The Unconverted “Believer” (17): Assurance of Salvation (1) 06/13/2021

Paul’s Arrest and Witness in Jerusalem

The Apostle Paul has completed his three missionary journeys and now he's in Jerusalem. And of course, he was arrested. He'll be incarcerated two years on the coastal city of Caesarea in his preparation to be taken to Rome.

And of course, the Lord promised that he would go to Rome and bear witness of the gospel to that place. And so here we see Paul being persecuted, and yet God in his providence was using these difficulties to put Paul in a place where he could bear witness of the kingdom.

Acts 22.

Acts 22. Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you. And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said, I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Sicilia and brought up in the city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.

I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers and journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.

As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon, a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, who you are persecuting. Now those who are with me saw the light but they did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.

And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, rise and go into Damascus and there you will be told all that is appointed.

For you to do.

And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand and by those who were with me and came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who live there, came to me and standing beside me said to me, brother Saul, receive your sight.

And at that very hour, I received my sight and saw him. And he said, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one and to hear a voice from his mouth. For you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.

And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me.

And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.

And he said to me, go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Up to this word, they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live.

And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging to find out why they were shouting against him like this.

But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned? When the centurion heard this, he went to the tribune and said to him, what are you about to do, for this man is a Roman citizen?

So the tribune came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman citizen? And he said, yes. The tribune answered, I bought this citizenship for a large sum. Paul said, but I am a citizen by birth. So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately.

And the tribune was afraid, for they realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him. But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet.

And he brought Paul down and set him before them.

Prayer for the Sermon and for Understanding Salvation

Let's pray.

Our Father, we thank you for this glorious conversion.

Of Saul.

And Lord, when we see Paul's life, we know that there is hope for any man. Paul considered himself the chief of sinners, and yet by your great grace, you saved him. And by your great grace, you save us.

And Lord, we rejoice in the salvation that is found in Christ Jesus. And Lord, we pray that we would have a greater understanding of this salvation. We pray, Lord, that you would help us in our understanding, that we would understand the ins and outs of what it means to be in Christ.

We pray, Lord, that you would help us in our study of the word, that you would help us as we hear the sermon proclaimed this morning. We pray that you would guide us and direct us in your truth. And Lord, we pray for comfort for those who are struggling.

We pray for conviction for those who need it. And we ask, Lord, that you would be honored here by our proclamation of your word. Thank you, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, let's turn in our Bibles to 1 John chapter five. Just a reminder that we have a weekly prayer meeting at down in the fellowship hall at six o 'clock on Wednesday evening. And then, of course, we also have a conference call.

And so if you care to participate in that, we would welcome your calling in. You don't need to pray out loud, but you can pray with us. And when those folks make known their prayer request, as I say here on the Lord's Day morning, there are others that take note of that and pray for you through the week.

I know Mary takes notes of it. And so we have those for Wednesday night. And so even though my list gets rather encumbered after a while, we attempt to be faithful to all of the requests that's given to us.

The Need for Assurance of Salvation

Well, today we begin to address what the word of God teaches regarding the true believer's assurance of salvation. I'm kind of glad we've arrived here, aren't you? This is a very important matter for throughout this series that we've entitled The Unconverted Believer.

We've sought to reveal and expose nominal Christianity, those who think they're Christian, but they are not. And of course, in doing this, we're aware that the confidence of tender-hearted Christians can be shaken.

And we know that that has taken place, even though that's not our desire. And the reason they tend to be shaken is that they tend to be more quick to question their own hearts and life than perhaps they are to trust solely and only the promises of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's more easily to see ourselves and what we experience than necessarily see him. And so, as we've said all along, it's our desire that every true Christian obtain and retain a joyful, settled peace in the soul, that God is their God, and that they belong to him through Jesus Christ.

And so, understanding what the Bible says about assurance of salvation is of the utmost importance. And so, we'll begin today's exploration, and we're gonna be here a few Sundays, probably. We'll begin today's exploration of God's word about this matter of assurance, biblical assurance, by reading a couple verses in 1 John 5, 11 through 13, in which John summarizes the reason why he wrote 1 John.

And this is the testimony that God has given us, eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

Now, we can make several assertions of what the Holy Spirit reveals to us in these few words. First, he was writing to those who believe in the name of the Son of God, so he's writing to Christians. Second, we may say that there were apparently some among these believers that lacked assurance of their salvation.

