Bob Wilkins, False Faith, Lordship, and Assurance

I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the word of God.

Standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out, he died. Those who elected were selected.

Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists. ...of the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that...

Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper-Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper-Calvinists.

I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper-Calvinism and Calvinism. It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper-Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism.

Read my book.

Radio Free Geneva and the Upcoming James Brownson Discussion

And now, from our underground bunker, deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re-read George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

Yeah, there you go. A mighty Radio Free Geneva. Yeah, I don't know when I'm going to get to it, because it's going to take so much extra study time and stuff, but we are, we are, we are, we are going to get to the James Brownson material, specifically on Romans 1.

Sometime next week, Michael Brown's going to join me, and we're going to talk about his new book, Surviving the Gay Revolution, and I'm going to challenge him on some issues that have come up recently.

But before then, someone sent me a tweet. This is a Radio Free Geneva that is the result of a tweet that, you know, that's where some of the best stuff comes from. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I can't always click on everything, and sometimes I click on things and immediately unclick things.

But I was sent a video from Bob Wilken. Now, I suppose I should have queued up. Do we have the Wilken debate up in video? We do. Okay. I should have, probably should have queued some stuff up, because where was that?

I thought it was somewhere in Oklahoma. I don't remember exactly what year it was. It was before 2010, obviously. Sometime between, what, 2005 and 2008, I would guess. I went down to Oklahoma, and I did a debate with Bob Wilken.

Now, Bob Wilken is with the Grace Evangelical Society, which is one of the primary promoters of, well, anti-lordship salvation. And we haven't talked about this in a long time, because it was just such a distasteful experience on my part.

The behavior of my opponent was significantly below what I expected for someone with his background. Let's just put it that way. It was difficult to keep breathing for all the straw men that were burning in the room.

It was really, really tough. Fire alarms going off. It was bad. And so, we have addressed it numerous times in the past. There have been a couple of times. You know, it sort of bubbles up every once in a while.

I have often said that it is one of the main things that has hamstrung a lot of conservative evangelicalism in the United States. I consider it not only a horrific error, but in its full-blown form, a purely false gospel.

Just not an issue of, well, you know, we've got our disagreements. But just straight out described in scripture, warned against, completely out there, not my brother type stuff. So, when I saw who it was that was answering this question about Calvinists and assurance, I'm like, oh, great.

Something tells me he's going to be going after Calvin and English Puritanism. And yeah, he did the whole nine yards, but even mentioned me and my inability to answer his questions. Well, I would invite anybody to watch the debate and judge for yourself.

It's a good thing. But I just, it's hard for people to understand. I had some people on Twitter that watched it and went, well, that guy is an Arminian. He doesn't get it. No, no, he's not even an Arminian.

When the position they hold is that salvation is by a dead spoken only faith alone. There's no repentance. There's not even a need for continuation of faith. As long as you make a statement of faith that Jesus died and rose again, your tickets punched, you're going to heaven.

You can go become a Buddhist, an axe murderer, whatever. Now, they don't suggest that you do this. And they will say that it's a good thing. It was 10 years ago, 2005. OK, they will say that it's a good thing to repent and it's a good thing to live a holy life.

But that's not what saves you. It is this is it is an act of intellectual assent alone. They they will go watch the debate. They attack anything in regards to the fact that saving faith has more than one aspect to it.

It is. If you want to see the most amazing example of the twisting of Scripture, listen to a Bob Wilkin or a Zane Hodges, any of these guys deal with. James chapter two. If you just want to see them implode, explode, whatever, listen to their amazing abuse of James chapter two, because James chapter two is directly aimed at exactly their position, because they are saying that a spoken faith alone, no repentance, no evidence of its continued continuing existence that saves you.

And of course, one of the reasons that this movement has survived as long as it has is that if you're an Arminian, if you're a synergist, if you do not believe that saving faith is the work of the Spirit of God in the heart of the elect, if you don't believe that God has an elect people, if you don't believe he's accomplishing his particular purposes, according to the divine decree, et cetera, et cetera.

