to you objectively.
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If you're a Christian, if you've been born from above, if you're born again, God wants you to know and experience and to feel, if I could use that word, what
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He has given you. There is a subjective side to His objective work at Calvary.
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And so today, we wanna talk about assurance of salvation. Last time, we did the quiz. And the first quiz question was, assurance is not a very important subject.
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In other words, it's not that big a deal. And we found out that it was a very, very big deal.
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Number two, people can have assurance of salvation and still go to hell. True, there are false aspects to assurance.
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There can be falsity to assurance. That is to say, you can think you're going to heaven, but you might not go,
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Matthew 7. And then the next question had to do with something that was a little more maybe volatile.
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The most popular religion in New England calls assurance a sin. And the answer to that question was true.
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Roman Catholic Church teaches that assurance of salvation is called the sin of presumption,
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P -R -E -S -U -M -P -T -I -O -N. It is a mortal sin.
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It was a mortal sin, and it still is a mortal sin. They do not believe you can know that you can know.
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And you say, well, I know some people, they teach it. That's fine. Some underling, some layperson, that's not what
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I'm after. I'm after what the head honchos teach, what El Papa teaches, what the cardinals teach, what's in the documents of Rome itself.
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And so when Gregory the Great, the seventh century pope, says, the greater our sins, the more we do to make up for them, whether we have done enough to atone for them, we cannot know until after death.
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We can never be sure of excess. Listen to what the pope said. Remember, popes, according to the
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Catholic Church, are infallible. Assurance of salvation and the feeling of safety engendered by it is dangerous for anybody and would not be desirable even if possible.
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Dangerous and not desirable. And then the Council of Trent went even farther and said that if you think you know your sins are forgiven for sure when you die, you are accursed.
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Sixth Session, Canon 30. And so someone might argue, well,
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Gregory the Great was not sitting on his throne, his ex -cathedra seat at the time, and blah, blah, blah.
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Friends, you know these things to be true, and you know that if you're in a work system, then how do you know if you're going to heaven in a work system?
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Because you might need to do more works, better works, more often to do works.
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And so that's just part and parcel with Roman Catholic Church. You cannot know for sure you're going to heaven.
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So I have some gauntlet to lay down for my Roman Catholic friends. Actually, I do have
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Roman Catholic friends. You might think I hate them, but I don't hate Roman Catholics, and I don't hate my Roman Catholic friends.
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I didn't hate my Roman Catholic grandmother. What I do, though, is I want them to know that there's forgiveness found completely, totally, sufficiently in Christ Jesus once for all death.
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You can know for sure. Listen to what one man says,
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Mike Gendron, about teaching Roman Catholics that they could have forgiveness of sins in biblical evangelicalism, in the
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Bible, turning away from Rome, away from error, and unto truth. And if I was a
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Roman Catholic, I would want to know, when I die, will I go to heaven? Similarly, when
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I was growing up Lutheran, I would want to know that question. This is an excellent way for evangelicals to talk to their
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Roman Catholic friends and family members about Christianity, because Christianity, the
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Bible alone teaches that you can have all your sins forgiven, past, present, and future.
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Gendron said this, it is indeed good news for Catholics to know that they can be completely forgiven.
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Throughout their lives, they are burdened with the residual punishment for the sins their, quote, Catholic Jesus, end quote, was unable to expiate.
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Catholics are taught they must purify themselves of these residual sins by means of purgatory, indulgences, and the sacraments.
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An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.
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Indulgences may be applied to the living or the dead. That is found in Council 1471.
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Rome teaches that every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, excuse me, either here on earth or after death in a state called purgatory, 1472.
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The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains, 1473.
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The Christian who seeks to purify himself of his sin is linked with the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, and with those who are expiating their sins in purgatory.
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In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits another. Thus, the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin,
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Catholic Doctrine 1474 to 1475. In this way, they attain their own salvation and at the same time cooperating in the saving of their brothers, 1477.