He felt motivated to write to them, to convince them and show them that they may have assurance of their salvation. Third, we may conclude with certainty that it is both desirable and possible for Christians to possess assurance of salvation.

Actually, relatively few people through church history have believed that it was possible, and we'll talk about that a little bit. And lastly, John indicated that assurance of salvation was possible, notice, through hearing and understanding and believing what he calls these things.

And what did John mean by these things? Well, again, everything he included in this epistle, the first John. And so he had written that this was his purpose, that they would have assurance. He wrote these things, referring to all that contained in 1 John, not just the paragraph in which these words are found, but the entire epistle, as one wrote.

Actually, this is in the Reformation Study Bible. John's gospel, the gospel of John, was written to move readers to faith in Jesus, that they might receive eternal life. This letter was written to assure those who have believed that they actually possess the priceless gift.

In other words, it was written for true believers' assurance. Now, John wrote this epistle toward the end of the first century, which he addressed to Christians probably living in the region of Asia Minor.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say around the region of Ephesus, but that's just a guess. At this time in history, in this part of the world, there existed certain Greek-styled pagan teachings, religions that had infiltrated the churches.

And later in the second century, these teachings really became a major threat to true biblical Christianity. The heresy came to be known as Gnosticism. It wasn't known as that when John wrote this epistle.

Adherers to these false religions, these pagan religions, had distinctive views about the physical and spiritual realms. They were contrary to biblical teaching. The one characteristic of this incipient Gnostic philosophy that made it particularly dangerous to Christianity was that it was syncretistic.

In other words, it tended to adopt and adapt to other religions in which it found itself. And when it came in contact with Christianity, these false religions adopted much Christian teaching. In fact, they claimed to be converted to Christ while they retained these heretical views.

And so numbers of people professed to have become Christians while retaining and promoting their aberrant, even heretical beliefs. They twisted and distorted the Christian message and the nature of the Christian life, even while they joined themselves to Christian churches.

And so the churches were all mixed up with truly converted people and those that were not converted, but they were claiming to be Christians. And the churches couldn't sort it out. They didn't know who's a Christian, who's not, because there was so much confusion and error.

One of the chief heresies held by these false Christians was a denial of the human nature of Jesus. They claimed that Jesus was divine. Yes, he's God, but he was not really a human being. He did not become man.

He only appeared like he was a man. People only thought he was a man. After all, they reasoned God who is spirit, which is inherently good and holy cannot simultaneously become flesh, which is inherently evil.

And so they denied the humanity of Christ. And yet they claimed to be Christian. John the Apostle described this heretical understanding of Christ to be the spirit of antichrist in that day, to deny the humanity of Jesus.

And so the result was that the churches were comprised not only of true Christians, but of those who claimed to be Christian, but who were actually unconverted and damned in their sins. And so John wrote this epistle to help the churches identify and distinguish true from the false Christians and to give reasons to true Christians that may have assurance of their salvation.

And so the apostle set forth that true Christians had a legitimate basis for assurance, even as he exposed the heretics as ones who had no biblical ground of assurance of their salvation. They were condemned for their beliefs and their practice showed that they did not really know the Lord savingly.

And so we might say that through John's inspired response to the Holy Spirit, giving instruction in this historic setting, the Lord has given us this epistle as one of the clearest and fullest treatments of assurance of salvation that is contained in the Holy Scriptures.

If you are doubting your salvation or you know somebody who is troubled about this matter, direct them to 1 John. This is where they will find their answers if the Lord blesses the truth. Now we're coming toward the end of our series that we've entitled The Unconverted Believer.

I don't know how many more we have, maybe three or four Sundays. I keep thinking about more things that need to be addressed, but I don't know, we'll see. And it's a sad reality that we've shown is it's a fact that there are many nominal Christians in churches, in so-called Bible-believing churches.

They believe themselves to be true Christians, but when their confession and their lies are biblically examined, they fail the tests of true Christianity. And so they will prove the words of our Lord Jesus that he gave toward the end of his servant on the Mount.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, that is those who profess to be Christian, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father in heaven, see true Christians live like Christians.

Many, Jesus said, many. There'll be many nominal Christians. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? They preach, preachers, cast out demons in your name, done many miracles, wonders in your name.