You don't have a basis for really fighting against this. I mean, it's it's a gross caricature of the Reformation. It's a gross caricature. It's it is it is so far removed from what Sola Fide actually meant that it's that it's laughable from a historical perspective.

And it's one of the reasons, by the way, just in passing, one of the reasons that I really don't have much use for one particular. Well, you'd be identified as a reformed writer, but I think if you're if you're not even on the right page on this one, I'm not sure how you can be called reformed.

But. There was there was one imbalanced person who identified as a Calvinist that these folks love to love to quote. That's why I don't really have any use for him or those who follow after him, which is why they tend to attack me a lot.

But aside from a very, very, very, very narrow. Outside the stream stream, it has always been the reformed understanding that God saves his elect people for a purpose. And that faith and repentance are both the works of the spirit of God in the heart of God's people.

And that Christ is glorified in the fact that it is God's intention to conform his people to his image. And, you know, all of the whole purposes of God in sanctification, the whole purposes of of God in his own self-glorification so that repentance and faith are his gifts, they're not things that we can boast in of ourselves, they're not accomplishments that we have.

They're the result of the work of the spirit of God within us. All of this, from a reformed perspective, is how you can remain balanced. In talking about faith and repentance, not turning them into things that we do that then add to the work of Christ.

Christ's work can't save unless you add these things in. Now, the Armenian, though, that that doesn't have all of this, that doesn't have the work of the spirit of God and doesn't have the work of regeneration and regeneration is something we can bring about by our own activities and so on.

The Armenian is really in a tough spot to attempt to fight against the anti-lordship perspective. But from a reformed perspective, its errors are just so obvious and so manifold and so many that it's truly amazing.

So, Bob Wilkin represents a position that says you're saved by faith without repentance. There is no repentance involved. It may have been the first thing Jesus preached, but John never mentions it. So, therefore, and that's where we had criticized, for example, I think the last time we really took this on was a local thing in 2011 or 12.

There was a local conference of folks and one of the primary speakers was anti-lordship. And we listened to some of his criticisms and responded at that time. That's probably the last time we actually got into this.

But, of course, these people are are strongly anti-reformed. They have to be, for obvious reasons, because of the fact that if God is the one in charge of salvation, if God is the one who saves, if there is a particular elect people, if there is such a thing as regeneration, which is wrought by the Spirit of God, not the result of the actions of man, so on and so forth.

Well, then their whole position is completely out there and is refuted. So, let's take a look. We'll go ahead. It's five and a half minutes, almost six minutes long. But let's listen to the whole thing first and then go back through it.

It's posted on YouTube. I've given the URL a couple times so you can watch. Here is Bob Wilkin on Calvinism, Predestination and Assurance.

Assurance, Election, and the Puritan Deathbed Problem

Bob, I have a lot of friends who are Calvinists. I went to a reformed school. And while they're very strong in believing in the doctrine of predestination, they themselves aren't sure they're one of the elect.

And so they don't have assurance of salvation. What do you think of the Calvinistic doctrine of assurance?

That's a great question, John. R .T. Kendall, Dr. R .T. Kendall, wrote his doctoral dissertation on Calvin and English Calvinism to 1647. And one of the things that startled him in his doctoral studies in Europe was that he said as he studied the Puritan divines, and the divines is the name they use for the leaders of the English branch of the Reformation, is that almost to a man as they were on their deathbeds, they were lamenting the fact they were probably dying and going to hell.

And he said the reason for this was because as they were dying, they were scanning their lives, taking personal inventory of their lives, and they were seeing all the flaws in it. They were seeing the fact that they didn't live a perfect life.

Oh, yes, they may have given up a lot for Christ. They may have done a lot of good things, but they realized, you know, I fell short in a lot of areas. And so as a result, almost to a man, they were doubting their eternal destiny.