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Cooperate in the saving of their brothers? I thought Jesus was the only savior. I thought salvation was
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God alone working, God being the author and finisher, the first and the last, the alpha and the omega.
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I thought he was those things by more than name, but by action. You don't cooperate in the salvation of any person, not your own self.
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If you can't save yourself, how can you cooperate in saving someone else? That'd be like two people, you know, who neither could save themselves, but their friends could.
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That's the wrong view of the fall, wrong view of salvation, wrong view of Jesus, wrong view of sin. And so I turn your attention to the
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Bible. Let's go to what the Bible says. Colossians 2, verse 13.
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Just checking on my dog here. Is she okay? Jetty, you good girl. You hear the shaking of the leash?
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You hear her little thing? Here it is. She's sniffing the microphone right now.
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That is her dog tag. Yes, she is legally registered in my city and she is good to go.
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I could do a few tricks with her, but you would not find that amusing on the radio. What does
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Colossians 2 say? My name is Mike Abendroth. We're talking on No Compromise Radio about the assurance of salvation.
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You can know. Catholics say you can't know. And you say, oh, I got a Catholic friend. He thinks you can know. Well, as I've said before, and I've learned from other people, good
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Catholics don't believe you can have assurance. Bad Catholics might believe that. Bad Catholic meaning you don't believe all the shenanigans that the
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Roman Catholic Church teaches you. But good Catholics buy in hook, line, and sinker to the company line.
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And the company line is your anathema if you really think you're going to go to heaven after you die and you have that certainty. And so we go to Scriptures.
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Colossians 2, verse 13. And here Paul is laying out the superior greatness of Christ Jesus.
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And he says, underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this is better than what I could say.
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This is better than what Gregory the Great would say. This is better than anyone, right?
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This is inspired by God. And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he,
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God, made you sinful, alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
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And if you have all your sins forgiven, what would keep you out of heaven? Nothing would keep you out of heaven.
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If you've been completely forgiven, on what basis, on what legal ground, on what ground of justice would
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God keep you out of heaven? Some kind of funky double jeopardy? No, may it never be.
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The text says he made you alive together with him. He quickened you.
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This is language from Charles Wesley. Wesley derived a song from this language, rather.
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Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eyes diffused a quickening ray.
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I woke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee.
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Dead in sin spiritually, alive now. Spiritually, all because of the work of Christ Jesus.
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Forgiving you all your trespasses, all the free forgiveness, the free grace.
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The participle there for forgive is charis amenas.
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Charis meaning free grace, favor. And we have grace in this particular word of forgiveness.
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That's the root. Having graced us with this bountiful grace, according to the riches of his grace,
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Paul would say to the church at Ephesus. You were dead. You didn't have an island of righteous free will.
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There was nothing to commend yourself to God and God alone saved you. All your trespasses.
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That is a great savior. That is a wonderful savior. All transgressions, premeditated, ignorant, high -handed, original sin, actual sin, past sin, present sin, future sin, sins of thought, sins of deed, sins of ambition, sins of omission, sins of commission, mortal sins, if you believe in such a thing, and venial sins, if you believe in such a thing.
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What did Jesus Christ do when he died on the cross? He dealt with sin once and for all.
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Colossians 2 .14 goes on to say, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, and which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
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All the sin debt that the unbeliever would owe
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God, Jesus Christ has taken care of that and has made that unbeliever alive and now quickened and forgiven.
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And so what do we do when you call God's forgiveness remission of sin?
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Here is Jesus remitting our sin. He's canceled it out, he's wiped it out, he's blotted it out.
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And so this word here, canceled, is the same word that Plato used about blotting out a writing.
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Sometimes manuscripts were rubbed or scraped or erased. That's exactly what was happening here.
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By the way, for any of you wanting to know what's going on with my dog, she just laid down and she has given up. So friends, if you've got a relative or a family member who is
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Roman Catholic, I would go straight to Christ's work. The Catholic Jesus doesn't forgive all the sins.