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. In other words, they were living lives contrary to the law of God, the will of God. And so it's implied by our Lord's words that these many in protesting our Lord's sentence of condemnation on the day of judgment thought that they were saved people.

Lord, Lord.

However, in this life, they had only a false assurance, but it was only revealed, only will be revealed on the day of judgment, or confirmed on the day of judgment, I should say. They'll cry out to Jesus with a measure of knowledge of who he is, as if they had a personal acquaintance with him, for they will appeal to him, Lord, Lord.

They will perhaps go into the final judgment having had assurance of their salvation, but I put that in quotation marks. But only on the day of judgment do they learn they had possessed false assurance.

They had been under the wrath of God during this life while assuming they had been genuine Christians. That to me is about the scariest thing I could possibly conceive of. They had been sadly deluded as to their true spiritual condition before God.

Now, actually, self-delusion regarding personal salvation is a common condition of people. In fact, much of evangelism is actually first convincing people they're not saved. And then you show them how and what true salvation is.

They are commonly deceived, for it's a rather easy matter to deceive them. And the scriptures say that there are a number of different reasons that people become deceived respecting their own salvation.

We might consider a few of these. Now, we've got too many notes to get through today, but I did want to include these in detail for future reference. We'll just touch on them. The fact is, first of all, because people are sinners, they are unwilling to know the truth.

All sinners don't want to know the truth. They turn away from the truth. That's the nature of sin. And Jesus himself spoke about this. They love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

And so when the light of Christ begins to shine upon them, they're repulsed by it. They're not willing to know the truth. They're unwilling to come to truth because of their sin. They love darkness. In other words, they prefer to remain in ignorance and error for when they get a glimpse of the inkling of God's word, they intuitively know it's going to expose and reprove their sin.

And so they turn away from the truth of God. And there are people like that. And it's pretty common. I'm sorry, but I don't want to hear that. That's too unsettling. I want to go somewhere where I'm reaffirmed.

Like the people of Israel, ancient Israel, saying to Jeremiah, stop talking to us in this way. Speak to us with smooth words. And there were false prophets perfectly willing to do so. And so they gravitated to them.

They're unwilling. Everyone's that way apart from the grace of God. And then secondly, top of page three, a second reason is not only are they unwilling, but they're unable to know the truth. They're not spiritually capable of doing so because they're spiritually dead.

And Paul declared that to the Corinthians who were rather proud of their knowledge, some of them. And he said, why are you proud as though you attained this yourself? No, anything you know about God and Christ is because God revealed it to you because no one knows the things of God except by the spirit of God, no one.

Sinners are not only unwilling, but they're incapable of understanding the gospel so as to see its relevance and its impact to be transforming. They're not capable because they're dead in their sins. In fact, the things of Christ are foolishness to the world.

The world, when you represent Christ in the Bible faithfully to the world, they will think less of you and look down upon you. You're an ignoramus, you know, you're deluded. You're ignorant in an error.

This is how fallen people think of the truth of God. Fallen people are unwilling and they're unable to know the truth. And then thirdly, self-delusion is common because a person's sinful condition has rendered him subject to the devil and his influence and the devil deceives him and holds him in ignorance and error.

Paul told Timothy that you're gonna have to deal with this in your ministry. He said, as a servant of the Lord, you must not quarrel, don't get into arguments with them, but be gentle to all. You know, as they're railing on you, you've gotta be gentle in your response and appeal out of concern rather than getting reactionary and all angry and upset because they're not listening to you.

No, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility, correcting those who are in opposition. Some of the ones who are most in opposition make the greatest converts. The apostle Paul was one, right?

Come to me in November of 1991 and you would have seen somebody who was belligerent and opposed to the gospel. Come back in February of 1972 and it was a whole lot different. I was converted, unwilling, unable, bound by the devil and just deceived.

And so the devil is a deceiver, he's the father of lies and he is the God of all unconverted people. And so Paul said, you have to be patient, deal with humility, correcting them. If God perchance perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil having been taken captive by him to do his will.

Unconverted people are doing the will of the devil and again, we've always said, biblically, that means when they do their own will rather than God's will, they're doing the will of the devil. That's the nature of sin.

Top of page four, fourth reason. The self-delusion, respect and assurance of salvation is common among people is because there are many false teachers that encourage and reinforce their self-delusion.