And the truth is, that is a common problem. Let me give you an example. I had lunch, I believe it was around the year 2000. I went to the Ligonier Conference, Dr. R .C. Sproul and his group. And while I was there, I had breakfast with a leading Calvinist theologian, PhD, pastoring a large church, teaching at a leading Calvinist, five-point Calvinist seminary.

And he was a very cordial man. And so we got to talking, and I said, well, tell me, is it true, according to Reformed thought, that only those who are elect are going to get into the kingdom? And he said, yes.

And I said, and is it true that all of the elect will persevere to the end of their lives? He said, well, of course. And I said, well, doesn't it seem that the scriptures teach that it's impossible to know whether we'll persevere to the end of our lives or not?

And he said, well, of course. He says, you know, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, He said if Paul wasn't sure he was going to persevere, we can't be sure either. And I said, well, then correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Calvinist position then that we don't know where we're going until we die?

And we can't know where we're going until we die? And I remember his response like it was yesterday. He said, well, I see in my life what I think are the works of the Spirit. But I must admit, it's possible I could fall away and fail to persevere.

And if I do, I'll prove that what I thought were the works of the Spirit really weren't the works of the Spirit, and I'll go to hell. I mean, that's the sad position of Reformed assurance. Because in Calvinism, election is mysterious.

God doesn't tell us who the elect are. And in Calvinism, faith is mysterious. It's almost like John 3, 16 reads like this,. And since we don't know what is, then we need to look for signs of. And what are the signs?

My works. So Calvinists are looking for secondary signs of election and secondary signs of faith. But since none of those signs are definitive, they can't be sure. And their whole system is flawed. I debated Dr. James White about 10 years ago on the issue of faith and assurance.

And over the course of the debate, I kept hammering this point home. And Dr. White wasn't able to say that he was certain of his eternal destiny because Calvinism doesn't allow that. I also debated Dr. Ken Sorrells in 1991 at Dallas Seminary in a brown bag.

He came right out and said he was 99 sure of his salvation. He said you can't be 100 sure because we're still in this life, etc. And I was thinking, well, you might be 99 sure when everything's great and rosy, but what happens if you have an argument with your spouse?

You say something you shouldn't, you do something you shouldn't. Doesn't your assurance drop well south of 50%, 40%, 10%, whatever? And when that same person gets on their deathbed, don't they start taking inventory?

And I think one of the dangers of this is people just stay so busy so they don't have to think about the fact they don't have assurance. To me, that would be a terrible way to live. And I don't mean that these people aren't well-intentioned.

They are. But in my estimation, the reform position is flawed. In fact, there was even argument within Calvinism. There was the Merrill Controversy, and it led to a whole discussion of this. Back in the early 1700s, they had the Merrill Controversy, and it was all this discussion, you know, 300 years ago.

Okay, so there you go. We have all of us Calvinists. I have one right here. That's what this is here. You thought it was a Fitbit HR charge, but it's actually a Calvinist assurance meter. And it's a special gadget that we all secretly have because Calvinists are so secretive.

And it keeps track of where your assurance is by how you've been fulfilling all the works righteousness requirements that you have to do to make sure because, you know, those Puritans were on their deathbeds.

Okay, yeah, there you go. Sorry, it's hard to keep a straight face sometimes. All right, let's think about what we just heard here. I'm going to go back through it in a few moments, but let's lay some basic foundational things here.

Theocentric Calvinism Versus Man-Centered Synergism

First of all, a Calvinist assurance. The issue goes back to something we have talked about many, many times before, and that is that Calvinism is theocentric. All synergistic systems, and certainly the anti-lordship, cheap grace position, is very, very man-centered.

They're all man-centered. They're all anthropocentric. They're all centered upon what man does. God has made salvation a possibility. He has made it a potentiality. But every synergistic system, it ends up going down to what man does.