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Catholic Jesus at baptism maybe forgives some original sin, but Jesus Christ, the
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God of the Bible, Jesus the Nazarene, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Ancient of Days, his death is so great.
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It takes care of the sins, past, present, and future of every person who would ever believe, whether it's
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Moses, whether it's Abraham, whether it's David, whether it's
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Paul, John, or you. So question number four when it comes to assurance of salvation quiz, here's my quiz.
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Quiz four question. You can know true or false for sure if you're saved beyond a reasonable doubt.
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You can know. You can know. You can know if you're saved. Well, I'm kind of working backwards and around and through.
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The answer is yes, John 20. Many other signs, therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written, like I said last time, those seven
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I am statements about Jesus being God that you may believe that Jesus is the
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Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
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People who believe, those believing in Christ Jesus have eternal life. You'll notice that when it comes to the biblical terminology, the biblical vocabulary, the biblical nomenclature, you will not find things like, did you believe before a moment in time?
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Salvation certainly was a moment of time. When God regenerated you, that was instantaneous.
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But when it comes to belief, you should say to yourself, am
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I believing right now? If I'm believing right now, that is a sign of a Christian. Right now
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I am believing. And that's the present tense language that's found in 1 John. Am I believing right now?
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I am believing right now. I'm believing right now that if I die in this microphone, my dog attacks me and rips out my carotid artery, that I am going to go straight to heaven because I'm trusting in the
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Bible Jesus who deals with sin and who slits the throat of sin and takes care of it for good.
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Question number five, assurance of salvation quiz. It's one thing to have your sins forgiven.
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It's another thing to experience that in a subjective way, in a real way. And that's what we're talking about today, assurance of salvation.
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God did not have to tell us that we could have assurance. True or false? God did not have to tell us that we could have assurance.
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That's true. You know, you could go to heaven from God's perspective, as good as gone, when
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Jesus died for your sins, you were going to go. But he never had to say, by the way, you can experience this wonderful assurance on earth today.
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You might've had to go through all of your life on earth, thinking, will I, could
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I, am I believing enough? Have I believed in the right person enough? Have I done enough fruits of repentance?
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Will I make it? But yet God in his goodness and his kindness, he said in 1
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John 2 .25, and this is the promise which he himself, you see himself like that in the text, that's emphatic.
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He himself, it could read which he made, but he himself made to us eternal life.
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The promises of God are not always necessary to give to believers.
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They're out of his goodness, out of his grace. What a blessing that God would give us these extra promises that we might experience a wonderful life today.
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Question number six, assurance of salvation. True or false? Assurance stems from other doctrines.
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That is to say you need to understand other doctrines in the Bible so that you could grasp assurance most properly.
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And the answer to that question is true. Here's what happens. When people struggle with assurance, and it's a thing that should probably make you shook.
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Back in our day in Nebraska, my mother would say that that person shook, shook up.
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And so this is a worthy topic to make you shook because if you die and you never know why you'll die or how you'll die, rather, when you look at all the pores to your skin,
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Thomas Watson, the great Puritan said, as many pores as you have in your skin, that's as many ways as there is to die.
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And so you stay in, you don't want to go outside and get hit by a car, but the walls fall in on you. And so you're going to die one day.
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And so you would need to know, wouldn't it be good to know, yeah, I'm going to go to heaven when
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I die. That's kind of like those men who are working on the Golden Gate Bridge years ago in San Francisco Bay.
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And they would fall to their death, many of them, but when they put the safety nets up, production increased, their work got better because they weren't afraid to die.
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And so it's kind of, one man said, having assurance of salvation is like having a return ticket to your flight.
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I love ministering in India. It was just such a culture shock to my system when I went there the first time.
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I was very, very glad I was an American citizen. I was very glad that God gave me, providentially,
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I didn't deserve any of it, an opportunity to grow up here in America. And I was also glad that I had a round -trip ticket.
