Having Assurance of Salvation — Bob Jennings

Amaziah did that which is right in the sight of God, yet not with all his heart. Wow! Lord, don't let me have that on my tombstone. Don't let that be my biography. I did right in the sight of God, but not with all my heart.

Wholehearted Consecration and the Assurance of Salvation

Help us! You know, a lot of times, problems with assurance come, especially in that second category where, I mean, there's something that a person is holding back on. He's not fully consecrated, not fully devoted.

He's fearful about this, anxious about this. His heart is not just given over, you know, and that can stop the flow. God is not going to give assurance and the witness of the Spirit on top of some reserve in our heart.

And so if people would just plow themselves into God, they would find that assurance. They would find that sweetness. They would find that intimacy like they never have before. That's one thing to think about.

Justification by Faith Rather Than Assurance

But after having said all of that, you know, it comes down to this, and that is we are justified by faith and faith alone. We're saved by faith, not by assurance. And I've seen cases where, you know, here's a believer.

He's proved out to be a true believer, but he fell into some sin. He fell into fornication. He had a fall, a terrible fall into fornication, and he repented of it. And God just stripped him of his assurance.

I mean, he didn't know up from down. And he was tormented. He was in agony. Am I really in or not? Am I born again or not? And what we had to tell him was, don't worry about assurance. You just follow God.

The issue you've got to settle right now is, am I going to walk with God from here on out or not? And he began to do that, and eventually had the joy of his salvation restored. Some of you might have heard of Wang Ming Tao.

Wang Ming Tao’s Restoration After Denial

He was a pastor in China during the communist takeover, and he was arrested. He and his wife both sent to prison. He was a very outspoken pastor. Sent to prison, and during a time of brainwashing, severe brainwashing and isolation, he cracked under the pressure, recounted his faith, signed a confession.

Immediately he was set free, but he was bound by the guilt and the depression of that and was known to have been wandering through the streets of his town saying, I am Peter, I am Judas. Until one day the Lord broke through with a miraculous breakthrough, brought a verse to his mind, to his heart, and he was instantly set free.

It was one of those surprising visits of the Holy Spirit. Set him free, and he went back to the authorities, and he said, that document that I signed, it's not how I truly feel. I take it back. And they re-arrested him, and he spent 24 years in a communist prison, and eventually was released when he was 80 years old, toothless, blind and deaf from the tortures that he went through there.

Believing God’s Word and Maintaining Communion

Are you really believing? Are you taking God as His Word? The Bible says, he who believes in me has everlasting life, and we're justified by faith. Are you really believing God? Taking God as His Word?

And are you sincere? And if he says yes, I would ask him, how is your walk? Are you keeping up communion with God? Are you feeding your soul? Great peace have those who love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.

Great peace have those who love your law. Are you reading the Bible regularly? Are you getting filled with the Scripture? Is the Word of God, the Word of Christ dwelling richly in you? If you're not taking time in the Word of God, you're going to find some withholding of assurance.

You do not have the joy in the Lord you ought to have, you could have. The same way in prayer. I mean, again, the Lord is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Whatever man sows, He reaps. And so, we could ask questions like that.

The Form of Godliness Without Regeneration

And here you find out that a person is not regular in the Word of God. Well, it's no wonder you have no assurance. You look at that list in 2 Timothy 3. He says, in the last days difficult times will come and we boasters, covetous, proud, blasphemers and so on, disobedient to parents, fierce, heady, and high-minded.

It sounds like he's talking about the heathen, the pagans, those that don't even profess Christianity. But then he adds this phrase, they have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof from such turn away.

They deny the power thereof. In other words, they deny regeneration, the power of God and regeneration. And entertain the thought that you can be born again and still be no different than you were, be no different than the world is.

And so he says, from such turn away. It's a blasphemy. It's an insult to God. It's an insult to His power to think that you can be invaded by the living God and be no different than you were, no different than the world is, that you can still be basically living a life of sin.

And he goes on to give other examples. Janus and Jambres, they opposed Moses. They opposed the truth. And so that's what we're seeing in Christendom today is a very low view of regeneration.

Regeneration, Righteousness, and the Will of the Father

You can mention the verse there in 1 John 2, 4, and you can talk about keeping the commandments or you can refer to something like Matthew 7 and doing the will of the Father. Or you have 1 John 3 and practicing righteousness.

But there are always... I come across those individuals that want to take exception to those passages. Or they want to ask the question, well, practicing righteousness isn't perfection. And so as soon as we fall from perfection, how far can we fall from that and still have it being a practicing of righteousness?

There are those people that really want to know where that line falls, which I think is probably an indication of something that may not be right in the first place. But what do you do with all that? Yeah.

Degrees of Fruitfulness and the Direction of a Christian’s Life

Well, admittedly, it's not a 2 plus 2 equals 4 type of thing. And it must be acknowledged that there are differing degrees of fruitfulness and consecration from one Christian to another. Some 30, some 60, some 100 fold.

But even 30 fold is significant. It's substantial. And so we're not talking about perfection, but we are talking about obvious direction. Somebody who's been born again, he is obviously different than he was, different than the world.

He is progressively seeing victory over sin. He's progressively seeing conformity to Christ. And that's the main thing. You look at David's life, if you just looked at that one period of his life where he fell, you would say no way.

But you look at the big picture of his life and you can see here's a man that he did love God. He did have a heart for God. He was after God's heart before and after the fall. And so it's altogether generally too obvious that this person, he does not really love the saints of God.

Delighting in God’s People and Word

It's kind of a burden for him to make the meetings. He doesn't just really enjoy it. He doesn't really enjoy the Word of God. The other day I asked somebody, are you reading that Bible? You've got time on your hands?

Are you reading that Bible? He doesn't go to our church. And he said, well, I've got this schedule. I may miss a day or two, but I've got this schedule and I catch up. And I mentioned Psalm 1 to him. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night.

That's the mark of a born-again person. He delights in the people of God and the Word of God. He delights in prayer. And so I think it's frequently just too obvious where a person's really at.