God's made the provision, but it's all up to man. And you can have a long list or a really, really short list, but whatever the list is, that's what is going to determine whether God is going to be successful in this salvation thing or not.

And this whole discussion is very much illustrative of the fact that by talking about how you can have assurance, that's very, very important, because this is just one of many videos that they've posted, but we need to understand what is his assurance?

What's it based on? And the horrific thing here, because pastorally I've seen this, when this false teaching inserts itself into a church, the result, of course, is having a church filled with driftwood, with unregenerate people who think they're saved.

They walk down an aisle, they shook a hand, they were assured, look, 1 John 5, 13, right here, sign your name. And I saw what that did. I saw what that did in a huge Southern Baptist church where the back door was bigger than the front door.

And you were running people through, you were giving them assurance of salvation, you'd get them dunked, and then, poof, that was it. You'd never see them again. Until you went out on visitation and tried to talk with these folks, and, well, they could just look at you and say, but the deacon told me.

Ah, well, the deacon told me I'm saved. You get down from there, kid. The deacon told me I was saved. I still got the Bible they gave me right there. I'm not interested in doing anything about it. I'm not interested in being called to holiness and repentance.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm a good person. I saw the result too many times. Now, they would say, well, that's a misrepresentation of us. Well, you know, I'm sure that in your better moments that you really want to try to get people to live a good life.

But the fact of the matter is, because you have boiled the gospel down past its minimum to where it's a false gospel, to where it is no longer the work of God, whereby he changes the heart and makes that heart repentant, since you've gotten rid of repentance and turned it into a human work that you may or may not want to do down the road someplace, the result has little connection to the gospel of Jesus Christ itself.

And it ends up producing all sorts of people. And pastorally, I don't have time to get into all of it, but how many times you, you know, just in a, let's leave the false assurance thing aside. Dealing with a mother whose son dies in a car accident and you knew the kid and there was not the single shred of evidence whatsoever that this young person knew Christ, had no interest in holiness, no interest whatsoever in following after Christ, deny yourself, take up the cross.

When you make that only for super Christians, but you leave open the lesser Christian route. Well, it produces all sorts of things. And so you get this mother and she wants, you know, you've been asked to do the funeral and she wants you to just pass him on into, into the very presence of God and talk about how, what a wonderful Christian he was and everything else.

And you happen to know that in reality, this particular individual had absolutely not the first inkling of any spiritual thing at all. The results have been disastrous. Ask any pastor who has gone into a church that has been infected with this false teaching and tried to teach biblically about what it means to be a Christian and tried to call this congregation to holiness, since all the results are a horrible, horrible thing to see.

So where's the assurance in this system? Well, the assurance comes from never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever asking. Whether you have a true saving faith or not, because there's no such thing as a non-saving faith.

There's no such thing as a hypocrite. As long as you've said the words, boom, you're in, ticket punched. If you question that, you're questioning God's own word. You're questioning the validity of the gospel, et cetera, et cetera.

So you can't even talk about true faith versus false faith. All faith is saving faith. If it's faith, it saves. There's no question about it. And so all the parables, the parables of the parable of the soils, let's not worry about that.

And James 2, let's not worry about that. And Paul's talk about examining yourself. We don't deal with any of that stuff. That's just for super Christians. Those are discipleship issues. We just lay all that stuff aside.

So the assurance is not something that you experience. It is actually just simply accepting this theological statement that you've gotten your ticket punched, and that's it. And it really, it results in such a surface level theology to where you really, you can't enter into any of the important texts of scripture where you have to see how all the threads of soteriology are related to one another and how they come together in this beautiful, you can't go there.

You can't talk about the warning passages in Hebrews. You can't talk about Paul's discussions of anything because you can't see how all of this comes together because you have such a surface level, this deep kind of soteriology that, hey, you tipped your hat toward God.

You got that right. Now, there's your assurance. The assurance is don't ask any questions. Now, if you want to call that assurance, okay. You want to know what real assurance looks like? I had just become an elder at our church.