It's a sad fact that through this life, they've had many preachers and teachers who had taught them that they were saved and had propped up their false assurance. In ancient Israel, there were many false prophets who had told the people of Israel they were in no danger of God's judgment upon them.

Even as Babylon was looming upon Jerusalem and Judea, you're gonna be okay. Within two years, we're gonna be set free, said the false prophet as Jeremiah said, no, you're going in captivity for 70 years.

And so they were lulled into a false sense of security. Jeremiah was one of the few voices who told them otherwise, but he had to always counter the messages of the false prophets. And so we read repeatedly of Jeremiah's denunciation of them for they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace.

And the apostle Peter declared there would be similar voices in this church age. Second Peter two, there were false prophets among them, the Israelites, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive or damnable heresies, I think how the King James reads, even denying the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction, and then notice many will follow their ways.

Many are deceived by them. They claim to be teaching the Bible. They're in the churches. They're preaching, they're teaching, but they're deceptive. They're not recognized. They secretly bring in destructive heresies and nobody's even aware of it.

Many will follow their destructive ways. And so they teach people that they have salvation, even though they're still under the wrath of God for their sins. These false teachers assure people they're proclaiming a biblical message of salvation.

Even while they, the false teachers, are themselves in a damn condition. For Peter wrote, while they promised them their hearer's liberty, they themselves are slaves to corruption. They're living in wickedness and sin.

For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. And so they assure their followers that they are under the grace of God, that Jesus Christ is their Savior, but the assurance that is promoted and promised by them is false assurance.

And then fifthly, self-delusion is common among people because it is the result of God's own judicial dealings with them. When he's determined to overthrow them and destroy them because of their hardness of heart and their refusal, their rebellion against him.

And the Lord Jesus, of course, denounced the cities of Galilee in this way. Woe to you, Chorazin, is how that sounds. It's actually pronounced in Greek. And woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works were done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

I say to you, it'll be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And for you, Capernaum, the center, the seat of this earthly ministry in Galilee, who are exalted into heaven will be brought down to Hades.

For if the mighty works were done in you, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day, but I say to you, it'll be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

And then Jesus wasn't lamenting the fact that they were gonna be damned in their sin. He actually celebrated the fact. He prayed, I thank you. I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you've hidden these things from the wise.

This would be the self-righteous, the arrogant. And you've revealed the debates. In other words, the sinners, the simple ones, the ones who recognize their ignorance and their need to be taught. Even so, Father, for it so seemed good in your sight, all things have been delivered to me by my Father.

No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him. And so self-delusion is very common. And vast numbers of people are deluded with respect to their souls.

It's a sad thing that there are and will be many deceived people, many, Jesus said, who at the last will be seeking to enter the kingdom and will not be able to. And so he warned his disciples. Top of page five, strive to enter the narrow gate.

Why?

Why did Jesus say, strive to enter the kingdom? He's talking about laboring here throughout life, by the way, strive to enter the kingdom, why? For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

When once the master of the house has risen up, shut the door, you begin to stand outside, knock at the door saying, Lord, Lord, open for us. He'll answer, say to you, I do not know you, where you're from.

Then you'll begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence, you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you from where you are from, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Same kind of language at the end of Matthew seven. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. And there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves, he's speaking principally to Jews who refused to embrace him in faith.

You yourselves thrust out. And then Paul wrote, of course, of many like this who thought themselves to have been saved. He urged the Christians in Philippi, the church of Philippi, brethren, join in following my example.

Don't follow those others who so walk. As you have us for a pattern, follow me as I follow Christ, he says. For many walk, now here he's talking about professing Christians. For many walk, walking is what Christians or professing Christians do.

For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now you tell you even weeping, they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Now they're not openly antagonistic of the enemies, but they don't apply the cross of Christ to the way they live.

They don't deny themselves and take up his cross. They live any old way they please. Whose end is destruction. Whose God is their belly. Jesus Christ is not their God, but rather their appetites, their fleshly appetites, their fleshly sinful desires is what governs them.

Don't follow them, follow me is what Paul says. They whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. They're not true Christians. Don't follow after them. But in of course addition to these number of clear statements that we could cite of the many who are and will be to see, we could cite other conditions that will most certainly result in the damnation of many.