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After 17 days in ministry, I was very glad to be able to go home. And I'm sure those who are from India and come to the
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States, they're glad to have their return ticket. And it's good to have that return ticket, as it were, knowing you're going to go to heaven.
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And so to have that return ticket, it's valuable. And when we think about other doctrines to help us with assurance,
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I can't help but think about Christ Jesus and His work. If you are lacking assurance, and you say, my number one goal is to get assurance, and that assurance almost becomes an idol,
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I must have that, then you'll usually find the dove of assurance flies away.
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But if you focused on Christ, if you remain focused on Christ and stay locked mentally upon Christ's life and death and work,
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His resurrection is soon return, and you focus on what Jesus did at Calvary, that dove of assurance wonderfully comes back and flies down and lands on your shoulder, as Spurgeon would say.
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And so you've got to have other doctrines. You can't just have assurance of salvation doctrine, because then you run around trying to have assurance all the time, and you lose it.
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The way you're supposed to get assurance is by focusing upon redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, justification, the work of God and God alone, how
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God the Father sent the Son, the Son willingly went.
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It wasn't like the mean father said, I'm gonna punish the Son. No, in great, wonderful triune agreement, triune promise,
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Titus 1, verses one to three, kind of a promise in eternity past. Then you see that assurance becomes more technical or in perspective than just isolated.
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You could study, for instance, election, and how if God has elected you, then certainly
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He'll bring you all the way to salvation. He's not gonna pick a bride for His Son and then say, no,
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I changed my mind. You can study the effectual call. Thomas Watson said, "'When
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God calls a sinner, He does not repent of it. "'God does not, as many friends do, "'love one day and hate another, "'or as princes who make their subjects favorites "'and afterwards throw them into prison.
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"'This is the blessedness of a saint. "'His condition admits of no altercation.
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"'God's call is founded upon His decree, "'and His decree is immutable.'"
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There's a good thing to study, the immutable decree of God. "'Acts of grace cannot be reversed. "'God blots out
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His people's sins, but not their names.'" That's wonderful from Thomas Watson.
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And so when you think of these other doctrines, you realize I am helped with assurance. So if you're struggling with assurance, why don't you study some other doctrines of the sovereignty of God?
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Why don't you study Romans 8, verse 29 and 30? "'For whom He foreknew,
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He also predestined "'to become conformed to the image of His Son, "'that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
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"'And whom He predestined, these He also called. "'And whom He called, these
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He also justified. "'And whom He justified, He almost glorified everyone, "'but a few slipped through.'"
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No, the same number that He starts with, He ends with. And so God sets His love on what's the number?
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Who knows? 107 ,400 ,000 ,012, and He saves that exact amount, because that exact amount have had their sins paid for by the death of Christ.
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And so when you look at other bits of theology, it helps you be assured.
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Question number seven, our last question. We've only got about a minute left. Seven, you can take yourself from God's hand.
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That is to say, when God the Son says, my sheep hear my voice,
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John 10, I know them and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
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My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the
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Father's hand. I and the Father are one. And they'll say, well, you know what? There, you can't lose your salvation unless you jump out of His hand.
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As long as you stay in His hand. Friends, that is the most contorted, torqued way to look at that verse
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I've ever seen. And by the way, are you a created person? Because if you're created, then you cannot be separated from the love of God if you're a
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Christian. And no one can separate you from the love of God, nor any other created thing.
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Romans 8 .39, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Don't let anybody tell you you can lose your salvation.
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If you lost your salvation, you never had it. You can't lose what God has gained. Can Jesus lose a
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Christian? The answer is no. You can have assurance. Focus on Jesus.
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Focus on His life and death and resurrection, His greatness. Read the Gospels and say,
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I am believing right now by the grace of God. I am believing. And you will have wonderful assurance.
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1 John 5, verse 13 says you can have assurance. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth.
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This is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.
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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.