And one of the former elders who had had to step down due to just extreme ill health, I and my fellow elder went and visited him the day he died. The day he died. He knew that death was right there. His heart had always been so weak.

And my fellow elder sat next to his bed and asked him, who is your only hope in life and in death? Are you trusting in Christ alone for your salvation? And to hear that feeble saint say, oh yes, he is my only hope.

He wasn't looking to himself. He wasn't sitting there with a checklist. Well, my assurance level, let me check my assurance level here. How in the world can I be quite this passionate about this? My heart rate's 55 beats per minute right now.

That's frightening, okay. It actually is a fit, but for those of you who are confused, we don't have assurance meters. I'm hoping we're not getting any emails and going, why didn't they get mine?

How do I get it? It will be offered in the store later this afternoon. You can get it for 99 .99. Amazon doesn't list it.

Therefore, it doesn't exist, right? Anyway, that just sort of did scare me a little bit there. Anyway, if you want to know what assurance looks like, that kind of assurance that that dear brother had did not come from ticket-punched surface theology.

That's not where it came from. Let me tell you where it came from. It came from listening to words like this. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out.

For I have come down from heaven, not through my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.

You see, when you don't try, when you're not deathly afraid of the sovereignty of God, and you're not deathly afraid of allowing God to be a perfect Savior, then you don't engage in all sorts of wild and strange, eisegetical gyrations to get around Jesus' words here, and you realize that they are in fact for all of Christ's followers, not just for his disciples.

And as a result, you recognize, you know what? The one coming to me, I will certainly not cast out. Well, yes, that is present tense. The one coming to me. But as long as you recognize the sovereignty of God, you don't, as a result, go, oh, I have to be the one that keeps coming, and I've got to work this up within myself, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

You recognize the beautiful balance. All that the Father gives me will come to me. The reason I am coming to Christ, present tense, is because I've been given by the Father to the Son. It's the result of what God the Father has done, and what God the Son has done, and what God the Spirit is continuing to do within me.

And for I have come down from heaven, Jesus says, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And what is the will of the one who has sent the Son into the world? This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

There is assurance. The assurance of the believer is found in looking away from self, and looking to the one who is able to save, who says he has the ability to save. The Father's will for the Son is that he be a perfect Savior, that he be a perfect Savior, that he lose none of those that have been given to him.

Not based upon some idea of God looking down the corridors of time, oh, he's going to believe in me, I'll give to the Son. Totally backwards. Leaves you with no assurance either, but totally backwards from what Jesus actually teaches.

The reason that a believer has assurance and confidence is because I'm not looking at myself and seeing if I've checked off this, checked off that, checked off this. The reason is, first and foremost, the only foundation for assurance is in the perfection of Christ's Saviorhood.

So, for any Reformed person, for any meaningful Calvinist, it's not my looking to myself, it is my looking to a perfect Savior, and to the confidence that comes that he who has begun a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus.

So, our foundation, the bedrock is, it's not some surface level, you get your ticket punched, go off, do whatever you want. That is so far removed from anything in the New Testament that until the modern period, I can't think of anyone who ever believed it.

I can't think of anybody who ever believed it. I mean, that's exactly what James is preaching against. That's exactly what's preached against in 1 John. Go listen to the debate. You want to know who couldn't answer questions in the debate?

It's the guy in the video. It's the guy engaging in the most amazing flights of eisegesis. Well, in between his putting really funny stuff on the screen, you know, well, anyways, you have to watch it to see.

How did we get that on the video, by the way? We didn't? So, you don't get to see that?

There are spots where the camera pans back wide enough to be able to see what he's putting up there.

Does the ramshackle shack get on there? I think it does, yeah. Good, good. I hope so. Because I don't know how anybody can understand what he was saying and what I said in response to him if they didn't see that.

That is the one problem in having those kind of presentations. But anyways, if you want to see the guy who failed the eisegesis 101 test, the guy in the video. But there's the foundation. Then let's look at 1 John 5 for a second, could we?