We could talk about apostates. I'm sad to say my grandmother was an apostate. She died in 1991. 91 years of age, she was born in 1900. Her dad's portrait is in my office downstairs, a personal friend of D .L. Moody, who was in the house the night that my grandmother's older brother was born.

And so my great-grandfather named his son Dwight Lyman Johnston, and my grandmother told me that she had been to a tent meeting, probably around 1910 or 12, of an evangelist, and she was converted. She says it stuck with me for about three years.

And then when she lost a child in infancy, she had a Christian science neighbor befriended her, and she embraced Christian science, which is a heresy, and she held that teaching till the day she died.

Although she had such an upbringing in a Christian home, her dad read to her and the other eight kids from the Bible every night, read from the classics every night, she had a Bible knowledge that was quite amazing, and when she'd visit my church, people would always comment afterwards, my, what a godly, saintly grandmother you have.

She could talk the best of being a Christian, but she had these very weird views of Christian science, and Mary Baker Eddy, and all that nonsense. She was an apostate. She turned away from Christ. They have no salvation.

And then hypocrites, again, they're ones who may understand and believe all the right things, but their life says they're not a believer, just the way they live. And then, of course, I mentioned heretics.

My grandmother was not only apostate, heretic too, embracing false views of Jesus Christ. And so there are many that have a false assurance. And so it's an easy thing to be deluded, and sadly, it's an easy thing for true Christians to be troubled about these matters.

And so I think it's really important for us and good for us to basically trace down through Christendom, Christian history, the different views of assurance of salvation that have been held and promoted.

Because as I say, actually relatively few down through church history understand the Bible's teaching about assurance as we espouse and as our historic Protestant confessions espouse. And so I want us to trace through this.

Some of you have heard this before, but I think it's important. Teaching regarding assurance of salvation through history. So in order for us to understand better this teaching, let's reflect how this matter has been viewed.

The faults and errors respecting this subject may still be found among people today. And as we talk about these historic situations, you may think of people that you know that hold these views today. First, let's consider assurance as taught by Roman Catholicism.

In the men's group yesterday, I asked the 20 plus guys that were there, how many were raised in Roman Catholicism? Well over half of them raised their hands. We're in a Roman Catholic region. And this is how most people have been taught about assurance of salvation.

And so in larger Christendom, in other words, all people who claim to be Christian among different denominations or different theological persuasion, there are differences respecting their beliefs about assurance.

Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox or the Russian Orthodox Church, same denomination, teach their people that assurance of salvation is not the common experience of Christians in this life. They say the only ones who can have assurance is if you had a direct revelation from God.

You know, you saw the Virgin Mary or some angel spoke to you, then you can have assurance. Otherwise, the common people cannot have assurance. Well, this is understandable when we consider what they believe in that salvation is attained through a lifelong accumulation of one's own good works as enabled through the grace the church of God administers through its sacraments.

How can anyone be assured of salvation if it's the result of a lifetime of doing good? And so through many centuries, because of these teachings, there was an inability and refusal to develop a doctrine of assurance.

After the first centuries, the few centuries of the Christian era, salvation became viewed as mediated by the church through the sacraments, the mass, confession, pilgrimages. Rather than believing justification before God through faith at the onset of the Christian life, justification was projected to occur in the distant future.

Justification after living a life of good works and then going through a period of purgatory, of purification for maybe 10, 20 ,000 years. After that, when you're finally righteous, then you're justified.

Whereas the Bible says no, you're justified at the outset when you first believe. They've turned it on its head. Understandably, if this is your view of salvation, assurance would suffer under this system.

And so to Roman Catholics, the notion of assurance is viewed as presumptive. You're self-righteous to think that you have salvation. Well, obviously they'd think this way if they think that you earn your salvation by meritorious works.

You must think you're pretty good if you have assurance of salvation. And so they would view us as self-righteous and arrogant as well as ignorant. Yet this is how they view things. Philip Chaff, who is a church historian, he's got six or seven volumes on church history.

It's a little dated, but good. He described Pope Gregory the Great, who died in 604 AD, as the best representative of medieval Catholicism. He was one of the first really full-flown popes. He wrote of assurance.

The greater our sins, the more we must do to make up for them. That's works righteousness. Whether we've 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 anybody and would not be desirable even if possible. Now that went on for centuries. The official church said you cannot have assurance.