I may get to play his comments. I don't know. Maybe I won't. And I don't think anybody in the channel is even listening. They're talking about stem cell research and stuff. They're off doing their thing.

So, I don't even think they're listening. That's okay. 1 John 5, 1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. Don't have time to go into what's said here.

But what is said here is everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. The reason you're believing is because you've been born of God. That's why you're believing. That's why there's a present tense belief.

It's because of that work of regeneration. By this, we know that we love the children of God. When we love God and observe His commandments. Now, I just stopped. By this, we know. What's John talking about?

Because this is how we know we love the children of God. When we love God and observe His commandments. That's not a type of thing. That's not a point action type of thing. That's something that you experience over time.

That's the result of the work of the Spirit of God. That's the result of having been born of God. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. By the way, when anti-lordship advocates try to say that John never talks about repentance. Can you read this and do this without repentance?

Seriously? I mean, this whole idea of chopping the Bible up into parts and isolating things. That's a good liberal thing. These people aren't liberals, but they do strange things. You don't see repentance there?

The word's not there, but do you really? Is your understanding of the nature of man so removed from biblical teaching that you think that that doesn't involve repentance? For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.

Not with water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And the three are in agreement.

We're not going to talk about the Kamiohanium today or any of the rest of that stuff. Not even going there. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. The testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son.

The one who believes in the Son, and again, hoppist you on here, present tense participle. Same as it was up in 5 .1 and in other places in John. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself.

The one who does not believe has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. So clearly, it is being in possession of the Son of God or being united with Him, to use the language that would reflect the entire Johannine corpus of teaching here.

That's how you have life, is that there is this, well, to use Paul's terminology, union with Christ in Him, having the Son. You have the Son, you have life. John chapter 5, going back to the Gospel, etc., etc.

Those 12 verses, that's what comes before verse 13. 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. This is the confidence. Confidence, that's about, I would say that heparecia is about as close as you're going to get in English to assurance, confidence.

This is the confidence which we have before Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. So it was very, very common in Southern Baptist circles years and years ago, if you were one of the counselors who would counsel the person coming forward, that one of the things that you were to share with them was 1 John 5, 13.

Sort of to close the deal. That's what it was sort of about, was to close the deal, to give them assurance that they now knew Christ. These things 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.

What are these things? It says tauta egrupsa, these things I have written. What things? Well, pretty obvious. It's actually the entire epistle. I mean, the immediately preceding section, but it's the whole epistle.

And what is the whole epistle about? Loving God? Loving the one born of God? Loving believers, keeping His commandments? Is that Te Reo concept in there, keeping the commandments? Demonstrating your love for God by obedience?

We were misusing this when we used it the way we did with a person who's just walked down the aisle. You could use this text in a meaningful fashion to say, as you encounter the Word of God, as you allow the Word of God to shine in your life and to expose those areas of your life where you want to learn to bring every aspect of your being under the Lordship of Christ, and you want to be pleasing to Him.

This is not how you save yourself. This is what saved people do. This is what their desires are. When you've taken out that heart of stone, you give a heart of flesh, what's that heart of flesh like? Now, what Dr. Wilkin in the video, and we may never even get back to replaying it.

I guess I'm just going to address all of it just in this way, I guess. I don't know. What the anti-Lordship people are trying to attack is the idea that as you live the Christian life, you grow in assurance.

Because you can't grow in assurance. It's ticket punched. The hole's there. That's it. There's no growth in that. How can you be any more certain than that? Aren't we to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Isn't it just a one-time thing? I know Jesus. That's it. Well, for some people, it's what it ends up being. But if we were to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, why is there something wrong in growing in our assurance?

Because you see, as I get to know Jesus better and better, I grow in my assurance of his perfect ability to keep me and to save me. Does that mean I had false faith before and now I have true faith? No, of course not.